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Margaret Thatcher week on the BBC


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It cannot be disputed that she was without doubt the greatest leader this country has had since Churchill.

 

 

 

The sad thing is that after 10 years of a Socialist tax and waste government the good work has been undone and we're on the brink of rubbish piling up in the streets once again and we will be paying for Browns mistakes for years to come.

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It cannot be disputed that she was without doubt the greatest leader this country has had since Churchill.

 

 

 

The sad thing is that after 10 years of a Socialist tax and waste government the good work has been undone and we're on the brink of rubbish piling up in the streets once again and we will be paying for Browns mistakes for years to come.

 

No, she's mental. She kick started the greed cycle that sees bankers crawling to the state for handouts and us bailing them out. She destroyed the manufacturing industry and she was unable to comprehend any other argument counter to her own opinion. She got what she deserved and was saved the embarassment of being kicked out by the public by her own party. She was absolutely useless but gave a few soundbites that people love.

 

Personally I'll follow Elvis Costello's advice and "tramp the dirt down" on the finchley *****.

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No, she's mental. She kick started the greed cycle that sees bankers crawling to the state for handouts and us bailing them out. She destroyed the manufacturing industry and she was unable to comprehend any other argument counter to her own opinion. She got what she deserved and was saved the embarassment of being kicked out by the public by her own party. She was absolutely useless but gave a few soundbites that people love.

 

Personally I'll follow Elvis Costello's advice and "tramp the dirt down" on the finchley *****.

 

That is really funny, yet also very dinlo-ish.

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To my mind Maggie did a lot of good things in the early days but then got carried away and seemed to have lose her sense of reason.

 

Certainly the ethos of 'buggar you mate I'm all right' was started on her watch and allowed to continue by dear old Tone and Gordy boy

 

"Bugger you mate, I'm all right" could also be construed as "No free ride for scumbags". It just depends on your angle.

 

Currently there is no scumbag deterrent and the country is full of them.

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That's not funny and doesn't provide any evidence to counter the argument except a playground insult.

 

No, she's mental. She kick started the greed cycle that sees bankers crawling to the state for handouts and us bailing them out. She destroyed the manufacturing industry and she was unable to comprehend any other argument counter to her own opinion. She got what she deserved and was saved the embarassment of being kicked out by the public by her own party. She was absolutely useless but gave a few soundbites that people love.

 

Personally I'll follow Elvis Costello's advice and "tramp the dirt down" on the finchley *****.

 

Good point, but who started it?

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Thatcher is, without doubt, a big part of the reason we are in the mess we find ourselves in today.

 

I think you could easily look back at any previous Prime Minister and find things they did wrong that have had repercussions in the future, but on the whole, under Thatcher we were a lot stronger as a country.

 

Take the current lot. In years to come we will be blaming this credit crunch and the Middle east war on them.

 

All in all Thatcher had the majority of us feeling better off financially at the expense of the public services, but something had to give. She inherited a shell of a country from labour and she turned it around and put money back in our pockets. Once we all got used to having money in our pockets again and people decided we needed better schools, hospitals etc then they decided to get labour back.

 

We are fast approaching full circle again where the country is on it's knees, we have no money but the schools have never been performing better and the hospital waiting lists are right down. After the next general Election there will be a Tory government and there will be more wealth to the individual. It's how this country does things.

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But she is mental! She's got dementia, so factually I'm right and besides I actually provided reasons why she is clearly not "the best leader since Churchill", care to offer anything?

 

My biggest counter to your argument would be suggesting that she destroyed the manufacturing industry. I can only assume you slept through the 70's when we witnessed national strikes in so many different industries. She stripped the trade unions of their powers to stop forcing workers out on strike and thus allowing industry to continue. If you want to blame anyone for the decline of UK industry then look a little further back.

 

Oh, and if your argument is that she closed the coal mines then so what? How many other types of business would be kept going by the British Tax payer when it was losing £5 for every £1 it made?

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It cannot be disputed that she was without doubt the greatest leader this country has had since Churchill.

 

 

 

The sad thing is that after 10 years of a Socialist tax and waste government the good work has been undone and we're on the brink of rubbish piling up in the streets once again and we will be paying for Browns mistakes for years to come.

 

...LOL!!

 

Yeah she was great. By totally ruining this country's industrial infrastructure she really did secure the 'Great' in the Great Britian didn't she. Her politics (and I'm sure herself) are scum. I can never understand (looking back in retrospect) how anyone could have supported her policies and therefore not come out in solidarity with the miners etc.

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My biggest counter to your argument would be suggesting that she destroyed the manufacturing industry. I can only assume you slept through the 70's when we witnessed national strikes in so many different industries. She stripped the trade unions of their powers to stop forcing workers out on strike and thus allowing industry to continue. If you want to blame anyone for the decline of UK industry then look a little further back.

 

And once she made those changes what happened? Manufacturing relocated to the lowest common denominator country leaving the British worker with nothing. UK manufacturing is profitable and is about quality. Poor management was at the roots of the problem in the seventies - something the unions consistently pointed out.

 

Oh, and if your argument is that she closed the coal mines then so what? How many other types of business would be kept going by the British Tax payer when it was losing £5 for every £1 it made?

 

 

never mentioned the miners but since you raise the question - it was poor management that made the coal mines unprofitable. Better management would have saved the devastation of whole communities that still suffer to this day. If you think that doesn't affect you then think about the benefits you pay to those miners and their children because Maggie failed to make an industry that is profitable in other countries fail in ours.

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I think you could easily look back at any previous Prime Minister and find things they did wrong that have had repercussions in the future, but on the whole, under Thatcher we were a lot stronger as a country.

 

Take the current lot. In years to come we will be blaming this credit crunch and the Middle east war on them.

 

All in all Thatcher had the majority of us feeling better off financially at the expense of the public services, but something had to give. She inherited a shell of a country from labour and she turned it around and put money back in our pockets. Once we all got used to having money in our pockets again and people decided we needed better schools, hospitals etc then they decided to get labour back.

 

We are fast approaching full circle again where the country is on it's knees, we have no money but the schools have never been performing better and the hospital waiting lists are right down. After the next general Election there will be a Tory government and there will be more wealth to the individual. It's how this country does things.

 

Is that all people care about? More wealth to the individual? Greed like that makes me sick. Where is the compassion for your fellow man? So really are one of these "If I'm of, **** the rest" lot? Disgraceful.

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...LOL!!

 

Yeah she was great. By totally ruining this country's industrial infrastructure she really did secure the 'Great' in the Great Britian didn't she. Her politics (and I'm sure herself) are scum. I can never understand (looking back in retrospect) how anyone could have supported her policies and therefore not come out in solidarity with the miners etc.

 

Are you for real? So despite the mining bosses saying that they would not be trading at a loss any longer then reporting losses of 500 million that year, the tax payer owed them a living? It was a dead duck industry and it needed culling. It is one thing to have sympathy for the minors but entirely different to expect them to still be trading at the countries expense.

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never mentioned the miners but since you raise the question - it was poor management that made the coal mines unprofitable. Better management would have saved the devastation of whole communities that still suffer to this day. If you think that doesn't affect you then think about the benefits you pay to those miners and their children because Maggie failed to make an industry that is profitable in other countries fail in ours.

 

Agreed. It was poor lefty run labour politics that made the mines run like they did. She blew the flame out, but it had been dwindling on labours shift for years, had it not?

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Is that all people care about? More wealth to the individual? Greed like that makes me sick. Where is the compassion for your fellow man? So really are one of these "If I'm of, **** the rest" lot? Disgraceful.

 

You seem to have typed that rather quickly and have missed out whole words that would help it read properly, but I get the main points.

 

Tell you what. Now we have people out there losing their jobs left, right and centre, just like before when Maggie came to power. Why not ask them NOW if wealth to the individual is something high up on their things to care about list. It isn't greed to want to put food on the table for your family or pay your mortgage. It is however wrong for Trade Unions to force workers into poverty while the bosses of the unions still took money to pay for their life styles. Disgraceful.

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This is unbelievable, but true!

 

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following employee statistics .

 

29 have been accused of spouse abuse

 

7 have been arrested for fraud

 

9 have been accused of writing bad cheques

 

17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses

 

3 have done time for assault

 

71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit

 

14 have been arrested on drug-related charges

 

8 have been arrested for shoplifting

 

21 are currently defendants in lawsuits

 

84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year

 

 

 

Which organisation is this ?

 

 

 

 

 

It's the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us inline.

 

...and we wonder why the country is in a mess?

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Thatcher is, without doubt, a big part of the reason we are in the mess we find ourselves in today.

 

I think you'll find that God is ultimately to blame for human miscreance.

 

"You don't have to kill someone if you're given a loaded gun"

Edited by trousers
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This is unbelievable, but true!

 

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following employee statistics .

 

29 have been accused of spouse abuse

 

7 have been arrested for fraud

 

9 have been accused of writing bad cheques

 

17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses

 

3 have done time for assault

 

71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit

 

14 have been arrested on drug-related charges

 

8 have been arrested for shoplifting

 

21 are currently defendants in lawsuits

 

84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year

 

 

 

Which organisation is this ?

 

 

 

 

 

It's the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us inline.

 

...and we wonder why the country is in a mess?

 

Source please.

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I'd like to provide a bit of balance here as someone that could be ideologically located either on the One Nation side of the Tory Party or the Right of the Labour Party. Undisputably, she was a great leader in the sense she was highly driven and would take unpopular decisions and had a very presidential style, rather like Blair. Before the Neo-Cons jump on me, sorry guys but that is a fact as well if you are using the same criteria to judge leadership on. Probably explains why by and large both figures were electorally undefeated and feared by their oppositions.

 

Good points:

 

Curbed Secondary strike action and forced the Unions to modernise into employment law assistance for employees which is important. Unions have a key role to play but the relevance to a Socialist movement died with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Idiots in the RMT etc need to wake up.

Right to Buy - this helped an awful lot of people. I'm not a big fan of the state being a landlord unless really neccessary

Law & Order - then again I tend to disagree with the Left on this issue anyway!

Opportunity to buy share capital

 

Bad Points:

 

Care in the Community - a disaster

Poll Tax - uncollectable whatever you think of the idea and a lot of Local Authorities were left out of pocket. She did get a small win on Council Tax retaining the single person discount.

Education - under-investment all-round and left us with a huge skills and productivity gap.

Attitude - I probably would have voted for her in 1979 and 1983 but by 1987 the cracks were appearing and she was past her prime. I thought the "there is no such thing as society" comment was brainless and this lost her a lot of support in the longer-term both nationally and in the Party. This is why Major went for very community-based ideas in his early spell as PM.

 

Overall I think she made some painful but much needed reforms early on but 1987-90 was awful and should have quit in 1987. Many of us enjoyed the ride in the South East but I think we took the bits of Thatcherism we liked and discarded quickly the bits we didn't.

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IRight to Buy - this helped an awful lot of people. I'm not a big fan of the state being a landlord unless really neccessary

 

Right to Buy might have been good for the generation that actually got to buy their Council house, but as each day goes by the policy shows itself to be totally flawed. We have a total lack of social housing in this country, and many people simply cannot afford a place to live. A huge part of that is due to Thatcher selling off Council houses for short-term gain.

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I'd like to provide a bit of balance here as someone that could be ideologically located either on the One Nation side of the Tory Party or the Right of the Labour Party. Undisputably, she was a great leader in the sense she was highly driven and would take unpopular decisions and had a very presidential style, rather like Blair. Before the Neo-Cons jump on me, sorry guys but that is a fact as well if you are using the same criteria to judge leadership on. Probably explains why by and large both figures were electorally undefeated and feared by their oppositions.

 

Good points:

 

Curbed Secondary strike action and forced the Unions to modernise into employment law assistance for employees which is important. Unions have a key role to play but the relevance to a Socialist movement died with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Idiots in the RMT etc need to wake up.

Right to Buy - this helped an awful lot of people. I'm not a big fan of the state being a landlord unless really neccessary

Law & Order - then again I tend to disagree with the Left on this issue anyway!

Opportunity to buy share capital

 

Bad Points:

 

Care in the Community - a disaster

Poll Tax - uncollectable whatever you think of the idea and a lot of Local Authorities were left out of pocket. She did get a small win on Council Tax retaining the single person discount.

Education - under-investment all-round and left us with a huge skills and productivity gap.

Attitude - I probably would have voted for her in 1979 and 1983 but by 1987 the cracks were appearing and she was past her prime. I thought the "there is no such thing as society" comment was brainless and this lost her a lot of support in the longer-term both nationally and in the Party. This is why Major went for very community-based ideas in his early spell as PM.

 

Overall I think she made some painful but much needed reforms early on but 1987-90 was awful and should have quit in 1987. Many of us enjoyed the ride in the South East but I think we took the bits of Thatcherism we liked and discarded quickly the bits we didn't.

 

Nice tits in the early years too.

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Only just got the email, looks like I have been had.

 

Anyway, on to the more serious stuff.......

 

She destroyed the manufacturing industry and she was unable to comprehend any other argument counter to her own opinion

 

 

Blah Blah Blah (typical socialist claptrap)

 

Here is the truth......

 

Since the early 1970s manufacturing’s share in all OECD economies has fallen and the service sectors’ has risen.

 

1. It was not just in the UK

2. This was not all on her watch

 

Here are some other interesting facts..... (From a Management Today article in 1994)

 

The UK's export performance has been through a number of marked changes in recent decades. In 1950 Britain's manufacturing sector accounted for 26% of the exports of the main manufacturing countries. By the beginning of the 1970s that share had fallen to 11% (EDIT: again before MT came to power), and the decline continued through the 1970s and early 1980s. In the past 10 years (EDIT 1984-1994), the UK's decline may have been halted. The nation's share of world exports seemed to reach a floor in the middle of the last decade (1985), and has since remained relatively stable.

 

Increased competitiveness in the early 1980s partially accounts for the improvement. Between 1981 and 1987 UK competitiveness improved sharply as the exchange rate fell. However this is only part of the story, says Schroder Economics. Between 1987 and 1992 competitiveness worsened slightly, but UK exporters actually managed to increase their market share. It seems likely that non-price factors also form part of the explanation. Improved industrial relations, a more flexible labour market and a strong investment performance mean that Britain is now better able to compete on the world stage.

 

Was this all her fault too???

Edited by Johnny Bognor
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Right to Buy might have been good for the generation that actually got to buy their Council house, but as each day goes by the policy shows itself to be totally flawed. We have a total lack of social housing in this country, and many people simply cannot afford a place to live. A huge part of that is due to Thatcher selling off Council houses for short-term gain.

 

I don't think that is true. I think we have too many people who are entitled to a house, free of charge due to weak rules and chav culture.

Edited by JohnnyFartPants
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Interestingly the people with the most hatred for her became able to vote for the first time when Tony Blair came to power. This makes them about 27-30 years old and so never experienced the UK pre_Thatcher.

 

Aye...I remember those days too well and will be eternally grateful to Maggie for pulling Britain back from the brink.

 

She kicked Nanny's crutches from the weak and feeble and made them walk, and guess what?..the vast majority did....Some even ran....She gave Britain back its self respect along with a restored respect from nations around the world...The "Sick man" was cured...the "British disease" gone (yup, for those to young to know any different, those are genuine references to Britain from around the world back in the 70's)

 

Its just sad to see that she's now a distant memory and her good work has been for so long taken for granted, that so many have drifted back to Nanny's bed pans and crutches.

 

Everything she built and rebuilt has been ripped apart and New Nanny's spending spree has blown away the last the of Thatcher 'wealth'.....Now there's nothing left but a pile of detol, crutches, bed pans and the creep of Brussles and Sharia Law.

 

There may never be another 'Maggie' to come along and pull y'all back from the brink this time.....and I'd say Britain needs a 'Maggie' or a 'Churchill' more than ever right now...

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Agreed. It was poor lefty run labour politics that made the mines run like they did. She blew the flame out, but it had been dwindling on labours shift for years, had it not?

 

Mining is an interesting one as the Tories had said we didn't need to mine coal

as we had so much gas under the North Sea.

 

Now we import most of our gas and coal making us hostage to others in terms of energy security.

 

Shrewd move Thatcher you bit ch.

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Mining is an interesting one as the Tories had said we didn't need to mine coal

as we had so much gas under the North Sea.

 

Now we import most of our gas and coal making us hostage to others in terms of energy security.

 

Shrewd move Thatcher you bit ch.

 

The thing is, we were able to buy coal in for a fraction of the cost that our miners could dig it up. At the end of the day we still have the coal underground and maybe one day will use it again. Oh, and we always imported most of our gas so that one isn't worth discussing.

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Colin, I think you rather failed entirely to appreciate the point of what I was saying, but hey. Some things are just lost on people.

 

View from the top, either that's a good joke,, or you've not covered yourself in glory. Check grammar on the last line...?

 

Looks like i'll need it spelling out for me, so no, I really havn't covered myself in glory. :p

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The view from the top comment was for.. um.. View From The Top...

 

I actually just meant that I'm entirely aware my hatred for her isn't rational.. I'm just being delbierately biased. Nothing complex, just a sort of ironic joke about unjustified prejudice. As it happens, I'm genuinely not a fan, not even when considering it from a 'historical' point of view - but my view isn't quite as black and white, as irrational, as "I hate her".... You ask what grounding I had, but I think my "What kind of hatred is that, I ask you?" comment was sort of aimed at the fat that most hatred is baseless or without much backing, and actually it's often exactly the kind of pointless drivel that Right wingers say about left wing politicans as well..

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Economic Models Explained.....

SOCIALISM

You have 2 cows.

You give one to your neighbour.

 

COMMUNISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both and gives you some milk.

 

FASCISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both and sells you some milk.

 

BUREAUCRATISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the

milk away.

 

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM

You have two cows.

You sell one and buy a bull.

Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.

You sell them and retire on the income.

 

SURREALISM

You have two giraffes.

The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

 

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You sell one and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.

Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.

 

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND VENTURE CAPITALISM

You have two cows.

You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters

of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a

debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all

four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.

The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to

a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who

sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.

The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on

one more.

You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving

you with nine cows.

No balance sheet provided with the release.

The public then buys your bull.

 

 

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Very interesting read. And I say that because up until very recently, (on this forum at any rate) the anti-Thatcher brigade would have far outnumbered those who support her. Nothing like a good old-fashioned financial meltdown to make people come to their senses, eh?

 

Sure, she made mistakes (the poll tax being one of the most almighty **** ups in living memory) but my God, she made this country great again. And for bloodying the noses of Marxist unions, if nothing else, she will always have my utmost admiration.

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Haha, marxist unions. Bloody hell.

 

I'm far from a fan of the way most unions actually conduct themselves, but people who universally slate them are just idiots. How can it be a bad concept for a body to stand up for workers?

 

Furthermore, her having made Britain "great again" is pretty subjective, and many would disagree. I actually don't disagree with the Falklands war, but the cynical motivations within some of the decision making leaves a bitter taste. She was on her way out before it, and was instead heralded a hero because of it.

 

As for your definition of sense as apparently being 'conservatism', phooey.

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