Margaret Thatcher dies

[Richard Barrett]

How about this. You make a statement and maybe you come back once or twice in reply, but you have to acknowledge that point at which, regardless of your strongest held feelings, that to continue will be to descend into a squabble, a fracas.

Good idea. Let's all not express any strong feelings about the issue under discussion but instead go and make a nice cup of tea. It's the English way.

[MrGongGong]

Good idea. Let's all not express any strong feelings about the issue under discussion but instead go and make a nice cup of tea. It's the English way.

I've got my tea
just sorting out the bandanna and cocktails

(a quick question , does anyone know if a dash of bitters with add to the taste if i muddle it together in a milk bottle ? )

[scottycelt]

I didn't say "misguided" - I said "greedy and covetous bourgeois."

How frightfully dreadful are some people. No wonder they voted for the wrong lot!

Thatcher relied on a significant slice of the working-class vote to win three elections. At the time I worked in the carpet trade in Manchester and came across quite a number of fitters who branched out to run their own businesses. Some bought their own council-houses. Almost all (who I happened to speak to on the subject) had turned into enthusiastic Conservative supporters. There were, of course, the odd few who did exactly the same as the others but still stubbornly referred to themselves as 'socialist' and Labour Party supporters. A sort of tribal thing, I suppose.

It wasn't just the contemptible 'greedy and covetous bourgois'. It was also quite a few of the darling Proles who simply wanted to improve their lot in life.

[Mr Pee]

A not to mention her appalling attitude towards Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, saying in 1987: "The ANC is a typical terrorist organisation ... Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land." (Mind you, some of her minions went much further, like Teddy Taylor's "Nelson Mandela should be shot", from about the same time.) In Pakistan she is remembered without fondness as enjoying friendly relations with the military dictator Zia ul-Haq. Her boneheaded policy on Northern Ireland resulted in a great escalation of violence there. And so it goes on.

Lady Thatcher did not approve of the ANC, because she wanted to see a peaceful transition from apartheid, a system that she found abhorrent. How could she on the one hand condemn the IRA for trying to achieve their political ends through violence, and at the same time support the ANC, who were trying to do the same thing? She opposed sanctions because she felt they did not work and that the way forward for South Africa was through engagement and negotiation, not isolation which would only lead to more violence. She repeatedly called for the release of Nelson Mandela, and indeed soon after his release he thanked her for the part she had played in securing that release and ending the system of apartheid. This line, repeatedly trotted out by the left, that she was a supporter of apartheid is complete balderdash.




And I have just heard Bertie Ahearne on 5 Live saying that she played an important part in helping to bring the IRA to the negotiating table, much of it hidden from public view, part of the long process that eventually led to the Good Friday agreement. If by

bone-headed

you mean roundly condemning violence and terrorism and doing all in her power to defeat and neutralise the para militarys, who were butchering and killing to further a cause that was not even supported by a majority in Northern Ireland, then that is the sort of bone-headedness that I admire. These were the people who murdered personal friends of Lady Thatcher and attempted to do the same to her at the Brighton Conference.

It wasn't just the contemptible 'greedy and covetous bourgois'. It was also quite a few of the darling Proles who simply wanted to improve their lot in life.

And it seems the 'proles' have spoken again, scotty:-

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4880665/margaret-thatcher-best-pm-ahead-of-churchill.html

[MrGongGong]

Lady Thatcher did not approve of the ANC, because she wanted to see a peaceful transition from apartheid, a system that she found abhorrent. How could she on the one hand condemn the IRA for trying to acheive their political ends through violence, and at the same time support the ANC, who were trying to do the same thing.

You are assuming that politicians are consistent

There seems to be no problem with Israel, the creation of which was a great success for political ends achieved though violence.....

[Julien Sorel]

If by you mean roundly condemning violence and terrorism ....

Suharto: "One of our very best and most valuable friends."
Pinochet: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/wo...anted=all&_r=0
Pol Pot: http://www.newstatesman.com/node/137397

Would you call her support for Suharto, her friendship with Pinochet, her authorising clandestine logistical support and training for the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot's henchmen "roundly condemning violence and terrorism"? Because I'd call it one way or another, roundly or at an angle, endorsing and supporting violence and terrorism.

Do you disagree? Or is it impolite to mention these things?

[MrGongGong]

Do you disagree? Or is it impolite to mention these things?

It's impolite , of course
stick to the script wont you
otherwise it will be Anarchy

(Though the Anarchists seem to be very good at music distribution these days .........)

[rauschwerk]

Does anyone remember the 'trickle-down' economic 'theory' (really nothing more than a half-baked hypothesis, which some attempted to dignify with the title 'supply-side economics')? Mrs T and Ronald Reagan were both proponents of this. In reality, the result of the increase in inequality which they engineered by their tax cuts was that the rich stashed their newly acquired money in tax havens, where it did no good to society at all.

Now I do not blame Mrs Thatcher for the rise of tax havens. Their rise really began with the gradual relaxation of capital flows across borders which took place in the 1960s and continued for many years. Another result of this relaxation was this: in the early years of the Thatcher administration the pound rose in value and inflation rose. Money began to flow into London from abroad and (in line with monetarist theory) interest rates were raised. This caused more monetary inflow and so interest rates were again raised. It was quite some time before the government realised that they had created damaging positive feedback with the combination of a strong pound, high inflation and high interest rates by which time much damage had been done to British industry.

[Beef Oven]

You are assuming that politicians are consistent

There seems to be no problem with Israel, the creation of which was a great success for political ends achieved though violence.....

I don't have a problem with Israel either, but they shouldn't be in the Champions League or the Eurovision Song Contest. Where do you draw the line? It's chaos, and chaos leads to dysfunction and a lack of order, and we all know what that leads to, yes, revolution.

[Beef Oven]

Does anyone remember the 'trickle-down' economic 'theory' (really nothing more than a half-baked hypothesis, which some attempted to dignify with the title 'supply-side economics')? Mrs T and Ronald Reagan were both proponents of this. In reality, the result of the increase in inequality which they engineered by their tax cuts was that the rich stashed their newly acquired money in tax havens, where it did no good to society at all.

Now I do not blame Mrs Thatcher for the rise of tax havens. Their rise really began with the gradual relaxation of capital flows across borders which took place in the 1960s and continued for many years. Another result of this relaxation was this: in the early years of the Thatcher administration the pound rose in value and inflation rose. Money began to flow into London from abroad and (in line with monetarist theory) interest rates were raised. This caused more monetary inflow and so interest rates were again raised. It was quite some time before the government realised that they had created damaging positive feedback with the combination of a strong pound, high inflation and high interest rates by which time much damage had been done to British industry.

Trickle down is a stupid American simplification of a perfectly sound economic policy. Best ignore it.

[ahinton]

You are assuming that politicians are consistent

Well, leaving aside politicians in general and concentrating on MT, it might not at first glance seem unreasonable to assume consistency in MT (even if it was not a common phenomenon among politicians), not least because she so often gave the impression of inflexibility, sticking to her guns come what may, ignoring dissenters regardless of their source and so on - but might we risk making a mistake here in that, if pushed, she was actually capable of changing her mind, even if only in the most exceptional circumstances? Her profoundly negative view of ANC - and therefore, by implication, of Nelson Mandela himself - was expressed with typical clarity and made well known (albeit not quite in the terms that Richard Barrett quotes Teddy Taylor as having used) so, if Mr Pee is indeed correct in assuring us that MT later called repeatedly for the release of Mandela, might there be a possibility that she did so as a consequence of having actually learned something? - in other words, a rare departure into inconsistency on her part?

I did not personally state that MT supported apartheid in South Africa and she would not necessarily have had to support it in principle in any case purely in order to justify in her own mind her negative comments about ANC and Mandela; furthermore, the comparison between IRA and ANC being put forward here carries little if any weight, given that
(a) the island of Ireland was and remains a divided one over only a relatively small part of which MT's government had sovereignty and
(b) despite the agenda to whip up animosity between Protestants and Catholics and separate them from one another, there was no formal government sponsored apartheid in Ireland as there had been for years in South Africa.

[ahinton]

You certainly wont be i'm sure
(though given the way that our public space has been privatised then you might be committing an "offence" .....)

If that might indeed be the case, wouldn't any people even willing to harbour the thought of turning their backs as the coffin passes be committing an "offence" merely by reason of their presence? Perhaps the answer is for the police to ensure that no one at all be allowed to line the procession route in order to dispose of any risk that anyone might be minded to do such a thing...

[rauschwerk]

Trickle down is a stupid American simplification of a perfectly sound economic policy. Best ignore it.

Yes, but is there any evidence that it did what it said on the tin? Whoever wrote the Wikipedia article (yes, I know) doesn't seem to think so.

[eighthobstruction]

If by you mean roundly condemning violence and terrorism and doing all in her power to defeat and neutralise the para militarys, who were butchering and killing to further a cause that was not even supported by a majority in Northern Ireland,





]

I think you are forgetting Pee that there were Para-militaries on both sides.....the Protestant UDF etc (who were aided by the British state [and who knows : condoned....My read ing of History is that the 60's trouble started when the Protestants started to make viloence on the Catholics (Perhaps Scotty knows something about this ?[genuine plea for info])....

[eighthobstruction]

The Selling of Council Houses was a short-termist policy that worked short -term ....but many of the housing problems we have now are due to this policy (I will not list the problems they are manifest for all to see)....

Yes won three elections with Short-termist policies....changed Britain , but caused division, desolation and despair for many for every person who actually prospered....