To think that it's perfectly fine to be pleased someone is dead when they caused such a lot of harm?

[LoopaDaLoopa]

So, all these people saying it is inappropriate to speak ill of the dead are all positive and nice about Pol Pot are they? Stalin? Hitler?

Just because someone dies does not make them a nice person.

And did you feel sorry for Saddam Hussain's family? Or did it not cross your mind?

I wonder how many people on these threads actually remember her doing any of these things. I am 35 so was 1 when she came to power and 12 when she left. I can't remember knowing anything about her politics.

In a nutshell it's basically this.

When MT came to power in 1979, the UK was flat broke. Seriously it was. Unions ran the country and had already seen off two PM's and had a third scared. The state had no money, our economy was a basket case, inflation was rampant. Power cuts were common, people often worked 3 day weeks, rubbish went uncollected and the dead lay unburied.

MT implemented what is now known as 'Thatcherism' which is basically the principle that the state should do the bare minimum and championed the idea that people should be hardworking, self reliant and the concept of individual liberty.

As a result a lot of the old loss making industries which only were around because the state were pouring money into subsidising them had to close. Those employees who had previously enjoyed jobs for life were suddenly found they didn't. The miner's went on a bitter strike expecting the state to give them money so they could keep mining coal at a price twice what we could buy it from abroad were pissed off because she wouldn't give in.

The Falklands conflict was a godsend for her but unlike some people believe hardly of her making. Her support of Reagan & Goberchev helped win the cold war.

By the time she left by any measure you care to use, UK was a stronger, richer and more successful country. We were no longer known as the 'sick man of Europe' and a basketcase.

Those who hate her for her policies tend to be those who think the government should support them rather than they support themselves. To the right she is the champion. To the left the devil.

Think that about sums it up.

Not only was the Uk flat broke, it had to go to the IMF for a handout.

Just saying.

niceguy your nutshell has forgotten that MT and Reagan deregulated the banks and so began the gravy train for greedy bankers. So many people forget this and I'm not effing making it up so we may not in thrall to the unions but we're in thrall to the bonus hungry selfish pigging bankers and their ilk. They owe billions and billions how is that leaving the U.K. in a good state?

Fact
You need to google a bit more. Quite a few mines re-opened.

niceguy Thanks for the lowdown. I have heard some of those things but not all.

I was not saying that no-one who hates MT can remember it but certainly a lot of people on mine and other peoples Facebook are early twenties.

Surely those who were targeted by her policies (miners etc) are not going to like her much but those who were helped by her will have thought was ok. There are always winners and losers under any government and you as citizens will like the government who makes it better for you.

I'm not a fan of this government as they have taken money from my benefits. Still don't think I will have a party when DC dies.

ppeatfruit. With hindsight yes the banks should have been better regulated. But hindsight is wonderful and bear in mind that the crash happened in 2008 and she stopped being PM in 1990. That's 18 years after she was PM. That's a BIG leap to hold her responsible for something which happened nearly two decades after she left power.

Besides which our economic issues in the UK have very little to do with the banks. Yes they made a mess but in the grand scale of things a mere pin prick. The actual cost of the bailouts was around £124billion. Eye watering yes. But barely a year's government budget deficit. A mere sidenote to the overall national debt of £1.1 TRILLION.

The stupid figures of the banks costing us trillions are by idiots who cannot tell the difference between actual money spent and money that was guaranteed. What I mean is the UK govt guaranteed the banks bad debts and the total sum did at it's peak run into trillions. But adding up the total liabilities is about as realistic as adding up how much it would cost Directline if every single homeowner lost their house or every car owner crashed their car in the same year.

The bottom line is that the biggest danger to our country is the fact our books don't balance. Not by a long shot. We're overspending every year around the same amount as the total cost of the banking bailout. Except with the banks we got shares and maybe if we are lucky one day we can flog them and make a bit back.

Sorry I should add sources:

UK National Debt

Bank Bailout

You are absolutely right, niceguy. I am bored with people going on about the banks. Morally disreputable as some of them were, they are small change in the scheme of things. Every single bloody day that Blair and Brown were in charge of this country we spent money we didn't have. That's why we are in trouble. We can't afford the way we live.

John Major left UK.plc in a good nick. Who screwed it up? Labour.

Yep, that's quite possible Abra1d. Although for various reasons I would disagree.
However, the rich get rich, the poor get poorer. Therein lies the Thatcher legacy.

For the record, Hitler was democratically elected.

A prime minister isn't really elected though is s/he?
You vote only for an Mp for your constituency and that is where the democracy ends.

Care to list your reasons for disagreeing Dawndonna?

Your last bit about the rich getting richer is very true. I'm not sure that is down to Thatcher though. I'd argue that modern technology and the collective failure of the government's across the world to work together has had more of an impact.

The rich are getting richer (in this country) helped in no small part by the housing shortage caused by the sale of council houses and the failure to spend the money raised on building more housing stock to replace them; this was exacerbated by the abolition of rent controls and secure tenancies for private rented property. Rents have rocketed, there is no security and landlords have raked in the money in ever-increasing amounts ever since. Property speculation has replaced pension saving for many people, and the end result is the mess that we are in today.

She won't be missed in my part of the world.

What she did for working class families in the North of England left a bitter taste for many.

The housing shortage has not been caused by the sale of council houses. It has been caused by the changing nature of families - many more single adult households, -failure to build caused by an archaic planning system,imigration and the collapse of the construction industry.

The shortage of social housing today is not entirely down to selling off council houses. Housing Associations and PFI schemes took over when the councils sold them the rest of their housing stock. Over the past few years HAs have built more houses than ever before. The question remains as to what the councils did with the money the raised from selling the stock. They frittered it away, that's what, instead of investing.

Also, the government's lack of immigration control is as much to blame for the drain on the housing resource and failure to act on it before now. The horse has already bolted.

As I said before. The councils did not fritter the money away. They weren't allowed it. They were only allowed 28% of capital receipts.

It is interesting that we had, what, twelve years of a Labour government to reverse some of Thatcher's policies. You know, the ones that are always brought up in these debates- selling off council housing, deregulation of the banks, mine closures, privatisation of industry, getting rid of free milk for primary school pupils.... If these policies were that unpopular, if they made such little financial sense, why weren't they reversed under Blair or Brown? Because from what I can see, not only did Labour capitalise on the changes made by Thatcher, they extended some of them with further deregulation, more "wars" (with less basis than the Falklands), continuing right to buy yet failing to build more housing, etc. And what's changed under Miliband?

And what's changed under Miliband?

Well....apparently these are Labour's bright ideas:

16 policies Labour would implement

Unfortunately as much as Miliband & Balls claim they would continue to tame the deficit, I don't see anything in the list which even comes close to this. It's more spending with a little tax here and there with nice words like "..partially funded by a tax on..." in other words..."The numbers don't add up but..."

If I could sum it up in a sentence. Basically Labour policies are akin to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and ignoring the elephant in the room.

If you behave like there's no such thing as society, in the end there isn't

And TheCraicDealer...she hated the good Friday agreement

In 1999, the year after the Good Friday Agreement was signed, Lady Thatcher expressed her revulsion at the sight of "Irish terrorist murderers?.flooding out of jail" as just one example of what she regarded as the erosion of Britain's way of life under Tony Blair's Labour government.

YABU ; I don't vote conservative or agree with many of her policies but to be pleased about her death is a bit odd tbh.

as she was nothing to do with the army except sending soldiers to their death in the Falklands

Possibly THE most uneducated sentence I have ever read!!