Margaret Thatcher.
I was pretty disgusted upon witnessing the celebrations of the death of this great leader. For all the leftie bile, I cannot actually think of anything wrong she actually did. For example, the Falklands were arguably our nations finest hour. We rose to the occasion of defending our borders with great aplomb, which would have only happened with a leader of the calibre of Mrs. Thatcher.
(TheManHimself Beer Drinkin', Breath Stinkin', Sniffing Glue, Fri 26 Apr 2013, 20:12, 18 replies)

ToryBoy, is that you?

( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Fri 26 Apr 2013, 20:26, closed)

I'm no Tory Boy, I'm just a real Briton who understands and sees through the LIEbor falsehoods and angry leftist vitriol.
(TheManHimself Beer Drinkin', Breath Stinkin', Sniffing Glue, Fri 26 Apr 2013, 20:52, closed)

lol

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Fri 26 Apr 2013, 20:31, closed)

^this

( Damien's Hearse, Sun 28 Apr 2013, 0:09, closed)

Celebrating her death was a bit much, I thought,
I'm no Conservative, but it was her being Prime Minister I objected to, not her being alive.

She did a few things that were not such great ideas in my opinion - financial deregulation, privatisation, destruction of the unions...
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 26 Apr 2013, 20:58, closed)

I haven't found myself agreeing with much, this week,
but I can certainly agree with this.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Sat 27 Apr 2013, 11:16, closed)

She didn't destroy the Unions.
After all, they still exist.

What she did was remove their power to bring the country to it's knees. People seem to forget what the unions did in causing the three day week, rolling blackouts and garbage not being collected for weeks at a time. England in the 1970's was not a pleasant place and the unions had a big hand in that.
(Woodlouse say it with flowers. Send her a Triffid, Sat 27 Apr 2013, 13:53, closed)

This
Well put. Let's recognise the truth here - some of us were not only alive through that period, but were cognisant of the social situation. The coal mines were virtually empty, the Unions were screwing the country for more money for doing less work, and the UK was heading for a big, big fall. MT did some hard, hard things - a lot of people lost their cosy, overpaid sinecure type jobs. It was a rough, rough time.

But every issue and drug problem in every ex-mining town is not directly attributable to Margaret Thatcher's actions, as many bitter and twisted ex-NUM shop steward would have you believe. To publicly celebrate her death is not only distastful, but also childish.

Those that protested by turning their back on the funeral cortege made their point with great human dignity and get my respect.
(Colonel Blink is now officially a pretentious prick, Sun 28 Apr 2013, 8:30, closed)

Hahahahahah.
The mines were virtually empty? Bollocks, it was simply cheaper AT THE TIME to import coal from Poland. Once the mines were shut the price of importing it skyrocketed, much the same as getting our gas from the Russians and our electricity from the French.
The unions were screwing the country for more money for less work? Well, now it's bankers, politicians and 'consultants' doing the same, and they've cost the country one fuck of a lot more than the unions ever did.
The plain fact is that in destroying our industries she DID fuck over every industrial town and city in Britain, because when you close a mine or a factory there is a knock on effect to ALL the businesses in that area. And turning practically an entire generation from being tax-payers to a tax burden is hardly a sound economic policy, and led directly to the massive welfare bill that we're still picking up today.
I note that you've kept schtumm about her glorious policies of privatisation of the railways, water, gas and electricity, because they've saved the taxpayer/consumer so much money over the years, haven't they? Oh, wait.
( stuj (^(^;;^)^) GO TEAM SPIDERS!(^(^;;^)^), Sun 28 Apr 2013, 11:13, closed)

Damn Straight
(TheManHimself Beer Drinkin', Breath Stinkin', Sniffing Glue, Sun 28 Apr 2013, 12:34, closed)

....and Russia is such a great place to grow up in and live. No social problems at all.
(Colonel Blink is now officially a pretentious prick, Sun 28 Apr 2013, 15:57, closed)

Sheesh. Russia hasn't even pretended to be Communist since the late 1980's.
In fact with the oligarchs and mafiyaniks under Yeltsin and now Putin you could say that the Russians whole-heartedly embraced Thatcherism.
( stuj (^(^;;^)^) GO TEAM SPIDERS!(^(^;;^)^), Sun 28 Apr 2013, 16:59, closed)

But hey, as long as some vastly overpaid clerical workers in London are happy, everyone else can go hang.

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Sun 28 Apr 2013, 20:47, closed)

Jim Callaghan managed to PREVENT the Argies invading the Falklands five years earlier.
With NO loss of human life and at far less monetary expense.
The Argentine Junta was giving serious thought to an invasion in 1976/77, had ramped up diplomatic efforts at the UN and were intercepting shipping heading to and from the Falklands with their navy on a regular basis. When large scale amphibious 'maneuvers' involving several of Argentina's Southern military bases were announced the Argentine ambassador in London actually proclaimed that 'The Little Lost Sisters will soon be ours once more'. Callaghan ordered the British amabassador in Beunos Aires to 'let slip' that he was ordering a nuclear submarine to the South Atlantic to 'prevent any stupidity'. Sure enough, the Argies backed down and the 'maneuvers' were cancelled
The main reason the Argies felt confident enough to invade in 1982 was that the Thatcher Government, as part of it's massive defence budget cuts, which would have left us without aircraft carriers (like we are now) or Vulcan bombers, was also going to get rid of HMS Edurance, at the time Britain's ONLY intelligence gathering asset in the whole of the South Atlantic. Naval Party 8901 was overstrength at the time of the invasion as it was a handover period between two groups, so instead of only 30 or so Royal Marines on the Islands there were closer to 60. Also, in the run-up to the war the FCO was seriously debating GIVING the Falklands to Argentina, the Islands had been visited by Nicholas Ridley in 1979 and basically told 'You're on your own' while he tried to sell them on the idea of 'Leaseback' whereby the British government would hand over soverignty of the Falklands to Argentina (which was at that time run by a Fascist military junta who were quite happy to throw their political opponents handcuffed out of planes and helicopters into the freezing South Atlantic) but hopefully lease the islands back from them. The islanders responded by singing 'Hang your head in shame Nicholas Ridley, hang your head in shame' at him. He then went on to drepive them of their British Citizenship with the British Nationality Act of 1981.
The only reason Thatcher chose to retake the Islands was that, with the front pages of all the British newspapers showing photos of Royal Marines face down with Argentine guns pointed at them, it would have been political suicide NOT to.
All of the above is historical fact.
Yes, THE WORDS etc.
( stuj (^(^;;^)^) GO TEAM SPIDERS!(^(^;;^)^), Sun 28 Apr 2013, 12:03, closed)

The best thing about Thatcher going is showing how people don't understand politics.
I'm no Thatcher fan, but not because of a blind political bias, but because of information like this.

You can never be absolute about where someone went wrong, because it's far too complex a subject and isn't a definitive art anyway. However, it's depressing to listen to someone saying "Thatcher was great - she took us to the Falklands" without them having the slightest understanding of the events surroudning the situation.

Often a remark about Thatcher brings the " wasn't any better" which, to paraphrase my 14 year old son "Is like saying Hitler was better than Stalin, as he killed fewer people".
I mentioned this to a Thatcher fan, who said "well you shouldn't celebrate anyone's death. And she didn't kill anyone.". So the "Rejoice, Rejoice" remark after hering the death of over 300 crew of the Belgrano, was OK then, was it?? Suddenly they went silent, not having expected to think any further than what they felt.
(Kliper Filllets Getting noticed by twats on the internet since, Mon 29 Apr 2013, 8:35, closed)

I agree that the people "celebrating" her death were cretins
Thatcher did some good things and some bad things. One good thing she did was to defend British soil against invasion. It's frightening to think that if the Argentinians tried any funny business nowadays, it is by no means certain that Cameron & co would have the balls to actually do anything about it.

One bad thing Thatcher did was to sell off hundreds of thousands of council homes (right to buy) without building MORE in their place. It's great when poor people get richer and become homeowners etc. But what about the next generation of poor people? Very short-sighted.

Another good thing Thatcher did was to stand up to Scargill and his loony comrades.

Another bad thing Thatcher did was to privatise so many industries, so that instead of investing their profits back into the services, the profits go into shareholders' pockets.

You may agree of disagree with the above viewpoints. But there was plenty good and plenty bad about Thatcher. Anyone who has a totally one-sided view of her (either way) is a moron.
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Sun 28 Apr 2013, 18:35, closed)

Imagine if Kinnock had been PM
Now he definitely would not done anything about The Falklands unlike Mrs. T, nor would he have stood up to Scargill ( The man who had a small house and a big union, but now has a big house and a small union ). The lefties conveniently forget that The previous two Labour governments closed more pits than Mrs. Thatcher. On the other hand The Poll tax was a total disaster of an idea.
As one previous poster said the unions were way too powerful .I remember during the Callaghan years a guy told me that he went on a tour around The Massey Ferguson tractor factory in Coventry. The first thing the tour guide said to them as they entered the factory was "For god's sake don't speak to any of the workers, the slightest thing brings them out on strike these days!" It was really that bad. A popular joke doing the rounds at that time in Europe was :- Q: How do you get 100 Englishmen into a taxi?
A:Send in a shop steward and the rest will follow.
(Mackeson_drinker, Mon 29 Apr 2013, 7:21, closed)