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stokemaveric | 23:27 Sat 14th Jun 2008 | News
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just watching a britain...a modern history on bbc2 its mainly about maggie thatcher she actually caused anarchy on the streets of britain,do you think she was a heroine for britain or a horror?my opinion is that she was the latter..............................
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She was RE-elected twice.

Oh how I love to see the Leftie traitors spewing their hopeless bile. Maggie Thatcher was dreadful, as of course is George W Bush. These people and their principles have kept your life and those of your children, safe.

I would hang you, every last leftie traitor.



Okay... I'd like to say that I'm distancing myself as far as humanly possible from the above post...
What, mine ? LOL.

Maggie Thatcher was re-elected twice, and a whole load of morons voted in George W Bush.

I love it when earnest lefties like you post, you see, we all know you are right, and how stupid were the rest of us to vote in leaders of which you did not approve.

But most annoyingly of all, we are still here.
I'm not a leftie, but I still want the bitch dead, but dying in agony for weeks and weeks and weeks before then.
Yes of course Postdog, but are you in a position to activate your views?

- Do you live in Britain?
- Do you enjoy being free?

If you can answer yes to those questions then you are a traitor to your own country.

Free speech is great. It is down to people like Maggie that we still have it.
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I agree that geography plays a part in one's views on Thatcher (pretty much were I came in) but along with millions of others I used the NHS and that was non-geographic. It is a fact that you're too young to remember the cash appeals and sponsored this and thats (beds included)that used to go on for the NHS, the hospital closures etc. I could wait days to see a GP,I was educated in porta cabins. I grew up watching the news with a scoreboard saying how many jobs were lost due to closures, and how many were created, "Not The 9 O'Clock News" did a sketch about it. Again you were too young to ntice the homeless in the streets, or the loonies let out under "care in the community"
However much money was pumped into the NHS by Thatcher it was nowhere near enough, and she knew it, but rather than fund it properly she kept on with tax cuts for the rich.
They just put the long term unemployed on the sick, and then there was "seasonly adjusted" figures.
The Japanese protected themselves from imports (still do) so in the 50s and 60 when BMC (Leyland's forebear) made numerous excellent vehicles,Japanese cars of the 70s rusted terribly, by no stretch of the imagination were they better.Even when you look at Austin Rover when it was sold off there were 2 potential buyers British Aerospace and Honda,Honda had been working with the Rover for years.The rest is history.
The profits BT made could've repaid the national debt ten times over, so if you see Sid tell him.
Some people may well have profited under Thatcher many more did'nt, I remember the party of the family telling people "to get on their bikes and look for work" thousands did they moved their wives and children miles from their grandparents only to be made redundant by another Tory recession. I remember talking to security guards earning �2.50 an hour the Tories said that's all your worth!
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yes indeed ive read all the posts here if you are a southerner maggies is god,if you are a northerner she is errrr shall we say not liked.................
I think she sent this country back to the Dark Ages. I have often wondered how many street parties there will be around the country when she pops her clogs. Sorry to be so harsh. I live in Yorkshire and remember the miners.
Thatcher it was nowhere near enough, and she knew it, but rather than fund it properly she kept on with tax cuts for the rich.

So you're saying she willingly threw away �101million just for fun? She didn't 'know it', she was just wrong.

I won't defend Thatcher's record on health but I want you to know that I'm fully aware of the closures that took place and the homeless etc. that you've accused me of being ignorant of. I might not have seen them for myself but I am fully aware of them.

On health, I've said that I think Thatcher was wrong so I have no disagreement there.

But take the homeless - who you yourself have implicitly admitted reduced in number. The reason for this is the long-term legacy of the Thatcher govt. which I think you're overlooking. That same long-term legacy includes dramatic improvements as well as the problems which you focus on. I'm saying that she deserves respect for the good, criticism for the bad but not the venom that some people launch.
Some people may well have profited under Thatcher many more did'nt,

Actually, if you look at the growth in disposable income among the poorest 10th of the population, there's very little change (It's part of a collection of statistics here)

On the Japanese cars thing: You're beating around the fact that people obviously wanted them more than they wanted Leyland cars. Otherwise they wouldn't have bought them,

The profits BT made could've repaid the national debt ten times over, so if you see Sid tell him.

And why did it make those profits? Because it was under better management. Because it was privatised.
It's an upaletable truth but it was the current Labour goverment that got the homeless off the streets.
i thought/still think that the lady was a goddess, we need more like her running this country now.

She had balls of steel
According to your statistics the richest people saw their disposable income go up from �350 to �550 a week, the poorest 10th saw no change because they were on the dole.
All you've proven there is just what I was saying money that should've been spent on health, was given away for personal wealth.
What you're failing to grasp about the imports is that in the 60s BMC (Leyland's forebear) made some excellent cars that they could'nt sell to Japan because of the import tarriffs, Japanese industry did'nt suffer this burden so could sell radios etc. very cheaply this added to incompetence by the bosses of private industry led to it's demise aided and abetted by a government that decided that "lame ducks" should be left to die.
I don't know how it transpired that during this global receession that destroyed the fabric of Britain, the steel industry in Germany, the ship building industry in France and the car building industry in Italy could survive lagely intact.
ATP is another example of Thatcher's short sightedness.
Sir Alec don't forget the miners, the steel workers, the glass workers, the ship workers, the factory workers or the dockers. Remember Rifkind and the repeal of "The Dock Labour Scheme"? He said "we won't be going back to the days with men standing at the gates looking for work" no Malcolm they were sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring.
Remember salmonella in eggs? Remember John Gummer and BSE? Remember Edwina Currie telling pensioners to wear coats and hats in the house if it's cold? Remember who removed the link of pensions with earnings?
Krom never mind your statistics, never mind your dusty books they were an awful bunch of greedy, grasping, corrupt (remember BCCI?) liars.
Every fetid mess we have today in our society can be traced back to then, it will take a long time to change it back to something that feels like home.
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4gs,hey up mate,i admit she was britsh through and through and she stood up for british interests in the face of the ''common market'' but it was all a facade really,she really didnt give a toss about the working man.she eventually lost the vote of middle england because of her policies...the falklands crisis actually saved her skin,she was on the crest of a wave of national pride and she played the role of the british ''stiff upper lip'' premier to perfection,whilst actually sending more than 1000 british troops to their deaths when in fact a bit more diplomacy would have been suffice.you know my history john,but i think the falklands could and should have been avoided..
According to your statistics the richest people saw their disposable income go up from �350 to �550 a week, the poorest 10th saw no change because they were on the dole.

They don't say they were the on the dole. They say their disposable income didn't change.

And you can't just write that off to being on welfare. Remember that inflation decreased and so did taxes. I'm sure there were plenty claiming welfare, but the reason real disposable income maintained (or increased, depending on who you were) was that people were simply shelling out less.

And if the government wasn't giving welfare payments, you'd only be criticising her for that. And as I've shown earlier - real spending on the NHS actually sustained an increase (though not a notable one) throughout the period (will provide stats in my next post). What throttled several hospitals was reform in management that meant hospitals couldn't access the money (which as I say I'm very critical of)

I don't know how it transpired that during this global receession that destroyed the fabric of Britain, the steel industry in Germany, the ship building industry in France and the car building industry in Italy could survive lagely intact.

Our steel industry survived very well, actually...

And guess who by '97 had a healthier economy? It wasn't France or Italy. It was Britain.
I said I'd provide figures showing the general trend of a rise in NHS spending through the 70s actually stayed the same through the Thatcher period:

In the years 1979-97 - NHS Spending increased in real terms by about 3.1% overall.

In 'raw' figures (ergo simple cash not adjusted for inflation etc.), Spending was about �10bn in 1981, and increased to about �20bn by 1989. In 1977 it was about �5bn (I say 'about' as I'm reading off a graph)

That means the NHS got all the spending it did before, plus 3.1% overall. What screwed over hospitals wasn't funding per se - it was half-baked management reforms that left fiscal choke-points in the funding system.
Who's half baked management reforms were they?
The criticism of Thatcher is that she did nothing for the ordinary working people (the majority) your statistics show that succinctly, they were throughout her period in office financially inert.
If you have high unemployment you will have low inflation, but it's not a good cure.
Privatisation brought disaster to this country, if you don't believe me stand on West Derby Road and watch a 40 year old train pull Australian coal to Warrington.
Deregulation brought chaos to the transport system if you don't believe me look up K.I.T.S (Kirkby Integrated Train System) this offered the blue print for public transport throughout the country.
If you honestly believe that high unemployment is a useful tool as part of economic policy then you clearly have'nt lived through it, and although you may have read about it, you plainly don't understand it. People are worth more than pennies
Having the unemployment that we did was just a result of having decades of unsustainable employment that we had beforehand (and hence the inflation). By the late 70s the system wasn't sustainable and was inevitably going to crash. Thatcher was just the one who tore it down and was the only person around who had the guts to do it.

Note that in the long run, unemployment has decreased dramatically and sustainably. With manageable inflation, too. Economists such as ********** have attributed this directly to the reforms of the 80s: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/********/papers/UK_U nemployment.pdf

Who's half baked management reforms were they?

Please read my post.

I've said time and again that I'd be with you in condemning Thatcher's health reforms. And several other aspects of her record. What I was trying to do was show that you're actually wrong on the slashing of spending.

our statistics show that succinctly, they were throughout her period in office financially inert.

They also disprove accusations made by others (I can't remember if you were among them or not and can't be bothered to check) that the poor were actively being screwed (excluding the 3m. unemployed who vanished in the long run and do not represent all of the poor). I think it's a little weak to hold such hatred for someone because they 'didn't benefit' the poor. And to ignore the fact that in the long run things improved sustainably and people weren't being screwed over by unions.
Sorry. A.B. has censored the economist's name (P.is.sarides minus the dots) both in the post and the URL I gave, so the link won't work.

Search unemployment in Britain: A European success story and go the .pdf that's the fourth link down.

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