Thatcher's dead

[Dobba]

People in this country are very insensitive as to what makes a terrible leader; she didn't exactly have a brutal regime of gulags and concentration camps therefore regardless of our political beliefs we should strive to remember that we are very fortunate here. Say what you want, but it would be gross over exaggeration to label her 'evil' in the same sense as other worldwide leaders.

So like the worldwide leaders she defended and befriended who did murder and maim in the thousands?

It is quite fitting that today Nobel prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda's remains were to be dug up following claims that the Pinochet regime was behind his death.

 

[BarryZola]

On another note, it may be a good day to buy a selection of newspapers tomorrow and stick 'em in the cupboard with the ones from the day after 9/11 etc etc.

 

[Ben]

A reminder of our Member Expectations as ever with these sort of high issue topics it is going to cause controversy and get high emotion from people.

But you must remain civil and polite. These topics pretty much always end up closed down pretty quick down to members not following the Expectations. So this is the only reminder this topic will have, any team involvement again will remove in the locking of the topic.

The argument that peoples' opinions arent valid due to them not being alive is rude at best. If that theory was correct then surely Jeanne Calment is the only person who can comment on anything as she was the oldest living person.
This logic cannot work, how do university lecturers, academics etc teach history if they werent alive for it?

Anyway Ive wandered off topic. So please just re-read your post and give it a think before you post further in this topic.

Ben

 

[Alastair]

Well her policies did shape the country that we have lived in for the last 20-25 years, one which relies heavily on the service sector and which arguably created many of the social and economic problems that we are still dealing with today.

I have never held either an overly negative or positive view on Margaret Thatcher personally, but as you say there is no reason why someone of my age should.

It's also telling that despite the huge criticism of it, none of her industrial policies have been reneged upon by any subsequent government.

 

[Aspyrational]

Well done to the few individuals who've stood up for dignity and compassion.

So easy to follow others who've been indoctrinated to think and act as it is seen as somehow 'cool' to be so vicious.

Give your heads a wobble and think of the state of the country had Michael Foot been voted as PM, let alone the Welsh windbag, who typical of hypocritical socialists everywhere, stood on a manifesto to get us out of the EEC, then jumped on the gravytrain with his vile wife and family.

And the victory over the miners was the biggest victory for democracy since the second world war. A time when a Tory PM fought fire with fire and beat the union thugs at their own dirty game . They screamed like little girls and they're still screaming 30 years later. God bless Margaret Thatcher.

 

[Dobba]

The above is one of the most hypocritical posts I've ever read on any forum.

 

[Meat Pie]

Alastair - What the maintence of Thatcherite policy is 'telling' is that the tyranical power of the unregulated private industry is able to disease democracy even against public opinion.

Aspyrational - The men of those mines and the unions that fought for them were not thugs, they were victims of a viscious attack devised just to save the money of the rich.

The destruction of the unions is this countries largest oppresion of democracy in the last century. It disallowed the hardworking men and women of industry to stand up for themselves against the might of the corporates.

 

[BarryZola]

Is there an argument that the Unions tried to take things a bit too far though and wanted too much power? A profit needed to be made, so were the actions of the unions squeezing this margin so thinly that something had to be done? I'm happy to be educated on this as I've not studied it too much.

In a way I feel that a compromise between the wants of the unions and the wants of a Thatcher government may have been about right...but both wanted the ultimate power.....

 

[Martin]

Judy Garland's 'Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead' is currently 30th in the iTunes chart and climbing fast.

Beautiful.

Liverpool is off its head, there's flares, fireworks, dancing, it's beautiful. Even in London there's huge street parties. I've never seen anything like it.

What a glorious day to be northern and working class. It's a shame it has to end.

 

[Ash]

I clearly didn't say that anyone's opinion was worthless. In short I was stating that I personally find the EXTENT of the hatred displayed by some who weren't even around at the time to be fairly bizarre.

I can fully understand people who were directly negatively affected in her time still harbouring strong resentment which finally has led to an emotional release of anger today.

Fair point, I think its because her actions were so divisive and the effects are still felt by many in their communities today. You could say the same about things such as 9/11 or the holocaust, not that the events are in any way comparative by in terms of being able to sympathise and judge things post event people do it greatly.

 

[GAGrathea]

So at Billy Elliot tonight they apparently put it to audience vote whether or not they should open Act 2 with Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher as usual. Unsurprisingly 95% of the audience said yes!

 

[CGM]

Alastair - What the maintence of Thatcherite policy is 'telling' is that the tyranical power of the unregulated private industry is able to disease democracy even against public opinion.

Aspyrational - The men of those mines and the unions that fought for them were not thugs, they were victims of a viscious attack devised just to save the money of the rich.

The destruction of the unions is this countries largest oppresion of democracy in the last century. It disallowed the hardworking men and women of industry to stand up for themselves against the might of the corporates.

There's a lot of absolutes in this post but most of them are actually your opinion embellished with some overly sensationalist language. Claims such as "a viscous attack devised to save money of the rich" is just not an objective statement.

My view on this matter is that the unions did have far too much power and were effectively strangling British industry to death. No one likes redundancies and changes to the status quo but British industry needed to modernise and innovate to remain competitive on a world stage. The unions prevented this from happening meaning that everyone was going to lose out if something wasn't done.

I'm not a Thatcher fan and I think that the way that she dealt with the situation was too heavy handed and far from the ideal solution. However, if things had been left as they were, I reckon that the outcome would have been pretty similar. Something did have to be done.

On another note, I'm pretty disgusted by the way that a lot of people are celebrating her death. No matter what your opinion of her was, she's had very little influence in modern day politics for a number of decades. Her death didn't bring to an end a dystopian reign of terror. Whether she was alive or not hasn't affected our day to day lives since the days she was in power.

Celebrating a death like this achieves nothing, no one's won anything, their lives won't improve because of it, it's just a really petty and spiteful act.

 

[Martin]

Personally, I'd like more focus on her atrocities against Argentina.

Withdrawing the navy from the islands, ignoring Argentina's pleas for a democratic solution, then launching a full scale war to divert from what was going on in the mainland and restore her image.

The families of the victims of The Belgrano will be celebrating just as hard as we are.

 

[Aspyrational]

Alastair - What the maintence of Thatcherite policy is 'telling' is that the tyranical power of the unregulated private industry is able to disease democracy even against public opinion.

Aspyrational - The men of those mines and the unions that fought for them were not thugs, they were victims of a viscious attack devised just to save the money of the rich.

The destruction of the unions is this countries largest oppresion of democracy in the last century. It disallowed the hardworking men and women of industry to stand up for themselves against the might of the corporates.

How can giving memebers a democratic ballot to choose their leaders and whether to go on strike be an oppression of democracy ? The only oppression of democracy I remember is Scargill refusing to let his members have a vote on a strike. Weetabix head thought he could send his bully boy flying pickets around the country to prevent workers demonstrating their right to work and bring down an elected Government. Luckily the Government was ready and the oaf Scargill thought he could intimidate his way to victory. He didn't, he suffered the most humiliating defeat possible. He still kept his luxury London pad in the Barbican, paid for by the few miners left.

 

[Martin]

The private sector was getting huge pay rises. Public sector (ie miners) were getting about 3%. Effectively getting a big pay cut.

They had to fight.

 

[Sam]

This thread is horrible.

 

[Alastair]

Personally, I'd like more focus on her atrocities against Argentina.

Withdrawing the navy from the islands, ignoring Argentina's pleas for a democratic solution, then launching a full scale war to divert from what was going on in the mainland and restore her image.

The families of the victims of The Belgrano will be celebrating just as hard as we are.

The irony is that what you've just said is a perfect description of why Argentina launched the invasion in the first place. To divert attention away from their own problems. How on earth you can portray the Argentinians as the victims in this is beyond me. They initiated the conflict, they deserved everything they got and more. It's almost delusional, obsessively finding every last perceived fault and twisting it as a means to justify the celebration of the death of an 87 year old woman who hasn't been in politics for over 20 years. It's absolutely sickening, vile and disgusting.

 

[Martin]

Argentina wouldn't have invaded if it wasn't for Thatcher. They asked for diplomacy. She ignored them. The last time they got feisty, we sent one warship down and they went away. But her mismanagement of the situation led to the war.

And war or not, the sinking of The Belgrano was a war crime.

Again, Thatcher was responsible for deaths in this country and abroad. The evils of her policies still affect us today. She covered up the deaths of 96 innocent people. I'm celebrating her death like 99% of the country celebrate the death of Guy Fawkes.

 

[Aspyrational]

Personally, I'd like more focus on her atrocities against Argentina.

Withdrawing the navy from the islands, ignoring Argentina's pleas for a democratic solution, then launching a full scale war to divert from what was going on in the mainland and restore her image.

The families of the victims of The Belgrano will be celebrating just as hard as we are.

it was a war,argentina invaded a bit of land which didn't belong to them, which was populated by 99%+ UK nationals.

The argies, got a slap and surrendered with their tale between their legs. Like or dislike Thatcher, the response was a fair one - it wasn't our business how their men were recruited. It was war. I do like the way you actually completely absolve the argentinian's of any blame. Whether or not the reason for which the situation escalated was moral or immoral, the UK forces did what they had to do... You're just distorting the truth.

 

[Plastic Person]

Personally, I'd like more focus on her atrocities against Argentina.

Withdrawing the navy from the islands, ignoring Argentina's pleas for a democratic solution, then launching a full scale war to divert from what was going on in the mainland and restore her image.

The families of the victims of The Belgrano will be celebrating just as hard as we are.

The irony is that what you've just said is a perfect description of why Argentina launched the invasion in the first place. To divert attention away from their own problems. How on earth you can portray the Argentinians as the victims in this is beyond me. They initiated the conflict, they deserved everything they got and more. It's almost delusional, obsessively finding every last perceived fault and twisting it as a means to justify the celebration of the death of an 87 year old woman who hasn't been in politics for over 20 years. It's absolutely sickening, vile and disgusting.

To be honest mate, I find the phrase "everything they deserved" attached to 649 young Argentinian men plus 225 British troops somewhat more sickening, vile and disgusting than any 'delusional obsessive' taking issue with one dead politician. Especially as where I grew up, that delusional obsessiveness to find fault with Thatcher basically translated to taking the bus into town with your eyes open.