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!).

I'll whoever I like, not much of the Iron Lady about you if that bothers you.

Yeah - don't you us

I have Champagne ready I don't deny it :) if that means a few right wingers get all cross about it so be it - I loath the woman

Tut tut - a socialist drinking champagne ?

You'll be voting Tory next

I can't actually read the whole thread - I started, but there's been so much fuckwittery I may explode before the end. 'She forced people to live within their means' was as far as I got.

So put me down for the street party when she carks it, got my fizz ready.

MoreSpamThanGlam I doubt very much that those who had been in council housing their entire lives gave a moment's thought (or a flying stuff) about whether Maggie was sinking the funds back into building social housing for people who couldn't get a mortgage. I imagine that they saw nothing except an opportunity to make themselves equal to the middle classes, to have the freddom to call the shots, move home when they chose to, and make some money for their (and their children's) future into the bargain. Whatever the failings of that policy may be, there are probably millions of people who are able to call themselves middle class today on the back of their parents bettering themselves through council house ownership.

The other thing no-one seems to take into account when blaming Maggie for selling off council houses, (and not building enough to replace them) is that under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown the population has boomed beyond all recognition and expectation (and continues to boom because of very high birth rates among recent immigrants) and the need for social/low-cost housing is often greatest in these sections of the population. We would have had to have some fantastic brand of crystal ball and a sky's-the-limit budget to ever be in with a chance of providing enough social housing for everyone who wants/needs it in Britain today.

Another true story I can't resist - when at Liverpool Polytechnic in the '70s studying for a sandwich degree in Applied Chemistry, dh came across some privately-educated lefties.

They very generously imparted their wisdom to him, informing him loftily that they knew what the working classes wanted.....

....they'd read books about it.

A bit like Vera Brittain (Shirley William's mother) sending her children abroad during the Second World War. Not much solidarity with the working classes near the ports of Liverpool Birkenhead Southampton and London then, was there?

and what has that got to do with the price of fish?
Anecdote doesn't equal data. The real data is in the Gini coefficient, which tells us that income inequality was at its lowest around 1977 and rose steadily throughout the Thatcher years. As did the proportion of Britons below the poverty line, as did rates of social mobility in Britain. All of the post war gains in equality and social stability were eroded in the Thatcher years. Yes some people got richer, but the gap between them and the poor widened considerably. That was her goal, because theres no such thing as society, its every man for herself. She threw people out of work and then despised them for daring to need some assistance from the taxes they had paid.

By all real objective measures she was a Very Bad Thing to happen to us all.

(I'm trying to work out what "not much of the Iron Lady about you" means, given that it is completely unrelated to anything I have been saying...)

Gordys - it isn't "a few right-wingers getting all cross". If you'd bothered to read what I wrote, you'd have seen that I actually went on demos against Mrs Thatcher's policies while she was in power. Plenty of people feel as I do - happy to protest where necessary, not happy to take delight in someone's death.

More generally addressed:
I would point out that it has now been OVER TWENTY YEARS since she was involved in frontline British politics. As sulks go, that's pretty damn protracted. She resigned. She lost. You won. Cheer. Get over it. Move on.

The point is that I actually took the time to pick and choose what I was protesting about, rather than being one of those blanket "let's hate anything further to the right than Arthur Scargill" types you always get at demos these days, the Socialist Worker and Unison chip-on-the-shoulder types who strongarm every protest and would turn up to shout about the closing of an envelope if they got a chance. They've spent the last 13 years being a little confused and irritated, and are now delighted that there is a government back in power who they can properly hate again with a bit of old-fashioned, red-blooded class war.

UQD - I know you tend be a bit more left than me on most issues but its refreshing to see the common sense and humanity in your posts.

I dont think Thatcher did everything right. Actually far from it. She made plenty of mistakes - but given where she started from who could blame her? She was at least honest in what she wanted.

so she's long gone. The effects of her time in office are not though, a rather massive point you appear to be missing.

And Socialist Worker hated New Labour almost as much as the Tories. Haven't you ever heard that supposedly Thatcher didn't just change one party, but two? New Labour was only ever Thatcher-Lite, the Labour of Callaghan is long dead. Not that he wasn't a massive twat as well.

Thats the point, with so many "leaders" that are generally loathed for one reason or another, Maggie still stands out above that crowd as hated most of all. Do you really think there aren't good reasons for that?

UQD it was a general observation not a direct comment to you :)

buzz the uk is one of the wealthiest countries in Europe - those standards you refer to are not objective - the way that poverty is defined is 1) relative and 2) the deinition changes every year!

income inequality only fell during the Major government, then increased under Blair/Brown. Simple fact is that when a country does well, the gap increases - when it is in recession, the gap decreases - as per following example

Company does well. CEO (paid 100k) gives everyone 10% pay rise, including receptionist (on 10k). This increases the gap between them by 9k, but both are better off.
Company does badly. CEO takes drastic wage cut of 30k and fires receptionist, routing calls direct instead. gap between them narrows by 30k. Both are worse off.

decreasing wage inequality is actually a bad objective, because it fails to look at the real result in absolute terms.

the long-lasting effects of her time in office are high levels of home owner-occupation, a functioning economy and basic utilities that work.

. All of the post war gains in equality and social stability were eroded in the Thatcher years.

...???????

what gains were those?
the seventies don't seem 'equal' or 'stable' from here.

BuzzLightbeer, your post from 14:39 appears to be a cut and paste job from wiki!!!

Play fair and ref your source...

The Gini coefficient is a piece of sociological fudge anyway.

I was at school when she was in power. Inremember our house having to be lit using candles and heated by paraffin heaters due to power cuts. I remember the milk stopping, Linwood and Ravenscraig closing.

I was brought up in central Scotland. There is a reason there is 1 (and I don't know how they managed it) Tory MP in Scotland. Maggie and John Major used Scotland in so many ways many Scotsmwill never trust the Tories again.

Sorry for typos, iPod isn't helping.

What the hell is The Gini coefficient?

Statistical analysis. (blunt instrument)

So Buzz let me get this right. Thatcher was hated, Tony Blair and New Labour were hated, and were not Labour at all really, but Tory-lite, and Callaghan (who was old-style labour, and a puppet who danced to the tune of the unions) was a massive twat.

So which type of politics would meet with your approval then?

Would it be Marxism? Like in Zimbabwe? Old style Soviet Russia? China? Where works for you?

HH the power cuts and all the crap that went on in the public sector was in the Labour administration, surely.

This is the problem Fellatio! Negativity is easy from an armchair position, I don't actually see any of the MT haters putting forward any solutions to any of the issues.

Yes, A and besides which, thirteen years was a very, very long time for the Labour government to set about righting supposed wrongs: regenerating depressed areas of the north, re-instating apprenticeships, encouraging new business start-ups (in a massive economic boom) in areas other than the south east, to build all these council houses we need, (they spent enough of our money elsewhere, let's face it) and to reduce the gap between rich and poor. Did they do it? Did they fuck. They gave us Primary Health Care Trusts, a massively complicated benefits system that discouraged self-sufficiency, a war no-one wanted, more quangos and half-baked initiatives than you can shake a stick at, multi-million pound computer systems that were crap and were scrapped, HIPS (ditto) Identity cards (ditto) the FSA (ditto) a Home office which had no control whatsoever over immigration, and 50% of children going to university with no job to come out to. They were great.