Well I think you'll find by most definitions she won two landslides. If that's the measure you obviously admire Blair too then who won far bigger majorities than Thatcher. Keep it coming Warky, I'm sure you'll hit the nail on the head eventually
Blair polled fewer votes than Major did in 1992 to secure his landslide in 1997! Over the course of the next 2 elections he lost 4 million voters. If you compare that to the 3 Thatcher terms her overall number of votes went up in 1983 and 1987! The electoral system is skewed in Labour's favour because it takes considerably fewer votes to get a Labour MP elected than a Tory! Looks like I've smacked you out the park again!
Thatcher's share of the vote dropped in 1983 Warky, you can make figures do whatever you want, facts are facts though and you seem very short on cold, hard facts.
4% Swing to the Tories in 1983 and 1.5% Swing in 1987 We can go on trading this stuff all day long and neither of us will concede ground so let's just agree to disagree! That's you off the list for my next garden party!
I’ve just skimmed this thread – no surprise at the some of the hysterical, sanctimonious bollocks it contains. Another example, if any were needed, that nowadays the emotion evoked by an assertion is vastly more important that any logic or evidence; that is, if it boosts your PC halo, if it conforms to left-liberal shibboleth, all is fine. The most fantastic doublethink is permissible if the resulting assertions keep you within the realms of the enlightened, anointed PC ones who grace us with their all-knowing, infallible wisdom. And woe betide anyone who commits the thoughtcrime of disagreeing with them – there’s no point relying on logic and reason here – the PC opinion is the only legitimate one. As for the feeble handwringing over the Belgrano – de rigour if you’re to be an anointed, PC disciple (and reminiscent of these intellectual cowards who never support Western military action but hide behind notional support for WW2 and those nasty NAZIs to excuse their spinelessness and avoid accusations of pacifism or complacency) – the surviving captain of said ship (I.E., the Belgrano) said this in 2009: ‘It was absolutely not a war crime. It was an act of war, lamentably legal.’ The Argentine admiral said this: “(the location of the Belgrano outside the Exclusion Zone) did not mean it was withdrawn from the war’. Which support the intercepts revealed since the lifting of the 30 year secrecy which confirms: “..the Argentinian vessels had been ordered to engage in a pincer attack.” As the documents revealed show: “an Argentinian signal intercepted by the British in which the Belgrano was ordered to rendezvous with other Argentinian warships at a location east of the islands, and well inside the Exclusion Zone.” And anyway, on April 23, the government asked the Swiss to convey to the Argentinians a cable that declared ‘any approach on the part of Argentine warships, including submarines, naval auxiliaries or military aircraft, which could amount to a threat to interfere with the mission of the British Forces in the South Atlantic will encounter the appropriate response’. Standard stuff in war, or were we expected to patronisingly treat the fascist junta like fluffy kittens (bear in mind the government of the time weren’t brainwashed Guardianistas, thank ****)? The British admiral of the time: ‘I had to take one claw out of the pincer, so it would have to be the Belgrano and her destroyers’ (the pincer with the carrier wasn’t being tracked). The defence secretary John Nott (a Tory, therefore apparently a shape-shifting reptile involved in wild conspiracies and therefore cannot be trusted) said: ‘I remain astonished . . . that anyone should consider the momentary compass bearing of Belgrano’s passage to be of any consequence whatever. Any ship can turn in an instant.” That won’t wash with the uber-informed left-liberal sanctimonious know-alls then, will it. Not when there’s a whiff of rightous indignation to be had. However, the other revelations from 30 year freedom of info reveals, inter alia, our ability to read Argentinean ciphers (Bletchley Park style) had to be kept quiet – not only were they were broadcasting stuff we could merrily read but we could intercept others using similar codes – evil Western power that we are! As Warky points out – we should have rolled over centuries ago to a foreign power. Not only could we then absolve ourselves from historical “guilt”, but we could play the victim as well! And there’s nothing like playing the victim, is there!!
Lets not forget at the time she left, she was the most unpopular PM ever, the polls were terrible and her own party kicked her out!! Very blinkered in your views sometimes JWM
Some people are being over romantic about the Tory government of the 80s. They were clearly the best days of this peoples lives and you can understand why they want to stay there. It all depends if you did well from maggie's policies.
This Argentinian sounds like an honourable man. As for posting a British account, why don't we look through history and see whether there were any Germans who thought Hitler was doing a good job?
Surely the Right to buy council houses was optional and only the house you were living in was available for the tenant to buy... so if people tried to buy the house they rented off the council and if they got into debt its there own bloody fault.....
A very simplistic view ptc which is most unlike you! History will judge her as being the greatest peace time PM this country has ever had and many of her policies are still very much alive today thank god
It's because it was only one of my views of her. But it's one many people who love her tend to forget. I'm sure history will judge her as not being the greatest PM the country has ever had. I'm sure history will judge her as the most divisive PM ever and the first women PM (although she did nothing for women, except through example) where people either think she's the best PM ever or the worst. As I've said she could be described as the best and the worst in equal measure!!
Which Argentinean would this be that sounds so “honourable”? The captain of the Belgrano, or the admiral of the Argentinean fleet? And why do they sound “honourable”? Because they fly in the face of Guardianista shibboleth? Because they don’t support wimp lefty assumptions (based, of course, on infallible evidence – all PC opinions apparently are)? Because they don’t support the PC fantasy worldview (you lot love an excuse for righteouse indignation), therefore they must be suspect? Or were they rather supposed to lie for their cause? If their pronouncements were dishonourable, they must have been lying, no? Were they to be expected to support the PC Guardianista lies? To perpetuate a myth for the sake of their nation? Isn’t that what the PC brigade rail against where the UK/ USA etc are concerned? Why is that permissible for Argentineans but not for Brits? Because there’s PC brownie points to be had with one and not the other? Pathetic intellectual (if you can use that word for brainwashed lefties) hypocritical cowardice. And it wasn’t a “British” account, suit you though that would. It was actual signals, actual events. I’d ask if you grasped the significance of both that and the Argentinean admittances, whether of the members of the fascist (y’know, like the ideology of which you know nothing but profess outright hatred of Paulo di Canio over – not that I’m suggesting that PC liberals are in any way hate-filled, judgmental, holier-than-though cretins) regime of the time or those since, but it’s pointless. If it’s not PC shibboleth, it just cannot be right.
Please don't forget thatcher's handling of the Hillsborough disaster and the cover up and lies that occurred. Thankfully the innocence of the victims has been proved and ironically one of thatcher's children had to apologise for with his tail between his legs.
Of course she was divisive that is the whole point! She broke the post-war consensus of governments who were simply managing decline and she came in and smashed that consensus. Ted Heath will go down as the worst PM this country ever had for letting the Unions get away with blackmailing the country, printing money like there was no tomorrow, stoking the fires of rampant inflation and selling this country down the river to Europe. Wilson and Callaghan simply carried on in the same vain so yes as divisive figure was required to break the consensus. Just because she was a women why should she have done more for women? We don't go around saying that Male PM's should do more for men do we? As for Yorkie comparing her to Hitler well that is the most stupid thing I have heard yet! Perhaps he should be looking more closely at some of his left wing heroes like Jack Jones the leader of the biggest union in the 70s who was a KGB agent and selling secrets to the Russians! Just one other myth worth exploring, more Coal Mines were shut down under Harold Wilson's Governments in the 60s and 70s than under Mrs Thatcher's in the 80s. Manufacturing output actually rose by the end of the 80s by 7%! So much for her destroying manufacturing in this country. A very interesting debate nonetheless and I guess we will all hold our own views on Mrs Thatcher and I hope that she gets a decent send off on Wednesday without the Trots getting involved.
JWM, the only comparison I draw with Hitler is that one of the only two positives I have heard from anyone in the last week is that she was a conviction politician, a powerful leader. The same is true of Hitler (the other being that she battled her way up as a woman in a man's world, although as many have pointed out she did women a lot of harm and is hardly a role model).
