Maybe one of the most comically written posts I've ever seen on here, think he forgot about coming in peace. I'm surprisingly neutral on Thatcher, she assumed power during a terrible time for Britain and managed to reinstate a bit of national pride and deal with the greedy unions (no, it wasn't all Daily Mail propaganda). But selling the council houses, introducing the poll tax, selling off nationalised industry, and high inflation certainly give a lot of people enough reason to dislike the woman.
How old are you Crumpet? You appear to think that the Unions were calling strikes because they were greedy. You appear to either forget or you don't know that the 70s were a decade of almost continuous inflation. The majority of strikes were about pay and trying to prevent workers from suffering the ravages of inflation. It was not just a case of greed. I will accept that during the 70s union leadership did become over-politicised.
I'm 20 years old but I studied modern British politics from 1954-2007 at A-Level. We focused on Thatcher (and Blair) mainly. Obviously I didn't experience any of this first hand and so that's why I tried to remain relatively neutral. Also we had to learn things from a neutral perspective so maybe that's why I'm a little bit on the fence (despite my lecturer being a staunch socialist scouser who hated Thatcher, she managed to remain neutral up until the last day of term). Maybe greedy was the wrong word. But after Callahan introduced The Social Contract union leaders decided that they were the government, and that their job was to get the best possible deal for their members, at the expense of anyone else. Callahan and Denis Healy tried dealing with inflation by imposing a limit on pay increases at 5% but The Transport and General Workers Union decided against it and yadda yadda yadda The Winter of Discontent. My opinion is that these politicians are voted in by the public, and we have a democracy so that we have the power to give the power out to the party with the most support. In the 70's the government was unable to impose any sort of effective policy on reducing inflation because the Unions wouldn't have it. No country can be effectively run in that manner. And so yes, I do believe Thatcher should receive credit for limiting the influence of the TGWU because if things carried on as ridiculously as they had been doing then God knows where we might have ended up.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/jun/16/northernireland.catholicism Didn't succeed but all but attempted
Probably better pay and conditions for the working class, probably a better NHS, probably a better/fairer education system for all children, probably fewer closures of factories, probably no 'managed decline' of Liverpool etc etc. You had to live through that era to fully understand the way things were Crumpet mate.
As time goes by the difference between Labour and Conservative policy has shrunk tremendously since the 70s. So in that respect I partly agree with you in that there isn't really a serious third choice (Lib Dem's will never get near office again) and so we're forced to choose between the lesser of two evils. But there is still a difference and we do still have a choice somewhat, but if we keep producing politicians like Cameron and Blair who are/were determined on centralising their respective parties you do wonder what things will be like in 20-30 years. We may still have a choice, but will that choice matter? And if so is that really a choice at all?
It's very hard to prove that though, Labour were a party in decline and things definitely needed a shakeup, mind you I'd have to say she probably shook things a little too much. It's swings and roundabouts, if it wasn't for Thatcher's government we wouldn't have had the economic growth and prosperity we experienced under Blair from 1997 to 2007. ...but then maybe without the growth and irresponsible lending under the New Labour tenure we may not hav been caught up so drastically in the recession that followed. Maybe if we'd stuck to primary industry instead of the tertiary economy we became under Thatcher we wouldn't have been at the complete mercy of other world powers? Swings and roundabouts. Very hard to see what might have happened had Thatcher not done what she did.
Blair was just a Tory in disguise, Cameron is just a slightly less radical version of her but with testicles and also less able to pull the wool over eyes. The truth is Thatcherism has never ended, and mass consumerism helped kill off the Labour Party completely. The little gadgets like mobile phones, iPads, Playstations etc are just there to delude the lower classes into thinking they are middle class and that the bullshit idea of meritocracy is valid hence abandonment of Old Labour. This and the "right to buy" was a cynical move by Thatcher to break the working class, she realised if she could split the bulk of the vote she'd see off old Labour for good. The Belgrano and Union strike was just the tip off the iceberg as it allowed her patriotic right wing baboons to beat their chests even more. To bring the power back into the hands of the true people we need direct democracy. PR would mean the Tories never get in, but it would also lead to more coalitions. Politicians can no longer be trusted and nor can greedy corporations. We need to nationalise banks and main industries.
The economic growth was a short term fix due to her selling off everything that wasn't nailed down to the ground to her corporate mates in the US and creating a credit bubble. Once that wore off the economic downturn was inevitable, we no longer produce anything hence at the mercy of every man and his dog who can charge us what they please. History has taught us two things: 1. The Tories invest disproportionately in the Private Sector thus abandoning things like Health & Education, this creates an underclass and increase in poverty by which Labour HAVE to spend (and often overspend) to compensate for. 2. Tories are all about short term money rather than long term gain. Labour brought in Minimum Wage, NHS all of which will last us a lifetime, Tories know the price of everything but the value of nothing. They'd privatise their own mothers grave if it meant an extra wad of cash. Here's how society works in short. Tories economic policies fail thus leaving us in huge debt, therefore public sector money cut whilst private sector can continue making more profits. Industry is destroyed thus leaving millions unemployed. Tories then bail out, Labour come in, face problems of mass unemployment and poverty and have to create Welfare state to look after the poor (which the Tories abandoned). Economic crisis (due to Tory policies & greed pay bankers), Labour voted out, Tory media blame it on benefits and most vulnerable. Hitler was elitist re: race, Thatcher was elitist re: class. Therein lies the only difference. When she destroyed industry giving the working class nowhere to go, Thatcher's plan was to eliminate the working class communities completely. When you have mouths to feed and can't there are either two things you can do: 1) Resort to crime 2) Starve to death. #1 means you suffer at the heads of Thatchers "get tough on crime" and spend years behind bars for the slightest offences or.... Die. Each to their own but in my eyes starving someone to death is no more or less abhorrent than firing squad I.e Stalin.
I studied psychology at 'A' Level. Does that give me the authority to say that you're certifiable, Crumpet?
That's not fair! If you want to play the I've got more qualifications than you game then I win hands down PLUS I did live through the period so I can put that experience alongside my theoretical knowledge. Crumpet is giving his understanding from what he believes to be a neutral perspective, Trouble is that the information that you use at A level is very far from being neutral. However until such times as we can add to his store of knowledge (from both experience and analysis), it is not for us to abuse his understanding. Sure we can argue. Those of us who did experience those times must resist the temptation to take a "you can't put an old head on young shoulders approach" as an excuse for entrenched opinions. We need to discuss these things and hopefully LEARN from them. A stage in that process that we haven't even truly started to explore is how and why the Left imploded in 1979 and how that led to New Labour and the ultimate derision of any concept of Socialism. That study may be more painful than thinking back to Thatcherism and its consequences.
I could be wrong, but I suspect Donga was attempting to take the piss? I looked at his comment with two possible meanings: (1) education isn't everything or (2) an attempt to say Crumpet is insane. As I said, I could be wrong.
That was an incredibly informative post, wish I'd been on these forums when I was back in college. Might have managed a slightly better grade! I only tried to stay neutral because, as you said earlier, I imagine you kind of had to be there to understand the damage done at the time. I appreciate that you didn't just jump down my throat and instead just gave me the facts. Thatcher's a bit of an emotive subject for a lot of people so it's hard to have a sensible discussion on her without extreme bias creeping in at times. But then that can be the problem with any historical event. Glad I studied Maths at degree level instead, at least there's always one right answer.
There can be no doubt her policies were passed without thought for the working classes. She decided to protect the rich wealthy minority at the expense of the poor/average wage majority, the Poll Tax classic case in point. In places like South Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Yorkshire, Merseyside, the North East and most parts of South and East London the anti-Thatcher feeling is very strong because she didn't give us a second thought. Change was inevitable due to globalisation but it was the way it was done that incited so much hate and divided the nation.
Corrr! there I go being all even handed and then you go and say something like "Glad I studied Maths at degree level instead, at least there's always one right answer." I'm not a mathematician but when 2+2 may or may not equal 4 then there is only ever a probability that your answer is right and then only in particular circumstances.
Absolutely. I don't deny Crumpet's right to take part in the discussion, but saying he did it at 'A'l level is bloody superfluous. I did 'A' Level history (mostly covering the 20th Century) , have a degree and an MBA. I learned more about WWII though from my late father, who was a wireless operator in Bomber Command. Besides which, Thatcher herself was an intelligent woman with a chemistry degree from Oxford. Just think what a better world this would have been had she been diagnosed with cancer and gone into making crystal meth instead. Heisenthatch? Thing is, if you've got a point to make, and argument to put forward, then do so, with the most appropriate evidence. It's a discussion forum, not The Royal Society or something, and it'll be a worse place if we have to put our educational qualifications in our profile as if that makes the argument more valid.
By the way, was reading that Bernard Ingham was berating the police in charge of the funeral arrangements for not being able to enforce 'respect'. Just been on the news now that the police have said it's 'unlikely' that anyone who turns their back on the funeral procession will be arrested. I suppose we should be grateful. If they did that in North Korea, Pinochet's Chile or Mugabe's Zimbabwe there'd be no 'unlikely' about it, so Thatcher's final legacy is the enormous progress that the country that gave the world Magna Carta, The Bill of Rights, the mother of parliaments and Habeas Corpus might NOT arrest you for turning your back as her coffin passes. Makes you proud to be British - or soon to be English as her lasting legacy will be the break-up of the Union.
