Dh and I get on well ususally, then he sings the praises of Margaret Thatcher and I want to punch him.........

[DrNortherner]

Why oh why did I marry a tory

Aaaaargh....................

Help me with a list of things she did not do well:

Poll tax
Closure of industry
Privatisation of services
Crap schools
Belgrano

murmurs 'arise ye starvlings from ye slumbers...' gently singing to self to sleep...

The Falklands was nothing to d owith "protecting British interests abroad."

Thatcher knew she was going to lose the 1983 election - her, and her party's popularity in the polls was in the sub-basement, and going down.

The Argentinians were making their intentions plain about the Falkland Islands ( Malvinas to them). Their landing on South Georgia was expected, and the Brits. did nothing diplomatically at all. IT was a military godsend to Thatcher. She willingly sacrificed those soldiers to save her own bacon.

And the Belgrano?? Legitiamte target. Delusional rubbish.

And it wasn't a "War" - the govt. called it a 'conflict' as declaring war brought legal responsibilities...like trying to come to a diplomatic solution before military engagement, and a solution would not have served her purpose.

So it's a sharp left jab to set his chin...and then a swift right upper cut.

Tony Blair learned his war-mongering ways from Mrs Thatcher. He saw it helped her win elections.

There's a wholel lot of sickening stuff about Alistair Campbell boasting how Blair had had a "good" war in Kosovo.

Very different from Harold Wilson making sure that the UK stayed out of the Vietnam war.

@PrunersOfEight

Right to buy = getting people tied to mortgages = scared to default = no longer free to strike

clever but essentially evil

This.

15 year old zombie thread! Though admittedly an interesting topic.

💙💙

Thatcher did some terrible things - the selloff of council houses without provision for replacement was probably among the worst - but compared to what passes for a Tory these days she was a beacon of goodness and decency. She'd never have been thick enough to leave the EU for starters, she knew which side the UK's economic bread was buttered.

Her homophobia?

OMG I was going to say what is it with all these leftist threads and then I noticed the date of this one. They've always moaned, just more of them lately!

I don't think complaining about our current corrupt shower of shit government is particularly 'leftist'. The majority of my previously Tory voting family will not be voting for them next time round - they're planning to not vote at all. The Conservative party needs root and branch reform to bring them out of the proto-fascist state they are currently in.

People (well, some) loved Thatcher at the time because she essentially sold off state assets to bribe them. Buy shares in newly-privatised utilities, we’ll be a shareholding democracy! Be a homeowner, buy your council house! Or even be a landlord, that’s your pension sorted!

People loved this in the short term because it seemingly rewarded “aspiration” and shrewdness. However in the long term it had the effect of consolidating what were previously collective assets in the hands of a small group of people, resulting in colossal class inequality & generational unfairness.

Ask your husband, how do we enact Thatcherism now then? We can’t, for the simple reason that there is nothing left to sell off! “The problem with Thatcherism is you eventually run out of other people’s assets.”

Won't read it all because my blood pressure doesn't need to be reminded of everything that made my life so shit.

However, one that he probably won't be keen on is that she was fully in favour of sickness benefit and spearheaded the move to place people on long term entitlements without any requirement to be seeking work or looking into becoming (I fucking hate this phrase) Ready for Work/Work Related Activity. Might have been for any number of reasons (getting the numbers down for unemployment, thought they were a waste of space and weren't worth bothering about, get them on sickness benefit and then they weren't starving to death/out of sight, out of mind, because she thought they were sick so shouldn't be be expected to work, it was cheaper than constant monitoring, assessments, job clubs and sanctions, whatever...) but when it comes down to it, her government introduced the idea that if you had a long term medical condition, you claimed a benefit and that was it for the rest of your life.

So every time he rages about people on The Sick and not working as a Lifestyle Choice, that's all down to Thatcher.

OTOH: She came out in favour of Scots independence, provided a majority of Scots voted for it. Strangely the SNP never seldom mention the fact. Also she had a hell of a lot more support in 1979 than people today (most of whom weren't there) would have you believe. The 1970s were easily the worst decade I have ever lived through (born 1950s). She didn't spring up out of nowhere.

Thatcher had qualities I admire. I couldn't agree with her policies, but OP's DH could have worse blind spots.

I don't honestly get it. Labour closed more mines. I agree our manufacturing base has been dismantled but that's on everyone. She held her own and held to the free market. Labour did the same thing. There's no need for the rage. Enter into normal discussions without one side being evil. There are no good guys. I agree btw with mistakes that were made but polarisation between good and bad is wrong for democratically elected gov. All this Tory scum is rubbish

Poll tax didn't happen though did it?