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!).

Katspaw - I believe one of the real reasons was the incoming H&S standards - it was going to cost a small fortune to make the mines H&S Approved; cheaper to shut them down, put everyone out of work and hold the UK to ransom by the Germans or whoever else managed to flog us the coal.

So yes to some extent it was the price - but not actually of the mining of the coal, more to make the mines safer.

But the cost of mining has to be calculated to include compliance with required H&S. Otherwise you'd end up like China or RSA where there are really bad mining accidents the whole time and loads of people die.

Unfortunately deep mining is very expensive (and the protection engineering is a big element of that), and it's hard to compete with other countries doing open pit in absolutely enormous mines in the middle of nowhere (e.g. Australia) where they just detonate the face and scoop it all up with massive diggers.

The Germans do underground mining but they have much wider seams so cheaper and easier to mechanise

Our reserves were just getting uneconomical- too many people getting paid too much to take out too little. No government can change geology.

No government can change geology but actually many spend a lot of money on manipulating geology for the already-rich to benefit further. Oil exploration, uranium mining, carbon storage etc.

I think Labour did rather a lot on their 13 years to correct Thatcher's train wreck of a country. Minimum wage, unemployment at a low (until the GLOBAL recession) free museum entry, pensioners get help with heating, free nursery places were created, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly were created and they scrapped the Tory's homophobic section 28.

during her reign i personally experienced

stopping of school milk

cutting school funding so if a teacher left they were not replaced. i was taught history by a male pe teacher who was barely literate. Music was "taught" by listening to records- the teacher drafted in from another subject could not play a musical instrument of any sort. the RE teacher retired (he seemed ancient) and turned up the following term to teach for free because he couldnt bear it being cut from the timetable.

miners strike- this was truly dreadful and evil and divisive- and entirely driven by one woman's mad idea of what society should be like.

taking away many of the rights of unions, no minimum wage.

boom and bust economics- people left destitute having tried to get on the housing ladder only to be faced with high interest rates and losing their houses (no sympathy or regulation for the banks- missed 3 payments, they took your house, no questions asked)

youth unemployment- no jobs and no hope of jobs.

oh and also changing pension rules so that pension funds were not allowed to accumulate enormous reserves but had to get rid of excess funds through contribution holidays and giving bonuses to existing pension holders. these would be the same pension funds that now have gaping holes in them- so thanks for that.

oh and selling off the council houses in an attempt to buy the working class vote and not requiring the council to use the funds to build more.

seriously i could be here all day.

only the good die young so she no doubt has years yet.

however, what really does make me smile is people running around now complaining about the cuts- they are tories, thats what they do.

MT didn't jump to do whatever the screaming newspapers suggested she should do on a daily basis like Blair, Brown and Cameron. She had some integrity and self-belief which did not rely on media popularity. The newspapers have been running the country since 1997!

oh and OP- find it hard really to see that you have done a degree in politics and have no idea why she was so hated. there is plenty of info out there.

The OP's conjecture was "surely not everyone hates her."

That has been admirably proven by the polarised opinions on here.

It would suit some people's agenda to think that the hatred, and desire for her to be dead, is universal. They just want to keep on and on about it until everyone is convinced.

Tony Blair 'admired' her - ( no big surprise )

I think the majority do hate her though, and with very god reason.

I agree with Buntinghill on the issue of newspapers - I HATE the way that they have so much political influence.

*GOOD reason

The left always need someone to hate. If MT hadn't existed you would have invented her - I'm not sure where this need comes from?

Carminaburana - what an odd idea!? The 'left' hate her because she did despicable things, there is no evidence whatsoever of a need to hate someone. Maybe some people who would identify with the political left do have a need to hate someone, but I think you are making a little bit of an assumption there!!!

I think what carminaburana may be getting at is the incessant hate which seems to be displayed by left-wingers towards the right..when it never seems to happen the other way round!

I detest Arthur Scargill, Tony Blair (I know that 'left'is a grey area with him..) and Gordon Brown, but I certainly don't wish to dance on their graves when they pop their clogs.

risingstar - the miners' strike was Arthur Scargill's doing. He and his partners on the hard-left had no time for democracy - he hated the fact that MT had been returned to power with a whopping majority...which is why there was never a democratic vote on whether the strike should take place (illegal under the law and against the NUM's own rules), which is why the DUM (Nottinghamshire miners, by and large) broke away from the NUM.

The "rights of the unions", as you term them, that she "took away" were the reason GB had been so uncompetitive and unproductive throughout the 1970s. Political strikes (as opposed to genuine industrial disputes) had long been GB's problem and it is notable that Labour was of no mind to change this once it regained power in 1997.

Spending on both education and health went up between 1979 and 1990 - as did manufacturing output, by the way.

She cut your school milk, you say? Bless. I guess that meant your parents had to provide you with some, which is what should have been the case all along.

That's the problem with the State doling out this and that - it fosters a sense of expectation and entitlement that stifles ambition and self-reliance when said 'benefits' are rightfully removed.

On yer bike luv!

"the Left" isn't a distinct entity. And we don't need to have invented her, unfortunately for all of us she was real.

And what a bizarre notion! You might as well say "the Right" always need someone to worship, if Thatcher didn't exist they would have invented her.

and if you can't see the hate that Thatcher herself had for "the Left" you're blind.

Oh..and the milk snatching myth goes on!

Harold Wilson's Labour government stopped free milk for secondary school pupils in 1968 and then in 1971, Lady Thatcher, who was education secretary under Sir Edward Heath, ended free school milk for children over the age of seven.

Although the move gave her the nickname "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk-snatcher" and cemented the public view that she would ruthlessly cut spending, documents released recently suggest she had actually fought to save the grants. She was overruled by Sir Edward.

Despite the cuts many LEAs continued to provide free milk and in 1977 the EEC School Milk Subsidy Scheme was introduced to allow them to claim extra funding for secondary and primary milk sales

In 1978, further concessions to the Left were made and free milk was provided for children between seven and 12 from families dependent upon Income Support.

The 1980 Education Act added a further £25 million in EEC subsidies to LEAs to help subsidise milk in schools although six years later as part of an amendment they were told it could only apply to the very lowest income families.

I know Thatcher smashed the unions and the miners in revenge - but you have to move on - I think Tony Blair did a pretty good job in destroying this country, but I don't hate him.

No. most don't hate Lady Thatcher, have a look on politics and you'll see one of two obsessives, but that's all.

You can move on and still remember. We aren't sitting outside her house on a picket waiting for her to cark it y'know.

Why does it bother you all so much that some of us loathe her? What difference does it make to you?

P.S. Most hate Tony Blair!

buzzlightbeer. What difference does it make to you that some don't hate her? Move on and stop living in the past! or is it all you have to cling on too?

yes, I have nothing else in my life at all. It doesn't matter to me if any loves her, they just go on my list of people who must be totally insane.

I don't think MT loses much sleep over you Buzz

BuzzLightBeer - I fully respect a difference of opinion and enjoy a good forthright exchange of views but people have gone way further than that on this thread.

Looking forward to someone's death and planning to celebrate it once it has happened is, in itself, wrong. Not least when that person has committed no crime, has not murdered anyone, raped anyone, abused anyone. I can perhaps understand anticipatory relief at the death of, say, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Josef Stalin, Harold Shipman even! But Margaret Thatcher? Really??

I know there will be gloating by many on the the Left on the passing of MT...but that is such a destructive and negative response. Surely better to question why she had the impact she did and learn from it.

If, for example, you really do want to nationalise the FTSE 100 or abolish the Royal Family, why not ask yourselves how you can best achieve this - what tactics are needed, what kind of people do you need to make this happen, what kind of leader?

To spitefully drink a toast to an old woman's passing is to ignire these kind of questions and to acknowledge, albeit unwittingly, that the Left has produced no-one of her standing and looks increasingly incapable of doing so.

IMHO BLY, you certainly have got a 'list'!