The Baroness Thatcher thread

CD – I think your last two paragraphs answer the question posed, perfectly. And as we saw last week many “protestors” were too young to have understood or to have experienced those years.

Occasionally we need leaders who are grown ups. Some who does some thing necessarily but unpopular…doing a job regardless of polls and focus groups.
Or to put it in terms of popular culture (which is all some people can understand) a political Doc Martin.

You can’t always get what you ask far…sometimes you get what you need.
Now, where have I heard that before?

….please explain to me the beatification of Thatcher who you must surely concede had just as many if not more enemies than friends.

You have just explained it yourself

It wasn’t about ‘popularity’.

It was about doing what was necessary, indeed essential , however ‘unpopular’ that made you.

It’s easy to be ‘popular’, see the early days of Blair and Brown. Now see where it got us.

Moggy

I wish I could explain her ‘beatification’…..although I wouldn’t ever use that term myself.

I suppose, if I had to give one reason, it would not be about how we as a nation felt about Margaret Thatcher at all, but it would be how we felt about ourselves.

In all the coverage of the ‘Thatcher years’ around her funeral I’ve never heard once any mention of the fact that Britain was bailed-out by the IMF in 1976. I find that incredible in the financial-crisis world that we’re now living through; bail-outs are what is happening to ruined economies in Europe while our economy is still relatively strong. But in 1976 it was Britain, and Britain alone, that was being bailed-out by the IMF.

Three years later Margaret Thatcher was elected and three years after that Britain won the Falklands conflict; a conflict that comes about as close to a ‘just war’ as I think it is possible to come in this modern age.

Irrespective of how you view her handling of the economy up to that point, I certainly haven’t lived through a time such as the Falklands conflict before, and I haven’t lived through such a time since. For once it felt as if the whole country was united in a common cause; a cause that was ‘undeniably right’ (to us anyway). I am too young to have experienced World War II or even the aftermath but maybe that was the common experience back then.

You see, as a nation, I think we desperately want something to be proud of and maybe those few brief months gave us something to be proud of; we felt we were in-the-right, we set-out to do something and we succeeded, we didn’t ask anybody else’s permission (well, maybe the UN), we didn’t ask for anybody’s help (well, maybe a little) we just set-out and did it.

I think we, as a nation, earned some respect for the Falklands conflict. I think we respected ourselves more because of it and I think we liked how that felt. If we had achieved that I really believe that we started to ask ourselves what else we could achieve.

It doesn’t matter that it was Margaret Thatcher who was Prime Minister at the time, and you can argue it would have been better or worse if somebody else had been Prime Minister, but the fact is that she was Prime Minister, she acted the way she did and the result is now history.

Why does anybody who doesn’t spit and hiss out the name ‘Thatcher!’ suddenly have to be a ‘Thatcher lover’?

There are plenty who couldn’t care less about Thatcher from the moment her own party kicked her out the door, what we detest is this fake glorification of Thatcher as some sort of icon.

She isn’t and she wasn’t, she was no more than an ex-politician who eventually failed, so why the lauding of just another politician.

I would most certainly be just as opposed to any charade when eventually any other ex PMs go to their maker, whatever their political affiliation.

You are obviously correct in that policies and actions are far more important even than the current leader at the time, please explain to me the beatification of Thatcher who you must surely concede had just as many if not more enemies than friends.

Why does anybody who doesn’t spit and hiss out the name ‘Thatcher!’ suddenly have to be a ‘Thatcher lover’?

Quite so.

It wasn’t Mrs Thatcher who was divisive, it was the Ben Elton ‘alternative’ crew who dumbing down to Mockney/Estuary accents could make a great living (far better than any miners) simply by knocking a government doing unpopular, but necessary things.

Sound familiar?

“That Cameron eh? ‘Ees a toff!” Cue dutiful laughter from ‘right on’ audience

Moggy

…so all we had to do was get rid of the government (the Conservatives) and we’d all be fine, right?

The biggest political influence on my generation wasn’t Margaret Thatcher, Neil Kinnock or Arthur Scargill…

…it was Ben Elton…..because all the ‘alternative’ comedians, the popular (alternative) bands and ‘youth’ personalities all railed against the government, or more specifically ‘Thatcher’!

I’m sure it was quite a shock for many when life under the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown didn’t quite work-out to be the life-of-milk-and-honey that they’d been expecting.

.

i’m a couple of years older than you Creaking Door, but agree with all that you said there, especially the part quoted above… i remember the sense of anticipation that things ‘were going to get better’ when Labour came to power… although to be honest for a southern boy with a steady job, things never were that bad under the previous regime..

It’s enlightening and refreshing to read the experience and observation of one who has grown up through those specific years. And to separate personal experience from historical and hysterical analysis.
By the same token I am sure my nascent perception of politics and governance was Churchill’s last administration leading into the heady days of “Supermac”!! I was an adult before Labour made an impression.

I would sugest Thatcher lovers take a closer look at the actual costs before any self satisfied crowing…

Why does anybody who doesn’t spit and hiss out the name ‘Thatcher!’ suddenly have to be a ‘Thatcher lover’?

When did British politics boil-down to everybody loving / hating the Prime Minister or Party in power? I don’t love or hate Margaret Thatcher anymore than I love or hate Neil Kinnock, John Major, Michael Foot, John Smith, Tony Blair, David Cameron or Gordon Brown; policies are what matter and it is possible to agree or disagree with a policy in isolation without having to flip-flop like some binary switch into a permanent state of either loving or hating absolutely everything that a politician ever says or does.

D’you know what the first political thought that ever entered my head was? It was when Britain elected its first woman Prime Minister; I was thirteen at the time and (being a thirteen-year-old boy) I wasn’t sure I wanted a woman in charge of the whole country.

By the time we had a male Prime Minister again I was twenty-five, and by the time we had another party in office I was thirty-one, so for me and my generation the whole of our formative years we lived under Conservative rule and do you know what the biggest problem with that was? My generation didn’t really have to think about politics; the government was the Conservatives, they’d always been the government (as far as we were concerned), there were huge problems with the economy and everybody was always moaning about the government…

…so all we had to do was get rid of the government (the Conservatives) and we’d all be fine, right?

Of course it got to the point that expressing any other view was absolutely taboo so all ‘political’ discussion, or even any real interest in the reality of government, effectively ended. The biggest political influence on my generation wasn’t Margaret Thatcher, Neil Kinnock or Arthur Scargill…

…it was Ben Elton…..because all the ‘alternative’ comedians, the popular (alternative) bands and ‘youth’ personalities all railed against the government, or more specifically ‘Thatcher’!

I’m sure it was quite a shock for many when life under the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown didn’t quite work-out to be the life-of-milk-and-honey that they’d been expecting.

I’m not gloating about that but I lived through those years and by the end most people didn’t seem any happier than they’d been before New Labour were swept to power on a wave of euphoria.

Now you can call me a ‘right-winger’ if it makes you happy but the truth of the matter is that all those Conservative election victories were won democratically and New Labour moved to the right, politically, to get elected; and it seemed that they moved further right in office, and then back to the left towards their eventual election defeat so what does that tell us about the British electorate? For me, what is remarkable is how much at variance it is from the popular cultural perception of all those years ago.

Telegraph confirms that the funeral cost to the public purse is 4 million. For the lefties this works out at 6 pence per head.

If it had been 13.6 million why do you think i would accept it?

If they hadn’t made such a big thing of the funeral ceremony then they wouldn’t have needed so many police would they.

I would sugest Thatcher lovers take a closer look at the actual costs before any self satisfied crowing, evidently the funeral service etc has been paid by the family, however the costs of recalling parliament, the costs of troop involvement is not included and I have no doubt whatsoever that there will be plenty of hidden costs on the side.

Cost aside the whole thing was an uneccesary largely unwanted charade, done only for the glorification of the most divisive politician in recent history, but for me the sooner the whole damn pantomime is forgotten the better, every reminder of Thatcher is another one too many.

Did a great service to the UK by bringing in large number of illegal immigrants from India and other Asian countries who have now reduced the local population to a minority . Also , majority of these Asians turn out to be jihadi terrorists .

Doubt if anyone in the UK is missing her .

Standard ploy, for the disappointed, is to sling dirt, and hope some of it sticks. Doubtless, if the report had said 13.6 million, you’d have accepted it without question.

The police’s job is to protect the public, and that includes the possibility of being injured by some morons hurling more than just insults.

If it had been 13.6 million why do you think i would accept it?

If they hadn’t made such a big thing of the funeral ceremony then they wouldn’t have needed so many police would they.

Storm in a teacup – but then we knew it would be, anyway….:rolleyes:

How do you know they are telling the truth? .

Standard ploy, for the disappointed, is to sling dirt, and hope some of it sticks. Doubtless, if the report had said 13.6 million, you’d have accepted it without question.

.I am still pleased all those extra police were used for something other than fighting crime

The police’s job is to protect the public, and that includes the possibility of being injured by some morons hurling more than just insults.

This quote from last week made me laugh.

[SIZE=3]The bizarre remark was made to Lord Mandelson when the pair met for the first, and only, time after he was
appointed Northern Ireland secretary.

He said: “She came up to me and she said, ‘I’ve got one thing to say to you, my boy … you can’t trust the Irish,
they are all liars’, she said, ‘liars, and that’s what you have to remember, so just don’t forget it’.[/SIZE]

How do you know they are telling the truth? .I am still pleased all those extra police were used for something other than fighting crime.

Frankly who cares?

But this ‘cost’ is a strange beast. If you look at it a large chunk of the money went to St Pauls. Regardless of your feelings about religion, it is a major London landmark, popular with tourists.

So this money isn’t lost from the UK economy, it is merely circulating within it.

Hardly anything to start wetting your trousers about I feel

Moggy

So the funeral for Margaret Thatcher cost ‘only’ £3.6Million…

…presumably those protesting on the day are now angry at being 178% more annoyed at the cost than they needed to be?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22299372

Actually, looking at the article, it seems that £2Million of the cost was Police wages that would have been paid regardless (although admittedly on something more ‘useful’).

Where did the £10Million figure come from anyway? Ah yes, the newspapers made it up!

(For those who have entered into agreements to pay the funeral costs for others it now works out at about six-and-a-half pence per taxpayer.)

How selling off council housing and not building replacements resulted in the housing problems we have now.

Ah, yes. Selling-off council-houses and not building any to replace them.

It is a nice theory but governments rarely give-away something for nothing; why do you think that the government sold-off so many council-houses at such low prices?

I suspect the truth is that the government couldn’t afford to maintain them but the problem was that the tenants couldn’t afford to buy them at market-price either so they were sold at a fraction of their true value.

So why not build more council-houses to replace those sold-off; well what would that achieve? You’d be back to square one; except you’d have lost a lot of money!

Would such a policy be popular now? The government is going to sell council-houses at 50% of their current value, pay market-cost to have more council-houses built and then sell them too. While it would generate jobs in the building sector it would also cost a lot of taxpayer’s money; money that would end-up in the tenants pockets if they quickly re-sold their cheaply-bought council-house.

While this is certainly redistributing wealth…..I don’t see it being popular with the average home-owner.