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!).

edam - if a foreign power had cut of our energy supply I am sure we would have gone to war over it. The fact is a group of people were trying to do that to their own country. It was close to anarchy with unelected union leaders determining what an elected Govt could and could not do.

I think buying S. African coal was a less bad option.

Thank you for replying usedtobeyoung I dont understand how people can say she didnt do anything wrong when so many families sufferred.I live in absolute dread of the coming years and i am praying i dont go down the same route as my dad as it has taken years to get past some of my childhood.

reality

I grew up in a town that went from being quiet industrial to complete social wasteland during ehr eyars; so much so that even last week 2 people posted about the general area and both threads included huge warnings about not going there.

(FGS, these are my friends a family people- I might have escaped but thre's plenty of humanity in those left behind).

As the jobs vanished many people seemed to end up in famillies like yours- theft of hopen is a terrible, awful thing.

To her supporters, Margaret Thatcher remains a figure who revitalised Britain's economy, impacted the trade unions, and re-established the nation as a world power. She oversaw an increase from 7% to 25% of adults owning shares, and more than a million families bought their council houses, giving an increase from 55% to 67% in owner-occupiers. Total personal wealth rose by 80%.
Go Maggie Go!

Total personal wealth. Ah.

See, i;d rather have a society where people didn;t only value there own personal wealth but could look at those who have fallen along the wayside and their famillis: what happened to the children of single mums, disabled people, homeless young people.......

I worked on a trading floor which closed down in 1999. The open outcry method of trading was considered to have had it's day and computerised trading took it's place. Several thousand people worked on that floor with plenty more support staff at the banks and brokerage houses that were active on that exchange.

I remember a few lines in the financial press discussing it's closure but no national outcry at the thousands if jobs that were being lost.

What is the difference between that and closing the mines?

The miners were trying to keep their jobs and stop their rights being eroded, and you think importing coal from apartheid era South Africa was a better option? Really?

She didn't just do business with them, she publicly admired and supported these regimes.

I don't recall growing up in any hardship whatsoever...nor my neighbours, unless I was too young to comprehend...everyone had a car, job, house etc.

Perhaps I just lived in the wrong area. (or indeed the right).

The Thatcher era was scary. If you grew up/had your golden years during that time you didn't even have to learn to hate her. It just happened. I am 45 years old, significantly well off in comparison to where I was in the 80's and the sight of the woman still makes my skin crawl. And the scary thing is that's not just an expression. She literally evokes a physical response of revusion from me.

I am generally easy going, but I loathe the woman. I also don't like Cameron/Clegg, but they just give me that David Brent/Office type creepy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

how nice for you

Sorry... I meant revulsion...

This thread is going on longer than Maggie did.

And has it changed anyone's mind?

Have a look at what had preceded it in the 70s - go on wikipedia ... I dare you ...she made things better for most people FACT!

Like JoBettany I grew up in Scotland during the Thatcher years and rightly or wrongly its thanks to her that the Tories will never be a political force here again. It was a glorious day when they were wiped out from every single party seat here, although they do have 1 single solitary seat now.

I dont need to repeat what she did - its already been said so eloquently by numerous posters on this thread and anyone who lived through it will rememeber. She was - as is the Tory party - only interested in the well off. Privatise, privatise, privatise was her motto - anything to turn services into a money making exercise, thank god she never managed it with the NHS, although Im sure DC and his cronies will give it a good go. Clare Rayner will be spinning in her grave.

The Poll tax was her baby - introduced a whole year in Scotland before the rest of the UK, effectively using us as her guinea pig, regardless of the twaddle and excuses trotted out here as to the reasons why.

So while I may draw the line as to a party at her death I will not be weeping thats for sure, and I can honestly understand people who will.

Where did you live Ladyofthemanor (or does the name say it all?)? I grew up in an affluent part of west London and remember it all too well.
Alouiseg, I would of thought that city traders living in major cities would not have struggled to find work in the way that a miner in a mining town would, surely that?s the difference.

Ladyofthemanor - you said "I don't recall growing up in any hardship whatsoever...nor my neighbours, unless I was too young to comprehend...everyone had a car, job, house etc."

You were lucky, but this type of comment summarises the me, me, me that was so typical of the Thatcher luvvies, not everyone was as well off as you, having cars etc.

My Mum was a cleaner all through my childhood and had 2 jobs, yet we couldnt afford a car, or even a telephone. Do you believe everyone was like you?

"What is the difference between [closure of a trading floor] and closing the mines?"

Are you serious?

Assuming you are, the difference is: trading floors are always in big cities where there are lots of jobs for white collar workers. Or at least some jobs.

Mines tend to be in areas where the mine is the ONLY employer for the whole town. The town itself was built to house the workers and they wouldn't be living there were it not for their jobs. Close a mine - an entire TOWN loses their jobs and there are NO other jobs.

I actually can't believe you asked that.

That's the thing usedtobeyoung these people were not necessarily well or highly educated, lots of them didn't find other jobs in the same industry, the tide was turning to favour the double phd, quant scientists instead of the "barrow boys". Lots of them went abroad, traded in a different manner, took advantage of working in other countries, some became cab drivers. Lots of our old friends moved to Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, America, Canada, Australia. It's the can do attitude that keeps you going, dh has changed what he does and continues to do so all the time. No body had a defeatist attitude and just went and signed on. They literally got on Norman Tebbits famous bike and went where the jobs were.

No whinging about leaving families or uprooting children, just adapt to change or wither and die. That is the human condition and that is how we have evolved.

Thatcher destroyed the heavy manufacturing sector in the UK. She put families on the street, in debt, jobless, just because of a misguided determination that she was right and everyone else was wrong, regardless of the evidence.

Sadly, the current lot look like they are going to be even worse.

You are actually insane. White collar city traders were of course in the exact same position as 55 year old miners in small towns. In Thatcherite-Parallel Universe.

Ridiculous.

She was powerful but not powerful enough to destroy industry!!!

The industries were in decline, they were bloated by the unions and draining subsidies out of the country faster than the EU.

The work to rule strikers fastened the nail firmly in their own coffin by their refusal to accept that they were uncompetetive in the world.

Alouiseg, all of thoose options you mentioned need money to make them happen, travelling to other parts of the world, owning a car to minicab.
You have to be able to afford a bike to 'get on it.'

Those, sorry.

I'm very clearly not insane Buzz, sitting on your arse, signing on when your job is redundant is.