Thatcher

[Dizzytheegg]

Some excellent points here. I don't think she was single handedly to blame for the decline in industry but the attitude and treatment towards working class communities at the expense of middle/upper/financial classes still has effects today. The banks fail and Billions appear from nowhere to keep them going, a mine is shut and folk are just left to deal with it themselves and entire communities falls apart.

 

Must agree with the posts about the BBC Coverage. The coverage of the Queens Jubilee, the Royal Wedding and (no doubt) Thatcher's funeral will be exceptionally bias. I have no issue at all with legitimate protests but Thatcher's funeral should be a low key affair to allow her family to mourn her death. The day of anyone's funeral should be about close family and friends, nobody else, particularly the state.

[Meister Jag]

I'll probably regret making this post as I'd said I'd back off but the death of the figurehead of an ideology that has negatively impacted on my life (both working and personal) is deserving of further comment. I'm trying to keep my comments objective, which is hard given what we're discussing, and to keep my comments in some way constructive and relevant i.e. let's just say that what I'd say in pub talk would be somewhat different from the measured tones I'm using on the forum. However, in this respect I'd side with Willjag by saying that the last thing I'd want to do is to be part of the permanent closure of this forum. As Will' has said, this is too important a resource to lose...

 

Anyway moving back onto Thatcher, Ian_Mac has quite rightly highlighted the role of the BBC and other media strands who have sought to embalm her death in “statesmanship”. However, and the point has been made elsewhere in this thread, those who remember what she did to the miners and to many other working class communities will prefer her immortalised as the poet Shelley did another Tory politician, Lord Castlereagh. After the Peterloo massacre in 1819 he wrote, “I met murder on the way - had a mask like Castlereagh”. Apologies if a bit heavy for a Wednesday morning folks; but work with me...

 

For many who experienced her and her government(s) at work, in a metaphorical sense murder was Thatcher’s business. Not "statesmanship". Like I say, sometimes the murder was metaphorical - the murder of industries and communities. Whichever way you look at it, her actions destroyed people’s lives. However, sometimes the murder was real. Thatcher oversaw the ongoing dirty war in Ireland. Her callousness was on display when she condemned Irish Republican hunger strikers to death, rather than concede the recognition as political prisoners for which they were campaigning. At the time many in her government counselled against her actions but she was "not for turning". I'm no IRA apologist by the way but true "statesmanship" on all sides did eventually end the conflict.

 

Another controversial point is that the 907 Argentine and British military personnel killed in the 1982 Falklands war would not have died if Thatcher hadn’t decided to take back an absurd colonial anomaly by force. (Apologies, this is a cut and paste form an earlier post I made on this matter years ago. My point at the time was that she steamed in and damn near lost the conflict.) Many, including her US allies, had urged diplomacy. She preferred to use force so arguably was implicit in the deaths of those who were killed. If there is a way to avoid war I'd always try to seek resolution. Someone's child always ends up dead.

 

At the end of her premiership self-preservation forced the Tories to expel Thatcher from her bunker. Some may recall the expediency in which the Tories scrapped her flag ship poll tax policy. Some will even recall that this had led to the biggest riot London had seen since the 1930s and a mass movement of 14 million people refusing to pay the tax. The Tories aren't daft and lessons were learned from Thatcher’s term in office. But with a convenient deficit excuse to roll out, they're back aided and abetted by their coalition lapdogs.

 

Her legacy among other things is that she in effect gave us Blair, Brown and now Cameron. By chance she has died as an even greater assault on the welfare state than any she mounted is coming into force. (Lest we forget, the Thatcher government gave us Disability Living Allowance and cars for the disabled! Propped up the small car industry in Britain for yonks.) In my view and apologies if I'm starting to lose the plot here (but what do you expect), the best form of class revenge on Thatcher would be to build an even bigger social movement to break the coalition government and bury everything she stood for. However, as it stands, this is hardly likely to happen as this government takes great pleasure in singling out the low paid, poor, sick and unemployed for special treatment. But in an ideal world, this government should be buried even deeper than Thatcher's coffin will lie. The fact is, we are all suffering because of her legacy!

 

I close by once again saying that I take no personal pleasure in rejoicing in the death of a senile old woman. I said earlier, I had hoped that she'd been able to reflect upon her legacy in old age and to wonder if she'd got it right. In this respect, she was ideologically driven so I have no doubt she'd have had no regrets. In my view, in a democracy, politicians like Thatcher need to be challenged as their vision can impact on lives and can cause real misery. To me and many on the left, her legacy wasn't the right to buy a council house (look at the mess of that particular policy as Housing Benefit overspend is now out of control as private landlords have lined their pockets, with no affordable council houses being built due to government cut backs etc) but the manner in which she destroyed the lives of communities and decent working people.

 

With apologies if I've went on a wee bit there; but touching raw nerves and all... I've got my tin hat on and promise I won't respond as the bombs fall!!

Edited April 10, 2013 by Meister Jag

[1 John Lambie]

Try reading between the lines 1JL. He's not getting back.

 

It's not my site. Just that I've experienced the crap that gets thrown at admin on previous forums and so I don't like to some of the trash that's getting thrown at them. They're providing a service for Jags fans throughout the World to come together and support their Club. For instance, the Nomads flag wouldn't have happened as quickly as it did without this site. It'd be a pity to lose it becuase admin got fed up with taking abuse because they've banned someone that posts views that they are totally against being posted on their site.

 

The guys running the site prefer to remain anonymous, although I'm sure a good few folk know who they are and the good work they do elsewhere for the Club. But because they are faceless, it doesn't mean they aren't hurt or offended by some of the mud slung their way.

 

So what was this thread about again?

 

I certainly haven't thrown any mud at them, questioning a decision cannot be classed as that.

 

I was one of the moderators when this forum started up so I'm well aware of the challenges that some posters can cause.

[Jaggernaut]

Some excellent points here. I don't think she was single handedly to blame for the decline in industry but the attitude and treatment towards working class communities at the expense of middle/upper/financial classes still has effects today. The banks fail and Billions appear from nowhere to keep them going, a mine is shut and folk are just left to deal with it themselves and entire communities falls apart.

 

Must agree with the posts about the BBC Coverage. The coverage of the Queens Jubilee, the Royal Wedding and (no doubt) Thatcher's funeral will be exceptionally bias. I have no issue at all with legitimate protests but Thatcher's funeral should be a low key affair to allow her family to mourn her death. The day of anyone's funeral should be about close family and friends, nobody else, particularly the state.

 

Here in Scotland this kind of OTT salivating over how great Maggie was will probably increase the referendum YES vote. So, every cloud and all that.

[Guy Incognito]

My views on Thatcher are unprintable, suffice it to say I'm not in mourning. The whole idea of a state funeral for such a divisive and controversial a figure as Margaret Thatcher is as Meister Jag has pointed out an indication of how out of touch this government actually is. In addition the wholesale rewriting of history that has accompanied the mourning of the British establishment leaves little doubt as to the unimportance of memory or perhaps the ownership of memory is in today's society. Amidst all the faux mourning it is perhaps apposite to ask why it was acceptable to crush the aspirations and beliefs of thousands under the heel of the desire to end the subsidy of "old" industries, yet it is equally acceptable to spend billions maintaining the health and wealth of the the financial sector whose very incompetence is to blame for the entirety of the mess we now live with. I totally accept the label of an unreconstructed left winger, I see nothing to be proud of or indeed to aspire to in the so called new Conservative revolution, rather a continuation of the old adage that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.

 

It is fair to say that by the time Thatcher came to power the 'old industries' had become expensive to run and were inefficient compared to their counterparts in other countries. It is also fair to say that some trade unions had more influence in public life than was healthy. However, completely destroying these industries and the unions that represented their workforce should never have been the answer. Even paying a man to turn up for a job which is essentially superflous would at least mean he is then liable to pay income tax, as well as able to spend his disposable income in the local economy. Although this scenario is far from ideal in a business sense, it is surely preferable to making mass redundencies and paying him not to work at all.

 

In any case, countries with a similar sized economy to the UK, such as Germany, were able to have nationalised industries which operated effectively; and for industries that did 'fail' the social impacts were managed far more sensitively than they were in this country. It would seem that Thatcher's administration never looked at what other countries were doing to manage this change, which it is reasonable to assume that their decision making was mainly ideological. It doesn't take a genius to work out why far more tears were shed on Monday in areas of the UK whose economies did not rely so much on heavy industry, like the so-called 'home counties', than in other parts that did.

 

Even the (presumably) well-intentioned policy of 'right to buy' caused huge problems further down the line for many people, as decent social housing was sold off and not replaced. Thus, for the first time in decades homelessness in the UK became a significant issue.

 

I've purposly avoided tv coverage on this cause i would imagine it would be painting this whole 'oh sure thatcher was a wee bit divisive - but she did the neccesary things that needed to happen to make britain great again' narrative.

 

She was very successful in wiping socialism off the range of choices in politics, every mainstream party plays to that 'consensus' - but i think we should be careful in personalising such changes - they probably would have happened regardless of who became prime minister in that period. she was just the figure head of a movement away from keynsian social democracy, to free market neoliberalism - the groundwork had been done within economics departments getting all austrian school on us; the rise of financial capital following the opec crisis of 73 with the corresponding borrowing to third world nations - paving the way for neoliberal reforms; institutional changes from the federal reserve in USA to changes in the role and remit of IMF and World Bank; not to mention events Chiles right wing dictatorship being the first place to do all the privatising of state resources to be rolled out elsewhere etc. So its all a bit bigger than Thatcher.

 

Whats depressing for me is that instead of offering a political programme to deal with the problems inherant to capitalism whether it be of a keynsian or neoliberal one, the best that the left can do is cheer on the death of an old woman and blame all these things on her like shes some bad pantomine character. Problem with going to the pantomine angle is that lefties end up just looking like sad little caracitures thus confirming the widespread perception (that has been around since thatcher right through to post new labour times) of the loony left.

 

Should also state, that this is not in reference to any of the posts on here, more just from seeing what took place in george square etc.

 

I would like to think that those young people jigging in George Square the other night, many of whom most probably not even conceived when Thatcher last set foot in Downing Street (her wee visit to Gordon Brown notwithstanding), have looked at the failings of today's society, sought answers, and traced the root cause back through thirteen years of New Labour (where the gap between rich and poor became stretched further still) to the early 1980s and Thatcher's Tories. That gives me a crumb of hope that maybe for the next generation the crass materialism and the 'me-me' culture that preceding generations embraced isn't for them. In short, I would like to think they were partying for the right reasons.

 

Thatcher was a bit before my time - other than I can vividly recall a lot of people really, really despising her - so most of this is a secondary take on things. It is only as I became a bit more politically aware in my mid to late teens, and after learning about things like the Beveridge report and the creation of the welfare state at school, that I began to understand why her government and its policies were anathema to so many, and which is why I can understand the reaction among many to her passing, as spiteful as it may seem at first glance.

 

Unfortunately, all of the mainstream parties on the scene today espouse neo-liberal economics, albeit with varying takes on social policy, which, as you say, means that many of the negative effects of capitalism are unlikely to be properly addressed any time soon.

[topcat]

Growing up during the miners strike, Mcgregor the steel industry hatchman and the Poll Tax etc I probably like many Scots saw Thatcher as a figure of hate.

 

But I still felt a moment of revulsion and embarressment at the displays of drinking Champagne in George Square filmed by Skynews.

 

No matter how much you hate someone you should always be able to rise above and doth your cap in respect to a families loss.

[GrantB]

Growing up during the miners strike, Mcgregor the steel industry hatchman and the Poll Tax etc I probably like many Scots saw Thatcher as a figure of hate.

 

But I still felt a moment of revulsion and embarressment at the displays of drinking Champagne in George Square filmed by Skynews.

 

No matter how much you hate someone you should always be able to rise above and doth your cap in respect to a families loss.

 

I'm sure people respected Hitler's family in the same way?

 

Anyway, I dont have a hell of a lot of sympathy for a convicted arms dealer and a racist.

 

Didn't make a big deal of it but craigthepict and I enjoyed a glass or two of the sparkling stuff on Monday night.

[Charlie Endell]

 

 

I'm sure people respected Hitler's family in the same way?

 

Anyway, I dont have a hell of a lot of sympathy for a convicted arms dealer and a racist.

 

Didn't make a big deal of it but craigthepict and I enjoyed a glass or two of the sparkling stuff on Monday night.

You fully deserve to live in Livingston.

[topcat]

I'm sure people respected Hitler's family in the same way?

 

Anyway, I dont have a hell of a lot of sympathy for a convicted arms dealer and a racist.

 

Didn't make a big deal of it but craigthepict and I enjoyed a glass or two of the sparkling stuff on Monday night.

 

You may well have raised that glass and fair dos. But did you run up and down your own street celebrating whilst doing it? Off course you didn,t because like most people you know what is right and wrong when it comes to a death.

 

Whoa Thatcher must have left you scarred to be mentioned in the same breath as Hilter

Edited April 10, 2013 by topcat

[GrantB]

Whoa Thatcher must have left you scarred to be mentioned in the same breath as Hilter

 

Was just an easy comparison based on the fact that her list of friends included P.W. Botha, Augusto Pinochet and Pol Pot.

[Guy Incognito]

Growing up during the miners strike, Mcgregor the steel industry hatchman and the Poll Tax etc I probably like many Scots saw Thatcher as a figure of hate.

 

But I still felt a moment of revulsion and embarressment at the displays of drinking Champagne in George Square filmed by Skynews.

 

No matter how much you hate someone you should always be able to rise above and doth your cap in respect to a families loss.

 

There's quite a good article about it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-etiquette

 

For me it is all about context. These people were not celebrating the demise of someone's frail, demented auld granny (even though that is what she latterly become) they were celebrating the demise of someone who had created an ideology which they, rightly or wrongly, find harmful and offensive.

 

The sad thing, IMHO, is that that ideology prevails. The world is not a better place as a consequence of Maggie popping her clogs. The damage was done a long time ago.

[Guy Incognito]

Oh, and as (arguably distasteful) aside:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/22093181

 

[kni]

Was just an easy comparison based on the fact that her list of friends included P.W. Botha, Augusto Pinochet and Pol Pot.

 

Pol Pot? You can't be serious!

Edited April 10, 2013 by kni

[Willjag]

I certainly haven't thrown any mud at them, questioning a decision cannot be classed as that.

 

I was one of the moderators when this forum started up so I'm well aware of the challenges that some posters can cause.

Apart from the first sentence, the rest wasn't aimed at you 1JL. It was a generalisation.

 

So this thread's about Thatcher isn't it?

[Rid Skwerr]

I don't see how the act of ceasing to draw breath exonerates her previous excesses.Can't say that I'll miss get in the slightest.

 

Awful creature that she was.....

[CUMBERNAULD JAG]

Anybody read the list of tributes on the BBC last night, then come across George Galloway's "tribute". He's nuts, but you had to laugh. I won't quote him, but let's just say his comment was brief and alluded to a hot, fiery place.

 

That is one person i will have a drink to celebrate his demise treacherous little scroat

[CUMBERNAULD JAG]

Does anyone remember the state the country was in before she came to power??? i do was in a far worse state than it ever was when she was in power

[mrD]

Possibly, but a lot of accounts from her peers suggest otherwise. There doesnt appear to have to been quite the appetite for such a full scale assault on the unions and she appears to have been pretty much alone in her determination not to find compromises. Much as I dislike all Tories, I think we wouldnt have seen such extremes if say Heseltine had been leader.

 

I think it would have gone in that direction at maybe a slower pace, and i guess that probably wouldn't be as bad a thing insofar as there would be less shocks along the way. But i think ala Harvey's arguments that the neoliberalism project was instituted as a reassertion of ruling class power following its decline vis a vis the working class in the post war period, would have ensured that an impetus in that direction would be the case...

 

Unfortunately, all of the mainstream parties on the scene today espouse neo-liberal economics, albeit with varying takes on social policy, which, as you say, means that many of the negative effects of capitalism are unlikely to be properly addressed any time soon.

 

Agreed. although id say that variations on social policy are within very narrow bounds and predicated upon neoliberal assumptions such as the responsibilisation agenda in social policy which has been a strain of thought that has informed new labour and coalition policies; creeping privatisation of service delivery; etc

Edited April 11, 2013 by mrD

[Meister Jag]

Does anyone remember the state the country was in before she came to power??? i do was in a far worse state than it ever was when she was in power

 

I'm presuming that yours is a serious question? Anyway, here goes and yes, I was unfortunate enough to be about and working when she came to power...

 

Thatcher came to power in May 1979. In 1973 unemployment was at a record low of 3.4%. In 1979, the UK unemployment rate was 4.7%. Unemployment in the UK reached a record high under the Thatcher government in 1984 with 11.9% of working age people in the UK unemployed. The legacy of high unemployment is being continued by the current Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition who are content to oversee an unemployment rate of 7.8%. Under Thatcher unemployment nearly reached 4 million; so for those out of work things were really great (not!).

 

In terms of privatisation, if you were about you may recall that a great sell off occurred under the Thatcher government from 1979; the likes of British Aerospace, Cable & Wireless, Jaguar, British Telecom, British Steel, British Petroleum, Rolls Royce, British Airways, and utilities such as water and electricity all went up for sale. The state-built and subsidised housing stock was put up for sale and private landlords were allowed to build up massive housing stock portfolios that have crucified the national Housing Benefit budget; basically councils haven’t been funded to build much needed houses so private landlords can dictate high rents. The tax-payer meets the bill for housing costs (including some who are working but can't afford high rents) and private landlords have lined their pockets. Overall, she basically disposed of the nation’s assets, sold the family silver – what we all owned collectively as a nation. In doing this, her mates made a fortune, the average punter in the street f*** all!

 

Prior to Thatcher, all of the services and industries I’ve mentioned were state owned, with wages and prices controlled by a democratically elected government. Alas, no more… Few are actually owned by British owners with those who bought the companies having often moved production and jobs abroad. They owned the factories etc so under a free-market system they got to break them up, sell them up, cash in and make workers unemployed. Would this have happened had they stayed in state ownership? Probably not…

 

Need I go on? The foregoing is only part of her legacy. Oh yeah, and some seriously rich folk got even richer!

Edited April 11, 2013 by Meister Jag

[CUMBERNAULD JAG]

All this talk about Maggie Thatcher is making me hungry i could fair go a chicken supper and a coke

[Meister Jag]

All this talk about Maggie Thatcher is making me hungry i could fair go a chicken supper and a coke

 

If it's what I think it is, the reference isn't missed on me.

[Mr Scruff]

I'm presuming that yours is a serious question? Anyway, here goes and yes, I was unfortunate enough to be about and working when she came to power...

 

Thatcher came to power in May 1979. In 1973 unemployment was at a record low of 3.4%. In 1979, the UK unemployment rate was 4.7%. Unemployment in the UK reached a record high under the Thatcher government in 1984 with 11.9% of working age people in the UK unemployed. The legacy of high unemployment is being continued by the current Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition who are content to oversee an unemployment rate of 7.8%. Under Thatcher unemployment nearly reached 4 million; so for those out of work things were really great (not!).

 

In terms of privatisation, if you were about you may recall that a great sell off occurred under the Thatcher government from 1979; the likes of British Aerospace, Cable & Wireless, Jaguar, British Telecom, British Steel, British Petroleum, Rolls Royce, British Airways, and utilities such as water and electricity all went up for sale. The state-built and subsidised housing stock was put up for sale and private landlords were allowed to build up massive housing stock portfolios that have crucified the national Housing Benefit budget; basically councils haven’t been funded to build much needed houses so private landlords can dictate high rents. The tax-payer meets the bill for housing costs (including some who are working but can't afford high rents) and private landlords have lined their pockets. Overall, she basically disposed of the nation’s assets, sold the family silver – what we all owned collectively as a nation. In doing this, her mates made a fortune, the average punter in the street f*** all!

 

Prior to Thatcher, all of the services and industries I’ve mentioned were state owned, with wages and prices controlled by a democratically elected government. Alas, no more… Few are actually owned by British owners with those who bought the companies having often moved production and jobs abroad. They owned the factories etc so under a free-market system they got to break them up, sell them up, cash in and make workers unemployed. Would this have happened had they stayed in state ownership? Probably not…

 

Need I go on? The foregoing is only part of her legacy. Oh yeah, and some seriously rich folk got even richer!

I've been trying to avoid any debate on this topic since Thatcher was such a divisive figure that any statement in support of anything that government did is automatically (especially in this country) taken as support for an ideology that is often created in retrospect. And there's a highly distasteful tendency among some (edit: not MJ quoted above) to casually dehumanise in a way which is almost pathological. It says more about those posters than any response could.

 

But there is a debate to be had about politics/ economics as it developed through the 70s and 80s both in the UK and Europe/ worldwide, and clearly this is more than just "Thatcher's Legacy". And the above post is the heart of the matter for me. I recoil against several things: Monopolies (state, private or union), Command Economy, State control of the individual. These are all ultimately what I see as the change that emerged between the direction of the government from 1974-75/76 and from 1979 thereafter. There is scope for a healthy and reasonable debate around this, and it's interesting to note that this is now formally a 'History' debate rather than topical one, but I'd much rather it wasn't wrapped up in rejoicing or mourning a person who probably had much less influence than we, (or she) realised.

[Norgethistle]

There's quite a good article about it here: http://www.guardian....death-etiquette

 

For me it is all about context. These people were not celebrating the demise of someone's frail, demented auld granny (even though that is what she latterly become) they were celebrating the demise of someone who had created an ideology which they, rightly or wrongly, find harmful and offensive.

 

The sad thing, IMHO, is that that ideology prevails. The world is not a better place as a consequence of Maggie popping her clogs. The damage was done a long time ago.

 

She was only capable of creating that and gaining such power because of what the labour government had put up with before as the old style unions did what ever they pleased with no comeback. She gave the unions enough rope to hang themselves especially the miners, and for all her faults she was one clever bitch.

[ian_mac]

All this talk about Maggie Thatcher is making me hungry i could fair go a chicken supper and a coke

 

Did you honestly just post that on a thistle forum?

[Meister Jag]

I've been trying to avoid any debate on this topic since Thatcher was such a divisive figure that any statement in support of anything that government did is automatically (especially in this country) taken as support for an ideology that is often created in retrospect. And there's a highly distasteful tendency among some (edit: not MJ quoted above) to casually dehumanise in a way which is almost pathological. It says more about those posters than any response could.

 

But there is a debate to be had about politics/ economics as it developed through the 70s and 80s both in the UK and Europe/ worldwide, and clearly this is more than just "Thatcher's Legacy". And the above post is the heart of the matter for me. I recoil against several things: Monopolies (state, private or union), Command Economy, State control of the individual. These are all ultimately what I see as the change that emerged between the direction of the government from 1974-75/76 and from 1979 thereafter. There is scope for a healthy and reasonable debate around this, and it's interesting to note that this is now formally a 'History' debate rather than topical one, but I'd much rather it wasn't wrapped up in rejoicing or mourning a person who probably had much less influence than we, (or she) realised.

 

 

Thanks for your post, some interesting points and I’m glad we’ve moved onto tackling the fallacy of the Thatcher legacy.

 

In my view the problem with Thatcher’s ideologically driven direction was the pace in which she shifted from an inflation prone corporatist economy to a more deregulated economy. She arguably exposed British economy to international capital flows and trade fluctuations as many other governments continued to prop up their economies (and in so doing supported and looked after their citizens. In my view, a function of the State and why we elect governments to look after our national interests). But without regulation and government intervention the pace of change was brutal. I think it fair to say that she thought that the markets would self-regulate and provide stability. In time she was of course proved correct, but along the way people suffered…

 

Individuals and communities who shared many of Margaret Thatcher’s core principles and values – those of thrift, hard-work, self-sufficiency, religion, community etc – were simply flattened by economic change. It is one thing to embark on massive institutional change backed by the full force of the nation state, but it is perhaps another not to properly consider the impact it will have on millions. What made sense in a monetarist economic textbook, meant a new culture of despair and dependency that resulted in human tragedy on a grand scale. Yet the upwardly mobile benefited from the spread of property and asset ownership; so for many, especially in the South East of England, life was very good. Not so in less prosperous parts of Britain.

 

Yet there appeared to be two sides of the same coin – those doing quite well and those being badly shafted. If we consider the state brutality, humiliation, cover-up (think we’ll now add Hillsborough to that list), the deliberate attack on lifestyles and sexuality that weren’t the traditional norm then her record begins to look very tarnished indeed. No dancing on graves, just an objective look at the track record of someone who has divided a nation (and clearly still does!) As I’ve said before, the gulf between rich and poor was allowed to grow ever greater during her period of power.

 

As ever, much of her record is not as simple as it appears at first glance. Much has been made of her taking the reins of a Britain that was ungovernable but (perhaps conveniently) I have no recollection of this being the case. Every government has a right to govern and to try to make change. However, what she set about trying to achieve could have been done with more compassion and care.

 

For example, taking on Arthur Scargill is one thing. Taking on millions of working people who share your core values – whether they vote for you or not – is perhaps quite another thing. In this respect I’m talking about ordinary working people who were law abiding and who simply wanted to play their part in wider society. The fact is that she was so ideologically driven, she didn’t care who she hurt in order to achieve her objectives – union smashing de-regulation etc. The levels of devastation she achieved must remain part of the record. Proud working cultures were replaced with worklessness, crime, and desolation and much that remains wrong with Britain can be directly traced back to her premiership. Surely the means must matter as much as the end result?

 

I promised I wouldn't get involved in a lengthy debate so this will be my last post - had a bet with a mate and I apparently owe him three pints for posts I said I wouldn't make. But red rags, or should that be red flags... and all that

Edited April 12, 2013 by Meister Jag