Maggie Thatcher has died (3 Viewers)

[SkyblueBazza]

Unfair? Did we invite Sadam over to stay then?

I don't know if we did or not...Saudi's have lauded it up though on more than one occasion - so just selecting ONE (though I'm sure there would be more) to use as argument is not quite fair. What I'm saying is ALL governments do that for what they see as a benefit to their own country.

 

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[Delboycov]

Ghost town was only two years into her first overnment, the 70s and the demise of the car industry (under labur unionists who were too stuck in their ways ti change) was the reason for coventry's problems before thatcher came to power.unions had too much power our car industry that we created and allowed the germans to take to the next level could and should have been our kegacy but we were too blind to see it. My dad was at the jag and spoent most of the 70s on strike with a young family and eventually gave in to choose a different job like many others were frced to.

As Lynval Golding said tonight if there was no Thatcher there would be no 2 Tone and they never would've had a reason to voice the discontent of a large percentage of the nation which Thatcher couldn't give a toss about.

The unions did need bringing into line no doubt about it....but Thatcher went too far and crushed them and with it the rights of the ordinary working class man and woman. I remember joining the CT in 89...very much a Tory mouthpiece in those days... and being told there was no union there....membership of one was frowned upon and people had to make their own arrangements outside the company. Employees had no representation which summed up Thatcher's Britain where aspirational working class people voted for her thinking that they were somehow going to improve their lives under her leadership but many found themselves jobless,homeless and hopeless. Women voted for her as they believed that women's rights would be at the forefront of her thinking. It wasn't.

My own personal irritation with her policies was when I got my 1st poxy wage as a teenager and found out that 60% of it had to be paid in Poll Tax...It was a bit of a shock when I found out I had to pay the same as someone earning 100 times what I earned...Great leader my arse.

 

[rob9872]

I'll give you some of that, I don't think even her staunchest supporters agreed with the poll tax. A massive own goal and ultimately her undoing.

However I think goldings history is clouded as two tone was already beginning as she came to power and had gone before the end of her first term, so I don't think she can be credited with any of tat, more a movement f the ims whoever had been in powr

 

[Flying Fokker]

As Lynval Golding said tonight if there was no Thatcher there would be no 2 Tone and they never would've had a reason to voice the discontent of a large percentage of the nation which Thatcher couldn't give a toss about.

The unions did need bringing into line no doubt about it....but Thatcher went too far and crushed them and with it the rights of the ordinary working class man and woman. I remember joining the CT in 89...very much a Tory mouthpiece in those days... and being told there was no union there....membership of one was frowned upon and people had to make their own arrangements outside the company. Employees had no representation which summed up Thatcher's Britain where aspirational working class people voted for her thinking that they were somehow going to improve their lives under her leadership but many found themselves jobless,homeless and hopeless. Women voted for her as they believed that women's rights would be at the forefront of her thinking. It wasn't.

My own personal irritation with her policies was when I got my 1st poxy wage as a teenager and found out that 60% of it had to be paid in Poll Tax...It was a bit of a shock when I found out I had to pay the same as someone earning 100 times what I earned...Great leader my arse.

It was not as clear cut as that with unions. Manufacturers sometimes created shortages so that they could lay staff off. Well documented. Chrysler/ rover/triumph/bl all needed bringing in to line but it was not all the unions fault.

 

[Flying Fokker]

All this is very different to when St Mandela pops his clogs and we have a year of enforced grief and fawning. Any sick or negative comments and opinions such as these probably wont be allowed to see the light of day.

Yes she got a lot wrong but all this shit is just populist look at me I m so right on crap. Still as long as none of you are enjoying the trappings of capitalism

You mean People actually like Mandela? I saw an episode the other day and he had just come out of hospital. He does not warrant all the news coverage, is sick and is paraded in front of cameras. Where's the dignity?

 

[Grendel]

Unfair? Did we invite Sadam over to stay then?

Well no but we have actually invited mcguiness and Adams for tea and cake and made them peace envoys. Now that would never have happened then. In sure if Saddam and Bin Laden had not met the ire of the Americans then indeed they would both eventually be having tea and crumpets at number 10.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

I have to say, I was shocked when the news came out, but, I didn't really care tbh, she was half dead anyway, I'm certainly not mourning - that's for sure. What I will say is this:

- Most interesting comment is the assumption she was a 'great leader', was she? What 'great leader' has to resign under party pressure? Most 'great leaders have at least a faction that are willing to fight to the bitter end, Maggie got advised by her cabinet not to carry on, she resigned. Churchill didn't get ousted like that, he got unelected. Hitler had his faction loyal to the end, Napoleon had a strong contingency at the end, they were great leaders - she wasn't. May I add, Hugo Chavez was a great leader who profoundly changed Venezuela for the better and I don't feel he got the credit he deserves and I sincerely hope there is a left movement in the UK with a similar, or even more radical ideology and policy than him, a true political hero for the workers' as shown when the bourgeoisie toppled him, only for the workers' to strike and get him back.

- Also, Maggie was overly hegemonic, her cabinet was made up of 'yes men', which was a poor political move as that was always going to create factions in the party which ended up bringing her down, she used the police as an instrument of the state ruthlessly disposing any opposition in a Hitler/Stalinesque manner e.g. The miners strike were excessively brutal. Ironic because the way she 'bashed' Communism about being undemocratic etc. she was as undemocratic as you could get in a country that is 'democratic'.

- had the Labour Party been organised and united, she would've been destroyed as a political force early on.

Most overrated UK politician I've come across yet (albeit that isn't too large a pallet).

 

[Colonel Mustard]

I think a lot of people need to look at labour who created our benefits culture which everyone is quick to moan about.

 

[rob9872]

Unlike hitler she was democratically elected. I see only those unable to fold their hand in hitler and napolean, how is their futile attempt at holding onto power when they were clearly defeated more dignified, to me that show a blind inability to know when you're beat. Democratically elected anbd removed at a time when she (post poll tax) had rightly loist the respect of her colleagues. The end game shouldn tarnish what went before and what we are still seeig the benefits of today. Know when to hold em and know when to fold them.

Unrelated and two interesting observations having just seen the news coverage: firstly the amount of young people who wouldnt have known her rule, celebrating her death in Scotland. The other report was from an ex-miners wife behind her big gated house calling her scum. Noit only did that look like she has flourished since, which I guess unlikelky n a miners wage/community, but she is enjoying the fruits of wealth whilst condemning it. Complete hypocrisy.

 

[rob9872]

Directly proprtionate to immigration. Coincidence?

 

[rob9872]

** not the trend btw, just the end comparative figures, as many of the range are always distorted depending on which picture is required to be painted.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

Directly proprtionate to immigration. Coincidence?

I'm not sure how you can pin immigration on such dramatic figures. The charts are about the contrasting effects of MT's economic policies.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Unlike hitler she was democratically elected. I see only those unable to fold their hand in hitler and napolean, how is their futile attempt at holding onto power when they were clearly defeated more dignified, to me that show a blind inability to know when you're beat. Democratically elected anbd removed at a time when she (post poll tax) had rightly loist the respect of her colleagues. The end game shouldn tarnish what went before and what we are still seeig the benefits of today. Know when to hold em and know when to fold them.

Unrelated and two interesting observations having just seen the news coverage: firstly the amount of young people who wouldnt have known her rule, celebrating her death in Scotland. The other report was from an ex-miners wife behind her big gated house calling her scum. Noit only did that look like she has flourished since, which I guess unlikelky n a miners wage/community, but she is enjoying the fruits of wealth whilst condemning it. Complete hypocrisy.

Hitler was elected democratically though, well, his Nazi party became the most popular in Germany and entered coalition, then passed the Enabling Act to effectively become dictator of Germany after President Hindenburg died.

Napoleon was unlucky, he got to Moscow, he pretty much had the world at his feet, he retreated back to France and was chased back, NOT beat back like the Nazis. I also mentioned Chavez, who was far more popular and radical than Thatcher but didn't get the global coverage. There would've been many on the right celebrating his death.

Why can't young people hate Thatcher just because they did live during her premiership? Does the same apply to Hitler, am I not allowed to hate Hitler because I weren't alive at that time?

 

[Tad]

Here come the media bandwagon. They'll be chewing on this for a while now. Saying how "great she was" or "a true leader". What a farce. As a person, I feel sorry for her family, but that's it. Some of her actions have had an awful effect on this country.

Directly proprtionate to immigration. Coincidence?

I said this earlier on. Thatcher destroyed the lower working class, then the muppets in labour came along and quickly filled the void with cheap immigrants who can't do the job at a high enough standard.

 

[Grendel]

Why can't young people hate Thatcher just because they did live during her premiership? Does the same apply to Hitler, am I not allowed to hate Hitler because I weren't alive at that time?

I'm searching the recesses of memory banks and cannot recall thatcher being responsible for the slaughter of 6 million individuals.

 

[Otis]

I guess you'll hate Blair even more then? He took this country to war for someone else's popularity!!!

The Falklands was a British territory occupied by someone else...will you welcome the Romanian gypsies into your garden to settle there when/if the floodgate opens?

Thing is, under Thatcher's government we were under discussions with Argentina to let them have the Falklands back before the outbreak and invasion.

 

[Otis]

Ohh and I worked for a subsidiary of British Coal and lived and worked through the miners strike so I knew how vindictive and spiteful woman she truly was. I saw families torn apart and brothers and fathers and sons not speak to each other for 20 years following the event.

Thatcher sent the police in to quell the pickets and the police under her orders attacked miners and then falsified accounts of their actions. This has since been proved in court.


'On 18 June 1984, the day of the most notorious confrontation, police were filmed attacking miners then claimed they were attacked first, Wright recorded: "The evidence-gathering team comprised one detective inspector, one detective sergeant, and four detective constables." It has never been revealed who these officers or the more senior commanding officers were, nor if any were then involved in what has been labelled the black propaganda unit which conducted the campaign to falsely blame the Liverpool supporters for the Hillsborough disaster.'

Not a single conviction was secured for riot or unlawful assembly in three separate trials of 124 miners.



Thatcher was a hateful, nasty piece of work and surely the worst ever British Prime Minister in modern history. Brown was incompetent and Bliar a liar, but she was just a hateful, vindictive individual.

All I hear this morning is how much she loved her country. Well, I'm sure Adolf Hitler loved Austria and Germany.

I think in the coming months and years we are going to hear a lot of revelations about the so called Iron Lady.

 

[Tad]

Ohh and I worked for a subsidiary of British Coal and lived and worked through the miners strike so I knew how vindictive and spiteful woman she truly was. I saw families torn apart and brothers and fathers and sons not speak to each other for 20 years following the event.

Thatcher sent the police in to quell the pickets and the police under her orders the police attacked miners and falsified accounts of their actions. This has since been proved in court.

Thatcher was a hateful, nasty piece of work and surely the worst ever British Prime Minister in modern history. Brown was incompetent and Bliar a liar, but she was just a hateful, vindictive individual.

All I hear this morning is how much she loved her country. Well, I'm sure Adolf Hitler loved Austria and Germany.

I think in the coming months and years we are going to hear a lot of revelations about the so called Iron Lady.

I don't think some people realise how bad she was too those poor families. I wasn't around when it happened, but where I lived I saw the everlasting damage it caused. To this day, some area's have failed to fully recover. It isn't just about getting another job. Physiologically, she damaged people for years to come.

I don't trust Labour or Torres, I'd rather have someone else in charge and a total system change, but it won't happen.

 

[torchomatic]

True, she hasn's slaughtered that many. But she's destroyed just as many lives in other ways.

I'm searching the recesses of memory banks and cannot recall thatcher being responsible for the slaughter of 6 million individuals.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Ultimately Taylor neither of us lived through her time in charge so we can't say for sure just how good or bad she was. All we can go off is her legacy which was to have all wealth concentrated in one sector in one part of the country and to sod everywhere else. Every man for himself.

 

[Otis]

That's exactly what it was.

Anyone who lived through those times saw a see-change of behaviour and greed became at the forefront.

If Thatcher was a great leader, how come the Conservative party distanced themselves from her for so long. The T word was pretty much banned.

I have never come across a more hated leader and there will be parties and celebrations across the length of these isles at her demise. So many lives destroyed under her watch.

 

[SkyBlueHomer]

Anyone see the interview with Anne Widdecombe & Derek Hatton on daybreak, somes up opinion perfectly got very heated. Still think people celebrating her death is sick but the the plans for her funeral are just as sick. Heard a comment yesterday that the only politician in recent memory that has received the same funeral as she will get is Winston Churchill & that not right....

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

That's exactly what it was.

Anyone who lived through those times saw a see-change of behaviour and greed became at the forefront.

If Thatcher was a great leader, how come the Conservative party distanced themselves from her for so long. The T word was pretty much banned.

I have never come across a more hated leader and there will be parties and celebrations across the length of these isles at her demise. So many lives destroyed under her watch.

Just seen a BBC clip of 'Thatcher's best moments'. Not a single miner or unemployed to be seen.

 

[Delboycov]

Just seen a BBC clip of 'Thatcher's best moments'. Not a single miner or unemployed to be seen.

General Pinochet appear much?

 

[Otis]

Only a clip of the pair singing 'You've got a friend in me' with a hat and a cane at a Tory party conference.

 

[Delboycov]

I'll give you some of that, I don't think even her staunchest supporters agreed with the poll tax. A massive own goal and ultimately her undoing.

However I think goldings history is clouded as two tone was already beginning as she came to power and had gone before the end of her first term, so I don't think she can be credited with any of tat, more a movement f the ims whoever had been in powr

From my memory Lynval got it right Rob. Thatcher was destroying people's lives at the height of 2 Tone and pretty much the whole movement were as one in opposition to her unjust policies. I remember The Beat releasing a song called 'Stand down Margaret' which was a feeling echoed by many who suffered at her hands. "Ghost Town" itself will always be Thatcher's theme song for me...a backdrop of mass unemployment, the worst rioting the country had seen in generations, a society which had been encouraged to trample on each other to get what they wanted and forget any sense of community spirit and social consciousness. Most of the gushing tributes I've read focus on her "showing the Argies who was boss". My opinion is that she'd got blood on her hands with that one as there is strong evidence to suggest The Falklands was a needless and avoidable conflict which she instigated to pump up jingoistic national fervour so she could save herself from an inevitable hammering at the polls. She was also culpable in the covering up of the truth about Hillsborough so all in all not someone worthy of a £million state funeral to my mind!

 

[SkyblueBazza]

Anyone see the interview with Anne Widdecombe & Derek Hatton on daybreak, somes up opinion perfectly got very heated. Still think people celebrating her death is sick but the the plans for her funeral are just as sick. Heard a comment yesterday that the only politician in recent memory that has received the same funeral as she will get is Winston Churchill & that not right....

I recall the good AND the bad associates with her reign. Always thought she was a great leader in so much as she took some pretty tough decisions on some things which needed to be made...& did her upmost to see them through.
Whether liked or not - PM must be a "no win" job & all those that try it deserve respect. Lets face it - what justifies a state funeral? Probably leading us to victory in battle to protect our nation from forced foreign rule. Churchill state funeral - yes. Led our state to victory (yes with allies) over an evil dictatorship. Thatcher regained an outpost (for the oil yet to come probably), & kept EU vultures at bay. Personally I don't think a state funeral should be afforded, the tasks were incomparable.

 

[torchomatic]

Or F.W. De Klerk?

General Pinochet appear much?

 

[SkyblueBazza]

Thing is, under Thatcher's government we were under discussions with Argentina to let them have the Falklands back before the outbreak and invasion.

Well, I might have a discussion about letting my neighbour rip up my border fence so he can build a wall. If I come home the following evening to find the footings are laid before I have given express agreement - I'd punch his lights out & make him put the fence back!

 

[torchomatic]

The early 1980s saw a period of deep economic stress in Britain. The newly elected Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher was savagely cutting back spending across the board in Britain. Some of these cuts would send very mixed messages to the Argentinians who sensed that perhaps British opinion was moving away from supporting the Falkland Islanders. The British government announced that it was closing down the Antarctic Research station on the nearby island of South Georgia. John Nott, the Minister for Defence, announced sweeping cuts in the Royal Navy including the withdrawal of the Antarctic Research vessel HMS Endurance from service and making it clear that it would not be replaced. Perhaps the most baffling decision was the withdrawal of Full British Citizenship for the islanders. This had actually been introduced to prevent a massive influx from Hong Kong before its return to China, but the rules were applied to all the British dependencies and possibly helped convince the Argentinians that British commitment to the islands was beginning to wear thin. These signals helped the Argentine generals convince themselves that the British might not have the resolve to recover the islands by force should the Argentines be able to seize them.

 

[rob9872]

Belittling the conflict itself shows a lack of respect and understanding to the British soldiers that were killed and wounded, not to mention that HMS Coventry was lost.

Clearly there is divided opinion on MT as a PM, there was throughout her time and undoubtedly I expected a lot of this at her death, but the many comparisons on this thread to Hitler would be laughable if they weren't so insulting.

 

[Otis]

Well, I might have a discussion about letting my neighbour rip up my border fence so he can build a wall. If I come home the following evening to find the footings are laid before I have given express agreement - I'd punch his lights out & make him put the fence back!

Yeah, but Bazza you are missing my point.

I agree with what you say, but the rhetoric from Thatcher at the time was that the Falklands was British through and through and belonged to us and was British sovereign country. A sort of 'over our dead bodies' and 'we'll fight them on the beaches' attitude

Yet just before this she was negotiating to hand the islands back.

This then therefore very much doubts the sincerity of her words during the conflict.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Only a clip of the pair singing 'You've got a friend in me' with a hat and a cane at a Tory party conference.

Would've been better if she did a Benny Hill sketch with Arthur Scargill.

 

[rob9872]

Her words during the conflict were clearly propaganda, but then as a politician you would expect them to be so, but that doesn't make the reason to defend any less justifiable.

 

[Ashdown1]

I'm not sure we've had a decent, honest and truly impartial statesman or woman in charge of the UK or any other government around the world in my lifetime. If there has been they've probably been bumped off. Human nature and its traits of greed, vanity, power lust and personal advancement have ensured we have had whole successions of career politicians lining their own pockets. No-one worse than the Blairs though { Who I helped vote into power} and I hated that nation destroying idiot Brown as well. What's the solution ??