Margaret Thatcher dies

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Argentina had made claims to the Falklands in 1976, when Wilson was Prime Minister. His response was to send a Naval Task Force, including HMS Endurance to the Islands. Further Argentinian claims were thereafter more subdued.

In 1980, Rex Hunt was appointed Governor of the Islands, with a specific remit from the then Government to persuade the Islanders that Argentinian sovereignty wouldn't be too dreadful to endure. Price Label Politics meant that the expense of maintaining the Islands in British control wasn't worth it.

In the 1981 Defence White Paper, John Nott decided to decommission HMS Endurance - this was set to happen on 15th April 1982.

Had Galtieri waited a couple of years, Thatcher would almost certainly have lost the next election (even if she'd waited until 1984) and today be remembered for two footnotes in British History: the first woman Prime Minister, and the woman who ceded sovereignty of the Flklands/Malvinas to the Fascist Argentinian Junta.

Galtieri, however, believed that a macho show of force was the only way to win popularity in Argentina. Thatcher was unbelievably lucky in the stupidity of her enemies.

[Julien Sorel]

I agree entirely that Pinochet was a dark chapter in recent human history. Mrs T's support for him is beyond my understanding.

What also puzzles me though, is that Galtieri and his fascist henchmen were arguably worse. We brought that dispicable regime down in the Falklands conflict, yet the left, both then and now, thought that we should have never had gone to war. Seems to me that we had two rock solid reasons to face-off with that fascist dictatorship.

If anyone doesn't know too much about the Argentinian Dictatorships' 'Dirty War' 1976-1983, and is interested, here's a wiki-link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothers..._Plaza_de_Mayo

I do indeed know about the dirty war and the disappeared. And the part the USA (directly Henry Kissinger) played (Henry Kissinger gave his approval to the "dirty war" in Argentina in the 1970s in which up to 30,000 people were killed, according to newly declassified US state department documents. Mr Kissinger, who was America's secretary of state, is shown to have urged the Argentinian military regime to act before the US Congress resumed session, and told it that Washington would not cause it "unnecessary difficulties".) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003.../argentina.usa

Galtieri invaded the Falkland Islands because he knew that without some patriotic, military led triumph, he'd not last much longer (and he'd only lasted four months as President) in Argentina. The edifice was toppling and Thatcher's government (the edifice being supported by the US) would have had no interest in aiding its fall had the Falklands invasion not happened. There was initial tension with the US over military action (the Thatcher - Reagan alliance overcame so-called US regional interests). Facing down a fascist dictatorship had nothing to do with it, whatever Thatcher later claimed.

Chile and Thatcher weren't in any way surprising. Pinochet was the poster boy of Friedmanite / Reaganite / Thatcherite economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile. Clearly these were people who - like the Stalinist or Mussolini or Hitler fellow travelers of the 1930s - simply didn't care what Pinochet did. After all, the people he was killing were leftists or communists or trade unionists. In other words, the enemy. There wasn't even the 'excuse' 1930s fellow travelers might have claimed: that they'd not known about it or not believed it. These people were privy to high-level intelligence (and in any case, media coverage was much more extensive by then).

Thatcher praised Suharto, who directed the killing of hundreds of thousands; she supported Reagan's policy over Cambodia by authorising the SAS and Falklands veterans to train Khmer Rough 'governmental' fighters. None of this can have been done in ignorance of consequence.

Without being hostile in saying this, and without getting into the farce of who is most working class: I grew up in a working class family. My father did OK by going to night school etc. - which was why he was livid at me for, as he saw it, wasting my university education on various activities he couldn't see the point of (bit of a classic really. Move up a bit and then the son let him down. I say a bit. He didn't become wealthy, or anything like that). I know of the working class Tory syndrome (not my father - he'd never have voted Tory), I know the popularity with some people of the right to buy (and its baleful contemporary post-effect; the legislation prohibiting councils reinvesting in council housing having led directly to the rental / housing benefits crisis of the present). But, personally, from lived experience, anecdotally etc. I simply cannot understand how anyone from a working class background can mourn Thatcher. It's up to them if they do - but it's beyond me.

[teamsaint]

Yes, that is slightly strange until one remembers that those were the days of councils lead by such luminaries as Derek Hatton.

Who are these other luminaries?

Ok, accepting for a moment Hatton's failings, who else?
Were our local politicians really less suited to running housing, for instance, than the Westminster crowd?

[Beef Oven]

I do indeed know about the dirty war and the disappeared. And the part the USA (directly Henry Kissinger) played (Henry Kissinger gave his approval to the "dirty war" in Argentina in the 1970s in which up to 30,000 people were killed, according to newly declassified US state department documents. Mr Kissinger, who was America's secretary of state, is shown to have urged the Argentinian military regime to act before the US Congress resumed session, and told it that Washington would not cause it "unnecessary difficulties".) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003.../argentina.usa

Galtieri invaded the Falkland Islands because he knew that without some patriotic, military led triumph, he'd not last much longer (and he'd only lasted four months as President) in Argentina. The edifice was toppling and Thatcher's government (the edifice being supported by the US) would have had no interest in aiding its fall had the Falklands invasion not happened. There was initial tension with the US over military action (the Thatcher - Reagan alliance overcame so-called US regional interests). Facing down a fascist dictatorship had nothing to do with it, whatever Thatcher later claimed.

Chile and Thatcher weren't in any way surprising. Pinochet was the poster boy of Friedmanite / Reaganite / Thatcherite economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile. Clearly these were people who - like the Stalinist or Mussolini or Hitler fellow travelers of the 1930s - simply didn't care what Pinochet did. After all, the people he was killing were leftists or communists or trade unionists. In other words, the enemy. There wasn't even the 'excuse' 1930s fellow travelers might have claimed: that they'd not known about it or not believed it. These people were privy to high-level intelligence (and in any case, media coverage was much more extensive by then).

Thatcher praised Suharto, who directed the killing of hundreds of thousands; she supported Reagan's policy over Cambodia by authorising the SAS and Falklands veterans to train Khmer Rough 'governmental' fighters. None of this can have been done in ignorance of consequence.

Without being hostile in saying this, and without getting into the farce of who is most working class: I grew up in a working class family. My father did OK by going to night school etc. - which was why he was livid at me for, as he saw it, wasting my university education on various activities he couldn't see the point of (bit of a classic really. Move up a bit and then the son let him down. I say a bit. He didn't become wealthy, or anything like that). I know of the working class Tory syndrome (not my father - he'd never have voted Tory), I know the popularity with some people of the right to buy (and its baleful contemporary post-effect; the legislation prohibiting councils reinvesting in council housing having led directly to the rental / housing benefits crisis of the present). But, personally, from lived experience, anecdotally etc. I simply cannot understand how anyone from a working class background can mourn Thatcher. It's up to them if they do - but it's beyond me.

I never would have believed that I would have become a pro-capitalism right-wing libertarian!

In fact, in about 1975/6 I read a book for my O level Sociology course called Working Class Tories by Eric Nordlinger. From memory his argument is that Britain is essentially a conservative country politically, culturally etc and that it was a natural position for the working class to take up. Of course I disagreed and thought him wrong.

Anyway, how can a person from a working class background mourn Thatcher? Complicated.

Speaking for this working class person it is simple though. I became disillusioned with the left's ability to really take the emancipation of the working class to the next level. The focus seemed to be too much on envy and cutting poppies down to size, rather than improving the working man's lot. It came to head while canvassing in Canning Town for better choice in council housing and we were berrated by the SWP et al because 'choice' was a buorgeois concept.

Couldn't reconcile that with the people I was dealing with in their homes who genuinely wanted out of where they were living and re-housed in a decent dwelling. At the ripe old age of 21 we were dinosaurs!! Ideology was more important than real life experience!!!

Thatcher understood Galbraith's idea that there was a key relationship between money and freedom. It didn't matter how much money the middle and upper classes had, that wouldn't make the working man's existence any better or worse. To cut a long story short, we don't have poverty any more. We may have relative poverty and a small section of society may be in the most unfortunate circumstances, but masses of people will never have to undergo the poverty that previous generations had to endure.

I mourn Thatcher because she stood for those things that have emancipated working people in the longer run.

[Julien Sorel]

To cut a long story short, we don't have poverty any more.

But we do. That's just not the case. And it's not isolated or localised or the product of extraordinary circumstance. The redistribution of wealth to the wealthy has produced and is productive of poverty (and that's the case, greatly intensified, globally).

We may have relative poverty and a small section of society may be in the most unfortunate circumstances, but masses of people will never have to undergo the poverty that previous generations had to endure.

I mourn Thatcher because she stood for those things that have emancipated working people in the longer run.

Not relative poverty. Genuine poverty. And my fear - and yes it is a fear, not something I hope as part of some historical / revolutionary process will occur - is that will get worse. In other words, the experiences of previous generations are on their way back. (I don't exclude myself from that fear, as a personal fear, for what that's worth).

We are at a complete standstill if you believe Margaret Thatcher emancipated working people.

As for choice being a bourgeois concept, whoever said that was talking nonsense (it doesn't sound out of character with some SWP activists I've encountered). Choice is a thoroughly revolutionary concept (at least in my scheme of revolution it is). Choice at the expense of other people's having no choice is a different matter (and for me that's Thatcherite choice).

[Beef Oven]

But we do. That's just not the case. And it's not isolated or localised or the product of extraordinary circumstance. The redistribution of wealth to the wealthy has produced and is productive of poverty (and that's the case, greatly intensified, globally).



Not relative poverty. Genuine poverty. And my fear - and yes it is a fear, not something I hope as part of some historical / revolutionary process will occur - is that will get worse. In other words, the experiences of previous generations are on their way back. (I don't exclude myself from that fear, as a personal fear, for what that's worth).

We are at a complete standstill if you believe Margaret Thatcher emancipated working people.

As for choice being a bourgeois concept, whoever said that was talking nonsense (it doesn't sound out of character with some SWP activists I've encountered). Choice is a thoroughly revolutionary concept (at least in my scheme of revolution it is). Choice at the expense of other people's having no choice is a different matter (and for me that's Thatcherite choice).

I didn't say that MT emancipated working people. I said I mourn her because she stood for the things that emancipated people in the long run; much of this has happened post Thatcher.

Regarding the SWP et al, you have to try to remember what the early eighties was like!! Many good people were lost to the cause because of those immature people.

Regarding poverty, I stand by what I said. I do not believe we have the poverty that past generations experienced. We have relative poverty. We are a wealthier nation. Our 'poor' are better off. Many people that are classed as poor in the UK have living standards way above people in some other countries.

[Serial_Apologist]

Speaking for this working class person it is simple though. I became disillusioned with the left's ability to really take the emancipation of the working class to the next level. The focus seemed to be too much on envy and cutting poppies down to size, rather than improving the working man's lot. It came to head while canvassing in Canning Town for better choice in council housing and we were berrated by the SWP et al because 'choice' was a buorgeoise concept.

If by "choice" you are referring to the drab conformism imposed on council tenants over such issues as what you could plant in the front garden, what colour paint the front door, etc etc, I agree. As in the case of so much postwar "nationalisation" though, it was the top-down sub-Stalinist (well Fabian really) way in which this was enacted that the new left of the 60s was so dead against, and which Livingstone's GLC started taking steps to reversing by tenants' associations being involved in decisionmaking as to the security, design and suitability of council dwellings. Knowing SWP activists to the extent I did in the 70s - one a girlfriend - the argument put forward was of reforms under capitalism of this kind creating illusions in the capacity of capitalism to deliver meaningful reforms other than in times of plenty, and then as likely as not reinforcing of such deemed illusions and therefore de-radicalising in impact.

Couldn't reconcile that with the people I was dealing with in their homes who genuinely wanted out of where they were living and re-housed in a decent dwelling. At the ripe old age of 21 we were dinosaurs!! Ideology was more important than real life experience!!!

Indeed while offering municipal housing up for sale at well-below market rates was a brilliant and winning tactic, it's still hard to see why seeing through the counter-arguments of the SWPers should willy-nilly have driven you into the opposite camp, rather than looking more deeply into how ideological structures have been evolved to encompass the "interests" of those who either already have been removed from any semblance of belonging to a community apart from an artificially imposed one, or one in the process of dismantlement.

Thatcher understood Galbraith's idea that there was a key relationship between money and freedom. It didn't matter how much money the middle and upper classes had, that wouldn't make the working man's existence any better or worse. To cut a long story short, we don't have poverty any more. We may have relative poverty and a small section of society may be in the most unfortunate circumstances, but masses of people will never have to undergo the poverty that previous generations had to endure.

I mourn Thatcher because she stood for those things that have emancipated working people in the longer run.

Created the illusion of emancipation, I think.

[Beef Oven]

If by "choice" you are referring to the drab conformism imposed on council tenants over such issues as what you could plant in the front garden, what colour paint the front door, etc etc, I agree. As in the case of so much postwar "nationalisation" though, it was the top-down sub-Stalinist (well Fabian really) way in which this was enacted that the new left of the 60s was so dead against, and which Livingstone's GLC started taking steps to reversing by tenants' associations being involved in decisionmaking as to the security, design and suitability of council dwellings. Knowing SWP activists to the extent I did in the 70s - one a girlfriend - the argument put forward was of reforms under capitalism of this kind creating illusions in the capacity of capitalism to deliver meaningful reforms other than in times of plenty, and then as likely as not reinforcing of such deemed illusions and therefore de-radicalising in impact.



Indeed while offering municipal housing up for sale at well-below market rates was a brilliant and winning tactic, it's still hard to see why seeing through the counter-arguments of the SWPers should willy-nilly have driven you into the opposite camp, rather than looking more deeply into how ideological structures have been evolved to encompass the "interests" of those who either already have been removed from any semblance of belonging to a community apart from an artificially imposed one, or one in the process of dismantlement.



Created the illusion of emancipation, I think.

With respect, re-read my post. I think you have missed the essence of what I said.

[Serial_Apologist]

With respect, re-read my post. I think you have missed the essence of what I said.

Sorry - given that you'd dropped the perfunctory dismissiveness of so many of your replies on this and other threads I'd assumed you really meant what you'd written. Your essences are less fathomable.

[Beef Oven]

Sorry - given that you'd dropped the perfunctory dismissiveness of so many of your replies on this and other threads I'd assumed you really meant what you'd written. Your essences are less fathomable.

Try to be civil please. There is no need to be rude. I was exchanging ideas with Julien in any case, but by all means join in.

[ahinton]

Regarding poverty, I stand by what I said. I do not believe we have the poverty that past generations experienced. We have relative poverty. We are a wealthier nation. Our 'poor' are better off. Many people that are classed as poor in the UK have living standards way above people in some other countries.

It's your choice (is that really a bourgeois concept?!) to believe what you do, but all poverty and all wealth is "relative"; some would seek to illustrate the fact that we still have poverty in Britain today by pointing out the vast gap between the wealthiest and the poorest and the fact that it has widened considerably over the years; whilst I don't think that the one does necessarily illustrate the other, there can be no doubt that this gap has indeed widened.

What do you have in mind when you write that Britain is a wealthier nation today than once it was? In order to assess that (insofar as it can be assessed meaningfully at all), you'd have to start by picking an illustrative start date - let's say 1945, for example, although you could choose whatever you like instead if you so wish - and then look at the GDP figures, average income figures and all manner of other relevant statistics for that year and for the year in which the most recent ones have been published - and I'm not sure that you've done this before writing as you have here. Also, the extent to which a nation is itself wealthy is not a reliable indicator of individual wealth and poverty in any case.

I do not dispute that, as you write, "many people that are classed as poor in the UK have living standards way above people in some other countries" - that's obviously true - but not only are living standards and individual wealth/poverty alone no proof of the actual overall wealth of the nation of which they are citizens (or vice versa), the fact that there are poorer nations than Britain and nations with people who are poorer than Britain's poorest does not of itself do much to answer questions about how the wealth and poverty of British citizens and the gaps between these states has changed over the years.

[scottycelt]

What I would say, and this is statistically correct, is that - ironically - the IRA was responsible for the deaths of more innocent Catholics than any other group in the conflict. Over 800 Catholics in fact.

I can well believe that, Tapiola ...

[Beef Oven]

It's your choice (is that really a bourgeois concept?!) to believe what you do, but all poverty and all wealth is "relative"; some would seek to illustrate the fact that we still have poverty in Britain today by pointing out the vast gap between the wealthiest and the poorest and the fact that it has widened considerably over the years; whilst I don't think that the one does necessarily illustrate the other, there can be no doubt that this gap has indeed widened.

What do you have in mind when you write that Britain is a wealthier nation today than once it was? In order to assess that (insofar as it can be assessed meaningfully at all), you'd have to start by picking an illustrative start date - let's say 1945, for example, although you could choose whatever you like instead if you so wish - and then look at the GDP figures, average income figures and all manner of other relevant statistics for that year and for the year in which the most recent ones have been published - and I'm not sure that you've done this before writing as you have here. Also, the extent to which a nation is itself wealthy is not a reliable indicator of individual wealth and poverty in any case.

I do not dispute that, as you write, "many people that are classed as poor in the UK have living standards way above people in some other countries" - that's obviously true - but not only are living standards and individual wealth/poverty alone no proof of the actual overall wealth of the nation of which they are citizens (or vice versa), the fact that there are poorer nations than Britain and nations with people who are poorer than Britain's poorest does not of itself do much to answer questions about how the wealth and poverty of British citizens and the gaps between these states has changed over the years.

Thank you for your considered response to my post Alistair. I may not be able to deal with all of the highly pertinent observations that you make, but I'll try to answer two of them. If I may, and if it's all the same with you, I'd like to start by referring to relative poverty.

We can't have poverty without the people actually being poor. That's to say the 'gap' widening or otherwise is neither here nor there. If you earned say, half the average income, and you lived in S Arabia, you would fall within a contemporary definition of poor, but you would have an extremely high standard of living. So I hope you can now agree with me that I have, beyond all reasonable doubt, proved that poverty no longer exists.

Regarding the nation being wealthier, I think you may know what I mean but you are being a little tinker! What I mean is that the total value of all the goods services, cash, real-estate etc added up in, let us use your example, 1945 and then reconciled per capita, will be a smaller number than the same excercise undertaken for the year 2000, both in absolute and relative (sometimes referred to as 'real') terms.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Who are these other luminaries?

Ok, accepting for a moment Hatton's failings, who else?
Were our local politicians really less suited to running housing, for instance, than the Westminster crowd?

Ooh, the 'name one?' test. Haven't heard that since the third form, quite takes me back.

Can't recall names (I don't 'collect' left-wing loonies) but back copies of the Eye's Rotten Boroughs column would throw up a good few. Even this week I see they're still at it but Lambeth is way out in front, setting the bench-mark for left-wing hypocrisy as they evict residents from cooperatives so they can cash-in on the property boom.

I think Thatcher's point was that she didn't want any government body running housing; why should they other than to regulate such matters as planning and building regulations?

[ahinton]

Thank you for your considered response to my post Alistair. I may not be able to deal with all of the highly pertinent observations that you make, but I'll try to answer two of them. If I may, and if it's all the same with you, I'd like to start by referring to relative poverty.

We can't have poverty without the people actually being poor. That's to say the 'gap' widening or otherwise is neither here nor there. If you earned say, half the average income, and you lived in S Arabia, you would fall within a contemporary definition of poor, but you would have an extremely high standard of living. So I hope you can now agree with me that I have, beyond all reasonable doubt, proved that poverty no longer exists.

Sorry, but I'm afraid that I am unable to agree that. The reason for this should be clear from my previous post in which I wrote that "some would seek to illustrate the fact that we still have poverty in Britain today by pointing out the vast gap between the wealthiest and the poorest and the fact that it has widened considerably over the years...whilst I don't think that the one does necessarily illustrate the other, there can be no doubt that this gap has indeed widened"; as you will see, I agree that the widening gap between rich and poor in Britain, whilst a fact and a worrying one, cannot of itself illustrate that poverty does or does not still exist there and I added that "living standards and individual wealth/poverty alone [are] no proof of the actual overall wealth of the nation of which they are citizens (or vice versa)".

So, whilst we're broadly on the same wavelength on that, I still cannot see the validity of your argument that if I "earned[,] say, half the average income, and you lived in S Arabia, you would fall within a contemporary definition of poor, but you would have an extremely high standard of living". I assume that, by this, you mean half the average income in Saudi Arabia rather than half the average income in Britain, but if I did earn that and lived in Saudi Arabia, I might "fall into a contemporary definition of poor" by Saudi standards, not by British ones. Not only that, but the width of the gap between rich and poor in any particular nation must be a factor in determining how I might be defined in that nation as one who earned half of its average income; the narrower the gap between the incomes of the rich and the poor, the more likely it becomes that I might be classified as "poor" in that country. I am also struggling to figure out how in any case the average income in Saudi Arabia proves whether or not poverty exists anywhere else.

Wealth and poverty, be it in terms of assets or income or both, is indeed relative; poverty might nevertheless exercise the poorest in any society all the more when the gaps between the poorest and the wealthiest are very wide and widening.

Regarding the nation being wealthier, I think you may know what I mean but you are being a little tinker!

Then it should evidently have been me that put together Elgar's Third Symphony, although my tinkering would have had less than 1% of the brilliance and perception of that of Tony Payne!

What I mean is that the total value of all the goods services, cash, real-estate etc added up in, let us use your example, 1945 and then reconciled per capita, will be a smaller number than the same exercise undertaken for the year 2000, both in absolute and relative (some times referred to as 'real') terms

By your reference to "absolute" and "real" terms for this I assume you to be taking on board factors such as inflation, which would indeed make quite a difference. That said, I have already written that the overall wealth of a nation is a separate factor from the question of whether individual poverty exists within it; perhaps more importantly, however, comparative national indebtedness would also need to be taken into account in order to assess the net wealth of a nation at any time and there can be no doubt that this has increased vastly between 1945 and 2000, in both "absolute" and "real" terms.

Also, cash per se and all readily realisable investments (i.e. those amenable to encashment) are valued in the currency of the nation concerned and this means that the comparative value of that currency has to be another factor in determining the wealth of a nation; during the Thatcher régime, for example, the British pound was at times very high compared to its value in more recent times and its comparative value today only looks as "good" as it does because the values of almost all currencies are falling, so a realistic and meaningful evaluation of the current net worth of Britain is by no means easy to come by.