Margaret Thatcher RIP

[Tomcat]

Ya,and for yet another 3 Million you could give every one In London a shovel and we would fill it in again...

 

after stuffing you lot inside 

[360]

Tomcat, I'm actually on your camp. I just found the poster funny.

 

I'm not from the UK and I was very young when she was in power so I can't really comment on this. I do find it interesting to see how much the UK is divided when it comes to judging her legacy.

[ciobha]

I think that sums it all up perfectly 360, she divided the nation. As DC referred to, if you were a Londoner, she probably seemed like the Messiah, outside London, especially working class cities like Belfast, Glasgow, Liverpool etc., she was seen as a satanic figure.

 

If my old mum was alive today she would make sure she was at the funeral, just to be sure the witch was dead, then dance on her grave.

But, I am not going to get into political debates on the forum, we all have our views and opinions, and I for one am not willing to let the likes of Thatcher be the reason I potentially fall out with some good friends from the forum. Politics and religion, best left to the grumpy sods at Canterbury Tales of an afternoon!!!

 

Anyway there are better things to debate on a forum and fall out with each other, like why is Zaltan Ibrahimovic the most over rated player ever to play the game? What you say Seven,lol.

[williethepimp]

Anyone who lived thru the discord she undoubtedly created has bound to have a strong opinion.Ive been amazed over the years at the bull ive read about her,like she was the greatest PM ever etc....And witnessing the way the Tories are treating her death,its a form of canonization!Cameron and Co are milking it for all its worth...

 

 What I'd like to know is whether the Americans on the forum are surprised at the invective against her? The ones ive met over the years have assumed that all the Brits loved Maggie........

 

I remember the Brighton bomb......all the lads I was working with,all English lads ,were delighted with it,and sorry she didnt die....

 

Incidentally ,some of the posters on here so annoyed by the lack of reverence shown towards the dead Thatcher,were the same posters delighted at the death of Hugo Chavez......

 

heres what gorgeous George thought....interesting stat....when Mrs T came to power,Financial services was 3% of the UK economy,when she left power it was 40%......No wonder the country is fucked!

 

[Jimslim]

.when Mrs T came to power,Financial services was 3% of the UK economy,when she left power it was 40%......

 

That is the problem in a nutshell , industry was deliberately laid to waste in favour of finance capital (Gambling with other peoples money to you and I ) 

 

She reduced the regulations against banks and borrowing on the premise that things would be on the up forever 

 

Whilst previous governments both Tory and Labour favoured Keynesian economics - ie Capitalism with a degree of state intervention she rejected this for the belief that the market must be left alone to correct itself .

 

Whilst many here would disagree with Karl Marx one thing he predicted when studying Capitalism (And has been proved correct  time and time again ) Was that capital has to constantly expand to new markets to keep producing more and more consumer products with a higher rate of profit , when this tilts too far the boom becomes a slump .

 

The booms become shorter the slumps longer , how many recession's has the world seen since the Second World War ?

 

By letting the markets run riot and the rich accumulate obscene wealth both Thatcher and Ronald Regan sowed the seeds of the biggest financial crash since the 1930's that we suffer today .

 

The big pyramid scheme con had to come crashing down one day - the laws of capital dictate that it always does .

 

As long as the rich enriched themselves then Thatcher didn't care .... To hell with the rest of us .

 

That is her legacy and history will judge her in the long run as a disaster .

[pdogg]

 

 

 What I'd like to know is whether the Americans on the forum are surprised at the invective against her? 

Very surprised.    

 

I figured like most politicians she had admirers and detractors.  But many of us Yanks don't pay too much attention to European politics.

 

I remember the Specials didn't like her covering an old Dylan tune.

 

[strocube]

There is this from one of my favorite bands.

Stand Down Margaret by the Enlish Beat.

[SiamSam]

This thread has experienced a lot of twists and turns. Funny how some topics can evoke weird, unpredictable responses and take on a life of their own headed in directions unknown. Who would have thought a thread on Maggie Thatcher would have lasted more than a page. We are now up to 10. Bizarre. 

[seven]

http://louderthanwar.com/top-13-anti-margaret-thatcher-songs/

 

This list was made 2 years ago. 

 

 

[seven]

Morrisey: "Thatcher was not a strong or formidable leader. She simply did not give a s**t about people, and this coarseness has been neatly transformed into bravery by the British press who are attempting to re-write history in order to protect patriotism."

 

Morrissey laments the failed assassination attempt on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher after the Brighton hotel bombing. "The sorrow of the IRA Brighton bombing is that Thatcher escaped unscathed."

 

 

 

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/showbiz/news/a472243/morrissey-on-thatcher-she-simply-did-not-give-a-st-about-people.html

 

 

 

[seven]

Last one 

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/morrissey-margaret-thatcher-was-barbaric-20130408?link=mostpopular1

 

 

"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 Argentinean boys aboard The Belgrano had suffered a most appalling and unjust death, Thatcher gave the thumbs up sign for the British press."

[pacman]

 ...she had no wit and no warmth...

 

And doesn't that say it all. I think Margaret was quite damaged goods who would have probably benefited from some therapy. It's rather ironic that someone from Yorkshire would turn her back on her own people. She must have grown up hating them. And everyone else going by reports. 

 

No should ever be voted into office if they don't have a sense of humour. As I wrote in an earlier thread: "show me someone without a sense of humour & I'll show you an idiot".

[pdogg]

 

 

No should ever be voted into office if they don't have a sense of humour. 

Nixon was not exactly a barrel of laughs.

 

Most American presidents had a petty good sense of humor; helps them get elected.  I suppose Bush Senior couldn't do standup but some of the others were quite witty.

[mardhi]

And doesn't that say it all. I think Margaret was quite damaged goods who would have probably benefited from some therapy. It's rather ironic that someone from Yorkshire would turn her back on her own people. She must have grown up hating them. And everyone else going by reports. 

 

No should ever be voted into office if they don't have a sense of humour. As I wrote in an earlier thread: "show me someone without a sense of humour & I'll show you an idiot".

 

 

Grantham, where MT was born and lived her childhood is NOT in Yorkshire Paccers.   

[pacman]

Grantham, where MT was born and lived her childhood is NOT in Yorkshire Paccers.   

 

You're right, it's in Lincolnshire. So I just discovered.

 

The reason why I didn't look it up is because yesterday I was talking to someone from Yorkshire who told me she's from there. I even said to him: "Really? Are you sure?"

 

"Yes" he said, "Margaret Thatcher was born in Grantham in Yorkshire".

 

Good enough for me, my friend comes from there after all. Wait till I see him to point out his error.

[pacman]

I worked in higher education. When Howard - a Thatcher acolyte - came to power in 1996 in Australia - he and his glove puppet Costello cut 600 million dollars from government higher education funding in their first budget. The small regional and rural universities - where I did my daily toil - took the brunt of that.

 

We lost 50 academic colleagues overnight (about 16%). Thanks. Bye bye, seeya later. Redundancy is offered.

 

I'm glad you mentioned you're not a lefty in one of your subsequent posts Ken because I'm sure you would be upset by today's announcement that the government are cutting two billion dollars from University funding in order to pay for school reforms.

 

And school reforms in this case is code for teaching kids to read because Australia has slipped well down the world rankings in children's standards of learning. 

 

I'm sure all the academics who are about to axed will be thrilled to know they are the collateral damage caused by the many dysfunctional families who are sending their kids to school without any preparation. From houses where there are no books & no one reads anyway, these poor kids arrive & are expected to be reading & writing in a few years. With no parental support no wonder they can't cope. 

 

Now the government has some idiot notion that if they allocate one teacher per child all will be well again. Except we don't have the teachers & we couldn't afford them if we did. And the kids return to their homes to face the same social problems that caused the situation in the first place. Plus their parents keep banging out more kids. 

 

I wonder what Margaret would have done?

[KenW]

Yes well by the tone of your post.pacman I gather you are either enjoying the announcment or enjoying winding me up for a response.

 

Even this far into my dotage it still hurts to see any cuts to higher education. But then again, there are apparently no real jobs there (unless you work in finance or for NASA or the military), so who cares?

[SiamSam]

Annette Funicello died this week. She was 70. She was an original mouseketeer!!! Now that's a real job!

 

Too bad we spent the entire week wasting our time talking about Thatcher.

[pacman]

Yes well by the tone of your post.pacman I gather you are either enjoying the announcment or enjoying winding me up for a response.

 

 

Enjoying the announcement? It absolutely pisses me off when I hear this sort of bullshit. And I expected you to have a similar reaction. While I am plain angry about this, I can't imagine how upsetting it would be for a left wing academic to face the end of his working life on the capricious whims of the Labor Party. The party he supported all his life because only those bastards on the right would ever do something this stupid. I wanted to make the point that it's not just Howard & Costello who have no vision or compassion. 

 

The actual figure being diverted is 2.3 billion dollars so I expect there will be many early retirements. And what really annoys me is that it is going to be spent on such a futile exercise. Much of this money should be spent on alcohol & drug programs & more community welfare workers who have real teeth to solve problems. This half witted idea we are presented with will be costing something like $1000 per week per child & the results will be marginal at best. 

 

As for my flippant comment about what would Margaret have done about the social problems, I like using sarcasm. I have always been sarcastic & it seemed too good a line to miss.

[Hefe]

Interesting to see the reactions to Maggie's demise from our Brits here.... seems like she was to the right of Reagan but minus his charm & political finesse.  

 

Interesting too the mention that they both died with dementia, now that we are starting to get a handle on a variety of diseases through medicine & diet our bodies are living longer but the unintended consequence is that our minds may not be be able to maintain. They are saying the Boomers will have a larger percentage of population with dementia in old age then anyone suspected. 

[azza33]

Yes well by the tone of your post.pacman I gather you are either enjoying the announcment or enjoying winding me up for a response.

 

Even this far into my dotage it still hurts to see any cuts to higher education. But then again, there are apparently no real jobs there (unless you work in finance or for NASA or the military), so who cares?

 

Common Kenny , you know the applied sciences has no respect for the rest of you lot

[SiamSam]

Common Kenny , you know the applied sciences has no respect for the rest of you lot

 

Whoa, Mr. Ken if I hold him do you wanna whack him? 

[azza33]

Whoa, Mr. Ken if I hold him do you wanna whack him?

Some peoples pain is others pleasure.. bring out the whip :))

[seven]

[mardhi]

Ironically, like Thatcher - Glenda is a conviction politician.   The difference is her convictions were nothing like Tony (Phoney) Blair's and opposite ends of the world to Thatcher.     

 

Probably mad as a hatter these days, but you gotta respect her going with her gut feel (even if you do not agree with it) and especially the fact she is allowed to say it freely and without reprimand.