Ex-Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher dies

[Mungler]

It was 'Runcemount's' post.

 

There's a village in Wales somewhere missing its...

 

[al4x]

I guess we aren't meaning the only gay?

[imissalot]

 

 

They will never allow that to get to number 1 in the charts...

 

What I can remember, I certainly will be downloading it....

 

Welsh and proud! **** off ye old bint![/size]

 

WITCH

Wonder if you will be the same when scargiil dies

[al4x]

I might be when bob crow pops his clogs that is well worth celebrating

[dorianbuilders]

The debate is pointless. Opinions are entrenched and nothing anyone posts will make the slightest difference.

 

Let her rest in peace.

Well said.

[Mungler]

Says it all really.....

 

 

 

 

 

And.......

 

 

 

Edited April 11, 2013 by Mungler

[keg]

what she could have done was use her windfall north sea oil revenue to support industry rather than use it to cover the cost of throwing 2 million onto the dole and lord knows how many more on to benefit, after all we now have the worst effect of her policies IE no Industry millions on the dole and no family silver left to sell to bale us out.so yeah she did a great job, that is of beggering the country I for one wont forget, neither will my area and I object to the please respect her brigade what respect did she show the Durham mining communities, I will tell you NON

 

KW

So in other words continue to subsidise rather than invest in growth....She has been out of govt for 20 years. Nothing to do with Brown and Blair and their policies.

[keg]

the truth was you could not import cheaper you were buying a SUBSIDISED product subsidised by govts that could see what would happen if they lost their industry.

 

Scargill was a fool,that doesn't mean Thatcher didn't have an agenda to bring close the mines before any strike was called..Scargill being who he was, incited the NUM members to call for a strike which he was only too happy to sanction. Thatcher knew he'd do this, aided and abetted by Ian Mc Gregor, a tycoon shipped in who knew jack about what impact mine closures would have on people's lives and cared even less. His wife famously asked 'I don't understand why the miners are so belligerent''! She obviously hadn't been in a position whereby the village or community that was home for many thousands of families was only there because of the mine. It doesn't take a great deal of working out what happens when the mine is shut down..bear in mind, just as with the redundancies from British Steel, it wasn't just the jobs in those industries that went. The supporting trades and services went too. Shops, workshops, dealer ships, pubs, cafes..all went. Mc Gregor described the miners as the enemy within..And he was their boss.. The head of the company to which his employees had given up to forty years of their working lives as 'the enemy within'..

 

KW

So should we keep subsidising those industries for ever? Most of us on here have been through redundancy as our respective industries have changed and have had to travel away from our communities, why should mining be any different?

 

This is what I cant get my head around, if the mines were competitive what did she possibly have to gain by closing them?

That's the point, they weren't and are still not. One day in the future they may be again.

[Paul223]

>>>>>what she could have done was use her windfall north sea oil revenue to support industry<<<<< ha laughable, how long would that have lasted eh, may be bought another 5 years? with thoughts like that how could we ever become a profitable nation? or may be you believe in communism? privatise the pair of em and let them stand alone or die a death

 

edited to add ..... then tax their production to create revenue!

Edited April 11, 2013 by Paul223

[keg]

I too live in a mining (ex) area,

 

There is still a blinkered approach to Thatcher, nobody round here will even concede that Thatcher Did anything but shut the mines,

 

She was in power for 3 terms and all she did was shut the mines?

 

Most miners, and I say most were constantly nicking stuff from the pits, boots/coats/tools/building equipment/engineering supplies,

 

The waste was unbelievable........no business can sustain that kind of abuse, They killed the goose that layed the golden egg, unions kept telling them to ask for more and more, and labour constantly gave it to them.....

 

Unions at the outset were outstanding, improved pay/working conditions/safety. THEN the militants and communists took over and the rest is history.

 

Look at the tube drivers in London, VERY well payed which included bank holidays xmas etc, then the unions decided that they wanted more money for working bankholidays and xmas, they had already agreed to the pay.

 

Look at the wages the union leaders are on, then look at their benefits that come with it, subsidised housing/travel. The unions need to take a good look at themselves then decide who is to blame for closures etc

 

But they wont, its all Thatchers/tories fault.....

 

I really do despair at times....

 

Oh and Scargill is still busy sueing the NUM because he wants his house rent free for life!!

 

kdubya, you obviously care passionately about your case, but its wrong, you can make statistics show anything you want but at least get them right first

 

Well summarised Shaun, and as I used to drive past Scargill's house every Sunday to see my gran, I can assure everybody that it wasn't the standard NCB house his brother miners lived in.

[old rooster]

So in other words continue to subsidise rather than invest in growth....She has been out of govt for 20 years. Nothing to do with Brown and Blair and their policies.

The hard to swallow reality was that the union leaders played on the avaricious nature of the largely uneducated rank and file members and in many areas of industry encouraged them to vote in favour of restrictive practices and ridiculous wage rises knowing that these would eventually render those businesses uncompetitive. It worked and the really shameful thing is that the greedy members effectively struck themselves out of jobs and then needed somebody else to blame. They didn't blame the labour governments who presided over the rapid decline caused by this overtly communist backed destruction but the person who put the brakes on in the form of dear old Maggie!

 

There are parallels in what we face today; labour having allowed the economy to "grow" by borrowing massively and the greedy members of the public borrowing way beyond their means. The chickens were always going to come home to roost at some point and the bill picked up by the same people who get hit every time. The people who took out 120% mortgages which they have since defaulted are no worse off than before, they didn't have a house then and a lot of them don't have a house now but they had the use of one at a very cheap rate and the 20% to pi$$ up the wall on a good holiday or similar. The banks were to blame, the lack of control over them also but the borrowers have to accept some responsibility as the banks could never have done it without them! Who is getting the blame this time?? Not Bliar and brown but the people who have got to clear up the mess left by them. History repeating itself yet again.

Edited April 11, 2013 by old rooster

[keg]

and some of it is written by those old enough like ME to have actually endured her vitriol 1st hand so show some bloody respect for them eh!

 

I take no joy from the death a woman suffering from dementia who died apparently alone in a hotel room whilst her loving family where busy being "important" but whilst she was in power I admit I hated her with a vengeance and I find it hard to swallow the guff of how good she was ,when the truth was she wasn't, she cared not a jot about the working man, she along with her husband (remember him) sold out the shipyards on the Tees to Trafalgar house I wonder who had big big stakes in them? no she was a manipulative business woman and good at it but she was never a leader.

KW

The shipyards that the unions ran and did themselves out of work when someone else managed it cheaper, on time and on budget. Mainly because the did not have the same "one man one job" demarcation. Same with the docks strike when new working practises came in.

 

Dinosaurs come to mind, if you don't adapt and change then you will become extinct. In fairness, the management of some of the nationalised industries didn't help but overall, the unions, after doing a great job many years earlier, just got power crazy.

 

Talking of unions. Jack Jones, biggest traitor ever.

[keg]

The real problem was you had communities of people all with just one way of making a living much like we see in the old western films in the gold rush a town springs up around a coal silver gold etc etc mine then when for whatever reason it is no longer viable to dig the stuff out the people move on to find new jobs but in this country we expect the government to wave a magic wand and a new factory suddenly apears with work for all of the miners.

 

This hole thing could have been handled better the problem was you had to pig headed people Thacher and Scargill if the miners had diched him then things could have been handled in a much more managed way most of the mines had to close but it should have been done over a much longer time scale.

Good point FWD, I think had Scargill bent just a bit previously then this would have been possible but by this stage no one trusted him and I think Maggie thought "stuff it"

[old rooster]

The shipyards that the unions ran and did themselves out of work when someone else managed it cheaper, on time and on budget. Mainly because the did not have the same "one man one job" demarcation. Same with the docks strike when new working practises came in.

 

Dinosaurs come to mind, if you don't adapt and change then you will become extinct. In fairness, the management of some of the nationalised industries didn't help but overall, the unions, after doing a great job many years earlier, just got power crazy.

 

Talking of unions. Jack Jones, biggest traitor ever.

Traitor is the right word for those scumbags, people just can't see who was running them at the time!! Financial disruption of any country during conflict is very useful and we were bang in the middle of a very dangerous "cold war" at the time. Had the disruption not been halted when it was I have often wondered how much further down the toilet we needed to go before the next phase would have been implemented? Really scary stuff and the shameful thing is that our own people let themselves be hoodwinked into letting it happen.

[keg]

Perhaps this thread points to what Thatcher really did to Britain - divided it.

No, new Labour did that, we are too small an island to operate as 3 independent countries.

[keg]

The greed of the workers who thought the unions gave a flying **** about what happened to them caused that!! They don't like to face up to that truth but that is what they allowed to happen rather than understanding the commercial reality of the situation the country was being pushed into. If the rank and file had stood up to the likes of Scargill they could never have wreaked the havoc that they did, backed by their communist sponsors in the USSR.

+1 And what I found funny is like all good socialists and commies in this country ( Mr Crow??) , none of them would live in China, the old Russia or Cuba.... Animal Farm all over again.

[keg]

Run that same poll in Yorkshire, or the Northeast, & it'll be a different story....

Not in Yorkshire overall, maybe in South Yorks. West Yorks did well under Maggie.

[keg]

Just a quick observation, but people keep referring to MT winning 3 elections as a sign of her greatness, so do they feel the same about Blair who did the same? This is just an observation and not an invitation to explain more of her wondrous deeds.

 

Blair was very good, but was so close to the right he could do no wrong. What did he change when he came in?... just a continuation of Tory policies but spending loads of money we didn't have. That's partly why we are in the position we are in.

[keg]

The hard to swallow reality was that the union leaders played on the avaricious nature of the largely uneducated rank and file members and in many areas of industry encouraged them to vote in favour of restrictive practices and ridiculous wage rises knowing that these would eventually render those businesses uncompetitive. It worked and the really shameful thing is that the greedy members effectively struck themselves out of jobs and then needed somebody else to blame. They didn't blame the labour governments who presided over the rapid decline caused by this overtly communist backed destruction but the person who put the brakes on in the form of dear old Maggie!

 

There are parallels in what we face today; labour having allowed the economy to "grow" by borrowing massively and the greedy members of the public borrowing way beyond their means. The chickens were always going to come home to roost at some point and the bill picked up by the same people who get hit every time. The people who took out 120% mortgages which they have since defaulted are no worse off than before, they didn't have a house then and a lot of them don't have a house now but they had the use of one at a very cheap rate and the 20% to pi$$ up the wall on a good holiday or similar. The banks were to blame, the lack of control over them also but the borrowers have to accept some responsibility as the banks could never have done it without them! Who is getting the blame this time?? Not Bliar and brown but the people who have got to clear up the mess left by them. History repeating itself yet again.

I have been saying the same for a while Rooster, it was not just the bankers. Public sector grew by over a million under new Labour.

[keg]

Sorry for the many posts, just back on line so catching up. Unless I read any more lies as Gordon says, time to leave the good Lady in Peace.

[ack-ack]

I sincerely hope that those with nothing good to say stay away from Baroness Thatchers send off. As Simon Weston said on the news last night, he respects peoples right to protest but a funeral is not the time. Half of the fools that were jumping up and down waving shoddy placards etc would have turned up to protest about literally anything. I don't get the whole flash mob thing, these idiots are just sheep.

 

I salute the opposition for their largely measured respectful response in the house (with the exception of Glenda Jackson who spat vitriol like some old wino sitting on a park bench hurling abuse at the pigeons).

Edited April 11, 2013 by ack-ack

[al4x]

I sincerely hope that those with nothing good to say stay away from Baroness Thatchers send off. As Simon Weston said on the news last night, he respects peoples right to protest but a funeral is not the time. Half of the fools that were jumping up and down waving shoddy placards etc would have turned up to protest about literally anything. I don't get the whole flash mob thing, these idiots are just sheep.

 

Its interesting when you look at the protesters how young most are, so either its mostly rent a mob or their parents such as Kudubya having such a chip on their shoulder that they have twisted their childrens minds on the subject. I'd like to see Simon Harwood wheeled out for the funeral policing so any that have severe dis respect can have a good beating but I guess thats not very politically correct these days.

[Reece]

Its interesting when you look at the protesters how young most are, so either its mostly rent a mob or their parents such as Kudubya having such a chip on their shoulder that they have twisted their childrens minds on the subject. I'd like to see Simon Harwood wheeled out for the funeral policing so any that have severe dis respect can have a good beating but I guess thats not very politically correct these days.

 

There was a news article about the street parties celebrating her death. One of the people there was asked by a journalist about why he was there. He said that he wasn't alive during Thatcher's years in power, but his parents never said anything good about her.

[Twistedsanity]

I sincerely hope that those with nothing good to say stay away from Baroness Thatchers send off. As Simon Weston said on the news last night, he respects peoples right to protest but a funeral is not the time. Half of the fools that were jumping up and down waving shoddy placards etc would have turned up to protest about literally anything. I don't get the whole flash mob thing, these idiots are just sheep.

 

I salute the opposition for their largely measured respectful response in the house (with the exception of Glenda Jackson who spat vitriol like some old wino sitting on a park bench hurling abuse at the pigeons).

What opposition? The benches were sparsely populated to say the least, one thing she did hit the nail on the head with is that maggies legacy is that people today know the price of everything but the value of nothing

[FalconFN]

Blair was very good, but was so close to the right he could do no wrong. What did he change when he came in?... just a continuation of Tory policies but spending loads of money we didn't have. That's partly why we are in the position we are in.

Minimum wage, better funding for the NHS and education, including loads of new schools, decreased unemployment, oversaw 10 years of growth with low inflation........but then he went and ballsed it all up by invading Iraq.