Margaret Thatcher Dead

I'm as indifferent towards her in death as i was when she was alive and yes, i was there....well right up until the point where my old man took us out of the country because there was sod all here after Labour had ruined it (sound familiar?).

My sympathies are with her Children who have now lost both of their parents.

I was around before the seventies(& the sixties for that matter). I tend to agree with 'Brummie & the robot devil, while I wouldn't condone speaking ill of the dead you have to have respect for her son & daughter.
Margaret thatchter did create greed & a look after 'number1' culture I remember the 'yuppie's in the city when thousands were being made redundant,saying what resession drinking their champagne then driving home in ferrari's & porsche 911's. I for one will not miss her. Even today most of the money made in the uk is still in the south east, this lot of posh boys Cameron, Osbourne & the like just don't care,taking money of those that can ill afford it.

(08-04-2013 22:20 )Rogergilford54 Wrote:  I was around before the seventies(& the sixties for that matter). I tend to agree with 'Brummie & the robot devil, while I wouldn't condone speaking ill of the dead you have to have respect for her son & daughter.
Margaret thatchter did create greed & a look after 'number1' culture I remember the 'yuppie's in the city when thousands were being made redundant,saying what resession drinking their champagne then driving home in ferrari's & porsche 911's. I for one will not miss her. Even today most of the money made in the uk is still in the south east, this lot of posh boys Cameron, Osbourne & the like just don't care,taking money of those that can ill afford it.

Sorry, but respect for her son, you must be havln a laugh. If it hadnt been for his mother, the little turd and his cronies would have been indited for plotting to over throw a mineral rich African country. He's banned from entering the USA, undesirable alien they said.

Any one that critizises her for creating a greed me myself I culture are being injenous and missing the point.

EVERYBODY wants to be rich and have a money care free life and set their family up for life, including everybody on here, that's natural. What her govrenment showed that EVERYBODY could if they worked hard enough. People only now see the loadsamoney and the yuppie culture and seem to think ALL the country was like that. It was no more like than then the carnaby street swinging scene was representative of all the country in the sixties. It is no different to the america idiology that anyone who works hard enough can achive anything and become president they just call it the American dream.

I notice nobody has pointed out that she was absolutely pivital in getting the cold war ended. She like and could see the west could 'do buisness with' Gorbachov. She then went and basically told Regan to deal with him, 5 or 6 years later, Berlin wall was down.

Be under no illusions, the world today is not in econonimical crisis because of anything she did, it's like that because of the houseing bubble burst, targeting people who could not aford to pay morgages and then sold those unpaid morgaes on to get rich. People should watch a wonderful film called 'Inside Job', and educate them self as to where the real problem lies today. As for anything else the qaulity of life now for the poorest would be more akin to a middle class family back then. A car or even a phone to every house simply was not heard off, let alone a car, phone, mobile,computer, sky for every member of the household.

As somebody once said - 'you never had it so good'.

(08-04-2013 22:20 )Rogergilford54 Wrote:  Even today most of the money made in the uk is still in the south east, this lot of posh boys Cameron

It always was, due to the capital, and one of the finantial capitals of the world being there.

Look on the bright side, they are paying all the taxes in the south east to keep us impoverished northerners from eating our whippets.

I really don't think a lot of people from down south understand the quality of life in the north, all they see is camera men running to the run down estates becasue it makes better footage.

Now I was only a kid growing up in the 1980's. I really didn't have a lot of political knowledge back then but what I can recall from that era too is the totally unfair distributution of wealth.

The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer and unemployment was at an all time high, not to mention the fuckng Poll Tax. My mother still managed to give me pocket money however every Saturday despite the fact that she wasn't the best finacially off at that time.

One thing that sticks out from the 80's was when Bob Geldof had to pleed with Thatcher to have all the money made from the band aid Christmas single to be given to charity. The PM up to that point you see would not budge on the issue of the 17 and a half VAT percentage going to the government.

Thatcher and the tories did absolutely nothing to help anybody else in desperate need such as the starving people in Ethiopia. It took Band Aid followed by Live Aid aswell as the BBC to increase public awareness of the situation.

Thatcher supported Apartheid africa and referred to Nelson Mandela as a terrorist. Thatcher also supported the Berlin Wall and opposed in every way a reunified Germany.

So reading from the posts it's very understandable why opinion is so divided on all of this.

I can't say I'm particularly sorry to hear the news. However, while I certainly don't shed a tear for passing, neither do I turn cartwheels or break out the bunting either. She was to Politics, what the fictional Gordon Gecko was to finance; egotistical, without compassion and as former members of her own cabinet discovered during her leadership, often a bully. I believe that by 1979, the UK had become sick of an impotent Labour government which was influenced too much by unions. It was almost inevitable then, that the opposition was going to win irrespective of who was at the helm. She had the opportunity to fix what was truly a broken Britain, but I think that responsibility was forgotten somewhere along the way.

Given her roots, it seems incredible that she cared so little for the 'everyman', the ordinary people who made up the majority of the UK. Going back to the Gordon Gecko comparison, their "Greed is good" credo was only ever going to benefit a very small percentage of the country's citizens. Greed is only good if everyone has the same opportunity to profit and most importantly, that it does not come at the expense of others. However, the distribution of wealth has never been equal and while this belief holds sway, never will be.

The Miners' Strike and the violence which accompanied it was one of, if not THE lowest moment for the UK during the 80's. I have never been of the opinion that strikes were sensible or productive methods of protest, but then I also think that using the Police as a battering ram was not the best way of dealing with it either. I do understand that people were fighting for their jobs, their livelihoods and the continued existence of whole communities in some cases though. Placed in that position, I honestly can't say I wouldn't do the same. As for the Poll Tax, well that was her 'Waterloo' and in my opinion, deservedly so. As the oft used comparison of the time said, 'Why should a dustman pay the same as a Duke?' If there had been any doubt as to her feelings towards the less affluent of the electorate, this was the act which proved that she couldn't care less.

Did she, as some have suggested, go to war with Argentina to score political points at home? No, because despite what peoples' opinions are about whether we should be there or not, they were considered part of the UK and therefore had to be defended. I'm not going to enter the 'Should we or shouldn't we be there' debate! It can't possibly have been an easy decision, but the result was a feel-good factor to the 'nth' degree and the next election in the bag. Who knows what would have happened without the Falklands conflict?

It's been said also that she was a trail blazer for women in politics. Now, she WAS the Prime Minister so in one sense, that obviously is true...to an extent. I haven't Googled and frankly I can't be buggered wading through page after page, but I think she only ever appointed one woman to her cabinet in 11 years of power. PLEASE CORRECT ME IF THAT'S WRONG THOUGH. Equally, rather than pave the way for another woman at the top in politics, there are many who think she almost irrevocably damaged the potential for another female PM. After all, she was a woman who carried herself like a man and to be honest, had bigger balls than her male counterparts. Therein lies the problem though, as I think her over compensation was extremely damaging not just to her, but to the cause of women in politics after she was gone. I'm sure that will change over time because it must, but perhaps later rather than sooner.

So did she do things right? It would be wrong to say she did all of the time, just as it would be wrong to say the opposite. Was it wrong to privatise so much of our business? The truth is somewhere between yes and no, as while I can appreciate that state run businesses are costly and a distraction from running the country, privatisation carries the risk of profit before quality of service, or duty of care. Atos and G4S are prime examples of private companies being contracted by the state to the tune of 100's of millions, but making a balls up of the job!

The funny thing is though, Cameron and the ConDems have managed to fuck over far more people, but have played the game so brilliantly that they have avoided their own Poll Tax moment with Welfare Reform. In fact, I'm betting that Dave is secretly thanking God for Maggie's demise at this particular time, one week after the welfare caps/bedroom tax and a day after the top rate of tax drops 5p in the £ for the super rich. Lucky bastard!

I didn't like her and I care less for the legacy she left, because 22 years after she was kicked out, people are still fighting over this woman. I find that incredible. I won't miss her, Scotland won't miss her and I dare say that much of Northern England won't either.

We won't bloody forget her either though!

Thank you very much for my nomination in
Best Cap or Cap Set Of The Year 2013
for Dannii Harwood Posts 781 & 782

Well done shady thats great post and puts into words the feelings i have about the women.

Some of the problems were created by her but she cant take all the blame because labour kept those policies seems to me it follows on Labour spend the money and then the conservatives have to balance the books. then the circle goes round again

While I am certainly no fan of hers, her policies or what she did to the country I will not gloat over her death. She was right to tackle the unions, who, unelected by the population had far too much power in the 70's and were in danger of killing the nation. The way she did it and the lengths the tories went to are certainly questionable at the least but to rejoice at this moment is sickening and does nothing to promote her many detractors. That is an abhorrent thing for people to do. I have just seen footage of students dancing over her picture on the news. I doubt any of these poor, hard pressed, little darlings were hardly even born when she was in power.
The real painful legacy is not so much what she did but the fact that the current bunch of rich social, elitists led by Cameron think that everything she did was the blue print for a modern Britain. Cameron and his cronies are far more damaging to all our long term futures!

(09-04-2013 07:26 )HannahsPet Wrote:  Well done shady thats great post and puts into words the feelings i have about the

Thanks mate. Like I say, no love for her here but no need to piss on her grave either. She's gone, so all of us need to just move on I reckon

Thank you very much for my nomination in
Best Cap or Cap Set Of The Year 2013
for Dannii Harwood Posts 781 & 782