Good news about Thatcher eh?

[salvador]

Maybe not in the same league as Diana - or Paul McCartney or any entertainment celeb, but Thatcher was just so respected as the personification of a strong and principled leader who represented everything classy and aspirational and tough about England. Kind of like Judy Dench in the recent Bond flicks.

I can't argue with the evil bitch angle because I don't really know anything about her. I happen to hate all politicians deeply and so it's easy for me to assume that if I learned too much about her I would end up hating her as well.

[Spyder]

(04-16-2013 11:13 AM)salvador Wrote:  Maybe not in the same league as Diana - or Paul McCartney or any entertainment celeb, but Thatcher was just so respected as the personification of a strong and principled leader who represented everything classy and aspirational and tough about England. Kind of like Judy Dench in the recent Bond flicks.

I can't argue with the evil bitch angle because I don't really know anything about her. I happen to hate all politicians deeply and so it's easy for me to assume that if I learned too much about her I would end up hating her as well.

Respected is the best possible word to describe America's feeling toward her. Although the Obama Administration's decision not to send a single representative to her funeral is pretty much the opposite of that.

[BrotherCane]

(04-16-2013 11:51 AM)Spyder Wrote:  

(04-16-2013 11:13 AM)salvador Wrote:  Maybe not in the same league as Diana - or Paul McCartney or any entertainment celeb, but Thatcher was just so respected as the personification of a strong and principled leader who represented everything classy and aspirational and tough about England. Kind of like Judy Dench in the recent Bond flicks.

I can't argue with the evil bitch angle because I don't really know anything about her. I happen to hate all politicians deeply and so it's easy for me to assume that if I learned too much about her I would end up hating her as well.

Respected is the best possible word to describe America's feeling toward her. Although the Obama Administration's decision not to send a single representative to her funeral is pretty much the opposite of that.

True and the same with Chris Kyle yet sent people for Hugo Chavez...it's like an anti American new way within our borders! It's really sad in my view!

[salvador]

The funeral is tomorrow. I'd be shocked if Biden isn't there.

And the truth is, Obama has expressed his admiration for Reagan on many occasions and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised to see him, Michelle, and both daughters there. I'd actually be surprised if he didn't make it.

[the ollie reed fan club]

(04-16-2013 11:13 AM)salvador Wrote:  Maybe not in the same league as Diana - or Paul McCartney or any entertainment celeb, but Thatcher was just so respected as the personification of a strong and principled leader who represented everything classy and aspirational and tough about England. Kind of like Judy Dench in the recent Bond flicks.

I can't argue with the evil bitch angle because I don't really know anything about her. I happen to hate all politicians deeply and so it's easy for me to assume that if I learned too much about her I would end up hating her as well.

Sal this view is deluded in my opinion. This woman was about as close to evil personified as you can get.

If you want an example of how ' principled' the witch was just Google her relationship with Augusto Pinochet and see what turns up. She basically provided a safe haven for a mass murderer!

Obama is completely right to not send a representative to her funeral. As history revises this woman she will rightly fall further and further down the totem pole as a respected leader and be seen to be the evil manipulative self serving sack of shit that she was.

[Spyder]

(04-16-2013 09:37 PM)salvador Wrote:  The funeral is tomorrow. I'd be shocked if Biden isn't there.

And the truth is, Obama has expressed his admiration for Reagan on many occasions and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised to see him, Michelle, and both daughters there. I'd actually be surprised if he didn't make it.

The WH has already given a statement that there are too many domestic policies to work on for them to take time away and go to the funeral. There will not be a representative from the Administration there.

[salvador]

Even if she was evil, England thought enough of her to give her the first state funeral for a PM since Churchill. That's a very big deal and America should have sent a top official out of respect for the Brit-American relationship.

If England can follow America into two completely fucked up wars in the last 10 years, the very least we could do is send Fredo, I mean Biden, to a funeral.

[blackbelt2003]

Just got this from a discussion as I'm too young to remember her reign in person, and to be fair I had always been brought up with positive thoughts of Thatcher...my parents were very hard up in the 80's and had nothing but good things to say about her. So I thought I'd dig up some positive stuff to see what everyone has to say so I can learn a bit more:




The main good the Thatcher administration did, was in controlling Union power, with Union leaders such as those at British Leyland having brought Britain to it's knees in the 1970's.

Thatcher also helped to keep a tight fiscal reign on the country bringing inflation under control after the massive inflation of the 1970's.

Thatcher may not have been liked for some of her social reforms, but Thatcher's Economic Policies helped steer the country away from Bankruptcy, Stagflation and Economic Meltdown.

It should not be forgotten, the terrible state of the country in the 1970's and the fact in 1979 the streets were full of rubbish, the dead remained unburied and we were subject to power cuts night after night all due to strikes. At the same time Union leaders had reduced British Industry to the laughing stock of the world.

Whilst Red Robbo launched another washing up time or tea break strike at British Leyland in the 1970's, Car Makers in Japan and the Far East were not even unionised and were getting on with the job at hand, and the same was true of ship building and numerous other industries. Sadly the Japanese now dominate the British Car Industry, and non unionised workers in Sunderland, Derbyshire and Swindon now build cars for the Japanese, whilst other plants build cars for the Germans or Indians who now own Land Rover and Jaguar.

Nobody wanted to invest in UK industry back in the 70's due to it's unreliability and constant strikes and it wasn't until Margaret Thatcher came to power that things started to improve. It's easy to just blame Thatcher but the Union leaders of the 70's were the ones who did the damage, if anything Margaret Thatcher was part of a much needed solution.





Black

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Here's another:

Certainly Britain wouldn't be what it is now without her. The Labour Party pretty much had to reinvent itself to make itself electable in the face of her - she never lost a general election as Prime Minister. And the economy was in a better state after her rule than before. That's a pretty good epitaph for any Prime Minister.

Consider the bankrupt state of Britain in 1979 when it had had to go to the International Monetary Fund for a loan - just like Greece getting its bailouts - and the Labour government doing anything the unions wanted without thought for where the money was going to come from. What Thatcher did to the miners was part of the policy of smashing union power. The year-long strike was over loss of jobs from shutting down uneconomic mines. Once it becomes more expensive to dig the coal out of the ground than you can get from selling it, because all the coal that is easier to mine has already been mined, why would any normal businessman keep the mine open? The miners wouldn't face up to it. Unfortunately they faced the proverbial immovable object in the form of Iron Lady Thatcher. I remember her being described as the only real man in a Cabinet full of old women. If she hadn't "hung in there" and forced the miners to back down, someone later would have had to.

I have an uncle who was a Nottinghamshire miner and he was part of the breakaway Union of Democratic Mineworkers, who separated because they could see the national union was living in a fantasy world.

She was not the most likeable character, and had total self-belief, which eventually led to her downfall but I think it was needed at the time.

It's a good thought to ponder when you vote. Do you vote for what you can get out of it, or for what's best for the country, even though, for the moment, it's hurting you?





Black

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And some more:


When she came to power British Industry was one of the least productive in the world, Labour had allowed the Unions to rule the country. We had power cuts, rubbish and bodies piling up and a car industry that was on strike every other day. Rightly she tackled the Unions, she made mistakes but so did the Unions.

I delivered into British Steel, in 1981 they had 10 forklift drivers employed to unload wagons. When you arrived you joined the queue and waited up to 4 hours to be unloaded as most of the drivers were either in the garage or in the cafe drinking tea. Within 2 years there was only 2 forklift drivers and no queues. Scargill wasn't prepared to allow MacGregor to do to the NCB what he had done to British Steel and called a strike, without asking the workforce. Because of this miners fought against miners and a lot more pits shut earlier than they would have done.

She made Britain a country where people could invest in, without the Union Law changes we wouldn't have the likes of Toyota and Nissan here. What people also forget is that the pits and shipyards were massively subsidised. Under EU Law state subsidy is illegal and all the pits and shipyards would be shut in any case.





Black

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Last one:


This is really difficult and it's best to put it in context. I've lived through it so this is my feeling.

When she was elected in 1979, the Labour government had created huge price inflation, allowed the trade unions to virtually hold the country to ransom by agreeing to everything they wanted, and all that meant borrowing on a huge scale. Does this sound vaguely familiar? It does to me, as it's what the current coalition government keeps saying all the time - "we have to deal with the mess Labour left us in". It was exactly the same in 1979, but far worse.

Margaret Thatcher was faced with tackling inflation and doing something about the debt. Her solution was quite radical and it resulted in massive unemployment. People loathe her for that, but what was the alternative?

She smashed the power of the trade unions and the thing everyone remembers about that was when the coal miners went on strike for a whole year in protest against loss of jobs. Fair enough BUT when all the coal that is easy to get at in any particular mine has been mined and it's starting to cost more to dig it out of the ground than you can sell it for, of COURSE the sensible thing to do is close it down.

She was very much a believer in the free market and sold off many of the nationalised industries. When she came to power, gas, electricity, water, tand telephone companies were all owned by the government. So were the railways, the steel industry, the shipbuilding industry and much more. It's almost strange to think of it now. This is a central political question: how much control do you think the government should have? Socialists, as Labour used to be, think that all major industries should be owned by the government "for the benefit of all". That's what we had in 1979. Thatcher totally disagreed and thought they would be more efficient if they are private companies, as they are in the USA. And as a bonus, the sales raised money, which helped to pay off some of the national debt.

Americans loved her as she was totally on their side against Communism and the Soviet Union. She got on fantastically well with President Ronald Reagan to the point that it almost felt like a love affair! Again, it feels so different now that Communism in eastern Europe and Russia collapsed 20 years ago but back then we lived under the threat that there might be nuclear war. It really was horrible and if you ever get to visit Berlin, visit the Checkpoint Charlie museum. It made me cry to think what people did to try and escape Communist oppression.

The Russians called her the Iron Lady and she was. She had a total belief in what she thought was right and she didn't care who said different. That was good in the early 1980s but later on it became a problem and eventually her own party forced her to resign because of it. She made a lot of mistakes but on the whole, we were better off at the end of her 11 years as Prime Minister than we were at the beginning. This is something to think about when you vote. Do you vote for what you can get out of it, or do you vote for what's best for the country even if it personally hurts you?

Love her or loathe her, she changed us. Even the Labour Party changed to what it is now because it couldn't win elections against her. She was a truly great leader if only because any alternative would have been worse.



Be really interested to see what Lloyd and Maxy have to say...it's hard trying to gauge just whether she was good or not as everyone seems to be completely polarised.




Black

[Spyder]

Without her, the Pound would no longer exist, and the Brits would be the ones with their hands out just like the Greeks and Spaniards.

[Maxy]

@black, I'll get back to you this weekend on that stuff you wrote mate.