Thatcher Dead

[NJS 3977]

Answer this.

 

Without Thatcher, the unions left to rule the roost, what would have happened?

 

You haven't explained why they needed to strike if they were running the country.

 

Some of the practices in industry in the UK were outdated in hindsight but you don't know the reasons behind them. My grandfather used to work in the shipyards in the 20s and 30s when workers were hired on a day to day basis picked out of a crowd by a foreman so union power evolved to ensure a bloke had a trade and so would have job security. How would you support your family if your car was allocated to one of a few blokes out of a crowd depending on the mood/bribe received of a foreman?

 

Of course this is exactly what they now want a return to - will you be happy then?

[Tom 13834]

Thatchers private army savagely beating the working class?

[Craig 6302]

One day when she will be remembered as what she was - a traitor to her country in favour of the international elite.

 

Good point. Her stance on Pinochet was disgraceful!

[NJS 3977]

 

or the power cuts?

 

Heath

[Monroe Transfer 0]

 

To be fair, Ive done that most of the day but a few post work bottles of McEwans Champion has loosened my will.

 

What is so irritating is the "young kids" on here that have no real "feel" for the time or the time that proceeded Thatcher.

 

The country was utterly fucked and the laughing stock of the world and she turned that totally on its head and made us a force to be taken seriously on the world stage.

 

There are no young kids on here tbh. 1 or 2 under 23, rest are mid 20s or older. Unless you think the likes of me and Tom are young, in which case I appreciate that and thank you.

[Tom 13834]

I still get I'D but that's because I look after myself

[The Fish 8988]

Do the graphs show the rubbish in the streets?

 

 

The dead unburied?

 

or the power cuts?

 

We're talking about Thatcher, not that which preceded her. (Where's that logical fallacy page?)

[NJS 3977]

Good point. Her stance on Pinochet was disgraceful!

 

He gave a little support over the Falkands which matters more than 30000 lives - I've always wanted to know how many he would have to have killed before it was a problem - 300k? 3M?

[The6Bells 0]

Think you're confusing the IMF and the EU fella.

 

The EU is on the path of creating an over legislated Swiss like nowhereland where you have to sign a form to take a piss. Half the people there are ex-socialists and communists...They dream of a socialist hinterland. Our EU foreign minster who's just packed up on a 400,000 a year pay off was x-cnd. Van Rompoys wife is a communist....there's literally hundreds of them there setting up a quasi-soviet model funded by pretend money. It's a kind of social fascism the dream of our masters... By the time people wake up they'll be living in a Spanish potato farm gulag.

 

You are quite litterally off your bloody head. Go sell your crazy somewhere else. Half of New Labour were ex-CND, you fruit loop. People can dream whatever the fuck they want, it's what they implement that counts, and on that score, the EU is not and never will be anything close to a socialist paradise. Before you say anything else, please just go an familiarise yourself with the actual power base in the EU, which is the commission. The only Spanish gulag potato farm related edicts they've sent out recently are the ones making sure that they have to put their contracts for prisoner chains out to tender to all member states, and are not allowed to give preferential treatment to any state subsidised factories who for all their inefficiencies might have particular expertise in that sector, such as the ones in the long dead ex-Soviet states.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

I'd be happy to meet you, in fact I'm pretty sure I've said you should meet up for a pint when you were down in London for one thing or the other.

 

The thing is, you are incredibly biased about politics, are ignorant of your bias and yet accuse others of that very thing. You may slap a wee smiley face on the end of it, but you are a dyed in the wool tory-boy. Couldn't give a fuck about the people who are vilified by your "Dave" and Gideon. I mean for fucks sake, suggesting that the murder of 6 kids by an abominable human is the fault of the welfare state... seriously?

 

And today, when a woman who lead policy changes which tore Nottingham, South Wales, Yorkshire and the North East asunder (with no contingencies for the soon to be unemployed) dies, surely you should understand why some people are pleased she's gone/angered by the incredible bias of the media?

 

I totally understand why some people hate here, but to suggest that there bias is less than mine is ridiculous.

 

You only have to look at the reaction to her death today from world leaders, political enemies, even Red Ed to understand that she was a great Prime minister and world leader for this country.

 

You should maybe watch a bit of TV and get a more balanced view of the country she inherited before simply chomping down on what you have been fed over the years.

[Craig 6302]

 

The EU has already and will over time undo everything Thatcher did. She will be remmebered as a fly in a gigantic EU buffet of wealth spreading, rights bargaing and country bankcrupting. She was smalltime. She was only big at a time when England thougt it was small. I would thrash her at chess, bridge or any other fanciful wager she could ever come up with.

 

Are you talking about in her prime, or now Parky?

 

 

[Christmas Tree 3997]

I'd be happy to meet you, in fact I'm pretty sure I've said you should meet up for a pint when you were down in London for one thing or the other.

 

 

And I would be delighted to meet up with you but as I usually have several kids in tow, I doubt you would

[Christmas Tree 3997]

You haven't explained why they needed to strike if they were running the country.

 

Some of the practices in industry in the UK were outdated in hindsight but you don't know the reasons behind them. My grandfather used to work in the shipyards in the 20s and 30s when workers were hired on a day to day basis picked out of a crowd by a foreman so union power evolved to ensure a bloke had a trade and so would have job security. How would you support your family if your car was allocated to one of a few blokes out of a crowd depending on the mood/bribe received of a foreman?

 

Of course this is exactly what they now want a return to - will you be happy then?

 

You havent answered the question.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

There are no young kids on here tbh. 1 or 2 under 23, rest are mid 20s or older. Unless you think the likes of me and Tom are young, in which case I appreciate that and thank you.

 

No idea how old you are? If its 30 then she was long gone before you had a clue what went on outside your front door, never mind pre Thatcher.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

We're talking about Thatcher, not that which preceded her. (Where's that logical fallacy page?)

 

See thats where you young'uns become unstuck. You have to understand what a mess the country was in pre Thatcher to then understand why she won and won and won.

[NJS 3977]

You havent answered the question.

 

Because the notion that the unions "ruled the roost" is nonsense so I can't say what the outcome would be.

 

Let's say we agree that industry in the 80s needed massive changes - would it have been beter to do that with co-operation and negotiation and a plan involving phased replacement or by destroying entire towns with one blow and writing their populations off which is exactly what she did to your/our town.

[Tom 13834]

Patronising cunt.

[The Fish 8988]

I totally understand why some people hate here, but to suggest that there bias is less than mine is ridiculous.

 

You only have to look at the reaction to her death today from world leaders, political enemies, even Red Ed to understand that she was a great Prime minister and world leader for this country.

 

You should maybe watch a bit of TV and get a more balanced view of the country she inherited before simply chomping down on what you have been fed over the years.

 

I don't doubt the country needed reform. I disagree vehemently with the route she took as it hobbled the North, fettered the poor and demonised the working class.

 

The post-war state controlled orthodoxy was too powerful and too conservative (little c), but her approach was too far the other way. As ever the actual answers probably lay somewhere in between.

 

There will be people who benefited from her reign, and those people will be the very same who probably didn't need any help. There are definitely people who suffered (and suffer still) because of her policies and they are unsurprisingly the very people who need the most help.

Edited April 8, 2013 by The Fish

[Christmas Tree 3997]

Because the notion that the unions "ruled the roost" is nonsense so I can't say what the outcome would be.

 

Let's say we agree that industry in the 80s needed massive changes - would it have been beter to do that with co-operation and negotiation and a plan involving phased replacement or by destroying entire towns with one blow and writing their populations off which is exactly what she did to your/our town.

 

But thats exactly my point. The unions had no interest in what needed to be done. They assumed the country was going down the shitter and would take as much as they could get as quickly as they could.

 

The working man was fucked over by the unions, long before Thatcher came to power.

[Park Life 70]

The whole Thatcher thing is a myth created by the dominant right wing media at the time. Most of it is total bollocks...

 

It's true that inflation hit 27 per cent in 1975, but this was largely a consequence of the Yom Kippur War oil price shock, which saw oil prices quadruple, and not a sign that the mixed economy model had collapsed.

 

By 1978, the British economy was rapidly improving. Inflation was down to single figures and unemployment was falling too. Productivity was rising, including in the nationalised industries. North sea oil revenues were starting to transform the balance of payments, which showed a surplus of £109m in 1977. And in December 1978 Britain recorded a massive trade surplus of £246m.

 

Britain was a contented society that had a healthy work-life balance

During 1978, Britain's standard of living rose by 6.4 per cent to reach its highest ever level: so much for the 'Sick Man of Europe'.

 

"The outlook for Britain is better than at any time in the postwar years," was the verdict, not of a Labour party propagandist, but of Chase Manhattan bank's chief European economist, Geoffrey Maynard.

Bernard Nossiter, a Washington Post journalist, argued in his 1978 book Britain- the Future that Works, that Britain, unlike the US, had created a contented society that had managed to get the balance right between work, leisure and remuneration. Far from having had enough of Labour and the post-war consensus, opinion polls show that the party would have won a General Election, had Prime Minister James Callaghan called one, as expected, for October 1978.

 

The so-called 'Winter of Discontent' of 1979 - which ushered in Thatcherism - is also shrouded in myth. James Callaghan never said 'Crisis, what crisis' - that was an invention of The Sun. The strikes themselves only lasted for a comparatively short period and were largely over by February 1979."

 

Now fuck off you bat!!!

Edited April 8, 2013 by Park Life

[NJS 3977]

See thats where you young'uns become unstuck. You have to understand what a mess the country was in pre Thatcher to then understand why she won and won and won.

 

How would someone who was 4 to 14 understand what mess the country was in more than someone who wasn't born?

 

She won 3 elections mostly because of a divided opposition and a savage media campaign along with a dose of war fever - as I said she never got anywhere near the majority of the country behind her.

[Park Life 70]

What we need to get back to is a mixed economy, some things are better nationalised - trains and water and so on...And other things are better run privately for profit. We have great things in the UK that have nothing to do with Thatcher, infact inspite of her and the neo-liberal scorched earth policy her and the traitor class manged to lay on us. These policies were one moment the mad creations of right wing think tanks (paid for by millionaires and big business) and the next minute Govt. policy...The fight goes on. We will win. Historically the people have always won. ALWAYS.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Park Life

[Christmas Tree 3997]

Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair called the ex-PM a "towering political figure" who exercised a huge influence over Britain and the world.

 

"Very few leaders get to change not only the political landscape of their country but of the world. Margaret was such a leader. Her global impact was vast," he said.

 

He added: "As a person she was kind and generous spirited and was always immensely supportive to me as Prime Minister although we came from opposite sides of politics.

[NJS 3977]

Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair called the ex-PM a "towering political figure" who exercised a huge influence over Britain and the world.

 

"Very few leaders get to change not only the political landscape of their country but of the world. Margaret was such a leader. Her global impact was vast," he said.

 

He added: "As a person she was kind and generous spirited and was always immensely supportive to me as Prime Minister although we came from opposite sides of politics.

 

Just confirms my definition of him above.

 

"Opposite sides"? There is no Thatcher policy he wouldn't have introduced and virtually none of his she wouldn't have. Twat.

[Rayvin 4963]

The whole Thatcher thing is a myth created by the dominant right wing media at the time. Most of it is total bollocks...

 

It's true that inflation hit 27 per cent in 1975, but this was largely a consequence of the Yom Kippur War oil price shock, which saw oil prices quadruple, and not a sign that the mixed economy model had collapsed.

 

By 1978, the British economy was rapidly improving. Inflation was down to single figures and unemployment was falling too. Productivity was rising, including in the nationalised industries. North sea oil revenues were starting to transform the balance of payments, which showed a surplus of £109m in 1977. And in December 1978 Britain recorded a massive trade surplus of £246m.

 

Britain was a contented society that had a healthy work-life balance

During 1978, Britain's standard of living rose by 6.4 per cent to reach its highest ever level: so much for the 'Sick Man of Europe'.

 

"The outlook for Britain is better than at any time in the postwar years," was the verdict, not of a Labour party propagandist, but of Chase Manhattan bank's chief European economist, Geoffrey Maynard.

Bernard Nossiter, a Washington Post journalist, argued in his 1978 book Britain- the Future that Works, that Britain, unlike the US, had created a contented society that had managed to get the balance right between work, leisure and remuneration. Far from having had enough of Labour and the post-war consensus, opinion polls show that the party would have won a General Election, had Prime Minister James Callaghan called one, as expected, for October 1978.

 

The so-called 'Winter of Discontent' of 1979 - which ushered in Thatcherism - is also shrouded in myth. James Callaghan never said 'Crisis, what crisis' - that was an invention of The Sun. The strikes themselves only lasted for a comparatively short period and were largely over by February 1979."

 

Now fuck off you bat!!!

 

Superb post.