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.

'Why were council houses not sold at a proper market value though?'

I think her council home policy was ideological. She encouraged people to buy in order to remove them from state dependency (and being Labour voters) to becoming homeowners and possibly Conservative voters. I think it was about removing Labour's bedrock support.

My parents were always apolitical, but always voted Labour without really thinking about it before Maggie. They voted Labour in 1979.

I remember my mum's tears of joy when the pictures of Margaret Thatcher on the steps of Number 10 were being broadcast though. She showed that it really was possible to come from being a grocer's daughter and get to the top by dint of your own merit. Until that day I think my mum didn't really believe it was possible for "ordinary people", let alone an "ordinary woman", to make it to the top if they just tried hard enough and worked hard enough.

My staunchly working-class parents became "Thatcher Tories". She gave us opportunities that would never have been possible in the 1970s.

MN is the only place were I have ever heard any one say anything positive about Thatcher

'MN is the only place were I have ever heard any one say anything positive about Thatcher'

blimey, what type of chavs do you hang out with?

halloweeseg, what opportunities do you speak of?

we are similar age and in my rl she and it are most certainly not popular, though i do know some ardent supporters

:o Claig

'blimey, what type of chavs do you hang out with'

Not rude ones

what opportunites longfingernails?

claig - she might hang out with chavs not unlike yourself

my mother voted for thatcher, my mother the socialist voted for thatcher becuase she was a woman. she believed that woman would understand the plight of women in the uk.

As a widow she felt thoroughly disappointed that thatcher tended to the needs of the rich. Disappointed that the decimated communities and made poor people poorer.

But do they have a sense of humour?
I guess they must have if they voted for Kinnock.

They do have a sense of humour

You are just not funny

Cameron's greatest weakness is that he doesn't appear to "get" aspiration in the natural way that Maggie did.

Not many people earn £50k, but everyone wants to, and most believe that if they work hard it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that they might one day do so.

In part, it is because Cameron is a traditional, patrician, one-nation touchy-feely type of Tory. He really does believe in the Big Society, in Burke's little platoons, etc - but he doesn't have an instinctive feel for those who work their way up from nothing, and are damn proud that they have done so.

He covers that well at the moment by being incredibly emotionally intelligent - maybe even better than Tony Blair. However, that is no substitute for just instinctively knowing.

Basically she de regged the city, the old school tie became irrelevant people were employed on their merits.

She got a rebate from Brussels, ending the unfair way Uk paid so much into Brussels' something that is very necessary now.

She made it easy to invest in UK. By the end of the 1980s Uk had overtaken France and Italy in sheer economic power.

If Michael Foot had been elected in 1983 the 1970s would have seemed easy! He wanted more powers for unions, tax rates of 90% !! He was also exrtremely keen on dismembering the Armed forces And the Police.

AuraofDora The 80s were a pretty great time for most people.

They had higher wages, more gadgets, the chance to own their own home and car. People started owning their own shares in the previously nationalised industries. They started taking foreign holidays. All that would have been unthinkable for the working class in the 70s.

She was a politician. I wish, to be honest, that people would stop trying to portray her as either the Antichrist or the saviour of Britain. She was neither.

These people who say they are going to open a bottle of bubbly when she pops her clogs and/or then go and piss on her grave are being childish and, worse, inhuman.

"MN is the only place were I have ever heard any one say anything positive about Thatcher"

Probably because messageboards are anonymous :) IRL it's incredibly unfashionable to say you think Mrs T had any merits and, unless you're like me and don't care what anyone thinks, the social pressure is alway to do a bad impression of Ben Elton and mutter.. 'Thatcher's Britain.. boo.. hiss..'

Chil1234, the Conservatives should have 'marmelised' Labout this year, if they'd been even half-way credible... but they weren't. Coalition ring any bells?

Longfingernails, people didn't start owning shares in previously nationalised industries. People with a bit of spare cash bought them and sold them on as soon as possible to make a fast buck.

Gordon Brown admired Margaret Thatcher

"I think Lady Thatcher saw the need for change," he said.

"And I think whatever disagreements you have with her about certain policies - there was a large amount of unemployment at the time which perhaps could have been dealt with - we have got to understand that she saw the need for change.

"I also admire the fact that she is a conviction politician ... I am a conviction politician like her."

Blair was also an admirer. this is Simon Jenkins on Blair

"Blair never criticised Thatcher. In 1995 he lauded her as "a radical, not a Tory". He told the New York Times that Labour would be "unelectable" if it dismantled Thatcherism, one of the things "the 1980s got right". The lady returned the compliment, remarking during the 1997 election that he was "a man who won't let Britain down". She was the first VIP ? before any Labour figure ? whom Blair invited to Downing Street. He was obsessed by her good opinion, like Odysseus panting at the sirens' call but blocking his colleagues' ears.

In office Blair was a true fundamentalist. He adored Thatcher's policies on law and order, refusing penal reform. He carried privatisation far beyond what she had tolerated, fuelled by his affection for high finance and private wealth. He mimicked Thatcher's belligerence in foreign affairs, loving to be thought "not wobbly". Even his "regrets" have a Thatcherite tinge: the foxhunting ban and freedom of information."

She was the first PM I voted for, she started a revolution that shook the world called Thatcherism. She made a difference to a country that had lost its way and as on its last legs. Like other posters I remember the grim 1970s. We are back there again. The irony of that.

She was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth and she was a woman in a man's world.

I utterly despise those who say they would dance on her grave when she dies. That more than anything shows what the left really are, utterly vile and tribal and dont care a stuff for their country.

She made mistakes, but considering where she started from - who wouldn't. Literally everything was broken.

to those who say that she never lost a general election and that people voted for her:

she changed the boundaries so that she would get more seats!!!!

There's a Boundary Commission review every decade or so. I think that's not hugely relevant, to be honest.

it is in my world, UQD

@galletti.... If there had been a Lib-Lab coalition government after 1992 to rescue the nation from the evil destruction of Margaret Thatcher & the Conservatives and rebuild the shattered nation in the socialist mould you might have a point. But there wasn't, and you don't.

I know about the discounts Aura - my question is why were they given it? Social housing should be kept for those who need it, it should never have been sold to anyone.