It is argued that she destroyed organised labour. Blair's legacy - dropping of clause 4 by the Labour party To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service. .... Raft of Thatcher populist 80s measures - council house ownership, selling of nationial industries - it is argued, seeded problems of the present. Former social housing stock is now in the hands of private offshore landlords and utilities and railways run for benefit of international shareholders.
There are many misconceptions about Thatcher, dutifully trotted out by detractors who heard it or read it so it must be true. Taking two examples raised so far in this thread: She was unmoveable. Not so, according to those who worked with or under her. She had very definite Views (and then some) which formed the basis of any action she might propose. However, if the arguments against her were strong, well-reasoned and logical she would defer. Strong-willed, confident, determined, even arrogant she may have been. But not, apparently, umoveable. Thatcher the Milk Snatcher. (or, as erebh puts it, rather theatrically if you don't mind my saying!) When given (by the Treasury) a list of areas to cut spending, school milk was on it. Her response was: She compromised with cessation of milk to children aged over 11, but maintained it for children in nurseries and primary school. (The babies didn't get the milk snatched from their suckling mouths after all.) What never seems to get a mention on this subject is that the Wilson government (Labour) scrapped free school milk to children aged 11-18 in 1968. It was subsequently reinstated , but was nevertheless used for the same cost-cutting reason as the Heath government later. (But then, this would detract from the detractor's vision of Thatcher, wouldn't it?) I grew up in Britain with the constant strikes, double-digit inflation, power cuts, and the union-induced 3-day week. We were in serious trouble and it was only going to get worse if things continued unchecked. (As an aside, due to the 'closed shop' policy I was forced to join a union which, amongst other things, once called for a strike within my company because a computer link was down. Thankfully it was voted down. Narrowly. The unions needed smashing and the Thatcher government smashed them.) There are arguments for and against her policies, and this debate will run and run for many years to come. What can't be denied is that she had principles, beliefs, and a determination to follow them through - an unusual combination in politics which has so marked her out from the rest.
I thought that was pretty clear. It's amazing how many writers don't know how to read. Take her. She'll be looking for work soon.
Interesting to remember, when looking over all the fulminations about her 'greatness,' that her own party removed her from office.
I think that a lot of the vitriol directed against her was because she was a woman. A man would have attracted less personal attention. And drastic action really was necessary because the country was going steadily down the tubes before she came to power, I mean it was really bad. There was one strike after another--at school I remember days and days with no heating (no coal) and electricity cut off every single night. Inflation was incredible, goods in the supermarket went up in price from one week to the next--at one point, my mother kept jars of coffee and over a 5 month period the price nearly tripled. Are people really suggesting e.g. the mines should have been subsidised at a loss? What sense is that? Miners were working on weak seams far out under the North Sea, up to their knees in water because of flooding--for what purpose?
well she's dead now so probably we should leave it at that - no one is going to agree here - I'm sure she's going to where she'll be loved.
Her work had already been done, and I think it is, and will be, appreciated more as time goes by, not less. It was probably time for her to step down anyway, whether she was forced to or not. It's also hard to say how/if her mental powers had started to fail her. A lot of comparisons were made between her and Churchill yesterday--well, Churchill did not have much support in his own party and resorted to fairly strong-arm tactics to get what he wanted, e.g. he broke up a miner's strike using troops, not merely police, and a hostage situation using the guards if I remember correctly. He is known in Turkey as being the instigator behind the bloody Dardanelles Campaign, an error of judgement if there ever was one. He was also "ousted" as soon as the war was over when he lost the election. However, all that still does not take away from the service he did make to the country. And although I don't usually care about the "media", the TV coverage over the past week was pretty awful really, certainly not presenting a balanced range of opinion and sensationalising to an absurd degree the "protests" and "celebrations" of her death. Funny--at the time she was in power, I always voted Liberal. My mother even stood as a Liberal candidate.
I've heard that at the time the unions were at their most reactionary and corrupt, that they needed to be confronted. And she did just that. She was also in power for almost a decade too, so she was obviously popular. The street celebrations put me in mind of a quote from Coriolanus: 'Who deserves greatness deserves your hate'.
PM 1979 - 1990 - won three elections but never had a majority As Morrissey put it back in the 80s - the sycophantic slags all say I knew him first I knew him well. I have to say I was sickened by all the sycophants on TV, those at Westminister and those that weren't invited. Some of her biggest critics back-tracked and said how much they loved her. On the flip side, no 'personalities' were rolled in to give their negative views of her and only some miners in Yorkshire were shown to have street parties, burning coffins etc. I thought the whole thing was completely one sided - I for one am glad it's all over and maybe we can turn this back into a writing forum...
