iron lady gone

[Bentley Bullet]

When Jade Goody was dying and finally succumbed to cancer I found her plight horrific. No doubt some people didn't. Some even made jokes about it.

When Saddam Hussein was televised walking to the gallows and having a rope put round his neck I found it horrific viewing. No doubt some people didn't.

Maggie Thatcher's died and I find some of the comments from fellow human beings  horrific.

It seems it is human nature for some people to have more humanity than others.

[RobTheRover]

...and I'm torn tonight between a night of introspection, as my Dad died two years ago today.  Or a quiet celebratory drink.

As he used to say "do what you feel, not what you think other people think is right." I'm not a hypocrite so cheers and bottoms up.

Redwine, have that drink.  Remember your Dad.  Forget Thatcher.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

I'm the same bb I remember seeing that saddam video and it sickened me. No death should be rejoiced imo.

[StocktonRover]

This says all that needs to be said - turn up the volume and enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcXi-VYy_Yw

[StocktonRover]

And if that doesn't say it all - try this...........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1NyWbhCxZE

[StocktonRover]

I never realised she had such an influence on our music industry as well.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43wWYL9Kr6g

[wilts rover]

Wasn't it labour who first started closing the pits in the 70s?

Pits like other industries come and go. The problem with Thatcher was that it was ideologicaly rather than economically driven - and she didn't do anything to bring employment in their place thus dooming those communities, and the steelworks, and the shipyards....

I was under the impression that most of the pits were in fact losing money hand of fist and that is why she wanted them closed, therefore it was economically driven - but it became ideologically driven when Scargill foolishly challenged her. Lets not forget, the miners would have probably won, if Scargill had gone and got the vote from his union members instead of going into the strike without a mandate from his members.

At the time the government were giving massive subsidies to farmers (and maybe still do for all I know). In the recent banking crises billions of pounds has been used to prop up failing banks. To what extent has the price of energy increased from 1984 to today? It was idealogically driven, if Thatcher had wanted to keep a coal/steel/engineering industry, she would have done.
Agree with your other points though.

[hoolahoop]

Legacy?, c'mon Tory boy, elucidate.

As far as I can see any "legacy" has been dissipated over the intervening years.....and don't bring in council house sales into it. The biggest piece of asset stripping this country has seen. IMHO

Can you elucidate on that nonsense please redwine ? We would more than likely be so far in the shite today that life would be almost unbearable.
The balance of power was wrong and she corrected it, she got many things wrong but you have to wonder why the world admired her. Think outside of the box. the 'legacy' has dissipated due to years of the weakest governments ever seen under the ...........labour party. 

[StocktonRover]

Legacy?, c'mon Tory boy, elucidate.

As far as I can see any "legacy" has been dissipated over the intervening years.....and don't bring in council house sales into it. The biggest piece of asset stripping this country has seen. IMHO

Can you elucidate on that nonsense please redwine ? We would more than likely be so far in the shite today that life would be almost unbearable.
The balance of power was wrong and she corrected it, she got many things wrong but you have to wonder why the world admired her. Think outside of the box. the 'legacy' has dissipated due to years of the weakest governments ever seen under the ...........labour party. 

Her legacy was to divide society, make the rich richer and the poor poorer. She manipulated the press to turn family against family (Orgreave).

I suspect that those who have any empathy for her were not touched by the effects of her destruction of society.

She set the chain of events in motion that has resulted in society being so divided many dont even know their neighbours and wont help someone when theyre getting mugged in the street,

I was a miner fresh out of my apprenticeship and lost my house and spent many years re-building my credit rating because of her artificially engineered catalyst for the miners strike (Cortonwood).

I've enjoyed a fine bottle of wine tonight happier that I can let go of the pent up years of anger that bitch inflicted upon me.

And before you start defending her, look on any northern football forum and see the unified contempt for her - theres a damn site more celebrating that mourning.

[hoolahoop]

When Jade Goody was dying and finally succumbed to cancer I found her plight horrific. No doubt some people didn't. Some even made jokes about it.

When Saddam Hussein was televised walking to the gallows and having a rope put round his neck I found it horrific viewing. No doubt some people didn't.

Maggie Thatcher's died and I find some of the comments from fellow human beings  horrific.

It seems it is human nature for some people to have more humanity than others.

+1 well said and grown-up words that some could do well to think over but I doubt it.

[jucyberry]

If she was genuine in her wish for mass home ownership she should have thought it out better.. To not reinvest that money into replacing the sold stock was stupid at best, inept at worst.

 Now we have a situation where those who either couldn't afford to buy or who don't approve of these houses being sold in the first place are being bullied out of their homes.

So, there you go Steve, asset stripping.
 

[RTID75]

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/45966

[BillyStubbsTears]

Legacy?, c'mon Tory boy, elucidate.

As far as I can see any "legacy" has been dissipated over the intervening years.....and don't bring in council house sales into it. The biggest piece of asset stripping this country has seen. IMHO

Can you elucidate on that nonsense please redwine ? We would more than likely be so far in the shite today that life would be almost unbearable.
The balance of power was wrong and she corrected it, she got many things wrong but you have to wonder why the world admired her. Think outside of the box. the 'legacy' has dissipated due to years of the weakest governments ever seen under the ...........labour party. 

Hoola.

You've clearly bought into the hagiography of Thatcher "saving" Britain from economic disaster. The truth is actually rather different.

Between 1955 and 1979, the average UK economic growth rate after inflation was 2.1%. Between 1980 and 2008, the average UK economic growth rate after inflation was... (go on...have a guess).

The truth is that our economic performance neither improved nor worsened a jot after Thatcher. What DID happen that that a massive shift occurred from poor to rich, from Industry to Finance and from North to South. She ushered in an era in which the smart, pushy, savvy individualist could get very, very successful. But given that overall economic performance was no better than it had been before her, that had to have a cost. The cost was that everyone else shared less in economic growth and the proceeds got concentrated more and more in fewer and fewer hands.

And that is not MY take. That is the simple, checkable fact. In 1979, for every £1 that GDP grew  by, median wages went up  by 90p. In 2008, the increase in median wages was 57p. Have a guess where the difference has gone?

IF that shift of the rewards to a tiny percentage of leading entrepreneurs had transformed our economic performance, if it had given us much higher economic growth, I might swallow it. But it didn't. It didn't change it by one iota. We still grow at the rate that we did in the era when we were supposedly the Sick Man of Europe and the Unions were in charge. So what's happened is that we're all working harder but taking a smaller share of the cake than we used to do. And the cake is growing no quicker than it used to do. So our hard work is doing nothing but to lining the pockets of those at the top. That is why we've ended up with a culture (supported by Blair & Mandelson to their eternal disgrace) where the last time we had such a split between the wages of the most highly paid 1% and those of the bottom 50% was just before the Great Depression.

THAT is the revolution that Thatcher brought to this country. And that is ONE reason why I despised the bitch with a vengeance at the time and why I'm happy that she's gone now.

[BillyStubbsTears]

And here's another reason why I despised the bitch at the time and why I am glad she has gone now. When General Pinochet died 7 years back, Thatcher said she was "greatly saddened". Prior to that, she called him "this country's staunch, true friend".

This was a dictator who overthrew a democratically elected Government (Communist, sure, but a Govt that had won a free and fair election) and proceeded to have up to 100,000 political opponents imprisoned, many thousands tortured and up to 3,000 assassinated. Just today it's been announced that the body of the Nobel Prize winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda is to be exhumed for a new post-mortem. Pinochet's Govt claimed he died of cancer, but it's long been believed that he was poisoned by the junta because of his left-wing politics and his charismatic popularity.

Now, I don't know about you, but personally, I didn't and don't want to call a Kitson like Pinochet a friend of my country.

But to Thatcher he was a role model. He had faced down the left wing "enemy within" and imposed a free-market economy on Chile a few years before Thatcher came to power. The arch-Thatcherite economic historian Niall Ferguson discussed Pinochet's revolution a few years ago on TV. He said "Is it acceptable to overthrow a Govt and to imprison, torture and kill opponents if it sets your country on the right economic path? I think it is."

Given Thatcher's devotion to Pinochet (even before he helped out in the Falklands War) what lengths do you think she would have gone to in order to defeat her "enemy within"? Think Orgreave. Think Hillsborough.

[IDM]

BST,Stockton, I understand your reasons for the anti-Thatcher feelings, and the hatred etc.  But did you celebrate when she was ousted from power by her own party?  Why wait until she has died?

You hate her for what she and her government did - I doubt you knew her well enough to judge her on her private persona, with her family etc?

I was very aware of what was going on economically and politically during the Thatcher years.  Did I want her out and her policies put right?  Hell yes!  Do I care that she is no longer with us?  No not really.  Am I celebrating her death?  No, not at all.

We'll disagree on this I know, and I'm not trying to tell you what to believe or to say at all, it is just that celebrating a person's death in our country, is sick.

And yes, before anyone asks, I would extend that to paedos etc who I would rather are caught, sentenced and have to live with their guilt and the reprisals doled out by fellow inmates.

[ditch_drfc]

Some of the comments on here are more than disgusting.

[Filo]

Some of the comments on here are more than disgusting.

Her support for General Pinochet, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were more than disgusting, her destruction of the Coal, Steel, Shibuilding, Automotive, Railway, Print industries etc, all in her obsessive desire to destroy the Trade unions and the working class, whilst de regulating the banking industry, and lining the pockets of the greedy bankers, ensured the North was left a desolate industrial wasteland while the South and her rich friends prospered!


That was and still is more than disgusting!


May she burn in the bowels of the Earth for all eternity, the evil cow!

[Mr1Croft]

If people believe it is appropriate to celebrate her death then that is their choice, I never lived through her time in office and so it is probably unfair for me to judge. The only thing I will say is that an elderly woman, mother and grandmother who suffered with elements of dementia has died after a stroke, for me there is nothing to celebrate, but I know others will disagree and as I say I'm not judging them here.

She is perhaps, and will forever remain one of the most divisive figures to the British electorate. As Andrew Marr said about her "Think not of her as a political leader, think of her as a hurricane in human form". I was born in 1992, I didn't live through the 80's and the struggle of the working class families that were affected by Mrs Thatcher's Britain. My family was affected like most in the North when Mrs Thatcher reduced the industrial part of Britain. I'm not going to try and deny that she was responsible (whether solely or not is irrelevant) for the downfall and struggle of many families in what were industrial areas of the country.

But, there as several facts that we must remember about the Iron Lady here: She was polled as both the most unpopular and popular Prime Minister since polling began, she was the longest serving British Prime Minister of the 20th Century and both the first female leader of a British Political Party and of course the first female British Prime Minister, but truth be told after the Winter of Discontent in 1979 I doubt there was a better man for the job.

The fact that the majority of her policies still remain a consensus in British Politics today, 4 Prime Ministers, both Labour and Conservative governments and 5 General Elections later tells us all we need to know about how much she influenced this country. I may not have been alive when Maggie was in office, but I would be a fool if I didn't believe I grew up in Thatcher's Britain.

There is a discussion on this thread and also in the media at the moment debating what is/was Maggie's Legacy? I think that one is quite simple: Undefeated. She was undefeated at the Faulklands, undefeated against the trade unions and most importantly undefeated at every General Election she stood as the candidate to become/remain Prime Minister. Yes, I agree her premiership was lucky and she was also lucky in her opponents, it was tough for many people in the country and many families have never since recovered, I'm not debating that here because it doesn't change her legacy of remaining undefeated, and neither does her death.

[RTID75]

Undefeated, apart from in the end by her own party, of course...

 

[Mr1Croft]

Even then, she stood down (albeit on the advice of the majority of her cabinet). She wasn't defeated in the leadership contest. Stabbed in the back by her own party; yes. Defeated? No.

[hoolahoop]

Her "legacy" is that she ripped the heart out of our manufacturing base (as did Reagan in the States) and the country has never been the same since. My Uncle and my cousin were both miners living in Moorends and communities such as that and countless others lost the central employer. Thatcher's government also sold off just about every asset that Britain had to the highest bidder.

No Prime Minister has driven the wedge into Britain more than Thatcher. Coal, steel, auto industry... all f***ed.

We moved from a manufacturing nation to a service industry.

Yes, you can debate about Scargill and the unions holding the country to ransom, but the long term damage of the Thatcher era still reverberates. Poll tax? The criminial justice bill? The Falkands War (the biggest distraction ever from the shit going on domestically - a tactic Bush would use after 9/11 to justify going into Iraq while liberties were taken away under the "Patriot Act").

Thatcher was the beginning of the end.

All 3 of those industries were f**ked long before Maggie came into town. They were busted flushes mate not thriving businesses.
British Leyland was a wildcat strike ridden mess making shite cars in a shite way against German and Japanese products, the demand for coal was diminishing and could be had from elsewhere at far cheaper prices per tonne as well as the move to nuclear power and Steel was in a similar position to the car industry in that it was over priced compared to the cheaper availability of foreign imports.
The very fact that we had a Management v. Unions conflict at virtually every turn with neither being mature enough to compromise had hastened the demise of all of these industries.
Please take the rose (red) tinted glasses off and do some homework. The only area where we excelled at that time was in specialist steels and the highest grade coal and certainly NOT in the Motor Industry.
Alot of the blame , if blame should be attached at all, should have been laid at the feet of totally intransigent Management (who weren't allowed/trained to manage) and Unions (again untrained and unrealistic about the demands of their business) hellbent on bringing down a Conservative Government.
That is the reality and if we had continued down that path , we would have been bankrupt long before the banks grabbed our money!!
It's impossible to keep 'dishing out' more and more money to employees of poorly run industries especially when trying to compete with the emerging 3rd world labour costs at that time.
Tell me I'm wrong.................

[IDM]

Some of the comments on here are more than disgusting.

Her support for General Pinochet, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were more than disgusting, her destruction of the Coal, Steel, Shibuilding, Automotive, Railway, Print industries etc, all in her obsessive desire to destroy the Trade unions and the working class, whilst de regulating the banking industry, and lining the pockets of the greedy bankers, ensured the North was left a desolate industrial wasteland while the South and her rich friends prospered!


That was and still is more than disgusting!


May she burn in the bowels of the Earth for all eternity, the evil cow!

All that means is that she will not be mourned nor missed, by many, including myself.

Doesn't mean her death is worth celebrating.

[CusworthRovers]

I couldn't have put this any better. However I'm nowhere near as good as this great man of our time. Ladies and Gents I give you the words of Morrissey:


"Thatcher is remembered as The Iron Lady only because she possessed completely negative traits such as persistent stubbornness and a determined refusal to listen to others.

Every move she made was charged by negativity; she destroyed the British manufacturing industry, she hated the miners, she hated the arts, she hated the Irish Freedom Fighters and allowed them to die, she hated the English poor and did nothing at all to help them, she hated Greenpeace and environmental protectionists, she was the only European political leader who opposed a ban on the Ivory Trade, she had no wit and no warmth and even her own Cabinet booted her out.

She gave the order to blow up The Belgrano even though it was outside of the Malvinas Exclusion Zone - and was sailing AWAY from the islands.

When the young Argentinian boys aboard The Belgrano had suffered a most appalling and unjust death, Thatcher gave the thumbs up sign for the British press. Iron? No. Barbaric? Yes.

She hated feminists even though it was largely due to the progression of the women's movement that the British people allowed themselves to accept that a Prime Minister could actually be female.

But because of Thatcher, there will never again be another woman in power in British politics, and rather than opening that particular door for other women, she closed it.

Thatcher will only be fondly remembered by sentimentalists who did not suffer under her leadership, but the majority of British working people have forgotten her already, and the people of Argentina will be celebrating her death.

As a matter of recorded fact, Thatcher was a terror without an atom of humanity,"

[hoolahoop]

Some of the comments on here are more than disgusting.

Her support for General Pinochet, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were more than disgusting, her destruction of the Coal, Steel, Shibuilding, Automotive, Railway, Print industries etc, all in her obsessive desire to destroy the Trade unions and the working class, whilst de regulating the banking industry, and lining the pockets of the greedy bankers, ensured the North was left a desolate industrial wasteland while the South and her rich friends prospered!


That was and still is more than disgusting!


May she burn in the bowels of the Earth for all eternity, the evil cow!

All that means is that she will not be mourned nor missed, by many, including myself.

Doesn't mean her death is worth celebrating.

Of course it doesn't IDM but it seems to be symptomatic of the age we live in . There were many to blame for that era and that INCLUDES the numbskulls running the businesses and those supposedly taking care of their workforces i.e the Unions. I worked in the Industrial Relations sector at the time and it was impossible for both sides to compromise seemingly.

[MrFrost]

I couldn't have put this any better. However I'm nowhere near as good as this great man of our time. Ladies and Gents I give you the words of Morrissey:


"Thatcher is remembered as The Iron Lady only because she possessed completely negative traits such as persistent stubbornness and a determined refusal to listen to others.

Every move she made was charged by negativity; she destroyed the British manufacturing industry, she hated the miners, she hated the arts, she hated the Irish Freedom Fighters and allowed them to die, she hated the English poor and did nothing at all to help them, she hated Greenpeace and environmental protectionists, she was the only European political leader who opposed a ban on the Ivory Trade, she had no wit and no warmth and even her own Cabinet booted her out.

She gave the order to blow up The Belgrano even though it was outside of the Malvinas Exclusion Zone - and was sailing AWAY from the islands.

When the young Argentinian boys aboard The Belgrano had suffered a most appalling and unjust death, Thatcher gave the thumbs up sign for the British press. Iron? No. Barbaric? Yes.

She hated feminists even though it was largely due to the progression of the women's movement that the British people allowed themselves to accept that a Prime Minister could actually be female.

But because of Thatcher, there will never again be another woman in power in British politics, and rather than opening that particular door for other women, she closed it.

Thatcher will only be fondly remembered by sentimentalists who did not suffer under her leadership, but the majority of British working people have forgotten her already, and the people of Argentina will be celebrating her death.

As a matter of recorded fact, Thatcher was a terror without an atom of humanity,"

I find it ironic that Morrissey can call anyone negative.

[CusworthRovers]

Go on then Mr Ticket Sales Man, where's the negativity in Morrissey?

[MrFrost]

Go on then Mr Ticket Sales Man, where's the negativity in Morrissey?

Have you read any of his lyrics?

[CusworthRovers]

That wasn't the question, was it

[hoolahoop]

I couldn't have put this any better. However I'm nowhere near as good as this great man of our time. Ladies and Gents I give you the words of Morrissey:


"Thatcher is remembered as The Iron Lady only because she possessed completely negative traits such as persistent stubbornness and a determined refusal to listen to others.

Every move she made was charged by negativity; she destroyed the British manufacturing industry, she hated the miners, she hated the arts, she hated the Irish Freedom Fighters and allowed them to die, she hated the English poor and did nothing at all to help them, she hated Greenpeace and environmental protectionists, she was the only European political leader who opposed a ban on the Ivory Trade, she had no wit and no warmth and even her own Cabinet booted her out.

She gave the order to blow up The Belgrano even though it was outside of the Malvinas Exclusion Zone - and was sailing AWAY from the islands.

When the young Argentinian boys aboard The Belgrano had suffered a most appalling and unjust death, Thatcher gave the thumbs up sign for the British press. Iron? No. Barbaric? Yes.

She hated feminists even though it was largely due to the progression of the women's movement that the British people allowed themselves to accept that a Prime Minister could actually be female.

But because of Thatcher, there will never again be another woman in power in British politics, and rather than opening that particular door for other women, she closed it.

Thatcher will only be fondly remembered by sentimentalists who did not suffer under her leadership, but the majority of British working people have forgotten her already, and the people of Argentina will be celebrating her death.

As a matter of recorded fact, Thatcher was a terror without an atom of humanity,"

Cussie often agree with you but on this occasion not a chance. There's far too much supposition in your post, little based on facts i.e. your point about the Belgrano.......that ship had been sailing in and out of the exclusion zone continually. Would you have been happier if more of our lads had died at the hands of this crew ?
See my points above re. this supposedly thriving manufacturing industry , it quite patently wasn't as some would have others believe anywhere near thriving or indeed competitive internationally at that time. Our heavy industries were fooked mate by bad management  of the workforces trying to compete with the emerging 3rd. world with both their higher rates of productivity and lower costs in both raw materials and labour.
'She hated feminists' , really where did you get this from ? As far as I remember , she was actually looking for more females in management and pushed for equality of pay. What she actually hated was far left feminists and that's really the point I think you are trying to make ?
Whilst I agree that the tactics went far beyond the pale when dealing with the peaceful 'non-ballotted' miners and those allied to them and the monstrosity that was the Poll tax .
She should have of course let those free Irishmen attack us at will without fear or impunity.

Those labour reforms remain on the statute book Cussie why ? Because they made common sense to both the left and right in this country. Yes our local folk got hurt but some of these reforms had to take place otherwise by now we would have gone down the pan.

[CusworthRovers]

That wasn't the question, was it

Frosty, I get the feeling you're now frantically Googling Smiths/Morrissey songs now, as you don't seen so quick in your replies.

Speak later Captain