Thatcher Dead

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Apr 08, 2013 1:13 pm

The most contentious British PM of the last century (especially now everyone seems to have come down on the side of Blair being a dick, you'll still find people who'll defend Maggie to the hilt but it's actually staggering how far his repuation has fallen from the euphoria he was elected with) has gone to the big school with endless supplies of free milk in the sky.

So, on the negative side, the decimation of long standing British industries (with stuff like coal being something we could desperately use today) and corrosponding disastrous effect on communities, breaking of the unions, section 28 (God forbid any kids find out about the existence of dirty gays), 3 million unemployed, attempts to wreck the BBC (and what was done to ITV wasn't much better) For Your Eyes Only and shiting both Mark and Carol Thatcher out of her vagina and so on.

On the positive... proved we're marginally better than Argentina at war.

Yes, personal bias, as a single parent family the only way my mother would have been treated more like a piece of shit by the governments of both Thatch and her successor would be if she was also a gay coal miner.

electro girl · Post by **electro girl** » Mon Apr 08, 2013 6:33 pm

She was kicked out just before I was born but being working class she was like our bogey-man growing up . My Dad always said he would host a party when she died so now I'm holding him to it, not the kinda thing I would do but I never had to live through her tyrannical reign. I'm biased for sure but I'm not exactly gleefully shouting that she deserved a stroke, people already knew how I felt about her, nor will I shed a single damn tear for the evil woman. It was a great thing to become our first female leader but a terrible shame it had to be her.

Post by **Clay** » Mon Apr 08, 2013 7:45 pm

First thing I thought of.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Apr 08, 2013 8:23 pm

“I grew in Thatcher’s Britain. We would look out of the window every morning to make sure the bitch hadn’t put Daleks on the streets yet.” -- Warren Ellis

I can't really find it in myself to hate Nazi war criminals in their twilight years either, but certainly can for many of the things she stood for.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Mon Apr 08, 2013 9:30 pm

Yes...I don't know how I'd assess Thatcher's Legacy. Privatisation hasn't brought many of the improvements hoped for and has actually erroded our ability to look after ourselves as all our industries were sold off to forgeign investors and multinationals and all the rest whom generally ran things into the ground leaving us relaint on imports (is there anything more pathetic than us relying on importing coal and gas and our innability to get new nuclear power stations built, along with this dismal fracking business that's going to make a mess of the countryside and perhaps exacerbate geological faults...hooray).

The only industry that has actually benefitted has been the water industry, although government had to pass legislation in 2003 to force private companies to invest in our decrepit network.

She also put us on the path to where we're out now where every organisation has endless tiers of management and not enough people actually doing things...we're a country full of folk incestuously managing each other and doing very little.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:24 pm

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/soci ... 3040865062

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:36 pm

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/soci ... 3040865066 nails it better.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:44 pm

Section 28 had quite a pronounced effect on a lot of people under 35.

edit:

But yes, waste of energy celebrating when her political spawn are currently in office.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Apr 09, 2013 12:24 am

As a result of all this I've discovered I'm only one Facebook friend removed from Jamie Offa Doctor Who.

Slayer-Fan123 · Post by **Slayer-Fan123** » Tue Apr 09, 2013 7:16 am

The confusion with the tweets "nowthatcherisdead" were pretty comical.
I don't know much about Thatcher since I'm an ignorant American and don't know much about British politics. Some people seemed to hate her, and, from a little research, I guess I see why. I'm gonna look up more stuff later though on her before I make a final judgment.
Anyone want to try to convince me of what side I should take?

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Tue Apr 09, 2013 9:04 pm

Depends on er, your politics I guess.

There's no doubt that the Britain Thatcher inherited was a mess. We were on 3 day weeks, had rubbish mountains, strikes, a failing economy and had generally made a pig's ear of things.

Her solution was to break the Unions to stop them holding the country to ransom and to open up some state owned assets to the private sector. Most notable coal and steel production, followed by the utilities and then British Telecom (in the UK, pretty much all our infrastructure was state owned). A lot of banking reforms were introduced (amusingly foreshadowing today's crisis was some 'light touch regulation' which lead to black Monday in 1987) and there was a lot of reform to the benefits system too, although the unemployed were helped through such schemes as the Enterprise Initiative. And there was all the Clause 28 stuff.

The problem with privatisation is that it invariably leads to a lot of scaling back of industry, and the pit closures really did a lot of damage in the North of the country where large working class communities suddenly found there was no work for them.

Basically, if you were in business it was a good time.

Internationally, she came to prominence over the Falklands War in 1982 where we fought to keep some islands at the other side of the world that were still part of what was left of our Empire. Presumably for strategic sheep purposes, although there's apparently oil offshore.

She also involved Britain in the emerging European Union and helped end the cold war, thanks to her championing of Gorbechov (er, however you spell it). Didn't do so well with the Irish question though, which would take until 1998 to get anywhere.

Her downfall largely came through her political instincts failing her, and the introduction of the Poll Tax - a massive shake up of the former local government rates system whereby taxes to local government were collected- which led to the largest peace time protests prior to our involvement in going to war in Iraq in 2003. A lot of these protests were extremely violent and were symptomatic of a population who'd endured too much significant change over the last decade that had, for the majority, left them much worse off.

Post by **Hound** » Tue Apr 09, 2013 9:43 pm

If I'm remembering my British history correctly (I really wish I had my books with me here) Thatcher pretty much saved the country from being way farther to the left than was at all good for the UK.

Now I don't know everything about what was going on at the time and I certainly didn't have to live through it but from what I understood the government was responsible for running nearly everything and the unions were out of control.

Perhaps she went too far to the right (again I wasn't there, I don't know) but she did save the country from economic collapse.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Tue Apr 09, 2013 10:48 pm

Skyquake87 wrote:Internationally, she came to prominence over the Falklands War in 1982 where we fought to keep some islands at the other side of the world that were still part of what was left of our Empire. Presumably for strategic sheep purposes, although there's apparently oil offshore.

Umm, no - a big factor is exactly what continues to keep them in our hands now - tax-paying citizens who determine themselves to be British, and therefore deserving of the nation's military protection when aggressors invaded. The Falklands is the one thing Thatcher did that was absolutely, indisputably right. Galtieri was an extreme-right dictator whose crimes were only limited by his country's military capabilities; that the lefties keep characterising Argentina as the wronged party compared to the UK just shows how little perspective they have (it is, incidentally, worth remembering that we might still have a few elements of the old colonies but that Argentina is full of Spanish people who butchered the genuine natives). He invaded British land, interred British subjects and attacked British troops.

It wasn't some satire-friendly "oil war" or anything like that. It was Thatcher's duty to respond with whatever means possible. We were offering diplomatic packages right up until the actual counter-invasion, Argentina just didn't listen. Yes, the war benefitted Thatcher's political standing both at home and abroad, but that was pretty much because she was doing her job properly.

Addl · Post by **Addl** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:17 am

"Germans are aggressive, egoistic, scared and full of inferiority complex"

This highly academic opinion of her being true, I still find it sad she acted actively in the US and Russia to prevent our reunion with east Germany. Good she did not succeed.

Tetsuro · Post by **Tetsuro** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 9:05 am

If you browse other forums, you can pretty easily tell who's from the UK by whether they're doing the usual "RIP" and condolence bullcrap, or basically going "good riddance".

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 9:47 am

Cliffjumper wrote:Umm, no - a big factor is exactly what continues to keep them in our hands now - tax-paying citizens who determine themselves to be British, and therefore deserving of the nation's military protection when aggressors invaded. The Falklands is the one thing Thatcher did that was absolutely, indisputably right. Galtieri was an extreme-right dictator whose crimes were only limited by his country's military capabilities; that the lefties keep characterising Argentina as the wronged party compared to the UK just shows how little perspective they have (it is, incidentally, worth remembering that we might still have a few elements of the old colonies but that Argentina is full of Spanish people who butchered the genuine natives). He invaded British land, interred British subjects and attacked British troops.

It wasn't some satire-friendly "oil war" or anything like that. It was Thatcher's duty to respond with whatever means possible. We were offering diplomatic packages right up until the actual counter-invasion, Argentina just didn't listen. Yes, the war benefitted Thatcher's political standing both at home and abroad, but that was pretty much because she was doing her job properly.

All quite correct

(apologies for my flippancy) The potential for oil exploration is one of the things that's got Argentina twitchy again. Always seemed odd that the Argentinans want these back so badly, when everyone whom lives there is,er, British.

And what Hound said is pretty much on the money.

I think that's why its difficult to come down one way or the other on whether what she did was right. She did lift us out of the gloom, but the path she set us on hasn't worked out well for the country, but that's largely due to successive Tory and Labour governments pushing through deeper and further changes to our infrastructure and public services to the extent where we have the fiascos in railways, health and education and so on that we have today.

If there had been some proper enforcement of what private industry was doing with all out former state assets, then we might not be in such a mess. I've often thought that things like the utilities would have been better as not for profit outfits, so that true investment in such vital necessities could have perhaps come about.

Jaynz · Post by **Jaynz** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:38 pm

From my 'outsiders' study of history, I think the main problem with all the people demonizing Thatcher is that they forgot what was going on in the UK before her - just like how so many people who now think it's fashionable to demonize Reagan forgot what the 1970s were like...

Post by **Denyer** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 5:54 pm

The positions they succeeded may also have been awful, but history's rarely kind to politicians -- Blair was quite popular before taking the country to war under false pretences. Doesn't make him any less evil or misguided on some subjects, and it's those things that tend to be remembered.

By this point it's hard to tell the parties in this country apart.

edit:

Of some mild interest (sources are in the comments) --

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/dispelling- ... her-myths/

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 6:34 pm

I can't really get into all this celebrating crap, mind. Whether you liked her or not it's been 20 years since she was anything other than an old retired woman. If someone thinks she did damage there's no cause to cheer because the damage was long done (typically when the people celebrating were six or something).

tl;dr the Guardian is largely owned, written and read by contrarian hipster c*nts.

Jaynz · Post by **Jaynz** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 6:46 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:I can't really get into all this celebrating crap, mind. Whether you liked her or not it's been 20 years since she was anything other than an old retired woman. If someone thinks she did damage there's no cause to cheer because the damage was long done (typically when the people celebrating were six or something).

You know, when you're really dealing with largely-political disagreements now 30 years in the past, celebrating her death is a pretty ****ing evil thing to do. I've said before, and this bears repeating, the English population today would not have, and could not have, won World War II (with or without American assistance).

I seriously doubt that the United States could either, mind you - perhaps one of the theaters, but not both. This is what happens when you look at your country as nothing more than borders of your entitlement state.

tl;dr the Guardian is largely owned, written and read by contrarian hipster c*nts.

Yeah, weren't they the rag that was shitting on Churchill recently? See above.