For 10cs and the other rabid Thatcher haters....

[Loosehead]

Here is an article from Fred Forsyth last year when the statue was unveiled. Can you simply tell me what state would we be in without MrsT? she said ther was "No alternative" what is your alternative?

[Loosehead]

"In all the publicity surrounding the thoroughly merited unveiling of a statue of Margaret Thatcher in the Members' Lobby of the Commons, it is easy to overlook the 17 years of her systematic demonisation by the Sniggering Classes.

The point is that you have to be of a certain maturity to recall the sheer awfulness of the last years of the seventies. Not just the Winter of Discontent, 1978/79, but the whole tottering edifice of our country reduced to the Sick Man of Europe. We were heading, literally, for national ruin.

Every politician, civil servant, banker, industrialist and merchant was convinced the rot could not even be stopped, let alone turned around. But Mrs Thatcher did it and with not much help from the defeatists around her. Most of them believed Britain was finished.

But she took them all on and beat almost all of them. Galtieri in the south, Scargill in the north, the union tyrants at the strike polls, the wimps wherever she met them. They, reduced to their natural pygmy status, hated her for it - and still do.

But whatever they say, she did what had to be done. In her own words 'there was simply no alternative'.

What has always riled me is that the self-serving coterie that destroyed her were not even up to her kneecaps. Such a pity that David Cameron has restored half a dozen of them to his innermost circle of advisers.

Twenty years from now she will still be staring, in bronze, across the Members' Lobby. But you will have to scour the archives to find out who those who brought her down ever were."

[jake-the-peg]

We might still have a mining industry for a start!

We could have had peace in Northern Ireland a decade earlier.

And weren't there a whole load of things called recessions that we used to have when she ran things?

But here biggest failure was Europe

She ditthered - signing us up to the single European Union and then running off to moan about it in Bruge.

And while she couldn't decide on whether we should be in or out we lost the chance to play the centre role in the formation and direction of the EU

And now the Tories moan that they don't like the way it is.

Well you have only have yourselves to blame for that!

[Loosehead]

I'm more interested in how you would have pulled us back from the brink Jake, rather than your cherry picked glib observations all of which are only part of the story.

Perhaps I've misunderstood perhaps they hated her because they wanted the country to slide into full blown socialsm, perhaps they wanted us to become a state of the Soviet Union.

Will one of you lefties have the guts to tell me, if not Thatcherism then what would have saved us?

[sp1814]

Loosehead

In 1979 the country was on the brink of disaster. The country literally could not take any more concensual politics. It needed someone like Thatcher to restore balance between Unions and Management.

Unfortunately, after her first successes, like all politicians...she went a bit mad.

I mean...you know the miners and steel workers? They were evil. They were hard-working Brits.

I think the reason why people hate, literally hate Thatcher is that she she dismissed so many of her own countrymen to the scrapheap.

Also, have you not noticed that the only ex-premiers who people (not everyone of course, but a significant number) are her and Blair.

No-one hates Callaghan, Major, Wilson, Heath or even MacMillian - and her was as economically savage as Thatcher!!!

[4GS]

We might still have a mining industry for a start!
Wrong!! It cost more to mine than selling it

We could have had peace in Northern Ireland a decade earlier
Rubbish!! I was there during Thatcher's tenure, If peace were possible a decade earlier it would have been under the IRA's terms

And weren't there a whole load of things called recessions that we used to have when she ran things
Sorry, I didn't realise she was responsible for worldwide recessions

But here biggest failure was Europe
Please explain how standing up to Europe time after time was her biggest failure, I just don't get that!!

[sp1814]

Loosehead

You should really, really read Hugo Young's 'One Of Us'. It was the first political biography I ever read and its brilliant.

I personally had a huge problem with her, because like so many lefties, I believe in society (which she categorically didn't)...but this book is magnificent, and very fairly written.

It colours her more truthfully than you could ever get from the right wing newspaper sychophants.

[sp1814]

Loosehead/4GS

Did Thatcher do anything wrong?

I ask this because whenever I listen to a Thatcher supporter, they glaze over and you cannot get them to admit that she did anything wrong.

And analogy - I think Madonna is a great, great star, and I've got everything she's ever done. But even I can see that the American Life album was rubbish, so were the singles Hanky Panky and Dress You Up.

Do you have perspective on Thatcher whereby you can see that she wasn't the saviour angel from the planet Grantham???

[Loosehead]

think the reason why people hate, literally hate Thatcher is that she she dismissed so many of her own countrymen to the scrapheap. they put themselves on the scrapheap by following idiots and refusing to accept that the nationalised industries where not viable

Also, have you not noticed that the only ex-premiers who people (not everyone of course, but a significant number) are her and Blair.

No-one hates Callaghan, Major, Wilson, Heath or even MacMillian - and her was as economically savage as Thatcher!!!
You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs, MrsT and even MrB made an omlette, the others where inneffective, they allowed the situation to develop where a MrsT was needed, if what she did was harsh it was necessary, blame the pypmies above for making it necessary

[Loosehead]

Yes certainly she did things wrong in my opinion, I think the Poll tax, although a much better system than we have now, was a mistake because she underestimated how it would be received by the layabouts who suddenly discovered that, horror of horrors, they where going to have to contribute to local funding.

Also she was wrong to set up the single market/maastricht (eventually signed by Major) I think she didn't realise that it would lead to British subjugation.

Her handling of Northern Ireland, with hindsight could have been better, she either could have just killed off the IRA or gone down the route Blair did but the middle way was effective Parallysis.

Overall though UK was a dying patient and she took the necessary harsh measures to nurse him back to life

[4GS]

To an extent I agree with Loosehead
The Poll Tax was an utter political disaster, but, overall her policies, both domestic and foreign were sound, she badgered Prez Bush senior to put troops in Saudi Arabia to stop Saddam getting his hands on their oil, up till she intervened the Yanks were dithering one way or another, it might have been too late to stop Saddam otherwise.

To quote Looshead "Overall though UK was a dying patient and she took the necessary harsh measures to nurse him back to life"

And to use an analogy of another ABer, The medicine tasted vile, but the patient made a full, rapid recovery

[youngmafbog]

Perhaps her major problem (no pun intended) was the length of her tenure. Blair too has suffered the saem problem.
We needed someone like her no doubt about it. This sort of thing happens many times in ailing private companies. Usually what happens is yo ubring in a hatchet person who sorts out the company but is universally hated then follow swiftly with someone new who does no firing and is seen as wonderfull, The original person who turned the company around is always hated.
I've still not seen any of the lefties on here offer any alternative. Socialism just does not work we have seen it time and time again. Thatcher was not perfect by any means but I thanks god (anyones) that we had her or where we would have been is anyones guess.

[sp1814]

Hang on...hang on...

This analogy about Britain being a dying patient. Whilst you may argue that she cured the gangrene in both feet, and performed an urgently needed knee operation, surely you can see that the operation wasn't a complete success.

Whilst she oversaw the dismantling of the coal and steel industry, she failed to encourage investment and development in the the cities which were losing their traditional manufacturing industries.

Effectively, she sorted out the legs of the patient whilst ignoring the fact that it had a serious coronary disease.

These places never fully recovered. The patient is still on the ward.

[4GS]

Whilst she oversaw the dismantling of the coal and steel industry, she failed to encourage investment and development in the the cities which were losing their traditional manufacturing industries

Were those traditional industries the same ones like shipbuilding and motorcar industrys where overseas manufacturers were undercutting overpriced, protected British ones? Remember the union barons and the 'closed shop' under Labour in the 70's?

[4GS]

As an side, my father worked for British Steel in the 70's + 80's until he retired. Under Labour and before the company was privatised it was losing �30 per second. Thatcher's policy of closing unproductive steel works and privatisation of the others made the company one of the leading Steel manufacturers in the world, and one of the most profitable.
The medicine was hard to swallow, but it worked

[youngmafbog]

It is well acknowledged that labour inherited the best economy ever from an outgoing government. This was setup from tghe Thatcher years. How can you say the patient is still on the ward.

Morre like it has been out and back in the ward due to Mcbottles constant stealth taxes and spending on unsound lefty ideology that has once again failed instead of saving for leaner times. We are entering another recession but its not Thathcers fault it is fairly and squarely at the foot of McBottles Door.

[Loosehead]

"These places never fully recovered. The patient is still on the ward."

We have to accept that the industries to which you refer are not economically viable, to keep them alive would need public money, ie maintaining the existance of jobs for the job itself rather than it's function. what they produced at one time is now far cheaper to import We moved on to other areas. Only the union dinosaurs could not see it.

The patient is on ehe ward malingering, needs to find something new to do.

[youngmafbog]

Still not seen any lefty answers to Loosheads question on how they would have pulled us through.

[jake-the-peg]

Taking a leaf out of Gordon Brown's book and giving independance to the bank of England instead of trying to tinker with interest rates for political purposes would have been a start.

As for NI 4GS is simply WRONG Margaret Thatcher's simple pig headed refusal to even talk with them meant that there was no way any agreement could ever have been achieved on any grounds. The same people headed up the IRA what changed was the occupant of number 10.

I know you probably have difficulty in coming to terms that people you knew died pointlessly over there because of Maggie's stubborness but I'm afraid it's true.

[jno]

the problem with the poll tax wasn't that people found they had to contribute, but that the dustman found he had to contribute the same as the duke; people thought this was unfair. Thatcher had no concept of 'fairness', only of wealth (same as Blair).

Privatisations weren't all the same. I can't see any reason for the state to own a car company or an airline (though many states do the latter, seeing them, not unreasonably, as an instrument of national pride and prestige). But it seems fair to me that bodies performing nationwide public services ought to be centrally directed. Does anyone think the railways are better now they're run under the misleading banner of 'competition'?