The Iron Lady - Did you love her or hate her?

Please Please Please lets not invade any more countries if they want to kill each other well fine. If you want to be humanitarian look into your own people.

I you need an excuse to invade an important supllier to maintain oil or some other resourse try to be honest for once

Please dont keep bringing OIL into the equation. Oil has rarely been in short supply except for as far as i can remember only on one occassion and that was when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and blew up most of the oil wells there. There was a short supply for a while which is why the then prime minister Sir Edward Heath reduced the speed limit on all UK motorways to 50 miles per hour to save fuel, and that lasted for a few months.

Syria.  Yes perhaps it would not be a bad thing to help the Syrian people and who knows maybe in the end we will but unfortunately one cant put all the worlds problems to rights which is a pity.

Manxmonkey -

I believe you have hit the nail on the head.   The people up for a protest at her funeral were not born during her premiership, know nothing about the circumstances and state of the country she inherited and it was a different world, unions flexing their muscles to try to take the country down then and a dole scrounging age of nannying and benefit culture to follow introduced by Blair who convinced them all that they were all victims and needed taking care of for the rest of their lives.

Today the cap on benefits kicks in in London and as usual the BBC was sporting for a fight when it proclaimed that they had a woman write in who had 3 kids and wanted to know what she was supposed to cut, trip for her kids, food or clothing etc.   The reply from the Minister was that the system had to be fair and working people were making this decision every day.   When pressed for an answer he suggested she needed to get a job to be able to AFFORD the things she obviously needed.   Therein lies the rub, people who were encouraged to breed during Blair's government for benefits now are faced with hard decisions, many without partners to support them whilst they work, into having to find a job and juggle 3 or 4 illegitimate kids.   Now I am not saying there are not genuine cases where couples split up and a woman is left with the kids to provide for but when in history was it the state's responsibility to keep a brood for the rest of their lives because two people decided to have irresponsible sex and then dump their offspring on the state for them to be kept forever.   I am one of 6 children and I had two parents, my dad worked damn hard to keep us all and my mom stayed at home.    When I got married, we both worked and kept our family as there were none of the fancy bolt on benefits they have today, just Job Seekers and Child Benefit for the first.    We need to get back to basics.   

In a rambling way what I am saying is that Margaret Thatcher promoted and stood up for people who work hard and not those who don't and want to sit and moan about their lot in life.    These are the ones that will be protesting at her funeral whilst the rest of us will mourn and be proud of what we did for our families all due to her ideals and policies.

 Here are what Daily Mail readers said when Labour Leader Michael Foot died, the same people probably foaming at the mouth over remarks made about Thatcher's death. A brief insight into the minds and sheer hypocrisy of those on the Right, bemoaning peoples lack of respect at this time of "national mourning":

"“I have rarely laughed so much at a poor old man’s passing”
"One less communist hoon, time for a party"
"Pity the red lunatic ****s can only die once, I could watch it all day."
"F*** off Foot and rot in hell."
"Foot was either a moron of truly epic proportions or he was an evil, evil man. Either way, I see no need to mourn the treacherous b"
"Good riddance. One by one the socialist stalwarts are kicking the bucket ... C,mon Hattersley you fat f, choke on your own dribble."
"F off Michael – I won’t miss you at all."
"Anyone know where the traitorous quisling is buried so I can dance on the hoons grave?"
"Just another dangerously wrong-headed utopian Lefty of no use to Britain."
"One more communist dead."
"After a pretty p poor week, this is good news at last."
"Of all the socialist traitors that have stained the UK ... he is perhaps one of the most evil, I hope he rots in the deepest pits of hell"
"What took him so long…? Typical sponging leftie, screwing the actuaries to take more out of the pension scheme."
"If any Labour supporters are reading this right now with a tear in their eye may I just say to you... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"
"So. A 96 year old traitor has popped his clogs. So what."
"I also laughed my socks off when Tony ‘fluffy foxy woxy’ Banks died."
"Foot was a communist killer like Stalin he was possibly the most treasonous man in British political history. Lord Haw Haw did less damage.

Going of track a bit but in response to what JWhite posted about working families and dole scroungers.

Some months ago a few of us were sitting around moaning about one of those families you keep seeing in the papers that have 10 plus kids, £600/700 a week benefits in the hand, never worked, and yet it's still not enough, now i and the others employ people so we do know what kind of tax had been paid by our workers, anyway doing some rough calculations it came to about 10 to 15 workers that had to work a month, pay tax on this wage, just to keep one scrounger out of work for the same month.

Maggie said work hard and get paid for what you do, all the others say, stay at home, don't do a thing, get paid for what you don't do.

How can you go to London to protest when you should be at work, i hope i find a protester in my work force, could do with trimming up some slackers.

Hawkins111

I used oil as one of the excuses not one of the reasons

Kropotkin -

Yes, but did they go out and party in the street in full view on TV so to cause the maximum amount of distress to the relatives of Michael Foot.   It is one thing to have a personal opinion but quite another to go on national TV and say "good, I am glad she is dead", right after it had been announced she had just passed away, which is what the BBC did on the same day she died when interviewing members of the public.    Completely bang out of order in my opinion.   I would have been horrifed if they had been speaking about my mother that way on national TV !.      There is such a thing as respect for the dead, no matter what they did in their lifetime.

I am sure there must have been opponents of Churchill when he died but never this outpouring of pure hatred at his funeral and the police are just as bad for standing by and doing nothing.    They no longer attempt to distill any respect or expect it from members of the public any more.    Society gone to pot in my opinion.

I agree with J White and Manxmonkey. Mrs Thatcher saved our country from the ravages of union leaders like Scargill, I always remember him swanning around in nice clothes and driven about in his chaffaur driven Car, meanwhile the miners, who I did feel for as I would anyone losing their jobs and way of life, being stired up and pitted against each other. However the mining industry had run it's course as it was and things had to change. Even after that until recently he was still using a flat in the Barbican (London) paid for by the miners union, they took him to court and he's now lost it. She fought for our rebate from the EU some 76 Billion pounds, how many people are aware of that. People always slight her for the selling off council houses, the council's sold them to only council tenants, who then sold them again and made a quick profit. What was wrong was this money was never re-invested in new social housing, where did it go??? There should have been clauses attached to the sales. The Poll tax also caused great decent, again who set the rates, the local councils, my rates at the time were £750, there are 2 of us, so when the poll tax was introduced we then paid £800, one of my friends lived at home, where there were a mum and dad and 3 kids all over 16, so they paid £2000. If you think about it in general there are more adults in houses than actual properties, the councils were raking it in. I know where I live the town never saw any benefit from all the extra revenue that was raised. In fact the leader of the council at that time was had up on corruption charges and fled the country. I don't see that the poll tax is unfair way of everyone contributing to their local area. People just don't want to pay for things and some how think someone else should fund the local areas. Who these persons are I don't no.

Many of the people celebrating her death are far to young and no nothing of the time, others are activists and anarchists who always want to cause trouble. As for Blair, he and Bush lied, there were no weapons of mass destruction, Dr David Kelly lost his life over it and many people believe he was silenced including a group of Doctors who want the case re-opened.  Bush and Blair wanted Iraq's oil. Someones earlier post said Iraq is better off now, even the man who pulled down the statue of Sadam Hussein said if he knew what was going to be the outcome of how Iraq is today, he would never have pulled the statue down. The BBC is one of the most biased media sources today along with Fox news in the US. Don't believe a word they say without researching other media as well.

I hope her funeral will pass peacefully, no matter what, the lady is still making people sit up and take note. Love her or hate her.

If you want to find someone to hate. Then try one of the main problems Arthur Scargil

 A total curse of the country

Thank goodness the woman had guts

 Good post, BEDE! But I don't think she really played a part in the collapse of the USSR. The collapse came from within, one reason being their leaders incessant desire to keep up with the weapons of the West,  the cost of which was horrendous. The Soviet Union as a thriving socialist economy was doomed after the death of Lenin. Stalin was described as a Red Fascist, and that proved to be true, however, according to Max Hastings, it was Russia who were the main defeaters of Nazi Germany and I believe that is well recorded. How they achieved it after the purges and destruction of the 1930s is remarkable to say the least. There is plenty to study in the history books and it is a fascinating journey. Arthur Koestler's writings are very informative. He committed suicide in London in 1983, quite a significant year in British politics.

Having written that, I know that there are many people in the former Soviet Union (and the former DDR) who would like to rebuild socialism. That will come, of course, as the current capitalist system finally fails. It won't be the Socialism or Communism of the past. Neither, I'm glad to say, will it be Blairism. I don't have the time, or the inclination, to go into this on a deeper level, but hopefully my grand-kids will see the world emerge from the current economic situation which Thatcher, yes Thatcher, helped to create!

K.

There seems to be some strange historical bloomers in these discussions.

Time wise the assertion that Mr Heath put on a 50 MPH speed limit in response to the invasion of Kuwait is the biggest of these. The 3 day week and 50 mph speed limit was 1973, the invasion of Kuwait was 1990 !

The other is that the Falklands war was the sole cause of Mrs Thatchers popularity and the Conservative  victory of 1983. (As an aside this is a common assertion from the left of the labour party - Mr Blair was brought up on it - Mr Blair was very keen on popularity - he was also keen on the Iraq war).

Despite the economic situation in 80/81 the labour party only had a slight advantage over the Conservatives. With the gang of five leaving the Labour party to form the SDP, labours rating in the opinion polls collapsed, they never recovered these voters all the way to the election. With Foot as leader and a shadow cabinet sliding to the looney left Labour was pretty unelectable no matter how badly the conservatives did.

Yes the Falklands war did see a revival in the Conservatives fortunes and the attacks by the left of the Labour party on the sinking of the Belgrano when we had nightly been seeing the burnt and maimed soldiers and sailors from the Sir Galahad, HMS Sheffield etc made sure that Labour would see no benefit from it's rightful, mainly patriotic, stand.

This revived level of voting intentions for the Conservatives remained until the election. Objectively, if it was only caused by the conflict, it should have faded. Why did it not?

1. Mr Foot really was the most unelectable leader any party has ever selected and the Labour manefesto was scarey.

2. The factor that has most strongly affected every post war election. THE ECONOMY. All economic factors improved month by month leading up to the election and, although high, unemployment was coming down.

3.  Labour had lost 5 of it's most able and moderate politicians to the SDP.

If you ask: What would have happened had there been no Falklands War? It's pretty clear that the votes taken by the SDP were lost to labour, that the fortunes of the Conservatives would have improved massively as the economy improved and Labour was virtually unelectable. Any objective assesment would have given at least a working majority to the Conservatives.

I think tteed too seems to have made a few 'historical bloomers.' The 'looney left,' as the rabidly right-wing Daily Mail used to call anyone who wasn't a Conservative, did not bemoan the sinking of the Belgrano after people were watching nightly the sinking of the Belgrano and the Sir Galahad. The Belgrano was sunk first. The left of the Labour Party did criticise Thatcher for this as she broke the rules of engagement that she personally had set just a few days beforehand.

That Thatcher went, before the Falklands war, from being the most unpopular PM since records began to winning the 1983 election was nothing to do with the economy. Unemployment was still sky high by contemporary standards, as was inflation. That the opposition were divided probably helped her too, but pre-Falklands there were already moves within her own party to dump her before the next election. Her post-Falklands surge in popularity put an end to that.

tteedd.   50MPH  SPEED LIMIT.  I did say in my post that "As far as i can remember", i could not be asked to look it up but i concede that was incorrect.

 Spain's PP seemed to love her... they want to pay tribute to Margaret Thatcher by naming a street in Madrid after her... however the United Left voted against it and said "Thatcher, left  thousands of people poor after 11 years at the helm, and was responsible for 'economic and welfare cutbacks' that spelt disaster for families across the UK." Their  real admiration was for the English miners and union members and leaders who suffered during Thatcher's reign...

Read full article on EOS NEWS BLOG

Hi Bede

Nothing in my post gives a different timescale to the one you give. The controversy over the Belgrano was stirred up by left wingers after the Argentinian surrender when of course all the events referred to were over. It simmered for a year and came to a head when the prime minister was interviewed by Newsnight about a month before the election.

I stand by the rest of my post. If you really want to question it look it up before posting. I did - to make sure my memory was correct.

There are people today in both the Labour and Conservative parties who want to get rid of thier respective leaders. I would suggest that neither lot will succede before the next election. But I don't know - I do remember what happened in the early 80's though.

Hi Ian

Spokeswoman for United Left, Milagros Hernández, said Thatcher, who passed away following a stroke on Monday, April 8, left 'thousands of people poor' after 11 years at the helm

It seems that Milagros Hernandez is another who should look up the facts before putting her mouth in gear. A quick look at GDP figures would show the massive improvement in average income in the Thatcher years. Perhaps she should be congratulating Mrs Thatcher for reducing it to thousands!

My grandfather came to visit us when I was 10. We had just got our first TV. He was keen to see it. What he saw was a politician spouting on about poverty. My grandfather (who had been unemployed in the depression) said the man was a fool there was no poverty any more. To him nobody was poor who had the means to feed and clothe themselves.

Thatcher changed the way Britains Government dealt with trade unions holding the country to ransome with stike after strike to demand more pay and better terms. The tail was wagging the dog and she reversed that. We were the joke of europe and she changed that. The mines would have closed at some stage otherwise we would have gone bust. if that was wrong decision it would have been reversed by now.  But no... the mines are still closed and we have industrial parks like Nissan everwhere in the country.  I didnt support Tory policy but she had massive respect world wide and in life the unpopular people are the ones everyone remembered

So Love her or hate her.. at least she changed the way we live for ever and you have to show some respect for that.