Preempting the storm: RIP Margaret Thatcher

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No, you got yourself started on Atlee by comparing Thatcher to him. I can't believe how anyone could defend her. I can only imagine you didn't see how she so negatively affected so many lives.

It's pretty funny that several version of 'ding dong the witch is dead' are currently in the music charts, and to be fair, speaks volumes about the general public opinion.

 

I lived through it, but then I also studied economics.

The fact that she won 3 general elections also speaks volumes about public opinion.

Barmy, I think you may be listening to rhetoric a bit more than facts, alot of misinformation has floated around over the years and you already have posted one fact completely wrong in that you said she increased inflation. other facts have ofcourse never surfaced in the media for example, she attempted to aid the coal industry by imposing a 90% tax on north sea oil and gas in an effort to improve coal sales, stuff like that never gets mentioned though, its not good for the hate.

 

I'm really not. I lived through it as a youngster, my parents felt the worst of it, and our area still struggles from the mess left by Thatcherism. She almost completely ruined our wonderful country.

 

I find it odd in debates on forums when someone tries to state public opinion as what the media is playing these days. The media outputs are not public opinion. If the radio stations are playing "Ding Dong, the witch is dead" songs, that only shows the opinion of that particular media outlet. It doesn't speak volumes....

Just saying as of course I have no educated opinion on Thatcher herself as i am only turning 40 this year and live in the US. I have read about her, read varying reports to be honest. From what little I know as fact it seems to me she helped stem a total financial collapse but failed to lead Britian back to it's former Imperical glory days. And she stepped on some toes doing it. Dat about sum it up?

 

Not even close.

 

Yes blades, quite accurate.

a relevant article: http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/blame-margaret-thatcher-todays-problems-174519607.html

Clement Attlee:

Attlee became prime minister shortly after the second world war in 1945 and became the first labour prime minister to ever serve a full term, indeed he lasted until 1951. He was instrumental in the implementation of the 'post-war consensus that would last until the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, this consensus was based on a report by the 'inter-departmental committee on social insurance and allied services' otherwise known as the Beveridge report named after the chair of the committee William Beveridge. This report sought to tackle what he identified as the 5 'giant evils' of society squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease, and led to the creation of the welfare state, national insurance and the NHS.
Attlee's government undertook the nationalisation of utilities and major industries and in doing so entered into a political state of social communism, using keynesian economic policies to ensure high employment at the cost of productivity, efficiency and profit. his first book published in 1920 "the social worker" highlighted his desire for direct government control over the means of production believing that the government could provide better for the poor than voluntary charity, he was further inspired by his support of the popular rates rebellion in 1921.

The creation of the sense of British Entitlement.

The welfare state, while being a good idea in theory had major draw backs - it cost alot of money, and the psychological belief within the person that they are always entitled to claim. The national Insurance act 1946 set in motion the creation of the nanny state, people would pay a (small) weekly contribution, in return they would receive a whole host of benefits, similar to the national insurance act of 1911 which provided for health and unemployment that was the foundation for modern social welfare reforms, this act included Guardian’s (or Orphans) Allowances, Death Grants, Widow’s Benefits, and Retirement Pension.
The NHS was also formed, seeing public health spending increase from £6billion to £11billion. There were other areas of public spending on welfare both within the government and local authorities, but you get the idea, I don't see the need to list every individual benefit - you can check the indivifual acts yourself, barmy listed them above, the benefits were good for the people. Needless to say Attlee certainly fitted into the stereotypical image of today's Labour politician, the Beverage report had been adopted by the liberal and conservative party in 1943, labour refused Ernst Bevin being a trade union leader flat out rejected the report, it would later be adopted by Attlee (so the report would have been implemented anyway if the conservatives had won the election).

For the post-war consensus to work, it would require heavy state intervention and strict regulatory economics, requiring cooperation between the state and the unions and that Policies of social security "must be achieved by co-operation between the State and the individual", with the state securing the service and contributions.
*Notice the underlined parts... well that really worked well didn't it, the unions held the country to ransom and the individuals milk the state for benefits without making their contributions*

Attlee's Nationalisation to fight austerity.

To combat the post war austerity Attlee implemented a manifesto requiring the nationalisation of many privately run companies, basic utilities, small industries, the Bank of England, aviation, coal mining, the railways, road haulage, canals and cable and wireless were nationalised in 1947, electricity and gas followed in 1948. The steel industry was nationalised in 1951. By 1951 a fifth of the British economy had been taken into the public domain. This would allow for the mass implementation of Attlee's keynesian economic model, and employment soared, wages were increased, working hours were cut short term investments saw improvement in working conditions and safety. The mines were one of the success stories of this investment seeing massive improvement to conditions, training, pay and safety schemes. However, it created a new problem and Beveridge's giant evils reared its head in a new forms, want and idleness were back in force.
As noted by Martin Francis “Union leaders saw nationalisation as a means to pursue a more advantageous position within a framework of continued conflict, rather than as an opportunity to replace the old adversarial form of industrial relations."

Attlee's Economy

After the war Britain's wealth had diminished by a quater, the balance of trade was in deficit. Attlee continued war rations in an effort to keep consumption low hoping to reduce the dependence on imports and further hoping that Britain could trade its way back onto the map. It didn't work.
The UK received 2 loans from the US, the first Anglo American loan for the sum of $US 5 billion and was fully repaid in 2006 came with a condition, the pound would be fully convertible to the dollar, this was a disaster and was suspended after weeks of its implementation, and cut the value of the pound in half.
The second came in the form of Marshall aid, and was for nearly $US 3billion, in 1949 however the pound was further devalued.

Attlee's housing Failure

Short paragraph.
Attlee's government promised to build 400,000 houses a year. from 1945 to 1951 only 1 million had been built, a 1.4million shortfall.


In summing up as with most labour terms, Attlee's term was good for the people and austerity helped the economy grow, however the seeds had been sewn for new problems, militant unions would hold the government to ransom, idle people endulged in the benefits that were designed to help the needy, and a weak pound limped the economy into the next term, Winston Churchill's second term. The economy would remain in much this way until 1957 where Harold Macmillan would bring growth.

 

You just avoid everything you don't want to see. I've provided a metric **** tonne of reasons why Thatcher was a witch spawned from the bowels of hell, and you've just provided a bunch of long-wided rubbish without actually saying anything. I never mentioned inflation once by the way, although inflation was more or less the same when she left office as when he joined (although it did jump to a record high under her tenureship). Look up the points I made, they are all valid and real. She's the reason schools have to run fundraisers to afford such basic things as paper and pens, for God sake.

You should also watch that video the House of Commons earlier today by the way, where Glenda Jackson (a greatly respected MP) rips Thatcher and Thatcherisms in general to shreds. You might find it quite enlightening.

There's genuinely good reasons why like, 90% of the country still hates the ***** even now.

 

I said to Nakia earlier today that I remember my mother having to decide which bills she would try and avoid paying as the cuts and poll tax that came about at the time meant that she had to choose between paying the bills or heating the house and feeding me and my sister.
Widows with small children were a hinderence to the country

 

sorry if I read your post wrong barmy, thought I saw a point along the lines of: of she raised inflation from 8 percent to 18 percent?

Barmy, so far I'm tackling the economic side of thatchers term, I'll get to the foreign politics later.

now see, this is where the f***ing problems come in, you don't know any facts! at the beginning of Thatchers term inflation was at a high of 18.5% by 1982 it had dropped to 8.6% - that was the whole idea of Thatcherism, using a monetarist economic model to control inflation.

What? Glenda Jackson greatly respected? she barely won her local election in 2010 a 42 majority is not good. Glenda Jackson was an actress, not an economist, not an accountant or any kind of financial figure - she doesn't know jack about economics or Thatcherism.

90% seriously, get over your rhetoric.
I love this comment, because it has great meaning, 5 boys were in the club yesterday, they ranged in ages from 18 - 20 (I know this because I ID'd them on their way in), and they were ranting about Thatcher reading jokes and whatnot I was walking around at the time so I sat down for a bit of a chat and I asked them "boy's you're 20, you weren't even alive when Thatcher was in power it was 30 years ago, how would you know about her term"
and one of the boys said a sentence that is the biggest cause of Thatcher hatred "my dad said so" they didn't know anything about her other than the fact that she was a b!tch because his dad said so.
I think Barmy there's an episode of south park you should watch, where Canada goes on strike because one man tells them to, he lets them starve and fall into abject poverty because its what he wants, "Canada wants more money" I draw a comparison to Arthur Scargill - maybe you should be directing your hate elsewhere - to the man who against his members wishes forced a strike and let it last a whole year while his union's members struggled to feed their families (while their jobs were just waiting for them to walk back to), he refused to ballot his members when the NCB made offers, he decided to refuse those offers, he encouraged the more militant members to use violence against anyone who wanted to return to work so that they could feed their families. I grew up hating Thatcher too, my extended family suffered because of it, the community where 2 of my uncles lived (Betws) is a fraction of what it used to be despite attempts to rejuvenate the village. Then I went to college and chose to study economics, political science and media... funnily enough all 3 had Thatcher in their syllabus and I learned who to really hate.

Arthur Scargill was a tw@

Silvery, I remember something similar too, back in the 70's, well before Thatcher took the reigns.

You know, by the mid 80's both my uncles from Betws were reemployed, one as a postie and the other with Port Talbot steel works strange how lower inflation and economic growth encourages jobs.

 

Hmmm. My mother must have just been one of those lazy cows who couldn't be bothered then. She probably brought it all on herself...


...Or maybe you shouldn't generalise to suit your argument... (and yes, I'd say the same to Barmy if I thought he was doing it too )

 

Since Barmy seems to uptight on these points that are posted on loads of websites. Ill address them in small answers with larger answers for some points to come later.

1. She supported the retention of capital punishment

So? all you have to do is look at public opinion of Mick Philpott to see public opinion of capital punishment.

2. She destroyed the country's manufacturing industry
Blatant Wrong.

3. She voted against the relaxation of divorce laws
So? why should it be easy to divorce? you get married you enter into a legal contract for the rest of your life. I took out a mobile phone contract for 2 years, if I want out of that early it costs me money and hassle.

4. She opposed anti-apartheid sanctions against South Africa and described Nelson Mandela as "that grubby little terrorist"
I'll be coming to this.

5. She supported more freedom for business (and look how that turned out)
Free economics is a good thing, its worked out very well.

6. She gained support from the National Front in the 1979 election by pandering to the fears of immigration
Many parties have done the same, the national front were enveloped by the conservatives like many other small parties.

7. She gerrymandered local authorities by forcing through council house sales, at the same time preventing councils from spending the money they got for selling houses on building new houses (spending on social housing dropped by 67% in her premiership)
You seriously have a problem with 'the right to buy'? for you foreigners on the boards, Thatcher brought in a policy that if you've been living in your council house for a certain period of time, you gain the right to buy that house at a discounted value - it was the first step ever taken by a government to actually help people get on the property ladder. This policy was originally proposed by Labour in their 1959 manifesto, however they lost that election. The government had its own housing development policy, while less houses were built by local councils, housing associations were given special permits and many still go strong today. at the end of the 70's many could not afford their morgage payments and as such had their houses repossessed, this policy was a boon to these people who could once again buy a house.

8. She was responsible for 3.6 million unemployed - the highest figure and the highest proportion of the workforce in history and three times the previous government. Massaging of the figures means that the figure was closer to 5 million
rubbish, unemployment figures stood at 2.8mil in pre1982 much of Britain's industry had already declined in the winter of discontent, they didn't rise by more than a million under Thatchers policies.

9. She ignored intelligence about Argentinian preparations for the invasion of the Falkland Islands and scrapped the only Royal Navy presence in the islands
coming to this later (though dog soldier has already piped in)

10. The poll tax
Not such a bad thing, the 'head' tax has been used by many governments though the ages for economic recovery.

11. She presided over the closure of 150 coal mines; we are now crippled by the cost of energy, having to import expensive coal from abroad.
wrong, as I pointed our earlier. And... coal imports were cheaper than deep pit mining...

12. She compared her "fight" against the miners to the Falklands War
Ive already covered Arthur Scargill

13. She privatised state monopolies and created the corporate greed
culture that we've been railing against for the last 5 years
get off it, you think corporate greed is a new thing? The privatisation of companies that were stolen by Attlee from private companies allowed for much needed investment, these companies didn't turn a profit so were currently being held up by the taxpayer, investment was not possible while they were state owned.

14. She introduced the gradual privatisation of the NHS.
not a bad thing, people can still be treated for free, or they can pay and recieve a better service... kinda the way its always been.

15. She introduced financial deregulation in a way that turned city institutions into avaricious money pits
eh?

16. She pioneered the unfailing adoration and unquestioning support of the USA
eh?

17. She allowed the US to place nuclear missiles on UK soil, under US control
these were agreed terms long before Thatcher.

18. Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988 (basically otracizing homosexuality)
government should always be impartial, section 28 was designed to prevent local authorities from wading into the debate.

19. She abolished free milk for schoolchildren ("Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher")
As she was instructed by her Prime Minister Ted Heath (for the foreigners, Barmy neglects to mention that this happened when she was education secretary, not when she was Prime Minister.
in August 1970, the new Secretary of State for Education responded to a Treasury demand for education cuts in four areas:

>Further Education fees
>Library book borrowing charges
>School meal charges
>Free school milk
(from the BBC)

20. She support the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and sent the SAS to train their soldiers
later.

21. She allowed the US to bomb Libya in 1986, against the wishes of more than 2/3 of the population
later.

22. She opposed the reunification of Germany
Margaret Thatcher was a close ally of Franced president Francois Mitterrand, they we're both concerned that a Unified German state could be powerful enough to wage war once again.

23. She invented Quangos
wrong, the first non-governmental organisation was created in 1967.

24. She increased VAT from 8% to 17.5%
Wrong.

25. She had the lowest approval rating of any post-war Prime Minister
for a very short time, she also won 3 general elections.

26. Her post-PM job? Consultant to Philip Morris tobacco at $250,000 a year, plus $50,000 per speech
Your point? the company also agreed to pay $250000 into her foundation
The Margaret Thatcher Foundation was formed in 1991 to advance the cause of political and economic freedom.
The Foundation has five broad goals:

1. To promote the widest possible acceptance of democracy, market principles, the rule of law, and strong defence
2. To encourage strong transatlantic links between Britain, Europe, and North America
3. To assist and encourage the peoples of the former communist countries and other oppressive regimes across the world as they adopt democracy
4. To foster greater contact between Western nations and those of the Middle East in the region's search for a lasting peace with security
5. To further free trade throughout the world

27. The Al Yamamah contract
Saudi arabia was and is our ally, we use American weapons, the US uses British weapons? problem?

28. She opposed the indictment of Chile's General Pinochet
later.

29. Social unrest under her leadership was higher than at any time since the General Strike.
Arthur Scargill.

30. She presided over interest rates increasing to 15%
A short term increase to encourage the banks to lend... once again, basic economics, lending = spending = economic growth.. very basic.

31. BSE was Thatcher and Major's fault
By BSE, are you refering to mad cow disease? and if so you'll find that it was pre 1980 that the firest animals were diagnosed with the defective protein.

32. She presided over 2 million manufacturing job losses in the 79-81 recession.
oh come on, this is the most basic level of political science, The policies of the previous administration carry on and new policies take time for effect, the job losses in that period were a result of the winter of discontent as a result of the policies of James Callaghan.

33. She opposed the inclusion of Eire in the Northern Ireland peace process
come again? She opposed consensus for IRA prisoners living conditions, stating "Crime is crime is crime; it is not political"
I'm sure LKD would approve.

34. She supported sanctions-busting arms deals with South Africa
later.

35. Cecil Parkinson, Alan Clark, David Mellor, Jeffrey Archer, Jonathan Aitkin
This is ridiculous, politicians who supported Thatcher?

36. Crime rates doubled under Thatcher.
Well, when you're dealing with rioting and looting... crime rates happen.

37. Black Wednesday – Britain withdraws from the ERM and the pound is devalued. Cost to Britain - £3.5 billion; profit for George Soros - £1 billion
Thatchers term ended in 1990.

38. Poverty doubled while she opposed a minimum wage
No she didn't, it wasnt proposed until 1994, when New Zealand adopted it.

39. She privatised public services, claiming at the time it would increase public ownership. Most are now owned either by foreign governments (EDF) or major investment houses. The profits don’t now accrue to the taxpayer, but to foreign or institutional shareholders.
She claimed nothing of the sort, show me evidence.

40. She cut 75% of funding to museums, galleries and other sources of education
When Thatcher came to power, she instructed all departents to cur 10% from their budgets, that figure is a fantasy.

41. In the Thatcher years the top 10% of earners received almost 50% of the tax remissions.
No, they didn't. She offered tax cuts as incentive to business owners to increase employment.

You should research the soviet models of communism to understand how business works, and how countries fail.

The real reason I think so many hate Thatcher? Because its easy, because she was posh. She spoke differnetly, she used different mannerisms and people as such add class to the situation. Its simple Prejudice.

---------- Added 0 hours, 8 minutes and 19 seconds later... ----------

Sorry Silvery, I'm certainly not trying to generalise like that, my mother struggled too, what little money she made she did as a school dinner lady.

I don't like the hate and blame culture, you are not expressing true hate here.

 

I'm sorry, but how is this relevant? It seems an odd thing to throw into a debate about the merits of Thatcher's policies. No one has mentioned communism, and there isn't a dichotomy of communism and Thatcher-era capitalism.

All in all, interesting and informative debate for someone who has little to no idea of what Margret Thatcher was like, aside that she was on the far-right and not many people like her.

 

When Attlee nationalised industry and utilities and introduced state dependency he created a social communist economic model, the means of production are controlled by the government, wages outstrip tax revenue the economy becomes reliant on exports, inflation increases and imports begin to grow, the treasury dries up and as a result investment in those industries and services ends, mass water leaks go unfixed, power cuts, buses break down, train services are poor (can anyone remember a train being on time in the 80's?), lack of maintenance leads to train crashes and derailments and industries begin to close.
As these industries are state owned there is little competition to drive prices down and improve these services, the country becomes reliant on cheap imports under the phrase rip off Britain, the country falls into massive debt and inflation skyrockets the end result being the winter of discontent.

 

I'd love to know where you're getting your 'facts' from. Do you just hold a wet finger up? Here's inflation flucation under Thatcher:



So inflation was 10.3 per cent when Thatcher took office and 9.7 per cent when she left it. Hardly a huge shift - but it did fly up hugely in her 1st year in office.

This is also a good one, illustrating the legacy of inequality she left behind:



But, you know what? You've made it quite obvious you love Thatcher and value your own opinion over those whos lives were horribly affected by her policies. I think I'll leave you to a big old one man circlejerk, where you can adlib Thatcherism's into kumbaya.

 

I got mine from the office of national statistics, not 'the spectator'

Though even from your little graph you can see the curve clearly skyrocket in 1979 and the early part of 1980 in jan 1980. inflation was 18.4% in may it was 21.9, Thatcher took power in may and it began to drop, by december it is at 15%.

You're not reading the graph you posted very well, print it out, get a ruler and stick it on your graph, you can line up the 10% you mention with January 1970, well before the winter of discontent.

You continue with your hatred and rhetoric, there's more in my life than bitterness.
I'll just rest happy in the knowledge that I own my own house and can feed my family thanks to Thatcher.

 

Ah well, we agree on most other things usually.

 

that's why there's a rule down the pub, no religious political discussions

 

Dead true. Football, other sports, boobs or GTFO, that's general boozer rules.
Or Welsh pubs, the English, the English, the English .