Thatcher dead

[cyberblue]

She hated the poor .the sick .the working class .she loved powerfull people she loved rich people & she loved dictators .I couldnt celebrate anyones death (not even this evil women) but i understand why so many are having a party

I am working class and I lived and worked in M/cr during the Thatcher years I didnt think she hated me :)

Well you probably didnt work in one of the hospital departments she privitised .you probably didnt work in the Engeniring Factories or the Mines that she shut down .you probably wasnt forced on to the hated YTS places .you probably didnt need to wate months on a hopital waiting list

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

She hated the poor .the sick .the working class .she loved powerfull people she loved rich people & she loved dictators .I couldnt celebrate anyones death (not even this evil women) but i understand why so many are having a party

She didn't hate the poor or the working class as such but she had no time for those that had no interest in bettering themselves as she had done or those that wanted to rely on the state. As a grammar school girl who had to fight for everything I'd say she was determined that those who had aspirations could achieve them. Many working class people did very well out of her but it depended where you lived to a greater or lesser degree.

She also equally hated those who felt privilege could get them what they wanted for the same reason and that was mainly her motivation for the changes that opened up the financial world, which had been dominated by stuffy men who got their jobs because of who their father was and where they went to school.

 

[mcmanus]

For those who think we all lived in a Maggie utopia were it was all sweetness and light.... my mam has a few crazy ass brothers who are very sharp and worked in construction spotted the fact loads of good lads were out of work so set up 'companies' paying them a daily rate and dropping them off half covered in shit and plaster to sign on. Explaining away that their mam's extention was going to take another few weeks with none of that I've applied at McDonald's or Tesco stuff. They took the piss big time and still probably have their Maggie coffee cups to this day.

Ah well you live and learn.

 

[M18CTID]

I know mate, a bloke i work with now was working in an office in london at the time and he thinks shes the best thing since sliced bread.

But im sure if you were a miner in yorkshire you would have a different view.

I think overall what she did was for the best, in the end.

If it was 1975 now id be working on a building site or in a factory, but im working in an office as a trainee manager.

still though, il be looking more into it.

Again, what are you looking at? we have an attitude in the nation that we should look after No1. Bankers did this, tax dodgers do this, benefit cheats do this.

She implemented this so well that we actually believe it is possible. Look at the company you are working for, do they preach teamwork and collaboration for the good of the company or do you all look out for yourselves?

You also cannot say what you would be doing in 1975 or anything like "if she had not done XYZ we would be doing abc". Lots of things, good and bad, would have happened regardless of this woman and we cannot predict what might have happened.

Are people incapable of making up their own minds? the reason why a lot of people look after no 1 is because it is what they want to do, if they didn't have this attitiude they would rebel against it

The left struggle with the notion that some people want their money spent in a better way and are too keen to brandish anyone who disagrees with them as heartless selfish bastards

To be honest, I reckon 99% of people in this country look out for themselves and their immediate family first and foremost regardless of their political persuasion. To suggest otherwise is, quite simply, bollocks. People tend to vote for whoever they think will benefit them, not who they think will benefit poor Joe Bloggs down the other end of the street who lost his job 2 years ago.

How Thatcher is getting blamed for that attitude is beyond me. I remember talking to a bloke about 15 years ago. He's a decent bloke and a socialist and he disputed the fact that Britain was in as bad a state as some claim before she became PM in 1979. His reasoning was that in relative terms he was doing fine and earning more disposable income at the time than he has done since. In other words he was alright Jack and that's what mattered most.

 

[Dirty Harry]

I honestly believe she was completely incapable of empathy.

I think this is almost certainly correct.

I think it's absolutely spot-on tbh mate, many people probably won't admit it, but deep down the way she came across was a huge and (probably most) significant part of peoples dislike/hatred for her, empathy and sincerity (no matter how hard she tried) were NOT her strong points, as the great 80's philosophers 'Bananarama' preached "it ain't what you do it's the way that you do it", and Thatcher was a perfect example of this.

 

[yerwot?]

I honestly believe she was completely incapable of empathy.

I think this is almost certainly correct.

I think it's absolutely spot-on tbh mate, many people probably won't admit it, but deep down the way she came across was a huge and (probably most) significant part of peoples dislike/hatred for her, empathy and sincerity (no matter how hard she tried) were NOT her strong points, as the great 80's philosophers 'Bananarama' preached "it ain't what you do it's the way that you do it", and Thatcher was a perfect example of this.

The only time she showed/felt regret was as she left westminster for the last time. Her P.R.team convinced her to have speech therapy to reduce the natural screech in her voice, and to gloat less in her delivery. No big deal, her mate in the whitehouse was an actor(ffs) and they were both a puppet of the major corporations that stood to benefit from anti-social policies. She split the boardroom from the shopfloor to the detriment of the company, which is one of her most damaging legacies, she chose confrontation over co-operation but when she had laid waste to organised labour, there was nothing left, no plan to create jobs, to replace industries, and no intention to do so.
Fuck'em was the message, loud and clear.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Two interesting articles in The Independent today. The first is the editorial, which largely echoes my own view that it's dangerous to take a fixed view of her.

Margaret Thatcher resigned as prime minister 10 months after The Independent on Sunday was launched. After such an early success, we feel that we are entitled to take a position that has not been much represented in the week's coverage of her passing. We were neither as much in awe of her as some of our older rivals, nor were we so fixed in our view of her.

Thus we hope we can see more clearly that she defies easy classification. In many ways, she was the most "right-wing" prime minister since the war, although some of her reputation was based on myths, as we note in our coverage today. In particular, she was a pragmatic pro-European for almost all of her time in government. Also, the sale of council houses liberated many people; she helped to weaken deference; and she took climate change as seriously as any believer in "the great car economy" could.

These contradictions are reflected in our ComRes opinion poll, which finds that the British people are resistant to the Conservative conviction that she was "the greatest British peacetime prime minister". The public approves of secret ballots for trade unions, for example, but it is unimpressed by the supposed success of privatising nationalised monopolies.

What is more, it says that she was the "most divisive" prime minister ever, but also that we need more "conviction politicians" like her. That phrase, "conviction politician", sums up her difficult legacy to her party. "The second word [was] as important as the first," as John Campbell, her best biographer, wrote. But too many Conservatives thought it was the certainty that was her secret, and, worse, they were beguiled by the simplified and mythologised version of her beliefs that she promoted after her time in office, rather than by her pragmatism and communication skills while she was in No 10. Even now, 23 years on, that legacy continues to render the party almost unleadable.

In that respect, as in many others, her career is a vivid test case for the law of unintended consequences. Her market liberalisation unleashed a wholly unconservative modernisation not just of the economy but of social mores. The blogger Andrew Sullivan wrote last week: "She wanted to return Britain to the tradition of her thrifty, traditional father; instead she turned it into a country for the likes of her son, a wayward, money-making opportunist."

A kind and polite person in her private life, as Dominic Prince writes today, she might have been pained to think – if she ever considered the possibility – that she had made greed and selfishness respectable. The problem with the cult of certainty is that it closes minds to the possibility that things may be more complex and unpredictable. As David Randall argues today, stridency in public debate has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. Some of the opinionated nature of commentary today, including for or against the tasteless celebrations of Lady Thatcher's death, share something of her own take-no-prisoners style of argument.

Let the memory of her prime ministership stand, therefore, as a monument and a warning against certainty. Anyone who is sure they know what they think about Lady Thatcher has fallen victim to her myth-making. And anyone who is sure she was the greatest – or the worst – should think again.

The other details 10 myths about her, including that she called Mandela a terrorist (there is no evidence for this)'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...t-thatchers-downing-street-years-8572023.html

There has been a febrile, sub-hysterical mood abroad since the announcement last Monday that Margaret Thatcher had died. At one extreme are the posturing, self-conscious celebrations of those – both born and yet to be born when she left office in 1990 – anxious for us to know how radical, angry, and compassionate they are. At the other, are those crossing themselves and mumbling devotions at the shrine to the Blessed Margaret. From childish "The Witch is Dead!" messages to the preposterous claims that she was a greater figure than Churchill, and efforts to identify anyone sceptical of Thatcher's canonisation as bad or mad, the clash is reminiscent of nothing so much as rival football fans chanting abuse. Both extremes are fuelled more by the mythology of Margaret Thatcher than by the reality. So may The Independent on Sunday humbly offer some modest correctives...

She called Nelson Mandela a 'terrorist'

We have searched the record and spoken to one of her most recent biographers and can find no such comment. She did say, in answer to a question at a press conference at the 1987 Commonwealth Summit in Vancouver on reports that the ANC said they would target British firms: "This shows what a typical terrorist organisation it is." Also, she did not, as frequently maintained, say: "Anyone who thinks the ANC is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land." This is a misquoting of her spokesman, Bernard Ingham, who, when asked if the ANC might overthrow the white South African regime by force, replied: "It is cloud-cuckoo land for anyone to believe that could be done." There are plentiful records of Thatcher condemning apartheid; as far back as 1961 she was proposing a bill of rights for newly independent Commonwealth countries; and her government's efforts in lobbying for Mandela's release were crucial.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

She didn't hate the poor or the working class as such but she had no time for those that had no interest in bettering themselves as she had done or those that wanted to rely on the state. As a grammar school girl who had to fight for everything I'd say she was determined that those who had aspirations could achieve them. Many working class people did very well out of her but it depended where you lived to a greater or lesser degree.

She also equally hated those who felt privilege could get them what they wanted for the same reason and that was mainly her motivation for the changes that opened up the financial world, which had been dominated by stuffy men who got their jobs because of who their father was and where they went to school.

This is spot on and a much more contextualised analysis than the gross over-simplification that she "hated the working classes".

She loved the working classes as long as they were "her" working classes. If they displayed all the qualities of self-improvement, thrift, social conservatism and hard work that she saw in her father (who she idolised) and herself, then I imagine they were the people she admired and respected the most. More than Royalty or her "friends in the City", even.

It goes back to what mackenzie posted last night about her complete absence of empathy. She could not relate to anyone who did not share her values. She could not appreciate that not everyone had her brains, her stable upbringing, or her (relative to them) comfortable living standards from which to better themselves. She assumed that families always provided the necessary support mechanism for people to self-improve. She probably assumed those with disabilities had adequate help from their loved ones. She possibly even assumed that redundant miners could use their redundancy money to start their own business.

She singularly failed to appreciate that not everyone can grab life by the horns and "make something of themselves". That can be for reasons of opportunity, luck, health, family circumstances and general predisposition, and the fact that she failed to appreciate that is why she is so reviled, and with some justification. It was her biggest downfall as a person and as a politician and why whilst she may have been a great leader of the Conservative party, she could never be described as a great Prime Minister.

 

[LittleStan]

Are people incapable of making up their own minds? the reason why a lot of people look after no 1 is because it is what they want to do, if they didn't have this attitiude they would rebel against it

The left struggle with the notion that some people want their money spent in a better way and are too keen to brandish anyone who disagrees with them as heartless selfish bastards

To be honest, I reckon 99% of people in this country look out for themselves and their immediate family first and foremost regardless of their political persuasion. To suggest otherwise is, quite simply, bollocks. People tend to vote for whoever they think will benefit them, not who they think will benefit poor Joe Bloggs down the other end of the street who lost his job 2 years ago.

How Thatcher is getting blamed for that attitude is beyond me. I remember talking to a bloke about 15 years ago. He's a decent bloke and a socialist and he disputed the fact that Britain was in as bad a state as some claim before she became PM in 1979. His reasoning was that in relative terms he was doing fine and earning more disposable income at the time than he has done since. In other words he was alright Jack and that's what mattered most.

I am not criticizing the woman, I am impressed that she and her government managed to change to attitude. As a change and project manager I have learned a lot from that period in history.

Its a myth that we can survive by looking after number 1. We need to be interdependent to progress. Possibly read my posts without a left vs Right filter.

High performing businesses work on an interdependent basis. Why would they do this if it was not better than all of their employees looking out for themselves?

The fact that there is a disconnect between what we are led to do at work and what we thing will progress us outside work is amazing.

M18CTID

You seem to be confusing wanting a better standard of living with "I'm alright Jack". I don't know anybody who does not want to improve their standard of living, there are only different beliefs in the method of improving it.

 

[pominoz]

She didn't hate the poor or the working class as such but she had no time for those that had no interest in bettering themselves as she had done or those that wanted to rely on the state. As a grammar school girl who had to fight for everything I'd say she was determined that those who had aspirations could achieve them. Many working class people did very well out of her but it depended where you lived to a greater or lesser degree.

She also equally hated those who felt privilege could get them what they wanted for the same reason and that was mainly her motivation for the changes that opened up the financial world, which had been dominated by stuffy men who got their jobs because of who their father was and where they went to school.

This is spot on and a much more contextualised analysis than the gross over-simplification that she "hated the working classes".

She loved the working classes as long as they were "her" working classes. If they displayed all the qualities of self-improvement, thrift, social conservatism and hard work that she saw in her father (who she idolised) and herself, then I imagine they were the people she admired and respected the most. More than Royalty or her "friends in the City", even.

It goes back to what mackenzie posted last night about her complete absence of empathy. She could not relate to anyone who did not share her values. She could not appreciate that not everyone had her brains, her stable upbringing, or her (relative to them) comfortable living standards from which to better themselves. She assumed that families always provided the necessary support mechanism for people to self-improve. She probably assumed those with disabilities had adequate help from their loved ones. She possibly even assumed that redundant miners could use their redundancy money to start their own business.

She singularly failed to appreciate that not everyone can grab life by the horns and "make something of themselves". That can be for reasons of opportunity, luck, health, family circumstances and general predisposition, and the fact that she failed to appreciate that is why she is so reviled, and with some justification. It was her biggest downfall as a person and as a politician and why whilst she may have been a great leader of the Conservative party, she could never be described as a great Prime Minister.

That is actually a good post, and the second one of yours recently that i agree with.
This is becoming worrying ;)