Lady Thatcher very unwell

[KidKruger]

Didn't a lot of 'poorer' people benefit greatly under Thatcher by being able to purchase their Council flats well below market rates then sold them making huge profits or retained them and now sit on huge equity ?

[mockney piers]

I don't think death should be automatically accorded respect.

Most of the OBL concerns were about an enlightened democracy committing extrajudicial execution surely, not against those celebrating his death, for who can blame them.

My father popped a cork of champagne literally over the funeral cortege of Franco on it's way to the Valley of The Fallen.

Likewise I've been happy to raise a small glass of sherry or at least a smile at the deaths of Pol Pot, General Pinochet, Milosevic and a few others.

Get real people, this is Thatcher, I was no fan, but she's hardly in that league. Fair enough if your son was on the Belgrano, the rest of you should be ashamed frankly.

[Marmora Man]

Huguenot you are wrong in this one respect. The company my father worked for was a profitable company. There was absolutely no reason for it to be deregulated, privatised and then downsized (for nothing more thsn the maximisation of profit).

If it was deregularised, privatised and downsized in the 80s the company must have been in the public sector. Very few such company's were making real profits from their revenues - many more were strangled by unionism that prevented effective management and change to enable them to make real profits. Their products were uncompetitive in the world market. There were many "companies" in the public sector that were being subsidised by the public purse as an alternative to recognising that they had no real commercial future in their existing form. The fact that a major downsizing occurred in the company where your father worked would indicate that there was fat in the system.

Businesses do not cut their own throats - they maximise profits, it's the nature of the beast. They retain good, willing and supportive staff, they cut activities and staff that do not, in some fashion, contribute to the bottom line.

I'm not suggesting your father deserved to be made redundant but to blame his redundancy on Lady Thatcher is illogical. She saw the decline in Britain, enacted policies that halted and then reversed the decline. The fact that much Britain's industrial base was in the North, was nationalised and had had little real investment since the 30s was not her fault - some blame can be laid at the door of the company owners in the 30s that failed to invest in their businesses, but from 1945 it was successive governments that declined to invest effectively - resulting in high cost / low quality products, the fallout had to happen at some stage.

In 1979 the government was operating airlines, coalmines, steelmaking works, telecomms, car manufacturing, railways, shipbuilding; almost all, if not all, at a loss. Today they operate none of these enterprises and yet our taxes are as high as they were in the 70s. If they were all still under government control either taxes would have be significantly higher for everyone, or we would have to forego other government services that we value - the NHS, Social Services, Police, Defence - and in all likelihood both would apply. High taxes, lousy public services.

[DJKillaQueen]

Not as many as you think KK and what a great policy that was, because now 25 years on we have a housing market that has a dire shortage of social and affordable housing.

MP....I can perfectly understand why many will not be sad to see Thatcher die. It's not because they are shameful but because she affected them or their families lives in a way they find hard to forgive. At the end of the day she and her cabinet had little compassion for them.

[mockney piers]

I got made redundant due to the cuts recently. I don't hate Cameron, I just dusted myself off and got on with it.

You revel in someone's death when they tortured or dissappeared your loved ones, not because they did you out of a job.

Some of the hyperbole on here is little short of pathetic.

[steveo]

I always rather admired the old bag

[KidKruger]

DJKQ - I don't have a view as to how many people bought cheap council property as tenants, I just know it was a 'lot', so you can't say my term is incorrect because I haven't quantified it !

The policy was obviously rubbish, that's not my point.

My point is there are a lot of people who made decent money directly as a result of 'Thatcher' (her Govt's policies), having never earned and saved for it. I speak as someone, previously slightly bitter about it, who has worked his balls off since day 1 with no handouts, watching many relatives with zero drive and ambition fill-up due to such policies, while I worked 3 years 40 hours a week while at Uni. I'm glad I did what I did, but if I'd benefitted to the tune of 10's of ?1000's I would not be resenting Lady Thatcher's demise.

So, I'm saying a lot of people benefitted and shouldn't have cause to celebrate her death !

One thing about Thatcher I admired though - you could never say to her 'grow a pair' (both metaphorically and literally), which is more than can be said for PM's since.

[DJKillaQueen]

It was a profitable company and the result was that a good service was replaced by a terrible understaffed service. I don't deny something had to change (after the decline as you rightly say since the second world war) but they replaced it with NOTHING, in the misguided belief that the free market would take care of it. Millions of people left the North - they had to (I was one of them). And nothing typified their lack of compassion more than Tebbits 'get on your bike' speech. And you are right, the following labour government didn't do enough either in that respect.

Downsizing though in many cases is simply about minimising costs and maximising profits and there was no minimum wage (something else that government vehently opposed).

[KidKruger]

DJKQ I think it was beyond the Govts abilities to finance a complete restructure of Industries across the North, so "get on your bike", though harsh, had an element of reality about it. I experienced a similar journey as you to London from home, though from IOW, after losing work 3 times in a year. In the unemployed folks' hostel I lived before leaving IOW which I shared with skins and punks who HATED Thatcher/Tory, there was vehement anger at the state of things, but I knew and didn't expect jobs to be brought to me so I went to where they were. That's real life isn't it - surely ?

[DJKillaQueen]

But MP you are an intelligent guy, probably with a good education, qualifications etc and used to a flexible jobs market. If you were a 50 something man living in a small town with a family who had worked in one industry for life, with not many formal qualifications then it isn't so easy. That typified the kind of worker most affected by that era. There was absolutely no forethought as to what would become of these people. Micheal Hesaltine was perhaps the only cabinet member that tried to do something and Thatcher hated him ultimately.

Even today, most 50 something's made redundent find themselves on the scrapheap.

You are absolutely right KK that many made a lot of money but the world has never been fair in that repsect by rewarding hard work and talent in equal measure. My honest opinion is that fiscally they had essentially the right policies but went too far to the right - and that was more about ideology than good economics. In other words, good wealth creation, but poor distribution. For policies like clause 28 though, they had no excuses.

[DJKillaQueen]

It's real life KK but only something that the young and mobile can really adapt to. There are many people that can't move, for many good reasons. And a good society is one that is balanced, fair, and has a certain level of compassion. We are a wealthy country and shouldn't have or be failing on some of the things we do. Opportunity isn't something that should only belong to the young and mobile.

[Marmora Man]

There seems to be a growing, but not yet definitive, consensus that much of what was achieved by Lady Thatcher and Conservative administrations '79 - '89 was necessary and correct. That more might have been done, that Clause 28 was stupid, that some of the 80s excesses were over the top can also be agreed.

I would however, back that decade to be viewed by political, economic and social historians as one of the most effective and successful of the post WWII years.

[Loz]

steveo Wrote:

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

> I always rather admired the old bag

I must admit a somewhat grudging respect for her as well. She was a leader - you may not have liked where she was taking the country but you knew damn well what her strategy and direction was. And you knew who was in charge.

Compare and contrast with the wishy-washy, go-where-the-wind-blows, rudderless "leaders" we've had since.

[mockney piers]

I actually quite liked Major (despite not being a Tory).

Spitting Image had a ridiculously powerful ability to govern how we viewed the political characters of the day (and I think we could do with something like that today more than ever), but he was unfairly maligned as first a thatcher controlled robot then a grey pea obsessed meek fool.

At then end of the day he was the last decent (in the more important moral sense of the word) politician we had in that role.

[KidKruger]

Agree with MP, he came across as very genuine and decent moral base.

[mockney piers]

Which, lets face it, few of those tories in the major gov't had.

They were a really rum bunch, though I must say I preferred their old fashioned sleaze to the labour sleaze that followed.

[Otta]

Their sleaze was good comedy sleaze. The labour sleaze was just, well... sleazey.

Always remember the Spitting Image, where they had Major and his cabinet dressed as hippies singing "Come gather round people, black white or grey. An exciting new dawn isn't happening today".

[Huguenot]

:)) I'm glad that we're geeting to fonder memories.

I've a voting record that goes Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem. I didn't get the chance to vote in '79 or '83, but it would have been Conservative and would have been Maggie.

I tend to agree with Marmora Man - it's not the business of government to 'own' jobs. I think it's the role of government to create a stable, efficient and effective economic environment to encourage jobs - and to create public services that may entail employing people - but not to own airlines and gas companies.

Tatcher's era was a painful period for many, but so were the 70s.

[*Bob*]

It seems appropriate for 21st-century telly that - after over a decade of near-the-knuckle stuff - the return of Spitting Image was finally permanently kyboshed in a fallout over puppets of Ant & Dec.

[bodsier]

what's wrong with death anyway? if you believe in karma, she has another chance to redeem herself. Who knows who she might be when she/he/it comes back......

[TillieTrotter]

Didn't old Major rather like a Curry? The saucy boy!

[PeckhamRose]

Is she dead yet?

Is she dead yet?

Is she dead yet?

Is she dead yet?

Is she dead yet?

Is she dead yet?

Is she dead yet?

[Loz]

You touting for business, PR?

[Mick Mac]

bodsier Wrote:

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

> what's wrong with death anyway? if you believe in

> karma, she has another chance to redeem herself.

> Who knows who she might be when she/he/it comes

> back......

She might come back as a miner. Or a minor.

[Tarot]

Or bailiff,or a police boot boy.

Margeret Thatcher has been very unwell since the word go.