What Did Thatcher Ever Do For Us?

ILW

Tancred wrote: »

Just another utopian idea. You cannot have a society in which everyone has wealth, simply because everything is relative - the rich are an elite, and when everyone becomes rich in reality they are not rich at all because prices go up in line with that rise in wealth.

Typical daft socialist idea that wealth (and poverty) are relative terms.
Just because someone has more than you does not mean that you cannot both be wealthy.

purch

She was PM for "only" 11 1/2 years, yet it is strange how she still is blamed for many of our current woes 22 years later.

Certainly she oversaw changes to our country that were massive and unprecedented, and some that will be hard to reverse, but we have had plenty of time to change direction, yet successive Governments have chosen not to.

wymondham

She was in the team that developed soft scoop ice cream (obviously before PM!). Thanks to misskool for that one!

Thrugelmir

purch wrote: »

She was PM for "only" 11 1/2 years, yet it is strange how she still is blamed for many of our current woes 22 years later.

No spin in those days. Direct talking and action.

Look at the wimps we have today. We need a Maggie character now to kick the UK out of its current malaise, and its dependency culture.

wymondham

She seemed to have the commitment to her policies over popularism. Todays Government govern by opinion polls, so we're unlikely to witness anything like the progress made during her leadership.

Moby

Generali wrote: »

In reading the many tributes (and the odd outpouring of hatred) towards Lady Thatcher, I thought it might be interesting to look at some of her less recognized achievements. We all know that 'she won' the Falklands and about privatization. What about some of the other stuff?

To my mind, she was the first mainstream politician to embrace the modern form of environmentalism: not a policy reaction to an ongoing problem like the Victorian sewers or the Clean Air Acts but a recognition that there could be serious long-term implications to our actions (e.g. The ozone layer hole & global warming):



She wanted wealth for all, not a select few and took on entrenched interests in other parts of the economy, not just among the unions. Professionals and The City had their feather bedded consumer stitch-up destroyed by her Government too.

I'm sure there were plenty of other good but less sung things too that I don't remember as I was only 8 when she got in as PM.

I think brevity is best because its all been done to death time and time again. I think the best way to sum her up was to say she was a destroyer...she destroyed union power, the miners etc but in the process she also destroyed communities. She was very divisive...so basically you loved her if she was doing the things that you thought this country needed. The reason she lacked real class, (states personship).....is that she wasn't a healer, she wasn't creative, she didn't make any attempt to heal wounds or help those she destroyed. Mandela looked the white racist in the face and tried to heal his country into a 'rainbow nation'. Thatcher lacked the class to do that....all she knew was how to break something up...she didn't know how to re-build!

Moby

ILW wrote: »

Typical daft socialist idea that wealth (and poverty) are relative terms.
Just because someone has more than you does not mean that you cannot both be wealthy.

So you've never heard of sociology then?

Generali

Moby wrote: »

I think brevity is best because its all been done to death time and time again. I think the best way to sum her up was to say she was a destroyer...she destroyed union power, the miners etc but in the process she also destroyed communities. She was very divisive...so basically you loved her if she was doing the things that you thought this country needed. The reason she lacked real class, (states personship).....is that she wasn't a healer, she wasn't creative, she didn't make any attempt to heal wounds or help those she destroyed. Mandela looked the white racist in the face and tried to heal his country into a 'rainbow nation'. Thatcher lacked the class to do that....all she knew was how to break something up...she didn't know how to re-build!

But that's all obvious (if you subscribe to that sort of thinking which I absolutely reject).

What I'm interested in is the stuff we don't know. Miners' strike etc has been done to death, if you'll pardon the expression.

Generali

Moby wrote: »

So you've never heard of sociology then?

Sociology seems to be the academic face of Marxist thought AFAICS.

PaulF81

She sent in the SAS to break a prison siege.. Top marks.

http://www.sasspecialairservice.com/sas-peterhead-prison-scotland.html