Need A Bus? Youre A Failure Said Thatcher

DecentLivingWage

Debate this morning about some of Thatcher's 'legacy' comments! such as :

“a man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus, can count himself a failure”.
(Margaret Thatcher) Harry Eyres FT

Well I guess that's my life down the pan then...

Also, what about working mums? Dont they count?

Marco_Panettone

DecentLivingWage wrote: »

Debate this morning about some of Thatcher's 'legacy' comments! such as :

“a man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus, can count himself a failure”.
(Margaret Thatcher) Harry Eyres FT

Well I guess that's my life down the pan then...

Also, what about working mums? Dont they count?

I would've thought working mums would also be a failure in the same context...

cgk1

DecentLivingWage wrote: »

Debate this morning about some of Thatcher's 'legacy' comments! such as :

“a man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus, can count himself a failure”.
(Margaret Thatcher) Harry Eyres FT

Well I guess that's my life down the pan then...

Also, what about working mums? Dont they count?

Only problem is that she never actually said that or anything like that, it's a persistant urban myth - I hated Thatcher but we might as well be accurate.

Horseunderwater

What utter rubbish - journalists drag up. Bet they quoted totally out of context - just to make a headline. No one is a failure for riding on a bus to work or to the shops - in fact these days it is a good choice for the environment and the fares are usually reasonable with multi buyride tickets. When she was PM the world was a vastly different place - nothing like it is now. She believed that hard work got you places - simply because that is what she did. But she was a tory - enough said!

DecentLivingWage

Well, the statement was 'debate' - maybe we can find the 'context' and post it so we can all draw our own conclusions about what she meant!

cgk1

DecentLivingWage wrote: »

Well, the statement was 'debate' - maybe we can find the 'context' and post it so we can all draw our own conclusions about what she meant!

There is no context, she never uttered a word of that statement - the best guess is that it was said by Loelia Lindsay nee Ponsonby.

securityguy

DecentLivingWage wrote: »

Debate this morning about some of Thatcher's 'legacy' comments! such as :

“a man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus, can count himself a failure”.
(Margaret Thatcher) Harry Eyres FT

She didn't say it. Or at least, if she did, no-one knows where or when. See here.

Even if she had said it, it would have been distinctly shop-soiled.

Daily Telegraph, 2 November 2006

Sir – It was Loelia Ponsonby, one of the many wives of Bendor, 2nd Duke of Westminster, who said: "Anybody seen in a bus over the age of 30 has been a failure in life" (Comment, October 30).

Winston Churchill was a witness at their wedding and his omniscient biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert, quotes the words of the duchess. She proved the point: after her divorce she complained bitterly that, having been born in St James's Palace, she now had to endure bus travel in the rain. A case of being hoist with one's own petard?
Alistair Cooke, London SWI

Daily Telegraph, 3 November 2006

Sir – It was Brian Howard, aesthete of the Brideshead generation, who first said: "Anybody seen in a bus over the age of 30 has been a failure in life" (Letters, November 2).
I know this because I congratulated Loelia, Duchess of Westminster on having coined the phrase in a small private anthology she published. She confessed she had nicked it from Howard. I think of it every time I get on a bus.
Hugo Vickers, Ramsdell, Hants

Jeff_Bridges_hair

DecentLivingWage wrote: »

Also, what about working mums? Dont they count?

'Man' is the collective and correct term when used to describe huMANs from both sexes.

photome

Jeff_Bridges_hair wrote: »

'Man' is the collective and correct term when used to describe huMANs from both sexes.

"A man" isnt collective though

yangptangkipperbang

photome wrote: »

"A man" isnt collective though

...... but MAN is !

Jeff_Bridges_hair

yangptangkipperbang wrote: »

...... but MAN is !

It was almost like they read my post then made up something different in their head and replied to that instead.

Thanks