Celebrate the passing of Ms Thatcher

[reggie]

The interview with Saatchi above is revealing.

He says, in answer to the question 'why did Thatcher seem to lack heart ( in the allowing of so much unemployment etc)', that she wanted to make the UK 'great'. To play with people's lives in the hope to make your country 'great' sounds crude and dangerous. The comparison with Germany's unification is telling. Where the Germans have clearly made their country 'great' but with the bringing together not dividing of its people.

[Marmora Man]

PeckhamRose Wrote:

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> Courtesy of Steve North on Facebook (and I agree

> with it):

> Whatever you think of Thatcher she divided this

> country in so many ways. Why the @#$%& should she

> get what is essentially a state funeral when so

> many people in this country hated her and what she

> stood for? Do we not all have a voice or a say?

> She decimated communities in the North of England.

> She sold the Falkland Islanders down the river by

> ignoring their concerns and denying them British

> citizenship and then used the ensuing fallout of

> conflict to win the 1983 election. She called

> Mandela and the ANC terroists. She encouraged the

> police to lay into miners, shipworkers, all kinds

> of protestors, by giving them huge overtime

> payments and backing them to the hilt even when

> they were completely in the wrong. She called the

> miners who'd dug coal and powered this country

> "the enemy within". She allowed mass unemployment

> to be an acceptable result of severe economic

> policy. She encouraged a get rich culture based on

> banking and lending to become our major industry

> whilst completely running down our once great

> manufacturing base. So when we buy a stupid

> single, or protest against her funeral, we aren't

> disrespecting an old woman. If it was a low key,

> marked event in the nature of Harold Wilson's or

> Heaths, fair enough. But if they're going to give

> her the status of a mass state worship shoved in

> our faces then too many of us resent that her

> legacy isn't being shown up for what it was. The

> most divisive period in British politics in recent

> times. You want respect, you earn it.

PR - you may agree with it, but a rational historian would not recognise the caricature of that period that Steve North (who is he) draws. As ???? has said - the Conservatives under her leadership won three elections in a row with significant majorities so a hell of lot of didn't hate her or her policies.

Edited to add: I hadn't seen Hugenot's or other similar responses to this post.

[numbers]

There was a documentary on C4 this eve, Margaret Thatcher: Death of a Revolutionary.

"Like North Korea without the hope" - Britain in the 70s. Sorry but it made me laugh.

If you can avoid shouting at the screen when Polly Toynbee appears, barely able to disguise her contempt for the 'working classes' who wanted to get on in life.

Learned quite a lot from watching this, I never fully used to understand her* appeal to the working classes if I'm honest. Even Neil Kinnock couldn't answer whether Britain was a better place before or after she came into power. Very interesting stuff.

edit - Thatcher, not Toynbee.

[????]

..it's called aspiration, and middle class socialists have never got it.

[????]

...after all, it threatens their cosy priveliged positions

[Atticus]

Forget Ding Dong...

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=1WhhSBgd3KI&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1WhhSBgd3KI

[Marmora Man]

Tonight's BBC News: 300 - 500 protesters at Trafalgar Square, scarcely a mass demonstration of support for the obsessed left?

[LadyDeliah]

The Thatcher family are millionaires. Why should I pay for the witch's funeral?

[Voyageur]

LadyDeliah Wrote:

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> The Thatcher family are millionaires. Why should

> I pay for the witch's funeral?

HUGE yawn.....

[woodrot]

Whats the difference between Hitler and Thatchers tenure ?

Hitler had the sense to top himself when his 12 years as leader was up

( see what I did there - a little bit of politics - to liven things up a bit - off you go )

[????]

Never gonna work from you Snorky, 2/10

[woodrot]

Im sorry. I have considered my poor quality joke and its all wrong. I should have used "decency" rather than "sense" in the badly constructed punchline. I apolsgise.

[Santerme]

woodrot Wrote:

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> Whats the difference between Hitler and Thatchers

> tenure ?

>

> Hitler had the sense to top himself when his 12

> years as leader was up

>

>

> ( see what I did there - a little bit of politics

> - to liven things up a bit - off you go )

Larger yawn

[Loz]

I think Snorky just Godwinned the thread.

[BrandNewGuy]

As others have said, it would be tedious to 'Fisk' all of Steve North's diatribe, but one aspect of the 'Thatcher legacy' mishmash of the last week that needs nailing is the idea that Thatcher engineered or at least used the Falklands War to go from being 'the most unpopular PM in history' to winning a landslide in 1983. Hey, if the saintly Glenda can say, 'I had to speak out to stop history being re-written,' then so can I...

Here's some detailed polling information from 1976 to 1987:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=2449

The key points about what happened between 1981 and 1983 would seem to be:

1. Labour were not miles ahead in the polls before the Falklands War broke out in April '82.

In early '81, at the depths of the recession, Labour was at least 10% ahead in the polls, but by Dec '81-Feb '82 (two months before the War started), the lead was down to between 0 and 3% and their average poll rating was 31% - barely 3% more than their showing in the '83 general election and less than the 33-36% they were polling from October '82 to Feb '83.

2. The revisionist reading completely ignores the huge impact of the SDP / Alliance on the years from '81 to '83.

Between November '81 and the outbreak of the war, the combined Alliance polling was between 30 and 44%, but after this honeymoon period it was the Tories who benefited from a decline in Alliance support rather than Labour. There's no evidence that this had anything to do with Falklands.

3. The economy (in GDP terms) was picking up from the depth of the '80-'81 recession and by early '83 was showing strong growth. Despite their best intentions, many people vote with their wallets and Thatcher benefited from this in '83.

4. Labour did not put up a credible platform for voters outside their core constituencies, without which they couldn't hope to win power.

[For what it's worth, I'm not a Tory, I've never voted Tory and in the 80s I was a Labour Party member, campaigned on the doorstep for the party, held collecting tins for miners' families and was active in CND.]

[edited for sp.]

[LadyDeliah]

Voyageur Wrote:

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> LadyDeliah Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > The Thatcher family are millionaires. Why

> should

> > I pay for the witch's funeral?

>

> HUGE yawn.....

Public services being cut and my taxes are going to pay for this disgusting piece of crap's funeral despite her familiy's massive wealth and recently revealed dodgy tax crimes.

Seriously makes me sick.

[LadyDeliah]

Marmora Man Wrote:

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> Tonight's BBC News: 300 - 500 protesters at

> Trafalgar Square, scarcely a mass demonstration of

> support for the obsessed left?

Actually authoritative estimates of who turned up are between 2,000 - 3,000. Plus don't forget the protests in Liverpool, Belfast, Glasgow etc.

[Loz]

LadyDeliah Wrote:

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

> Marmora Man Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Tonight's BBC News: 300 - 500 protesters at

> > Trafalgar Square, scarcely a mass demonstration of

> > support for the obsessed left?

>

>

> Actually authoritative estimates of who turned up are between 2,000 - 3,000. Plus don't forget the

> protests in Liverpool, Belfast, Glasgow etc.

Coincidentally, 3000 is about the average crowd at a Cheltenham Town match this year. That's how big that is.

Hardly the Manchester United of protests, was it?

[LadyDeliah]

I didn't say it was. I was just correcting MM's post. However, I wanted to go but heard about the likely heavy handed policing. I can't afford to get arrested do I stayed at home. I imagine there were others who felt the same as I did.

[Santerme]

Marmora Man Wrote:

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> rgutsell Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Hallo everyone

>

> I am very pleased that my thread has produced such

> a fertile, creative, and entertaining response.

>

> My own family want me to shut up and stop

> ranting!

>

> Glenda Jacksons speech was excellent and bravely

> undertaken in isolation. What a stark contrast

> herapproach is to that of Ms Thatcher et al.

> Jackson for PM anyone?

>

> I think I will head for the Magdalene wed eve, and

> metaphoricaly tip some beer over Thatchers grave.

>

> From MM:

>

> I personally will raise a glass in tribute to one

> of the most effective post war Prime Ministers we

> have seen. My first 10 adult years were between

> 1970 and 1980. That grey, dismal and utterly

> uninspiring decade was reversed under the

> Conservative government that she led. Her

> government made mistakes, not least in attempting

> to downsize the Royal Navy at the height of the

> Cold War, a decision that arguably contributed to

> the Argentine invasion of the Faklands, but on the

> whole the government she led got it about 75%

> right - which is a pretty good outcome for

> politicians.

>

> The personalisation of her period as PM,

> attributing every decision (good or bad) to her

> alone is ridiculous - while the continued

> demonisation of her by the left is, to me, barely

> understandable. Her government made decisions

> that, in hindsight, almost every other politician

> would have been forced to make given world

> economic forces. The suggestion that without

> Margaret Thatcher there would still be happy

> northern communities of miners and steel workers,

> gathering in their working men's clubs or around

> their racing pigeon lofts and indulging in clog

> dancing to colliery brass bands at weekends is

> pure fantasy. In 1979 deep mined (ie UK

> nationalised) coal was costing > ?130/ton to

> produce while it was fetching ?35/ton on world

> markets - an unsustainable commercial proposition.

> I remember my first car - a rust bucket

> (nationalised) British Leyland Maestro - I could

> afford to buy it as a student because it was

> worth, three years old, about 10% of its purchase

> price due to rust and mechanical problems. That

> was the reality that the incoming government was

> faced with.

>

> Time is meant to lend perspective, the Thatcher is

> Dead celebratory parties by those who were, in

> general, far too young to have even lived under

> her governments let alone been affected by them

> are just weird. If those participating had an

> ounce of gumption they would be making real

> political points in today's political arena not

> dancing around the effigy of a politician who last

> wielded power in 1990.

>

> As for Glenda Jackson - her speech was more a

> spiteful, shrewish and cowardly rant than a

> considered political demolition of a, once upon a

> time, opponent. Lord Howe's resignation speech in

> 1990 was both a far more effective attack and also

> far more brave as he didn't wait until Margaret

> Thatcher had died.

Eloquent MM, nicely said!

[Otta]

For the argument about the cost of the funeral, I kind of agree that it's a bit much when services are being cut.

However, ?10m whilst a massive amount of money to any of us, is nothing in the grand scheme. It wouldn't save much in the way of public services.

[woodrot]

fuck it.

[Michael Palaeologus]

AND ANOTHER THING!!!!!!!;

They (by which I mean *The Man*) are re-routing Peoples-bus-in-deepest-red number 176 because of the fascist-capitalist running dog's funeral!!!!

Clearly an attempt to undermine the mobility of the comrade-cadres' in their glorious fight for freedom.

[the-e-dealer]

The 24 which I use every day to get to work. Is "Curtailed". On Wednesday My Hard Luck. I'm Just another victim of Thatcherism!

[woodrot]

I hear the bellenden National Socialists blood and soil shopkeepers and retailers are holding their onw procession at the same time. best make alternate travel arrangements if you are in the area.