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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2013 23:31:20 GMT 1
Great leaders lead & affect change. Like her or loathe her she acted on her conviction and will be remembered for that. You have to set any meaningful analysis of her actions & policies against the context of the politics of the time. Exactly. Most of the comments on here seem to be based on peoples personal political stance, yet at the time, she was repeatedly and democratically voted back in. She was right for Britain in that period. Anyway, what the frigs this got to do with football? |
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Post by otium (EPBS) on Apr 8, 2013 23:32:33 GMT 1
No one who is working should receive benefits in principle, this is the problem. It has spiralled to the extent that NINETY percent of households receive some form of cashback!Welfare system. Not fit for purpose. I have never had a single penny in my life...and i never want to. Give over Oti lad, if you've got kids then maybe but not 90%, that's an over exaggeration. If your in low paid work and have a couple of kids, does it pay to spend all your money on Child care costs? Childcare costs put people off working. If the government came up with a credible jobs creation programme then maybe there wouldn't be such an outcry. Any Welfare reform has to have jobs available to make it work and have any credibility. All i know is that i heard IDS on Radio 4 in about October say (something along the lines of) "its not right that 90% of households should be in receipt of some kind of benefit". If he does not know who does? |
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Post by otium (EPBS) on Apr 8, 2013 23:38:33 GMT 1
No one who is working should receive benefits in principle, this is the problem. It has spiralled to the extent that NINETY percent of households receive some form of cashback! Welfare system. Not fit for purpose. I have never had a single penny in my life...and i never want to. Well good for you Otium, and I say that in all seriousness. You are lucky to, presumably, always have been able to find a way to earn a living and have the health to do that. Sadly there are those in every society who are not able to do that. They may have worked hard down a mine but then had their job taken from them by Thatcher and their community decimated by lack of alternative work. They may have suffered from a disability and been unable to find appropriate work, or suffered a serious illness that would prevent them from earning a living however much they want to. That's what the Welfare system is for and we should always remember that and those of us lucky enough to not need to fall back on the Welfare State should thank our lucky stars that is the case. So, I think you're wrong to say the Welfare system is not fit for purpose. I do accept that aspects of it need radical overhaul. It cannot be right that it pays people to be out of work and on benefits; it cannot be right that it's too easy to get some form of sickness benefit when you are not really too sick to work (partially thanks to Thatcher, as quoted earlier, who moved lots of unemployed onto sickness benefit so as to reduce the numbers on unemployment benefit); it cannot be right that immigrants who have never paid a penny into the system are able to waltz in and immediately qualify for more benefits than some (lifelong) indigenous workers receive; and so on. Nevertheless it does save a lot of out of work people (through no fault of their own), or sick people, from starving. It does support old people, who like me, have paid their taxes and N.I etc all their working lives, by providing some financial support in their later years. (Some like me who have as well as paying their taxes have also paid into a pension fund and so have a "private" pension to help support them.) So the Welfare system does do a lot of good, and I would venture to suggest the worthy claimants outnumber the unworthy ones. Just because there are arguable a large minority of unworthy ones doesn't mean the system is unfit for purpose, just that it needs adjusting. As for your comment that no working person should receive benefits as a matter of principle - well it's thanks to the ethos propounded by Thatcher that too many employers feel able to pay such low wages (sometimes wangled even below the legal minimum wage)that people need to have support from the state. There is a significant number of people working hard at worthwhile jobs who do not get paid a living wage for their efforts. If only they had unions to help them - oh yes - Thatcher emasculated them as well! It "used" to do a lot of good when people were fair and honest. Its now ludicrous. I would even suggest that the welfare system now does more harm than good. Look at Philpott and the streets full of n'er do wells. What is wrong with community work for benefits? Food vouchers, hand me downs? Get rid of child benefit, free nurseries, motabilty etc. They are an anathema. |
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Post by otium (EPBS) on Apr 8, 2013 23:39:30 GMT 1
And what kind of system is it that will let you live on £63 a week yet pay £800 a week to a slum landlord?
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Post by Chips Longhorn on Apr 8, 2013 23:40:16 GMT 1
Of course benefit fraud should be clamped down upon but there are a lot of people who work damn hard who receive benefits too you know? Regular average working families. Benefit fraud is responsible for around 1.2billion quid. Tax avoidance on the other hand is responsible for around £25billion... No one who is working should receive benefits in principle, this is the problem. It has spiralled to the extent that NINETY percent of households receive some form of cashback! Welfare system. Not fit for purpose. I have never had a single penny in my life...and i never want to. That's a bit harsh Otium. Penny that "fuller figured" lass from plentyoffish.com is devastated to learn she wont be added to your ever growing list of conquests |
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Post by thrice on Apr 8, 2013 23:41:37 GMT 1
Give over Oti lad, if you've got kids then maybe but not 90%, that's an over exaggeration. If your in low paid work and have a couple of kids, does it pay to spend all your money on Child care costs? Childcare costs put people off working. If the government came up with a credible jobs creation programme then maybe there wouldn't be such an outcry. Any Welfare reform has to have jobs available to make it work and have any credibility. All i know is that i heard IDS on Radio 4 in about October say (something along the lines of) "its not right that 90% of households should be in receipt of some kind of benefit". If he does not know who does? He will be on about Child Allowance no doubt. He would be right too, it is ridiculous that we all get it when you think about it. The price of a "fair & equal" society. Do other countries have such welfare? I very much doubt it. And that is before we even start to consider the feckless. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2013 23:43:59 GMT 1
No one who is working should receive benefits in principle, this is the problem. It has spiralled to the extent that NINETY percent of households receive some form of cashback! Welfare system. Not fit for purpose. I have never had a single penny in my life...and i never want to. Well good for you Otium, and I say that in all seriousness. You are lucky to, presumably, always have been able to find a way to earn a living and have the health to do that. Sadly there are those in every society who are not able to do that. They may have worked hard down a mine but then had their job taken from them by Thatcher and their community decimated by lack of alternative work. They may have suffered from a disability and been unable to find appropriate work, or suffered a serious illness that would prevent them from earning a living however much they want to. That's what the Welfare system is for and we should always remember that and those of us lucky enough to not need to fall back on the Welfare State should thank our lucky stars that is the case. So, I think you're wrong to say the Welfare system is not fit for purpose. I do accept that aspects of it need radical overhaul. It cannot be right that it pays people to be out of work and on benefits; it cannot be right that it's too easy to get some form of sickness benefit when you are not really too sick to work (partially thanks to Thatcher, as quoted earlier, who moved lots of unemployed onto sickness benefit so as to reduce the numbers on unemployment benefit); it cannot be right that immigrants who have never paid a penny into the system are able to waltz in and immediately qualify for more benefits than some (lifelong) indigenous workers receive; and so on. Nevertheless it does save a lot of out of work people (through no fault of their own), or sick people, from starving. It does support old people, who like me, have paid their taxes and N.I etc all their working lives, by providing some financial support in their later years. (Some like me who have as well as paying their taxes have also paid into a pension fund and so have a "private" pension to help support them.) So the Welfare system does do a lot of good, and I would venture to suggest the worthy claimants outnumber the unworthy ones. Just because there are arguable a large minority of unworthy ones doesn't mean the system is unfit for purpose, just that it needs adjusting. As for your comment that no working person should receive benefits as a matter of principle - well it's thanks to the ethos propounded by Thatcher that too many employers feel able to pay such low wages (sometimes wangled even below the legal minimum wage)that people need to have support from the state. There is a significant number of people working hard at worthwhile jobs who do not get paid a living wage for their efforts. If only they had unions to help them - oh yes - Thatcher emasculated them as well! Brilliantly well put, as i said earlier i have worked my full 50 years, minus a spell when i was ill, hospitalised and unable to work, reliant for 15 months on sickness benefit, i consider myself one of the lucky ones to get back on track and earn a living throughout the Thatcher years, when colleagues left right and centre were losing there livelyhoods i was fortunate to have a job. You are a very lucky individual Otium. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2013 23:50:09 GMT 1
All i know is that i heard IDS on Radio 4 in about October say (something along the lines of) "its not right that 90% of households should be in receipt of some kind of benefit". If he does not know who does? He will be on about Child Allowance no doubt. He would be right too, it is ridiculous that we all get it when you think about it. The price of a "fair & equal" society. Do other countries have such welfare? Thrice, you do realise even the rich pay national insurance don't you? Christ i'm defending the likes of people who pay 50% tax now.  . |
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Post by Captainslapper on Apr 9, 2013 0:11:54 GMT 1
returning the Falklands wasn't an option as they'd never been argentinian. The only alternative to the war would have been to just roll over and let them have it. The British Government and Military didn't even have maps of the Falklands. That's how much they cared about or thought it was theirs. The Falkland Island Company actually owned the place why were our UK troops called over there (costing millions) to defend a sheep farm? Answer! Thatcher wanted it to become an issue! She was unpopular at home and creating a War against an ill-equipped invasion force to regain the respect she caved. My mate was parachuted in there with five other lads to make surveillance maps and was horrified by what he saw during his time there. Thank goodness he got out a sane man! He hates what Thatcher and her cronies did almost as much as I do!  So lets get this straight- the army and its government didn't have any maps of the Falkland islands? LOL She created the war- by presumably ordering the argies to invade it? You really do live in some sort of delusional world . LOL |
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Post by Captainslapper on Apr 9, 2013 0:18:35 GMT 1
]Fooking hell....someone who actually liked her and her policies, nowt worse than a working class Tory!!! Ah the old 'we're working class, we are!' socialist rhetoric. The inverted snobbery the labour party relies on. Got news for you, tory voters work aswell. |
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Post by 3Pipe on Apr 9, 2013 0:18:59 GMT 1
You are one dumb fuck slapper, seriously.
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Post by Captainslapper on Apr 9, 2013 0:21:03 GMT 1
You are one dumb fuck slapper, seriously. you'll be able to put a reasoned case as to why that is then eh? Well no you won't will you, because I suspect you don't have the brains to either form an argument or put it across that well. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2013 0:58:12 GMT 1
All i know is that i heard IDS on Radio 4 in about October say (something along the lines of) "its not right that 90% of households should be in receipt of some kind of benefit". If he does not know who does? He will be on about Child Allowance no doubt. He would be right too, it is ridiculous that we all get it when you think about it. The price of a "fair & equal" society. Do other countries have such welfare? I very much doubt it. And that is before we even start to consider the feckless. Child allowance is the only thing I have ever claimed off this country in all my working life and I have been working since 16. I have paid thousands upon thousands in tax and NI whilst scroungers rake in benefits and have a bigger telly than I could ever afford. If you don't mind I feel like I deserve the 83 quid a month contribution I get towards the well being of my child. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2013 0:58:25 GMT 1
All i know is that i heard IDS on Radio 4 in about October say (something along the lines of) "its not right that 90% of households should be in receipt of some kind of benefit". If he does not know who does? He will be on about Child Allowance no doubt. He would be right too, it is ridiculous that we all get it when you think about it. The price of a "fair & equal" society. Do other countries have such welfare? I very much doubt it. And that is before we even start to consider the feckless. Child allowance is the only thing I have ever claimed off this country in all my working life and I have been working since 16. I have paid thousands upon thousands in tax and NI whilst scroungers rake in benefits and have a bigger telly than I could ever afford. If you don't mind I feel like I deserve the 83 quid a month contribution I get towards the well being of my child. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2013 1:03:37 GMT 1
He will be on about Child Allowance no doubt. He would be right too, it is ridiculous that we all get it when you think about it. The price of a "fair & equal" society. Do other countries have such welfare? I very much doubt it. And that is before we even start to consider the feckless. Child allowance is the only thing I have ever claimed off this country in all my working life and I have been working since 16. I have paid thousands upon thousands in tax and NI whilst scroungers rake in benefits and have a bigger telly than I could ever afford. If you don't mind I feel like I deserve the 83 quid a month contribution I get towards the well being of my child. Well said Hilly.  |
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Post by BoltonTerrier on Apr 9, 2013 1:14:42 GMT 1
All i know is that i heard IDS on Radio 4 in about October say (something along the lines of) "its not right that 90% of households should be in receipt of some kind of benefit". If he does not know who does? He will be on about Child Allowance no doubt. He would be right too, it is ridiculous that we all get it when you think about it. The price of a "fair & equal" society. Do other countries have such welfare? I very much doubt it. And that is before we even start to consider the feckless. I trust you'll be sending it back then Danny?  Sent from my GT-I9300 using proboards |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2013 1:30:23 GMT 1
Can't see why folk can't see it's as plain as the nose on your face...
This 'free' society continues to get more expensive...
Energy tariffs that takes a physicist to decipher, all to put a dividend in the pocket of the shareholders. Can people remember the adverts for the general public that dressed up the stock market as some sort of land full of cartoon characters as opposed to the corrupt narcissistic shylock bastards that is nearer the truth...
Same for all your other utilities. Question how much of that profit and dividends could actually have been put back into the infrastructure? Do you think in years to come there'll be kids thinking you're talking daft when you tell them the tales of round the clock tanker runs to transport WATER 200 miles because of the broken up nature of our utilities...
For all those that blame Blair for continuing their ways then I'd have to agree with many commentators at the time. Labour didn't stand much of a chance with John Smith or Kinnock before him. Blair knew it was the only way to break the Tory cycle & whilst I don't agree with everything Blair did in his time he had a lot of shite to try and reverse but Britain was a completely new landscape by then, the media were increasingly powerful and remain so today.
Had Labour not had those 12 yrs in power this country would be nigh on finished. Cameron and Osborne are doing their darndest to complete the job Thatcher started but hopefully the public will wake up some time soon...
Some of their tactics have been truly blunderbus & have provided the media with 'the story' but it's the stealth in other areas that people need to watch for because there's so much changing via those means that doesn't make the mainstream news...
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2013 6:14:27 GMT 1
All i know is that i heard IDS on Radio 4 in about October say (something along the lines of) "its not right that 90% of households should be in receipt of some kind of benefit". If he does not know who does? Do other countries have such welfare? I very much doubt it. And that is before we even start to consider the feckless. ---------------------------------------------------- In New Zealand we look on with amazement at the multitude of generous benefits the UK hands out seemingly unchecked to all and sundry, including recently arrived immigrants! Not sure how you can afford it and certainly does not happen here. |
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Post by jakeshan on Apr 9, 2013 7:15:00 GMT 1
It really is a tragedy re the spider. I only hope Thatcher was in as much pain when she passed. I hated her with a passion and she had much to answer for.
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Post by DeepSpace on Apr 9, 2013 7:34:06 GMT 1
The figure IDS quoted also includes OAPs.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2013 7:54:47 GMT 1
An alternative report that some of you might finding interesting! Margaret Thatcher, the friend of Chile’s fascist dictator General Augusto Pinochet and supporter of the apartheid system of racial discrimination in South Africa, has died of a stroke at the age of 87. Neither the media’s eulogies to Thatcher as a great stateswoman, nor the staging of a day of national mourning complete with military honours, can conceal the fact that she died arguably the most hated figure in British politics. Most working people will have greeted the announcement of her demise with cold indifference, contempt, and, in some cases, celebration. Impromptu street parties were underway in several cities within hours of her death. Comparisons have been made repeatedly between Thatcher and Winston Churchill. They are inappropriate. A right-wing defender of British imperialism, not even Churchill’s opponents would deny his obvious political stature. At a time of acute crisis, he was able to invoke history and make an appeal to social layers far beyond his natural constituency in the ruling elite. In contrast there is not a single intelligent remark that can be cited as coming from Thatcher, only inane sound-bites tailored to a supportive press such as “The lady’s not for turning.” Margaret Hilda Roberts embodied everything that is narrow-minded and philistine in the English middle class. She was preoccupied solely with self-advancement and enrichment, owing much of her success to having secured a rich husband. Her political talents, such as they were, consisted of the nasty cunning and ruthlessness of the social climber. Of far more interest than her personal biography are the historical circumstances that enabled such a relative non-entity and political sociopath—epitomised by her declaration, “There is no such thing as society”—to rise to such a position of prominence. Thatcher’s ascent to the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1975 expressed the right-wing shift in British and international politics that developed with the receding of the  of explosive class struggles that had wracked Europe between 1968 and 1975. She was the chosen vessel of the most corrupt and reactionary elements within the British ruling class—those most bitter at her predecessor Edward Heath’s defeat by the miners’ strike of 1974. Thatcher is indelibly associated with the presidency of Ronald Reagan—with her espousal of the monetarism of Milton Friedman complementing the pursuit of “Reaganomics” in the United States. Aimed at removing all limits on private wealth accumulation, her premiership (1979-1990) was conducted under the banner of “rolling back” the frontiers of socialism. By this was meant the overturning of all the social gains won by the working class in the post-war period. Her political appeal, such as it was, was directed primarily to a section of the upper middle class who were promised a get-rich-quick scheme to be funded by tax cuts, a fire-sale of public assets, and a speculative boom. The destruction of industry and deregulation of the City of London was accompanied by union-busting, attacks on welfare and an aggressive assertion of the interests of British imperialism. The result was mass unemployment and violent class conflict. Among Thatcher’s crimes now being airbrushed from the historical record by the media was her decision to allow hunger-striker and Sinn Fein MP Bobby Sands and nine other prisoners of the British state in Northern Ireland to starve to death in 1981. One year later, she launched, for electoral advantage, the war against Argentina over the Malvinas/Falkland islands, during which the retreating ARA General Belgrano light cruiser was deliberately sunk outside the exclusion zone arbitrarily imposed by the UK, at the cost of 323 lives. Thatcher’s South Atlantic adventure led to 900 deaths and forever scarred the lives of many more. Portrayed as the “Iron Lady”, Thatcher’s great advantage, which accounted for all her much vaunted victories, was that she only ever confronted enemies that were determined to lose. This was certainly the case with the Argentine Junta. And most important of all, her assault on the working class enjoyed the active support of the labour and trade union bureaucracy. Electorally she relied on the formation of the Social Democratic Party by a section of the Labour Party to stay in power, but above all she depended on the systematic demobilisation of mass opposition to her government by Labour in alliance with the Trades Union Congress. This reached its climax in the isolation and betrayal of the year-long miners’ strike in 1984-85, during which some 20,000 miners were injured, 13,000 arrested, 200 imprisoned, almost 1,000 summarily sacked, and two were killed on picket lines. The miners’ defeat was the signal for the open abandonment by the trade unions and Labour of any defence of the social interests of the working class. “New realism” became the code-word for renouncing any notion of class struggle and workers’ solidarity, the embrace of the “free market” and Labour’s transformation into an overt right-wing party of big business. Even as Labour was busy adopting “Thatcherism”, however, her perspective was unravelling. In the absence of any opposition from the Labour Party and the unions, it was left to her own deeply-divided party to unceremoniously dump her in 1990 in order to stave off electoral disaster. By then, the socially destructive consequences of Thatcher’s retrograde economic and social nostrums were all too apparent. In little more than a decade, the conditions of the working class had been sharply reversed in the interests of the financial aristocracy. Whole areas of the country had been turned into industrial wastelands, scarred by poverty and low-wage employment. Britain was well on the way to being transformed into a global centre for the criminal activities of the super-rich—a haven for the likes of Rupert Murdoch and innumerable Russian oligarchs. Intellectual and cultural life was degraded almost beyond recognition. In the ensuing years, the unstable foundations of the Thatcherite economic model—the massive accumulation of fictitious capital, unrelated to any development of economic production, and an explosion in credit-fuelled debt—were to produce a series of crisis on the global stock markets. Nonetheless, Thatcher’s policies were continued and deepened by Labour under Tony Blair, her self-proclaimed political heir. Much more can and will be said. But five years on from the 2008 financial crash, with mass austerity the order of the day, any objective appraisal makes clear that Thatcher’s real legacy is the greatest economic and social crisis wrought by capitalism since the first half of the 20th century. Nothing whatsoever remains of her stupid and wholly insincere promises of “popular capitalism”, of Britain as a “home-owning democracy” with prosperity for all secured through the “trickle-down” of wealth and the “miracle of the market.” Posterity will record her as having presided over the initial stages of an on-going putrefaction of bourgeois social and political life. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2013 8:11:45 GMT 1
Here we go again Captain - another round of silly insults! You really do lose all credibility when you start that game!
The fact is my mate was a surveillance specialist in the Para' (he's a photographer). He and five others, cartographers etc were parachuted on to the island just as the first Argentinian troops landed there. He was trained by the SAS and can look after himself (shall we say?) Their mission was to map the Island, particularly locations where troops could land. And yes, believe it or not, the British Army did not have any surveillance maps. Why would they the place was one huge sheep farm?
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Post by Scissett Terrier! on Apr 9, 2013 8:39:10 GMT 1
Well good for you Otium, and I say that in all seriousness. You are lucky to, presumably, always have been able to find a way to earn a living and have the health to do that. Sadly there are those in every society who are not able to do that. They may have worked hard down a mine but then had their job taken from them by Thatcher and their community decimated by lack of alternative work. They may have suffered from a disability and been unable to find appropriate work, or suffered a serious illness that would prevent them from earning a living however much they want to. That's what the Welfare system is for and we should always remember that and those of us lucky enough to not need to fall back on the Welfare State should thank our lucky stars that is the case. So, I think you're wrong to say the Welfare system is not fit for purpose. I do accept that aspects of it need radical overhaul. It cannot be right that it pays people to be out of work and on benefits; it cannot be right that it's too easy to get some form of sickness benefit when you are not really too sick to work (partially thanks to Thatcher, as quoted earlier, who moved lots of unemployed onto sickness benefit so as to reduce the numbers on unemployment benefit); it cannot be right that immigrants who have never paid a penny into the system are able to waltz in and immediately qualify for more benefits than some (lifelong) indigenous workers receive; and so on. Nevertheless it does save a lot of out of work people (through no fault of their own), or sick people, from starving. It does support old people, who like me, have paid their taxes and N.I etc all their working lives, by providing some financial support in their later years. (Some like me who have as well as paying their taxes have also paid into a pension fund and so have a "private" pension to help support them.) So the Welfare system does do a lot of good, and I would venture to suggest the worthy claimants outnumber the unworthy ones. Just because there are arguable a large minority of unworthy ones doesn't mean the system is unfit for purpose, just that it needs adjusting. As for your comment that no working person should receive benefits as a matter of principle - well it's thanks to the ethos propounded by Thatcher that too many employers feel able to pay such low wages (sometimes wangled even below the legal minimum wage)that people need to have support from the state. There is a significant number of people working hard at worthwhile jobs who do not get paid a living wage for their efforts. If only they had unions to help them - oh yes - Thatcher emasculated them as well! It "used" to do a lot of good when people were fair and honest. Its now ludicrous. I would even suggest that the welfare system now does more harm than good. Look at Philpott and the streets full of n'er do wells. What is wrong with community work for benefits? Food vouchers, hand me downs?Get rid of child benefit, free nurseries, motabilty etc. They are an anathema. i would love to tsee these two things happen. 16 hours community service a week once on job seekers for 6 months or more. Benefits paid in vouchers only to be spent on food, bills etc not sky tv, fags and booze. Child benefit scrapped to fund free child care so people have no excuse not to work. |
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Post by Lard Buttie on Apr 9, 2013 8:39:11 GMT 1
Not a fan of Thatcher at all but when measured against politicians of today she stands head & shoulders above any of them. Its hard to tell who holds the left & right ground politically these days.
One thing that I will give massive credit to her for is her influence on youth culture. Her party & policies helped shape some of the best British bands of the last few decades. I would have added ''alternative comedians'' to that but most if niot all of themn eventually sold out and started doing tv ads (Alexi Sayle being one I recollect immediately.... poss Add Ben Elton as well.
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Post by terracesider on Apr 9, 2013 9:11:58 GMT 1
An alternative report that some of you might finding interesting! Margaret Thatcher, the friend of Chile’s fascist dictator General Augusto Pinochet and supporter of the apartheid system of racial discrimination in South Africa, has died of a stroke at the age of 87. Neither the media’s eulogies to Thatcher as a great stateswoman, nor the staging of a day of national mourning complete with military honours, can conceal the fact that she died arguably the most hated figure in British politics. Most working people will have greeted the announcement of her demise with cold indifference, contempt, and, in some cases, celebration. Impromptu street parties were underway in several cities within hours of her death. Comparisons have been made repeatedly between Thatcher and Winston Churchill. They are inappropriate. A right-wing defender of British imperialism, not even Churchill’s opponents would deny his obvious political stature. At a time of acute crisis, he was able to invoke history and make an appeal to social layers far beyond his natural constituency in the ruling elite. In contrast there is not a single intelligent remark that can be cited as coming from Thatcher, only inane sound-bites tailored to a supportive press such as “The lady’s not for turning.” Margaret Hilda Roberts embodied everything that is narrow-minded and philistine in the English middle class. She was preoccupied solely with self-advancement and enrichment, owing much of her success to having secured a rich husband. Her political talents, such as they were, consisted of the nasty cunning and ruthlessness of the social climber. Of far more interest than her personal biography are the historical circumstances that enabled such a relative non-entity and political sociopath—epitomised by her declaration, “There is no such thing as society”—to rise to such a position of prominence. Thatcher’s ascent to the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1975 expressed the right-wing shift in British and international politics that developed with the receding of the of explosive class struggles that had wracked Europe between 1968 and 1975. She was the chosen vessel of the most corrupt and reactionary elements within the British ruling class—those most bitter at her predecessor Edward Heath’s defeat by the miners’ strike of 1974. Thatcher is indelibly associated with the presidency of Ronald Reagan—with her espousal of the monetarism of Milton Friedman complementing the pursuit of “Reaganomics” in the United States. Aimed at removing all limits on private wealth accumulation, her premiership (1979-1990) was conducted under the banner of “rolling back” the frontiers of socialism. By this was meant the overturning of all the social gains won by the working class in the post-war period. Her political appeal, such as it was, was directed primarily to a section of the upper middle class who were promised a get-rich-quick scheme to be funded by tax cuts, a fire-sale of public assets, and a speculative boom. The destruction of industry and deregulation of the City of London was accompanied by union-busting, attacks on welfare and an aggressive assertion of the interests of British imperialism. The result was mass unemployment and violent class conflict. Among Thatcher’s crimes now being airbrushed from the historical record by the media was her decision to allow hunger-striker and Sinn Fein MP Bobby Sands and nine other prisoners of the British state in Northern Ireland to starve to death in 1981. One year later, she launched, for electoral advantage, the war against Argentina over the Malvinas/Falkland islands, during which the retreating ARA General Belgrano light cruiser was deliberately sunk outside the exclusion zone arbitrarily imposed by the UK, at the cost of 323 lives. Thatcher’s South Atlantic adventure led to 900 deaths and forever scarred the lives of many more. Portrayed as the “Iron Lady”, Thatcher’s great advantage, which accounted for all her much vaunted victories, was that she only ever confronted enemies that were determined to lose. This was certainly the case with the Argentine Junta. And most important of all, her assault on the working class enjoyed the active support of the labour and trade union bureaucracy. Electorally she relied on the formation of the Social Democratic Party by a section of the Labour Party to stay in power, but above all she depended on the systematic demobilisation of mass opposition to her government by Labour in alliance with the Trades Union Congress. This reached its climax in the isolation and betrayal of the year-long miners’ strike in 1984-85, during which some 20,000 miners were injured, 13,000 arrested, 200 imprisoned, almost 1,000 summarily sacked, and two were killed on picket lines. The miners’ defeat was the signal for the open abandonment by the trade unions and Labour of any defence of the social interests of the working class. “New realism” became the code-word for renouncing any notion of class struggle and workers’ solidarity, the embrace of the “free market” and Labour’s transformation into an overt right-wing party of big business. Even as Labour was busy adopting “Thatcherism”, however, her perspective was unravelling. In the absence of any opposition from the Labour Party and the unions, it was left to her own deeply-divided party to unceremoniously dump her in 1990 in order to stave off electoral disaster. By then, the socially destructive consequences of Thatcher’s retrograde economic and social nostrums were all too apparent. In little more than a decade, the conditions of the working class had been sharply reversed in the interests of the financial aristocracy. Whole areas of the country had been turned into industrial wastelands, scarred by poverty and low-wage employment. Britain was well on the way to being transformed into a global centre for the criminal activities of the super-rich—a haven for the likes of Rupert Murdoch and innumerable Russian oligarchs. Intellectual and cultural life was degraded almost beyond recognition. In the ensuing years, the unstable foundations of the Thatcherite economic model—the massive accumulation of fictitious capital, unrelated to any development of economic production, and an explosion in credit-fuelled debt—were to produce a series of crisis on the global stock markets. Nonetheless, Thatcher’s policies were continued and deepened by Labour under Tony Blair, her self-proclaimed political heir. Much more can and will be said. But five years on from the 2008 financial crash, with mass austerity the order of the day, any objective appraisal makes clear that Thatcher’s real legacy is the greatest economic and social crisis wrought by capitalism since the first half of the 20th century. Nothing whatsoever remains of her stupid and wholly insincere promises of “popular capitalism”, of Britain as a “home-owning democracy” with prosperity for all secured through the “trickle-down” of wealth and the “miracle of the market.” Posterity will record her as having presided over the initial stages of an on-going putrefaction of bourgeois social and political life. Re-arrange these words: Nail head hit firmly on.... Not too sure what it's got to do with football though but.... And the Lady was no friend of the "beautiful" game... |
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Post by artysid on Apr 9, 2013 9:27:36 GMT 1
Her death certainly seems to have had an effect on the music download charts
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Post by HuddsTerrier on Apr 9, 2013 9:35:11 GMT 1
Without wanting to insult anyone, I was born in 1979 a month after Thatcher came to power so I don't really remember too much of the 80's, but I like to try and look at things objectively. So two questions really
1. If Thatchers was so disliked why did she win three General elections? (More than any PM in the modern era). Then after she left office the Tories went onto to win a forth election? Clearly the majority kept re-electing her and also elected her successor - so the majority must have approved of her manifesto, and that support seemingly continued for years even after the Miners strike and Falklands
2. If Mining was still viable why didn't the private sector step in - like they did with all the other privatised industries in the 1980's?
Like I say I don't want to cause offence, because I absolutely get the personal suffering caused by the closure of the pits, but to be honest I don't get why if she was so unpopular she kept getting reelected and if mining was so viable why so few of the pits were saved
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Post by Lard Buttie on Apr 9, 2013 9:43:12 GMT 1
Without wanting to insult anyone, I was born in 1979 a month after Thatcher came to power so I don't really remember too much of the 80's, but I like to try and look at things objectively. So two questions really 1. If Thatchers was so disliked why did she win three General elections? (More than any PM in the modern era). Then after she left office the Tories went onto to win a forth election? Clearly the majority kept re-electing her and also elected her successor - so the majority must have approved of her manifesto, and that support seemingly continued for years even after the Miners strike and Falklands 2. If Mining was still viable why didn't the private sector step in - like they did with all the other privatised industries in the 1980's? Like I say I don't want to cause offence, because I absolutely get the personal suffering caused by the closure of the pits, but to be honest I don't get why if she was so unpopular she kept getting reelected and if mining was so viable why so few of the pits were saved 1. Weak & ineffective opposition 2. Cheaper imports - however mining coal in uk mines now is cost effective but all the coal powered power stations have been shut down |
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Post by artysid on Apr 9, 2013 9:44:20 GMT 1
I think the thing is HuddsT she split opinion. Some loved her some hated her.
She overwhelmingly won three election or the majority of people never voted for her (nor for any other PM since I might add)depending on your point of view /prejudices
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Post by artysid on Apr 9, 2013 9:56:05 GMT 1
Her lasting legacy:-  |
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of explosive class struggles that had wracked Europe between 1968 and 1975. She was the chosen vessel of the most corrupt and reactionary elements within the British ruling class—those most bitter at her predecessor Edward Heath’s defeat by the miners’ strike of 1974.
