What with Thatchers 80th birthday (when will the witch ever die?) and this post over at Stumbling and Mumbling, it seemed as good a time as ever to dig out this old article of mine about why I hate her so much.
20 REASONS WHY I HATE THATCHER
1. As Education secretary under Edward Heath in a foretaste of what is to come, stops free milk for school children. No chance of the widely praised 'free fruit' scheme ever being Tory policy! She later deregulates school meals so all they have on the menu is burger and chips! The health of the nation was not something Thatcher thought any of her concern.
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2. Shamelessly uses the 'race card' to get elected PM in 1979! (Though I wont claim her to be the first Tory leader to use this and certainly not the last!) "We are being flooded!" she asserts despite figures showing emigration higher than immigration and immigration at its lowest post-war level. Her idols are Keith Joseph (who ruined his own chance of being leader with a demon eyed rant on TV about sterilising the poor (I jest not!!)) and Enoch Powell (the 'intellectual' racist). She promotes Keith 'Eugenics' Joseph to Education Minister!
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3. Monetarism! Disastrous policy of trying to control money supply. In the first of her two recessions (the worst since the 1930's), one fifth of our industrial base is wiped out and unemployment is more than doubled, there are summer riots in every inner-city in the country. Not bad for her first 2 years in office! In the first of many U-turns (see point on 'myth of strong leader'), she abandons monetarism. Polls predict Labour landslide and despite the resolute support of the press, she is the most unpopular PM on record. How could she possibly get out of this one?
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4. The Falklands! In a gross piece of incompetence (or was it deliberate?) fails to avert the Falklands crisis by ignoring intelligence on the Argentine preparation for invasion in early 1982. Indeed she seems to positively encourage it by proposing scrapping the only warship we have there and having her defence secretary Nicholas Ridley openly say we didn't want the Falklands, thereby giving the impression we are not bothered about the islands! In 1978 when faced with the same intelligence, the Labour government quietly averts a war through diplomatic channels by threatening to send a taskforce. It's the classic tale, to divert attention from disastrous economic policies at home a crooked leader engages in a foreign war (except I'm not talking about Galtieri!). Perhaps Thatcher was getting advise from some of the brutal dictatorships she helped prop up in South America, "Would you like some more tea Mr Pinochet?". Number of British soldiers killed, 278, Argentines, 3000+. Blood on her hands anyone?
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5. Destruction of local democracy. The beauty of not having a written constitution, having the backing of the press, having a massive majority in parliament (despite only getting 42% of the vote, less than 1 in 3 of the electorate) and having a permanent inbuilt Tory hereditory second chamber is that Tory PMs can do whatever they like. If you dont like local democracy because they vote for someone else, just abolish it like Thatcher did and centralise everything from Whitehall and unelected Quangos who you carefully select. (Yes, Thatcher invented Quasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations.) The popular GLC was scrapped despite over 80% of Londoners being opposed. Londoners have to wait over 13 years before getting an assembly back and electing Livingstone as its leader once again.
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6. Politicising the civil service. See point about QUANGOs above. Also if you dont like what statistics the statistics office is publishing, make sure you stop them collecting the statistics and stop them publishing them. The figures that were published on individual wealth and earnings each year were abolished in this way. The Office for National Statistics like the Bank of England was made independent by this Labour government and yes they have started publishing the wealth and earnings figures again.
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7. Regressive Taxation. Under Thatcher VAT increased from 8% to 17.5% and was also levied on utility bills for the first time as well. What she gave the rich in income tax cuts she took from the poor in indirect taxation. The proportion of GDP spent by the government under Thatcher stayed fairly static at around 40%. The difference was that rather than spend it on the NHS, housing or education she spent the money on defence, a massive expansion of the civil service (see point 6), paying the huge unemployment bill, and rising police salaries to keep them loyal in the face of massive civil unrest. The best part of all was that she shifted the burden of payment for all this onto the poor from the rich.
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8. The widening gap between rich and poor. This might not be such a bad thing if the gap had not been so massive in the first place. How can the richest 50% owning 97% of the wealth be fair? This was her starting position she moved wealth almost exclusively to the richest 10% at the expense of the poorest 50%.
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9. Spend, spend, spend! Abolishing credit controls seemed such a good idea, the economy booms on a consumer spending bubble....cue second crippling recession. Thanks Margaret! Not to mention the misery caused to millions of people suckered into debts and negative equity! Spend, spend, spend also applied to government borrowing which despite claims of financial prudence increased massively under Thatcher to fund income tax cuts for the rich.
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10. Homelessness for the young. Why should homelessness be the preserve of ageing tramps who remember the 1930's. No! Thatcher thought the opportunities should be open to all. Young beggars on the streets were Thatcher's invention. The legacy of massive youth unemployment and crime no-go areas for the police are still being fought today. There is a whole generation of people where crime and welfare culture was their only way of surviving and it became their mindset.
11. The Poll Tax! Regardless of how you view this in theory, apart from its regressive nature, it quite plainly was unworkable. They knew that it was going to be ridiculously expensive to collect, that there was overwhelming opposition to it (it ruined the 1991 census) and was going to mean massive non-payment and it was responsible for some of the worst rioting ever seen in central London but they pressed ahead anyway. Another U-turn inevitably came!
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12. The myth of the strong leader. This was a total invention of the press. Thatcher's only strength (if you could call it that) was that she had no principles at all! She was an anti-smoking campaigner who ended up on the payroll of British American Tobacco. She had to do a U-turn on her 'flagship' economic policy after 2 years because she had wrecked the economy (see point 3) (This was just one year after her famous speech in 1980 where she assured the party faithful she was going to stick to monetarist policies-"You turn if you want to...the lady's not for turning"-yeah right!!). The Poll Tax was a disaster which she had to U-turn on (but too late to save her from being stabbed in the back!). She went to Europe saying she was against federalism but signed its most federalist law (the Single European Act in 1986). She later claimed she was tricked on this. Did she even know what she was doing? Some strong leader that is! And to top it all off, even in departure she was weak. "I fight on, I fight to win" she said in her pompous way before quietly resigning hours later when confronted by Ministers like Geoffrey Howe!!! It was the final U-turn from a weak puppet leader whose only qualities (as far as the Tories were concerned) were she did what she was told.
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13. Degradation of the social professions. Social workers were virtually denounced as criminals! Teachers were so derided and there pay so eroded it barely survived as a profession and things like mental health, just loose them out on the streets, Thatcher's government didnt care what they did!
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14. Victorian Values. Yes before its Back to Basics successor under Major, Thatcher promised to take us back to Victorian morality and she nearly succeeded. We were not far away from child labour and seething slums of humanity and disease. I reckon Thatcher needed one more term for that!! She also took care to defend to the hilt her countless Ministers who were caught with their trousers down or hands in the till or both in some cases! Cecil Parkinson, Alan Clark, David Mellor, Jeffrey Archer (3 times), Jonathon Aitkin (twice)... etc. etc. the list goes on.
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15. "There is no such thing as society". Did Thatcher foresee the 'playstation' generation? Selfishness as a virtue seemed to sum up her warped sense of morality to me.
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16. Over-privatisation and overt corruption. Oh the beauty of it, a totally dominant monopoly privatised at a discount price to big business (lots of it foreign owned) so they can cream off profits to their hearts content. Who can do without Water, Gas, Electricity? We can charge what we like! Plus we get the bonus of nice jobs on more Quangos OfWat, OfGas, Of-with taxpayers cash we go. With Ministers interchanging between the boardrooms of the newly privatised companies and the regulating boards on massive salaries. Even husband and wife teams, remember Mr and Mrs Howe, one a consultant with a privatised firm, his wife the regulator. Anyone for insider dealing calls out Mrs Archer! Oh jolly good show! Even industries that plainly werent feasible for privatisation like bus and rail, go for it, it wont hurt. And what shall we do with the money my dear? Well my son Mark has shares in a nice defence firm! Rather, still some left over for a nice reduction in the top rate of income tax as well.
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17. Even public service broadcasting couldnt escape. Relentless bullying of the BBC was started by Thatcher, she took this to a new level with Tebbit and various other ministers calling it the Bolshevic Broadcasting Company because it failed to replicate Sun editorial lines in its news broadcasts. In one of her last acts she even managed to wreck Channel 4' s public service commitment by changing its funding situation from one of subscription from ITV who sold its advertising space to total dependence on advertising.
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18. The divisiveness of the North-South divide in wealth. Look at the political map and you can still see where the Conservatives win most of their seats in the South East because of this.
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19. Regular winter crises in the NHS became the norm. The Tories argued these were inevitable because we couldnt afford to fund the NHS properly. There are no winter crises anymore!
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20. Crime rates doubled under Thatcher. This is probably the most surprising statistic of the lot when you consider the Tories so called strong standing on law and order. It just goes to demonstrate why we need a history lesson about Thatcher and not the lies printed in the right wing owned press.
If I started listing my reasons I would never stop.
ReplyDeleteBratiath, I know what you mean. There is plenty more I could add but I kept it to 20 for simplicity.
ReplyDeleteSome people don't remember what it was like under Thatcher, they are getting their information from the Daily Mail, we need to keep telling people what really happened before they totally re-write history.
B4L mentions 'section 28' which I definitely should have included in the 20. Thanks for that.
ReplyDeleteIs your blog not on the go anymore ????
DeleteThe 20 reasons stated. I concur x20 btw.
I couldn't agree more with all this - yet when I mention any of this stuff to Thatcher apologists they look at me as if I've just arrived from mars! I wish I had the time and resources to research an expose of the truth about the Falklands. Unfortunately any criticism of it seems to be regraded as disrespect for the soldiers who served - and I do respect them greatly.
ReplyDeletethere are thatcher apologists?
DeleteSadly, the article could go on well beyond "20 Reasons..".
ReplyDeleteHowever, I can't believe that the destruction of student funding didn't make the list:
The withdrawal of grants, hitting students from low- and even middle-income families hard, and leaving many students graduating with sizable debts taking many years to pay off on often meagre starting salaries. How could anybody save up for a mortgage deposit (let alone afford to buy) under those circumstances?
Making students ineligible for Housing Benefit and Income Support(?) during summer holidays, forcing students from dormitory towns to return home during the summer (with minimal, unskilled, and low-paid job opportunities) rather than allowing them to remain in the cities and attempt to find summer work with relevance to their degree studies - who could take the risk of committing to a flat lease over the summer without the certainty of income to pay for it? Many students therefore missed out on the opportunity to gain valuable quality work experience which would have boosted their job prospects come graduation.
Not the mention the attempts with "voluntary membership" to destroy student unions, the bedrock of student life and providers of many essential services (welfare, political representation, clubs & societies) as well as cheap beer..
Forcing Britain's brightest to have to focus on daily survival and debt management, rather than give their full attention to study and learning so as to attain maximum benefit from University education so as to be best placed to seize opportunities to become leaders in industry, science, research and society (all the while competing in an increasingly globalised world), must surely count as the single most short-sighted policy, blighting not only the hopes and dreams of the cream of a generation, but adversely affecting the UK's chances of future success as some of those who might have led that success crumbled under the pressure.
Tragically, however, Labour's record on supporting the future of the country has been little better, and in many cases, to everybody's shocked disbelief, even worse..
Kudos from down under, islanders!!.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, some of us hate Thatcher as well (about at the same level as our drunken general Galtieri).
And guess what? We had our version of Thatcher as well, only it was in the '90s and it was Mr. Menem, the Bush Family Friend.
The part about privatization in britain could be cut-and-pasted into any article about recent economic history in Argentina in the '90s, and it would fit perfectly!. The same happened down here!.
And the story about the public health and the mental health institutions closing and leaving people roaming the streets? That didn't happen here, but a friend from California told me the same happened under old geezer "Ronnie" Althzeimer Reagan.
Isn't it curious that both Thatcher and Reagan have reached an almost-divine status with the right wing cultists?.
:)
Keep the good work!
Fernando
aside from all the interesting points raised here, i have to mention that in the USA, the closure of mental health institutions was more complicated than the "reagan threw people in the street" idea. in the US the idea of integrating mental patients into society was considered by many people, including liberals, to be preferable to shutting them up in prison/asylums, where often horrible abuses occured. there are many good articles on the web about how this plan went a bit wrong in the long run and how as a result there are many homeless in the USA who are simply insane.
DeleteCheers Fernando. Like your site, I will add a link here.
ReplyDeletehahahahaha! this is brilliant! when bitchface thatcher dies, i'm going to crash her funeral and read this as a eulogy...
ReplyDeleteYou may have your chance
DeleteThe Conservatives will always be linked with snobery, out of date views, and the ultimate disgrace that has ever graced planet earth called Margaret Thatcher!!
ReplyDeleteAs a 21 year old student from a poor background i never lived through the Thatcher years (thank god) but my father did.
He suffered with his job through the privatisation of the railways and it has left a scar on his life like so many others at the time.
What i find so ironic about the Tories is the fact that they are are obsessed with British values but they were the one's who sold Britains workforce abroad!!
I like alot of people will not give a toss when Thatcher dies, i will see it as a massive relief for alot of working class Britain.
But lets all be honest this Labour government has been a massive let down for us all, Tony Blair has sometimes been called 'Tory Blair', lets all hope that Gordon Brown restores the traditional OLD labour values.
Labour till i die R Snadyk
I don't think any Labour government has managed to be as left wing and managed such high levels of growth. To those who say that there is no significant difference between Labour and the Tories, think of all the things that the Tory/Lib Dems have opposed that wouldn't have happened without new Labour. New Labour has;
ReplyDeleteIntroduced a Minimum Wage and has increased it more than the increase in average earnings.
Doubled spending on the NHS. In 1997 more than a million waited over 6 months for an operation, now nobody does.
Significantly increased spending on education and transport etc.
Drastically reduced poverty and unemployment with Sure Start nurseries, the New Deal, Tax Credits and winter payments and free local bus travel, tv licences for pensioners.
Banned fur farming and testing of cosmetics on animals.
Education Maintenence Allowance.
Banned hand guns and gun deaths have halved since 1997. (n.b recorded gun crime has risen because of increased use of imitation guns, replica guns, paintguns and airguns that are still legal).
A whole host of rights for minorities, human rights act, freedom of information act, civil partnerships, banned racism at public functions, ended discrimination in armed forces and on adoption, equalised age of consent.
Devolved power to Scotland, Wales and London and introduced PR systems there and for Euro elections.
For more see here.
So how long ago was she PM?
ReplyDeleteJust get over it otherwise you will sound forever blinkered bitter and twisted.
Let go - move on - !!!!
But then I look at Son of Thatcher - Blair - and what he has done to once proud Labour - YES THATCHER IS A BITCH - she has destroyed Labour and turned Labour into New Tories!
Look at the facts not the antitheses of the Daily Mail, before Baroness Thatcher came in those extremist commies would have gladly brought the country to its death, by the time she left office they couldn't even let out a whimper. I'm no Thatcherite but its because of her courage and her dynamic nature that Britain now enjoys a consistently booming economy and not Moron Brown. She did alot of bad things and many points you make are valid, but she was a bad medicine this country had to take after the disastorous corpratist policies that Labour inflicted. The fact New Labour's policies are having no effect at all on public services proves she was right because they need real reform, not all our tax money thrown at it that Labour is doing as opposed to Thatcher liberating the money and giving people more tax cuts and freedom with their money. Thanks Mrs. T if I'm rich and prosperous I'll think of you making the tough choices for Britain that made it possible for myself and millions of others to succeed.
ReplyDeleteWheres the booming economy now? Failed, because theres no industry to hold the booming economy up!
DeleteHe says, 6 YEARS later, you genius !!!!
DeleteYour darling labour put paid to industry .
the fact labours polices on transport have no effect is down to shitfaces privitisation of everything that may benafit the public. these companies have no intrest in public well being and only profit so its know wonder they ignor labour. put that in your tory pipe and smoke it you cunt
ReplyDeleteyeah i agree, that fucking blue nazi dont have a clue what he's on about, its probaly the iron bitch herself,
ReplyDeleteyeah i agree, that fucking blue nazi dont have a clue, i bet its the iron bitch herself trying to ptotect her policies.
ReplyDeleteha,ha death to thatcher
mineing til i die
My my, you two are mentally nstable aren't you? For disagreeing with someone doesn't make one a nazi, however as I assume you believe a nazi is something bad, then disagreeing with someone and calling them a nazi (ie. a bad person) and resorting to extremely nasty language and profaine comments as justification for this, is kind of what the nazis did in the 1930s they were generally as unpleasant as you are now, oh lifes little ironies. By the way its spelt benefit and mining, and I'm sure glad we've got Virgin trains, 2 hours from London to Manchester: fantastic, rather have Richard Branson running the trains than a bunch of Trotskyist wankers. You may hate Thatcher but she was greatly loved by the rest of Britain, she got more votes than Tony phony Thatcher ever did.
ReplyDeleteyou can see Thatcher fighting zjohn major in my kitchen at www.maggiethatcher.com/maggiefights.html and burn her at www.maggiethatcher.com/burning.html
ReplyDeletei cant believe you people want her to die and threaqten to storm her funeral. it disgusting.
ReplyDeletei am a tory for life, and think maggie did a great job, but you dont see me burning pictures of Bliar.
Its politics
Show some love.....
Oh and mining was a dying industry, and if you are going to be millitant then you deserve to lose your job
Margaret Thatcher made me proud of my country. 10 years of this shoddy sower of labour sh+t has made me very ashamed.
ReplyDeleteCarry on wallowing in your blissful ignorance, most work shy losers who blame evrything apart from themselves for their own failings in life normally find the convenient excuse to blame the Thatcher goverment, I suppose its only natural.
so if you're a teacher, are you a failure... No (unless you're a P.E. teacher) yet during thatchers run teachers salary was minimal
DeleteTwo major recessions, 3 millions unemployed "a price well worth paying", double figure inflation, 15% interest rates, the ERM fiasco, rail privatisation leading to the fares farce we have now, the ex-public utilities charging what they like for commodities that should be state-owned. Oh and those utilities are now mostly foreign-owned -this from the so-called party of patriotism! A woman who claimed to be anti-Brussels but who signed us further in to the E.U and then pretended she'd been fooled. Margaret Thatcher made you proud of your country? Just shows how brain-washed by the right-wing press you are.
ReplyDeleteThe only tragedy is that Blair chose the wrong party to join. no one wants his public service "reforms" which are basically Tory policies. What we desperately need now is a return to a John Smith-style sensible centre-left Labour Party which would manage the economy sensibly as now, but re-nationalise areas such as gas, water and rail, and restore the public service ethos in society. Kick out this "private good, public bad" rubbish. There are areas where the private sector works well, but the free market everywhere, like health? No way. Please can we have the centre-left back this year?
Rob D
Maggie was the best PM since Churchill. You are a traitor for your comments.
ReplyDeleteThis country's gone to the dogs under nulabour.
I would vote for her again even now.
The ladys not for turning
You absolute slag of a human being. In fact you're not a human being - just a piece of garbage wrapped in skin.
DeleteYou didn't read number 12- The myth of the strong leader. This was a total invention of the press. Thatcher's only strength (if you could call it that) was that she had no principles at all! She was an anti-smoking campaigner who ended up on the payroll of British American Tobacco. She had to do a U-turn on her 'flagship' economic policy after 2 years because she had wrecked the economy (see point 3) (This was just one year after her famous speech in 1980 where she assured the party faithful she was going to stick to monetarist policies-"You turn if you want to...the lady's not for turning"-yeah right!!). The Poll Tax was a disaster which she had to U-turn on (but too late to save her from being stabbed in the back!). She went to Europe saying she was against federalism but signed its most federalist law (the Single European Act in 1986). She later claimed she was tricked on this. Did she even know what she was doing? Some strong leader that is! And to top it all off, even in departure she was weak. "I fight on, I fight to win" she said in her pompous way before quietly resigning hours later when confronted by Ministers like Geoffrey Howe!!! It was the final U-turn from a weak puppet leader whose only qualities (as far as the Tories were concerned) were she did what she was told.
DeleteYes but she turned many times! This country is now foreign owned.So proud to be British? Name the companies that are British. The banks became corrupt the divide between rich and poor widened, 3.000.000 unemployed why? Because she didn't care one jot for the people.
DeleteThis country has gone to the dogs as it can't pick up the mess Thatcher's government left. The lady's not for turning? My arse! She reneged on many of her primary policies. Wake up you doddering old fart 'Old Villa'. Hope it's not the great Aston Villa you name yourself after!
ReplyDeleteI've just watched her on Andrew Marr's programme and am amazed how she still turns my stomach exactly the same way - those old bag bee-sting lips on that dead face, those murderer's eyes fluttering under eyelashes quoting St Francis. She was the enemy within.
ReplyDeleteThe day Thatcher dies will be a great day for every one of the millions she shafted and whose lives she and her spivs destroyed. These semi-literate ravings from morons who support Thatcher and Thatcherism are risible, displaying as they do that these people have never thought out the consequences of what they support.
ReplyDeleteEveryone who suffered under Thatcher will rejoice the day she dies.
How does it go... 'Rejoice, rejoice!' isn't it?
I think if Brown is looking for an excuse to have a British celebration backed by a new bank holiday - he should look no further - those who like her can say it is a celebration of her achievements and the majority can celebrate her death.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem being how long we all have to wait till the bitch dies?
In my experience people who say they support Thatcher and slag off the miners, those millions who lost their jobs due to Thatcherism, anyone who decries any State involvement in our economy, and wants disadvantaged people to be given no chance to overcome their disadvantages, are selfish morons indoctrinated by the Tory press and by those jerks in the Tory party. One prat up there even praises Virgin trains... well, he obviously likes travelling on a foreign craphole called a Pendolino with uncomfortable cramped seats, cattle truck conditions, all because his friends shut down British trainmaking.
ReplyDeleteIf there is anything wrong in this country you can lay the blame right at the door of Thatcher and her crowd of spivs, charlatans, morons and crooks.
Here's a link to an excellent website. Enjoy!
http://www.milksnatcher.com/
Actually I quite like the Pendolino trains. Splitting track maintenance and having so many operators both on the train network and bus network has been a disaster though and the Tories are definitely to blame for that.
ReplyDeletePS Thanks for the website link but bit too tasteless even for me I'm afraid!
The problem with Virgin trains, and some of the others, is that they are Mickey Mouse outfits who are milking the customers and the public purse to sustain their profits.
ReplyDeleteDon't expect any decent level of customer service; it just doesn't exist. Their fares are beyond a joke and amount to robbery, and they overcrowd their trains so as to pay less to use the track. When we had the storm in January I travelled to London on a virtually empty train. Coming back I found that the grasping prats has cancelled just about every train going north... in my view they did this to save money and sod the poor paying passenger. I was abused at Euston by 3 members of Virgin's staff because I dared to tell them that things were better in British Rail's time.
As for the Pendolino, it's a disgrace. Its predecessor, the High Speed Train, was built up to a predetermined specification, built in Britain, and designed to last. The fact that 30 years after they were introduced many are still in service is an indication of how good they actually are.
Beardy Branson had none of this. Sod British jobs, sod British workers... he wanted a cheap fix, so off trotted Virgin to buy off the peg Pendolinos... which, already, rattle and bang as they travel, the loos stink, the seats are cramped and hard compared to the 125. They won't last 10 years, let alone 30.
Yes, the bearded one could have worked together with the other operating companies and got a British firm to build them... Huinslet, Alstom etc... but no, that was more expensive than importing off the peg junk. Heavens, it might have caused their profits to fall slightly!
Thirty years ago people bought British goods because they were available and because they knew it would benefit the country and other British workers to do so. Now, thanks to the Thatcher 'revolution', most of our industry is gone, millions of British workers ended up on the scrapheap, we are forced to buy imported goods because the British firms which made such goods closed down, and there has been a massive deskilling of the industrial labour force.
The worst thing about it is that Thatcher and her party made all this seem acceptable to the majority of Brits.
Look at our roads; clogged with imported cars. Our last British motor manufacturer was asset stripped by the Tories and successive owners until it finally died two years ago taking perhaps 20, 000 jobs with it. Our trains are imported, our lorries are imported, we import coal, steel, everything imaginable, because the assorted Thatcherite filth who have now risen to positions of seniority want to make a quick few million for themselves and sod everyone else.
It's time something was done. Maybe Thatcher's death will bring all this into the open. For me, I'm going to celebrate the twisted, traitorous old bag's death with a bottle of champagne.
My father used to work for the steel works until 1980s when a lot of the plant was closed. However, he got on with it, re-trained and found a new job almost straight away.
ReplyDeleteHe rightly points out that it was the policy of nationalization that brought the industry to its knees, as it did not modernize enough.
It was NOT a sole result of the Tories that such industries began to collapse. Prior to Thatcher's election in 1979, two steel works in South Wales were going down the pan.
The economic reforms and the expansion of the service sector in my local area that she encouraged have so far been very successful.
Considering the mess the country was in prior to her election, I think she did a good job (a far better job than Michael Foot, Kinnock or any militant trade union organization could ever have done!!)
Anon: I think you are right about inefficiency in some public sector industries and I also think you are right about the counter productive protectionism of some trade union methods but the little good Thatcher did is well outweighed by the damage she did to society that we will feel the effects of for many more decades - young homelessness, unemployment, alienation and crime exploded because of Thatcher's uncaring government. Don't forget that. Labour have accepted the good that Thatcher did in terms of accepting competition but rejected her nasty ideology of society. The Tories ability to run the economy (ill founded mostly) was lost after 2 massive recessions and particularly crystalised under Major. Once they lost that, the vast majority had little reason to vote for them. As long as Labour look after the economy they can stay in power.
ReplyDeleteYou will die first.
ReplyDeleteanon: You are probably right about that - she could live for another 30 or so years - only the good die early as they say!
ReplyDeleteDon't forget the 'shoot to kill' orders. I hate the bitch, too.
ReplyDeleteNeil Harding said...
ReplyDeleteI think if Brown is looking for an excuse to have a British celebration backed by a new bank holiday - he should look no further - those who like her can say it is a celebration of her achievements and the majority can celebrate her death.
The only problem being how long we all have to wait till the bitch dies?
Oh I see mummy never gave you any hugs when you were a sprog. Shame!
So you obviously hate Blair, Brown, Darling, Prescott et all as well right? 'cos you're all into morality right? The imbeciles mentioned have done 100 times more damage than Thatcher ever did. I smell the reek of hypocrisy
In the spirit of the nastiness of this blog I'd like to wish Neil Harding a long lingering and painful death from cancer.
ReplyDeletewell said neil. She has destroyed the working classes and turned the middle classes into monsters. I will never forgive her and wish her the most painful agonising death possible and that she rots in hell with her corrupt family and peers.Same to all her supporters. Please remember the planned celebrations of her death. On the two saturdays after her death. I am saving my anger up for then. Lets riot.
ReplyDeleteF***cking hell, where do I start??! The depth of loathing I feel for this bitch cannot be expressed. Engineering a war to retain power; decimating manufacturing / engineering / scientific industry in this country and "replacing" it with minimum wage call centres; institutionalised bigotry (section 28 amongst other examples too numerous to list here); the destruction of the concept of social housing through the sale of council houses (as exploited by her clone 'Dame' Shirley Porter); privatisation of nationalised industry at a loss to the nation (strange how many then Cabinet ministers found their way on to the Boards of those industries, huh?); complete absence of morals in foreign policy (anyone remember her condemnation of the Anti-Apartheid Movement??!); the devastation of this countries transport infrastructure; "no such thing as society"... the list is endless.
ReplyDeleteProblem is, with so many people vowing to dance on the cow's grave, I fear that crowd control may be necessary: are we going to to go along with the anarchy of freestyle bopping or organise something more structured e.g. a well-marshalled conga?
I sincerely wish her a long life, as it contains as much pain, distress and suffering as she has caused the working class of this country.
Neil,
ReplyDeleteI think that now may be a good time to re-hash your 20 reasons. I dont think that one of them is totally true or fully representative of reality.
I am fortunate (maybe not!) to be old enough to have lived through the old labour party of the 70's, Maggie Thatcher during the 80's and finally the recent disasterous years of New Labour. I speak, not from the Daily Mail, nor the Times, but from my own experience.
I come from a staunch Labour household and area. I was staunch labour and trade union for quite a few years when I was younger. Unfortunately my experiences over time has taught me that Labour, who were in the pocket of the unions, were unsuitable to run the country even during the 70's.
You blame Thatcher for the demise of industry - you are wrong, this was well under way long before she came to power - I remember, I was there! She did weed out a lot of rotten wood - but that was necessary. She did build up the Police for the stand off with Arthur Scargill, who incidentally was the worst leader the miners could have had at that time. Scargill represented the absolute power of the unions that had destroyed the country and also the labour party. Maggie knew that in order to bring the country out of the downward spiral, he had to be brought to heel - and so he was. If he hadnt been - god knows where we would be today.
Maggie is the greatest British PM in my living memory and probably long before that. She saved this country - and I am not exaggerating. I have to agree that in the latter years of her premiership, she did become too right wing and suffered as a result.
Compare that with the record of New Labour.
Tony Blair inherited a strong economy where everyone was far wealthier than ever before. Tony took to her policies like a duck to water - but then started tinkering on the edges of those policies. All he did was to eventually destroy those policies.
Gordon Brown, Chancellor, sounded genuine for several years - again using Maggies policies and again tinkering. Hindsight has proved that Brown sold the family jewels (and I am not just referring to the sale of our gold at knock-down prices- although that one stupid mistake - against advice, was probably the single most important factor in our bankruptcy), to maintain his failed policies, giving the impression of prosperity but resulting in the financial crisis we have today. (wrongly blamed on the world credit crisis)
This government has made everyone poorer (despite the propaganda and spin),We have the most violent society in our civilised history. The worst health care in the civilised world, Unemployment figures have been manipulated to give the impression of prosperity but we still have one of the highest long term unemployment rates.(take into account YTS schemes, incapacity benefit) Immigration is out of control, manifesto commitments ignored, unbelievable amounts of taxation squandered, ... I could go on but suffice it to say that this country is on it's knees. The government has only survived to date through what is termed 'spin'(spin = lies and deceipt). Even the most fervent Labour supporter surely can no longer defend this excuse for a government.
One of the most frightening aspects is that there has been an imperceptible movement towards government 'control' of those whom they should be serving. Labour is more closely aligned with fascist communism than capitalist socialism. It is only in recent months that the true nature of New Labour and Gordon Brown are becoming known to the wider public.
You already know my strong views on the smoking ban, but that is just one small symptom of the move toward social control by surveilance, bullying, and propaganda to influence the susceptible population. I have never known or even been aware of any government that treats it's people with such derision and contempt. We have been treated as fools but there is a famous quotation ;-(you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time)
The one major problem we have now is that there is no suitable alternative - Dave is no Thatcher!-not conservative nor liberal. Both are apparently clones of New Labour - nothing different - and that is frightening!
Would you agree, as a Labour supporter who has been conned just like everyone else? Are you prepared to put the record straight?
Being born in 1983, i only caught the tail-end of Thatcher, but i remember vividly how much i hated her as a little boy, because she intervened directly in the closing down of my local playground.
ReplyDeleteWhat irritates me is that when i criticise her in front of my parents and some of their Conservative friends, i'm always told 'Ah, but the country was in a total mess in 1979 and she did a lot to solve those problems'
i.e. she wasn't totally incompetent.
No need to mention the social and economic divides she created from which we are still suffering today.
The great thing about Thatcher is that she destroyed the myth that socialism had any sort of moral integrity. She exposed our stupid indulgence in supporting the culture of "society owes me a living", and finally she exposed our trade unions as the evil parasites they were and still are.
ReplyDeletehahahaha...what a loud of brainless comments (except the last one. I read the post and the comments thinking it was written at the beginning of the www, maybe early 1990's...then I see 2005 and 2007 on teh comments...hahahaha...and can just imagine the bitter and twisted lives you must lead. As someone else has written...move on...get a life...even Labour have acknolwleged the need for a Thatcher when we had a Thatcher.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Thought you might like this poll re the best PM...hehehe
ReplyDeleteIn case the direct link doesn't work:
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/30433/thatcher_best_pm_since_1945_say_britons/
Well everyone, take comfort in knowing that there will be a party at Trafalgar square on the first saturday after she dies!
ReplyDelete...which will hopefully be very, very soon.
see you there!
I hope she lives a long life with Alzheimers. I couldn't imagine a better sentence for someone who morally bankrupted an entire country, destroyed the social contract and blamed the poor for their plight. I won't ever forget what she did.
DeleteTrue that man. There was an assassination attempt on her years ago. They managed to narrow the list of suspects down to 50Million :-)
ReplyDeleteIf anyone wants to understand the real reason behind her evil doctrine of shafting the country for a quick profit. Then go to
ReplyDeletewww.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine
or better still read the book and you will begin to understand the depth of the evil crusade of the capitalist globalization movement.
Thatcher condemned the miners to a life on the dole, turned the working class against the working class, used the Police to brutally opress decent working people before throwing them on the scrapheap, all without a second thought or shred of compassion, words can express how I feel about this woman.
ReplyDeleteAnd now we get the film "Saint Thatcher - A British Working-Class Hero" and, just for good measure, a state funeral at public expense. Isn't revisionism a wonderful thing!
ReplyDeletemost of these complaints could be leveled at Brown along with abolishing the 10p tax rate, selling all the gold, deregulating the city, getting the bank of england to set the interest rate so its not accountable, claiming the end of boom and bust, going on about prudence, the housing bubble, the massive gap between rich and poor, brown nosing Murdoch, Iraq, Afghanistan, not funding troops sent to fight, decline in manufacturing, educational standards, rise in crime, bullying, cowardice etc etc etc
ReplyDeleteMaybe its about time we should put our money together and show the REAL thatcher, and the real damage she has caused! Im not old enough to remember her being PM, but i know that the mess the country is in NOW was started by her. This areas been dead since she was in power.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThe good thing is that, in Thatcher's case, there is some measure of karmic comeuppance for the old witch.
ReplyDeleteMy school is doing a play (road) on britain in the 1980's, researching on thatchers policies and damn was I shocked,it's was saying she was a good leader yet things like riots and civil unrest just seems to have happened.this list is exactly what i expected and more of her,this website has taught me more then wikipedia or bbc history and looking at what's happening now. History is repeating it's self.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post. I could have summed it up in one though. I hate Maggie Thatcher because she is a Tory Cee you Next Tuesday, hell bent on putting the lower classes back in their place and the ruling classes beyond the law.
ReplyDeleteWell i wondered why the world felt lighter and everyone seemed slightly happier than usual, must of been a massive change of atmosphere over the whole of the british isles! I think your twenty reasons are all strong... but i agree you could just keep going going and going! Now the news will be full of how wonderful she was... most people must have short memories or two faces!!
ReplyDeleteWell i wondered why the world felt lighter and everyone seemed slightly happier than usual, must of been a massive change of atmosphere over the whole of the british isles! I think your twenty reasons are all strong... but i agree you could just keep going going and going! Now the news will be full of how wonderful she was... most people must have short memories or two faces!!
ReplyDeleteWanker!!!!! She was the best PM this country has had!!! RIP
ReplyDeleteWhy do Britains dislike Margaret Thatcher? Refer to Why do Americans dislike Ronald Reagan? Help the rich get richer, f*** the poor and middle class!
ReplyDeletethere are so many flaws with this list its unbelievable. im pretty sure this is a comedy thing right? because your take on british political history is so far out of kilt here it might as well have been written by an american (they tend to rewrite history as they see fit)
ReplyDeletei remember clearly living through the thatcher reign and yes it was tough. yes a lot of hard choices had to be made. no, no one liked her for it including myself i couldnt stand the woman but all the shit thats been listed above ....jesus wept! this thing should be filed under fiction roflmao
Great piece needs updating please, I'm sure it would be widley Liked .
ReplyDeleteha ha! 2005, Neil - you got in there early! :-)
ReplyDeleteIt is a bit thin on references/sources though. I just wrote a post in just 10 reasons why people hate her, but with linked sources etc. Might interest you :
http://squarepenguin.co.uk/why-margaret-thatcher-is-hated/
yeah, could do with update refs etc. I wrote a lot of it even before I had internet. Did tweak it a little in 2005. But left as it was cos I thought it interesting in it's own right, even with some errors. I now think my biggest omission from this list is housing. Can't understand why I didn't write about that. Will check out your blog, cheers
Deletevery well written post. I'd like to reblog on Think Left if you have o objection, with links to this site.. On think-left.org
ReplyDeleteHi Pam, You're welcome to re-blog at Think Left, Thank you.
DeleteUnemployment is caused by many factors. It is best for us to look out for ourselves if the government can't protect us. Acquiring an income insurance is one thing, being able to invest and save wisely is far more important.
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