thatcher:pure evil or misunderstood wonderwoman?

bloggs

Originally posted by ReefBreak
There is no doubt that Thatcher and the Hunger Strikers created a new batch of volunteers, sorry, murderers for the IRA. However, whatever about their "martyr" status, my sympathy for them is zero. At the time, she did what I would have probably done: treated them as murderous criminals rather than "political prisoners".

I see the Bush Regime/Fox News rubbish has found a good home. I guess this is what you can expect from someone who supports a country (the US) who only supports terrorsts on it's own agenda (Israel, Iraq, Afganistan etc)

sovtek

Originally posted by ReefBreak
At the time, she did what I would have probably done: treated them as murderous criminals rather than "political prisoners".

That thinking would have went down well with P.W. Botha.

Vader

There is no doubt that Thatcher and the Hunger Strikers created a new batch of volunteers, sorry, murderers for the IRA. However, whatever about their "martyr" status, my sympathy for them is zero. At the time, she did what I would have probably done: treated them as murderous criminals rather than "political prisoners".

Wether you call them murderers or volunteers is your own opinion so im not going to go on about that, but would you really let people die rather than give them their correct status. Terrorists, union workers, protesters, soldiers and war criminals are all political prisoners. She even aknowlaged this at one stage and said they could have civilian clothes, but them she gave them all the same civilian cloths so its still a uniform! Lying Bitch!
Then she adopted a Paisley like attitude on excluding Irish officials from all goings on.

It was her not an inch policy on the north, the whole up the empire, down the proles thing that really deserves the title QUEEN BITCH!

bloggs

Originally posted by Vader
Wether you call them murderers or volunteers is your own opinion so im not going to go on about that, but would you really let people die rather than give them their correct status. Terrorists, union workers, protesters, soldiers and war criminals are all political prisoners. She even aknowlaged this at one stage and said they could have civilian clothes, but them she gave them all the same civilian cloths so its still a uniform! Lying Bitch!
Then she adopted a Paisley like attitude on excluding Irish officials from all goings on.

It was her not an inch policy on the north, the whole up the empire, down the proles thing that really deserves the title QUEEN BITCH!

I detested her 6 counties policy, but her Economic/Social policy in the UK was pretty good.

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan
capt midnight, i fail to see where your points are.
you have put together a list of things, and some of them arent even accurate.

Which ones aren't

you have given a choice here, so why dont you tell us, aloing with your correct and accurate reasons for thinking she is evil, or why you think she is misunderstood? [/QUOTE] Considering that I hold her responsible for a lot of deaths, the wiping out of UK manufacturing industry, fudging the figures on unemployment to try to cover up what was happening , double standards (eg: supporting Solidarity in Poland)


by the way, have you recently done some study on conservative england of the 70's and 80's or something. [/QUOTE]In Dublin we've had UK TV in the 70's and 80's so kinda hard not to pick up on what was going on at the time.

just one thing, if you went into your education of the unions and the way that thatcher undermined (no pun intended) and beat the unions, and perticularly the miners unions of england and wales, you would see that tory party of the time had a brilliant stratagy. i wont say margaret thatcher did, because she was just the head of the government, and one perosn is not entirely accountabale for a governements administration. [/QUOTE] The unions shot themselves in the foot, there was 18 months of coal stockpilled when they started the strike - also in many cases the "cost saving" measures of pit closures cost more because they didn't take into account the cost of Dole to be paid out to people many of whom would never get a job again.

by the way, in what way was she evil?
did she torture small defenceless animals or something? [/QUOTE] What good did she do for the poor, needy, those depending on the NHS, those on long term unemployment , students on grants, Scotland, Wales, North of England ?

A right Pandora, but hope-less

"Magret Thatcher, milk snatcher"

Ok then - Vandalism dipped a bit during the Falklands war.


/RANT

Mighty_Mouse

There is no doubt that Thatcher and the Hunger Strikers created a new batch of volunteers, sorry, murderers for the IRA. However, whatever about their "martyr" status, my sympathy for them is zero. At the time, she did what I would have probably done: treated them as murderous criminals rather than "political prisoners".

Not that you would ever let you bias cloud your rationality Reefbreak, but do you not believe in basic human rights? You dont have a problem with MT letting republican prisoners starve to death?

bonkey

Originally posted by Mighty_Mouse
but do you not believe in basic human rights? You dont have a problem with MT letting republican prisoners starve to death?

Sorry, but when someone chooses starve themselves to death, you are denying no human right by allowing them to do so.

I mean, lets face it MM. Had they been restrained and force-fed, you'd probably be here complaining about how their human rights and wishes were ignored, and how the British government had no right to do that to people who were voluntarily choosing to starve themselves as a form of protest.

jc

Mighty_Mouse

Do you believe IRA prisoners should be recognised as political prisoners of war?

sceptre

Sceptre's Law:
"As a boards.ie politics discussion grows longer, the probability of a thread turning into a discussion about Sinn Fein and/or the IRA approaches one."

Corollary 1: The discussion will degenerate into repetition within twenty posts.

Corollary 2: Most of the sane people won't bother even reading the thread after that.


I'll summarise the next twenty posts right now:
"IRA prisoners are prisoners of war"
"No they're not"
"Yes they are"
"What's with the ceasefire", snigger
"What do you mean?"
"What's with the punishment beatings"
"They're not sanctioned and anyway they're justified and needed while the PSNI is a sectarian force"
"The IRA are murderers"
"Justified losses"
"Scum"
"Nope"
"I'm from the North and I think...."
"Well..."
Thread loses whatever coherency it might have dreamt of having.

BuffyBot

Do you believe IRA prisoners should be recognised as political prisoners of war?[

That doesn't really have anything to do with the voluntary choice they made though does it?

Originally posted by Mighty_Mouse
Do you believe IRA prisoners should be recognised as political prisoners of war?

Well technically if you are talking only about prisoners of war,one has to ask was there a war, what government declared it ?
And were the prisoners members of the army of any country?
Answer to the first question is none.
And the answer to the second question is No.
So in that respect the answer to your question has to be no, in my humble opinion.

The title of political prisoners of war implies a right to be at war[read terrorism] if you cannot have your political ideals implimented by democratic means.
After all , there would otherwise be no need for the war[read terrorism]
That would mean to be strict about it, any political ideal.
To allow that would be a tad undemocratic don't you think, given that the vast majority of the Irish people north and south [assuming you would agree that unionists are also Irish whether they like it or not] did not use guns and bombs to further their politics.

If however the army of the democratically elected government of the Republic of Ireland, entered the six counties and took over a few police stations etc and were subsequently captured and put to prison, yes these would/should have prisoner of war status assuming we declared war on the United Kingdom of Gt Britain and Northern Ireland.

Mind you our government would be receiving a letter from the UNSC as we would have broken it's charter assuming the U.S* didn't threaten to vetoe any UK resolution on this

*This being an election year, the U.S might threaten to vetoe any resolution in panderance to the Irish vote

arcadegame2004

I feel that Thatcher has been misunderstood to soem extent. I strongly admire the speed at which she privatised those inefficient state-owned, strike-ridden companies, and allowed ordinary people to decide which companies they acquire their services from in a whole new range of areas. It puts our own government's progress in this area to shame.

mike65

Give whoever dredged this up from the murky depths a big boards slap! That would be quarson then (feckin' newbies!)

Mike.

Villain

let it go people, let it go:D





oh by the way do, she was a bitch

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by arcadegame2004
I feel that Thatcher has been misunderstood to soem extent. I strongly admire the speed at which she privatised those inefficient state-owned, strike-ridden companies, and allowed ordinary people to decide which companies they acquire their services from in a whole new range of areas. It puts our own government's progress in this area to shame.

Essential services are Essential. This is why they should not be sold off to asset strippers. Things like having a water meter put on - if you can't afford to put the coins in you have no water, great improvement on the previous state owned system. British Leyland were handed to Rolls Royce and then sold off as soon as respectiably - because they wern't allowed give grants to RR. (just an example of the fate of some companies an customers). Don't forget we built Ballymun when other countries were starting to demolish tower blocks.

Yeah it's so much better without BritishRail - services have improved and it's so much safer - and there is no longer the overhead of R&D into improvements..

arcadegame2004

Capt'n Midnight, I agree that "essential services are essential". However, surely that reinforces my argument that they should not be strike-ridden. Surely you are not denying that state-owned companies are far more likely to be strike-ridden, by trade-unions that take advantage of the usual monopolistic status of these companies to hold the country to ransom if they don't get their way?

I agree that the privatisation of British Rail didn't go well. However, I think in a way the railways are a special case, since you are hardly going to be building ten different railway lines to the same location to introduce competition. In this sector it may not work. But in most in does, e.g. Eircom call-charges down 17% after privatisation. On the point you made about water-charges, I feel that the privatisation of the water-industry in Britain was not done right. By which I mean that the private-sector firms were all monopolies in their respective areas. Privatisation should be done in such a way as to increase competition. No monopoly, state-owned or private, can be a good thing.

May I point out that because state-owned companies have mindset of dependency on state-funds, that they actually have less incentive to spend tha money wisely, as they can always run to the Government for more money in the future. May I add that appointees to the boards of semi-states tend to be political cronies of the ruling party(s) and that hardly adds up to appointment on the basis of merit. Positions on the boards of semi-states are never advertised and I have no confidence in the ability of party-hacks to efficiently spend our taxes and run our essential services.

I personally think it's more democratic to allow us, the citizen, to decide for ourselves which company provides our electricity, telephone service, and most other areas of services, than having one strike-ridden monopoly imposed on us. All monopolies abuse their dominant market position to raise prices, knowing that the consumer has no choice but to fork out. And I think Thatcher, while she may have made some mistakes, paved the way for a more democratic society in so far as she allowed people to decide for themselves which companies people got their services from. Notice how rare strikes are in the UK too, now that the shop-floor bullyboys can hold their country to ransom no more. Puts the timidity of our government's privatisation program into perspective.

Mighty_Mouse

What Sceptre said

arcadegame2004

Capt'n Midnight, another point I would make is that seemingly "free" semi-state services are not actually free when you take account of the fact that the taxpayer subsidises them. Its conceivable that paying charges to a privatised company could actually leave the consumer better off paying that way that by payment via taxes.