Margaret Thatcher 1925-2013

[robertlouis]

She's quite admired in the states. I'm surprised at the negativity expressed

There are parts of the UK, and the further you go from the metropolitan media obsession with London the worse it gets, where her name is reviled in a visceral way that people who didn't experience those years will never understand. She laid the foundations of the independence debate in Scotland pretty much single-handedly in the sense that people shuddered after her demise and decided, never again. And in the destroyed communities in the north, Wales, Scotland, Kent and the midlands formerly dependent on coal and steel production the feelings remain much the same a generation on. The savagery of the attacks was one thing; the unfeeling refusal to do anything to repair the damage or offer hope was much worse.

And by knowingly destroying the UK's manufacturing base and leading the charge towards a post-industrial and service-based economy she sowed the seeds of our present precarious economic position.

Oh, and she actively championed the cause of politicised homophobia with the shameful Clause 28, wanted stronger ties with apartheid South Africa and called Nelson Mandela a terrorist, treated the appalling Pinochet of Chile as a friend, and introduced the poll tax which hit the poor infinitely harder than the rich, whatever its philosophical intent.

Up against that lot it's difficult to come up with much that remains as a tangible legacy, save in the memories of palsied cold warriors and Thatcherite diehards.

But as I've just said over on the politics board, I can't gloat in the death of a lonely, sad and confused old woman, although I hated almost everything she did.

[robertlouis]

When you said "Ding Dong", I thought you might be referring to this fella.

[Jericho]

Did you want to do this, Jericho?

I had something damper planned.
That's out the window now, don't want to risk putting her out!

[Ben]

English singer/songwriter Morrissey wrote, well, a controversial song... to say the least:

[robertlouis]

I had something damper planned.
That's out the window now, don't want to risk putting her out!

You wanted to dance on her grave then found out she was being buried at sea - is that it?

[Ben]

You're joking yeah?

Don't think Kim is....
Just a question: how popular was she anyway? Well, just taking a look. In 1987 she won 42 percent of the popular vote. About the same in '79 and '83. Well, this is how the parliamentary system consistently works: the so-called "winner" doesn't have the majority vote, as it were.
I mean, governance is pretty simple. It's administrative work. It's instituting policies that the majority want. Isn't that democracy?
The likes of Thatcher, Reagan, Blair, Bush etc., etc. have a disdain for meaningful democracy. Which is understandable.
As Walter Lippmann pointed out: "The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd."

[Ben]

Don't think Kim is....
Just a question: how popular was she anyway? Well, just taking a look. In 1987 she won 42 percent of the popular vote. About the same in '79 and '83. Well, this is how the parliamentary system consistently works: the so-called "winner" doesn't have the majority vote, as it were.
I mean, governance is pretty simple. It's administrative work. It's instituting policies that the majority want. Isn't that democracy?
The likes of Thatcher, Reagan, Blair, Bush etc., etc. have a disdain for meaningful democracy. Which is understandable.
As Walter Lippmann pointed out: "The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd."

Margaret Thatcher on global warming:

[robertlouis]

I think people are reluctant to admit that she was good at politics, you can't achieve what she did -just in the Tory Party- without understanding both the machinery of politics and its operators; she got through a staggering amount of paperwork in a day's work; she was, as far as I know, completely incorruptible and a saint compared to the venal slime who have used their privilege to be MP's to claim expenses for flat screen tvs, bookshelves, duck-ponds and so on -ok she married a millionaire and never needed money, but as a matter of principle she was unlikely to fiddle her expenses, if she even had any. I know that certain people desperately wanted to uncover something sleazy about her and Denis, but it never did emerge.

In your US system, a President cannot serve more than two terms, a means of limiting ambition we ought to have here. The political skills that built her career, notably her unwillingness to compromise, became her downfall particularly with regard to the Poll Tax. Had she left power in 1989 for example, her departure would not have been so ugly.

In a way it is not clear to me how responsible Mrs Thatcher was for the changes that have taken to capitalism in the UK and elsewhere since the 1970s; I think she may have led Britain into depression earlier than it might otherwise have experienced. The off-shoring and outsourcing of business and the radical changes in technology have transformed the way products are made, and devastated our economy.

There was a time in this country when people made ships, now they make coffee.

Funnily enough, I wrote a song exactly about that sad dichotomy.

I agree that until hubris and the assumption of the royal "we" overtook her, she was a brilliant politician both in front of an particularly behind the scenes, but her legacy is pretty flimsy in terms of anything positive.

What's especially ironic is that while there is some tasteless and entirely pointless rejoicing on the left, which I don't share, her successors in government are tearing ahead with the helter-skelter destruction of things that even she at her most rabid never attempted.

Put down the champagne and fight the bastards. The struggle is today, not twenty five years ago.

[robertlouis]

not my place ,but who died?oh yes her.R.I.P

I really wish that everyone, especially the media and the twitterati, would take your approach, Adriana.

[tsadriana]

I really wish that everyone, especially the media and the twitterati, would take your approach, Adriana.

They wont love and especially the rich ones to not say the ones who dont have a flaming clue what recession done to this country...Make the twats to look in the past and maybe they will if they got the brain clean.lol