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Maggie Thatcher death discussion thread - Mod rules in first post

dr.bollocko

Hello folks,

Following on from a recently closed mega merge thread which is currently under review.

Please use this thread only for discussion of the recent death of Maggie Thatcher.

This is not a condolences forum so as a result of this, fair criticism of her legacy is allowed / understandable.

However bile / jokes / off-topic nonsense / piss on her grave type crap will be removed and people will be carded / banned.

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K-9

rusheen wrote: »

What do you think would have happened had it got her?

That's the what have been?

Yeah, sorry about it, I worry more about those who served under Thatcher. I'm looking for redeeming qualities.

K-9

wonderfullife wrote: »

I know from the Liverpool threads you are no fan of Maggie but that's a very blinkered view of actual events you're taking there.

Thatcher was no poodle on the scale of Blair. Without her, Gorbachev and Reagan would not have met nor moved the situation forward. She really was instrumental in that regard.

She had the foresight to invite Gorbachev to London in 1984, a full year before he became General Secretary of the Communist Party. She had the foresight to see this was a moderate who would be willing to engage with the west. She was the first major world leader to go to Moscow after Gorbachev took over.

So, no, very unlike Tony Blair she was no poodle following Regan around saying yes, sir/no, sir. She led from the front and stood up for her beliefs and nations interests. Even in Reagans own words, he described how much he valued her guidance.

This woman was far too pig-headed and headstrong to be told what to do by anybody. So you're way off the mark on this one (imo).

I'm a bit Meh on this subject.

If you'd said Tinker, Tailor, Soldier , Spy, immediately interested. Le Carre, what a writer.

Le Carre is just king, just writes about the stupidity of the spy classes.

Seaneh

These are not the words of someone worth mourning

Margaret Thatcher wrote: »

'The ANC is a typical terrorist organisation ... Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land'

Add that to her support of people like Pinochet and you have a pretty good idea of the kind of person she was.

1ZRed

All hail the lizard queen!!

Nodin

Something to muse over.....

This demand for respectful silence in the wake of a public figure's death is not just misguided but dangerous. That one should not speak ill of the dead is arguably appropriate when a private person dies, but it is wildly inappropriate for the death of a controversial public figure, particularly one who wielded significant influence and political power.
........................
But the key point is this: those who admire the deceased public figure (and their politics) aren't silent at all. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person's death to create hagiography.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with loathing Margaret Thatcher or any other person with political influence and power based upon perceived bad acts, and that doesn't change simply because they die. If anything, it becomes more compelling to commemorate those bad acts upon death as the only antidote against a society erecting a false and jingoistically self-serving history.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-etiquette

Rascasse

Seaneh wrote: »

These are not the words of someone worth mourning.

Good job she didn't say them then.

The widely-quoted “cloud-cuckoo land” remark attributed to MT at the end of this article is apocryphal. As far as can be traced she never made a public comment even similar to this.

Rather the origin of the quote appears to be a response by her press spokesman, Bernard Ingham, on 16 October 1987 at the Vancouver Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. A Canadian journalist speculated that the African National Congress might overthrow the white South African regime, to which he replied: “It is cloud cuckooland for anyone to believe that could be done.” (See Washington Post, 17 Oct 1987.)

Years later the words were modified and attributed to MT by Hugo Young, who claimed that she had said at Vancouver: “Anyone who thinks that the ANC is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land”. (See The Guardian, 26 Apr 1994.) In that form they became part of the journalistic ‘record’.

Edit:

K-9 wrote:

People don't realise how lucky she was in 84. If she'd stayed in the same place as she did before in the Grand Hotel, she was gone. MaGee did everything right.

The only reason she was moved higher up in the hotel was miners protests. It's a fascinating storey, it only takes the IRA to get lucky, but in this case Maggie got lucky. All it took was a bomb in a bath panel.

This must be some republican old wives tale. The conferences tend to move around the country between north and south each year so it would have been at least 2 years since she last stayed there, maybe more, so it's not like she had her 'usual room' each year. More likely he asked for high level sea front room (as those are the best in the house, hence likely where she'd stay) and thought he'd used enough to bring the whole place down.

Nodin

Rascasse wrote: »

Good job she didn't say them then.

.........

She did refer to them as a "terrorist" organisation and refused to bring in sanctions, however.

Spook_ie

Nodin wrote: »

She did refer to them as a "terrorist" organisation and refused to bring in sanctions, however.

And at the time they were on the USA's terrorist list if I recall, so factually she was correct.

Nodin

Spook_ie wrote: »

And at the time they were on the USA's terrorist list if I recall, so factually she was correct.

Just because the Americans had taken that view didn't mean she had to, particularily given the nature of the regime they were up against.

Rascasse

Nodin wrote: »

She did refer to them as a "terrorist" organisation and refused to bring in sanctions, however.

They (well, MK) were a terrorist organisation, though not particularly prolific when compared to those groups in NI. It's hard not to apply the sobriquet when they were bombing shops, bars and town centres.

I don't have time to go into Thatcher and apartheid sanctions. Just because she opposed some sanctions (and many were implemented regardless) does not mean she was pro apartheid. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Spook_ie

Nodin wrote: »

Just because the Americans had taken that view didn't mean she had to, particularily given the nature of the regime they were up against.

So how many dead and injured civilians does it take before you become a terrorist organisation freedom fighter then?

grenache

History will be a lot kinder to Margaret Thatcher than we think. Yes she messed up in Northern Ireland and with the Poll Tax. But she also brought Britain back from the brink of economic collapse by crushing the unions who at the time controlled the country to its economic detriment. The unions were single handedly responsible for Britain's economic crisis of the mid 1970s. I mean jesus the IMF had to come in to rescue the country.

Production was at an all time low, there were strikes every second week and power outages were common. Thatcher changed all this. Yes she probably went too far but she obviously thought the unions and Scargill had to be defeated for the betterment of the country as a whole. I can't help but feel that a lot of the hatred directed towards her was because she was a woman.

I also feel she was 100% correct to defend the Falklands from Argentine aggression. The island's inhabitants have continually voted to remain a British Overseas Territory, they were never even Argentina's to begin with. It was a wholly illegal invasion and Britain was more than within its rights to fight it.

Death and Taxes

hare wrote: »

87.......she lived 60 yrs more than she let bobby sands live.

He committed suicide , hardly her fault!

Banjo String

The West brits have really outdid themselves on this one.

Seems like a lot of folk admired this brute simply because SF didn't. :rolleyes:

Lest we forget more than half of England and the UK also detested her.

grenache

SamHall wrote: »

The West brits have really outdid themselves on this one.

Seems like a lot of folk admired this brute simply because SF didn't. :rolleyes:

Lest we forget more than half of England and the UK also detested her.

Ah yeah, i knew that old chestnut would be thrown around by someone, highly original :rolleyes: More or less invalidates anything else you would say.

Everybody has to be judged in the context of their enviroment and how they reacted in that context. I try to look at her objectively. I could have easily been swayed by father and history teacher at school who both considered her to be the devil reincarnate. But one must be able to judge her without those green tinted specs, in other words, objectively.

Not many people are doing that.

Banjo String

I could have easily been swayed by father and history teacher at school who both considered her to be the devil reincarnate

I don't need my father and history teachers advice you see.

I'm old enough to have witnessed first hand the policies she introduced in the north, especially during the hunger strike.

2 families were directly affected by the strike in my home town.

32 years on and the hurt to those families still remains.

grenache

SamHall wrote: »

I don't need my father and history teachers advice you see.

I'm old enough to have witnessed first hand the policies she introduced in the north, especially during the hunger strike.

2 families were directly affected by the strike in my home town.

32 years on and the hurt to those families still remains.

If you read my original post, you'll see that i agree that she messed up in the North. On other issues such as the trade unions and Falklands i am of the opinion that she did better.

That doesn't make me a West Brit.

Banjo String

grenache wrote: »

If you read my original post, you'll see that i agree that she messed up in the North. On other issues such as the trade unions and Falklands i am of the opinion that she did better.

That doesn't make me a West Brit.

I never said it did.

You're a tad confused this morning young man.

grenache

SamHall wrote: »

I never said it did.

You're a tad confused this morning young man.

And you're feeling particularly patronising with your "young man".

SamHall wrote: »

The West brits have really outdid themselves on this one.

Seems like a lot of folk admired this brute simply because SF didn't. :rolleyes:

Lest we forget more than half of England and the UK also detested her.

gurramok

grenache wrote: »

Ah yeah, i knew that old chestnut would be thrown around by someone, highly original :rolleyes: More or less invalidates anything else you would say.

So says the poster who posts :rolleyes:

grenache wrote:

I can't help but feel that a lot of the hatred directed towards her was because she was a woman.

Norwesterner

Did the British Labour Party reverse any of her policies or decisions when they had a decade of power?
(Bring back free milk bottles in school.... reopen and bailout the Northern Coal mines....end the right for Council tenants to buy their own homes....)
They had ten plus years to change these "evil" policies but didn't.
Blatant opportunists.

Tony Blair launched more wars than Thatcher.
Will his death be celebrated??

grenache

gurramok wrote: »

So says the poster who posts :rolleyes:

So you dont think she was subject to misogyny on a wide scale?

Banjo String

grenache wrote: »

And you're feeling particularly patronising with your "young man".

Would you not think, seeing as how your post didn't mention SF or Republicans in general, that perhaps I wasn't referring to you?

grenache

SamHall wrote: »

Would you not think, seeing as how your post didn't mention SF or Republicans in general, that perhaps I wasn't referring to you?

Well your post came just after mine, and i seeing as i was somewhat "defending" some of her policies, i assumed it was aimed at me, amongst others.

R P McMurphy

grenache wrote: »

Ah yeah, i knew that old chestnut would be thrown around by someone, highly original :rolleyes: More or less invalidates anything else you would say.

Everybody has to be judged in the context of their enviroment and how they reacted in that context. I try to look at her objectively. I could have easily been swayed by father and history teacher at school who both considered her to be the devil reincarnate. But one must be able to judge her without those green tinted specs, in other words, objectively.

Not many people are doing that.

Her policies in Ireland were a disaster alright but aside from that I think she did a lot of harm to Britain and that legacy lives on. In relation to the unions the subsidies for mining could have been restructured in an orderly fashion to diminish the impact on communities relying on those industries (as had been done in countless countries), she was not interested in that. She wanted to go up against the unions on ideological grounds and as Seamus Mallon pointed out was interested in humiliation. Added to that her support of pinochet, training of the khmer rouge by the SAS and support for extra judicial killings points to someone less than admirable

gurramok

grenache wrote: »

So you dont think she was subject to misogyny on a wide scale?

From who? She was hated for her policies of selfishness towards those less fortunate, nothing to do with her gender as you said.

getz

SamHall wrote: »

I don't need my father and history teachers advice you see.

I'm old enough to have witnessed first hand the policies she introduced in the north, especially during the hunger strike.

2 families were directly affected by the strike in my home town.

32 years on and the hurt to those families still remains.

the iron lady did what she had to do at that time,as history proves,as a union rep then i found it a bitter pill to take,but the country was in a mess,we may not have liked her in the UK,but on the world stage she was a big player

Norwesterner

Her objective in Ireland was a 3 tiered policy.
Introduction of Normalisation (making the British presence look normal and acceptable, as British as Finchley).
Ulsterisation (To reduce British casualties, removal of british troops and handing of security over to local police and intelligence officers)
Criminalisation ( to paint insurgents as criminal thugs and apolitical gangs. To treat their prisoners as common criminals.)
Today in 2013, do you see this as accomplished?

Her policy in the 80's-90's was to coax and goad Sinn Fein into Constitutional politics, often she made statements challenging them to give up the Armalite and stand in elections.
SF were eventually sucked into Constitional politics.
She was often quoted as saying "there can be no change in the Constitional Question until the "majority in Northern Ireland give their consent"
Back then, SF called this the "Unionist Veto."
Now Thatcher's position is the official Sinn Fein position.

People above say her policies in the North were disastrous.
For Unionism it was manna from Heaven.
She achieved (apart from the dissident thorn) almost all her set aims.

grenache

R P McMurphy wrote: »

Her policies in Ireland were a disaster alright but aside from that I think she did a lot of harm to Britain and that legacy lives on. In relation to the unions the subsidies for mining could have been restructured in an orderly fashion to diminish the impact on communities relying on those industries (as had been done in countless countries), she was not interested in that. She wanted to go up against the unions on ideological grounds and as Seamus Mallon pointed out was interested in humiliation. Added to that her support of pinochet, training of the khmer rouge by the SAS and support for extra judicial killings points to someone less than admirable

I agree with some of the points you make, and i would never go so far as to say she was "admirable". Yet i do not think she is the devil that many people make her out to be. While the impact on the mining industry was regretable, it must be remembered that during the Thatcher years, more than 50 companies were sold or privatised – including the dozens from the power and water industries – raising more than £50bn for the British Exchequer. Her administration also put an end to fixing of prices and wages between employers, unions and goverment, allowing a truly free market operation to dictate.

RayserSharp

When Thatcher came to power she adopted the prayer of St. Francis as her mission statement.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

If this is the yardstick by which her success or failure is measured, then she failed miserably.