to think Mary Berry is at best naive, and at worst deluded, about feminism?

[MardyBraWouldDoEddieRedmayne]

Times link if you can get through the paywall
free Daily Mail link

Apparently feminists are shouty. We should enjoy being "looked after" and gently persuade our menfolk with our feminine wiles to do what we want. It's alright if you're surrounded by well-meaning malleable blokes.

No mention of equal pay, equal voting rights, equal employment opportunities, freedom from sexual discrimination or harrassment, etc. No - all you need to do, is "persuade them [men] gently to do things and, of course, when they come back they say, ?Oh, wasn?t that fun?? Try telling that to victims of domestic violence Mary...

'Why does Clegg upset you more than Cameron?'

Because he is more anti-business than Cameron, more of a global warmer even than Cameron.

Yeah right claig

Claig, I think you might find that both Cameron and Osborne, Boris etc are also 'silver spooned toffs"!

womblingalong, you are right. They are all toffs.

I preferred the Thatcher days when we were ruled by people like us who were exceptional, not by people of privilege.

I wouldn't say Thatcher was one of us to be honest, she just had a view of politics that was different than those around her at the time. She did what she believed in and what she thought was best for Britain whereas the people around her did what was best to win votes and save their seats.

I agree Thatcher achieved a remarkable amount as a women in a mans world. She was a very single minded woman and aimed to excel in every department she was in. She was a grocers daughter yes but her father was also in politics and wasn't short of a bob or two. Thatcher gained a science degree and was very educated. Lets not forget she married a very rich man which allowed her to pursue her career in politics freely without the worry of having to make ends meet whilst doing so. It also meant she could afford nannies to look after her twins, in fact they had two flats with a joining door so the twins were in one flat with the nannies whilst Denis and herself were in the other flat where they could continue to work on piece.

I don't deny Thatcher got where she did through hard work and determination but lets not forget she had some big leg ups too that most don't get (ie a rich husband that allows you to pursue the career you really want.) Druing her election campain alot of the pictures of her in the local shop buying milk etc were to fool the voter into thinking she was just an ordinary housewife but the reality was her career was her goal and her family life did suffer for it.

Thinking about it i don't think Thatcher is a good example really of how someone can pull themselves through the career ladder because she may have been born of humble beginnings but she certainly wasn't "one of us" by any means.

Good points, MoonLighter.

But I still think she was more one of us, she was closer to us and understood us more than the toffs we have now.

Thatcher was actually in competition with the toff of all toffs; the Queen FFS! Thatch had delusions of grandeur you just had to look at her handbag, hairstyle and listen to her accent!!
Remember "We are a grandmother" The royal we TBH I prefer real royalty to the arxxlickers like her.

To the post down a way that toffs read Guardian - No

Sensitive people who want a fairer Britain read the Guardian - or my folk are.
Thatcher did not want a fairer Britain - she wanted dynamism, ruthlessness and ambition. Carers were seen as naff and to come on the cheap.

Women, often in caring professions should be proud of their legacy and fight for more equal pay from within. Why is it women have to join male-dominated professions to achieve some parity of pay. Women, with traditional roles, should be arguing how they support economic development and deserve to be merited equally for their contribution. Teachers, nurses, social workers, carers are looked down upon in this society - feminism does have a way to go.

no no no zamantha sensitive people who want a fairer Britain read the Independent, whata re you talking about

Oh absolutely claig. Thatcher was a rare bread of MP who was in politics because thought her ideas were best for Britain, not because she wanted something purely for her own advantage. She did things because it was she believed in, not to win votes.

Zamantha i do believe she wanted a better Britain and everything she did was because she thought it was best, even if other didn't. She wanted people to better themselves as an individual and encouraged people to get out and do things for themselves. I don't see that as a bad thing.

Blair believed in the war against Iraq. It didn't matter what everyone else thought, he was so convinced of his rightness. He said it in his farewell speech: "I did what I thought was right."

There's more to politics than imposing your own ideology on everyone else and not listening to the dissenters.

I agree with zamnatha - why are these roles so low value? We need carers. In my dotage I would like to think that the person helping me to the loo and changing me was being paid fairly and didn't resent every moment s/he was at work.

So how is the Thatcher created recession a "better Britain" ? She made some huge mistakes that we are paying for now. She was the capitalist to beat all capitalists.

Blair also mysteriously got very rich after he left office and wanted a higher role in Europe. I believe Blair was in it for his own pocket and accepted many back handers.

Thatcher was in it for what was best for Britain with no other motive. She would have been horrified at the thought of any sort of back hander and most certainly wouldn't have ever done something or any sort of deal to further her own career.

They may have shared the same thoughts in doing what they thought was right but they cartainly didn't have principals when it came to deals for personal gain or career advancement.

Stick to cakes Mary.

They may have shared the same thoughts in doing what they thought was right but they cartainly didn't have the same principals when it came to deals for personal gain or career advancement.

Given that Mrs T married a millionaire and sent both her children to expensive boarding schools shortly after becoming an MP, I'm not really feeling this 'woman of the people' vibe very strongly.

How did Thatcher create this recession?

So selling off the water companies, railways etc. was good was it? The only thing she did that was almost okay was curbing the closed shops of the unions but it should 've applied to EVERY walk of life (the law,medicine etc.) not just the unions (which BTW she was very adamant that she wanted to 'beat'). claig She HATES the working classes.

The question was: How did she create the recession we have now? How did that get turned into me thinking selling off the water companies and railways was a good thing?

ppeatfruit, you are right about privatizaion. But Thatcher also broke down the bureaucracy. She wanted to open upo the closed shops of the professions, with their quotas on new entrants that stifled competition and kept their wages high. She tried to do the same in medicine. She was for more competition in all sectors and she tried to break down the protective barriers of the closed shops.

The merchant bankers nearly all disappeared as they were snapped up by foreign and UK banks.

She did things wrong, but she changed Britain forever and Blair and even Brown followed in her footsteps and often continued with her policies of modernisation.

Some of those policies were wrong and some were right.

I don't think she was against teh working class. Working class entrepreneurs like Alan Sugar rose to fame and suuccess during her time. She didn't protect Etonians etc. from the winds of competition. She believed in a meritocracy where the able could rise to the top, whatever their background.

Social mobility declined under the public school boy, Tony Blair. The ladder was kicked away by the New labour elite and working people were not able to rise as easily as they could before.

"Social mobility declined under the public school boy, Tony Blair. The ladder was kicked away by the New labour elite and working people were not able to rise as easily as they could before"

That's interesting. Could you explain more as to how?

For years, the Labour elite put up against her the best minds they could find - Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock - and for years she knocked them down like skittles in a bowling emporium.

Week in week out she trounced the Labour elite at Parliamentary Question Time. It got so bad that they no longer knew what to do, they no longer knew which way was up, as they hurtled down into an electoral abyss.

They tried their best, they pulled out all their stunts, but nothing worked. Some wondered if this was a case of divine provenance.

She dealt with Mitterand, she dealt with Reagan. The foreign press called her "La Dame de Fer", and the Labour elite cried that it was not fair. The country had seen nothing like this since Cromwell himself. History was being made, but eventually it all came to an end.

Labour then changed their name to New Labour, so discredited ha they become. They launched themselves anew and convinced the public to give them a second chance, and by God they led the country a merry dance. And so we are where we are now and the toffs are in charge.

Why does it all matter? Because some of their policies are not to the benefit of business and will not help employment. Giving legal rights to grandparents to obtain flexitime so that they can pick up grandchildren from school etc. may not be what business needs in such a competitive world.

But the toffs never worked in businesses, so what do they care, they're already millionaires and they'll carry on getting more than their fair share.

Xenia Mon 28-Jan-13 16:14:41
"[...] last week's news was that UK female entrepreneurs earn more than male ones. A lovely statistic."

I think this highlights the problem with feminism and why to many people feminism is a dirty word. Feminists do not really care about equality - they think inequality in favour of women is a good thing.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137585/Britain-worst-social-mobility-Western-world.html

Am looking for the articles that told us how social mobility declined more under Blair than Thatcher.