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

beansprout, that's not what the idea is. It's that instead of the state collecting the taxes and redistributing them, inidividuals look after each other.

It didn't work because people were also discovering how nice it was to be a selfish bastard and not give a flying fanjo about others. But there's nothing wrong with the idea itself, it's how people used to do co-operative healthcare before the NHS.

Yes, thank you and the state doing that is the natural extension of people doing that. It's just a matter of scale.

I know Peachy - I said that in the second part of my post!

You're right, South Wales is feckin awful in parts these days, particularly the Valleys.

Yes, and the big scale means that cynical sods can fleece the system, and the government has to try and convince people to shop benefit cheats because it's been taken out of the local community and into big-state mechanism.

(actually, this is disturbingly like winding up my dad...)

Well, that all depends on how you see human nature. If poor people aren't to be trusted whereas all rich people are great and deserve everything they have "worked" for, then fine. Go ahead and vote Tory! I won't be joining you though.

That's not the point - it's not that poor people can't be trusted, it's that a localized system builds community and a sense of people looking out for one another. Instead of the better off being unconnected to the people they're helping, there's a direct connection, rather than a Daily-Mail stoked resentment of faceless 'scroungers' and all that bollocks.

And I wouldn't vote Tory, any more than I'd vote BNP (well, maybe slightly more than I'd vote BNP).

I might tell my dad I had though

But local communities can't do everything, so the state does need to be there. What Daily Mail readers think is hardly the basis for how a country should be run, they are all mad anyway!

and there's a way to see the socialist system as seeing the worst in human nature, too. People can't be trusted to actually help their neighbours, so they have to be taxed. Now granted, that's got a good case behind it with the Thatcher years.

Yes, they're all mad, but there's a fuck-load of them.

Fucking up the welfare state was widely reagarded as a Bad Move on her part

(in answer to the questgion posed some time ago)

At the time, she was hated becasue she was held responsible. now I realise she was only the front woman for a big pile of bastards behind her. Now THAT depresses me.

Why do I keep reading that as "convicted" politician? Because I'd agree with that!

I think she was a conviction politician. I didn't agree with her convictions but she certainly had them

Margaret Thatcher was the greatest politician this country has seen since Churchill.

Some of you posting on this thread (my guess is most of you) weren't cogent when she was in power. I was.

Before she came in, we had the winter of discontent, we went to (small) supermarkets where the prices fluctuated daily, and there was only one kind of cheese for sale. And that was Cheddar.

Much as you left wing proles like to despise the lady, she was the open door to the society we live in today, which is a very different society to the one I grew up in.

Learn your history before you spout. Oh, she fucked off the miners. Well, would they be PC now?

No.

Did they get huge compensatory payments?

Yes.

Do I own an ex-council flat (within three weeks of the deadline the labour party set for closure?)

Yes.

Sometimes, some of you piss me off.

Left wing fucking loons .....

Although I am far from being a Thatcher apologist I feel I ought not to let the mention of the "society" quote pass by uncommented-upon. It's always taken out of context. It was from a Woman's Own interview in 1987, and here's the full reply to the question.

"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."

Interesting, eh?

By the way, I wanted to use that in a book but the MT Foundation proved less than co-operative without the greasing of palms with silver. Just thought I'd mention that.

... and the Labour Party were totally laughable before she came along ... and have remained laughable ever since. They're emulating her, of course (and why wouldn't they?)

It takes takes a woman, you see?

Queen Elizabeth I - great woman.
Queen Victoria - great woman.
Margaret Thatcher - great woman.
Mary Seacole - great woman.
Florence Nightingale - great woman.

What's your problem with great women?

In 2001 the government said that about £1m in compensation was being paid every DAY to former miners suffering lung disease and vibration white finger.
Lucky the Tory Government at the time had the guts to pull the plug on subsidising not only an economically failing industry but also a highly dangerous one.
I donated a couple of tins of beans and a can of sockeye salmon in Waitrose Finchley Road in 1984 to the miners' cause. If the bastard that ate those beans has since sued the government for compensation for his white finger then I want the price of those tinned goods back.

This is all very interesting. I watched "This is England" last night. My god what a depressing country it was back then.

Caroline - that is a stupendously ignorant post.

ooo you sound very open minded Caroline!

Want to come up here to wastelands of Northumberland and Durham and tell that to the families of miners 2 generations down the line with still nothing to replace that industry. Nothing short of destruction on a very wide scale - no wonder so many turn to drugs and drink. Theres feck all else.

I know I shouldn't, but I can't help laughing at Caroline's last para.

"Margaret Thatcher was the greatest politician this country has seen since Churchill"

AMEN

I can't believe anyone would be pleased to see the return of the pits?

My dad was a miner in Durham in his yoof, couldn't get out quick enough.

Well, when you have that choice taken away and you are left with nowt, then I think you probably do. Especially when what faces you is desolation.

I was up at Woodhorn colliery the other week, the last colliery in Northumberland to close. The've pumped thousands into the site which is retained mainly as an educational site - but the surrounding villages are a joke tbh. There is nothing, nothing , nothing up there. I swear to God.

If you believe Maggie was the greatest ever, there ain't nowt I can say to change anyones mind, nor would I try. But I would say come up and have a look at the likes of Ellington, Woodhorn, Lynemouth, Blyth.then maybe think again. All areas with massive social and drug problems now.