Maggie Thatcher death discussion thread - Mod rules in first post

gurramok wrote: »

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

No other figure in British history, not even Oliver Cromwell, is as divisive as Margaret Thatcher. Her being a woman certainly plays some part in that. Of this i am sure.

For a lot of men, there is nothing more fearsome than a powerful woman.

grenache wrote: »

The Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 didn't go down too well with the Unionist community!

Yes, I'm aware of that.
I personally saw her effigy being burned by Unionists in 1986.
As they say, a week is a long time in politics.
Ten years....?

getz wrote: »

the problem with the large unions is that they only look after their own members even if it means the country as a whole would/will suffer from their policies,i do not see what maggie did then is much different from what the euro countries leaders are having to do to-day

The difference is that the Unions back then rioted and caused severe trouble, so Maggies rift sticks in our memory more so.
Had the miners not rioted for example, they'd have been a story tucked into page 6....like today's Union members and nobody would be talking about the closed pits today.

gurramok wrote: »

Now you're just using this an excuse for why she was so hated. It was her policies, not her gender.

Of course her policies were the main bone of contention, as I've stated above already. But you must remember the era that Thatcher came to power in, the late 70s, when a woman was not encouraged to work outside the home. A woman having a child out of wedlock was still a big no no, even in Protestant Britain. Women were still treated as second class citizens.

I have no doubts that *some* of the vitriol directed at her was down to her being a woman, combined with her policies. It just made it easier to target her.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

The NUM weren't some poorly paid victimised sector of society either, they were well paid and considered themselves to be a real power in Britain. And why shouldn't they, they had successfully fought off every attempt at modernisation for fear that increased efficiency meant fewer jobs, they had brought down one government and in the winter of discontent were happy that the country was on a three day week and the power was turned off for a few hours everyday. This wasn't about unions protecting their rights, it was protectionism and a union flexing its muscles and showing an entire nation who was boss.

The NUM was a major factor in creating the north south divide.

You have to wonder if the inability or the unwillingness of the trade unions to change contributed to the grandiose stand offs and rioting.

Norwesterner wrote: »

The difference is that the Unions back then rioted and caused severe trouble, so Maggies rift sticks in our memory more so.
Had the miners not rioted for example, they'd have been a story tucked into page 6....like today's Union members and nobody would be talking about the closed pits today.

the pits and mines were in trouble anyway coal was coming into the country at half he cost it was only a matter of time before they would have had to close,the cost to the local community was huge,but now many of them are now thriving with new industries,its interesting to see the world take on her death,china says she was a woman of her word,and argentina says she was a war monger who murdered many argentine falkland liberators,

Fratton Fred wrote: »

It was exactly that. The two biggest unions to suffer the most were the two that were most resistant to change, the miners and the printers.

I joined the AUEW (the engineering union) in about 1988 and they were very progressive. It was all about retrain, reskill and adopt modern technology.

I remember when we introduced Statistical Process Control in about 1990, the message had always been that if you want a payrise, you must improve productivity, so we embraced SPC, our scrap rate went from 15% to 5% which meant productivity went up. We all had much better bonuses and at the annual negotiations the case for a payrise over and above inflation was rock solid.

Not only that, it meant that the new Japanese car plants were interested in buying our products rather than using their existing component manufacturers .

The thing is, there were actually people refusing to re-train because they just wanted an excuse to cause industrial relations issues. Madness.

Its funny you should mention it, I did my dissertation in college on the printing unions and specifically Wapping and Rupert Murdoch. Having studied it I felt the unions walked their members down a blind alley. Change in the industry was inevitable and true effect leadership from the unions would have been to help their members adapt to what was going on around them.

Just an opinion. Having said that, I'm not defending Thatcher either.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

It was exactly that. The two biggest unions to suffer the most were the two that were most resistant to change, the miners and the printers.

I joined the AUEW (the engineering union) in about 1988 and they were very progressive. It was all about retrain, reskill and adopt modern technology.

I remember when we introduced Statistical Process Control in about 1990, the message had always been that if you want a payrise, you must improve productivity, so we embraced SPC, our scrap rate went from 15% to 5% which meant productivity went up. We all had much better bonuses and at the annual negotiations the case for a payrise over and above inflation was rock solid.

Not only that, it meant that the new Japanese car plants were interested in buying our products rather than using their existing component manufacturers .

The thing is, there were actually people refusing to re-train because they just wanted an excuse to cause industrial relations issues. Madness.

i know just what you mean fred ,i was a union rep in two large unions the transport and general workers union and the ASTMS ,in my meeting with my senior union reps ,i often was in conflict with the idea of the,drop tools and walk out policy that always came up,as for maggie many people in the UK found that her policy on being able to buy your own council home,gave them at last a chance to get on the property ladder,

Hundreds of Scots celebrate Margaret Thatcher's death with a huge party in Glasgow's George Square

Happyman42 wrote: »

I don't think I have yet seen revisionism as blatant as this in all that has been said and written in the short time since she died.
Her policy in the 80 and 90's was a 'security' based one and a militaristic one. She thought she could defeat the IRA and failed miserably and at great cost to her own forces, many of her personal friends and to the Irish and British people.
SF where not 'coaxed' into constitutional politics by her, they decided to pursue politics as another front way before she came to power.
She sucummbed to the imperative of the ongoing violence and eventually saw the need to do something other than trying to subdue or 'win' the war. This was after recieving advice from her generals that the IRA could never be defeated.
Do not be influenced by the revisionism of Fitzgerald's biographers or Thatchers, who seek to obscure the mistakes and idleness of both governments through the conflict, read the chronologies and timelines and witness how events forced through the changes.
The IRA faced down her sucessor John Major, who was insisting that they disarm to allow SF to take their place at the negotiating table. Major backed down and the deal was done and signed first. That is the truth of what happened.
Unionists hate her as much as anybody else, as it was her who sold them out, or rather, it was her that first realised that their suprematism could no longer be supported as there was no longer any gain for Britain.

this thread was going quite well, up to now,with intelligent posts

I haven't read the last few pages of this thread but will make a few points on some of the more spurious statements of praise about Thatcher.

1) The Right to Buy

This is constantly held up as a positive aspect of her legacy but a cursory look at the housing situation in Britain will tell you it was a disaster for working class people today. Up to a third of the houses which were sold are now being rented out, far from creating a situation of home-ownership all it did was create a new class of landlords. The son of the housing minister at the time, Ian Gow, himself owns ninety former council properties in London alone which are rented out for premium rents. Many of these council properties are owned by rental firms who are registered in places like the Caymans etc and as such pay little or no tax. Meanwhile there are five million people on the housing waiting list and rents are through the roof.

Thatcher's housing scheme transfered a valuable public asset in the form of housing into private hands which has now been concentrated in the hands of the rich. The fact that key Tories have benefited financially is even more nauseating.

2) "Trailblazer for women"

This has to be the most ridiculous reason for praising Thatcher, more often than not made by people who seem to think woman = good without actually having a clue what she stood for. While she may have attained the position of Prime Minister she most certainly pulled the ladder up after her so to speak. She was economically liberal but when it came to social matters she was still an old school conservative Tory. Thatcher cut child benefit, she made absolutely no investment into childcare and those women who managed to pursue a career, she criticised for raising a "creche generation". She promoted ZERO women to cabinet and did nothing to address the issue of wider female representation in politics. She described feminism as "a poison."

Worked wonders for women indeed.

3) "Defender of Democracy"

When the democratic government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by a right wing coup led by Augusto Pinochet, Thatcher was one of his main international backers. So many people were seized by Pinochet's forces in the aftermath they had to contain them to a stadium where activists, politicians, journalists and musicians were systematically tortured and executed. We've had some eejits try and justify her standpoint as real-politik in the face of the Cold War, but that doesn't explain how she'd invite him for afternoon tea in London up until a few years ago.

Her support for the Chilean dictatorship is arguably one of the bigger issues of her toxic legacy, and one that her supporters have yet to address bar a few platitudes along the lines of "errah sure she made a few mistakes like."