John McDonnell's Thatcher assassination joke

[UnquietDad]

here

Acceptable or not?

I think he has had an easy ride over this. Imagine a right-of-centre politician saying they wish they'd assassinated Harold Wilson or Gordon Brown.

policywonk No it's a Facebook group comprised of BBC employees. You can put your employer down in your Facebook profile, and then by clicking on the employer you get a list of people who work there who agree to be publicly listed.

Admittedly that was back in 2007. They might have gone on a Tory hiring spree since then, but somehow I doubt it.

From Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_miners%27_strike_%281984%E2%80%931985%29#Public_opinion_and_the_media

Public opinion during the strike was divided and varied greatly in different regions. When asked in a Gallup poll in July 1984 whether their sympathies lay mainly with the employers or the miners, 40% said employers; 33% were for the miners; 19% were for neither and 8% did not know. When asked the same question during 5?10 December 1984, 51% had most sympathy for the employers; 26% for the miners; 18% for neither and 5% did not know.[26] When asked in July 1984 whether they approved or disapproved of the methods used by the miners, 15% approved; 79% disapproved and 6% did not know. When asked the same question during 5?10 December 1984, 7% approved; 88% disapproved and 5% did not know.[26] In July 1984, when asked whether they thought the miners were using responsible or irresponsible methods, 12% said responsible; 78% said irresponsible and 10% did not know. When asked the same question in August 1984, 9% said responsible; 84% said irresponsible and 7% did not know.[26]

80-90% self-sufficient in a decade? You must be joking. I said Russia and the gas, did I not mention the reliance on oil from the Middle East. Why would you want to be reliant on other countries for your energy supplies when you have your own. I tell you when you have no heating or lighting you would not give a shit whether the coal was clean or not!
It is not just about Labour failing the energy needs of the UK, both govts have been abismal in their records in this area.

remember that socialist working class hero Dreg Tyke. That progressive socialist was in charge of the BBC and referred to it as "hideously" white. I think it is "hideously" socialist.

lfn - maybe its just that its hard to admit your are a Tory on Facebook.

Its not good for making friends being a Tory, and seeing that is what fb is all about........you just wouldn't, would you?!

BigGitDad is right. Both parties do not serve the national interest. They carry out globalist policies and globalisation does not believe in national sovereignty or national self-sufficiency. It wants to create an inter-dependent world instead of one made up of independent sovereign nations. Therefore it assigns areas of economic influence to different areas of the globe, and if you are in the wrong area then you lose all of your economic capacity in those spheres.

LadyBlaBla I accept your point to some degree. Tories have always been less forthright in declaring their political allegiance than socialists.

That is why the average "liberal" to "conservative" ratio on Facebook is 2.5, or 3 in London. However, amongst BBC employees the ratio is 11.

Given that the number of people in the BBC employee facebook group over 10000, it is not so easy to dismiss that evidence, even if the survey is not scientific.

But if the BBC is biased and I am not saying it is. Isn't it counterbalanced by Sky news, the Sun, Telegraph and the Times etc? people do not watch/read one channel only.

BigGitDad

Everyone has the choice of whether they want to buy the Sun or pay for Sky.

For some reason (perhaps you could provide an explanation?) far more people want to buy the Sun than the Mirror, and far more people want to buy the Times than the Guardian!

If you have a TV you don't have the choice of not paying the licence fee for the BBC.

Also I agree that the Sun, the Times and the Telegraph are biased - though the Telegraph hate David Cameron for the way he has modernised the Tory party.

Sky is not biased overall though. Individual Sky presenters are biased, and show their bias more than their BBC counterparts. However, there is a good mixture of Labour supporters like Glen O'Glaza, and Tory supporters like Adam Boulton.

it is biased and the difference is we as taxpayers are paying for them. Smug socialists like Dreg Tyke were able to forward their agenda using the taxpayers' money. The others are unsubsidised businesses which have to compete in the market place. The BBC has TV and radio stations that reach every home in the land, unlike Murdoch's businesses. The BBC uses their publicly provided platform to peddle their progressive agenda and influence the minds of millions, whilst claiming impartiality.

LFN, well nobody buys the a red top for the news do they? They are full of celebrity crap aren't they, more interested in Cheryl Coles divorce than important political issues.
Sky is on freeview now anyway.
I buy the Telegraph but have never voted Conservative. I genuinely think it is the best newspaper out.
So how do you ensure the workforce of the BBC is politically neutral? I do not see how you can.

in the same way that Tyke sought to ensure that it was not "hideously" white. Let them apply their beloved policy of positive discrimination and remove some of the hideous overrepresentation of socialist sympathisers and employ a few more Tories.

No-one is politically neutral so it's pointless trying to make individuals that way. I would actually prefer it if they all disclosed their political opinions instead of pretending they didn't have any.

However you can hire different types of people to ensure that overall coverage is balanced.

How many people who work in BBC News have started or run businesses? How many have been in the armed forces? How many are from rural communities? How many have worked for religious organisations?

Now compare that to the number who have come from think-tanks.

As the BBC's own report said, it fails to cover Euroscepticism properly despite the British people being overwhelmingly Eurosceptic. I am pro-immigration, but acknowledge there are big negatives - and the BBC never covers such negatives.

Claig and Longfingernails

Re: Thatcher, Blair, Brown

You may suggest that the latter two were feared and despised more than Thatcher.

I don't know how old you are but I just can't let that pass - and it's particularly not the case with the 'fear' bit.

'may' shouldn't have been there.

onebatmother, I agree with you about feared. The socialists feared Thatcher, but conservatives didn't fear Brown or Blair.
But when it comes to being despised, Thatcher is not despised by Tories, whereas it could be argued that Bliar is
despised equally by both conservatives and socialists.

I don't despise Tony Blair

No nor I LadyBB

not all socialists dislike him. But I used to listen to a socialist talkshow. Many regular socialist talkshow listeners used to ring in and couldn't stand him. They called him Tory Blair and believed that he had hijacked their party. Many to the left of the party disliked him.

i would have said the Beeb was liberal small l so am unsurpised by the facebook listing things (voting allegiance not the same necesarily to professed political spectrum, for instance, one might be Communist, and voteBnp...or Green...)

Its thatcher! All bets are off.
I think Elvis Costello said it best with his brilliant song.....

Tramp The Dirt Down
I saw a newspaper picture from the political
campaign
A woman was kissing a child, who was obviously
in pain
She spills with compassion, as that young child's
face in her hands she grips
Can you imagine all that greed and avarice
coming down on that child's lips
Well I hope I don't die too soon
I pray the Lord my soul to save
Oh I'll be a good boy, I'm trying so hard to behave
Because there's one thing I know, I'd like to live
long enough to savour
That's when they finally put you in the ground
I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down

When England was the whore of the world
Margeret [sic] was her madam
And the future looked as bright and as clear as
the black tarmacadam
Well I hope that she sleeps well at night, isn't
haunted by every tiny detail
'Cos when she held that lovely face in her hands
all she thought of was betrayal

And now the cynical ones say that it all ends
the same in the long run
Try telling that to the desperate father who just
squeezed the life from his only son
And how it's only voices in your head and
dreams you never dreamt
Try telling him the subtle difference between
justice and contempt
Try telling me she isn't angry with this pitiful
discontent
When they flaunt it in your face as you line up
for punishment
And then expect you to say "Thank you"
straighten up, look proud and pleased
Because you've only got the symptoms, you
haven't got the whole disease
Just like a schoolboy, whose head's like a tin-can
filled up with dreams then poured down
the drain
Try telling that to the boys on both sides, being
blown to bits or beaten and maimed
Who takes all the glory and none of the shame

Well I hope you live long now, I pray the Lord
your soul to keep
I think I'll be going before we fold our arms
and start to weep
I never thought for a moment that human life
could be so cheap
'Cos when they finally put you in the ground
They'll stand there laughing and tramp the
dirt down

I am bored with people whinging on about the miners being destroyed etc etc.....let's look at the man who was championing them shall we? Hm Arthur Scargill. Now there's an upstanding fellow whose children were chauffuer-driven to Public school whilst the miners struggled. Perhaps the money wasted on their so-called leaders might have been better spent. Ask Arthur to give back all the money he's spent on his Union expenses flat in London...or maybe the disenfranchised could go and ask for a bed for the night...it's their money.
MT was good for this country. We'd be Greece now without her.

You're hilarious...Thatcher good for the country.....is it far to your planet?

Thatcher was brilliant for the country.

Before Thatcher the dead weren't buried in the street. Prices and incomes were set centrally. The Labour government had to go begging to the IMF. The trades unions were permanently on strike, and there was no legislative remedy. There was a massive brain drain in the 70s as anyone with any sense fled to a country where they could make more of themselves. Inflation was about 27% at one point.

Thatcher made Britain proud again. She brought business, entrepreneurship and wealth. She helped to end the Cold War, and won the Falklands War. The people elected her again and again. She utterly emasculated the unions - though not enough in my opinion - and as a result Britain has since been a better place to do business than most of our European competitors despite New Labour's best efforts.

Right at the end, she went insane with the way she handled the poll tax - but power destroys everyone eventually.