To wonder who is more hated, Blair or Thatcher?

[WetAugust]

Seems that Blair is planning a return to UK politics.

I did live through it. I remember it being bloody awful. There was still absolutely no need to destroy the lives of so many. As for getting in consecutive times, she did what Blair did - Took the country to war to win an election.

Dawndonna

I did live through it. I remember it being bloody awful. There was still absolutely no need to destroy the lives of so many. As for getting in consecutive times, she did what Blair did - Took the country to war to win an election.

Even if we accept the Leftist Myth that Thatcher caused the Falklands War (which an objective reading of history shows is bunkum) which in turn led to her 83 victory, that doesn't explain the 87 victory when she was returned with an even larger margin.

No, she was and still is immensely popular amongst the sort of people who don't buy the Guardian.

Interesting view of history there. She didn't cause the Falklands war, she didn't however, have to engage.
Oh, and as for larger margins, every time any government has been elected, it has always been the case that more people voted against, than for.

I hate Thatcher more than Blair. Yes, the unions needed to have some power taken away from them after Sunny Jims disastrous three years giving into them all the time in the late 70s but she went to far the way she destroyed the miners in 84. The way she thoought the individual was more important than society was misplaced to say the least

she didn't cause the Falklands invasion, but by withdrawing the Royal Naval presence, her government gave the Argentine government (who for a long time were well-known to claim them) the impression that the UK was no longer so interested in protecting and defending them.

Perhaps that's what you meant?

Having had a small war, and been lucky enough to win it, she was popular enough to be voted back in. Had there not been a war, and certainly if the
UK had not prevailed, her popularity had already dwindled enough for her not to be facing an election with confidence.

Few jobs available for young people to go into if not academic. Creation of an underclass. Antipathy to the education system by many young people because education system doesn't know what it is training people for because of lack of job options.

Jobs have moved to the cheaper Far East can't see that that is Thatchers fault.
Antipathy to the education system seems to be a mainly British thing, not sure why. Not as bad in rest of Europe, jobs or no.

Thatcher was stronger than blair. I was young when the milk snatcher was around so I had my parents to pick up the milk bill. I'm not from the north so I don't know what it was like then.

However, Blair to me is more sinister with his major stuff about converting to catholicism and then his warmongering in the middle east.

Prefer thatcher.

I'm not sure that Thatcher told lies and milked the system (she didn't need to milk the system though, married to Dennis); Blair did both, and continues to do so.

Another one saying Thatcher and referencing the miners strike. It was horrific - driving into the village to visit my grandparents and seeing families picking coal off the slag heaps to keep their houses warm (they didn't get their coal allowance on strike and most households had no money coming in). Men my grandad had taught coming round one morning to dig up his veg for the soup kitchens (he was devastaed, he loved his garden - the men explained they had waited until morning to 'ask' him as he'd taught them and they liked him, everyone else had 'donated' overnight!)...A great-uncle and his son not speaking (uncle was a miner, son was a policeman)...the phone call from a family member saying the son had had a brick thrown through his window and his kids had been threatened. The son moved to work for a rural police force down South after the strike as it was unbearable for them to continue living there.

The consequences of the devastation of that strike continue today - I go back very rarely to that part of the country but there is nothing in that village even today - no shops stay longer than a few months, the market is dead, nothing ever replaced the mine and they're now getting into their 3rd generation of unemployment. It was one thing to try to sort out the coal industry but to not have anything to support the communities and help them retrain and get employment was unforgiveable.

It was also Thatcher who privatised all the utilities and gave us the fiasco that is our rail 'network'...

Thatcher made a lot of her mates rich so that I could not afford gas and electricity. And train tickets.

Thatcher, by a mile

Happy, Thatcher? You won the election.

Here's another vote for Thatcher and the miners' strike. Some of those families were almost starving. Our local vicar collected things like baby food, nappies and simple foods. The police would let him off the M1. Apparently someone who spoke like he did (with a Derbyshire accent) couldn't possibly be a vicar. Wicked woman.

In the north-east the Co-Op was donating left-over food to the miners and their families. Department S and the Poison Girls played benefit gigs with colliery bands. People sent food parcels to families just a mile away from where they were. Never forgotten.

Blair

Blair by a mile. Thatcher changed the country so it kept up with the times, the country needed dragging up which was painful but essential Blair achieved very little except an illegal war, and did not save when times were good as well as opening the doors to so many people that this country could not cope with.

Thatcher took national companies and their national resources and handed them over to the few.

And she blew the income from gas reserves, to the same end.

Thatcher

(I'm in the NE)

And oil. She blew the oil money.

And she let John Redwood crap on about single mothers like they were poisonous.

Redwood is a poisonous man

The UK mining industry would have collapsed eventually whatever happened, it was uneconomical and foreign coal was cheaper and better quality.
The strike just hastened the end. Yes, Thatcher wanted to flex some muscle and crush the unions, but Scargill helped her by being such an egotistical union leader.
I grew up in South Yorkshire in the 70s and 80s. I don't hate Thatcher, I don't know her. She stood up for what she believed to be the countries best interests. Whether she was right or not we will never know. (Unless anyone has a time machine and can go back and change the result of the 1979 election)
I dislike Blair, he was a public school, career politician who couldn't care less about the general public.
Social mobility went down under Blair, tax credits made many people reliant on public handouts to survive and made employment economically unviable for some.
He did nothing to reverse the policies of Thatcher that had decimated the labour heartlands.
I think on balance Blair was worse, he sold his principles and party down the river, he started all the spin and "leaks" and he led us to the situation we are in now.

Thatcher - although due to Iraq not keen on Blair

Popelloucla, i thought that there is 100s of years worth of coal still in the ground in britain, could the industry not have been reformed? i agree with the rest of your post. thatcher/blair/cameron all cut from the same cloth serving themselves and their friends.

why does blair want to come back to british politics? have his important friends grown bored with him? why should we have to put up with him again?

Thatcher lied about the worth of the natural resources in this country.

And she lied about the sinking of the Belgrano.

Either that or she's incredibly stupid and got conned by her advisers.

Longfingernails who told you all that. Do you really believe what you have said?