AIBU to blame social science courses for some of this hatred of MrsT

[Grinkly]

I did an OU foundation social science course once. A major part was the detrimental effects of redundancy and unemployment on individuals and the community. It was interesting and spelled out how lives can be devastated by this.

The example was a Yorkshire mining town. It was a good course but I wonder if those, unlike me, who weren't around at the time of the miners' strikes have got a skewed view of why things happened.

Billy Elliot touches on the strikes too I think. But no background info is given, as far as I remember.

Am just amazed at the vitriol - especially by those not directly affected. And it was a long time ago. Don't want to start another debate unless someone has a new point to make.

@LaVolcan.

Don't worry about jobs and where they are (they are about if you look and are perhaps prepared to move).

YOU said Thatcher should have joined the war in 1943, like the Queen.

What is YOUR service history? The Armed forces of this country have been on Ops everyyear since 1945.

Or was it a crass comparison to gain cheap points?

Dammit woman, we can't have all these educational courses proving people witjlh historical information on which to base their opinions! It's an absolute outrage! Don't these people know political views should be based upon knee-jerk, emotional reactions to photographs of 'strong leaders' looking determined about issues we don't understand?!

Bangon loving the Mark Steele homage!

@lazaruss - no it was getting at Maggie Thatcher who was quite prepared to preach to others, quite prepared to send young men and women into combat - the Falklands was never a 'war'.

However, despite not having served a day within the forces herself, and yet being of an age to have had ample opportunity to either serve or do war work did neither because she was comfortable ensconced in Oxford, but is being buried with full military honours. I mention the Queen, because she was virtually the same age. I would agree the service she did would have been very cushy compared to an ordinary young woman of the time.

I wasn't alive during the war. My parents were in reserved occupations - steel works is good enough for you? I worked for the MoD.

The Armed Forces haven't been on Ops every year. Harold Wilson is the only PM who had a year without committing any troups to combat. He could have done - ample scope to have got involved in Vietnam.

Falklands-'rightful owners'. Debatable in international law and hence the 'Falklands Question' kept coming round.

'Dont' worry about jobs' you say. What crass insensitivity for those 2.5 million young people out of work. 'Move' you say airily. Where do you expect those young people to live when they do move to where the jobs are?

And no, Tebbit didn't say 'Get on your bike' in so many words. Nor did Callaghan say 'Crisis, what Crisis' or even McMillan 'you've never had it so good.' But no doubt the spirit of the words was what was meant.

Well, there is one thing that the UK leads the world in - and that is vitriol . It's good that we can speak our minds without being locked up.

Lately, though, there is nothing but bitter and angry resentment, and I wouldn't say that only 'the rich' are at the end of it. Nurses, bankers, skivers, chavs, women for being to fat, thin, botoxed, stupid, politicians (virtually all), we have two senior heart surgeons bitching at each other now, banks, the planning system, foreigners, immigrants hmm, well that's enough. In other words many of us appear to hate half the uk population.

Hardly a healthy situation, physiologically or mentally. I spend much of my time abroad where, from what I can see, people are happy, smiley, polite and grateful for what they have rather than bitter and resentful about what they feel they should have or what someone else has (though they do have more space so possibly not rubbing up against each other so much).

Anyway, my point is that perhaps the vitriol will ease after this outpouring over MThatcher, perhaps the boil will be lanced. Perhaps everyone will have thumped the table and released their angst and we will then all settle down to making the most of what we have - which could be much worse.

I hope so.

Minor points Lazaruss

1. You lost your right to a valid argument with the following twaddle: In our modern utopia we have bright kids sat next to kylite 'alledged ADHD' kids.

2. Tebbit actually pointed out that his father used to get on his bike to look for work.

3. It's the Argentinians, not the Argies.

4. Tam Dalyell and Clive Ponting won the court case against the government regarding the Belgrano.

Grinkly, that is what I was thinking. What do we hope to achieve by so much vitriol?

If you have been personally affected by Thatcher's policies, and most of us have, then it's not surprising that we are angry, and it's a good thing, imo, to express that anger so that the govt hear it and take note. But being personally vicious to someone who is dead doesn't achieve much imo.

As I've said on another thread, Mrs T didn't do it all alone. She was supported by a govt that was voted in three times, by us. It's difficult to see the wood for the trees when things are actually happening, so it's useful to look back after a few years and reassess the situation in the light of what we know now, but we need to channel our anger, not at a coffin but at a living, breathing govt, so that they can see what we don't want. In the hopes that they will work towards giving us more of what we do want.

And, Grinkly, what you say about the hatred directed at other people, people who are 'not like us' - where does that all come from? And what can it achieve? United we stand, and all that.

I like you too Dawn : can I join you and Grovel for coffee.

Thanks for saying what I want to say! and am busting to know your famous connections but none of my bloody beeswax

As I'm sure someone else must have already said, the reason we're seeing so many people out on the streets rejoicing her death is not only due to her policies but a reaction to what's going on today with all the austerity measures being put in place.

If she had died when Britain was booming we wouldn't be seeing these parties to the same extent.

OP, People need to experience positivity in order to be positive. Remember how the country felt after the Olympics opening ceremony? I fear your desire for us all to settle down and make the best of what we have is a pipe dream. We haven't yet seen the full consequences of Osborne's austerity measures. It's going to get a lot worse. And in that type of situation, where the rich are made richer and the poor told to go hang, we need protest. Even if it is distasteful to some.

Lordy me!
If anyone ends up near the Norfolk/Suffolk border then you're welcome for coffee, anytime.

Actually grinkly your thread and the debate it has caused fairly well illustrates why I (personally) would not be out on the streets celebrating her death. It's because her vile legacy lives on and on and on...let's face it Thatcher the 87 year old woman was fairly impotent by the end; her actual demise is neither here nor there.

Btw I have absolutely no problem with people who DO want to celebrate it. There is vitriol and there is vitriol and there is righteous indignation

This:

1. She supported the retention of capital punishment
2. She destroyed the country's manufacturing industry
3. She voted against the relaxation of divorce laws
4. She abolished free milk for schoolchildren
5. She supported more freedom for business (and look how that turned out)
6. She gained support from the National Front in the 1979 election by pandering to the fears of immigration
7. She gerrymandered local authorities by forcing through council house sales, at the same time preventing councils from spending the money they got for selling houses on building new houses (spending on social housing dropped by 67% in her premiership)
8. She was responsible for 3.6 million unemployed - the highest figure and the highest proportion of the workforce in history and three times the previous government. Massaging of the figures means that the figure was closer to 5 million
9. She ignored intelligence about Argentinian preparations for the invasion of the Falkland Islands and scrapped the only Royal Navy presence in the islands

10. The poll tax 11. She presided over the closure of 150 coal mines; we are now crippled by the cost of energy, having to import expensive coal from abroad 12. She compared her "fight" against the miners to the Falklands War 13. She privatised state monopolies and created the corporate greed culture that we've been railing against for the last 5 years 14. She introduced the gradual privatisation of the NHS 15. She introduced financial deregulation in a way that turned city institutions into avaricious money pits 16. She pioneered the unfailing adoration and unquestioning support of the USA 17. She allowed the US to place nuclear missiles on UK soil, under US control 18. Section 28 19. She opposed anti-apartheid sanctions against South Africa and described Nelson Mandela as "that grubby little terrorist" 20. She support the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and sent the SAS to train their soldiers 21. She allowed the US to bomb Libya in 1986, against the wishes of more than 2/3 of the population 22. She opposed the reunification of Germany 23. She invented Quangos 24. She increased VAT from 8% to 17.5% 25. She had the lowest approval rating of any post-war Prime Minister 26. Her post-PM job? Consultant to Philip Morris tobacco at $250,000 a year, plus $50,000 per speech 27. The Al Yamamah contract 28. She opposed the indictment of Chile's General Pinochet 29. Social unrest under her leadership was higher than at any time since the General Strike 30. She presided over interest rates increasing to 15% 31. BSE 32. She presided over 2 million manufacturing job losses in the 79-81 recession 33. She opposed the inclusion of Eire in the Northern Ireland peace process 34. She supported sanctions-busting arms deals with South Africa 35. Cecil Parkinson, Alan Clark, David Mellor, Jeffrey Archer, Jonathan Aitkin 36. Crime rates doubled under Thatcher 37. Black Wednesday ? Britain withdraws from the ERM and the pound is devalued. Cost to Britain - £3.5 billion; profit for George Soros - £1 billion 38. Poverty doubled while she opposed a minimum wage 39. She privatised public services, claiming at the time it would increase public ownership. Most are now owned either by foreign governments (EDF) or major investment houses. The profits don?t now accrue to the taxpayer, but to foreign or institutional shareholders. 40. She cut 75% of funding to museums, galleries and other sources of education 41. In the Thatcher years the top 10% of earners received almost 50% of the tax remissions 42. 21.9% inflation

Grinkly that's what I was getting at when I was trying to say that I think this vitriol, whilst in part comes from those old wounds against the miners/general population who became disenchanted with MrsT, is coming from newer places as well.

I can't get over the fact that the party in power for the past two decades (who I voted for by the way) is held less culpable in all this 'selfish society' and 'divided Britain' and 'economic ruin' than some government in power over 20 years ago. If MrsT's legacy was so obviously terrible by the time she left power (and remember, the electorate voted in another Con gov't at this point!), why did the Labour party not then reverse and solve these policies? Why did they not stop selling things off, why didn't they embark on a big building programme, why didn't they regulate the City? I hold Gordon Brown much much more culpable than MrsT for the current economic mess because he was in charge of the ship and had the opportunity to change her course and didn't! And, no I don't think people will be singing demonizing songs against Brown when he dies or disrupting his funeral.

I also don't like the complete denial that being the first female leader of a political party or prime minister was anything other than amazing given the extreme sexism in the 1950's-1970's. No, not many other women went to Oxford to read chemistry and then became MPs, then became the first female prime minister. People seemed to remember the hatred over the miners, but have forgotten the more insidious beliefs that women could neither rule or hold power and it was genuinely believed that a party with a woman leader would be political suicide. Trying to make out this was because Dennis was a millionaire is disingenuous in the extreme, she was a MP for 20 years prior to running for leader and it has never been suggested he could have/did bankroll her- in what way?! (unlike for example, Obama and all US Presidents who are indeed bankrolled usually by billionaires).

I am not a MrsT supporter, never voted Conservative but I have found the vitriol quite astonishing, she was a democratically elected leader and without trying to understand why she was popular as well as despised, you end up with a very odd looking history in which apparently everyone hated MrsT but mysteriously they voted for her three times and then voted for MrsT Mark II (Blair) subsequently, and then act like this all happened by some divine force against the will of the people instead of being an expression of what at least 40/50% of the people wanted at that time and the others couldn't get it together to oppose.

The problem with some policies is, once instigated, it is not really possible to reverse them, it costs more or just isn't viable, economically, socially, politically. All you can do is minimse the damage.
Thatcher did once say something along the lines of Blair being one of her greatest legacies.
I've said before, I won't vote Tory at the next election, I never have, I won't vote Liberal. Doesn't mean I'll vote Labour, either. I'm too torn, it's the right or the right, and neither sit well with me at the moment. I'm a socialist of the old school, John Smith etc. which means there's nowhere for me to go.

Here are some really good articles, imo, which I've just posted on another thread (hope that's OK). From the Guardian.

The Thatcher effect: What changed and what stayed the same, by James Ball
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/12/thatcher-britain

Thatcher?s death has Britain peering back through time
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/12/thatcher-britain

Thatcher the politician was a nightmare. But I salute Thatcher the woman, by Deborah Orr
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/12/margaret-thatcher-politician-salute-woman

there are interesting points in this Daily Mail link
I find it scary that I am in agreement with some of what Peter Hitchens says. Even worse, I have on occasion agreed with his late brother. I think I need a shower!

One does wonder if he's doing it because the current party are trying to distance themselves from her policies. Frighteningly, that means agreement in parts would support in others!

Yes, Thatcher dying just now is problematic for the Tory party, but leaves Labour more or less unaffected, according to one of the articles.

I also feel sad that there are still so few women in public life and in political life, I think seeing the riots/singing the witch is dead/general vitriol will just confirm in a lot of women's minds that they never ever want to stand for public office, because if they do, they will be vilified and criticised in a way that they could not live with. MrsT did not suffer from this (probably because of her slightly sociopathic tendencies in believing herself always right) but most ordinary mortals, men or women, can't cope with it and that's why nice decent people in general don't tend to run for public office, women in particular.

They do become councillors at a local level though. Maybe you have to be particularly ruthless to succeed in politics and business?

I was a local councillor, many years ago. That too can be pretty petty!

The problem with some policies is, once instigated, it is not really possible to reverse them, it costs more or just isn't viable, economically, socially, politically. All you can do is minimse the damage

Jeesshhh, Dawn, a let out clause if ever there was one.

It's been 23 years, not 23 months!