MSE News: Margaret Thatcher 'leader to knock Britain into shape'

SnowMan

Doc_N wrote: »

Cheered me up too! Those scenes remind you of anything that happened 3 months back under another Tory-led government?

Plus ça change.......

Noticed this one also when I was searching for the Hefner tune

Pete Wylie: The Day that Margaret Thatcher Dies!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcXi-VYy_Yw

270 likes, 27 dislikes make that 91% against Thatcher and 9% for. That sounds like a true unbiased poll result to me :rotfl:

Edit: Did he borrow the riff off Pierre Henry - Pysche Rock?

Onyourcase

You'd have to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome to want that old gal back!

villa2010

What a ridiculous biased article. Who were the people that were asked Cameron, Boris and Georgie Porgie...?

Margaret Thatcher:

Would she have touched the bankers - NO.After all she was she a big believer of 0 tolerance.

Would she be pro active in getting back 100 billion worth of money owed through tax evasion no.

Would she be empathetic to the majority of people in this country - No

Who would she make pay for the bankers balls up? Elderly, poor, unemployed, Disabled, Youth and just about every one else who does not deserve it.

Clone Cameron is doing Thatchers job for her.

Joe_Bloggs

If Maggie was so good for the Nation. Why was she dragged from her throne by her own party ?
J_B.

redux

dunstonh wrote: »

So what is your choice...

Margaret Thatcher's policies which brought economic stability and growth but damaged society or Labour bankrupting the country and going back to third world status (and society going just as bad with it)?

A lot of people on here have pointed out negatives of Mrs Thatcher. However, they conveniently forget the mess Labour left the country in the 70s and perversely doing it again in the 2000s.

It seems that the public hate those that fix the problems but not those that put us in that position in the first place.

You previously mentioned power cuts and the 3 day week.

I previously mentioned false memory syndrome.

When the oil price went up in 1973, that also affected the price of coal. At the same time the government were trying to reduce inflation by capping wage increases.

The Heath government, that was.

The preceding and following Labour governments may have not dramatically improved things either, but don't make the mistake of a loony ex-MP of mine by lumping Heath into the description decades of socialism, especially as we've never had such a decade, or slagging off the 70s as a whole and blaming only Labour.

Within only 2 years, the Thatcher government increased inflation from 10 to 20% and threw nearly 3 million more people out of work.

She couldn't manage to cut public spending, but settled for increasing it more slowly, overall taxes increased, and privatisation was invented to balance the books, so that one former Prime Minister made comments which were attributed as a comparison to selling off the family silver.

Macmillan, that was, another Conservative. He later added clarification to his remarks that selling assets smacked of desperation, and said that the mistake was to treat this as income.

We still have less manufacturing than in Thatcher's time, and another Conservative, John Major said he hadn't agreed with Thatcher's focus only on services, and complained about the economic situation he inherited with high inflation and interest rates.

So don't overdo the mythology.

tagq2

Indeed, redux. People seem to handwave over the 1970s as "that difficult period where the communists were in control" - and if the problem was nationalisation, how badly must they think Britain fared between 1947 and 1972?

Always brushed aside is the Oil Crisis and its effect on inflation, energy supply and the move to nevertheless freeze worker salaries. And all those European countries which handled things differently (though they were dragged from social democracy to neo-liberalism within a decade of Britain's journey).

Even if you honestly think that only the rubbish was being sold off, you can't use income from it as an excuse to claim you've balanced the books. I think what happened to BA is most telling, though: it was turned around by King to tremendous profitability before being sold off, then sold off anyway.

JuicyJesus

dunstonh wrote: »

Margaret Thatcher's policies which brought economic stability and growth but damaged society or Labour bankrupting the country and going back to third world status (and society going just as bad with it)?

Are we not allowed a third option?

JuicyJesus

redux wrote: »

We still have less manufacturing than in Thatcher's time, and another Conservative, John Major said he hadn't agreed with Thatcher's focus only on services, and complained about the economic situation he inherited with high inflation and interest rates.

This bears repeating (a redux, as it were...) Britain currently doesn't actually make anything. We're a service sector nation at the moment, our exports are in the toilet. I don't have an opposition to the financial services or retail sectors per se, we'd be a lot poorer without both of those (not only because without them we'd have nothing left... they are both genuinely great for the British economy, bailout or no), but we can't have a decent economy with those two alone!

What needs to happen is investment is put in to rebuilding an industrial base. I don't see any way of doing this but government grants. Hand someone some crappy ex-defence brownfield land or whatever and £xyz to build a factory to produce cars, televisions, anything... call it corporate welfare if you like, I call it an investment in the nation's future, that would pay dividends as the years went on. It would take just a few examples of businesses successfully turning a profit manufacturing quality goods in this country to get the ball rolling. We would also build up a base of skilled workers, and jobs for them to go into. Sure it would cost money now - but as said, it would pay dividends in the long run.

As it is, our economy consists of the aforementioned financial services industry (which as previously stated is not something I consider a bad thing by any stretch - that London is considered a global financial centre can only be a good thing for the nation) and retailers selling cheap crap manufactured overseas. Fat chance of getting a change to that under this government though...

gt94sss2

villa2010 wrote: »

Would she have touched the bankers - NO.After all she was she a big believer of 0 tolerance.

You mean that it wasn't Margaret Thatcher's government who introduced a windfall tax/special levy on banks in 1981 as they were considered to be escaping the pain of that recession.

Hint: It was. In fact, her government was one of the most notable users of the tactic and that's according to the Guardian.

Regards
Sunil

villa2010

gt94sss2 wrote: »

You mean that it wasn't Margaret Thatcher's government who introduced a windfall tax/special levy on banks in 1981 as they were considered to be escaping the pain of that recession.

Hint: It was. In fact, her government was one of the most notable users of the tactic and that's according to the Guardian.

Regards
Sunil

How much was the levy and was it in proportion to the inequality that a lot of people experinced in the 80s..!?