Margaret Thatcher 1925-2013

I must make a slight correction to my earlier post.

I thought she was fantastic to watch & listen to.......................on spitting image.

Mista h

Just a thought do we have any MPs that post on this M/B ??

Why a publicly funded ceremonial funeral? Couldn't they privatise the whole thing and put it out to the lowest bidder in her honour?

OK, I stole it but it's still funny.

steve

How?

By actively being involved in and promoting community and collaborative/collective approaches to life. Which isn't 'alternative'! It is about knowing my neighbours, looking out for them, saying hello in the street, getting involved in trying to make life easier for all of us. Smiling at each other, trusting in each other.

And stuff like that.

Oh and not voting for her heirs such as this shower who still promote a divisive and divided society.

But my politics are my own and yours are yours. I don't wish to know or judge you on yours. If you judge me on mine or yours so be it. I just believe and want us all to be a little kinder to each other. I certainly believe the world would be a better place for it.

What's the story, mourning Tory

Good riddance and RIH

Her passing will not be lamented in this household or the surrounding community. The damage has long been done. Her death makes no difference. Good riddance. 

Easy to find fault and to blame. The UK is a democracy - we all had an influence on our history, but I find it a little difficult to assess whether we would have been better or worse off without MT. She was clear and unwavering. Right or wrong.

I was always told not to speak ill of the dead..........and even though Blair is still fair game, he just isn't worth my spit.

Anyway, I'm off out of this padded cell to listen to some more wonderful tunes.

Maybe G4S could do it Steve. They're competent.

THE defining figure of British politics since 1979. Her championing of free market economics changed the social & political landscape. She was also the most divisive political figure. There IS such a thing as 'society' and not just ''individuals and their families''.

She started the 'Big Bang' in the City of London in 1986. The City wouldn't be what it is today were it not for Mrs Thatcher's reforms. Harry Enfield's 'Loadsa money' character satirises some of the less attractive values of that age.

Surely the British economy would be better shape if the manufacturing sector hadn't shrunk so much. It's so sad to recall that 100 years ago a quarter of the world's ships were built on Clydeside.

I remember being at Hampden Park for the Scottish cup final in 1988 when thousands of fans held up the red card to her as she took her seat. Ian McWhirter, writing in the Spectator website, describes very well how Thatcherism was the death knell of the Conservative Party in Scotland.

Mrs T had qualities that are usually admired in a political leader:  clarity of vision, unwavering conviction, and courage to see things through at times of difficulty when others are wavering.  

But, regardless of ones political preferences, I cannot recall another UK political leader who divided society more. If you weren't 'one of us' you were the enemy.  A head of government of any democratic society is meant to govern in the interests of all, not a like-minded minority.  In many ways the price of her period in office is still being paid for today.

MDS

If only there'd been some mechanism by which the UK public could remove such an evil tyrant, some form of exercising of their collective will to determine who should lead the Country. Surely such an evil individual wouldn't have remained in power for so long were there something in place...

There was! It was called election and the BRITISH decided to give her another two terms in office. It is
called democracy. If you want advice on how  to remove tyrants, just take a look at the middle east.

Fancy some of it?

Phil,

There was and is a mechanism; it's called a General Election and she won three of them. 

Whatever individual opinions of "Mrs. Thatcher" it has to be remembered that she reflected the times, and was re-elected twice.

Those who did not vote for her Party have to accept that the United Kingdom is a democracy, albeit not one made to suit every individual requirement. After all not everyone approved of Mr. Brown either.

Or Mr. Major,

Or Mr. Wilson,

Or Mr. Callaghan,

Or Mr.Heath,

...

Or even Mr. Churchill.

But there was no revolution or suspension of elections.

Farmer

Well said.

Reading some of the comments here one would imagine the UK was paradise on Earth before MT was elected.

Who said 1970s Britain was paradise on earth?

And are things any better today? I don't think they are. Unaccountable union barons have been replaced by an unaccountable manageriat and spiv bankers.Piss-taking print unions have been replaced by overly-mighty press barons.

The attacks on the BBC, NHS and other institutions vital to the life of the country are still under attack - an onslaught begun by Thatch and her cronies.

Consumers are being ripped off by privatised utility companies. Nobody can be sure of getting a decent pension. Nobody can afford to buy a house any more. The social housing stock, thanks to the short-sighted "right to buy" policy, is horrendously depleted. The country is divided. Local government - essential to a thriving democracy - has been severely weakened, a process begun by the Thatcher government. Kids leaving school have even fewer prospects than they did in the '70s. Those who go to Uni are saddled with enormous levels of debt. Whole swathes of the country lie desolate and may never recover.

Not all of this is directly due to Thatcher - her heirs, Blair, Major, Brown and Cameron, carried on with her dismal and infantile neo-liberal project - but she started the ball rolling.

My mum - a natural Conservative and conservative - voted for Thatcher three times. She told me today she wishes she hadn't.

Well Kevin, that is quite a list.

I put to you the UK is a much worse place now then in 1990.

The vitriol against MT, as you partially agree should be directed at governments from 1990 on.

Regarding attacks on the BBC & NHS; surely you do not want child abuse & the deaths of patients ignored?

She done more to end the Cold War than any CND march.

Sometime in the future Nelson Mandela will die, I would never dream about then criticising him for his terrorist activities.

I suspect we will never agree..

It certainly is quite a list. So are you saying that any international figure who dies is above criticism?

We could add in stuff like Section 28, her disgraceful cosying up to the murderous dictator Pinochet, the carefully planned destruction of the mining industry, her unwillingness to condemn apartheid South Africa... the list goes on.

Your remark about the Cold War - which has been repeated ad nauseam today - is completely false; or worse, egregious. It was all part of the Regan/Thatcher narrative of self-aggrandisement and I'm surprised anyone still buys into it.

I spent some time in - and studying - the Soviet Union in the 1980s and it was clear to even the most casual observer that the Soviet system was rotting from within. Some form of implosion was inevitable. The communist bloc collapsed because it was corrupt and didn't work - nothing to do with CND or Thatcher.

Stafford and Savile have nothing to do with this - the BBC and NHS were attacked by Thatcher for ideological reasons from the very beginning. She hated - or appeared to hate - any form of collectivist endeavour and desperately wanted to privatise both the Beeb and the NHS (the latter beig a product of the post-War consensus she so despised).

Thankfully, even she didn't dare do that, although her meddling and the installation of her crony Duke Hussey as Chairman of the Governors meant that the Beeb's last truly competent DG (with the brief, and possible exception of Greg Dyke) Alasdair Milne was forced to resign. Milne, you'll remember, was accused by Thatcher's hatchet man of "left wing bias" after the BBC made - perfectly within its charter remit - a number of programmes critical of the government. Thatcher - who always, in spite of her sentimental trumpeting of freedom, had Stalinist tendencies - couldn't bear this and Milne was made to go. Milne's successor was that corporatist robot Birt (later ennobled by Blair ), who did a very good job of demoralising and emasculating our national broadcaster, much to the delight of his putative mistress and her nice friend, the non-taxpaying meddler in UK affairs, Mr Rupert Murdoch.

Is Britain a worse place than it was in 1990? I don't know. Is it better than it was in 1979? Probably not. And it doesn't look like getting any better anytime soon. So we haven't really moved on in the past 34 years, have we?

Didn't her son Mark Thatcher take a leaf out of Pinochet's book by attempting a coup of his own?

I was out on errands here in CA,  I did see on a news site that Nancy Reagan said Thatcher and Ronnie were kindred spirits.  Ugh!  Wrong Nancy, Thatcher thought Ronnie was a dolt, not up to her level and she was right.

My vague knowledge of her and the movie with Streep, she was a tough cookie and made major changes.  That is a legacy, good and bad.

Indeed. It was in Equatorial Guinea.

Details here

Interesting to note in the eulogies that she adopted the royal 'we' later in life. She thought she was a royal.

Also that she was a great admirer of aristocracy and like to surround herself with aristocrats. No doubt they saw her as some parvenu but happily accepted the adulation with one grasping hand and tax exemptions with the other.

Finally, she did not like to see other women succeed around her.

Lets face it, she was emblematic of the grasping, social climbing / wannabe society that she so proudly helped the UK become.

Most but not all of her supporters amongst the baby boomers hold perceptions (both real and unfounded) they have financially benefitted from the whole MT equation and this is the real reason for their support - other than some ill articulated mutterings about coal miners etc. Once this generation has passed on, their precious assets stripped by Great Britain's new industrial hope - the care home industry, future generations will judge her legacy quite differently indeed.

Have you spoke with many young people lately? The penny has dropped. We had a big party at their expense and they've got the bill. They can barely afford rents, a university degree at £50k all in costs more than most will ever save in their lifetimes and there are not many jobs for young people around. The easy-sell politics of aspiration ultimately rings hollow if it delivers nothing.

Never sure venom is necessary when someone passes.  I thought she was a great woman.  Others may differ.  Sure.  Not sure if all this on an audio forum is dignified, or needed.

I didn't like Jimmy Carter.  And I may say so now.  But when his time comes I will honor his effort as I would any of our other presidents

Young people have always felt this way. I know we did. I had less-than-zero net assets for many, many years. Only hard work put me into the "black".

Counterpoint: As I now watch my retirement savings disappear through asset depreciation and fees, I wonder if it isn't the other way around. When people save, they are effectively undertaking a contract with future generations in an endeavour to ensure that they are provided for in their retirement. Seems to me that the current generation are reneging on that contract. 

Love or hate Maggie's actual policies and actions, one has to respect politicians (like her) who have the courage of their convictions, rather than the wishy-washy populist idiots we have running the place now.