Maggie Thatcher, the iron lady

[Stressedout65]

Not an aibu know, but just watched Mrs Thatcher v The Miners on C5 from last night. I remember the strike vividly but felt far removed from it as we weren't part of a mining community.
For those who can remember her, good or bad for Britain? Admire her or hate her? I can't decide. Part of me thinks she was a complete & utter bitch, another part of me thinks she had more balls than all the wet blankets currently running the country now or since

She is not worse than any similar male PM, much like Teresa May was not. Look up the glass cliff theory.

Yes this.

@Tealightsandd I disagree. She was far more competent than many male Conservative PMs. That made her policies that I disliked far more effective.

@Blossomtoes

She destroyed British industry and working class communities, sold off social housing at a massive discount and privatised everything she could lay her hands on. The contracting out in the public sector was economic madness.

The ripples from the damage she did are still with us. She was a vile piece of work.

How did she destroy British Industry? It was on strike most of the time before her?

Contracting out was rare until Blair and Brown came along and used it everywhere.

@shakingstevensfan

She was a very competent politician, unlike our present Prime Minister. I hated lots of her policies. She thought everyone could be a successful businessperson. She did not understand.

Yes. For example with right to buy. She failed or refused to understand. Whereas Blair did understand. He couldn't not because the consequences were staring him in the face. He not only continued right to buy, he added to the housing crisis with his push for buy to let (which his own family did very nicely out of).

@ddl1

I struggle to be a good mother working 9-5, I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for Thatcher trying to raise two kids whilst simultaneously running the county, particularly in that era.

Fair enough; but the biggest problem with Thatcher's parenting was that she very obviously favoured one of her children over the other. And if she had to have a favourite, she chose the wrong one!

Her children were 26 by the time she started running the country!

[quote shakingstevensfan]@Tealightsandd I disagree. She was far more competent than many male Conservative PMs. That made her policies that I disliked far more effective.[/quote]
Actually you're right. Definitely more competent than Blair, Brown, Clegg, Cameron, Osborne (not hard - a goldfish would be more competent), and Johnson.

"Taking all the negative stereotypes of men (cold, harsh, getting things done at whatever cost) and applying it to running a country or a business never works out well.

Her policies were awful. The utterly vile Section 28 of the LGA was bad enough but I really believe that British society became much more individualistic under her, an unfortunate trend that has never been reversed."

I am a softy southerner. But at uni I was engaged to a man from Derbyshire who hated MT.
Then I married a man who was from south yorkshire (now exH). My ex mother in law who I actually did get on with on a personal level, was the most efficient pragmatic and sometimes ruthless person.
She worked like a trojan as a single mum of my exH and my ex sis in law. She had a photo of Margaret Thatcher on one side of her dining room dresser and a photo of Princess Diana on the other side of her dining room dresser.

Whilst she served up the most amazing evening suppers, I sat slightly bemused unable to fathom how these two female idols could possibly co-exist in someone's life.

I was way too timid to ask her about it. (and too polite as my ex husband, as did my mother in law clearly admired MT very much even from that part of Yorkshire where this was unusual).

How did she destroy British Industry? It was on strike most of the time before her?

Utter nonsense. We have no industry now, we produce nothing. Before Thatcher British industry supplied its products to half the world.

Contracting out was rare until Blair and Brown came along and used it everywhere

Under competitive tendering, health authorities had to put laundry, cleaning and catering services out to a bidding process by 1986. That was the middle of Thatcher’s reign - 11 years before Blair came to power.

Yes compulsory competitive tendering was introduced under Thatcher. I worked in a council nursery. Other services would lend us things when they were not using them. Events even set up for free a small stage for a play when they had a quiet afternoon. CCT changed all that. Suddenly you had to pay for anything between different sections of the council. All the extra stuff we had got stopped overnight.

Hospitals lost their ward cleaners and meals started being brought in by outside catering companies. Parks became run down. Public buildings were very neglected. Whole towns were left to rot when mines or other industry closed. No one cared, the residents were just told to love to where there was work - get on your bikes. Mental hospitals were closed and people put in the community with very little support.
Britain became sharply divided. There were well off booming towns and cities and towns and cities that were desperately poor. Billie Elliott shows the latter side.

Her children were 26 by the time she started running the country!

I was commenting on a previous post about her running the country. She was an MP when her children were still young. however. But that's not the main point: she helped her dreadful son Mark long after he was grown up and totally corrupt. She was not, I think, personally corrupt on her own behalf; just a fanatical ideologue.

Under competitive tendering, health authorities had to put laundry, cleaning and catering services out to a bidding process by 1986. That was the middle of Thatcher’s reign - 11 years before Blair came to power

I was under the impression that was a requirement of the EC/EEC? Or did Thatcher bring it in first?

Dreadful policy, sadly very enthusiastically continued and taken further by Blair and Brown governments (like right to buy).

@Tealightsandd Thatcher brought it in. She was ideologically in favour of it.

I wasn't happy when she stopped my free school milk at Primary school!

The former head of the Diplomatic Service, Sir Patrick Wright, made a number of explosive claims in his account of Thatchers time in office.

Extracts from his diaries included claims that Ms Thatcher expressed a desire for a “pre-1910” South Africa.

In the diary entry, Sir Patrick writes the conversation took place over a lunch he was invited to with Ms Thatcher. “She opened the conversation by thrusting a newspaper cutting about Oliver Tambo [ANC president] in front of us, saying that it proved that we should not be talking to him… She continued to express her views about a return to pre-1910 South Africa, with a white mini-state partitioned from their neighbouring black states.”

At the time the Queen was said to be “dismayed” by Thatcher’s lack of compassion for the people of South Africa

This exact article really did run in the Sunday Times on July 20, 1986, per The New York Times:

“The Queen has been described in recent press reports as worried that Mrs. Thatcher’s firm opposition to sanctions threatened to break up the 49-nation Commonwealth.

“The Queen reportedly also believes that Mrs. Thatcher’s Conservative Party Government lacks compassion and should be more caring toward less privileged members of society, The Sunday Times reports.”

@Tealightsandd

Under competitive tendering, health authorities had to put laundry, cleaning and catering services out to a bidding process by 1986. That was the middle of Thatcher’s reign - 11 years before Blair came to power

I was under the impression that was a requirement of the EC/EEC? Or did Thatcher bring it in first?

Dreadful policy, sadly very enthusiastically continued and taken further by Blair and Brown governments (like right to buy).

Nothing to do with Europe. It was pure Thatcher. It would have been very difficult for any subsequent government to put the genie back in the bottle for contracting out or right to buy. The same with Thatcher’s privatisation and the pit closures - someone mentioned reopening which would be completely impossible after years of no maintenance.

Nothing to do with Europe. It was pure Thatcher. It would have been very difficult for any subsequent government to put the genie back in the bottle for contracting out or right to buy. The same with Thatcher’s privatisation and the pit closures - someone mentioned reopening which would be completely impossible after years of no maintenance.

It was me that wanted the mines reopened. It's not impossible. Costly but worth it for more than one reason. And, it certainly wasn't impossible to do in 1997.

Rubbish about the genie. Of course Blair and Brown could've ended right to buy. Same with the contracting out. They just didn't want to.

And, it certainly wasn't impossible to do in 1997

Of course it was. Most collieries had been closed for 13 years by then. The cost of making them safe would have been prohibitive, even if it was physically possible. The workforce had lost its skills in the same period.

So how do you stop contracting out? Just terminate the contracts? And right to buy - how do you do that? If it could be done so easily, presumably you have some ideas about the practicalities of doing it.

@Tealightsandd

She is not worse than any similar male PM, much like Teresa May was not. Look up the glass cliff theory.

Yes this.

I'm sorry, but I can't agree with this - Theresa May was a terrible PM and she'd been a rubbish home secretary for several years, before that.

Remember 2017, "Nothing has changed - NOTHING HAS CHANGED....". To lose a majority when your opponent is Jeremy Corbyn takes some doing. She had no charisma and was a bad communicator. Also she was unlucky, the worst trait to have if you are a politician. That time she tried to speak at the party conference but had a laughing fit, it was just so painful to watch.

I wasn't around when she was in power, so much of my opinion about her has been informed by family who lived through her term in office. They're all working-class Scottish, so as you can imagine they don't look on her favourably.

I do find it funny that some see her as a feminist icon though, considering her thoughts on the movement as a whole.

Contracting out could have been phased out but it would have taken many years. Many councils no longer had the trained staff or capacity to deliver contracted out services. Schools for example were built without full kitchens. It was possible, but a big undertaking.

I object to the notion that she was good for women in politics when she had not a single women in cabinet while PM apart from herself

You can't reopen mines. The build up of gases makes it too dangerous. Once they're capped, that's it.
Scargill was a megalomaniac. Thatcher was deranged. Nobody ordinary came out of it well.

@shakingstevensfan

Contracting out could have been phased out but it would have taken many years. Many councils no longer had the trained staff or capacity to deliver contracted out services. Schools for example were built without full kitchens. It was possible, but a big undertaking.

Big undertaking, yes, but one worth doing. Not doing it was and continues to be a false economy. Also, a cohesive and content society with good access to well functioning public services is priceless.

@PastMyBestBeforeDate

You can't reopen mines. The build up of gases makes it too dangerous. Once they're capped, that's it. Scargill was a megalomaniac. Thatcher was deranged. Nobody ordinary came out of it well.

That's a shame. Presumably the coal is still there though to be mined? Could new mines be opened?