Margaret Thatcher's in hospital,Is this the beginning of the end? How will you mark the day? Black arm band or party 7.

[Cowwomanmoo]

After looking at the news about Mr T I found my self on wikiquote.

Classic:

In an interview with George Negus for the Australian TV program 60 minutes, the following exchange occurred:
Negus: Why do people stop us in the street almost and tell us that Margaret Thatcher isn't just inflexible, she's not just single-minded, on occasions she't plain pig-headed and won't be told by anybody?
Thatcher: Would you tell me who has stopped you in the street and said that?
Negus: Ordinary Britons...
Thatcher: Where?
Negus: In conversation, in pubs...
Thatcher (interrupting): I thought you'd just come from Belize
Negus: Oh this is not the first time we've been here.
Thatcher: Will you well me who, and where and when.
Negus: Ordinary Britons in restaurants and cabs
Thatcher: How many?
Negus: ...in cabs
Thatcher: How many?
Negus:I would say at least one in two
Thatcher:Why won't you tell me their names and who they are?

She must be 49 like me

Actually I can't really believe Lucia is a she. No offence Lucia. And, yes, I do remember Prince Andrew and Koo Stark, and the rose between his teeth when he returned from the Falklands....

I apologise for saying Mrs T was like Hitler and Stalin. It was a thoughtless comment and of course, I know she didn't commit atrocities to the same level as either of these historic figures.

She does, however, cause me to have the same sense of repulsion as Hitler and Stalin. Her crimes were not overt and bloody and despicable. But I do believe that she eroded society, that indirectly she caused deaths by the introduction of her policies, and she was unpleasant to extremes. I can't see her on telly without the hairs on the back of my neck sticking up and my face turning all sneery. It's an almost visceral effect that woman has on me.

I never once saw her show any sign of empathy or sympathy for others. She never apologised when she got things wrong. She has no warmth.

To me, she destroyed so much in the 80's that I can't really forgive her. I appreciate that's just my personal point of view, but I can't stop feeling that way and will not shed a single tear when she pops off.

that's kinda the way i feel, squilly. while the stalin etc comment wasn't quite right, she's certainly the closest i've ever come to living under a tyrant. iykwim?

my hackles rise just thinking about her. in three years on MN i don't think i've ever been so wound up by a thread, she just has that effect on me.

I'm nearly 43 and I only have a vague recollection of her reign.

Are you all really old?

I'm nearly 34.

And she took my milk away from me [sob]

She was no woman.

perhaps it depends on how politically engaged your household was, bubble? i'm younger than you and the thought of her gives me the heebie-jeebies.

LOL hunker in deap-seated milk-envy shocker

deep

that robbed my joke of all its humour didn't it

I want an edit button

[shame]

Aitch - have you seen this? talking of Steve Nallon

lol bubble99....i know alot about world war 1...( so do Franz Ferdinand....that rather funky band from scotland )... but i wasn't around at the time.

i can't believe at 43 you have little memory of her?...i'm not that much younger than you and i know loadsa...i guess it depends how interested in politics you and your family are...

That's funny about the milk, I can remember being a milk monitor aat school then now thinking about it we did not have any milk any more. Now I know why...Still it didn't harm me in any way (I think>>.No comments thanks DP)
Watching that clip of Steve Nallon. Dame Edna and Steve would have made a formidable combination don't you think?

bubble99- perhaps you've blocked it all out as a kind of coping mechanism? I'm also 43 and still wake up in a cold sweat having dreamt she was baaaaaaaack.

She was/is a fascist bitch at heart. Amongst her other 'acheivements' was the national embarassment of her supporting the plight of Pinochet, a really nasty fascist dictator who saw nothing wrong in murder and imprisonment of political opposers. Being judged by the friends you have, Thatcher showed she was very comfortable in such company, and went out on a limb to favour him.

I think Pinochet was in response to the Falklanda situation, they gave the British Govt support at the time of the war and the army/navy and air force were able to use Chile as a base etc. Didn't one of the RAF planes land there in an emergency? Thatcher never forgot that.

BGD - that 'conflict' was 10 years or so earlier!!( and as noted previously was engineered to save her own political skin - she was in the sub-basement of popularity at the time - soldiers died to save her career) You mean the former head of a socialist republic would get the same favour?? She was in the fascist-dictators club, albeit a frustrated member, and she was looking after her own type.

.....and I never forgot in Social and Moral studies at school listening to a tape recording of the dissenters like the Chilean poet Victor Jara who Pinochet and his henchmen had locked up in a football stadium prior to murdering them all in cold blood..... Maybe Maggie should have listened to that.....

Working in hostels for the homeless in the 1980s, one of the residents had a 'special' key ring - it was made in prisons by political prisoners under Pinochet, as a sort of token of their experience. He had to flee Chile and leave his family as he was due to be 'executed'. Arrived with no money/prospects and was a homeless asylum seeker.
Pinochet, in who's prisons he dwelt for 5 years, got a much better deal on arrival here.....

OK Aitch I;m back (although a bit surprised that you're unwilling to name a single key Thatcherite policy that has been subsequently reversed if you're questioning my statement). Key policies I'm talking about would include:

Privatisation, lower state aid to industry and non-intervention in private sector strikes, increased share ownership and deregulation of the financial system, reduction in direct taxes and an increase in indirect taxes, inflation targeted as a key indicator, Increased take-up of private pensions, introduction of the first national curriculum, introduction of competition into the NHS, strengthening the Western allioance against the Soviets (and the subsequent successful resolution of the Cold War. And of coruse the Community Charge which John Major did subsequently abandon.

Perhaps I'm wrong but I cant see any of these policies (except the CC) which have not only been reversed by subsequent governments (18 years after she left office) but if anything, have been extended.

Many have pointed to her attitude to the unions but polls at the time showed support of around 80% for her efforts to reform and limit the unions. Also, as others have pointed out, she was elected by the British public on three separate occassions.

oh come on talbot...we'd need Gordon Brown on here to answer most of that.

Oh and she also broke the link between state pensions and earnings (never been restored).

Really daftpunk?? My original question was simply why if she was so bad (indeed some say evil), have none of her major policies ever been reversed. I was then challenged to name such policies. Pretty straightforward I would say.

Really daftpunk?? My original question was simply why if she was so bad (indeed some say evil), have none of her major policies ever been reversed. I was then challenged to name such policies. Pretty straightforward I would say.

ikwym..esp re; the unions...if my memory serves me correct labour promised alot but didn't deliver..

'lower state aid to industry' but not to banks!

i think the country had changed so much under the tories labour were backed into a corner politically...they had to change..."new labour"..was born...