Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher Thatcher has died

[stephendavion]

Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher has died at 87 following a stroke, her spokesman has said.

Lord Bell said: "It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning."

RIP Margaret Hilda Thatcher .....

[Aurora]

For those of us in our sixties, it's sometimes hard to remember that anyone younger than that almost certainly has no memories of Margaret Thatcher, the vicious and corrosive effect she had on British society and the special and undying loathing for her which is still nurtured by those of us who were there.

Some commentators say that she was a necessary evil to curb the runaway power of unions in the 1970s.

Unions needed modernising and moderating, not crushing into dust. The result of Thatcher's prolonged assault on them was to leave the workforce less empowered and more exploited than at any time since the end of the 19th Century.

Thatcher did more than any other human in history to destroy the idea that people should take care of each other as well as looking out for Number One. She was by a country mile the most socially divisive Prime Minister this country ever had. The miner's strike and poll tax alone tore the population into two bitterly-opposed halves and caused more violent unrest on the streets than at any other time in British history.

She led, and created the environment that caused, the most corrupt, sleaze-ridden government the UK has ever seen. Anyone still remember Westland?

She was at the forefront of the privatisation policy that has left our railways - once the envy of the world - a laughing stock, and caused countless other disasters which we're still paying to try to clean up.

She caused the death of hundreds of British soldiers and thousands of Argentinian conscripts by deliberately allowing the conflict over the Falklands to escalate into a war, for her own political benefit.

Her policies caused the highest unemployment in this country's history, throwing 3 million out of work and into poverty and misery - at a rate which exceeded even the general recession - and brought about the fastest acceleration in the gap between rich and poor recorded under any UK government. (These two facts are related both as cause AND effect.)

She almost single-handedly destroyed Britain as an industrial manufacturing economy, replacing those jobs with low-paid, no-security service industry work.

She poisoned national relations with the rest of Europe.

She presided over and/or directly created, some of the most disastrous boom-bust economics of modern history. Some of us still remember when mortgage interest rates rocketed to 16% under the party that was supposed to represent the safe financial hand.

With regard to her ambition to curb inflation, she presided over a doubling of inflation between 1979 and 1980, from around 10 to over 20 per cent, and a return to 'double-digit' inflation by the end of the 1980's.

She effectively destroyed BOTH of Britain's main political parties, and with them democracy as a tool of choice. Labour had to turn into 'Tory Lite' in order to get elected, destroying the socialist side of the divide (to be fair, Blair holds considerable responsibility here too, as the party of Kinnock and Smith looked likely to finally get elected while still holding onto most of its socialist principles).

The Tories, their ground stolen, were left with nowhere to go, an ineffectual, irrelevant squabbling rump. Britain is now and for the forseeable future a de facto one-party state, with opposition so weak as to be useless. For a woman who preached choice and strength, that's a pretty ironic legacy.

On leaving Downing St, Thatcher bequeathed to Britain "high inflation, rising interest rates, unemployment and a Tory Party tarnished by allegations of sexual and financial wrongdoing". Who says so? John Major, her own successor. Source: The Spectator, Aug 2001

[biffvernon]

That sums things up very neatly, Aurora.

I hope anyone under the age of about 60 will be very careful with their secondary sources before voicing their opinions about that of which they have little first-hand experience.

[cubes]

Cut 10-15 years off that I might agree - 60? Lol. A 15 year old in 1979 would now be only 49. Are you telling me someone like that wouldn't be able to see what's going on?

Out of interest, what are your opinions on the previous PMs?

[the_lyniezian]

Indeed, I am pretty sure people in their 50s if not late 40s will probably well remember her tenure at least as PM.

Those of us in our 20s however were certainly too young to really know what was going on. I knew she was PM and that's perhaps it. Anything else I know only by reputation, and then there are so many opposing arguments that one cannot really make one's own mind up if one has not made it first time round. At least if you're me.

To be honest though I have a view that all politicians are one way or another just as bad as each other, if they can be said to have some good points as well. Perhaps with the exception of those in charge of certain particularly evil totalitarian regimes of course.

[UndercoverElephant]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jn8K8EA7-Q


WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIueevl71cA

[UndercoverElephant]

Indeed, I am pretty sure people in their 50s if not late 40s will probably well remember her tenure at least as PM.

I'm 44 and I remember every f*****g horrible day of it. My first political memory was of the WITCH-BITCH being elected leader of the tory party. I hope she rots in hell.

UEpoetry, written the day she was forced to resign:

The Grocer's Daughter

Twelve years of bloody mistakes
Led me to beyond despair
Your short-sighted selfishness
Is more than I can bear
Now your days are numbered
No more will you dictate
I'd like to see your head removed
And served upon a plate

[kenneal - lagger]

She was so unpopular that she was re-elected for three terms and the Tories won another election after her demise. She is despised by the left wing of British politics because they had made themselves unelectable in the years prior to her election and she was a convenient scapegoat.

Left wing politics made the UK the "Poor Man of Europe". They took us to the IMF, begging bowl, and cap, in hand. They gave us the most ever strikes in a year for several years running. They gave us some of the lowest productivity figures in the industrialised world. The gave us some of the lowest rates of investment in the industrialised world. I could go on with plenty more of the lowest and the worst figures for several pages but can't be bothered. Even Jack Jones, one of the motor manufacturing (or not) union leaders, had to admit in his biography that the unions drove the country into the dust, they were that bad.

Margaret Thatcher turned all this around and even the next Labour government had to promise to carry on her policies before they could get themselves elected. She showed just how bad left wing Britain was and that's why she is hated by left wingers.

She saved us a fortune in contributions to that great Fascist Edifice, the European Union, by negotiating a rebate. Our next socialist government gave some of it away for absolutely no game at all. In fact all they gained was ridicule in the EU Parliament for being so week.

And there are people with short memories who think that nationalisation is the answer to our problems. Read some history books lads and lasses and see how much your education has been lacking. Teachers are unionised as well so are not quite on a level playing field when it comes to recent political history.

[clv101]

That sums things up very neatly, Aurora.

I hope anyone under the age of about 60...

Life is rarely binary. For all Thatcher's faults, and I'm quite convinced her influence was net-negative, it is worth pointing out she was scientifically trained - how many cabinet ministers of the last 20 years have held a science degree? She also pushed UK climate change research in the 1980s, we are still reaping the 'early mover' advantage in the field of research (if not action).

Ignoring all the details and her certainly intentions - her attacks has resulted in more UK coal staying underground than would otherwise be the case. Surely some folk have to recognise this unintended consequence as a good thing.

[UndercoverElephant]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... cXi-VYy_Yw#!

I'm going to get cramp in my face from grinning by the time I go to sleep tonight....

[UndercoverElephant]

she was a convenient scapegoat.

She was a bitch straight from hell who is responsible more than any one other individual for f***ing up this country. I can think of nothing positive to say about her. THANKS GOD SHE IS DEAD.

Nothing positive. Not one thing.

And there are people with short memories who think that nationalisation is the answer to our problems.

The privatisation of British Railways was nothing short of insane.

[cubes]

Pity BR wasn't privatised until 1993 isn't it? I don't remember BR being praised for being cheap/on time anymore than the current lot either.

[UndercoverElephant]

Railways should be run as a public service. The idea that they were ever supposed to make a profit was fundamentally wrong-headed to begin with. It was and still is a classic example of ideology over-riding common sense.

[nexus]

Kenneal:

She was so unpopular that she was re-elected for three terms and the Tories won another election after her demise. She is despised by the left wing of British politics because they had made themselves unelectable in the years prior to her election and she was a convenient scapegoat.

She got a massive boost after taking the country to war in the Falklands. Fanned by jingoistic outpourings from the right wing press. She also assiduously courted Murdoch :

Private papers from the archives of Margaret Thatcher released Saturday reveals that, when it comes to the Murdoch family’s 40-year dominance of the British media market, history tries to repeat itself: the first time in secrecy, the second time in scandal.
Publisher Rupert Murdoch

Publisher Rupert Murdoch, Dec. 3, 1982 (Elise Amendola / AP Photo)

Over 30 years ago, having already acquired the now defunct Sunday News of the World and the daily Sun a decade earlier, Rupert Murdoch was in control of Britain’s two best-selling papers. In 1979, during a close election between the Labor incumbent and Conservative Party candidate Margaret Thatcher, his Sun dramatically switched its support: “Both young people and traditionally Labou supporters tend to be idealists … That is precisely why, on this momentous occasion, we firmly advise our readers to VOTE TORY.”

A year later, Murdoch sent tremors through the establishment by making a surprise bid for the Times Group. The press was in uproar: questions were raised in the House of Commons. Not only was Murdoch proposing to take over the historic paper of record, The Times of London (which Abraham Lincoln had once described as having more power than anything except the Mississippi), but combined with the esteemed Sunday Times and existing tabloids, he would own 27 percent of the newspaper market. The Tory government was legally bound to refer the bid to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. It should have been dead in the water.

For decades, the full story of Murdoch’s eventual acquisition of the Times Group has consisted of guesswork. He wooed the unions and editorial staff by promising jobs and independence—promises he rapidly broke. Many suspected a behind-the-scenes deal, and the diaries of Woodrow Wyatt, a confidante of both Murdoch and Thatcher, outlined the quid pro quos of political support. However, until now, any personal meetings between the Proprietor and the prime minister on the bid have been denied.

In a timely move, the Thatcher Foundation has just released papers detailing Murdoch’s secret lunch with Thatcher in January 1981. The fix is in. Murdoch (who had moved to the U.S. in 1973) promised to introduce Thatcher to President Ronald Reagan and key members of his entourage. Meanwhile, the bid could be waved through on a technicality: The Times, though not The Sunday Times, was a money-loser. The rest—Murdoch’s unflagging support for Thatcher—is history.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... pened.html

[nexus]

Mods can the two Thatcher threads be merged please?