Margaret Thatcher Died

slinky · Post by **slinky** » 8th Apr, '13, 20:18

I guess given her age and poor health recently, this shouldn't be a huge surprise, but I did get a bit of a shock seeing the headline. She's an iconic part of my childhood - probably the first UK Prime Minister I was really very much aware of growing up. RIP.

Ex-Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher dies

Kooky · Post by **Kooky** » 8th Apr, '13, 20:26

And we were all so busy keeping an eye on Mandela's health.

cromasaig · Post by **cromasaig** » 9th Apr, '13, 02:21

'The ANC is a typical terrorist organisation ... Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land' - Margaret Thatcher, 1987

Fat Bob · Post by **Fat Bob** » 9th Apr, '13, 17:22

There's no doubt that the policies of the Thatcher governments, with Maggie as a figurehead of those policies, were not like by all. Some people, through no fault of their own were put out of work, and when one industry dominated some small villages, that was disastrous for the local community.

However, those policies also pulled the UK into the latter half of the 20th Century. Without those policies, the UK would still have large, non-profitable industries being run with no hope of any salvation.

Overall, she did good for Britain, so much that even Ed Miliband has shown some admiration for Maggie (prior to her death).

There are of course, some warts. I can think of her views towards Nelson Mandela and the ANC (though was Nelson Mandela employing any different tactics Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness?) and the Poll Tax.

There again, compare what state the UK was in after 10+ years of Thatcher to the state it is after 10+ years of Blair. I there's your answer!

Kooky · Post by **Kooky** » 9th Apr, '13, 18:12

Not a Thatch fan by any stretch of the imagination (trying to make a life and career in the early 1980s in the north of England, how would I be?) but I'm getting fucking sick of people who have never lived in the UK bitching about her and asking me why I'm not dancing on her grave. Snapped a little at our newest recruit this morning.

Also had an interesting convo with another newish colleague who was born in Argentina. He said the Falklands War was the final straw for his parents, who migrated to Australia shortly after it. Quite funny really because I am one of the few people I know who wonders why the hell the Brits think they have a claim on them.

I've said on here before, couldn't finish Mandela's autobiog because I thought he came across as a complete narcissist. I wanted to like him but I couldn't.

Pinklepurr · Post by **Pinklepurr** » 9th Apr, '13, 20:27

I can't believe how nasty people are about her death, after all she wasn't a dictator and was voted in by the people...it just seems so wrong that people are celebrating her death. There are so many others in the world who are so much worse and did so many really wrong things in comparison. She was after all just a politician.

Fat Bob · Post by **Fat Bob** » 9th Apr, '13, 23:27

Just read the Torygraph, there's nothing but praise on those pages!

BoD · Post by **BoD** » 10th Apr, '13, 04:52

I was a teenager in the late 70s and have strong memories of strikes, strike and more strikes, power cuts, having to live by candlelight and my mother having to cook on a paraffin stove. The country was a complete mess. Yes the policies that Maggie and co followed from 1979 onwards resulted in industrial decline and a great deal of hardship for a lot of people, but I can't help feeling that a lot of the blame should sit with those who allowed the country to get into such a state in the first place.

Interestingly there was a program on last night in which Neil Kinnock (former Labour leader), put the blame for the decline of the coal industry in the wake of the 80s miners' strike firmly on Arthur Scargill and not Maggie Thatcher - though he did say that she took advantage of Scargill's stupidity

Kooky · Post by **Kooky** » 10th Apr, '13, 05:11

I'm a bit vague on the 70s BoD (for no other reason than a menopausal memory...oh alright and lots of Bacardi way too early in my teens) but didn't we have all sorts of shortages? Sugar shortage - what the hell was that about? 3-day weeks? I can't even remember what that meant for us. We were on the farm in the early 70s so possibly not a lot, we were pretty self-sufficient.

What I remember most about the 80s is, certainly in the north, you didn't ask people what they did because most of them didn't. I was a rarity in my crowd because I had a job - perversely I'd dropped out of uni and all my peers graduated and sat on the dole for a year or so. My Dad had gone abroad to work in the early 70s and was there throughout the 80s too (including rebuilding the airport at Port Stanley).

Oh and interest rates in the 80s - my first mortgage was a fixed rate. 15.4%.

Ah, the good old days

BoD · Post by **BoD** » 10th Apr, '13, 05:35

I am sure the bakers were on strike at some point. No idea why

The 3-day week was an electricity saving thing that resulted from a miners' strike. Hence the domestic power cuts as well

Fat Bob · Post by **Fat Bob** » 10th Apr, '13, 07:22

K, it will always depend who you speak to. My parents remember the 70s with horror: rubbish piling up on the streets, bodies left unburied, 3-day weeks and power cuts, inflations above 10% for a decade. Whichever Governments allowed all of that to happen (and some of it happened under Conservative rather than Labour) then it was just not right.

The Thatcher Government changed that. Yes, people were affected, but the effect would have been worse (for people, for the communities, for the country) had nothing been done.

T2K · Post by **T2K** » 10th Apr, '13, 20:33

I have a favorable impression of her but, as with most people looking at foreign leaders, it's not based at all on their domestic policies which I don't know much about.

However, all these people (it seems commonplace?) talking about pissing on her grave...disgusting and very low end.

daffodil · Post by **daffodil** » 10th Apr, '13, 23:19

"That woman" (one of the more polite terms for MT where I grew up) is as divisive in death as she was in life, glad I'm not in the UK for the forthcoming funeral / circus!

No other British politician polarises opinion to this extent, Tony Blair doesn't even come close - well, at this point in history anyway.

Edit : As for the dancing on her grave stuff, suspect not that commonplace really - standard media frenzy guff.

Kooky · Post by **Kooky** » 11th Apr, '13, 05:25

In most of the press photos I've seen of people partying in the streets, they weren't born in the 80s. Hey, here's a bandwagon, let's jump on it.

BoD · Post by **BoD** » 11th Apr, '13, 07:15

Well the funeral will be at St Paul's next Wednesday. My office is next door, so I will ,let you know just how many bandwagon-jumping fuckwits turn up.

Tas · Post by **Tas** » 11th Apr, '13, 09:13

I do find the witch is dead horrifyingly indecent, and as a democratic nation, and outside observer still part of the commonwealth fully appreciate/agree with Pinklepurr observation.
And as a non-UK person only becoming aware of things a while after Thatcher (was it John Major next?) on a basic level think appreciate that Thatcher was straight up with and reasonably consistent and I have never been left with an impression she was there to be on the graft or deceptive in intentions? However the impression of Blair is the complete opposite? So in 20yrs time the comparable legacies will be interesting to compare.

Fat Bob · Post by **Fat Bob** » 18th Apr, '13, 23:23

BoD wrote:Well the funeral will be at St Paul's next Wednesday. My office is next door, so I will ,let you know just how many bandwagon-jumping ****wits turn up.

Not seen any disturbances in the news, so that's good. There again, not heard from BoD, am trying to figure out if that's a good or bad thing......

Fat Bob · Post by **Fat Bob** » 18th Apr, '13, 23:26

BoD wrote: Interestingly there was a program on last night in which Neil Kinnock (former Labour leader), put the blame for the decline of the coal industry in the wake of the 80s miners' strike firmly on Arthur Scargill and not Maggie Thatcher - though he did say that she took advantage of Scargill's stupidity

Nice brief article from a miner in Staffordshire. Well, he was then, now he's a Tory minister, so you may want to take a pinch of salt....

Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin: Thatcher critics are wrong about the miners' strike

sluggo · Post by **sluggo** » 19th Apr, '13, 01:23

Unlike T2K I did not have a favorable opinion of Mrs Thatcher from a political perspective, however, like T2K I find it quite distasteful that people would celebrate her death. She was a duly elected leader of the country and regardless of one's political opinions deserves a modicum of respect accorded her in death.

Kooky · Post by **Kooky** » 19th Apr, '13, 05:13

I don't give a rat's arse about her being a duly elected leader, sluggo. I don't like all this pomp and ceremony and I have avoided all media of it but she was a human being, she has family grieving for her - that's enough for me to be disgusted by people celebrating her death.

Anyway, show's over, onto the next big story.

edit: And the good people of the UK should be worrying about who's fucking up their country in this century.

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