To wonder if Mrs T would have been loathed less if she was a man?

[Lucyellensmum95]

I was a teenager in the Thatcher years, many of my school friends were the children of miners and they suffered serious hardship. Then there was the poll-tax, reposessions, etc etc....... So, im not saying she was great. But no worse than Tony Blair following bush blindly into iraq to look for non existent weapons of mass destruction, no worse than Cunty Cameron (who actually i dislike quite deeply because his incompetence and indecision is destroying our country), but I am sure that when he dies no one will be dancing on his grave, he will probably be long forgotten (hopefully - like a bad dream).

It doesn't matter which party is in power, there will be people who dislike them, people who like them.

I think it is wrong that Mrs T is to be given a state funeral, i thiought it was wrong that Diana got one - its a waste of tax payers money and well, a bit naff really.

Does anyone else wonder if it is because, regardless of her policies, she was a strong woman (no one can deny that) that people hold her up as such a hate figure - I think it is unfair. I didn't like her - but all this glee at her death is quite frankly, embarrasing.

Come of it Lucyellensmum, LaVolcan and composhat, plenty of us come from ex mining villages originally. I heard my grandfather, who was a miner, describe how sick to death he was of the attitude in ex-mining villages, once the industry was on its death throws, of how they expected everything to be given to them on a plate, instead of joining the many ex-miners like him who tried their damndest to go on and do something else. Its still that attitude if you go back to many ex-mining villages today - Oakley in Fife is probably the classic example. Yet its only a short bus journey from a thriving electronics industry and the European HQ of Amazon plc.

And its not just the mining industry, its all those unprofitable industries that were propped up by the State, at the expense of the rest of us, which couldn't compete with the rest of the world. Why do you think Germany still has a thriving car industry and the UK doesn't? Because the Germans work bloody harder and make sure their prerogative is to produce goods people want to buy, not to provide easy jobs for life for the boys.

Most of us have grown up having to do jobs where you have regular assessments and reviews and you have to work to a certain standard, so excuse my lack of sympathy for the jobs-for-the-boys generation.

And it was always the boys - you could draw a parallel with certain male-dominated jobs today where similar working practices, union domination and inefficiency are rife - lets think about refuse collection in Edinburgh here - total bloody disaster.

I objected to him calling the job cushy. No job where there is a risk of death is cushy.

Lucyellensmum95

Its a gift :)

Yeah sorry, my cushy comment wasn't directed at the labour but more the working practices as I've said. A poorly selected phrase I admit.

More pits closed in the 1960's than in the 80's and you could buy coal a LOT cheaper abroad than UK coal. Mining as an industry was doomed long before Thatcher came to power.

As for Germany, the key difference there I truly believe is that their unions work with management rather than against. For example why have Germany done so well during the current crisis? Because while the good times rolled, the unions worked with management and agreed to hold wages down. Unlike in Spain, Italy etc where wages rose unsustainably.

Actually, the only people who had any connection with the miners during the 80's who had a cushy number, were Scargill and his cronies.......

I remember listening to the news in seething frustration because nearly every single industry was paralysed by industrial action. I remember my Dad not being able to work because the newspapers were shut down by strikes. He had to break the strike or be a "scab" because we couldn't afford to eat if he didn't get paid.....

If you put Cameron rather than Thatcher as the PM then, with all the same policies, the legacy would still be the same.
It doesn't matter to me whether she was a woman or man.

I was at school in the seventies and would have been delighted to see the milk stopped. It was always a bit warm and had solid creamy bits round the top. And you had to drink it. < shudder>

100% YANBU

LOL @Grammaticus. That was my recollection too. To this day i cannot drink milk on it's own and I do blame school milk for that. I certainly don't blame Mrs T for that and in fact am quite grateful to her! lol

And LadyBeagle. I understand what you are saying but Mrs T had bigger balls than Cameron ever had or will have. There's simply no way he'd stay the course of what he believed was right no matter how unpopular the sentiment was at the time. One sniff of an opinion poll going south and he'd change tack in a heartbeat.

I think you are right.

More balls than Cameron? Not sure about that, but she had a Willie, and as she said 'Everyone needs a Willie'.

She definitely had more balls than Cameron. In fact I'm struggling to think of aNy politician who has had more balls than her (since the war anyway).

But surely doing something pig heatedly just because you think it is right, utterly desf ro the views of others or the consequences of your single minded pursuit isn't an enviable quality in itself?

But surely doing something pig heatedly just because you think it is right, utterly desf ro the views of others or the consequences of your single minded pursuit isn't an enviable quality in itself?

I'm also too young to be able to remember the early days of the Thatcher government (born in 76). My parents remember the mid 70s as being pretty bleak, full of wildcat strikes, shortages of energy and the imposed 3 day week, Unions holding the country to ransom, galloping inflation and a succession of weak and ineffectual governments. My Mum describes Mrs Thatcher as having dragged the country up off it's knees.

In the midst of all the comments about her (and I can't recall who) said that she ran the country like it was a business and got rid of lots of what she perceived as deadwood. We expected her to boss the country about like a mother bosses her children, and exhibit the care and compassion we associate with mothers. When she failed to do this she was villified. If it hadn't been for the Falklands she would have struggled to win a second term.

If it hadn't been for the Falklands she would have struggled to win a second term.

Yep, i agree. And I do believe the UK would have been poorer as a result.

I hate Cameron just as much as I hated Thatcher.

niceguy2, she won in 1983 not only because of the Falklands but because of the breakaway of the SDP from Labour. She STILL didn't get a majority of votes - they went to her opponents.

My loathing of Tony Blair does nothing to diminish my loathing of Margaret Thatcher- and I can manage to rustle up a fair bit of negative emotion about David Cameron too whilst I'm about it; in fact, I am not sure I won't end up loating him worst of the lot. The one does not affect the other. And sex has nothing to do with it.

What I remember of the 70s and 80s was a country where common decency was gradually eroded and it became accepted to give free rein to the basest, vilest, most selfish sentiments because there was no longer a shared sense that some things were too shameful to be admitted. I can see those times returning...

As for the Major years, I remember a sense of hysterical despair when privatisation after privatisation turned out disastrously wrong; a you-have-to-laugh-or-else feeling descending on the nation.

I'm getting a bit fucking annoyed at being referred to as an uninformed, unintelligent, emotionally incontinent, clueless, sexist sheep because I really, really hate her.

My dislike for her is valid. It's not just that 'I'm no fan of her' it's a hate for a leader who treated my country like the dirt on her shoe.

I'm on uninformed, I lived through, survived, her time in charge. I know the facts, read the books, have grown up around her fucking 'legacy' of heroin addiction, joblessness, hopelessness, health inequality and injustice.

So don't tell me I'd hate her less if she was a man and all you bleeding heart 'she's someone's mother' people please, credit myself, and others, with the intelligence to know why we hate her. In life or death.

Yes, she ran the country like a business, forgetting her decisions impacted on real, actual living people, families and communities. It might have looked good on paper and I understand it must be a struggle for those who were far removed from that impact, or those who got richer, to comprehend just how awful it was in reality.

Individualism - great for the powerful, proactive, fit and capable, for those not reliant on someone else to provide your wage. God help anyone left behind.

Thatcher had an advantage over Cameron. She had real "enemies". Things were polarised - there wasn't much room for compromise. You could win. Scargill could have won. The Argentinians could have won. Thatcher mostly "won". When you have winners and losers you have division and people feeling jubilant and people feeling sore. Cameron, Miliband, Merkel, Putin, the Chinese leadership broadly want the same things. They argue about the means - not the ends.

For the years I've been alive and aware of politics it seems like a cycle. Labour bring the feel good community support factor to the UK in terms of developing policies, but unfortunately they seem to go beyond the scale of us ever being able to afford to pay for it.

The country then gets into trouble and harsh measures are brought in to cut costs and generate money to bring us back from the brink. This is where the Conservatives step in. Social interaction - nope, trying to promote wealth and reduce deficits tends to be their focus. I wonder when we will ever get the correct balance.

When Thatcher came into power the country was on it's knees financially. It took extreme measures to turn around the economy. I'm not saying all her decisions were correct, but she walked in at an extremely controversial time.

I think her sex definitely played a part against her, Thatcher the milk snatcher was even more pertinent as she was a mother etc. But looking back why was I entitled to free milk, both my parents worked and we had our own house and disposable income? Yet I still remember my mother slating and belittling her decisions "as a woman and mother" in our kitchen.