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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think that surely not EVERYONE hates Maggie?

1001 replies

LadyOfTheManor · 28/01/2011 12:27

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!).

OP posts:
echt · 30/01/2011 08:17

Maggie Thatcher was soo destructive.

Loathsome.

I bet it'll be tickets-only at the dance on her grave.

onceamai · 30/01/2011 09:01

Still think she was one of the best and most inspirational political leaders this country has ever had and will be remembered as such for generations to come.

legspinner · 30/01/2011 09:13

Have to put my tuppenceworth in here and echo thumbdabwitch totally. I was 12 when she was elected and remember our utter dismay at being re-elected not once, but twice. I well remember the riots of 1981, mass unemployment and then the miners' strike. Oh yes and the Falklands .
My dad is one of the mildest-mannered people you could ever meet, but Thatcher, Tebbit, Heseltine et al made him foam at the mouth.

Newgolddream · 30/01/2011 09:23

@ pascoe28 and your "ignorant twat" comment to ManicbmC - very unnecessary, ok we are all adults blah blah blah etc but I always think that once someone - on any side of a arguement debate resorts to personal insults then they are struggling and have lost the opportunity for people to take their opinion seriously.

My cousins daughter got personal insults on FB a few times until she told people she had dyslexia.

ifancyashandy · 30/01/2011 09:26

Pascoe, is it really necessary to call a poster an 'ignorant twat' for a spelling mistake.

What a pleasent person you are.

Peachy · 30/01/2011 09:57

Oh darling Pascoa; is your 'challenge the heathens one by one' mission failing in the face of a limited patience level? you may well be human after all!.

And a small note: spelling mitakes on Mn are often raised by given we have no way if the typist has dyslexia, VI (me!0, has a small child asleep on one arm or is breastfeeding it's probably better not to do so really, unless on pedant threads.

Peachy · 30/01/2011 09:57

'but' not by

See? easily done!

And now I have a small child's tenth birthday to host: adieu.

EdgarAleNPie · 30/01/2011 10:07

Honestly, I go out for a few hours and look at how this thread has degenerated, no robust debate, no answers to questions, just more threats about dancing on graves and drinking champagne.

agreed. basically some people have swallowed the oft-repeated and tasteless line andnot questioned it - and regurgitated i there without evidence or consideration.

I think >beenbeta< better not have been holding his breath, as no-one has presented much beyond 'oh, well, she wasn't very nice' - like that is a piece of evidence!

BeenBeta · 30/01/2011 10:38

Edgar - to be honest I've been holding my breath on this one since 1983 when I used to sit in our student common room in University days while student Labour activists regalled us of the terrible toll Thatcher had wrought on mining communities. Me and my DW (girlfriend at the time) was actually the only people who had actually grown up in mining communities and had ever spoken to a miner in the whole room.

It was so laughable listening to trendy leftie North London intelligensia (ooh look at me I went to a state school because Mummy and Daddy can afford a £2 million house in Highgate) spouting of their affinity to miners and their cause. The arguements were just the same as here. It never moved on.

I am repulsed by the 'dancing on her grave' comments. I am fully in expectation of her grave being defaced and desecrated in future.

ivykaty44 · 30/01/2011 10:59

Living with it now - things she did have moulded this country Hmm

tb · 30/01/2011 11:17

Thumb - I hate to introduce a fact here. In late 1978, as a 22 year old my dh and I took his df to a major Liverpool to be admitted on 23rd Dec with a diagnosis of acute kidney failure. This was the NHS under Labour, OK? He was constipated.

Later on, in May the following year, after the General Election of May 1979, when the NHS was operating on a budget set by Labour for April 79-March 80, he was dying in a major Liverpool hospital. He weighed less than 8 stone and they were convinced he had cancer due to the weight loss. He thought the hospital was wonderful. So wonderful that his evening meal consisted of a greasy sausage roll - the only choice. Wonderful nutrition or cheap crap?

In 1976 I worked in a factory as a student. The boyfriend of one person worked in a hospital kitchen and ran a mobile chicken and chips business on the side. He didn't pay for any of the supplies - they all were stolen from the hospital kitchens.

In 1975, my then bf was a student nurse in a psychiatric hospital. Despite there only being 2 of us booked in for lunch in the nurses' home on the Saturday, the cook had catered for at least 10. When I wanted to have a third potato croquette, he told me that the cook would be cross because she took the left-overs home to feed her family.

Both my parents were born in mining communities - Coppull with a ring spinning mill and a coal mine and Sunderland Co Durham, their parents moved because of work which is how they met in Liverpool.

My gps came from Douglas, Bradford, Middlesborough and Norfolk. Again, they moved because of work.

My dh grew up in a terraced house, with bed-bugs and a toilet at the bottom of the yard. They drank out of jam jars when they didn't have any cups. Anything they had was pawned. They were well off enough to be asked to contribute to his student grant, but refused as they were indignant at being asked to keep their son. They complained to me about his grant not being enough to pay their bills.

My father remembered earth-closets and the 'midnight midden' men, and his parents losing house after house due to the illegal practice of 'key money' meaning that the person who paid the landlord the highest bribe got the tenancy.

On the other hand MT realised that you cannot spend your way out of debt. Many mocked her for her housewifely approach to government spending, but she was conscious of one very important thing. Governments have NO money, only that which they raise in taxation. Excessive public spending only leads to misery as it is unsustainable in the long-term.

Those who wish to do so can believe that Brown has saved the world and can walk on water...

....Hitler had much the same delusions, too. The far left and the far right have much in common, something that neither care to acknowledge.

fridascruffs · 30/01/2011 11:21

I'm Welsh; genetically predisposed to dislike her, I think.
Seriously though- her policies might have altered Britain a lot in a way that might have seemed better to some- there was a lot of money around for some in the eighties- but the whole American-style freemarket ideology has surely lead us into the current debacle, and no-one's ever been able to explain to me how endlessly increasing the amount of plastic tat we sell to each other ('growing the economy') is going to be able to continue forever without (1) ultimately running out of raw materials and (2)irretrievably wrecking ecosystems while trying. So I don't think she was a visionary, particularly, just another intellectually mediocre Daily Mail table-banger who unexpectedly ended up with a lot of power on her hands.
And as for 'there is no such thing as society'- what bollocks. David Cameron's changed his mind on that one though, the penny's apparently dropped for the tories that society is what happens when the government withdraws.

EdgarAleNPie · 30/01/2011 11:32

"
It was so laughable listening to trendy leftie North London intelligensia"

exactly this...

listening to dreadlocked kids at university declaim about stuff they were very ill-informed on was a hazard oft presented in the nineties.

EdgarAleNPie · 30/01/2011 11:42

tb yes. in 1975 my mum left hospital after giving birth to my sister with two full sets of bedding and 24 terry nappies. The midwives almost told her to take it.

the total disregard for the public purse was shocking.

the disregard for patient welfare that you mention is even more shocking.

UnquietDad · 30/01/2011 11:56

manicbmc Sun 30-Jan-11 01:46:15
"I think there have been some fantastically inciteful posts on both sides of the debate."

Yes, there have... mostly rabid left-wingers being "inciteful" to hatred.

carminaburana · 30/01/2011 11:58

Not a MT fan particularly - but I admire her as a politician. She knew exactly what she wanted and she got it. She didn't lie or mislead anyone about her intentions ( unlike 'smarmy' Tony Blair ) But she had a lot of luck too ( which all successful politicians need ) she came to power at a time when Labour couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery - and the Falklands war sent her popularity into the stratosphere ( if it wasn't for the Falkands she would probably have been destroyed in a single term ). Plus you can moan about her 'destroying' the country but what were her cabinet members doing? A lot of them disagreed with her over the economy but didn't have the balls to stand up to her. And re; the miners. Scargill brought the miners down quicker than Thatcher did. He was an incompetent leader too busy trying to plot a revolution than listen to his own people. Out of 70,000 miners who were balloted only 20,000 voted to strike, So he tried to manipulate the situation - and failed (plus opting to strike in the spring when coal wasn't in such demand? )

UnquietDad · 30/01/2011 12:02

All this hatred is so destructive. If you didn't like what she did, move on, and do you bit to make the world a better place.

If you want to desecrate an old woman's grave this will (a) make you look like a spiteful twat and (b) get you arrested (with any luck).

carminaburana · 30/01/2011 12:12

Agree UQD -

Society is never 'static' it has to move on and change.
Global capitalism would have seen the mines close anyway. It was Labour ( or 'new' Labour I should say ) who destroyed this country by creating the 'benefit culture' - and if you think the only people living off benefits are miners and their decendents you really need to step away from the debate.

UnquietDad · 30/01/2011 12:16

I've not said I support all her polices. In fact, as a student I marched against nuclear bases in Britain and the Poll Tax. The point is, I did it in a peaceful and constructive way.

I'm amazed that some of the so-called adults on here don't realise how spiteful, childish and embittered their outbursts are making them look.

MoreSpamThanGlam · 30/01/2011 12:23

I am currently a politics student in my first year. I can understand that the OP was not taught about Maggie.

Probably because as a politics student you would probably know the basics before you rock up.... Good grief, how the hell did you get on the course? How did you write all of your essays without making a single reference to Thatcher and without doing even basic research?

That must have been a pretty bad uni. Bloody glad I am at a halfway decent one.

As for Maggie and the council house malarky. I think those in council houses believed the rhetoric at the time, probably thinking that the money made would go straight into buying up new stock for those who could not afford a mortgage. As most of us know (except the OP) that did not happen.

Forcing people to live within their means? Umm...no. I dont think those that worked in low paid factories or down the mines were the champagne charlie types. They did not have credit cards and bank loans because they had next to nothing as collateral. So to then take a way a means to exist and then expect people to not strike when they are not given another way to work for themselves and their families...beare in mind these people WANTED to work. They did not want state handouts, they wanted to work for a fair salary. It is not suprising that people went on strike.

I did not see the super rich in the 80's suffering. Or those that lived in the south east and worked in the ofices of London suffering. No - they just looked to those in the north and demonised them as they were doing alright, thanks very much.

As for Blair, Eton educated Blair, wealthy, welathy Blair, the same Blair that sent paid up labour supporter to leaflet the suburbs but gave instructions not to talk to them as they were not to give the wrong impression. He can fuck off and die too. And take Dubya with him.

carminaburana · 30/01/2011 12:28

Yep - I disagreed with a lot of what she did but I would never wish her dead or anything like that - the left are supposed to be 'compassionate' yet their hatred towards fellow humans is often quite remarkable.

She was a politician - that's all.

Lefties - get a grip.

EdgarAleNPie · 30/01/2011 12:45

morespAM why wouldn't a council tenant want to own their own home? do you think a council makes a good landlord?
if you had already done the reading on the subject, you'd know that the money gained stayed in council, for use on social housing - for the first 5 years. The Blair govt did not reinstate that ringfencing.

the economic and political realities of the time were very different to those of the present. Britain was 'the poor man of Europe', broke, indebted, impoverished.

how about answering >beenbetas< question (upthread) ?

EdgarAleNPie · 30/01/2011 12:46

And as already mentioned - a minority of miners balloted in favour of strike action. 20000 out of 70000..

read the facts before you decide your opinion.

BuzzLightBeer · 30/01/2011 12:53

hate is not destructive, its bloody useful.
And you may not have heard of a figure of speech, but most people won't actually go and dance on her grave. Hmm

UnquietDad · 30/01/2011 13:11

Some people mean it literally. And they definitely mean it literally about the champagne. Don't you Hmm me.

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