“assassinate Thatcher”

[Tony]

I think that is what is known as satire - not a talent that John McDonnnell is blessed with when recounting his thoughts.

 

But, to ask the question again, in light of his poor choice of speech is he the sort of chap who should be the leader of the Labour party?

[slimsid2000]

No-one's life was ruined by Maggie,

 

you should have tried telling Ted Heath that.

[taxman]

So has no-one else ever thought about what the world would be like if you could go back in time and remove a historically significant person?

 

I've just watched her on the news being welcomed into No 10 by Smarmy Dave.....I'll have nightmares tonight.

[Wildcat]

I think that is what is known as satire - not a talent that John McDonnnell is blessed with when recounting his thoughts.

 

But, to ask the question again, in light of his poor choice of speech is he the sort of chap who should be the leader of the Labour party?

 

The best satire makes people feel uncomfortable, rather like his comment has made you feel, despite it being innocuous..

 

He would be a brilliant choice for leader. Just what the party needs.

[millhouses24]

What a brilliant idea. I'm in, who else?

[Wildcat]

If you do intend to rip off others words you could at least have the decency to reference the original source rather than trying to pass them off as your own.

 

David Lindsay quoted on Iain Dale's political blog would no doubt be a little miffed with you.

 

http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/06/mcdonnell-i-regret-not-assassinating.html

 

There is a more full version here:

 

Those of you having fits of the vapours, you do realise, don't you, that he is not standing for Leader of the Conservative Party? Mind you, with these views on Thatcher, he might as well have been at any point in the last 20 years. Come the next contest for that position, she will be a distant memory, and the winner might well be someone who could not vote when she left office. The one after that might very well not have been born in 1990.

 

What do you defend about her? Her Single European Act? Her Anglo-Irish Agreement? Her Exchange Rate Mechanism? Her Police and Criminal Evidence Act? Her replacement of O-levels with GSCEs? Her introduction of abortion up to birth, and the moral chaos of the 1980s generally? Her privatisation of British Airways, British Petroleum, and what are now our largely foreign-owned water and power supplies, something unconscionable in any other country?

 

Do you mean her destruction of the economic basis of paternal authority, initially in working-class families and communities, though it spread like wildfire, exactly as it was intended to do? Her two recessions? Her invention of mass benefit dependency? Her compelling of the State to make gifts of significant capital assets to people who were thus enabled to enter the property market ahead of private tenants who had saved for their deposits, and her accompanying creation of the Housing Benefit racket, which is vastly more expensive than would be the maintenance of a stock of council housing?

 

Or do you mean her refusal to recognise the Muzorewa Government, because she thought that the Soviet-backed Nkomo would somehow have been better than the Chinese-backed Mugabe, for whom she nevertheless secured a knighthood? Her support for apartheid South Africa, an anti-British revenge republic set up in a former Dominion of the Crown?

 

The list goes on, and on, and on. No wonder that, as you do not appear to have been told, she ended up having to be removed by her own party. No wonder that the only people with a good word to say about her mercifully live thousands of miles away, in the United States. And no wonder that John has been nominated by Frank Field and Kate Hoey.

 

http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.com/2010/06/john-mcdonnell-on-margaret-thatcher.html

 

Very well said...

 

Another bit of satire and well made comment on the "Blessed Margaret":

[Mister M]

What a brilliant idea. I'm in, who else?

 

Go on then. In for a penny, in for a pound!

[spindrift]

No-one's life was ruined by Maggie, but millions had their quality of life improved thanks to her and her policies.

 

But considering you were advocating murdering people who don't believe in global warming on another thread, perhaps there's more than a hint of hypocrisy about your twisted beliefs?

 

Twaddle.

 

Liar.

[Plain Talker]

The one who said it "wasn't normal".

 

Cameron cosying up to anti-semites and homophobes in Europe.

 

Hague and Cameron on Section 28.

 

Plus there's the little matter of Mark Thatcher making obscene amounts of money brokering Al Yamamah, the biggest export deal Britain ever signed, riddled with corruption and Aitken pimping for his arab paymasters.

 

bold 1) quite right, we've been discussing the continued homophobic policies of the Tories on here only in the last couple of weeks, including the homophobia of Theresa May....

 

bold 2) there's also the little matter of all that money wasted on trying to find this self-aggrandising, coat-tail hanging, little oik, when he got himself lost in the Sahara desert. (We'll have question two, now:- yes, you, the plump lady in the hijaab, sitting over there in Sheffield 11... "Mr Thatcher. Do you think there's a slim chance that you could maybe find your backside if you used both hands?"

 

 

No-one's life was ruined by Maggie, but millions had their quality of life improved thanks to her and her policies.

 

But considering you were advocating murdering people who don't believe in global warming on another thread, perhaps there's more than a hint of hypocrisy about your twisted beliefs?

 

I'm sure the miners, whose jobs went overseas would agree. Living on the Dole must really have been an upturn in their fortunes...

 

Likewise, I'm also sure that the steelworkers whose jobs have been cut, massively, year on year, would agree with the Miners' sentiments, too...

 

I believe Thatcher despised the working class of this country. She was actually also fairly dismissive of the lower middle classes from whence she came – she actually saw herself more as Royalty – do you not remember her saying ‘We are a Grandmother’? – she was almost like Hyacinth Bucket in her small-minded snobbery.

 

and when I saw, and heard that comment, I have to say, we certainly felt more than a little like gagging.

 

she despised anyone who was unable to line her pocket.

 

Of course, she wasn’t above bribing the workers when it suited her.

 

She sold them their council houses at a knock down price, but deprived future generations of the option of decent publicly-owned housing.

 

 

She sold our public utilities, on the basis of her ’share-owning’ democracy, so that some could make a quick hundred quid or two.

 

whilst conveniently forgetting that she sold us something that we already owned!!!

 

Are they still owned by the people in this wonderful share-owning Utopia?

 

Or are they now owned by foreign-based multinationals?

 

And what was the money raised spent on?

 

Was it education?

 

Was it hospitals?

 

No. It was spent on unemployment (the price worth paying remember) and on 43% tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the land.

http://www.shropshirestar.com/latest/2010/02/08/letter-maggie-and-the-miners-who-was-right/#ixzz0qGu57opb

 

and did the Government permit the councils to spend any of the monies made from selling these council houses, on replacing the council houses that had been taken out of the social housing equation?

 

did they heck-as like!!

 

What a bitter and twisted little man you sound. The benefits of Thatcherism have been discussed on here many times, but the jist of it is that if you were prepared to work hard and better yourself, she enabled you to make a better life for yourself and your family. The only people who oppose this were (and are) layabouts who want to get thousands in benefits thrown at them for sitting on their backsides.

 

And why your bizarre obsession with General Pinochet? During his time as leader of Chile, Britain enjoyed an excellent relationship with his country, which was important considering what was going on with near nieghbours Argentina at the time. Hence he was a "good friend to Britain".

 

There were no benefits, to anyone, except for her, and her cronies, and a few of the very elite.

 

Pinochet was no friend to Britain. Any more than Napoleon was. thatcher may have done more than her fair share of "nose-brownng" at that old despot, but she certainly did not represent me, or anyone I know, in those acts.

 

Mugabe, Pinochet, with mates like that who needs enemies?

 

They say only the good die young, so she's probably heading for a telegram.

 

Telegram? *snorts* if only the good die young, t'owd lad Methuselah had best watch his back, cos she'll give him a run for his money.

 

It's comforting to think of Maggie and Augusto, sitting together, warming their crumpets, whilst nattering over a cup of Darjeeling, with their good friend, Lucifer.

[Tony]

Can we stay on topic please? I'm sure that you can go and vent your 20 year old grudge on some other thread.

 

This thread is about John McDonnell.