Thatcher dead

Hamann Pineapple said:
Did Maggie actually defeat the IRA or is the fact that Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams are now political figures an example of her failure ?

I doubt very much Sinn Fein or the IRA would have ever made peace with Thatcher because she withdrew the special category status that made IRA prisoners political rather than criminal. Bobby Sands and others went on hunger strike and died for there cause."Crime is crime is crime. It is not political," she said, as the republican prisoners, one by one, starved themselves to death. It provoked a lot of outrage around the world as i recall and probably made it easier for the IRA to recruit. The SAS was also used against the IRA and she denied Sinn Fein any airtime in the media.

She also upset Unionists by signing the Anglo-Irish agreement.


Months after she left office Major signed the Good Friday agreement which started the peace process.
 
mammutly said:
Hamann Pineapple said:
Did Maggie actually defeat the IRA or is the fact that Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams are now political figures an example of her failure ?

She was the best recruiting tool the provisional IRA could ever have wished for.

Her handling of the hunger strike was like a call to arms.

That's funny - I always thought the events of Bloody Sunday (7 years prior to Thatcher becoming PM) trumped everything else when it came to IRA recruitment. I don't see how any right-thinking person can claim that the handling of a group of convicted terrorists voluntarily going on hunger strike is worse than presiding over shooting dead a dozen or so unarmed civilians but each to their own I suppose.

Thatcher undoubtedly took a hardline stance against the IRA but she also signed the Anglo-Irish agreement which gave Dublin some say in the running of NI for the first time in decades.
 
Rascal said:
Hamann Pineapple said:
Did Maggie actually defeat the IRA or is the fact that Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams are now political figures an example of her failure ?

I doubt very much Sinn Fein or the IRA would have ever made peace with Thatcher because she withdrew the special category status that made IRA prisoners political rather than criminal. Bobby Sands and others went on hunger strike and died for there cause."Crime is crime is crime. It is not political," she said, as the republican prisoners, one by one, starved themselves to death. It provoked a lot of outrage around the world as i recall and probably made it easier for the IRA to recruit. The SAS was also used against the IRA and she denied Sinn Fein any airtime in the media.

She also upset Unionists by signing the Anglo-Irish agreement.


Months after she left office Major signed the Good Friday agreement which started the peace process.



Who cares if they starved themselves to death? They weren't executed !
 
Rascal said:
Hamann Pineapple said:
Did Maggie actually defeat the IRA or is the fact that Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams are now political figures an example of her failure ?

I doubt very much Sinn Fein or the IRA would have ever made peace with Thatcher because she withdrew the special category status that made IRA prisoners political rather than criminal. Bobby Sands and others went on hunger strike and died for there cause."Crime is crime is crime. It is not political," she said, as the republican prisoners, one by one, starved themselves to death. It provoked a lot of outrage around the world as i recall and probably made it easier for the IRA to recruit. The SAS was also used against the IRA and she denied Sinn Fein any airtime in the media.

She also upset Unionists by signing the Anglo-Irish agreement.


Months after she left office Major signed the Good Friday agreement which started the peace process.

Which Good Friday agreement is that? The imaginary one signed a few months into Major's tenure or the real one signed on Good Friday 1998 under Blair's Premiership, over 7 years after Thatcher stepped down? Please enlighten us - I'm struggling here.
 
Ronnie the Rep said:
Rascal said:
Hamann Pineapple said:
Did Maggie actually defeat the IRA or is the fact that Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams are now political figures an example of her failure ?

I doubt very much Sinn Fein or the IRA would have ever made peace with Thatcher because she withdrew the special category status that made IRA prisoners political rather than criminal. Bobby Sands and others went on hunger strike and died for there cause."Crime is crime is crime. It is not political," she said, as the republican prisoners, one by one, starved themselves to death. It provoked a lot of outrage around the world as i recall and probably made it easier for the IRA to recruit. The SAS was also used against the IRA and she denied Sinn Fein any airtime in the media.

She also upset Unionists by signing the Anglo-Irish agreement.


Months after she left office Major signed the Good Friday agreement which started the peace process.



Who cares if they starved themselves to death? They weren't executed !

I suppose it depends how you look at it.

Thatcher could have reimposed politcal prisoner status at any time and saved the lives of 12 men who saw themselves as fighting a foriegn invader. She classed them as criminals. Very hard hearted to allow 12 young men to die to make a point.

Please understand i had no love of the IRA at all, they were terrorists but her refusal to compromise i suppose defined her.<br /><br />-- Thu Apr 11, 2013 7:26 pm --<br /><br />
M18CTID said:
Which Good Friday agreement is that? The imaginary one signed a few months into Major's tenure or the real one signed on Good Friday 1998 under Blair's Premiership, over 7 years after Thatcher stepped down? Please enlighten us - I'm struggling here.

Sorry Major paved the way for the good friday agreement through the Belfast agreement
 
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOUeauLWEaE[/youtube]


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdBuOFqA4Lg[/youtube]
 
Ronnie the Rep said:
Rascal said:
Hamann Pineapple said:
Did Maggie actually defeat the IRA or is the fact that Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams are now political figures an example of her failure ?

I doubt very much Sinn Fein or the IRA would have ever made peace with Thatcher because she withdrew the special category status that made IRA prisoners political rather than criminal. Bobby Sands and others went on hunger strike and died for there cause."Crime is crime is crime. It is not political," she said, as the republican prisoners, one by one, starved themselves to death. It provoked a lot of outrage around the world as i recall and probably made it easier for the IRA to recruit. The SAS was also used against the IRA and she denied Sinn Fein any airtime in the media.

She also upset Unionists by signing the Anglo-Irish agreement.


Months after she left office Major signed the Good Friday agreement which started the peace process.



Who cares if they starved themselves to death? They weren't executed !


political execution......<br /><br />-- Thu Apr 11, 2013 7:36 pm --<br /><br />
Ifwecouldjust....... said:
Ronnie the Rep said:
Rascal said:
I doubt very much Sinn Fein or the IRA would have ever made peace with Thatcher because she withdrew the special category status that made IRA prisoners political rather than criminal. Bobby Sands and others went on hunger strike and died for there cause."Crime is crime is crime. It is not political," she said, as the republican prisoners, one by one, starved themselves to death. It provoked a lot of outrage around the world as i recall and probably made it easier for the IRA to recruit. The SAS was also used against the IRA and she denied Sinn Fein any airtime in the media.

She also upset Unionists by signing the Anglo-Irish agreement.


Months after she left office Major signed the Good Friday agreement which started the peace process.



Who cares if they starved themselves to death? They weren't executed !


political execution......


Suggest that anyone with views on this should visit Dublin gaol and learn the history.....it wasn't and isn't our country but we occupied it for 400 years and made the people suffer. The backlash from the Irish from the 60's onwards wasn't right and cannot be condoned but

You reap that which you sow
 
Ducado said:
mancityvstoke said:
crystal_mais said:
It's called process optimisation which should lead to efficiency savings. At that time these were nationalised industries which ultimately would have become too costly to run by the govt with little returns on the investment due to cost and quality.

Like I and a few others had mentioned earlier. If Thatcher didn't do it, the subsequent Labour or Conservative Governments would have had to have done it.

My mother ended up out of work and my father had to work hard to support us. We were all impacted. I spoke to him about it yesterday and his comments were although they were tough decisions that she made and my parents hated it at the time, they were ultimately the right decisions.


Call it whatever fancy term you like. It is wrong to shit on people in the name of profit.

Just my opinion like.

I can see where you are coming from, and I agree that unemployment is a terrible thing, however it could not have gone on like it was, I don't think people understand the magnitude of problems we faced , much of the world had moved on but we had not, it was certainley very difficult for everyone. But profit is the very nature of any buisiness (ultimately despite what they may say) and it is profit that drives private sector investment (ultimately)

It's a bit off topic, but the biggest problem all parties have faced is coming up with a sustainable solution for the North, the last government tried the easy way by expanding the public sector, and it was a good way of getting money back in the system and people in jobs, but it's not sustainable, we need radical solutions to revitalise, there is some hope on the horizon you can see that in the redevelopment of Manchester, but we need more much more to close the North south divide


Read Gideon Osborne.....Cities which grew up around Industry and Location (manchester - cotton / Newcastle - Ships / Sheffield - Steel / ) oh ....I could go on .........cant be sustained cos the reason for their existence / being has gone.

Hence project Singapore....clearing London out from welfare claimants by capping housing benefits / bedroom tax etc. Creating a place for the wealthy and a financial services industry (no hard stick for the bankers then) and then protecting them..

wake up and smell the coffee ........
 
Ifwecouldjust....... said:
Ronnie the Rep said:
Rascal said:
I doubt very much Sinn Fein or the IRA would have ever made peace with Thatcher because she withdrew the special category status that made IRA prisoners political rather than criminal. Bobby Sands and others went on hunger strike and died for there cause."Crime is crime is crime. It is not political," she said, as the republican prisoners, one by one, starved themselves to death. It provoked a lot of outrage around the world as i recall and probably made it easier for the IRA to recruit. The SAS was also used against the IRA and she denied Sinn Fein any airtime in the media.

She also upset Unionists by signing the Anglo-Irish agreement.


Months after she left office Major signed the Good Friday agreement which started the peace process.



Who cares if they starved themselves to death? They weren't executed !


political execution......

-- Thu Apr 11, 2013 7:36 pm --

Ifwecouldjust....... said:
Ronnie the Rep said:
Who cares if they starved themselves to death? They weren't executed !


political execution......


Suggest that anyone with views on this should visit Dublin gaol and learn the history.....it wasn't and isn't our country but we occupied it for 400 years and made the people suffer. The backlash from the Irish from the 60's onwards wasn't right and cannot be condoned but

You reap that which you sow


Taking this issue beyond the politically controlled media created context of the 70's and beyond is all but impossible on this forum.
 

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