Margaret Thatcher dies

[Tapiola]

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])....

Hmmm. This thread is convoluted enough without the Northern Ireland tangent.

UDA and UVF were (are) loyalist paramilitaries. As such they did not target British security forces in the way the IRA/INLA etc did. There WAS collusion between state forces and the loyalist paramilitaries, as there was between the republican paramilitaries and the Irish Police Force (Garda). It was a dirty war, except that the British did not at the time admit to being in a war situation. Republicans always talked of being in a war situation. The British policy was one of "containment" and was a security rather than a political issue.

EDIT: Mr Pee is correct in saying that the actions of the paramilitary organisations in NI were not supported by the majority of the province's people.

[amateur51]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...churchill.html

I am grateful to MrPee for posting this link but I should add a warning to those who are yet to open it ... it's a bit alarming ... the overweaning self-confidence, the zeal, the self-pride and the arrogance all captured in a moment.

And the assembled awed vegetables behind her.

Remarkable!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

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.

The trouble with the "trickle down" idea is that by the time the trickle has reached those most in need, it has evaporated. In 1979, the disposable income of the poorest 10% of society was about £100 per week; the richest 10% had £375 per week; everyone else averaged around £210. In 1990, the majority average had risen to £250 per week; the richest 10% now had £525 per week - and the poorest 10% - were still on £100.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4446012.stm

... page 5.

[Flosshilde]

And the assembled awed vegetables behind her.

Remarkable!

Ah yes - the Spitting Image sketch with Mrs T & the Cabinet in a restaurant -

Mrs T - I'll have the roast beef
Waiter - and what about the vegetables?
Mrs T - They'll have what I'm having.

[amateur51]

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....

Sound stuff, 8thO

[MrGongGong]

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,

Great art matey

[Beef Oven]

The trouble with the "trickle down" idea is that by the time the trickle has reached those most in need, it has evaporated. In 1979, the disposable income of the poorest 10% of society was about £100 per week; the richest 10% had £375 per week; everyone else averaged around £210. In 1990, the majority average had risen to £250 per week; the richest 10% now had £525 per week - and the poorest 10% - were still on £100.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4446012.stm

So trickle down works for 90% of the population.

Why throw the baby out with the bath-water?

Put in place measures for the relative-poor, if you think that's necessary, given the further information I set out below.

So,

Be careful how you count disposable income.

Most people have to use their disposable income for, dental treatment every 6 months, prescriptions, paying for children's school meals, trips and activities, adult education, laptops, evening classes, water-rates (the relative poor often have their rates rolled into their subsidised council rent), tube, bus, tram and rail travel, etc.

The relative poor do not have to pay for these things, or at least have them heavily subsidised, from their disposable income
Please don't forget that being poor is not just about dispoasable income (no matter how tempting it might be to make a polemic).

[amateur51]

In the short term you enriched those who had enjoyed no small amount of public subsidy already, only to impoverish so many others in the long term.

Regrettably, but with sincerity, this, amongst other similar reasons, is why I shall stand on the route of your funeral procession next Wednesday and as the gun carriage bearing your coffin passes, I shall turn my back.

I suspect I shall not be alone.

SHB


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...il-houses.html

Coolly and calmly expressed, shb - a model

If there's room for a chap with a stick, I shall join you

[Beef Oven]

Regrettably, but with sincerity, this, amongst other similar reasons, is why I shall stand on the route of your funeral procession next Wednesday and as the gun carriage bearing your coffin passes, I shall turn my back.

I suspect I shall not be alone.

SHB


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...il-houses.html

This I respect

What is wrong are the melo-dramatic people who charge in sanctimoniuosly with their demands to "delete the RIP" reference, but are happy with "ding-dong the witch is dead" headlines that are purely gender-based stereo-types. And top it all, from people who should know better, claim to be caring people and have no insight into their subconscious mysogyny.

[Richard Barrett]

What does one need to do to qualify as "living" in your estimation?

No answer from Beef Oven again.

The point that eighthobstruction makes about the "trickle-down theory" is crucial I think. For every person who "prospered" there were many who suffered. One thing that Thatcher (and her successors to some extent) succeeded in doing was to throw some crumbs to just enough people to get voted back in (never from a majority of those who voted, who in themselves weren't a majority of the population affected by government policy*), encouraging them to vote selfishly and not think of the implications for society as a whole (since that was deemed not to exist) or for its most needy and vulnerable members (since it's their own fault). So let's not hear any more of that "if she was so awful why did she keep winning elections" nonsense.

* In 1979, for example, the Tories took power on 43.9% of the vote, which translates to about 13.6 million people when the voting-age population of the UK was 41.6 million, that is to say less than a third of those eligible to vote voted Tory.

[Tapiola]

subconscious mysogyny [sic].

Mrs T to a T.

[Flosshilde]

Not at all subconscious in her case.

[Tapiola]

Not at all subconscious in her case.

Indeed, F.

[amateur51]

This I respect

What is wrong are the melo-dramatic people who charge in sanctimoniuosly with their demands to "delete the RIP" reference, but are happy with "ding-dong the witch is dead" headlines that are purely gender-based stereo-types. And top it all, from people who should know better, claim to be caring people and have no insight into their subconscious mysogyny.

Hollywood history not your strong suit then, Beefy?

[ahinton]

I am grateful to MrPee for posting this link but I should add a warning to those who are yet to open it ... it's a bit alarming ... the overweaning self-confidence, the zeal, the self-pride and the arrogance all captured in a moment.

And the assembled awed vegetables behind her.

Remarkable!

If they really had to publish this, they could surely have put it on Page Three?