I come from a coal mining family, industries were wrecked by Maggie but continued to be wrecked under Labour too. At the end of the day, love or hate Maggie, she is an British icon. RIP. Black MY2013 SD4 GS Auto, Wood Company Armrest, Freel2 sticker.
Gone MY2010 Freelander 2 Manual TD4.e S, Alaska White.

JST wrote:

Funny how recollections differ Pegleg. When I had a mortgage, the rate was at it's highest int he 80s...but like I say, funny thing memories...

Probably why the rate came down then  Another member of the failed FL2 clutch/DMF club, twice.

landy19840 wrote:

I did not realise there was so much hate for the old girl!! I guess I am to young too

No it was people at work actually! I was a little shocked

There's a pub near me offering a free pint, because she's died

Disgusting, in my opinion, people still need to greave Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

when Margaret Thatcher took over this country it was on it's knees, crippled by the fat cat unions who thought that they ran the country. ( and they actually did !! )

she made some tough decisions, but brought the country back on it's feet.

sure it was tough for a lot of people, including me, but it had to be done and she done it.

God bless you Maggie, we could do with you back in power again to sort out this country !!

Iain

Sorry Ian, I have to disagree. Here are some of the reasons


1: She, as Minister for Education, removed the free supply of milk to Infant and Junior school children despite the fact that for the vast majority of those kids it was their only secure daily source of essential calcium. This was especially important for girls. MT ignored the medical advice that removal of free school milk will lead to an explosion of osteoporosis in middle aged women. This is precisely what happened to those girls thirty years later, and for which the NHS is now paying the price.

2: As PM she appointed Chancellor Lamont who's budgetary policies she approved led to the UK highest rates of business closures and bank interest rates. The latter resulting an historic high of 15% basic mortgage interest rate.

3: As PM her insistence on moving Britain into a majority "Service" as opposed to "Manufacturing" based economy accelerated the decline of "Made in Britain". As opposed to being net exporters of white electrical goods the UK, by the end of her second term of office, became a net importer thereby substantial impacting on the nation's ability to pay its own way.

4: As the first ever UK PM to engage in industrial warfare MT closed down a critical national asset - coal mining. Why.

5: Well none of these policies (2,3 & 4) would have been possible without North Sea Oil. At the beginning of her premiership NSO was just coming on stream. Firstly the revenue from this "liquid gold" funded all that unemployment and social benefit system allowances, the legacy of which even today Osbourne/Cameron are struggling to find the funds to support. Secondly, the NSO was seen by many of MT's cabinet advisors to be the immediate and cheap fuel replacement for all the coal that would no longer be coming out of the ground. Oil, and British oil will be firing the nation's power stations of the future (later NS gas came into play)

To put her "wisdom" in the spotlight one only has to look at the other nation that at the same time began to receive NSO - Norway.

A) That nation spent its oil revenues much more wisely in investing for the future in their nation's infrastructure roads, bridges, tunnels and railways (MT - stated she disliked trains so she closed down what at the time was Europe's leading rail technology centre in Derby - the centre that gave the world (on a shoe string budget) its first tilting train which her Transport Ministry rushed into service on her orders before the rail techs said it was ready. Their technologies were sold off and adopted by other nations!

B) The Norwegens established a fully integrated national grid of electricity and water so these assets can be distributed to anywhere within the state despite their extraordinarily difficult terrain (as opposed to the UK's fragile power transmission lines and areas of drought n plenty)

C) In the Norwegen health care and educational systems (instead of Blighty's privatised university system and woefully inadequate underfunded MT NHS)

D) And the Norwegen government establish a national pension ring fenced fond [so that no successive government could use that capital] to funded the nation's old age pension basic requirements. (MT spent in her time and did not invest for the future - she didn't need to - Dennis was a multi millionaire executive of, surprise surprise, a major player in the NSO business - Burmah Oil) John
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no problem John, it would be a boring old world if we all agreed.

Iain

@JST yes, that's the thatcher I remember and will always hate. I saw my own family and those living around me really hit rock bottom when she was in power. An arrogant woman who would listen to no one. Who ignored the lower classes and instituted the greed culture we have today. RIP, no, rot in hell!

I think s ting on someone's grave is a bit over the top, tyrants not included. Her policies made things tough for my family in the 80's, but a few years down the line they also created opportunity to prosper yet again. We now have a modernised society, a leader in the banking world. Sure, things like taking free milk from kids was a sore point, but a premier who sticks to their guns is much better than one who backs down at the first opposition, especially one who overall does far more good than bad.

As for the miners...well coming from Yorkshire we were in the thick of it. When the strike started our business stopped overnight. But just look at how they behaved...like spoilt kids. All Maggie did was want to privatise public services, and who, after watching the striking miners beating up and murdering fellow miners for not going on a (illegal) strike would want to take that over? Same for B.L, if they got their heads down and just did a good job, likes Brits used to be known for then it wouldn't have disappeared as alarmingly as it did. The unions bred spoilt kids, and that was what brought down the mining and auto industry.

People with a sound argument are always entitled to disagree, but I'm already getting fed up of the grief she's getting now, with not enough people sticking up for the good things she did. She's a well respected woman the world over, yet only in our country would idiots dare to have a party when such an influential person has died, and worse still, get away and get press for it.

Just to show how decent she was; in the 80's, her son Mark went missing on the Paris-Dakar rally. When the RAF found him, Maggie paid the cost of the mission. Apparently it took her ages to get a figure out of the search team, as they were adamant it would come under 'normal operations', but she insisted and paid in full.

And how much does it cost the taxpayers in second homes, personal cleaners, moats etc for out of touch mp's?

Lets have a bit of respect, people have had plenty of time to put her down, don't do it now she's not here. Mine: 2012 Golf GTI Edition 35
Family's: 2009 Freelander 2 HSE TD4 Auto, Stornoway

Yorkshire - God's County

Last edited by Big Dave on 9th Apr 2013 9:05 am. Edited 1 time in total

I'd like to hear how JST remembers Tony Blair. You know, that privately educated labour fella that now owns 6, yes 6, fantastic houses and has amassed more than 20 million, yes million, pounds since leaving office. A labour leader! Who'd have thought someone in that position could turn out to be so greedy?

Whatever mistakes Maggie Thatcher made (and there's no disputing she made a few), rightly or wrongly at all times she believed she was doing it for the good of this country and not for personal gain of her and her cronies. Unlike Blair who sent many of our sons to their death for other reasons. He's done quite well out of the mess he's left this country in, wouldn't you agree?

Politics, eh. Certainly divides opinion doesn't it?  Past: FL2 TD4 HSE Auto
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Errr, nope, no respect.

There are none so bitter, disrespectful and utterly vile as the Left, as we have seen over the last 24 hours. Not only do they have very blinkered and short term memories, they cannot respect anyone right of centre, living or dead. An utterly repulsive lot, and if anything is systematic of the "something for nothing, greed greed greed" culture, then they are it.

Flame away! Foraging near Gaydon....
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To be honest Steve I don't have a lot of time for any of our political leaders including Blair. I do not want to stomp on Maggie's grave but at the same time I find it hard to ignore what she did.

It is interesting to see that what Blair did do was to move politics to the centre. By this I mean that he profited from the Tories" extreme right wing stance and saw that the looney left was never going to cut it with the electorate. Cameron, Clegg at al are all now trying to occupy this "middle ground" as they know that to do otherwise is political suicide. It just proves the current truth of the saying that it doesn't matter who you vote for, the government still gets in!

PS I still wonder how Ed Milliband finds time to fit his school homework in! John
07 HSE Narvick Black
Land Rover Series One
Triumph Rocket 111 (sadly gone!)

I can't see her funeral passing off too smoothly.  
Hung like Einstein, smart as a horse.