Oh well, we kept it going for a while before discipline went and the politics took over. Bye, thread...
Here you are Craig, the obit from the Telegraph. A succinct enough summary. Enjoy.
"For more than a decade Margaret Thatcher enjoyed almost unchallenged political mastery, winning three successive general elections. The policies she pursued with ferocious energy and unyielding will resulted in a transformation of Britain’s economic performance.
The resulting change was also political. But by discrediting socialism so thoroughly, she prompted in due course the adoption by the Labour Party of free market economics, and so, as she wryly confessed in later years, “helped to make it electable”.
As for the effects of the Thatcher phenomenon upon British society, these were both more ambiguous and more debatable. Her remark “there is no such thing as society” was wrenched altogether out of the context of the interview in which it was made, and made to seem to be an advocacy of naked individualism, when she was really calling for more personal responsibility. Yet, rightly or wrongly, the 1980s came to be seen as a time of social fragmentation whose consequences are still with us.
Margaret Thatcher was the only British prime minister to leave behind a set of ideas about the role of the state which other leaders and nations strove to copy and apply. Monetarism, privatisation, deregulation, small government, lower taxes and free trade — all these features of the modern globalised economy were crucially promoted as a result of the policy prescriptions she employed to reverse Britain’s economic decline.
Above all, in America and in Eastern Europe she was regarded, alongside her friend Ronald Reagan, as one of the two great architects of the West’s victory in the Cold War. Of modern British prime ministers, only Margaret Thatcher’s girlhood hero, Winston Churchill, acquired a higher international reputation."
If we travelled back to the 80s now we would arrive in a political climate where Margaret Thatcher wasn't just disliked, but literally dispised by a huge part of the population.
People say she won 3 elections so she must have been popular, but in truth she beat Callaghan who was a dead man walking, then Michael Foot who was the single worst politician ever to be put up to lead a party, then Neil Kinnock who was portrayed as little more than a cartoon character by her buddy Bruce Murdoch and his right-wing press. Also remember that even then those who voted in elections were a small minority of the over all population.
Every week We listened to the banshee shreiking in parliament, we saw her dismantling British industry and selling it off at rock-bottom prices to her cronies as "Tory sleaze" became a common phrase. We saw the unemployment figures sky-rocketing and never a word of compassion from that woman for the victims. We saw a war that could easily have been averted kill British soldiers on our own TV screens while Thatcher pounded the 'votes drum' with speeches that might have been written by The Sun's headline think tank. Then to top it off she tried to bring in a tax that would have seen the richest property owner paying as little poll tax as a poverty-stricken pensioner.
The common opinion in those times was that Thatcher was an evil woman. Those who were too young to have been around at the time and only know second-hand what she did might not believe that. Clever journalists like the one you have quoted can spin the economic facts to paint a flattering picture of her, but Thatcher was hated. She was hated for the social devastation she left in her wake and she was hated because she treated her victims with cold disdain.
Guess we can count you out of the minute's silence then?
Thatcher hated football , a lot of football fans hated Thatcher
If we travelled back to the 80s now we would arrive in a political climate where Margaret Thatcher wasn't just disliked, but literally dispised by a huge part of the population.
People say she won 3 elections so she must have been popular, but in truth she beat Callaghan who was a dead man walking, then Michael Foot who was the single worst politician ever to be put up to lead a party, then Neil Kinnock who was portrayed as little more than a cartoon character by her buddy Bruce Murdoch and his right-wing press. Also remember that even then those who voted in elections were a small minority of the over all population.
Every week We listened to the banshee shreiking in parliament, we saw her dismantling British industry and selling it off at rock-bottom prices to her cronies as "Tory sleaze" became a common phrase. We saw the unemployment figures sky-rocketing and never a word of compassion from that woman for the victims. We saw a war that could easily have been averted kill British soldiers on our own TV screens while Thatcher pounded the 'votes drum' with speeches that might have been written by The Sun's headline think tank. Then to top it off she tried to bring in a tax that would have seen the richest property owner paying as little poll tax as a poverty-stricken pensioner.
The common opinion in those times was that Thatcher was an evil woman. Those who were too young to have been around at the time and only know second-hand what she did might not believe that. Clever journalists like the one you have quoted can spin the economic facts to paint a flattering picture of her, but Thatcher was hated. She was hated for the social devastation she left in her wake and she was hated because she treated her victims with cold disdain.
yup.
If we travelled back to the 80s now we would arrive in a political climate where Margaret Thatcher wasn't just disliked, but literally dispised by a huge part of the population.
People say she won 3 elections so she must have been popular, but in truth she beat Callaghan who was a dead man walking, then Michael Foot who was the single worst politician ever to be put up to lead a party, then Neil Kinnock who was portrayed as little more than a cartoon character by her buddy Bruce Murdoch and his right-wing press. Also remember that even then those who voted in elections were a small minority of the over all population.
Every week We listened to the banshee shreiking in parliament, we saw her dismantling British industry and selling it off at rock-bottom prices to her cronies as "Tory sleaze" became a common phrase. We saw the unemployment figures sky-rocketing and never a word of compassion from that woman for the victims. We saw a war that could easily have been averted kill British soldiers on our own TV screens while Thatcher pounded the 'votes drum' with speeches that might have been written by The Sun's headline think tank. Then to top it off she tried to bring in a tax that would have seen the richest property owner paying as little poll tax as a poverty-stricken pensioner.
The common opinion in those times was that Thatcher was an evil woman. Those who were too young to have been around at the time and only know second-hand what she did might not believe that. Clever journalists like the one you have quoted can spin the economic facts to paint a flattering picture of her, but Thatcher was hated. She was hated for the social devastation she left in her wake and she was hated because she treated her victims with cold disdain.
Biggest load of bull **** i have ever read.
If individuals decided not to vote that is there fault, you can't moan about some Woman's policies if you did not vote for anyone. So voter apathy is something you really shouldn't use in your arguement. Even in the 1987 election Maggy gained 42% of the vote and Labour 30% to say that the country was not in favour of her policies is ridiculous. I am not right wing in the slightest i am just not a deluded leftie.
Whether you agree with her policies or not shouldn't be an issue, we are human beings, we respect other people. She achieved a great deal in her lifetime, some of which you may not agree with but she really did a great deal for this country, and we should respect that. If you don't thats fair enough, but i feel you are a disgusting human.
Biggest load of bull **** i have ever read.
If individuals decided not to vote that is there fault, you can't moan about some Woman's policies if you did not vote for anyone. So voter apathy is something you really shouldn't use in your arguement. Even in the 1987 election Maggy gained 42% of the vote and Labour 30% to say that the country was not in favour of her policies is ridiculous. I am not right wing in the slightest i am just not a deluded leftie.
Whether you agree with her policies or not shouldn't be an issue, we are human beings, we respect other people. She achieved a great deal in her lifetime, some of which you may not agree with but she really did a great deal for this country, and we should respect that. If you don't thats fair enough, but i feel you are a disgusting human.
You think I'm "a disgusting human" because I have a different opinion to you. I'm afraid that exposes just how childish you are. And on the subject - how old are you or more to the point how old were you in the 80s?
Trouble is with some of that is that Blair, leader of a Labour government started more wars and was responsible for the deaths of more service men than her.
As far as the poll tax goes the main complaints were from the bed sit brigade who never contributed a penny and would have had to start doing so. The rates were and are ridiculous in many ways and a poll tax fairer. The widow next door to me was paying the same rates as myself wife and 2 working lads. However my lads had the same voting rights in local elections as myself who paid the rates whilst they contributed nothing. And out voting the woman next door.Representation without taxation. The reverse of the cause of the American War Of Independence. No wonder some stupid things could get approval because of votes from people who wouldn't ha e to foot the bill for them.
Some for of local taxation and income tax would be a better way, then everyone contributes and has an interest in where the money goes.
I think the disgusting bit refers to the way you express your opinions rather than the fact they are different.
How old were you in the 1980s?
If we travelled back to the 80s now we would arrive in a political climate where Margaret Thatcher wasn't just disliked, but literally dispised by a huge part of the population.
People say she won 3 elections so she must have been popular, but in truth she beat Callaghan who was a dead man walking, then Michael Foot who was the single worst politician ever to be put up to lead a party, then Neil Kinnock who was portrayed as little more than a cartoon character by her buddy Bruce Murdoch and his right-wing press. Also remember that even then those who voted in elections were a small minority of the over all population.
Every week We listened to the banshee shreiking in parliament, we saw her dismantling British industry and selling it off at rock-bottom prices to her cronies as "Tory sleaze" became a common phrase. We saw the unemployment figures sky-rocketing and never a word of compassion from that woman for the victims. We saw a war that could easily have been averted kill British soldiers on our own TV screens while Thatcher pounded the 'votes drum' with speeches that might have been written by The Sun's headline think tank. Then to top it off she tried to bring in a tax that would have seen the richest property owner paying as little poll tax as a poverty-stricken pensioner.
The common opinion in those times was that Thatcher was an evil woman. Those who were too young to have been around at the time and only know second-hand what she did might not believe that. Clever journalists like the one you have quoted can spin the economic facts to paint a flattering picture of her, but Thatcher was hated. She was hated for the social devastation she left in her wake and she was hated because she treated her victims with cold disdain.