Would Margaret Thatcher be good today?

uglyfish87

Hi,

I am just putting this out there to see what the reaction is.

Do any of you thing that with the current mess the country is in we could benefit from a Thatcher style taoseach that would deal with the large public service, debt and quangos?

When she left as prime minister of Britain, the country was in a better off then when she entered Downing St in 1979. She also took a stand against the EU, which I belive in many of her haters would admire her for it, as she foresaw the loss of sovereignty of the member states.

What do you all think?


P.S. Don't go on about the Troubles, as I don't want is thread to be about that, it's more about economic policy I want to hear about.

Tomohawk

Didn't that woman popularise the word quangos? So no I don't think she would be suitable etc etc.

Sardonicat

She wasn't good 30 years ago and she wouldn't be good now.

Her endorsement of "no such thing as society, only individuals" type thinking is exactly the thinking we have to thank for getting us into this mess.

PeterIanStaker

I'd get banned if I elaborated, so I'll just answer no.

Lockstep

ShamoBuc wrote: »

would she be any good? no....never fancied her in the first place!

This isn't After Hours. Please try and contribute more to the thread.

Rebelheart

gambiaman wrote: »

I'm sure donegalfella will be along shortly to put the pro-MT view...

As if we needed any further evidence that what Margaret Thatcher stands for is bad for any progressive society.

PS: And yes, she did actually state, on 31 October 1987, that there is 'no such thing as society'.

Fluffybums

Quite honestly, yes. The current occupants of the dail are primarily no better than county councillors (apologies to them), at least Maggie Thatcher was a national politician (whatever you think of her policies). This country is in desperate need of national politicians, just because someone can sort out planning applications, passports, dodgy road outside your house etc does not make them fit to run a country!

Lockstep

Rebelheart wrote: »

As if we needed any further evidence that what Margaret Thatcher stands for is bad for any progressive society.

Regardless of how much you disagree with his politics, don't engage in this sort of petty sniping or insults.
/mod

Sardonicat

Fluffybums wrote: »

Quite honestly, yes. The current occupants of the dail are primarily no better than county councillors (apologies to them), at least Maggie Thatcher was a national politician (whatever you think of her policies). This country is in desperate need of national politicians, just because someone can sort out planning applications, passports, dodgy road outside your house etc does not make them fit to run a country!

That is why the country voted for em. And look at us now.

Thatcher wouldn't need the IMF to hold a gun to her head to make cuts. She'd slash and burn the most vunerable with gusto and completely dismantle all public services. You'd really want that would you?

Sardonicat

Rebelheart wrote: »

As if we needed any further evidence that what Margaret Thatcher stands for is bad for any progressive society.

PS: And yes, she did actually state, on 31 October 1987, that there is 'no such thing as society'.

Was she not paraphrasing Hayeck? Bet her favourite philosopher is Ayn Rand!Great Christmas reading! (Bah humbug)

Rebelheart

Fluffybums wrote: »

Quite honestly, yes. The current occupants of the dail are primarily no better than county councillors (apologies to them), at least Maggie Thatcher was a national politician (whatever you think of her policies). This country is in desperate need of national politicians, just because someone can sort out planning applications, passports, dodgy road outside your house etc does not make them fit to run a country!

Mrs Thatcher ran Britain into the ground. She made deals to give media magnates control over media which, prior to that, had been protected by law from being dominated by a handful of business oligarchs. In exchange, the very influential newspapers of Rupert Murdoch supported her politically. She used her public office to support a media magnate in return for his support for her. Corruption by any standard. Despite the decline in the British economy in the late 1980s she used jingoistic nationalistic flag-waving politics which revolved around her victory in the Malvinas and europhobia to get the support of the unwashed plebs in general elections.

She also financially, militarily and politically supported the Indonesian genocide of the East Timorese and the fascist government of Augusto Pinochet - and all this while sanctioning a shoot-to-kill policy against the native Irish forces of resistance to British colonial occupation.

She should have been brought before a war crimes tribunal twenty years ago.

Wolfe Tone

I would rather have Bertie as eternal King than have her to be perfectly honest.

winter soldier

great britain was not in a better state after she was booted out of office in 1990. poll tax riots anyone??

ednwireland

poll tax riots, student riots, race riots, miners strike, ......... need i go on

winter soldier

actually you can go on. the striking and rioting that took place in wapping.

CokaColumbo

Of course Thatcher had an extremely positive effect on Britain's economy. Only a couple of years before she took office, the IMF was at Britain's doorstep and the union molested industries of England were depressing the economy. Her policies transformed the economy into a power-horse and if you don't believe me, ask Labour why it essentially adopted the substance of her economic scheme in the 1990s. We need a party which is properly right wing in terms of economics, one which doesn't corrupt the name of Free Market Capitalism. Out with the Pinkos and the Centrists.

Sardonicat wrote: »

She wasn't good 30 years ago and she wouldn't be good now.

Her endorsement of "no such thing as society, only individuals" type thinking is exactly the thinking we have to thank for getting us into this mess.

No it isn't. ECB suppressed interest rates, a perverted culture of "too big to fail", and a tax-scheme induced property bubble is what got us into this mess. None of that leftist nonsense.

Oh and yes, her policies with regard to the North of Ireland were disgusting and criminal.

loldog

There's a lot more to running a country than accounting. Britain is a divided, screwed up, alienated mess.

Dannyboy83

loldog wrote: »

There's a lot more to running a country than accounting. Britain is a divided, screwed up, alienated mess.

That article criticizes the policies of the Labour government, not the conservatives.

murphy93

Interesting topic, she had many bad points but many worthwhile ones in her early years. Compared to what we have now she would be useful.
My boss has a photo of her in her late 20'sand she did have nice legs

Lapin

There is something ironic about the fact that this thread was put up on the day that 29 miners were confirmed dead in NZ.

Fúck Thatcher and her cruel legacy.

uglyfish87

CokaColumbo wrote: »

Of course Thatcher had an extremely positive effect on Britain's economy. Only a couple of years before she took office, the IMF was at Britain's doorstep and the union molested industries of England were depressing the economy. Her policies transformed the economy into a power-horse and if you don't believe me, ask Labour why it essentially adopted the substance of her economic scheme in the 1990s. We need a party which is properly right wing in terms of economics, one which doesn't corrupt the name of Free Market Capitalism. Out with the Pinkos and the Centrists.



No it isn't. ECB suppressed interest rates, a perverted culture of "too big to fail", and a tax-scheme induced property bubble is what got us into this mess. None of that leftist nonsense.

Oh and yes, her policies with regard to the North of Ireland were disgusting and criminal.

I think you are spot on in everything you said.

locomo

CokaColumbo wrote: »

Of course Thatcher had an extremely positive effect on Britain's economy. Only a couple of years before she took office, the IMF was at Britain's doorstep and the union molested industries of England were depressing the economy. Her policies transformed the economy into a power-horse and if you don't believe me, ask Labour why it essentially adopted the substance of her economic scheme in the 1990s.

I think you are right there. I have an uncle who went to England and got a job there, like hundreds of thousands did in the eighties. She was elected prime minister 3 times so must have done something right at least some of the time. She stood up for what she believed was right, and helped America win the cold war. She helped keep this part of the world safe. As well as improving the economy in the UK , she was proved right on the world stage in relation to many places.

feicim

murphy93 wrote: »

Interesting topic, she had many bad points but many worthwhile ones in her early years. Compared to what we have now she would be useful.
My boss has a photo of her in her late 20'sand she did have nice legs

Why?? Why would he/she keep such an item, and worse still show it to people?

Maggie Thatcher would be good today, but not for any purposes that I could mention here.:mad:

Rebelheart

locomo wrote: »

She was elected prime minister 3 times so must have done something right

That's probably a reliable indicator of the opposite.

deanh

Of course, Bertie Ahern was also elected P.M. three times, so I doubt that it is a reliable statistic.

locomo

deanh wrote: »

Of course, Bertie Ahern was also elected P.M. three times, so I doubt that it is a reliable statistic.

Fair point. However when Mrs Thatcher took over in '79 Britain was in a dreadful economic state, with the IMF there only 3 years or so earlier, massive widespread strikes in the seventies, a declining and uncompetitive British manufacturing industry, etc. When she left the UK was in a much much healthier financial position....and unlike Ireland she did this without handouts from Europe....in fact throughout Thathers era, just like in Aherns era as taoiseach. massive transfers of EC funds came from UK to Ireland, in the form of structural funds, CAP grants etc. The UK then, in the late seventies / eighties as in the noughies was a net contributer to the EC. Thatcher was elected by standing up to vested interest groups such as the unions. Ahern caved in to them + built the economy on borrowed money. Ahern was also lucky in that in his period of office the world was not really in recession....Cowen took office more or less at the end of Ahern party and as the world went in to recession.
The OP's question was - would Thatcher be good today ? Hard to know for certain. She was far from perfect. However I do think Ireland could have done with a leader over the past few years, someone to really sort things out instead of dithering. I wonder how the UK would have fared if they had someone like Cowen in the late seventies / early eighties ? Would he have stood up to the unions ?

who the fug

Sardonicat wrote: »

She wasn't good 30 years ago and she wouldn't be good now.

Her endorsement of "no such thing as society, only individuals" type thinking is exactly the thinking we have to thank for getting us into this mess.

Nice sound bite, but people should read the quote in full

But it went too far. If children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society.[fo 2] There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate. And the worst things we have in life, in my view, are where children who are a great privilege and a trust—they are the fundamental great trust, but they do not ask to come into the world, we bring them into the world, they are a miracle, there is nothing like the miracle of life—we have these little innocents and the worst crime in life is when those children, who would naturally have the right to look to their parents for help, for comfort, not only just for the food and shelter but for the time, for the understanding, turn round and not only is that help not forthcoming, but they get either neglect or worse than that, cruelty

WAFC

Being brought up in a mining area in the North West of England I can only assume you've never had the pleasure at seeing and living what the end result of Thatchers "sorting out" was.

Still that's not the question....

Would Thatcher be good for Ireland???

Yep, she'd be exceptional. She'd sell off all the nationalised companies for peanuts, abolish the minimum wage, shove up the beloved corporation tax and then when her popularity went down she'd invade a country 50,000 miles off for no other reason than a ship was retreating out of it's waters as fast as it could.

I hope she dies a long and painful death.

Fratton Fred

WAFC wrote: »

Being brought up in a mining area in the North West of England I can only assume you've never had the pleasure at seeing and living what the end result of Thatchers "sorting out" was.

Still that's not the question....

Would Thatcher be good for Ireland???

Yep, she'd be exceptional. She'd sell off all the nationalised companies for peanuts, abolish the minimum wage, shove up the beloved corporation tax and then when her popularity went down she'd invade a country 50,000 miles off for no other reason than a ship was retreating out of it's waters as fast as it could.

I hope she dies a long and painful death.

Coming from the south east, as the majority of Britons do, she was great. No more held to ransom by unions, no more propping up a mining industry that was inefficient and a fairer way of local taxation. Add to that the profit and share save schemes set up to give employees a vested interest in the running.g of their companies and all round, her time was very successful.

I don't think Ireland needs Thatcher, but it certainly needs a ruthless bastard to kick the place back into shape.

uglyfish87

locomo wrote: »

However I do think Ireland could have done with a leader over the past few years, someone to really sort things out instead of dithering. I wonder how the UK would have fared if they had someone like Cowen in the late seventies / early eighties ? Would he have stood up to the unions ?

I think we need somebody who will fight our corner in Europe and on the world stage, and ruduce the ineffective large public bodies and quangos.

I think is Cowen was running Britain back then it would probably have been "the sick man of Europe" for many years to come, like Ireland is becoming now.

Another thing I think she got right was getting the budget rebate in 1984. For every £2 the UK put into CAP it got £1 back(see link http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4721307.stm )She got this reduced in '84. I wonder how hard our current government will fight to keep our corporation tax at 12.5%.

Fratton Fred

Oh yeah, her leadership during the Falkland war was spot on as well.

I couldn't stand her though.

dreenman

One little fact that is often forgotton about when discussing the merit of Thatchers economics in 80's was that the "fuel" for it was North Sea Oil. The oil came on stream big time in the 80s( by middle of the decade UK was exporting oil) and the economy was never hit by oil prices like it was in the 70s. That wealth triggered the whole financial and property boom which then took on a life of its own.

However it masked the destruction of the UKs industrial and manufacturing base so the ecomomy was only the financial sector and property (sound familiar). The so called 'services' industry was never going to replace real industry.

She squandered the short lived oil money and left some areas of the UK utterly devastated - you can credit Thatcher for the heroin and crack problems of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh, and even small market towns in Northern England.

She survived her first term because of Labour being in disarray and the Falklands factor. I'm not saying any other party or leader would have been able to stop the 'boom' but I dont think they would have treated some parts of the UK as callously as she did.

WAFC

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Coming from the south east, as the majority of Britons do, she was great. No more held to ransom by unions, no more propping up a mining industry that was inefficient and a fairer way of local taxation. Add to that the profit and share save schemes set up to give employees a vested interest in the running.g of their companies and all round, her time was very successful.

I don't think Ireland needs Thatcher, but it certainly needs a ruthless bastard to kick the place back into shape.[/QUOTE


The mining industry and the unions needed modernising of that there is no doubt..Not destroying. Modernising.Now,there's no industry to prop up. As long as the South East is okay though. You keep on waving that Union Jack. Beaut.

Nodin

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Coming from the south east, as the majority of Britons do, she was great. No more held to ransom by unions, no more propping up a mining industry that was inefficient and a fairer way of local taxation. Add to that the profit and share save schemes set up to give employees a vested interest in the running.g of their companies and all round, her time was very successful.

I don't think Ireland needs Thatcher, but it certainly needs a ruthless bastard to kick the place back into shape.

The "majority of Britons" may come from the south east, but only 42% of "Britons" everywhere voted for her at her peak.

The French had the same problem and opted for a phased shutting down with re-skilling of the workforce and drives to bring new industries to the area, hence the lack of social destruction there vs British mining areas.

I don't recall the poll tax being considered "fair".

wolfpawnat

uglyfish87 wrote: »

Do any of you thing that with the current mess the country is in we could benefit from a Thatcher style taoseach that would deal with the large public service, debt and quangos?

When she left as prime minister of Britain, the country was in a better off then when she entered Downing St in 1979. She also took a stand against the EU, which I belive in many of her haters would admire her for it, as she foresaw the loss of sovereignty of the member states.

She closed all the industrial towns down!

Generations left without work!

And this is the perfect example of what people thought of her!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsmAMKUIXbE

She looked after the rich and slaughtered the rest!!!!

LordSutch

If this thread was about reforming the Irish Unions, then I'd say 'Yes' Mrs Thatch would be ideal (that was her forte), but this is a different situation altogether, thirty years later & I'm not so sure Mrs Thatch would be any better than any other British PM who followed in her footsteps.

Cameron would be Great in this crisis, mind you we wouldn't be in the Eurozone for a start.

RandomName2

Sardonicat wrote: »

She wasn't good 30 years ago and she wouldn't be good now.

Her endorsement of "no such thing as society, only individuals" type thinking is exactly the thinking we have to thank for getting us into this mess.

' There is no such thing as society there is only the individual in society' makes quite a bit of sense; at least in terms of the last 2000 years of Western philosophy...

Fratton Fred

Y

WAFC wrote: »

The mining industry and the unions needed modernising of that there is no doubt..Not destroying. Modernising.Now,there's no industry to prop up. As long as the South East is okay though. You keep on waving that Union Jack. Beaut.

Nothing to do with waving the union jack, just simple facts. The mining unions refused to Change and thought they could blackmail the country as they had done in the past. Thatcher stood up to them and won.

If you want to blame someone for the death of the mining industry, blame Arthur Scargill.

WAFC

She stood up to them and won. Won what? Won the complete and utter demise of the North, Scotland and Wales.Yeah nice one Maggie, great victory Maggie, Still as long as Mr Daily Mail in Portsmouth is happy about those "lazy northerners" who now we've took there jobs are even lazier northerners. it's alright isn't it? With a bit of luck they'll all be on gear in 10 years to dumb them down some more.

I don't really want to bore the Irish to death with an arguement over stuff that was sorted in England and Wales in the 80's(if you want to do a thread on it, please do. but i will rip you to bits on it). but if Arthur was so wrong about the mining industry, maybe you'd like to inform us what Arthur stated about North sea gas and was laughed down by Thatcher and her rent boy mcgregor at the time of the strike.

If you want to know why your gas bill has increased by 600% since the pits closed. Blame your beloved Maggie.

By the way and I really want you to know this. Arthur's going to live longer than Maggie.

bryanw

We could definitely benefit from a Margaret Thatcher-type figure in this country. Unfortunately a spin by the left put on this woman and her policies is what people remember and not what the reality is. This is very nicely summed up in this article by John Redwood: "Have the Conservatives changed enough?"

I personally would give her alone a very large amount of credit in steering the world in the direction of free markets and stemming the tide of socialism. She had to initially convince even her own party to support her policies and in the end they worked.

She was completely correct in destroying the power of unelected unions in Britain. It should not be the state's role to prop up inefficient industry. Unions exercised huge power (handed to them) over their country. Imagine having a small, protected group of people being able to control the supply of goods, services and utilities to the entire country. Self-serving was all they were and any conflict and hatred that they could foster suited their agenda. Thatcher sought to stop the coercive powers that they exercised. Unballoted strikes, secondary picketing, picket line violence and intimidation - the tactics of militant union leaders. Instead she sought to transfer power to trade union members, such as requiring consensus of members by balloted action. Yes, unemployment increased after the closure of uneconomic mines. But that should not be a reason for not doing so. After all, huge subsidies were pouring in that direction, not government money, but the peoples' money. Once this money is not required for unsustainable industry it can be put to more effective use. Or better yet, use the savings to lower taxes and let the money be used in the wider economy.

RE: "No such thing as society"

Perhaps the woman should be able to defend herself... Here is a exert from her book Statecraft where she expresses that, as usual, the quote is taken out of context by the left. She basically argues that by individuals giving up their freedom to the state, they then think they are absolved of any responsibility in the name of gaining security.

Margaret Thatcher, Statecraft wrote:

The more we rely on remote public authorities to cope with the tragedies of life, the less we will do ourselves - and the more the unpleasing canker of selfish materialism will grow.

I tried to express this thought, some years ago, in an interview with the magazine "Woman's Own". It stirred up a hornets' nest, but I felt that the hornets were buzzing around the wrong target. I said:

I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem. I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves, and then, to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met the obligations.

There are a number of things I have said in my political life which I would have liked to rephrase. These words are not among them. Yet they caused a furore. "No such thing as society" is still quoted (out of context, naturally) by left-wing politicians, journalists and the occasional cleric to sum up what they think was wrong with the 1980s, and what is still wrong with 'Thatcherism'. Yet they have a problem. If I am wrong, and there are indeed no moral limits to entitlements, how do they themselves provide a moral justification for keeping public expenditure and taxation within limits at all? Why not redistribute everything?

Phony Scott

It is exciting to have a real crisis on your hands when you have spent half your political life dealing with humdrum things like the environment.

Her point of view on the Falklands campign. I think this sums her up more than any other quote and shows how insane and out of step she was.

aidan24326

Never liked her myself, but if there's one thing she could do for us now is tackle the unions head on. The likes of Jack O'Connor and David Begg need cutting down to size, instead of Cowen and Lenihan rolling over and giving them whatever they want.

Shea O'Meara

CokaColumbo wrote: »

Of course Thatcher had an extremely positive effect on Britain's economy. Only a couple of years before she took office, the IMF was at Britain's doorstep and the union molested industries of England were depressing the economy. Her policies transformed the economy into a power-horse and if you don't believe me, ask Labour why it essentially adopted the substance of her economic scheme in the 1990s. We need a party which is properly right wing in terms of economics, one which doesn't corrupt the name of Free Market Capitalism. Out with the Pinkos and the Centrists.

I'd rather Trotsky or Lenin than your Orwellian utopia.
Where people like Thatcher get it way wrong and deserve imprisonment is that the governments job is to look after all walks of life, the country as a whole. Not discard sections of the populace who aren't turning enough profit to be deemed worthy. A lot of the improvment in their economy was to the detriment of their people. I'm sure starving families in the north of England had a tear in their eye as the British economy began to rise.

How did a right wing government work out for us lately?
'Pinkos'

Shea O'Meara

bryanw wrote: »

We could definitely benefit from a Margaret Thatcher-type figure in this country. Unfortunately a spin by the left put on this woman and her policies is what people remember and not what the reality is.

That's just plain wrong. She actively censored the BBC and was in bed with Murdoch. So how did the left spin?
She wrote off large sections of the working class. Did 'the left' create all the news reports and documentaries about those times? Made while she was still in power I might add.
I would suggest 'the right' are looking back with rose tinted glasses.

bryanw

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

I'd rather Trotsky or Lenin than your Orwellian utopia.
Where people like Thatcher get it way wrong and deserve imprisonment is that the governments job is to look after all walks of life, the country as a whole. Not discard sections of the populace who aren't turning enough profit to be deemed worthy. A lot of the improvment in their economy was to the detriment of their people. I'm sure starving families in the north of England had a tear in their eye as the British economy began to rise.

How did a right wing government work out for us lately?
'Pinkos'

I'm sorry, but I believe that Trotsky or Lenin would be much closer to Orwellian than anything I would deem to be utopia, which will never exist by the way. On the subject of helping those of all walks of life, and since you brought up Trotsky, I've always liked this quote:

L. Trotsky - 1937 wrote:

In a country where the sole employer is the state, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.

Just about sums it up really.

You really are engaging in fallacy if you think that the government has anything to give "all walks of life". Government is a construct of people. Government cannot exist without people. Government does not have any resources of it's own, it does not produce anything. In order for it to do anything, it must take resources from the people. It must take your money and my money and more often than not will spend it in a way that you or I would not wish it to be used. But I suppose the government don't really care, sure it's not their money, so why should they spend it wisely.

Once you do not have wealth creators and producers, there will never be anything to give to those in need. Government does not create wealth, government does not create jobs. People do. Government should govern upon the consent of the governed.

As Thomas Jefferson said: "Government that is big enough to supply everything you need, is also big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

When people rely on government for their living, all sense of responsibility is absolved.

Shea O'Meara wrote:

That's just plain wrong. She actively censored the BBC and was in bed with Murdoch. So how did the left spin?
She wrote off large sections of the working class. Did 'the left' create all the news reports and documentaries about those times? Made while she was still in power I might add. I would suggest 'the right' are looking back with rose tinted glasses.

The left have created a caricature of what Thatcher was and what she stood for. They seem to easily forget that she increased spending in education and health. Eased the burden of taxation on everybody. Believed that people should work hard and use their own efforts to provide for themselves, not come looking to the government (again, not this supreme being with a endless supply of resource, but the resources of the nation as a whole) with their begging bowl.

I don't particularly see it as an issue to be "in bed" with someone who supports you and not "in bed" with someone who doesn't.

As is summed up nicely in this article, the left have created a caricature: Have the Conservatives changed enough. And why wouldn't they. They have their agenda too.

If her policies were so bad, why was it that, basically, in order for New Labour to get into power, it required submission to her policies, "stealing her clothes" if you will. Afterall, she was the first person that Tony Blair invited to number 10.

The Labour Party had, throughout, opposed Thatcher's free market policies, but oh how that tables have turned.Particularly when Gordon Brown says:

Gordon Brown wrote:

I came into politics as someone who lived in an area which was an old mining community.

The problem for the left in the past, was they equated "the public interest" with public ownership and public regulation and therefore they assumed that markets were not therefore in the public interest.

What we [the Labour Party] have had to explain, both to ourselves, and to the country, and now I believe it's possible to explain this to the rest of the world as well. It is that markets are in the public interest.

Nodin

bryanw wrote: »

We could definitely benefit from a Margaret Thatcher-type figure in this country. Unfortunately a spin by the left put on this woman and her policies is what people remember and not what the reality is. (...........).

We must have been dreaming the flag waving, the homophobia, the refusal to enact sanctions against apartheid SA, the social division, the support of Pinochet and Reagan.....

bryanw

Nodin wrote: »

We must have been dreaming the flag waving, the homophobia, the refusal to enact sanctions against apartheid SA, the social division, the support of Pinochet and Reagan.....

(a) Margaret Thatcher was an early backer of decriminalisation of homosexuality. Having said that, I'm not here to defend everything she's ever done. She is after all a Conservative and I am not.
(b) Sanctions do not harm the regimes they are imposed upon but the people that they are purported to help. In that sense they are counter-productive.
(c) Support of Pinochet was justified in the sense that the two countries had a mutual interest in keeping Argentina under wraps. The Lady herself said that she was not fully aware of the human rights abuses and having known of them she may have thought differently about Pinochet. But Pinochet's policies did in the end ensure that Chile became a prosperous and free country. They are after all about to become the first South American country to join the OECD. Milton Friedman was entirely correct when he asserted that the free market policies that Pinochet put in place would eventually transform Chile into a free country. Pinochet handed down power through democracy, peacefully, and without a struggle. Civil and political freedom can only come once there is economic freedom.
(d) On Reagan, you have no argument here. I do not know of any reason why her support of him could not be justified. He was one of the great American Presidents of the 20th Century, albeit better on rhetoric than he was on actions.

Nodin

bryanw wrote: »

(a) Margaret Thatcher was an early backer of decriminalisation of homosexuality. Having said that, I'm not here to defend everything she's ever done. She is after all a Conservative and I am not.
.

Section 28.

bryanw wrote: »

(b) Sanctions do not harm the regimes they are imposed upon but the people that they are purported to help. In that sense they are counter-productive.
.

Desmond Tutu and and Oliver Tambo called for sanctions and had no problem with them. I'd take their opinion on the matter quicker than Mrs Thatcher. Its not wild speculation to posit that the harm she was worried about was more linked to the City than the occupants of the townships.

bryanw wrote: »

(c) Support of Pinochet was justified in the sense that the two countries had a mutual interest in keeping Argentina under wraps. The Lady herself said that she was not fully aware of the human rights abuses and having known of them she may have thought differently about Pinochet. But Pinochet's policies did in the end ensure that Chile became a prosperous and free country. They are after all about to become the first South American country to join the OECD. Milton Friedman was entirely correct when he asserted that the free market policies that Pinochet put in place would eventually transform Chile into a free country. Pinochet handed down power through democracy, peacefully, and without a struggle. Civil and political freedom can only come once there is economic freedom.
.

The idea that she didn't know is laughable. The activities of the regime were well known from early on. If such knowledge was in the public domain, theres absolutely no way a leader with access to intelligence agencies information could have been in any doubt as to what went on. This is a man who ran a state which operated death squads, torture squads who raped women with dogs and mice....

bryanw wrote: »

(d) On Reagan, you have no argument here. I do not know of any reason why her support of him could not be justified. He was one of the great American Presidents of the 20th Century, albeit better on rhetoric than he was on actions.

There are hundreds of thousands of dead, maimed and raped in Latin America that would give the lie to that. His Presidency branded the ANC as "terrorists". Anti-gay, slow to act on AIDS, against historic civil rights legislation, massive military overspend based on lunatic methodology....

bryanw

Nodin wrote: »

Desmond Tutu and and Oliver Tambo called for sanctions and had no problem with them. I'd take their opinion on the matter quicker than Mrs Thatcher. Its not wild speculation to posit that the harm she was worried about was more linked to the City than the occupants of the townships.

I wouldn't give much credence to socialists when it comes to the economics of trade sanctions, or economics in general for that matter. I don't accept that we should be the watchdogs trying to impose our will upon others by refusing to trade freely with them. The best way to foster peace is to trade freely with other nations. As Thomas Jefferson said: "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none".

Here is an excerpt from an article about the futility of trade sanctions as a means of pressurising regimes into "doing the right thing".

Unintended Consequences of Trade Sanctions (on Iran) - mises.org wrote:

[...]
Trade sanctions are meant to destabilize regimes, forcing them to compromise with the aggressing government. Sanctions do this by threatening the regime's survivability, by undermining any support it may have amongst the population. These are the intentions of the American government, supposedly as a result of Iran's "dangerous" nuclear program. (Ironically, sanctions may only increase the country's ambitions to become a nuclear power, as a weapons-starved Iran turns to the nuclear warhead as the only means to ward off American political aggression). Additionally, and tragically, despite American intentions, the more likely outcome is the unintended effect of pushing Iranians toward their government and undermining an otherwise growing local antiextremist movement.

By definition, trade sanctions regulate exchange between Iranians and foreigners. Therefore, these individuals are directly punished by trade sanctions, not their respective governments. Those whose businesses rely on the import of foreign material are now forced out of the market. The thousands of individuals who live off of cheap, imported foodstuffs are now barred from doing so. This leads to impoverishment by forcing them to pay much higher domestic prices for less food. Thus, trade sanctions may also lead to outright mass starvation, as they did in the case of Iraq.

There are also hundreds indirectly punished by the coerced restraint of mutual exchange. Those who rely on import-oriented industries for employment, for example, will soon find themselves without a source of income. The bottom line is that trade sanctions create poverty.
[...]

Nodin wrote:

The idea that she didn't know is laughable. The activities of the regime were well known from early on. If such knowledge was in the public domain, theres absolutely no way a leader with access to intelligence agencies information could have been in any doubt as to what went on. This is a man who ran a state which operated death squads, torture squads who raped women with dogs and mice....

Whatever abuses Pinochet may have committed does not negate the free market policies that he put into place which have made Chile the model economy of South America. He is responsible for that also. It was he who rescued Chile from a crippling wefare/entitlement state. In the advise that free market economists gave to him, he was under no allusions as to what the eventual fate of his administration would be.

As Baroness Thatcher said herself in her book, as usual, the left like to mischaracterise her.

Margaret Thatcher, Statecraft wrote:

It is also worth trying to put right another misconception about my attitude towards - as he now was - Senator Pinochet. It is sometimes suggested that I was unconcerned about the abuses of human rights of which he was accused, and that I was supporting him simply for what he had done for Britain during the Falklands War. I do not know how I would have felt if I had thought he was guilty of great crimes. I would still have considered that his arrest was wrong - because of the way it was carried out, because of the consequences for Britain and Chile, and because of the dangerous precedent it set. But I never had to wrestle with that problem because although I could not be sure about every detail of every accusation, I was and am convinced that General Pinochet by his actions turned Chile into the free and prosperous country we see today.

This is not the place to go into detail about what happened in Chile in the 1970s and 1980s. But I stand by the contents of the speech which I delivered to a packed meeting at the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool on Wednesday, 6 Oct 1999. I summed up in a sentence the real charge against General Pinochet: "What the left can't forgive is that Pinochet undoubtedly saved Chile and helped save South America."

But I also tried to deal fairly with the evidence, in so far as it could be pieced together - and by the time I spoke I had myself been over many of the details. As General Pinochet himself freely admitted, there had been abuses in the wake of the military coup in 1973. And some of these continued. The precise responsibility could only, however, be judged in Chile, not in Britain.

[...]

Actually, of course, though it had judicial trappings, the action taken against Senator Pinochet in Britain was political. As such it required, at least in part, a political response. So I reminded my audience of the Pinochet government's real and remarkable achievements - that Chile turned from chaotic collectivism into the model economy of Latin America, that Chileans were decently housed, that medical care was improved, that infant mortality plummeted, that life expectancy rose, that highly effective programmes against poverty were launched. Above all, to balance the talk of Pinochet's "dictatorship", I noted that it was he who established a constitution for the return of democracy; who held a referendum to decide whether or not he should remain in power; and who, having narrowly lost the vote, respected the result and handed over to an elected successor.

The Lady, on form as usual, makes a very telling critique (unrelated to Pinochet, for the record) about the left and morality.

It is to me astonishing, but it is also true, that the left, New and Old alike, always manage to contrive an insuperable, and insufferable, sense of moral superiority. Socialists from time to time claim that they are also more competent at managing public affairs ... but they always claim to be operating on a higher moral plane than their conservative components. This is manifested in the criticisms which the left make of capitalism.

Nodin wrote:

There are hundreds of thousands of dead, maimed and raped in Latin America that would give the lie to that.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. As Thomas Jefferson said: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Nodin wrote:

His Presidency branded the ANC as "terrorists".

Hmmm... The ANC. A left-wing organisation with a military wing that were engaged in a campaign of sabotage and bombing. Sounds like terrorists to me. A corrupt organisation that still has amongst its leadership a high proportion of convicted criminals (post apartheid) and has been engaged in dodgy arms deals and the fiddling of public monies on enriching themselves. Yes. A lovely bunch without fault.

Nodin wrote:

Anti-gay, slow to act on AIDS, against historic civil rights legislation, massive military overspend based on lunatic methodology....

Reagan appointed the first woman to SCOTUS. His stance on some civil rights legislation was correct, in my view, insofar as trying to prevent discrimination by discrimination (affirmative action) is utter rubbish. That subverting the rights of others in order to augment those of others is counter productive. He also believed that such decisions should decided at state level, à la the 10th Amendment. And hey, I'm all for cutting government expenditure.

Teclo

Don't worry about Fr.Tutu, he's got Mary Robinson to laugh at his jokes. But we really do need a Maggie to shake things up. As an admirer of Milton Friedman, had she been Taoiseach(instead of our Great Leader Bertie) she would have agreed with him when he said in 2001:

"Ireland is an interesting case with respect to the euro," he said. "It
cannot have a separate monetary policy. The European Central Bank makes
monetary policy for the whole of euroland. The interesting thing about
Ireland is that it has been growing much more rapidly than the rest of
euroland and that has given it a balance of payments surplus and it has also
caused a rise in prices, so that so far the euro has brought inflation to
Ireland.

"Within the euro that balance of payments surplus means that you are taking
in more euros than you are paying out, and that means that the money supply
in Ireland is growing much more rapidly than the money supply in the euro as
a whole."

"You know, it's an ironic thing in a way... the euro was adopted
really for political purposes, not economic purposes, as a step toward the
myth of the United States of Europe. In fact I believe its effect will be
exactly the opposite."

http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg75740.html

invinciblePRSTV

bryanw wrote: »

They are after all about to become the first South American country to join the OECD. Milton Friedman was entirely correct when he asserted that the free market policies that Pinochet put in place would eventually transform Chile into a free country. Pinochet handed down power through democracy, peacefully, and without a struggle. Civil and political freedom can only come once there is economic freedom.

I have to laugh at the naivety of this statement. Pinochet overthrew, in an extremely bloody and violent manner, a peaceful, democratically elected government and wiped out the civil and political freedoms that had existed in Chile up to that point. Keep on spinning propaganda to suit your ideology, i'm laughing reading it.