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

@Tealightsandd, Thatcher's pandemic policy would have been herd immunity. She'd have done the opposite to what she did with employment and finding, sent those who were Ill, up north.

Thatcher made Jimmy Savile untouchable. Which made other peadophiles untouchable and the rings that they were involved in. She did nothing to improve the lives of women and children. I'm glad someone has mentioned Ann Williams, because Hillsborough seems to be being completely forgotten. How can Thatcher and integrity be mentioned in the same sentence? The control that she had over the Police and how she used them is chilling. She was tough on what suited her. If she'd have gone after drug importers and dealers the way she did unions, we wouldn't have had the UK flooded with heroin at the same time as record highs of unemployment and poverty. Or did that suit her?

@Tealightsandd it's very, very expensive to do that. There needs to be political will and the price of coal needs to be worth it. Global warming rules out political will.

The UK government didn't restrict international travel even in a pandemic - at great cost to the economy. They clearly don't care about climate change or expense.

It's expensive long term - and perhaps more importantly, dangerous, to rely on other countries for a large part of our energy supply.

@Ponoka7

Saville was operating before and after Thatcher.

Covid. Thatcher was a scientist. Not in virology but she still had a scientific mind - and would have understood that herd immunity from a new virus (with unknown long term effects) is gained through vaccines.

If not caring for lives and health, she was bright enough to see how damaging to the economy failing to contain would be.

I believe she would have closed our borders.

Tealight they might not care about expense when it benefits their core vote but they are signed up to climate accords and there was a fuss about a new mine in Cumbria. Nobody of any political flavour is opening up old coal mines.

She had more Balls then anyone since.

You're right. None of the main parties (if any) have the appetite. I just think they should. I'm in a minority (perhaps of one) that sees securing a stable domestically produced supply of energy (plus good employment opportunities) as a priority over unlimited foreign travel.

I'd prefer to combat climate change through education around and easy free access to birth control, encouragement for smaller families, and rationed (not none) travel.

I don't see myself getting any votes but nevermind, I wouldn't want the job of PM.

The UK birthrate is falling now @Tealightsandd, we’re not even replacing ourselves. It’s decreasing about 0.5% year on year, it fell by 1.5% in 2017.

Not RTFT.

I admire her intelligence, determination. To get to where she did in a very sexist world and coming from a non privileged background.

Her politics a hard no.

I believe she was sincere though. And honest.

Mixed.

I watched a documentary about her s couple of years back which was v interesting and changed her from caricature baddie to person.

I despise her - from Ireland

The poll tax was fairer than council tax.

It really wasn’t, not on a household basis nor in inflicting the whole thing on Scotland first. Poll tax was an absolute aberration.

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

What ? We produce nothing? Where are you getting this information from?

We are the 9th largest manufacturing nation in the world. I've seen with my own eyes (and fixed!) production lines with devices destined for 'half the world'. The half that can afford our prices, anyway.

Just because we're not punting out millions of cheap TVs, don't assume we're not producing anything (and doing what we do very well).

www.themanufacturer.com/uk-manufacturing-statistics/

According to Make UK (formerly EEF), UK manufacturing currently:
• employs 2.7 million people – earning an average of £32,500
• contributes 11% of GVA
• accounts for 45% of total exports – totalling £275bn
• represents 69% of business research and development (R&D)
• provides 13% of business investment

And as per the article the 11% GVA is contested and thought to be more like 23%.

I sometimes see this "we used to make ships and mine coal now all we do is banking!!!" attitude and I can only assume you live in London and are under the impression the rest of the country survive outside the public sector by working part time in Costa or childminding.
Either that or it suits some narrative you have. Not that I'm accusing you, personally, of supporting Brexit, but it's the type of thing someone who supports Brexit would want people to believe. Suits the 'make britain great again' mindset.

I don't know who said the poll tax was fair, but it really wasn't.

Remember the riots? People don't do that for nothing.

Pretty sure it was @Tealightsandd who said poll tax was fair along with some other... misguided things.

I just think they should. I'm in a minority (perhaps of one) that sees securing a stable domestically produced supply of energy (plus good employment opportunities) as a priority over unlimited foreign travel.

A worthy goal but do you genuinely see trying to reopen the coal mines as the way forward?

97% of Scotland's electricity is met by renewables, so it's not impossible and we are the same country.

But you'd rather send people down the pit and rebuild the coal fired power plants which pollute the air and use vast amounts of water... instead of investing in renewables?

This doesn't gel with your contempt for foreign travel (and honestly I'm not sure how they are all that related). You had problems with them not stopping planes during covid, the three people I know who have been flying in the last year are all working in the renewable energy sector and needed to fly for work

I'd prefer to combat climate change through education around and easy free access to birth control, encouragement for smaller families

Again... I hate to keep harping back to Scotland (but I will since you said the poll tax was fair), but the lack of births is currently one of the biggest threats to our economy. They are actively investigating funding IVF for single people as a way to get the birthrate up. Immigration would solve this, unfortunately that is exactly the opposite of what the UK government want.

Blair

Just quoting that one word because I think it's kind of amusing how on a thread about Thatcher you can bring up Blair so much, blaming him for not stopping and reversing (at cost) everything she did. I was very young under Blair, single parent family working unskilled jobs etc, and honestly I never once felt poor. My mum bought a house on her own wages. War crimes, obviously. But I never felt the level of poverty you see children in these days.

https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/6738

The IFS seems to agree.

Turning first to poverty, both absolute and relative measures of income poverty fell markedly among children and pensioners

VS

By contrast, the incomes of poorer working-age adults without dependent children - the major demographic group not emphasised by Labour as a priority - changed very little over the period. As a result they fell behind the rest of the population and relative poverty levels rose.

Which probably shaped the attitudes we see rife today and the seemingly unwavering support for the tory gov. I'm not saying propping up low wages with benefits was a good thing - clearly it wasn't and like everything else, we are still suffering for it today.

But everything isn't black or white.

The most arguably black or white politician is undoubtedly Margaret Thatcher though.

I worked in Sheriff Officers when Poll Tax was introduced here in Scotland. It was HELL.

I have really valued reading through this thread, I'm an 80's child of a single parent who despised thatcher (and she very rarely voiced an option!).

I think she was a pragmatist first and foremost to the horror and detriment of many, but I do admire her approach to the aids crises - at the time it would have been so easy to take a moralistic stance, taking a bald scientific - the approach taken saved lives.

She was called the Milk Snatcher by the tabloids. I presume because the journalists could think of nothing catchy to rhyme with Edward Short (1968 Labour Sec of State for Education & Science who withdrew milk from secondary schools)

She was a strong leader who got shit done. Some people didn’t agree with what she wanted to get done but enough did for her to win 3 GEs. People let their politics cloud their judgement but when you think about where she came from and what she achieved at that time, she was a woman of substance and achievement.
The policies, like I say, some didn’t agree with. But most did. And actually she prepared this country kicking and screaming for the 20th century. The 70s were a horrendous time for the economy and if she hadn’t taken the action she did, the country would still be held hostage by the unions. The unions which were the epitome of fat cat entitlement with their noses in the trough while leaving the task of solidarity of to the comrades.

She was talented at what she did. But she was ruthless. She may have known the price of milk but she didn't care if people had any.

I loathe her. Absolutely despite her. In my view she set the rot which has festered ever since. She reduced us to a greedy, self-serving, grabby nation that cuts corners for profit, that has no social responsibility. I completely blame her for the horrific house price rise. She sold off so many assets including social housing and didn't replace them.Easy to look like you are managing the economy well if you asset strip a wealthy nation. We have never recovered from her ruthlessness.

It is so bizarre when people romanticize the 70s and sheer idiocy of what this country had become. 3 day working week, power cuts, piles of rubbish in the street actually happened. The IMF loans really did happen. It’s easy to beat up financial services and take the virtue signalling stance, but is like to see people try and defend the state of the economy in pre Thatcher years.

A vile, racist, classist homophobe.

She knew Jimmy Saville was a peadophile and still lobied for him to be knighted.

She destroyed thousands of lives with section 28 and the awful impact of that is still very much present.

She was a complete and utter c*nt

I disagreed with almost everything done in Mrs Thatcher's time as Prime Minister. Though I do think that were Mrs Thatcher Prime Minister now, the pandemic would have been handled a lot better, and certainly none of the dithering and delay that has probably caused over 10,000 deaths more than prompt action would have brought.

Had Mr Johnson been Prime Minister in the 1980s, the miners would have achieved a degree of victory and the Falklands would have been under Argentine occupation for years. The Falklands victory was a very narrow thing, and a fortnight's delay would have meant it could not have been retaken before the worst of their winter.

Despised her policies no question, but she was certainly v strong and v determined. Overall looking purely at UK I don't think her overall contribution was beneficial. On a total tangent, always wondered if her getting by on v little sleep, often quoted by her supporters as a good thing, contributed to her Alzheimer's in later years

As a child of the 70s, it was so inspiring to see a strong, intelligent woman from an average background in the top job, even if I didn’t agree with all her policies. As a young woman it made me feel I could achieve anything I set my mind to.

I know people say she wasn’t a feminist (and I’m not sure about that), but she did a lot for women like me just by achieving what she did in what was then an extremely male dominated world.