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Maggie Thatcher

Ed

Philosopher
E
Joined
Aug 4, 2001
Messages
8,658
I was reading The Russia House and I noticed various digs directed at MT. I have also noted that in political discussions such digs, on the part of the cousins, are almost obligatory.

I would like to understand why. I am not starting an argument, mind, I really would like to understand.
 
Whilst breaking the unions and generally getting Britain moving again, she pissed off an awful lot of people, generally all the members of the unions. She's blamed for destroying British manufacturing, although the unions should take a share of the blame for this as well.

However, this is as nothing compared to the opprobrium she attracted for removing free milk for schoolchildren.
 
Maggie was the sort of person who gives the human race a bad name. For all her bombast and rhetoric, she never acknowledged that people have a right in this world.

Witness the sinking of the General Belgrano. That would not have been done without her command.

For each of her achievements, such as shutting down a murderous coal industry, she introduced an equal absurdity, such as the free enterprise rail system or treating Ronald Reagan as someone with an intellect.

You can forgive her policies that ultimately produce a zero sum, but gratuitously sending hundreds of young men to a watery grave is diabolical.
 
a_unique_person said:
Witness the sinking of the General Belgrano. That would not have been done without her command.
....................................................................................................
but gratuitously sending hundreds of young men to a watery grave is diabolical.
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Yeh, its not like there was a war on or anything.
 
a_unique_person said:
Maggie was the sort of person who gives the human race a bad name. For all her bombast and rhetoric, she never acknowledged that people have a right in this world.

Witness the sinking of the General Belgrano. That would not have been done without her command.

For each of her achievements, such as shutting down a murderous coal industry, she introduced an equal absurdity, such as the free enterprise rail system or treating Ronald Reagan as someone with an intellect.

You can forgive her policies that ultimately produce a zero sum, but gratuitously sending hundreds of young men to a watery grave is diabolical.
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You know, I love to see you post because when you do, I really have little to no need to counter. You show yourself and your true colors far better than anyone that would argue with you could. If you feel insulted, blame yourself as it's you that made the dumbassed remarks
 
a_unique_person said:
Maggie was the sort of person who gives the human race a bad name. For all her bombast and rhetoric, she never acknowledged that people have a right in this world.
Click to expand...

You're just upset because she took your milk away.
 
Let's just cut to the chase and say it already. It's cause she was a chick. (and I believe still is)
 
KelvinG said:
Let's just cut to the chase and say it already. It's cause she was a chick. (and I believe still is)
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damned straight. anyone not liking Maggie is anti-powerful women, and potentially a woamn beater
 
Bear with me here.

Sinking a ship when a nation is at war hardly qualifies for opprobrium, particularly since a Brit ship was also sunk sending etc. etc. etc. (No mention of that though).

Breaking Unions is not, ipso facto, bad. It depends on the circumstances.

Pardon me for appearing ignorant but my recollection was that the UK was going down a very socialist kind of path prior to MT and that she attempted to reverse the trend. Is that sort of it?

Is the nubbin of it that she reduced/eliminated entitlements? I mean, is the complaining what one would expect if a nanny government were reined in? Was the UK better off fiscally post MT than prior to her?

What does Regan have to do with it?
 
Ed said:
Bear with me here.

Sinking a ship when a nation is at war hardly qualifies for opprobrium, particularly since a Brit ship was also sunk sending etc. etc. etc. (No mention of that though).

Breaking Unions is not, ipso facto, bad. It depends on the circumstances.

Pardon me for appearing ignorant but my recollection was that the UK was going down a very socialist kind of path prior to MT and that she attempted to reverse the trend. Is that sort of it?

Is the nubbin of it that she reduced/eliminated entitlements? I mean, is the complaining what one would expect if a nanny government were reined in? Was the UK better off fiscally post MT than prior to her?

What does Regan have to do with it?
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Ronnie always comes into play when talking about Maggie. It's some weird way of trying to show the collective evil that destroyed the Soviet Union and made the two countries, The US and England, the most powerful. Now we can be blamed for al the bad things in the world because we don't do something, or because we do something. Maggie was to Ronnie as Tony almost is to Dubya. The australians will whine later about Howard trying to take the same position
 
Ed said:
Pardon me for appearing ignorant but my recollection was that the UK was going down a very socialist kind of path prior to MT and that she attempted to reverse the trend. Is that sort of it?
Click to expand...

As I understand it (and I was about six at the time), that's pretty much the nub of it. The country was stuck in a rather serious rut, and she forced everything a long way over capitalism's way to get it out.

At one point over 3,000,000 people were unemployed. A lot of strikers in the shipbuilding and mining industries were holding out for better pay and conditions at a time when the industries couldn't afford to provide them. Her government refused to provide money to tide those industries over, and so they went belly up.

As far as I know, the only things really bringing money into the country at the time were the arms industry and North Sea oil. I've also heard accusations that the Falklands War was, jointly, a blatant vote-winning exercise and a successful attempt to secure deep-water oil reserves off the islands.

My opinion is that the economic actions she took were necessary, although there is no doubt that in the course of enacting them an awful lot of people suffered (and the UK got locked into the ERM, leading to Black Wednesday, but that's another story). I don't know what other suggestions there were at the time for dealing with the economic problems Britain had, though... perhaps A_U_P could tell us?
 
Awww, good for you, you found an anti-Reagan website on geocities. Now can you do better than the site and give the context of the alleged quote?

He probably can't, but that's why he openly said it's "possibly apocrypical"(sp?).

In my experience, such quotes usually are apocre.. apocryp... apocri... errr, fake.
 
As I understand it (and I was about six at the time), that's pretty much the nub of it. The country was stuck in a rather serious rut, and she forced everything a long way over capitalism's way to get it out.

At the time, there was a saying that, in a country that's a mountain of coal surrounded by a sea of fish, only Labor (The political party) could create a shortage of both coal and fish.

I don't know what other suggestions there were at the time for dealing with the economic problems Britain had, though... perhaps A_U_P could tell us?

I don't see why not, given that he seem to think he knows everything.
 
Shaun from Scotland said:
Let's not forget the Poll Tax and her blatant disregard of the law........
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I apologize, but that does not help me.
What exactly were the issues?
 
a_unique_person said:
For each of her achievements, such as shutting down a murderous coal industry,
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Thatcher's decision to take on the coal industry was nothing to do with any genuine concern for miners' welfare, but rather was wholly politically motivated to initiate a conflict with, and defeat, the National Union of Miners, who were a pretty powerful union of the day. Regardless how justified she was in doing this, her methods resulted in a politicised police force and the destruction of many communities.
 
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