Lady Thatcher very unwell

[Alan Medic]

If I won I was going to be treated to a slap up meal in one of the new Rocca restaurants in the Village.

[Sue]

Is she dead yet?

[????]

100

[Laddy Muck]

Sly puss

[Sue]

As FlapJackDavey would say, Je ne comprende pas

ETA: Or comprends even

[giggirl]

Who knew there were so many self-righteous people in East Dulwich? Such a load of sanctimonious twaddle. Alarmingly, probably a sign of things to come when she pops her clogs.

[kleinhond]

LadyDeliah Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> Thatcher is hated by millions after what she did

> to the working class/North.

I know of plenty of so-called 'working class' people who, when I asked them why they continued to vote Thatcher, replied that they were 'better off under her.' There are scores of people just like them, who kept her in power for three successive elections. At a guess I'd say they probably had memories of Labour in the 70s.

>

>Many people have waited a long

> time to see her get her comeuppance.

How exactly is an elderly lady in her 80s dying a 'comeuppance'?

[kleinhond]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Thatcher had intolerance for all sorts of things

> and people. Unions and public services for a

> start. The most blatent act of state sanctioned

> prejudice was clause 28 - ask any gay person old

> enough to remember about Thatcherite intolerance.

And ask anyone even older, or who bothered to do their research (rather than continually repeat half-truths peddled by certain sections of the Press and the chattering classes), and they will tell you that in 1967, Thatcher was one of only FOUR Conservative MPs who voted (against the wishes of their party leadership) in favour of the Sexual Offences (Homosexual Reform) Act.

The reform, which attracted considerable hostility in both the Commons and the Lords, was passed and allowed homosexual acts to be decriminalised for the first time. Not so cut and dried now though eh.

[ratty]

Love a Thatcherite me!

[DJKillaQueen]

Decriminalising homosexuality and teaching children that homosexual relationships aren't real were obviously different things to Thatcher then. I don't know what's worse, someone that is completely homophobic (or racist or whatever) or someone that says, I'm not against gays per se BUT......(don't want any discussion of the subject in our schools).

Clause 28 did happen. It was a bill brought by the Thatcher government. Just because Thatcher voted for the decriminalisation of homosexuality doesn't dilute how stupid, descrimantory and harmful to young gay people that bill was.

[Dougal Mulldoon]

Watched Brassed Off last night and made me remember how that bitch destroyed a whole swathe of society. 250,000 miners lost their jobs and communities. Now we import coal. The sooner the bitch dies the better.

[steveo]

Sounds like we'd be better off without you Dougal

[*Bob*]

Dougal.. don't know if anyone you know suffered as a result of the Vietnam war - but I noticed Sylvester Stallone's documentary 'First Blood' is on next week. One to watch out for.

[Huguenot]

It is a constant source of wonder to me how people ascribe the wonders of democracy to the machinations of an individual.

Thatcher, Blair... who else?

All that Thatcher did on coal was pursue the agenda of the British people (i.e. not herself, but her electors), who did not want to use their own tax contributions to fund the extraction of poor coal that they did not want, at prices they weren't prepared to pay.

If the coal miners of Ripon had been able to provide a product that the people wanted at a price that people were prepared to pay, then Thatcher couldn't have done anything. The fact is that they couldn't and they didn't, and school teachers in Hereford weren't prepared to pay them for the luxury of continuing.

Same with the Unions. They fucked it up for themselves when they left people like me in darkness eating cold food for two days a week in the seventies. C*nts. No drama or confusion there. they tried to f*ck the nation and they got done over. Good.

[DJKillaQueen]

There's no doubting that coal mining had become unprofitable in the UK, nor that Scargill took the opportunity to vent all out war on the government for militant reasons, nor that the response from the government and Police was heavy handed. With those three things in the mix there was never any hope of downsizing and looking for ways of saving some pits and making them profitable, through meaningful negotiation.

My father was a shop steward for the transport workers union at the time and he was scathing of Scargill's approach. He could see it was going to achieve nothing and make the outcome far worse.

When his own sector come up for deregulation and privatisation, instead of supporting millitant all out defiance (that was doomed to fail, and for which he was beaten up by the thugs that seemed to dominate this area of union thinking) he instead focused on negotiating the best redundancy/ early retirement deals for those jobs that were inevitably going to be lost and negotiating the best safeguards he could for those employees that would be staying.

Unions can be both good and bad for business. It really does depend on who runs them and what they see their role as a union to be.

[Otta]

Quite right, which is why Bob Crow's members should replace him asap!

[JohnL]

But the bankers get away with it.

is it because they wear smart suits ?

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> It is a constant source of wonder to me how people

> ascribe the wonders of democracy to the

> machinations of an individual.

>

> Thatcher, Blair... who else?

>

> All that Thatcher did on coal was pursue the

> agenda of the British people (i.e. not herself,

> but her electors), who did not want to use their

> own tax contributions to fund the extraction of

> poor coal that they did not want, at prices they

> weren't prepared to pay.

>

> If the coal miners of Ripon had been able to

> provide a product that the people wanted at a

> price that people were prepared to pay, then

> Thatcher couldn't have done anything. The fact is

> that they couldn't and they didn't, and school

> teachers in Hereford weren't prepared to pay them

> for the luxury of continuing.

>

> Same with the Unions. They @#$%& it up for

> themselves when they left people like me in

> darkness eating cold food for two days a week in

> the seventies. C*nts. No drama or confusion there.

> they tried to f*ck the nation and they got done

> over. Good.

[Huguenot]

They did, and they shouldn't have.

However, I find the ignominy heqped on the bankers to be a little bit disingenuous. It smacks of someone eating so many wine gums it makes them puke, and then blaming Maynards.

[Dougal Mulldoon]

So Thatcher destroyed the mining industry as revenge for 1972 & 1974, wrecking hundreds of thousands of lives and condemning families and children to poverty for the rest of their lives.

Hugenut you call these people and their children C*nts because they left ?people like me in darkness eating cold food for two days a week in the seventies. C*nts.?

You are a sicko. Most of the time you are up your a*se with your pseudo intellect but you are overboard with an attitude like this.

Banker.

[Wilhelm]

Anyone fancy a pint?

[DJKillaQueen]

wrecking hundreds of thousands of lives and condemning families and children to poverty for the rest of their lives.

See this for me is the real issue. Economies evolve and the things that economies produce/ rely on, change. No country is an island in a global market. But governments do have a responsibility to at least try and generate some meaningful alternative. This idea that the free market takes care of everything is a myth. There was without quesion a lack of interest, and I would say from some quarters, complete disdain, for those left out of work by the policies of the Thatcher government (which predominently ravaged the North and the Midlands). It was a very sad thing to witness.

[Marmora Man]

DJKQ - As Hugenot has tried to point out - the policies of the Thatcher gov't were the rational response to the economic situation the country was in by 1979. That situation was the result of decades of underinvestment, poor quality products, unreasoning unionism refusing to countenance change, the internationalisation of trade that meant UK could, and did, access cheaper goods (often at better quality)from overseas. Together with a host of other factors.

Your own father's approach to change was the sensible and rational approach.

To ascribe the resultant fall out to one set of policies, or worse, to one politician is irrational thinking.

Making this sorry politico / industrial the history into a "Thatcher hated the northern working classes" fantasy is to perpetuate a myth that seems set to create a victim mentality - never a good idea.

[DJKillaQueen]

I totally accept that change was required...but you ignore my point that the people most affected were left out to dry...and that unfortunately was mostly the north. And there was and still is a pervading belief (even though it has been shown not to be the case time and time again) that the free market takes care of everytihng. There was no real effort to address that mass localised unemployment (and the only cabinet member at the time who seemed to give a damn was Michael Hesaltine). New Labour did a little better, but still...if you look at unemployment figures for JSA and Income Support claimants you'll see the highest levels of male unemployment to be in the NW and NE. There is absolutely no reason why these areas can't have vibrant economies.

[Ridgley]

Ivydale wrote

----------------------------------------------------------------

We import coal because the greedy Union barons headed by Arthur Scumgill made British coal too expensive to produce due to their unrealistic wage demands.

Anyway, seems the haters have lost the right to demand Thatch doesn't get a state funeral:

Spoken like a true Tory(td)

[mockney piers]

Actually the Silverdale Colliery (I used to live right next door) shut despite being modernised, efficient and producing coal cheaper than continental rivals.

I did wonder at the time if it was part of a long term strategy to deliberately shift our economy away from mining, and maybe to hang on to coal for the future as it's really cheap now but is going to become much more valuable in the post peak oil world.