Margaret Thatcher Thread - Read the first post before posting

[Hillpig]

Did you never realise that the unions were defeating their own industries before she came to power. I was fortunate to get out before they'd completed their destruction, joining a vast middle class in North America. Harold Wilson and his cohorts wanted to make sure you all lived in places like Duke Street flats, and drive nothing but a motor cycle and sidecar, or a Reliant. Lady Margaret changed the UK back to a power to be reckoned with, widely admired in the US.

 

Wilson was allso a russian spy.

 

 

Buck, just in case you think that the loony left are the only ones getting back to you, the vast majority in the country, if not the soviet socialist republic of south yorkshire, agree with you.

 

RIP Maggie Best of British

[fishy_taste]

And you think the people of Goldthorpe are thick?

 

Yes, that's exactly what i I said, without actually using any of those words.

 

I guess, if you want to see what you want to see you will see whatever you want to see.

 

---------- Post added 19-04-2013 at 00:19 ----------

 

Tenants move on by choice or death and the council house is returned to the stock.

 

The sold houses were removed from that cycle and not replaced.

 

But, the house sold is sold to the tenant at the time - so, the stock was lost anyway.

 

The difference, as you put it, is that the tenant may chose to move (in which case, their right to buy is null and void) or they die - same difference.

 

Thatcher's ethos was that the state should not provide, except in times of hardship and only then with financial help - i.e. housing benefit, etc.,

 

So, to offer people the right to buy and then to build more council properties would have contradicted what she was about.

 

You obviously disagree, which is your right, but she had a principle and she stuck to it and many, both Labour, Liberal, Tory and other political persuassions, benefitted from it.

 

She also believed that if you owned your property you more likely to respect the area in which you lived.

 

How often has it been reported how run down council estates are. Why? Perhaps because the people live their on a temporary basis (in their own minds) and have no real investment in the area. If it gets too bad, they can always be rehoused elsewhere.

[Tradescanthia]

I think you over estimate how much she was hated; 14 million people voted for her in the 1987 general election.

 

Out of a population of over 50 million.

I think the events of this week proves how much she was hated. I don't think anyone since Cromwell has earned so much contempt. That son of hers didn't do much for her image either with his dodgy dealings.

Trouble is, the same policies are still being followed by Feuhrer Cameron, Thatcherism is not dead. It still bleeds the poor dry. She despised the poor, hated the working classes, especially manual workers. Manufacturing was a dirty word. Dodgy dealing was the name of the game.

Labour doesn't have all the answers but they are closer to building a society where everyone is of value than the Torys can ever achieve.

[fishy_taste]

Whatever has been said in this thread thus far (which is becoming like a tennis match - points for, points against, no ultimate resolution), all I can say is that Thatcher's ultimate (and continuing) legacy is;

 

SELFISHNESS (I'm all right Jack etc)

 

No sense of community, setting the poor against the poor (so as nobody looks up to who is really screwing the non-elite).

 

To be honest I would have rather have lived through WW2 with the 'Blitz spirit'. Despite the bombs, rationing and the like, people STUCK together and helped each other.

 

Now it's arguments over who has the biggest plasma screen TV (which is not edible) and no-one gives a flying duck about anything else

 

Bold - so, when different unions went on strike at the drop of a hat in the 70's for more pay, bringing the entire country to a halt, which Jack we're they looking after?

 

If you want to quote selfish actions, it wasn't exclusive to the right. In fact, as the Left were supposed to be all about socialism and social conscience, they did a pretty good job of catering for the few whilst affecting the many.

 

The argument will never be over unless people actually read the political ideals Thatcher expressed instead of the headlines and quotes taken out of context, the worst one being 'There is no such thing as society'.

 

The sentence that immediately followed in that interview for Woman's Own (that hugely significant political magazine!!!) explained what she meant which is completely the opposite of how the quote, taken out of context, has been attributed to her.

 

Still, it's much easier to read a headline and be swayed by the editorial bent than to actually read the story, from both sides and from the mouth of the story-teller.

[El Cid]

I think you over estimate how much she was hated; 14 million people voted for her in the 1987 general election.

 

The 1 million people that she sold council houses to, at a great discount, so giving them a £10,000 reason to vote for her.

[Tradescanthia]

Did you never realise that the unions were defeating their own industries before she came to power. I was fortunate to get out before they'd completed their destruction, joining a vast middle class in North America. Harold Wilson and his cohorts wanted to make sure you all lived in places like Duke Street flats, and drive nothing but a motor cycle and sidecar, or a Reliant. Lady Margaret changed the UK back to a power to be reckoned with, widely admired in the US.

 

Pity she didn't move to the United States, her and Ronny Reagan would have got on like a house on fire.............................they were both losing their minds.

Simultaneous lunacy ?? Now there's a thought.

[fishy_taste]

Out of a population of over 50 million.

I think the events of this week proves how much she was hated. I don't think anyone since Cromwell has earned so much contempt. That son of hers didn't do much for her image either with his dodgy dealings.

Trouble is, the same policies are still being followed by Feuhrer Cameron, Thatcherism is not dead. It still bleeds the poor dry. She despised the poor, hated the working classes, especially manual workers. Manufacturing was a dirty word. Dodgy dealing was the name of the game.

Labour doesn't have all the answers but they are closer to building a society where everyone is of value than the Torys can ever achieve.

 

Not all 50 million were entitled to vote - a chunk were under age for a start.

 

A better figure would be to quote the popular share of the vote which, over the three elections she somehow managed to win (being so despised) averaged out at around 40%, second only to Winston Churchill (who has just won WWII!!).

 

Not bad going for a person who ruined this country and destroyed the lives of millions and millions of the people.

 

Then again, we're all stupid Sun readers being told who to vote for.

Edited April 18, 2013 by fishy_taste

[mikem8634]

But, the house sold is sold to the tenant at the time - so, the stock was lost anyway.

 

The difference, as you put it, is that the tenant may chose to move (in which case, their right to buy is null and void) or they die - same difference.

 

I may be missing your point here. If I'm way off the mark you may have to clarify it for me.

 

How was the stock lost anyway? Because it had a tenant living in it whilst it was a council property? If that is your point, it was not lost, it was just temporarily unavailable and opposed to permanatly unavailable once sold.

 

I don't get the 'same difference' point at all I'm afraid.

 

I agree that replenishing the stock would have contradicted what she was all about.

 

The state that some council estates find themselves in is due to a vastly more complex set of circumstances than the reductionist notion that people are less likely to respect something if they don't own it and I expect any politician of any intelligence to understand that. Sadly I also expect them to make political capital out of turning it into an oversimplified method of 'othering'.

Edited April 18, 2013 by mikem8634

[I1L2T3]

Whichever way /party you affiliate with, we have swung from our governments being at the mercy of workers in the 1970's and 80's, to being at the mercy of big corps in the 2000's, both equally unhealthy economically.

 

It has swung too far towards businesses. In the 70s if people were getting forced to work for subsistence benefits in big business we'd have had general strikes.

 

Now business can get away with that. Sure we've kicked up a bit of a stink but they've done it, they've almost normalised that situation. Make no mistake the Tories love workfare, and it makes plenty in the Labour party excited as well.

 

Don't get me wrong. I think the needs of business are important and we can't go back to the 70s but there has to be balance. It struck me that business is represented by the Institute of Directors and the Confederation of British industry. Both powerful. Both operating under Royal Charter. Recently they have been bolstered by an army of corporate-funded think tanks. It is their message that is strongest, the one that is the loudest. Contrast with worker representation which is being actively undermined and destroyed. There has to be some balance because if there isn't then most of us could be looking at a worsening future.

[MrSmith]

It has swung too far towards businesses. In the 70s if people were getting forced to work for subsistence benefits in big business we'd have had general strikes.

 

Now business can get away with that. Sure we've kicked up a bit of a stink but they've done it, they've almost normalised that situation. Make no mistake the Tories love workfare, and it makes plenty in the Labour party excited as well.

 

Don't get me wrong. I think the needs of business are important and we can't go back to the 70s but there has to be balance. It struck me that business is represented by the Institute of Directors and the Confederation of British industry. Both powerful. Both operating under Royal Charter. Recently they have been bolstered by an army of corporate-funded think tanks. It is their message that is strongest, the one that is the loudest. Contrast with worker representation which is being actively undermined and destroyed. There has to be some balance because if there isn't then most of us could be looking at a worsening future.

 

That’s inevitable, the lives of 7 billion people can't be improved to the standards that we enjoy, so our standards must fall, we need the rest of the world more than they need us. We can't isolate our selves because we don't have the resources to sustain our population and we can no longer take resources from other countries, all we can do is compete for the limited resources and that means reducing our standard of living to something closer to everyone else.