To wonder who is more hated, Blair or Thatcher?

[WetAugust]

Seems that Blair is planning a return to UK politics.

Blair has to be the most hated for sure. Possible up to a million Iraqi children dead during the oil for food programs sanctions era. He should be properly investigate for war crimes but as we all know from history the victors rarely investigate their own. No wonder he uses diplomatic reasons for his reasons to travel abroad as he must be scared he lands somewhere and gets handed an international arrest warrant.

Thatcher managed to turn this country around from the disastrous effects of labour in the seventies, leading to the prosperity that followed despite the best efforts of the looney left/ militant tendancy groupings of Labour to hold the country to ransom.

What people always forget is how anti democratic the unions and Labour are. ONce they loose a democratic and fair election they spend the next years encouraging strikes and militant action to disturb and agitate the country into voting for them the next tie around. Their actions at times verge on sedition.

Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill had surprisingly similar views on the closure of coal mines in theory though obviously not in practice.

Scargill expressed the view that a mine should never be closed except on grounds of total exhaustion.

This does rather imply that he thought complete exhaustion was a valid reason to close a mine. And a community whose local mine has been totally exhausted is no less devastated, its miners no less out of a job, than one which has been closed for any other reason.

Thatcher though that mines should be closed when they became exhausted for practical purposes i.e. unacceptably inefficient.

Of course Scargill would in practice never have admitted that any mine was really exhausted - there's always at least a few specs of coal dust left.

But after Thatcher's phase of mine closures total coal output was not much less than it had been before the strike. The ones she closed were for practical and economic purposes exhausted.

Mine closures have happened continually since WW2 and under both Labour and Tory governments. Nothing special about Thatcher in that regard, but let's not let the truth get in the way of the customary 2 minutes hate.

Certainly it is arguable that the Tories were to blame for the final shutting down of the industry, but people blame the wrong Tories.

The real mistake was to close down the efficient mines in the "dash for gas" and the guilty parties here were Major and Heseltine - after Thatcher's time.

When the light start going out in a few years' time the hate might be more reasonably directed at Major and Heseltine.

well, if you're talking general economic policy fish then blair followed it...

and in actual fact callaghan had also pursued the beginnings of monetaristic policy though he was not able to do so nearly as effectively.

flatpack, Thatcher's government lied about the Belgrano. It matters who was in it because Thatcher was rutting for the approval ratings.

and indeed - was it only 4% of miners that voted to strike (IIRC from AS biography?)

it was not a popular strike at the time (or not throughout the full length), and even less so when other unions came out in sympathy resulting in school closures...

just the constant bleating of the left-wing press has made it so in the current mind.

I live in a former mining town in the north east.

Thatcher, clearly.

Every day I walk past a closed mine, a statue of some miners, and the housing association where there just aren't enough houses. Then I get to the new health centre, the surestart and the nurseries and withdraw cash from DHs wages (minimum wage) and tax credits.

I am 27.

I think any post war prime minister, incidentally would have done exactly as Blair and Thatcher did when it came to Iraq and The Falklands.

I certainly can't imagine Brown or Cameron not going to Iraq, and I can't imagine Blair or Major not going to The Falklands.

Oh and blaming TB/GB for the debt is daft if you look at the rest of Europe. Were they in charge of Greece? I think not.

LineRunner
flatpack, Thatcher's government lied about the Belgrano. It matters who was in it because Thatcher was rutting for the approval ratings.

So are you arguing that the Belgrano should have been left, regardless of the nature of the threat? When would a suitable time have been to sink it, in your view?

britta they certainly weren't in charge of Germany either!!

they made a conscious decision to overspend (instead of the usual less-intentional overspend you get from government) even in a time of boom.

they borrowed heavily to fund it.

so did the Greeks.
Germany didn't - which country would you rather the Uk had modeled?

BrittaPerry

Oh and blaming TB/GB for the debt is daft if you look at the rest of Europe. Were they in charge of Greece? I think not.

Nobody's blaming TB/GB for the Eurozone crisis, although they both wanted the UK to join the Eurozone.

We're blaming them for their relentless spunking up the wall of other people's money and the epic quantities of debt they created from 2001 onwards. Did you know that the UK ran a deficit every year from 2001? That was supposed to be a boom period. If you can't run a surplus in a boom period you are either inept or a fiscal incontinent.

sorry posted too soon - I was going to say, flatpack, that it came out in the inquiry, that Thatcher and her government knew that the British people wouldn't like the loss of life particularly of conscripts some of whom were only 17.

There a lot published on the Belgrano already, flatpack.

flatpackhamster "So are you arguing that the Belgrano should have been left, regardless of the nature of the threat? When would a suitable time have been to sink it, in your view?"

flatpack, I'm interested to see you making up an argument on someone else's behalf. It's a common, but easily-recognised and dishonest debating trick.

What's the point in declaring an area as an exclusion zone, then?

Since the Belgrano was outside the exclusion zone, and was steaming away from the Falklands, back to harbour, when it was attacked, your assumption that the only question is "when" to sink it is foolish and false. A ship which is tucked up in its harbour is not much of a threat.

"
Only amongst the British Left could the sinking of an enemy warship, during a war, be considered a bad thing."

well yes. they were conscripts, but that wouldn't have stopped them from turning around under orders... difficult decision. but you have to consider the flip coin: let it go, and risk it attacking later..?

See PigletJohn, above.

The conflict hadn't actually started when the Belgrano was torpedoed. As I noted above.

as the dude on the radio said the other day, a ship can turn in a minute. direction is not a sign of intention.

Oh well, if a dude on the radio said it.

something so evidently true and i still have to remember the name of the commentator on Radio 4? this is a forum, not a theses.

Indeed.

Belgrano is a nonsense controversy. It was a warship of a war mongering nation and therefore a legitimate target no matter where it was. The islanders were innocent civilians being held hostage by a Beligerent government using nationalistic drum beating to stave off criticism of their poor economic and social policies especialy civil liberties at home.

LineRunner

There a lot published on the Belgrano already, flatpack.

Shame so much of it seems to have passed you by.

PigletJohn

^flatpackhamster "So are you arguing that the Belgrano should have been left, regardless of the nature of the threat? When would a suitable time have been to sink it, in your view?"

flatpack, I'm interested to see you making up an argument on someone else's behalf. It's a common, but easily-recognised and dishonest debating trick.^

As is the trick of claiming that I'm 'making up an argument' when I'm not. What I'm trying to do is ascertain exactly what LineRunner thinks was an alternative. LineRunner clearly assumes that there was no military argument for sinking the warship, I want to know why.

Since LineRunner's whole argument hinges on this point I think it's a fair question.

^What's the point in declaring an area as an exclusion zone, then?

Since the Belgrano was outside the exclusion zone, and was steaming away from the Falklands, back to harbour, when it was attacked, your assumption that the only question is "when" to sink it is foolish and false. A ship which is tucked up in its harbour is not much of a threat.^

What a curious argument. Ships in harbour are a threat. Take, for example, the Scharnhorst, the German battlecruiser in WW2. She was stationed in northern Norway to attack Arctic convoys supplying the Soviets. As a consequence, every convoy had to be heavily escorted by British or American battleships. There being a shortage of such vessels, this limited the number of convoys.

And let's not forget that the German's High Seas Fleet made just one appearance in WW1, but it forced the British Fleet to remain in Scapa flow, waiting for it, for 4 years. They effectively tied down the world's largest naval force by the mere fact of their existence.

The Belgrano might have been leaving, but she could have returned 2 weeks later, once the transport convoys arrived crammed with soldiers and equipment, and sunk some of our ships and cost hundreds of British lives and put the liberation of the islands in jeopardy.

What's foolish is when people with absolutely no understanding of military history or military tactics seek to pontificate on the subject.

LineRunner

The conflict hadn't actually started when the Belgrano was torpedoed. As I noted above.

Apart from the physical invasion of the islands, and the beaching of the Argentinian sub 'Santa Fe' after a British air attack, and the landing of the SBS and SAS on the islands, and air battles over the islands, and the bombing of Port Stanley by Vulcans.

Curious definition of 'conflict not actually starting' that you have there.

Going back a bit - loving the 'anti-democratic unions' line! Presumably, you were never in one? All Branch members elect Branch Committee and elect delegates to conferences where any member can put forward resolutions via their Branch which votes on wether to support them. The delegates vote again, if successful, the resolution beccomes policy. The system is repeated right up to National level. Or your resolution can be voted through by your branch to National Conference, where it's voted on again. So any policy has been voted on at least twice to become policy. Like the NUM policy to strike if closures were announced. Where is this 'lack of democracy'?