They're up there all right, but I think Churchill and Harry Truman probably hold that honour.
Margaret Thatcher is dead.
- Thread starter JLM
- Start date
They're up there all right, but I think Churchill and Harry Truman probably hold that honour.
I find it difficult to say anything nice about her. She ruined the economy helped to start the
deregulation with her buddy Reagan that set the stage for the American tanking and she was
a friend of a murdering butcher from Chile, Pinochet.
She did however stand firm and not flinch in the face of the Falkland Islands for that she
deserves credit. Like all politicians its customary to find something nice to say. Personally
her attitude has resulted in many of the problems we have today
deregulation with her buddy Reagan that set the stage for the American tanking and she was
a friend of a murdering butcher from Chile, Pinochet.
She did however stand firm and not flinch in the face of the Falkland Islands for that she
deserves credit. Like all politicians its customary to find something nice to say. Personally
her attitude has resulted in many of the problems we have today
Reagan was what was needed after the failed limp wristed administration of Jimmy Carter left the United States with. Thatcher and Reagan were instrumental in bringing about the end of the cold war. Both Maggie and Ron were not without their mistakes though. Surely the Iran Contra debacle was a smear as well as the rather invasive drug testing that I believe walks on the rights of citizens by removing the presumption of innocence.
I was on a British site where they posted this:
1. She supported the retention of capital punishment
2. She destroyed the country's manufacturing industry
3. She voted against the relaxation of divorce laws
4. She abolished free milk for schoolchildren ("Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher")
5. She supported more freedom for business (and look how that turned out)
6. She gained support from the National Front in the 1979 election by pandering to the fears of immigration
7. She gerrymandered local authorities by forcing through council house sales, at the same time preventing councils from spending the money they got for selling houses on building new houses (spending on social housing dropped by 67% in her premiership)
8. She was responsible for 3.6 million unemployed - the highest figure and the highest proportion of the workforce in history and three times the previous government. Massaging of the figures means that the figure was closer to 5 million
9. She ignored intelligence about Argentinian preparations for the invasion of the Falkland Islands and scrapped the only Royal Navy presence in the islands
10. The poll tax
11. She presided over the closure of 150 coal mines; we are now crippled by the cost of energy, having to import expensive coal from abroad
12. She compared her "fight" against the miners to the Falklands War
13. She privatised state monopolies and created the corporate greed culture that we've been railing against for the last 5 years
14. She introduced the gradual privatisation of the NHS
15. She introduced financial deregulation in a way that turned city institutions into avaricious money pits
16. She pioneered the unfailing adoration and unquestioning support of the USA
17. She allowed the US to place nuclear missiles on UK soil, under US control
18. Section 28
19. She opposed anti-apartheid sanctions against South Africa and described Nelson Mandela as "that grubby little terrorist"
20. She support the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and sent the SAS to train their soldiers
21. She allowed the US to bomb Libya in 1986, against the wishes of more than 2/3 of the population
22. She opposed the reunification of Germany
23. She invented Quangos
24. She increased VAT from 8% to 17.5%
25. She had the lowest approval rating of any post-war Prime Minister
26. Her post-PM job? Consultant to Philip Morris tobacco at $250,000 a year, plus $50,000 per speech
27. The Al Yamamah contract
28. She opposed the indictment of Chile's General Pinochet
29. Social unrest under her leadership was higher than at any time since the General Strike
30. She presided over interest rates increasing to 15%
31. BSE
32. She presided over 2 million manufacturing job losses in the 79-81 recession
33. She opposed the inclusion of Eire in the Northern Ireland peace process
34. She supported sanctions-busting arms deals with South Africa
35. Cecil Parkinson, Alan Clark, David Mellor, Jeffrey Archer, Jonathan Aitkin
36. Crime rates doubled under Thatcher
37. Black Wednesday – Britain withdraws from the ERM and the pound is devalued. Cost to Britain - £3.5 billion; profit for George Soros - £1 billion
38. Poverty doubled while she opposed a minimum wage
39. She privatised public services, claiming at the time it would increase public ownership. Most are now owned either by foreign governments (EDF) or major investment houses. The profits don’t now accrue to the taxpayer, but to foreign or institutional shareholders.
40. She cut 75% of funding to museums, galleries and other sources of education
41. In the Thatcher years the top 10% of earners received almost 50% of the tax remissions
42. 21.9% inflation
They referred to her as a fΰcking cΰnt for all this.
Right wingers celebrated when Hugo Chavez died. If they are as principled as they claimed to be, now is the real time to celebrate.
1. She supported the retention of capital punishment
2. She destroyed the country's manufacturing industry
3. She voted against the relaxation of divorce laws
4. She abolished free milk for schoolchildren ("Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher")
5. She supported more freedom for business (and look how that turned out)
6. She gained support from the National Front in the 1979 election by pandering to the fears of immigration
7. She gerrymandered local authorities by forcing through council house sales, at the same time preventing councils from spending the money they got for selling houses on building new houses (spending on social housing dropped by 67% in her premiership)
8. She was responsible for 3.6 million unemployed - the highest figure and the highest proportion of the workforce in history and three times the previous government. Massaging of the figures means that the figure was closer to 5 million
9. She ignored intelligence about Argentinian preparations for the invasion of the Falkland Islands and scrapped the only Royal Navy presence in the islands
10. The poll tax
11. She presided over the closure of 150 coal mines; we are now crippled by the cost of energy, having to import expensive coal from abroad
12. She compared her "fight" against the miners to the Falklands War
13. She privatised state monopolies and created the corporate greed culture that we've been railing against for the last 5 years
14. She introduced the gradual privatisation of the NHS
15. She introduced financial deregulation in a way that turned city institutions into avaricious money pits
16. She pioneered the unfailing adoration and unquestioning support of the USA
17. She allowed the US to place nuclear missiles on UK soil, under US control
18. Section 28
19. She opposed anti-apartheid sanctions against South Africa and described Nelson Mandela as "that grubby little terrorist"
20. She support the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and sent the SAS to train their soldiers
21. She allowed the US to bomb Libya in 1986, against the wishes of more than 2/3 of the population
22. She opposed the reunification of Germany
23. She invented Quangos
24. She increased VAT from 8% to 17.5%
25. She had the lowest approval rating of any post-war Prime Minister
26. Her post-PM job? Consultant to Philip Morris tobacco at $250,000 a year, plus $50,000 per speech
27. The Al Yamamah contract
28. She opposed the indictment of Chile's General Pinochet
29. Social unrest under her leadership was higher than at any time since the General Strike
30. She presided over interest rates increasing to 15%
31. BSE
32. She presided over 2 million manufacturing job losses in the 79-81 recession
33. She opposed the inclusion of Eire in the Northern Ireland peace process
34. She supported sanctions-busting arms deals with South Africa
35. Cecil Parkinson, Alan Clark, David Mellor, Jeffrey Archer, Jonathan Aitkin
36. Crime rates doubled under Thatcher
37. Black Wednesday – Britain withdraws from the ERM and the pound is devalued. Cost to Britain - £3.5 billion; profit for George Soros - £1 billion
38. Poverty doubled while she opposed a minimum wage
39. She privatised public services, claiming at the time it would increase public ownership. Most are now owned either by foreign governments (EDF) or major investment houses. The profits don’t now accrue to the taxpayer, but to foreign or institutional shareholders.
40. She cut 75% of funding to museums, galleries and other sources of education
41. In the Thatcher years the top 10% of earners received almost 50% of the tax remissions
42. 21.9% inflation
They referred to her as a fΰcking cΰnt for all this.
Right wingers celebrated when Hugo Chavez died. If they are as principled as they claimed to be, now is the real time to celebrate.
More Americans died in the Beirut Barracks attack under Reagan than in the Iran embassy attack under Carter.
I surmise you don't like her, Gopher or should I just list you as doubtful? -
I guess there's two sides to every story! -
I know very little about Margaret Thatcher except she didn't take any crap and got re elected twice. That's more than most people accomplish in a lifetime.
When she left office on 28th November 1990 the economy was twice as large as it was when she took office on 4th May 1979.
I don't know where this myth that she "ruined" the economy came from. It was impossible to make the British economy any worse than it was before Thatcher came to power.
She didn't ruin the economy. She SAVED it. Have you any dire of the dire straits the British economy was when she came to power in 1979? I don't think many people outside Britain realise how bad things were in Britain in the Seventies.
Britain's economy was run by the trades unions. It was akin to an Eastern European communist economy. In the mid-Seventies, whilst the rest of Europe powered ahead, Britain was skint and had to go to the IMF to beg for a loan. Workers were forced to go on strike by the militant unionist leaders without there even being a vote on it. The trades union leaders could cause crippling strikes whenever they wished. A series of crippling strikes by coalminers in the early Seventies caused the Government to introduce a national three-day working week in 1974 in order to save electricity, as the coalminers' strikes had given us a severe shortage. Under Labour PM James Callaghan in 1978/79, strike action was so severe that it crippled the nation. This was the Winter of Discontent. Binmen went on strike, causing rubbish to pile up in the streets. Even gravediggers went on strike, causing corpses to go unburied. Internationally, Britain was seen by the rest of the world as not very important, a nation in quick economic decline.
But it was Thatcher who changed all that. She tackled the undemocratic Left-Wing militant trades union leaders like Arthur Scargill, trade union leaders who often forced their workers to strike without it being put to the ballot resulting in inconvenience for millions of people, and Thatcher brought in a new law which stated that workers can only strike if their trade unions hold ballots.
She also got rid of the old-fashioned, non-economically important industries like coalmining. Okay, it put a lot of people out of work but these things needed to be done to get Britain's economy powering again, and they were exactly what other Western nations did later on. In that respect, Thatcher was ahead of her time.
By the time she came out of power in 1990 Britain's economy was surging ahead, seeing growth of around 5% annually. Britain was no longer the Sick Man of Europe. It had a booming economy and people were, generally wealthier than ever. In 1979 Britain was not treated seriously on the world stage but, by 1990, thanks to Thatcher, Britain WAS taken seriously. Under her leadership Britain became a country which kicked a brutal dictatorship out of the Falklands and, alongside the US, ended the Cold War and brought freedom and democracy to millions of Eastern Europeans.
And put it this way. The present government is doing all it can to cut the British deficit and restore growth by making necessary cuts. But had Thatcher been PM now her cuts would have been ever deeper. I've no doubt whatsoever that the British economy would be growing much faster that it is at present had Thatcher been PM now.
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“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
― Margaret Thatcher
For that concise and intelligent analysis alone she deserves respect.
RIP
― Margaret Thatcher
For that concise and intelligent analysis alone she deserves respect.
RIP
I would surmise that only idiots would elect a leader three times who ruined the economy and only idiots would believe that. -
But. . . but. . . but. . . he's Kenyan! And a Muslim! (Not that we're religious bigots or anything.) And a socialist!
And he destroyed Murka!
And he destroyed Murka!