Im putting this up to as a survey. Its about Thatcher.

[ivanhoe]

How many people on this site believe Thatcher created a cult of individualism in this country ?

Also, if you believe Thatcher had the power to destroy society/communities.

How do you think she did this ?

As you know, not me!

I don't believe Thatcher created a cult of individualism. The tax-cuts meant that working people suddenly had more money in their wallet but I think she was merely the one in the hotseat when we decided to shake off the drudgery of the seventies. Same as I don't think Wilson created the sixties cult of permissiveness and liberality - it would have happened anyway as a backlash to the repression of the fifties.

A miner would say she destroyed communities but, remembering the miserable times of the strike-ridden seventies when the lights would go out with no warning and my Dad - not a miner but a manual worker - was reduced to work a three day week.... I think industrial communities were already fighting a losing battle to survive in their post-war form. Communities were destroyed in part because they tried to stand still.

Chil1234, Ivanhoe believes that the 70s was some sort of golden era for the British. He would rather see the contry brought to a standstill than see it prosper.

It would be interesting to know the age of respondents. Those of us who are old enough to really witness first-hand the 1970s (probably 50ish and over) are likely to have a rather different view to those younger.

onimolap - yes I agree. Those of us (age 47) who really lived through it remeber the 3 day week, the power cuts, the sight of piles of rubbish on Leicester Square, the absolute hypocricy of the unions, the cowardice of successive Govts, the sense of hopelessness, the IMF being called in.

I remember people voting Thatcher in and wanting her to take a tough line.

Why don't we move on from ther past? and concentrate on the present?
We can't change the past, and can blame goverments' Priminsters' to the cows come home, it does not change anything.

We can't predict the future, but perhaps we can have a positive input into the present.

We shouldn't get stuck in the past, you're right, but we can always learn from history. (I'm mid-forties as well btw.) The lesson of the seventies, I believe, was that there is no point digging in heels and demanding life carry on unchanged when the rest of the world is surging past and doing something different and/or better. The USA is going through something similar at the moment.

Yes that is a very good point about the USA.

I listen to US business TV a lot during the day and the dialogue there from business people and politicians is so very reminiscent of the 1970s in the UK. I have said it before and I know it horrifies people but I feel there is a very high probability that the USA will choose Sarah Palin as President for the very same reason the UK chose Margaret Thatcher.

The mood is the same, the rise of the Tea Party from a disillushioned middle America. Its the same feeling of hopelessness that the UK had - a sense that something as to change and that a leader who is 'different' is what Amercia will choose. They tried a black man but he turned out no different. That is way I think they will choose a woman next time.

/////Chil1234, Ivanhoe believes that the 70s was some sort of golden era for the British. He would rather see the contry brought to a standstill than see it prosper.//////

magicbutterfly and others on here, clearly believe that the working man and woman should never srike for better pay nd conditions, shame on the lot of you for betraying your own class.

Thatcher took this country and as proven here, robbed it of its soul and sense of human decency.

Thatcher legacy was a huge rich and poor devide in Britain, including mass homelessness, and deprivation, across the generations.

Pensioners had to wait for seven days in cold weather before being allowed to claim means tested benefits, young children had their free school milk stolen, and ordinary working class people had council houses taken from while others bought theirs.

Thatcher made greed acceptable.

But clearly on this site you lot are abe to forget all this

///////Yes that is a very good point about the USA.

I listen to US business TV a lot during the day and the dialogue there from business people and politicians is so very reminiscent of the 1970s in the UK. I have said it before and I know it horrifies people but I feel there is a very high probability that the USA will choose Sarah Palin as President for the very same reason the UK chose Margaret Thatcher.

The mood is the same, the rise of the Tea Party from a disillushioned middle America. Its the same feeling of hopelessness that the UK had - a sense that something as to change and that a leader who is 'different' is what Amercia will choose. They tried a black man but he turned out no different. That is way I think they will choose a woman next time.///////

I have a friend in America, in Doylestown he and I are on same wavelengh, ie, that largely both the American's and the British are completely politically thick.

America's middle classes are the same as Britain's middle classes, they are like bloody ten year olds, they want everything, but they dont want to pay for it.

So the whole 'survey' thing was just a ruse then? Thought you wanted to know other people's opinons for a change.

////magicbutterfly Sat 29-Jan-11 09:07:39
Chil1234, Ivanhoe believes that the 70s was some sort of golden era for the British. He would rather see the contry brought to a standstill than see it prosper.////

A point about the 70's, I left school in the 60s and started work ammediately, I then went from job to job with ease, never the threat of unemployment until Thatcher took office in 1979, and things for this country went downhill due to Thatcher's privatisation laying people off for profit, and it's still happening today.

So you haven't worked since 1979?

The shape of the workforce was very different in the post-war years, because of the number of working age men who had been killed in the 1940s. The impact of the demographics (when young men were no longer culled, many crippling diseases were largely conquered, with a baby boom and before family size was controllable through reliable contraception) had major implications for employment levels regardless of who was in government.

"It would be interesting to know the age of respondents. Those of us who are old enough to really witness first-hand the 1970s (probably 50ish and over) are likely to have a rather different view to those younger."

Spot on. I am 52 and remember the three day week, power cuts, privatisation of all the nationalised industries and the miner's strike, and most of all Margaret Thatcher milk snatcher.

I think she helped to create a culture of greed and consumerism.

I think she blighted communities by hammering industry - many communities depended on a skilled manufacturing industry that no longer exists. Destroyed income and also self respect.

I also wonder where our North Sea Oil revenue went to ? Subsidised unemployment and privatisation probably.

I am mid 40s by the way and remember the late 70s - albeit as a child.

Change is inevitable - but ideological dogma can materially alter the way change is managed. Similar to our current situation I fear.

I agree throckenholt. Remember yuppies?

/////Chil1234 Sat 29-Jan-11 12:59:02
So you haven't worked since 1979?////

Good god yes, of course, and still am.

But what if I hadnt ?

//////throckenholt Sat 29-Jan-11 13:18:28
I think she helped to create a culture of greed and consumerism.

I think she blighted communities by hammering industry - many communities depended on a skilled manufacturing industry that no longer exists. Destroyed income and also self respect./////

Brilliantly observed.

"But what if I hadn't?"

You seemed to be implying earlier that you were in regular employment until 1979 when suddenly the policies of privatisation, being laid off for profit etc., made you unemployable. And if that's not the case then what's your point?

///////throckenholt Sat 29-Jan-11 13:18:28
I think she helped to create a culture of greed and consumerism.

I think she blighted communities by hammering industry - many communities depended on a skilled manufacturing industry that no longer exists. Destroyed income and also self respect.////

Again I respond.

Thatcher put millions on the dole where they could be controlled by their Tory masters.

Where they could be chastised by their not so unfortunate fellow countrymen who still fail to see any further than their own front door, and this is the very subtle way our Society and communities have collapsed.

////////Chil1234 Sat 29-Jan-11 14:02:09
"But what if I hadn't?"

You seemed to be implying earlier that you were in regular employment until 1979 when suddenly the policies of privatisation, being laid off for profit etc., made you unemployable. And if that's not the case then what's your point?////

Maybe I could have worded my response slightly better.

In anycase i've always worked, and stll am.

But what if I had said to you that I hadnt worked since 1979, what would your reponse have been to that ?

"Many communities depended on skilled manufacturing industry that no longer exists"

Many communities in the early 20th century relied on the sale and management of horses. When the internal combution engine came in, the smart ones retrained as mechanics...

Ivanhoe, your habit of using ///// instead of quote marks is very annoying - are you having a keyboard malfuntion?