Margaret Thatcher dies

[Beef Oven]

I remember the greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker, sharp elbows, sharp knees from relatively well-off workers long before Thatcher came to power. Dead lying unburied, rubbish uncollected, buses and trains frequently grounded due to strikes, leaving many, including the old and infirm, stranded. And all under the previous Labour Government. That was certainly true.

Jackson's opportunistic moral preaching conveniently ignored any of that. Fortunately, Miliband perfectly represented the official, reasonable and considered voice of Labour on this occasion.

I think you've hit the nail on the head Scotty.

People will have their views on Thatcher and I can perfectly understand and respect the very strong views expressed.

But it is a pure fantasy to believe that Britain was great place to live in, until Thatcher came along and spoilt it all. I think we might be making it up as we go along, so it fits in with our socio-political world view.

A good example of which is when, in yesterday's rant, Glenda Jackson said of Mrs T, she had imposed "........the most heinous economic damage on my constituency".

Hampstead is Glenda Jackson's constituency. But, I suppose reality has no bearing on this subject.

[ahinton]

I think you've hit the nail on the head Scotty.

People will have their views on Thatcher and I can perfectly understand and respect the very strong views expressed.

But it is a pure fantasy to believe that Britain was great place to live in, until Thatcher came along and spoilt it all. I think we might be making it up as we go along, so it fits in with our socio-political world view.

But who IS claiming any such thing? Two wrongs, as Pabmusic pointed out, don't, however, make a right and I have myself tried to point out that the woes of the 1970s were far more the result of appallingly bad management (including but by no means limited to unjustifiable trade union behaviour) than of the kind of greed-obsessed, me-first culture that was a notable hallmark of, and encouraged by, certain of the Thatcher government's policies.

What's not known (or at least not widely debated) is the expectations of those who launched the policy that enabled people to buy their council homes, in terms of the extent to which council tenants would actually do so; I do wonder if some hoped that they'd all do it. As I've already stated, the wealthier that the poorest get, the less will be the need for social housing; the problem is that very few of the poorest are getting wealthier.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

The main purpose was to provide acceptable housing for those who needed it: it was no time to be givng public money away.

And selling council houses had no impact on those who declined to buy and stuck with their affordable rents. No one evicted them. And no money was given away, money was received in return for a declining asset and maintenance liability.

[amateur51]

My view would be that the ability to make a profit from private ownership of rented property will be the factor that makes for better management of the housing stock. Yes, that can be abused but I'd pin my hopes on good regulation.

Your alternative is public ownership run by people who are spending money received from taxation or local government rates. That may not suffer abuse but there's little incentive to provide a good service unless, again, there's good regulation.

Is there a middle road where public land can be cheaply rented to private developers for neew housing stock?

Why don't our politicians talk to some EU member countries like Germany where owner-occupation is signiicantly lower than it is in UK?

[Beef Oven]

But who IS claiming any such thing?

Many posters are, plus Glenda of course.

[eighthobstruction]

And isn't it the case that many who bought Council FLATS, spent the next years watching depreciation £wise and the still council owned Flats deteriating around them due to the inability to provide monies to improve them from town halls....

[amateur51]

This further makes my point about the centralising tendencies of the Thatcher government and the reduction in block grants and controls on council powers.

Many thanks for this

[eighthobstruction]

Many posters are, plus Glenda of course.

I don't think they are BO....it would make your arguments much easier if they were saying that.....but as you rightfully know , it is all much less black and white than that (David Lammy quote?)....

[An_Inspector_Calls]

This further makes my point about the centralising tendencies of the Thatcher government and the reduction in block grants and controls on council powers.

Hypothetically, if I'd been living in Liverpool in the 80s and had to choose between Hatten and Thatcher, then Thatcher every time.

[Tevot]

Hello there,

I came across this very interesting and thought provoking piece from The Daily Telegraph:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9984619/Margaret-Thatcher-This-is-a-state-funeral-and-thats-a-mistake.html

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[Julien Sorel]

in yesterday's rant, Glenda Jackson said of Mrs T, she had imposed "........the most heinous economic damage on my constituency".

Hampstead is Glenda Jackson's constituency. But, I suppose reality has no bearing on this subject.

She's MP for Hampstead and Kilburn. The electoral wards are

Belsize, Fortune Green, Frognal and Fitzjohns, Hampstead Town, Kilburn (Camden), Swiss Cottage, West Hampstead the London Borough of Camden, Brondesbury Park, Kilburn (Brent), Queens Park the London Borough of Brent.

She's not MP for Hampstead.

But, I suppose reality has no bearing on this subject.

[ahinton]

And selling council houses had no impact on those who declined to buy and stuck with their affordable rents. No one evicted them. And no money was given away, money was received in return for a declining asset and maintenance liability.

The point is that along with the right to buy came a clampdown on the building of social housing and restricted availability of funds to councils needing to build more and adequately to maintain their existing housing stock. As I keep saying, I see nothing wrong in principle with the right-to-buy policy as long as it had been thought through properly in advance of launch rather than being a knee-jerk, one-track-mind piece of legislation. I'd love to see all social housing gone in a climate in which there was demonstrably no longer a requirement for it, but such a situation will never arise unless and until the poorest who most need it have all become sufficiently wealthy as to require it no longer.

[scottycelt]

I am afraid you rely again on a logical fallacy. Yes, the 'winter of discontent' was awful, as were the attitudes of trade unions that had flexed their muscles so often in the previous decade. You do not approve of that and think it was right that government tackled it (I'm assuming here, of course) and so you advocate someone whose policies demonstrated a similar disregard for 'humanity' and a similar endorsement of greed. This is the tu quoque fallacy that I've raised before - two wrongs don't make a right, especially when one party is the government.

The thrust of my post was to point out that greed and selfishness existed long before Thatcherism. So I wholly fail to see what is logically false about simply stating that!

I did not go along with much of what happened under Thatcher but the taming of bullying trade unions was certainly long overdue and was beyond previous governments of either hue. So I certainly supported that, like the majority of the country at the time.

I do agree that the political "pendulum" swung much too far in the other direction (doesn't it always?) but now we have a global economy there are no easy answers as to how the UK competes successfully and has a fairer society at the same time. However, the Germans seem capable of largely achieving the best of both worlds so why not us? This has always baffled me. I don't consider us to be, in any way, intellectually inferior.

However, my original post didn't refer to any of this, I simply pointed out the extreme partisanship of Jackson in totally ignoring the greed and selfishness and lack of concern for others that had gone on long before Thatcher ever arrived on the political scene.

[ahinton]

Hypothetically, if I'd been living in Liverpool in the 80s and had to choose between Hatten and Thatcher, then Thatcher every time.

But "hypothetically" is just the point, since you'd not have had to "choose" between Hatton and Thatcher because the two occupied quite different positions, therefore no such "choice" was available.

[Beef Oven]

She's MP for Hampstead and Kilburn. The electoral wards are

Belsize, Fortune Green, Frognal and Fitzjohns, Hampstead Town, Kilburn (Camden), Swiss Cottage, West Hampstead the London Borough of Camden, Brondesbury Park, Kilburn (Brent), Queens Park the London Borough of Brent.

She's not MP for Hampstead.

So, precisely put, her constituency HAMPSTEAD & KILBURN.

Your list reinforces my point! Go take a look around!