to think that surely not EVERYONE hates Maggie?

[LadyOfTheManor]

Seriously, unless you're a miner or from a mining family, or Welsh... ok well even if you are, surely not EVERYONE hates Maggie T?

I'm a tad young, I was born in her "reign", but I did my degree in Politics and although I didn't really live under her (it was Major until I was 11) I couldn't see what she did that was SO terrible-let alone the sheer hostility when her name is mentioned here (in Wales!).

aiming you don't think those social problems were already there?

i was listening to a programme about Glasgow last night - thy said

1. it was all thatchers fault then
2. there had been a cultur of violnce, drunkeness and deprivation since the 1850s.

obviously 1) was a piece of lazy journalism.

She was the best politician of the last century. She inherited a downtrodden, class ridden, unproductive country from Callaghan and his ineffectual cronies and put the Great back into Britain.

In my opinion she served one term too many, but then I don't think any PM should serve more than 2 terms.

Why don't I know anyone in rl who hates her as much as you lot?

anyone who thinks that having lost the captive market for UK coal with the end of empire, lost the home coal market due to the clean air act, and in the face of competition from chilean and indian coal mines (open cast ones staffed by people paid a third world wage) supplying oou power generation business the UK mining industry could possibly have continued as was is seriously seriously deluded.
those were the facts before 1979 -

get a grip!

and those of you who imagine the labour politicans of the time to be saints somehow, certainly in the sae seats in Liverpool and are, they were rotten to the core - there were several scandals involving them selling out to business intresets at the expense of the taxpayer.

Margaret Thatcher's policies were.

Privatisation of our Utilites

Deregulation of the banks

Inward competition to drive down wages and create redundancies and sackings.

Breaking the link that kept older people's State pension in line with British prosperity.

Selling off council houses during her ( right to buy )

Stopping the building of councl houses for people who could not afford to buy.

Abolishing minimum wages.

Bringing in poverty pay.

Bringing in the unbridled free market.

Abolishing State subsidy and investment.

Creating 3 million or more, unemployed.

Destroying British infrastructure.

Destoying British manufactering and industrial bases.

I ceratinly don't hate her

I hate her ...I lived through her years it was fucking grim

//////She was the best politician of the last century. She inherited a downtrodden, class ridden, unproductive country from Callaghan and his ineffectual cronies and put the Great back into Britain. //////

She created an even more downtrodden nation of me me me takers, selfish greedy people.

Thatcher was an evil old crow, any rotten to the core PM could have done what she did, she just appealed to greed and selfishness, and when she was booted out, millions of people were living in poverty because of her policies.

I used to hate Maggie Thatcher, simply because that's what was socially acceptable.

After 13 years of New (and then Brownite Old) Labour, I took a look at the history and realised it isn't as black and white as that.

England was an appalling mess in the 1970s, for reasons that go back to WWII and the collapse of the empire. Whatever you think of Thatcher's policies of privatisation and breaking the unions, they were the backlash against the disastrous effect on public services, heavy industry etc of Labour's Clause IV (nationalisation of all key industry).

There are public services that I think should be nationalised (railways, for example) and I think that privatisation has gone too far in some places. But unless you look at the effects that over-nationalisation had, it's hard to understand why privatisation had the importance - and in many cases, the positive value - it had.

/////I hate her ...I lived through her years it was fucking grim/////

It still is, and set to get worse thanks to Clegg supporting Cameron.

Waspie - do you have children?

What kind of example does it set them to hold and express such spite and venom?

Her work remains unfinished.

I salute her ability to wind you all up, to this day.

To watch her final performance as PM in the HoC is to watch true political class in action - today's generation of politicians (or left or right) don't even come up to her ankles!

How old were you in the 80's Alouiseq?

Some of us lived it as adults.......lots of them hate what she did if not the sad old lady she has become.

But the Great back into Britain.......she destroyed industry! Used all the money from Northsea oil, and sold utilities off to foreigners.

Mrs Thatcher's policy was to create 3 million unemployed, destroy Birtish manufacturing and infrastructure? Did she sit down and plan that? Why?

usualsuspect - I lived through her years (born in 1973) and they were marvellous - the UK had a sense of purpose...it was moving ahead, leading the world in economic liberalisation, privatisation, firms were freed to invest overseas. Good times!!

My first ever to you, OP.

Course, there weren't a lot of in the food parcels my family and I lived off during the miners' strike. My Dad was a miner. My town was a mining town. It was decimated by Thatcher.

You have no idea.

I don't think that anybody here is saying that everything that is wrong with anything is her fault but a lot of us are just saying that we didn't like her choices and feel that society might have been better now if we had a leader with a different approach.

Of course we had social and economic problems before the Thatcher years but we might have dealt with them better if working class communities had not been destroyed leaving so many people isolated, rootless and with no community to support and guide them and if the benefits had been more fairly shared.

Having said all that politics is a bit like parenting in that you never know what the result would have been if a different choice had been made.

I will always remember the sinking feeling in my stomach when she was elected ...I got the same feeling when Cameron and clegg got in

I wasn't wrong the first time

She was highly unpopular in Ireland too (H-Blocks, etc.) all across the board. Her policies wrt NI gave credibility to the paramilitaries in NI and to their fellow travellers in the Republic and to their message that violence was the only way forward; very irresponsible of her to risk the stability and internal security of the Republic in order to appeal to her core constituency in the home counties.

The 'ballot box in one hand and the armalite in the other' arose from the H-Blocks fiasco, hence the rise of Sinn Fein in politics on both sides of the border in Ireland. Voices of moderation in the nationalist community (SDLP) and in the Loyalist one too (Alliance) were drowned out, while the shrill message of SF has survived and is still a threat to the Republic. SF haven't bought democracy at all. Thanks Maggie.

I LOVE the passion on these boards - it shows how much she affected people. We'll not have another poitician (i.e. who effect reals change) like her for many years yet.

I don't hate her, poor old lady.

Despise her politics. I'm a Londoner. My parents were quite left, I suppose, but I just remember everyone - at school, at home, our neighbours, our friends - despised Maggie.

I despised her as PM though. But that was then.

mathanxiety - pathetic post. She forced Sinn Fein/IRA to negotiate as they were being killed off one by one (Gibraltar, Loughgall - good times!).