Maggie Thatcher is a 'conviction politician'

[EffiePerine]

Eh?

This puzzles me on many, many levels

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6993269.stm

It wasn't about whether or not miners' children had to go down the mines or not, it was the destruction of whole communities, ways of life and the union movement. For starters.

God. Can just remember the euphoria when she went. And then the absolute joy when Labour won.

While I have to admit to questioning a fair bit of the most recent administration, I still think that the Thatcher years were dark and divisive and sooo frustrating.

Lol at Suebaroo. But lol while catching my breath and thinking god how awfully sad that was.

Out of interest, here is the full quote (had never heard of it before)

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."

Prime minister Margaret Thatcher, talking to Women's Own magazine, October 31 1987

ah, but wasn't that a misquote? I thought she said that there was no such thing as society, just men, women and families, or some such? (I was fairly young at the time, and only ever listened to this stuff to piss my Union-Rep dad off)

I don't think Thatcher was closing mines to save future generations from a terrible workplace.

What a strange way to view the situation.

Actually both of my grandfathers were coal miners in South Wales, and they were both very glad when the pits were closed. They both thought that it was an awful way to earn a living (the seams in the South Wales pits are very narrow, and grown men had to spend entire shifts bent double or lying down whilst chipping away).

The problem was (as concerns the mining industry) that Thatchers was so blindly devoted to 'the market' that she refused to put any measures in place for saving the communities that remained when the mines were closed.

Elvish Midlanders? I like that, I does. Pointy-ears not required, but helpful.

And also, the police violence that attended the strike was really shocking, and fully condoned by the Thatcher administration.

But if the problem is simply that they are poor, their families are poor and their community is shot because the major source of employment has gone. Well what then? If the government won't help, and society won't help because we've been told to look out for number one first and foremost, what next. Who does help?

she gave a terrible speech about leftie, commie, homosexual-promoting teachers not being safe for our children.

I was thinking your slogan could be 'We are considerably more Elvish than yow'

I too was quite young, but pretty heavily influenced by my parent's feelings about the thatcher administration.

Exactly PW - the mines were a crap place to work, but you don't rip the economic heart out of a community without thinking through the repercussions. Or maybe she did and just didne give a monkeys.

Oh God yes, Clause 28, that was a corker.

I don't think she could care less. They weren't traditionally Tory voters anyway.

Yes, roll up, roll up, Elvish Midlanders now recruiting! (Rolling in bed in the hazy light of Lothlorien with Orlando Bloom as a manifesto commitment)

Of there is something beyond individuals and families and it's nonsense to suggest otherwise!

Sorry, of course!

yeah, but I thought the idea was individuals taking responsibility for thems4elves then others, rather than do it in a state-down way? Where the wheels came off was that she also promoted a greedy stuff-others attitude to go with it.

I note my typo highlighted 4Elves. This is all subliminal programming, you know.

The best lack all conviction, and the worst/Are full of passionate intensity...

Hitler was a conviction politician.

That's great, if you are an individual who can take care of yourself and that's what you want to do. Not everyone can, of course and what is so wrong with helping each other? How can that be a bad thing? Even animals understand that!!

lol aat MI!

Anyone else feeling an urge to vote Elvish?

Thing is Policy, nothing replaced some of the mines in South Wales communities, as a result you ahve heroin usage etc way above verage national levels due to a completely bleak outloof for the kids who see no jobs (I think its a bit better now, was mentoring in Tredegar last year, but certainly that ahs been the case)

maggie was a conviction politician... so she ahd convictins? So did many of the most dangerous people to ever walk the earth- Hitler, for a start- it doesn't mean anything positive at all. A good politician needs to be able to look at a situation not just do what some little voive of conviction tells them