Thatcher Is Dead

[Loz]

Vicanna Wrote:

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

> I really pity the victim mentality fostered by

> some, if not all, of Mrs. Thatcher's detractors.

It's the seething, vicious hate of a dead person that I really pity them for.

[Vicanna]

Yeah, there's that as well. But more importantly it shows liberals up for the scum they are.

[Loz]

Vicanna Wrote:

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

> Yeah, there's that as well. But more importantly it shows liberals up for the scum they are.

Hang on - I think you mean lefties. Don't make the American mistake of confusing the two.

Thatcher was, at heart, a liberal IMHO. She believed strongly in the freedom of the individual.

[maritap]

She supported aparthied i have no tears for her

[Loz]

maritap Wrote:

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

> She supported aparthied i have no tears for her

Whilst she said some nasty things about Mandela, I'm not sure you can say she supported apartheid.

She will be remembered not only as one of Britain's greatest prime ministers but also as a leader whose policies and approach had a significant impact on politics throughout the world. Although she was always a steadfast critic of apartheid, she had a much better grasp of the complexities and geo-strategic realities of South Africa than many of her contemporaries.

- FW De Klerk

[El Pibe]

Oh Lawrence Lawrence Lawrence, you can't help yourself can you.

[Louisa]

Kristymac1 Wrote

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

> I've never understood the argument about

> conviction in ones belief to be admired. I can

> think of a number of historical figures who had

> total conviction in their own beliefs but their

> actions based on those beliefs we're anything but

> admirable......

Well, she won three general elections, all won democratically, even AFTER some controversial policies being enacted. So obviously her conviction in those policies allowed people to acknowledge that through the ballot box.

Louisa.

[Louisa]

I love how some people are so deluded with their references to the past. Inaccurate, crude, offensive. Many of whom, were not alive or too young to remember the period of which they refer. Simply, sheepishly, they rely on common myth and legend created by aggrieved popular culture from the left and often within their own families. If you are going to condemn someone, use something to back it up with or refrain from typing. Making childish remarks about someone's passing is just pathetic.

Louisa.

[El Pibe]

I've read the Pinochet friendship and apartheid support a number of times on Facebook et al today.

Both wrong.

Her policies may have nbeen misguided, she conflated the ANC with her own struggle with the IRA and also saw it within the context of the Cold War so was perhaps too sympathetic witht the powers that be in S Africa, but she was no fan of apartheid.

Maybe her resistance of sanctions helped the regime last, but maybe it didn't given sanctions general failure to have achieved anything much as a coercive recourse in international politics.

Of Pinochet, well I think she was great full for their covert support in the Falklands, remember even the US was pretty unhelpful in that conflict. People can't have it both ways, they can't criticise her for saying she appreciated what Pinochet did and say she was great because of her resoluteness and leadership in the Falklands conflict.

There's much controversy about her, but it strikes me these are red herrings.

[woodrot]

this thread should be archived for future generations to marvel at.

[Burbage]

Jeremy Wrote:

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

> To be honest it's been on the cards for years, and

> there's nothing you can say about her which hasn't

> been said a million times before.

If it's any comfort, it's on the cards for all of us.

In that light, I think you're right, and it would be much better if we left the dead to whatever hereafter they weren't expecting, and instead concentrated our efforts on hating the folk that are currently buggering up tomorrow's future.

That said, retrospective rage isn't entirely a bad thing. If this frothfest reminds us that we don't want to be wondering why Blair's still at liberty when it's his turn to be measured for a box, it will have done some good.

[malumbu]

I was slightly to young to vote in 1979 but lived both through her rule and legacy. I was there at the poll tax riots and earlier lived in Glasgow where my fellow students blamed me for her. What a shame Galteieri didn't put off his invasion for another year or two, as we would have had an SDP landslide in '83 and a centre left government. Now that may have been awful, but the country would be a very different place.

I am not dancing on her grave as others may think and haven't even uncorked the champers, but perlease don't see this through rose tineted specs. (I've got BBC on in the background, and both Tony Cameron, and David Bluggghhh, in the background saying almost the same things).

I am simply saying what many think but aren?t brave enough to say (or to be charitable, feel it would be in bad taste). Neil Kinnock has done a very measured piece on the BBC and Alexi Sayle simply cracked me up on Channel 4 with his irreverence, although I don?t know why the channel apologised for him (surely it wasn?t for saying she was bonkers).

So what were my problems? Divisive, ?me first? leading to greed, blind faith in the market (how flawed was that) city bonuses whilst destroying communities, increasing inequality.

Taking the UK from one extreme to another, with the Unions playing into her hands

Supporting despots whilst not brokering for peace for example Ireland and South Africa and her own crimes against humanity.

What has been lacking is hardly any of her cabinet have spoken up for her, and of course she was dumped by her party.

Now I can recognise that she challenged the system ? women, state educated. Where are the state educated women now in government? And that Major was more of a moderniser and that Blair took many of her policies through to fruition.

And you can look at the bigger picture ? well Stalin killed all those people but he did modernise the country (clearly I am using this as an extreme example).

So we have the failed privatisation of the utilities where we neither own production or manufacture our own trains/power stations etc. The failed deregulation of the city with most of our eggs in the same basket.

And social isolation and exclusion.

And she did to a ?U? turn between 87 and 89 from nuclear power to burning much of our natural gas.

Now this is my take and obviously others will disagree.

More importantly, even more important than Stephen Fry being spotted, is how did Paxman not give Bangor the points for the first question on University Challenge. What was the Rio conference and subsequent conferences colloquially called? Bangor Uni ?The Earth Summit?. No says Paxman ? ?earth summits?.

[WorkingMummy]

Why did Cameron fly home and cancel his immediate engagements?

Obviously, cancel appointments to attend her funeral, yes. Give a statement to camera, yes. But down tools immediately and rush home, as if the nation needs leadership to deal with the news???

[Louisa]

Interestingly, I think you'll find that views on her are not as one sided as insinuated by you malibu. Down here in the south of England, she won three consecutive landslide victories and people did not find her as divisive as they did in the north and periphery nations (Scotland, Wales notably). Labour was so far to the left - and the splits on the left with the creation of the SDP, almost saw the extinction of the left in swathes of southern England. The deep divisions are as strong now as they ever were during Thatchers premiership.

Louisa.

[*Bob*]

Most succeeding governments are a product of - a result of and reaction to - the ones that preceded them. The seeds of especially radical or extreme govs are always sown in that which went before.

Most diehard lifelong Labour voters fail to grasp that, ultimately, they made her happen.

[????]

Absolutely, Benn and Scargill are the two individuals most culpable in the rise of Thatcherism, will the twitterati be jumping up and down drinking champagne in mirth when them two dinosaurs pop their clogs I wonder?

[Louisa]

Indeed, Labours dinosaur approach to world economic change during the late 70s allowed Thatcher to gain a majority in 79, and then with the help of the unforeseen Falklands conflict, she was given an unexpected trump card to give her more time to further pursue her agenda. In fact, her majority increased in the 83 election. Following the splits towards the end of her premiership, and most notably under John Major, the seeds were sewn for Tony Blair and his landslide victory in 97 and so the process continued. Labour enhanced Thatcher, and the Tories created Blair.

Louisa.

[DJKillaQueen]

I actually think Louisa makes a good point though about the move from clear left and right politics to a three party system all chasing the centre ground.

Like many people, I liked thatcher to begin with, and ended up hating her. I saw first hand the consequences of some of her policies. She destroyed my father's job (by selling off the public sector service he worked for) and in turn my fathers sanity, when made redundant at 50, he found he was unemployable. And there were millions like my father. Their livelihoods destroyed, and any hope of finding another job gone. These people did not hate Thatcher because of some victim mentality. They hated her because she didn't care about the unemployed (any more than this government do). She strung whole communities out to dry and did nothing to replace the lost industries, jobs, commerce in those areas.

I totally agree though Quids, regarding Benn and Scargill. I'd also throw Derek Hatton into the mix (leader of the Militant Labour council in Liverpool at the time).

[Mick Mac]

It's Ireland I'm interested in of course. Or certainly I only moved to England a year before she retired so most of her reign I expewrienced with no idea I would ever live anywhere else and so its from the Irish perspective that I view her now.

She was the last British PM to fail to see that both sides in Northern Ireland needed to be treated equally. Despite the very obvious signs of the desperation being felt. And the extreme attempts being taken to make democracy listen.

Today Bloomberg compare her to Cromwell.

In Margaret Thatcher's long career, violence in Northern Ireland provided an unrelenting soundtrack. And the conflict did not bring out the best in her.

It showed how the character traits for which she is best remembered had some very dark consequences, and how her celebrated "resolve" often came at a brutally high human and moral cost. In Northern Ireland, in fact, that resolve directly obstructed the cause of peace....

....But Thatcher never took a particularly realistic approach to the hunger strike, or to Northern Ireland generally. As the strikes dragged on, her advisers mulled a plan to "brain wash" a hunger striker to persuade him to give up the cause and upend Republican propaganda. To the larger question of spiraling violence in Northern Ireland, Thatcher proposed a "Cromwell Solution" to her advisers in 1985, in which Catholics in the North would apparently move en masse to the Irish Republic. She also mooted the possibility of redrawing the border separating Northern Ireland from the Irish Republic in a "straight line" to make it easier to defend. These are not the ideas of a realist. They're the ideas of someone who could occasionally show a staggering indifference to human suffering."

[Jeremy]

Good post Mick. I think it's a good time to remind ourselves how Thatcher and the Tory government badly let down vast swathes of the UK. History will not remember her kindly, and rightly so. But I won't join in all the pointless "celebrating" I see on Facebook and elsewhere... her reign ended long ago, her death changes nothing.

[Mick Mac]

Her positive legacy is probably London as a financial centre. From which many have benefitted, and although she lived to see the banking crisis from which we are still recovering, its been a major employer, wealth creator and tax generator for the UK.

[Penguin68]

I can fully understand why many people in the UK will not be mourning Lady T?s passing; in her time she was an intentionally divisive politician with polarising views and an abrasive manner who was quite happy to create enemies where she felt (very often wrongly) that she was in the right. I disliked much of her ?rule? and was happy when she was over-thrown. I worked in one of the industries she privatised, and fought against her actions (although it must be said that the experience of that industry?s customers radically improved post-privatisation, even if that of the workers didn?t).

But I do find it difficult to actively rejoice at the death of an elderly, infirm, confused old woman, deep in the grasp of Alzheimer?s and 10 years at least away from having any actual influence on politics (other than as a brand or icon waved by others). Not mourn, not watch her funeral, yes, but dance in the street? Seems excessive and a pointless waste of political energy. Better to focus on current leaders, not a foxed page of history.

And I do find excessive zeal in celebrating her death grates when it comes from those who weren?t even politically active (in some cases from some interviews, even born) when she was in power.

[Annette Curtain]

Wot ????'s said kinda

I hated Scargill and Benn at the time struck me as all too brown & corduroy. Whereas Ms T seemed so vibrant in comparison, she stood out by miles.

Without those two as her arch rivals, UK politics would't have seemed half as fun back in the grey days of the 70's & 80's

[DulwichFox]

The Best thing Margaret Thatcher gave us was.....

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/gallery/2005/03/23/MargaretThatcher.jpg

S P I T T I N G I M A G E

Foxy

[woodrot]

There are other more pressing issues to deal with that are actually ED relevant, such as the future of the old G&B wine emporium, cookwank on the LL or the summer collection of shabby chic jumble sale scavenged retro rubbish being unveiled at Mrs Robinson this week.get REAL people