Is life really worse under Labour or am I taking the Torygraph (essential reading chez Moondog) too seriously? Particularly interested in what you old gimmers who remember thatcher have to say.

[moondog]

Thanking yew.

Gingerbear - your unclouded view is what we're interested in!

Imo Thatcher was an aberration and not of this world. Hated her passionately.

Looking back, I find myself occasionally thinking she had principles (like them or not) upon which she based her decisions so you had an idea of what she was up to. This lot do not have principles and their decisions seem to be based on no guiding principle other than what they think the electorate would go for at the time.

She started the Nanny State, Blair has (almost) perfected it, Brown is continuing it (until perhaps it looks expedient to him not to).

She started the 'me' society based on greed; we now take it for granted. She started the dismantling of the NHS; Blair/Brown continue it.

Thatcher, if she were in power now, might decide to boycott the Olympics; Brown will dither until it's too late, or leave it to each individual team member; as happened some years ago with cricket, where a definite decision needed to be taken, but wasn't and it all got a bit silly, but I can't remember the details.

they have abandoned compulsory ID cards for UK citizens though haven't they? I think they're planning to introduce them to school-leavers, but even that's in doubt.

Her Stop and Search laws were pretty bad

Thanks to 'Thatcher's Legacy' we are the fourth richest nation on God's earth.

The more interesting question is, what have successive governments done with all this wealth?

I think that life is better than it was pre-labour.

Was talking to my mother yesterday about it. She said that callaghan messed everything up, and even she (labour party member) wondered whether maybe things would not be worse under thatcher. She says she well remembers the first things thatcher did, including getting rid of school milk, and the feeling of "shit, this is going to go on for how long?"

I am too young to remember pre-thatcher. But I remember the feeling of happiness when she was driven out of Downing Street.

bridie - you mean we are the 4th biggest money generating country. most of that money is generated by the de-regulated city of London, and almost none of it see's the inside of the inland revenue's bank account. meanwhile, overall income inequality is at Victorian levels. That is Thatcher's lagacy.

lol aviatrix

I truly believe that this Govt will only be happy when we're all barcoded and they can count us and measure us whichever way suits them. I just want to shake them until their teeth rattle - not everything is quantifiable ffs!!

Labour governments have always been about uber-control-freakery. They just can't help themselves.

I fucking hate them

I always maintain though, whichever party/ideology is in power, it's always good to be poor. That way, whenever the inevitable crash/bang/shit times occur, you never have too far to fall!

By stealth taxes I mean , for example, VAT on all manner of things that never applied before, fuel duty, stamp duty, National Insurance increases, tax threshold changes for self-employed, taxes on insurance, air taxes etc.

I think education has suffered due to the burden of SATS and league tables, but that is a whole different discussion!

the system for awarding CTC /WFC is bizarre and too complicated.

Thatcher was terrible, I think many people do forget that or are too young to remember it.

High levels of home ownership are down to her surely? And council tax certainly is, even though she seemed to have got away with renaming the poll tax council tax and that was ok.

It depends who you are asking obviously. If you happen to be a banker earning 200k who has no hesitation of driving your sports car halfway up the pavement regardless of whether a lumbering pushchair pushing mother or wobbly old lady is there, just so you can pop over to your oyster and champagne bar after work, clearly you'll think it's worse.

But if you're one of the countless people on a shorter NHS waiting list, in a smaller primary school class, in a Surestart area, a working mother, an at-home mother, a State pensioner, someone who happens to be black or gay or politically active, well, yup, I'd say things are better.

I guess I count as a gimmer. The 80s were nasty, divisive, smug times.

I'd say now was pretty nasty, divisive and smug too tbh.

Weapons of Mass Destruction
Devid Kelly
The Iraq War

Things I will never forgive the Labour Govt for

Oh sorry, forgot Lord Goldsmith

They might have been nasty, divisive and smug (although I think the times we live in are equally as bad), but they were necessary in a historical context.

We were the sick man of Europe in the 70s. Things were really grim. Thatcher was a visionary politician. She new from the start she wasn't going to be liked, and she didn't play the game with that in mind. She couldn't/still doesn't give a shit what most of the country think of her.

I was a kid in the 70s, and vividly remember the dying years of the Labour administration. The UK was in a strange place, having gone from leaders of Empire to poor old tossers in twenty years.

Without Thatcher, we'd have continued naval-gazing. She didn't let us. She pulled us up by our ears, and got us going again.

It might not have been pretty, but it was necessary.

Personally, I think Thatcher was one of the greatest politicians this country has ever seen. It isn't necessary to like the woman. She never asked you to.

moondog, out of interest, why on earth do you buy the torygraph?

labour didn't introduce stamp duty though. nor did they introduce the "fuel tax escalator" (in fact they abandoned it). I do think they are unfairly accused of taxing more than they do actually. as for NI - it's gone up by 2% if you count employers' contributions. income tax has gone down by 4% for most people in the same period.

We needed Thatcher like a fish needs a bicycle.

Oh god, such short, rose-coloured and press-inspired memories...

Zog, almost all the bureaucratic, performance driven target cultures (police, schools, NHS, local authorities, universities) were put in place By The Tories...

And I give you:

• Poll tax
• Falklands War
• Rupert Murdoch's smashing the print unions at Wapping decimating the newspaper industry
• stop and search and sus laws
• leading to inner city riots
• section 28
• all that unforgiveable shite about back to basics and family values while Parkinson, Major et al were shagging their secretaries or Edwina Currie
• 3 million unemployed
• selling off council housing which only now, with the lack of affordable housing, people are beginning to realize as a folly
• supergun/arms to Iraq, underwritten by the govt

I could go on, but it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth...

"She new from the start she wasn't going to be liked"

what are you talking about? why was she so quick to back down on the poll tax then?

she wasn't necessary at all, and caused years of misery. Just because things were bad beforehand doesn't make it right.

Thatcher was/is a miserable old hag. End of.

I haven't noticed our disposable income dropping like a stone at all dg. But I wonder if that maybe it would have dropped at it not been offset by my children getting older (they are 7 and nearly 4) and so my childcare costs reducing. 3 years ago I was paying out the maximum I have ever paid for childcare.

Of course, it was the Labour Govt that introduced the nursery grant which has saved me hundreds of pounds. That and the childcare vouchers are the things that have put money in my pocket. All the rest, stealth taxes etc have taken it away. Have had reasonable experience with NHS regarding waiting times, esp for the children. DS is thriving in a good with outstanding areas school that is 2 mins walk away. My 23 mile commute costs about twice as much as it did 10 years ago but suppose that was fairly inevitable.

What was wrong with the Falklands War, monkeybird?

A clear cut case, surely? We owned it, they wanted it, they lost.

She backed down on poll tax because there were RIOTS! And as a friend of mine said at the time "bloody hell, getting ordinary people to riot on a local government taxation matter is some achievement" - meaning the govt really fked up big time and underestimated how strongly people felt about it