RIP Margaret Thatcher

periodictable

We in Ireland could do with a leader of her vision and conviction.

EvanCornwallis

Best leader we've had in my time.

Ruthless.

albert kidd

BluE-WinG wrote: »

He was a terrorist, he orchestrated plenty of bombings of white schools in the midlands of SA resulting in many many deaths.

The day HE dies, I wont shed a tear. The western world believes him to be a 'great man', little do they know.

the western world is no position to be banding about the word terrorist on anyone..after the western world governments are the biggest terrorists there is.

mandela done what he needed to do.

as for thatcher..ill not shed a tear..but ill drink a pint to an evil boot passing on later today..

snaps

She was one of the best characters on Spitting Image!
In all fairness, she may not have had some of the best policies over here regarding the north, but She was a good leader, was never bullied into a corner (Apart by Sir Bob Geldof over the VAT on Band aid), she made some bold decisions and got Britain out of a terrible recession. Also don't forget she ended the cold war by making Gorbachev and Regan sit down and talk, she also laid the foundation for the good friday agreement.

Sometimes I wish their were a lot more leaders around the world with the backbone and spine she had.

wolfpawnat

BluE-WinG wrote: »

He was a terrorist, he orchestrated plenty of bombings of white schools in the midlands of SA resulting in many many deaths.

The day HE dies, I wont shed a tear. The western world believes him to be a 'great man', little do they know.

If you beat and kick any dog long enough, one of two things is guaranteed to happen, either it will lay down and die, or it will snap back with a viciousness you will not expect. Mankind is the exact same.

southsiderosie

periodictable wrote: »

We in Ireland could do with a leader of her vision and conviction.

I'm always puzzled by these kinds of comments - just because someone has a vision and conviction, doesn't mean that their vision is something that you would ever want to see implemented. History is riddled with leaders that had vision and conviction, but at the expense of terrible human suffering.

wolfpawnat

southsiderosie wrote: »

I'm always puzzled by these kinds of comments - just because someone has a vision and conviction, doesn't mean that their vision is something that you would ever want to see implemented. History is riddled with leaders that had vision and conviction, but at the expense of terrible human suffering.

Agreed, Hitler was great for the vision and conviction, and well, he is not the sort of person whose ideals you would want the resurgence of!

walshb

Palmach wrote: »

She never killed anyone but the IRA tried to kill her and nearly succeeded.

Belgrano?

Joe 90

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Pity there isn't a hell for her to go to.

You will go to hell for not believing in hell.:)

albert kidd

periodictable wrote: »

We in Ireland could do with a leader of her vision and conviction.

yeah..her shoot to kill policy was a credit to her:rolleyes:

stevedublin

snaps wrote: »

n. Also don't forget she ended the cold war by making Gorbachev and Regan sit down and talk

Link?

MadsL

Ironic that her support of banking deregulation and the Big Bang in 1986 that lead to major American corporations buying into the banking system would lead directly into the excesses of the credit crisis. Having hollowed out manufacturing economies and handed over the reins of power to the banks, Thatchers legacy is again deep recession.

Those that celebrate her didn't have to live through her recession, but maybe I am bitter seeing that my grandfather was a miner.

EvanCornwallis

I'm Certainly not surprised by some of the strong reactions. She was an extremely ruthless leader and had nothing but , contempt for people that weren't on her side.

This was a long list, and don't forget a lot of English people will have equally strong reactions to her death.

Chuck Stone

She was a duplicitous authoritarian hypocrite that stoked the conflict in the north by energising physical force Republicanism with her short-sighted policies.

As for neo-liberalism - look at 'us' now in the west. US infrastructure is crumbling and they're up to their necks in debt, war, and blood and this is the burden of the ordinary man and woman not war profiteers and military-industrial corporations.

The UK is heavily in debt too and and the north of the country is replete with inter-generational welfare ghettos. You need two people working to have a good standard of living for a young family these days. Extremes of wealth and poverty haven't been so pronounced since victorian times.

As someone else commented earlier it's too soon to say if Thatcherism and Reaganomics has wrecked the west or benefitted it (it's not looking too good atm) and that's completely ignoring any moral and ethical appraisal.

wolfpawnat

EvanCornwallis wrote: »

This was a long list, and don't forget a lot of English people will have equally strong reactions to her death.

As a Republican I never could like her, even if I tried. But TBH, as furious as I am about the "No way, but my way" attitude she had to the Republican movement, it is nothing to the anger I feel at how she treated her own citizens in Northern England and Wales who only wanted to earn an income and get on with their lives.

Iwasfrozen

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

What makes 'dead weight' dead weight?

The fact is that a lot of people will need basic support to progress in life. When you support them, they can usually progress to a point that they 'add value' which that society respects. They may add monetary value, but it can also be defined in other terms.

Thatcher loved the principle of self-help, of course, but she chose to draw an arbitrary, random line to define the maximum aid society would endow, without resorting to a more thoughtful analysis of what society is, and what obligations it has to itself.

A person who has the ability to progress and chooses not to is the definition of dead weight.

Happyman42 wrote: »

She could have achieved her economic goals with less socially damaging consequences, her free market (the rich get richer) nonsense is being paid for today.
She destroyed Britain socially and almost caused a bloodbath in N.I. and ultimately sold out the Unionists to political expedience but did it in a way that caused futher unnecessary strife and death.

I disagree, how could she have achieved it?
As Thatcher herself said, "there is no such thing as society. Only families and individuals." It's impossible to destroy something that doesn't exist.

Iwasfrozen

wolfpawnat wrote: »

As a Republican I never could like her, even if I tried. But TBH, as furious as I am about the "No way, but my way" attitude she had to the Republican movement, it is nothing to the anger I feel at how she treated her own citizens in Northern England and Wales who only wanted to earn an income and get on with their lives.

They wanted everyone else to subsidise them. Thatcher told them where to go.

wolfpawnat

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

As Thatcher herself said, "there is no such thing as society. Only families and individuals." It's impossible to destroy something that doesn't exist.

There is no such thing as society, until it suits the wealthy to use it to pay off personal gambling of their buddies of course!

wolfpawnat

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

They wanted everyone else to subsidise them. Thatcher told them where to go.

They wanted to work and live their lives, instead she put them on the SW, which means they still subsidized them.

Cody Pomeray

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

As Thatcher herself said, "there is no such thing as society. Only families and individuals."

Then what place has any tax, any law, any politician, anything but man's own dominion over himself?


You'll find what you're saying is unworkable. Society needs society.

albert kidd

walshb wrote: »

Belgrano?

yep..the blood of 300 on her hands and all because thatcher wanted to win an election..she ordered the ship to be sank when it was outside the exclusion zone around the falklands and was heading even further away from the zone.

Iwasfrozen

wolfpawnat wrote: »

They wanted to work and live their lives, instead she put them on the SW, which means they still subsidized them.

Of course, you can't cut off all support. People need social welfare while they look for a new job. By and large people will look for a new job because it's in their interest to do so.

antoobrien

snaps wrote: »

Also don't forget she ended the cold war by making Gorbachev and Regan sit down and talk

No she didn't, the Soviet Union fell apart because Regan started a massive military spending programme that the USSR couldn't match and crumbled trying to. 25 years later we're still find out bits and pieces of the trillions spent on "black budgets" that were used to develop projects in secret.

Madd Finn

Lapin wrote: »

The best PM Britain has seen since the war.

She dragged it out of the Winter of Discontent in the 1970s and left the place booming in the 1990s.

WHAAATTT???

She left Britain in a right mess. The early 90s were a period of stagnation, plummeting house prices, negative equity and unemployment. I know cause I was there and then came back here.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.


If you want to appraise her properly get it right. Yes, she got the state out of much of the economy (which was an EU policy anyway, remember. We were TOLD to privatise our phone and utility services) and accelerated the destruction of the old British class system in favour of the young proletarian upwardly mobile who became the new meritocratic elite for which she was revered by many from traditionally Labour backgrounds.

As against that she was a nasty Jingoist and warmonger with a long list of regrettable friends, not least of whom were the likes of Pinochet and Botha. (well Dennis had a lot of business interests in South Africa and little boy Mark has proven antedeluvian attitudes to the necessity of the "White Man's Burden")

Contrast the pomposity of those who will spend the next few days lauding her "Vision" and "resolve" and her ability to "impart a new national spirit" with the apoplexy directed at football manager Paolo Di Canio for his expressed admiration for Mussolini for similar reasons.

antoobrien

MadsL wrote: »

Ironic that her support of banking deregulation and the Big Bang in 1986 that lead to major American corporations buying into the banking system would lead directly into the excesses of the credit crisis.

Funny enough the british parliament have just found that it was careless lending to smaller customers that undid the british banks (hbos in particular), so it's not clear how much of that we can blame on her.

EvanCornwallis

wolfpawnat wrote: »

As a Republican I never could like her, even if I tried. But TBH, as furious as I am about the "No way, but my way" attitude she had to the Republican movement, it is nothing to the anger I feel at how she treated her own citizens in Northern England and Wales who only wanted to earn an income and get on with their lives.

A lot of things had to be cleaned up at the time. A character like hers was what we needed. Had I been on the other side I may well have felt different.

Happyman42

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I disagree, how could she have achieved it?

By recognising that you cannot degrade people and expect them to lie down and take it indefinately. Which is effectively what she did to achieve her aims.
That non existent 'society' seemed to be able to band together as one voice in opposition to her.

Iwasfrozen

Happyman42 wrote: »

By recognising that you cannot degrade people and expect them to lie down and take it indefinately. Which is effectively what she did to achieve her aims.
That non existent 'society' seemed to be able to band together as one voice in opposition to her.

That's not what I asked you. I asked you how else could she have broken the unions power? I would have been rightfully pissed off if I lived in the UK at the time and was constantly having my savings eaten up by ridiculous levels of inflation.

That's not society that's individuals and families acting on their own interests. Oh how capitalist!

Cody Pomeray

MadsL wrote: »

Ironic that her support of banking deregulation and the Big Bang in 1986 that lead to major American corporations buying into the banking system would lead directly into the excesses of the credit crisis. Having hollowed out manufacturing economies and handed over the reins of power to the banks, Thatchers legacy is again deep recession.

Also ironic to hear lots of British people today say "thank god she kept us out of the Eurozone"

Thatcher may have hated the idea of sigle currency, but that was for pro-British (roll on the r) ethnic-political reasons as opposed to her economic convictions.

Lets face it, Margaret Thatcher was an arch-monetarist who believed that the answer to economic difficulties always lay in austerity and supply side reforms. Her beliefs would be right at home (if not further to the right of) Merkel's CDU, themselves conservative proponents of sovereign individualism, perpetually chasing fiscal retrenchment like a dog after his tail.

The Eurozone's answer to the recession is almost exactly the same formula as Thatcher had for Britain's recession. She didn't design the euro, but the same economic philosophy which she expounded in the 1980s is currently causing the Eurozone to flounder and limp, toppling economic livelihoods and damaging lives.

So when we look around and shrug and say "well, she's long gone", be reminded that she wasn't the first of her sort and she won't be the last.

Manic Moran

walshb wrote: »

Belgrano?

Was wondering how long it would take for that red herring to show up.

Happyman42

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

That's not what I asked you. I asked you how else could she have broken the unions power? I would have been rightfully pissed off if I lived in the UK at the time and was constantly having my savings eaten up by ridiculous levels of inflation.

Effectively that is how she did it, she drew the battlelines and relished putting the boot into ordinary people.

That's not society that's individuals and families acting on their own interests. Oh how capitalist!

Who just all happen to have the same view and came fom the same communities? You are being ridiculous championing this moden day dictator and woman who would stoop to almost anything to achieve her rotten aims.

walshb

Manic Moran wrote: »

Was wondering how long it would take for that red herring to show up.

Not a red herring to the hundreds who were killed.

Bergkamp 10

The blueshirts will be crying tonight their hero is gone. Ordinary Joe will be down the local toasting a few

OCorcrainn

[snip] Video only post, not allowed.

Iwasfrozen

Happyman42 wrote: »

Effectively that is how she did it, she drew the battlelines and relished putting the boot into ordinary people.

No I was asking the above poster to provide an alternative to achieve the same results because he was so quick to demonise the poor woman.

Happyman42 wrote: »

Who just all happen to have the same view and came fom the same communities? You are being ridiculous championing this moden day dictator and woman who would stoop to almost anything to achieve her rotten aims.

No coincidence my friend, everyone acts on their best interest. It's called politics. These people didn't just happen to have the same views. They had the same views because they were all negatively impacted. Not that it matters. The good of the economy must come before the good of a self interested group. No sacred cows in Thatcherism. We need someone like her now to squash the trade unions, quangos and self interested lobbys! Sigh if only.

Manic Moran

walshb wrote: »

Not a red herring to the hundreds who were killed.

It is if you're attempting to insinuate that those kilings were anything but legitimate.

Skrynesaver

Manic Moran wrote: »

It is if you're attempting to insinuate that those kilings were anything but legitimate.

While war is war the ship in question was outside the exclusion zone and steaming away from conflict at the time it was sunk in fairly blatant revenge for the Exocet attack on HMS Sheffield.

Personally I consider the Falklands conflict, while it was a grubby little war with questionable diplomacy in the lead in to it, the least of her misdeeds.

awec

This post has been deleted.

Happyman42

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

No coincidence my friend, everyone acts on their best interest. It's called politics. These people didn't just happen to have the same views. They had the same views because they were all negatively impacted. Not that it matters. The good of the economy must come before the good of a self interested group. No sacred cows in Thatcherism. We need someone like her now to squash the trade unions, quangos and self interested lobbys! Sigh if only.

And you can't see the irony of having that view?
The only people praising this woman are those who benefitted fom her socially disastrous policy.
They are the same people who cannot see that huge swathes of people in decimated communities negatively impact on us all.
We can all take 'negative impact' fom time to time, what Thatcher did profoundly was consign people to being negatively impacted for generations.

karma_

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

No I was asking the above poster to provide an alternative to achieve the same results because he was so quick to demonise the poor woman.

The poor woman?

I find it peculiar that in one thread you promote the philosophy that two wrongs don't make a right and almost in the same breath you're in here mourning one of the foulest politicians of the 20th century.

The great equaliser of man just claimed her and I'll be neither shedding tears nor mourning her.

Today I think a lot of Irish people and British people can agree on this, and that is no bad thing.

Manic Moran

Skrynesaver wrote: »

While war is war the ship in question was outside the exclusion zone and steaming away from conflict at the time it was sunk in fairly blatant revenge for the Exocet attack on HMS Sheffield.

Sinking a marked warship of a belligerent nation during a state of armed hostilities is not exactly a controversial act. It is even less controversial when it was the considered opinion of the uniformed force responsible for conducting the war that the sinking of the ship (The second-most-powerful ship in the enemy's fleet) was a military necessity.

Finally, documents released after the 30-year-rule indicate that she was not steaming away anyway.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/8965405/Belgrano-was-heading-to-the-Falklands-secret-papers-reveal.html

Even the captain of ARA Belgrano believed it to have been a reasonable engagement and the simple cost of war.

excollier

As a former coal miner, and English, all I can say is good riddance.

awec

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Bergkamp 10

Its fair to say the majority of Ireland and the UK will be toasting a few in celebration tonight.

The others will be weeping into their Daily Mail/Sindo.

karma_

awec wrote: »

So disastrous that the UK was much better off at the end of her reign than it was at the start?!

From the doldrums of the 70s to the boom of the 90s?

Well, if that's what "disastrous" is then sign me up!

Parts of the UK. Some towns still haven't recovered from the devastation she wrought upon them.

awec

This post has been deleted.

Happyman42

awec wrote: »

So disastrous that the UK was much better off at the end of her reign than it was at the start?!

From the doldrums of the 70s to the boom of the 90s?

Well, if that's what "disastrous" is then sign me up! Ireland could do with that sort of "disastrous" term in office right about now.

I'm alright Jack ethics will never end well, the results of her divisiveness are festering all over Britain and getting more and more tinder dry.

awec

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karma_

awec wrote: »

For closing the mines?

They were working at a loss. They were being held back by union demands. They had to be closed.

There is a reason that no subsequent government has tried to breath life back into the mining industry. It was dead long before Thatcher turned off it's life support machine.

The vast majority of people benefitted from Thatcherism in the UK, looking back it can be seen as a necessary evil. Plenty of people don't like the woman, even more people don't like the fact that that woman's policies benefited them.

The fact remains that the UK as a whole was much better off for her policies.

The time of fossil fuels was coming to an end, but they way it was enacted without pause was completely wrong.

Happyman42

awec wrote: »

What does this post even mean?!

To say the UK 'is better off' is classic 'I'm alright Jack' thinking. There are great swathes of the UK which are far from alright.