Does anyone here think Mrs Thatcher did a good job?

[Cortina]

It interesting to see how much she's disliked.

When I was at Uni she was much admired by a swathe of students whose parents had done very well during the 'Thatcher years'. Those who had come from mining communities, for example, had very different opinions.

It was rare anyone with self made parents back then had a bad word to say. Are our views shaped by our families experiences and how well off or otherwise we were growing up? There were a few I knew back then who came from a v well off background whose parents and wider families were labour supporters with a 'social conscience' but these were very much in the minority.

she was a destroyer of worlds

No.

But Im Scottish.

:)

Evil personified.

Bring back Maggie!

I remember the grimness of the seventies... three day weeks, strikes, power-cuts, oil crisis... even though I was only a kid at the time and not really conscious of politics at all. My parents were/are working class to the core and were suffering long before Mrs T was even a possibility. They supported her on the basis that they wanted better for their family... and they were not alone in that.

I a lot of what subsequently happened, such as the privatisation of nationalised industries would have happened eventually, whoever was in charge IMO. I remember news reports at the time talking about how many £m loss-making businesses like British Leyland & British Steel were costing the taxpayer each year. They had not been viable for a long time. Scargill took a longer stand and many suffered needlessly because his stated aim was to 'bring down capitalism' rather than save jobs.

And things we take for granted today, she started. Can anyone these days imagine only being able to buy a gas cooker or a telephone from one outlet... and then having to wait months for the privilege of it arriving? And how about 30% basic rate income tax?

Think the free market ideology became too rigid in the end and that the Tories were probably in for a term too long. But we needed something radical in '79 and she happened to be it.

I don't think she did a good job at all.

But, I admire her for getting to the top at a time when women in politics were not taken seriously at all.

I also admire the way she was determined to loosen the union's hold over the government and country.

NO not in my opinion. Council homes being sold off has more than a lot to do with the shortage of social housing and affordable homes now. Sold off the state owned water company, gas ,electric,trains ,bt. Introduced the very unfair poll tax .Took us to war in the Falkland Islands. My teachers were always stiking in the 80 s obviously very unhappy with the government. I honestly can't think of anything good about it but i was just a child during her reign.

@kerstina... have you ever changed gas/water/electricity supplier to get a better deal? Ever bought a new telephone over the counter and plugged it in yourself? Shopped around for a new gas boiler? Pre-privatisation none of these things were possible. You were not only stuck with one provider at the price they decided but also with a poor selection of products and a poor infrastructure because they had no cash with which to invest in improvements.

A good job of destroying the working class, yes, she did a fantastic job.

But, in answer to the OP re backgrounds being relevant. I'm the daughter/grand-daughter/as far back as the coalfields started to be mined of miners, and yes, I'm also very old, so went on the picket lines as well.

My Mum, left school at 16 with no qualifications, worked her way up from tea girl to company director and then changed tack and worked for Ofsted before retiring.

So, no, backgrounds got now't to do with it if a person has the ability to think for themselves. I could have gone either way, (my Mum probably thinks La Thatch wasn't right wing enough)

It always used to concern me slightly that Bob Geldof thought she was all right. It sort of skewed my world vision in the 80s that.

NO.

Chil1234, I also remember the grimness of the eighties. Maybe it depends on what part of the UK you lived in.

I also had the erm, privilege? to meet her a few times - false, false, false.

I can't believe people are even considering giving the woman a State Funeral.

To be honest i get really fed up with the electric/gas people knocking on the door all the time. I would rather we all had the same deal ! But i take your point my life is so much better for all this consumer choice !!!!

no

If you think about it you could trace the problems we're having right now straight to her door.

She privatised things that should have remained national, she encouraged people to think about themselves and fuck everyone else, she gave absolutely no thought to anyone who was hard working, decent but not very well off, she ruined the community, she destroyed industries and she was the worst thing that ever happened to this country.

"Maybe it depends on what part of the UK you lived in."

I was based in Lancashire in the seventies and Yorkshire for most of the eighties. I experienced communities suffering first-hand with pit-closures and redundancies etc. but I also remember being very frustrated at the time with the fatalistic 'we've always done XYZ job and we'll always do XYZ job' mentality of the age and region. I got out of the area as soon as I was able.

Totally agree Lollipopshoes !
My partner works for the Royal Mail one of the only thing left in state ownership. Not for much longer though and i feel very sad about it.

I don't think so but then I too am Scottish.

I thought she was great; Community Charge or something else would have come anyway as the rating system needed an overhaul and would have cost you more than CC did had that happened; The Falklands needed to be defended - why is that a problem?

She sorted the Unions out, and I haven't noticed anyone reversing that legislation since she was knifed toppled in 1990, or building more council housing either. We have lower income tax and independent taxation of married women due to her.

She held off Europe, got us the rebate from the EU and fought our corner there.

No. Destroyed communities and didn't blink an eye doing it. I was very comfortable growing up in the 70's and 80's (until the the early 90's recession hit) but my Dad's from a Scottish mining community-my family were all miners for generations and she destroyed them. And it doesnt matter how long ago it was because the effects are very much present today with the long term unemployment, violence and drugs that defines the place now. They were seen as collateral damage and a price worth paying for her ideology. You can't rip the heart and purpose out of a community and put nothing back. I think it's unforgivable.

Even David Blunkett has nice things to say about MT so I don't take all the personal attacks that seriously.

She sorted out things that needs sorting, viz the unions, nationalised and unprofitable industries,

She also changed the law so that you could move your pension with you when you changed job. I don't think people realise how significant that was.

OTOH, she should have done more to replace industries in the north, Wales and Scotlan. It isn't right that so many generations now have no concept of work.

State funeral? Is she dead?

My FIL, an ex-miner, hates Thatcher and Scargill with a passion.

My family were Thatcher supporting, my father still admires what she did re taking on the unions and credits her with putting GB back on a world stage when it was in decline.

There is much that Thatcher can be blamed for in hindsight but it didn't feel like that at the time, nor for the millions who did vote for her. Can remember watching the Falklands War unfold on TV and thinking she was indomitable and totally confident.

But probably the most significant aspect was not imo in any policy she adopted but simply that was that she was a woman PM. There was a perceptions at the time, certainly at school, that if a woman with shopkeeper parents could get the top job in the sexist and privileged world of politics, we could be anything too if we strived for it, on merit alone, rather than based on looks or just by being an adjunct to a man, unlike today sadly, where thanks to the pornification of women, looks not intelligence is valued and the women young girls aspire to be are vacuous, clothes horses that repeatedly get treated badly by men e.g Colleen, Cheryl, Jordan.

Greatest peacetime PM of the 20th century. Second only to Churchill in the great PMs of that century.

Won in the Falklands. Liberalised the economy, getting rid of all sorts of red tape. Said "no, no, no" to the EU. Let people buy their own homes instead of clinging to the State. Inspired a nation to become self-reliant. Brought tens of billions of inward investment. She smashed Scargill and tamed the unions. Re-elected again and again by an adoring public who loved her no nonsense, take no prisoners attitude. What a brilliant woman.

As she herself said, her greatest achievement was changing not one party, but two. Labour had to move way, way to the right because of her. Tony Blair was similarly influential - forcing the Tories slowly but surely leftwards - but wasted his time in office.

I have every respect for Cameron but he will never be remembered as fondly as Maggie because he is too consensual, middle-ground, and "One Nation Tory". In many ways, my politics are closer to those of Cameron in spirit than those of Thatcher, but still.

She is totally iconic. A true wonder-woman.

She made Britain proud of itself again, and never accepted second best for us in the world.

"she destroyed industries"

But you look at something like British Leyland and it was on the skids years before. Making bad cars that no-one wanted but propped up with public money. Cars, steel, coal, ships... they were all being produced elsewhere more economically for years before Thatcher. Ideally, we should have been anticipating the end of the heavier manufacturing industries and gearing our education system and commercial incentive schemes towards more modern, skilled industries where it takes more than cheap labour to compete. It was the gap between one ending and the other getting going that caused the problems.