Ship of Fools: Purgatory: The legacy of Thatcherism?

Thread: Purgatory: The legacy of Thatcherism? Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

Mrs M. Thatcher, the first British woman Prime Minister has died.

Monday 9 April Mrs Thatcher passed away from a stroke.

What is her legacy?

She was hugely controversial via her time as PM - the war with Argentina and the liberation of the Falkland Islands, the miner's strike to name but two areas.

Some people still revile her. Some people still hold her up as an icon.

Saul the Apostle.

[ 24. July 2013, 06:54: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:

What is her legacy?

She brought in 'Market Forces' to our finances and politics- i.e. fear and greed. I won't be dancing on her grave (as I always thought I might) but I certainly won't be shedding any tears either.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

Sorry Monday 8 April 2013 - Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke on this Monday morning

Saul

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

She and her party did massive damage to the British people. Her legacy is an evil one.

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

Might it be argued that she - indirectly but inevitably - changed the Labour Party far more than she did anything to the nature of her own party, and that her long-term effects on the British social contract have been manifest more in the vicissitudes of Labour Party policy than in what the Tories have managed to do in the years since her premiership was brought to an end?

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

In 1979 the country was virtually destitute, held to ransom by the unions, in hock to the IMF. She fixed all that - and all credit to her, it needed doing. But she replaced it with a "greed is good" economy, a financial services bubble that only finally burst in 2008. And great was the fall of that house that she built on sand.

You could say she was popularist, the darling of the tabloids, and that in following her, every political leader since has contibuted to the decline of politics in this country. But their following her was their fault, not hers. And peoples' falling for it was their fault, not hers.

You could say she destroyed community and neighbourliness and respect, but she didn't: all that was just waiting to happen, and she just allowed it. She allowed the British people to become what they'd always wanted to be, for good or ill.

She certainly wasn't a saint, but she wasn't a demon either: she was a politician. And every democracy ultimately gets the leaders it deserves.

RIP [Votive]

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

She did what had to be done to get the country out of the mess that it was in when she came to power.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Thereby creating a different type of mess, Marvin ...

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

I suppose the funeral will be a huge affair [Disappointed]

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

Before Thatcher all Prime Ministers, and most other ministers of all parties, understood that many people were not like them and had different priorities and aspirations. Even Old Etonians did (eg, MacMillan, Eden and even Douglas-Home), albeit in a paternalistic way.

She didn't understand. Margaret Thatcher was from a small-town and didn't, IMNSHO, understand anyone who wasn't like her. That accounted for her confrontational attitude and since then it has been possible for politicians to be elected and serve as ministers without understanding "other folks", hence the divisions in society and growing disparity between the richer and poorer in society.

Well, you did ask.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Thereby creating a different type of mess, Marvin ...

A "mess" that kept the country healthy and prosperous for over twenty years. A "mess" that enabled hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of people to improve their lot in life. A "mess" that, even after the collapse of 2008, looks a DAMN sight better than what it replaced.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Thereby creating a different type of mess, Marvin ...
A "mess" that kept the country healthy and prosperous for over twenty years. A "mess" that enabled hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of people to improve their lot in life. A "mess" that, even after the collapse of 2008, looks a DAMN sight better than what it replaced.

Marvin, you were but months old when Margaret Thatcher became PM. Any mess you would be aware of would have been in your play-pen. You can't blame the unions for that!

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :

I wonder if she ever cared about her legacy. She struck me as being a fighter who wanted only to be a successful fighter. I never found out about any good things she believed in, only things she opposed. It's as if she was forever in opposition. When she was in power her enemy became those aspects of the country which she despised.

It was a horrible era.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:

It was a horrible era.

Horrible, and far too long. The crash of 2008 was its culmination (Blair and Brown being mini thatchers). I just hope and pray lessons have been learned.

[ 08. April 2013, 12:32: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
It was a horrible era.

We were bloody miserable, but at least under Thatcher we knew what we were bloody miserable about.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Marvin, you were but months old when Margaret Thatcher became PM.

I read, and I have plenty of friends and relatives who were old enough at the time to appreciate the change.

Posted by Ronald Binge (# 9002) on :

Thatcher's legacy?

The British underclass
Prolonging the conflict in Northern Ireland

That's just for starters. No tears here for the monster.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ronald Binge:
Prolonging the conflict in Northern Ireland

You're right: that's one of the worst bits of her legacy. Major and Blair relatively quickly achieved what she could have had years earlier. It seemed that in any kind of conflict, she had to win. It cost many, many lives and caused much misery.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

The legacy of Thatcherism is that at least some of the unaccountable power-blocks in the country were challenged and some imploded (NUM, SOGAT, etc, remember them?).

That she didn't go for other monopolies - the BMA, RCN, Bar, Law Society - can perhaps be explained by the preponderance of lawyers in Parliament and the fact that she was booted out before getting round to it. The most disastrous failure was to allow the continuance of LEAs which eat up money for very little benefit.

She did her best to stop the rot of unions and the like bullying workers and the country.

More importantly, having come from very humble beginnings and got where she did by hard work (yes, judicious marriage as well) and setting targets and goals she wished everyone to feel that they too could set personal targets and goals and feel they were achievable.

The one great blot on her record is that her government closed more grammar schools than any other. What was needed was not to close them but rather to ensure that the 1944 and 1948 Educations Acts were fully implemented with its 3 tiers of secondary schools - grammars, technical high schools and secondary moderns - and exchange of pupils between the different institutions as a pupil's strengths and weaknesses became more apparent with maturity.

If you doubt the above, look at the thousands of youngsters were are churning out with completely worthless grade E (and lower) GCSEs who are functionally illiterate and innumerate; had these children had the chance to try a more vocationally based education they might well have come out at the end of it with practical skills, with literacy gained because they realised they NEEDED to be literate (likewise with acquired practical arithmetic skills) and with the ability to enter an apprenticeship or employment because they had the skill set that the job required and the attitude of hard work and genuine achievement.

As for Blair and Brown being mini-Thatchers - utter b***s: Brown was a student agit-prop type who never lost the chip on his shoulder and Blair was (is) an attention-seeking failed lawyer.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

How did Mrs Thatcher prolong the Ulster conflict? Up until 1990 it seems to me that the IRA weren't in the mood to negotiate anything (in the way they were by the mid-1990s).

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

Strangely enough I was living in Portugal (studying the language) when Thatcher was elected in 1979. I was not best pleased at the news (which the local press carried in surprising detail).

On my course we had some "Religious Right" American Christians who simply couldn't believe that I wasn't delighted - as far as they were concerned, anyone from the Right had to be better than anyone from the Left, QED. In vain did I try to explain the fact that many British Christians in the past had been Socialist or Liberal as well as Tory. That was simply off their radar.

But I digress ...

Posted by Felafool (# 270) on :

Love her or hate her, she was strong and determined. She clipped the wings of the Trade Union movement, brought it back to some sort of sensible partnership in industry. As a result of her time in power, the luny left was discharged to "care in the community" and the Labour Party went through significant reformation which brought it nearer to the centre. Now we could do with someone as strong and determined as her to sort out the banking fiasco.

I write as someone who has never voted for the Tories.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot
She and her party did massive damage to the British people. Her legacy is an evil one.

So you would have preferred dictatorship by the trades unions?

If it's a choice between two 'evils' (Thatcher versus Scargill & Co.) I know which I prefer!

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

My considered opinion: Had she lost in 1982 (as she probably would have without the Argentinian Junta attempting to prop itself up) she'd have been a good thing for the country - no unelected body should hold the country to ransom - definitely including the Unions. Had she gone in 1987 she'd have been a necessary correction. That she lasted until 1991 with a hubristic overreach to create the Poll Tax, and the Tories lasted until 1997 to be followed by Tony Blair was a catastrophe.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

(Missed edit window).

Her legacy (to me) was in promoting the individual over and above society, encouraging greedy selfishness rather than any sense of social responsibility.

I did hear her speak once: at my school when she was still Education Secretary under Heath. Although it was a pretty posh fee-paying school many of its pupils were drawn from fairly liberal backgrounds. The general verdict among students and parents was that she had spouted platitudes and possessed an annoyingly unctuous delivery ... but I think now that they also regarded her as something of social climber.

My wife, as a young teacher, not only called her "Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher" but went on strike at her Government's education reforms and especially the raising of class sizes which, she believed, would harm children - the only time she has ever struck work until the recent furore over Public Service Pensions.

By the way, her victory discourse about creating harmony etc. has always struck me as vaguely blasphemous from the way in which it subverts St. Francis' prayer for her own ends.

[ 08. April 2013, 13:01: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

Thatcher was a women of indominatable will, a forceful person who refused to back down from what she thought to be right. She cared little for caution, u-turns, and populist headline-chasing. The politicians we have today have no vision, and care only for the weekly headlines and short-term populism. In comparison with the dumbing down of politics nowadays she was the last great leader of this country. But great does not always mean good. The times make the leader, and just as bombastic, Old Empire patriarch Churchill would never have been PM if not for the crisis of political will in the late 30's, Thatcher would never have been PM if she hadn't been necessary for the times.

Churchill was a war leader, but hopeless, even damaging to the country, in peace time. Thatcher was a war leader for the economic and social instability of the late 70's and early 80's, but as the country revived and the crises of her early reign passed, her inflexibility, brashness, and inability to see the virtue of listening to the people meant she became a damaging liability. People wanted peace, but she only brought conflict.

Thatcher saved Britain from economic collapse, but did she cause other problems? There is no way to create a utopia, so of course Britain will alwys have problems, and the problems she left us with were different from the ones she inherited. But the crisis has passed. Despite the worst recession of modern times, which is hardly our fault entirely, we are not suffering blackouts, and garbage piling up in the streets and unburied bodies piling up in the morgues. We are not racked with strikes, with police horses riding into riot lines every few weeks.

Britain was broken. And the only way to fix it was with changes that the people refused to accept, and no politician had the will to take. Thatcher, despite her problems, and they were many, saved Britain, however unpalatable that fact may be. She was bitter medicine, but necessary.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

The legacy of Thatcherism?

"Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,"

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
My considered opinion: Had she lost in 1982 (as she probably would have without the Argentinian Junta attempting to prop itself up) she'd have been a good thing for the country - no unelected body should hold the country to ransom - definitely including the Unions. Had she gone in 1987 she'd have been a necessary correction. That she lasted until 1991 with a hubristic overreach to create the Poll Tax, and the Tories lasted until 1997 to be followed by Tony Blair was a catastrophe.

I completely agree. I think one of the best things Churchill ever did was lose the '45 election. If he hadn't, we'd never have got the NHS. The country was bright enough not to treat their vote as a reward for winning the war. If the electorate had been as sensible in '82 or '87, Thatcher would have a more robust legacy, and the country would be in a better state. And so would our politics. We'd probably still have a real socialist-facing Labour party for one thing, a real alternative, rather than just the tories-in-red of New Labour.

[ 08. April 2013, 13:19: Message edited by: Hawk ]

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

Some time ago I read a commentator who said the real significance of Obama's election was that he was the first US president who wasn't basically re-fighting the culture wars of the 1960s*.

If that's true, then mutatis mutandis we'll still be arguing over Thatcher's legacy in twenty years' time, which is a depressing thought ...

* Looking at American politics, presumably the commentator thinks Obama is fighting a different decade's culture wars ...

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

Her first term in office she did good - asserting the right of the country over the unions.

After that, she fucked everything up, making money and greed the focus of attention. If you want to know her legacy, it is the Blair Government, the Global Economic Crisis and the current poor-hating government.

I do not want to celebrate anyones death. But I will not celebrate her legacy either, the poison of which is still seeping through our country.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

I would ask Marvin to come to Sheffield and talk about Thatcher to the people here. You will say "I'm in Birmingham, I know all that!, Let me tell you as someone who lived in Manchester during Margaret Thatchers rein, I did not know all that. What I post below is not directly related to this, but my personal experience. I honestly can not do the vitriol that comes from locals here at the mention of her name still.

I for reasons nothing to do with politics had reason to look up the social statistics for an area of South Yorkshire just three or four years ago. This was a suburban area, built largely post war with semi-detached houses and good gardens. However the employment statistics told a very different story. The rate of of sickness benefit given in the area was significantly higher than the national average. These people were the remains of the vast unemployment caused by the closure of the steel mills by Margaret Thatcher.

Thirty years after we are still paying, quite literally for the fight Margaret Thatcher had with the Unions. It may have broken the unions but it also broke manufacturing industry.

Jengie

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

Her legacy?

The Hillsborough cover-up.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

She is on record as claiming that her chief legacy was New Labour. There is much truth in that, and it makes me utterly depressed.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
These people were the remains of the vast unemployment caused by the closure of the steel mills by Margaret Thatcher.

Thirty years after we are still paying, quite literally for the fight Margaret Thatcher had with the Unions. It may have broken the unions but it also broke manufacturing industry.

The steel mills and coal mines closed because they were unprofitable to run and it cost the country millions it could ill-afford to pay these loss-making industries to keep running for no reason other than make-work. Thatcher only removed the subsidies, she didn't destroy British manufacturing, she only allowed the market to destroy it.

The damage was caused by the previous governments keeping the subsidies running and propping up such failing enterprise long after they should have gradually and naturally diminished. Subsidies may seem kind and sensible in the short term, but the long-term effects are devestating when the money runs out and the dam finally breaks.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

That she didn't go for other monopolies - the BMA, RCN, Bar, Law Society - can perhaps be explained by the preponderance of lawyers in Parliament and the fact that she was booted out before getting round to it. The most disastrous failure was to allow the continuance of LEAs which eat up money for very little benefit.

Not to mention BALPA (the airrline pilots union) of which Norman Tebbit had been general secretary!

quote:

She did her best to stop the rot of unions and the like bullying workers and the country.

So that employers and financiers could do so instead. Thanks.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

Before Thatcher, Britain was governed by a politics of envy and greed. After Thatcher, we were governed by a politics of greed and envy.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Baptist Trainfan wrote:

quote:
On my course we had some "Religious Right" American Christians who simply couldn't believe that I wasn't delighted - as far as they were concerned, anyone from the Right had to be better than anyone from the Left, QED. In vain did I try to explain the fact that many British Christians in the past had been Socialist or Liberal as well as Tory. That was simply off their radar.

Those Religious Right Americans may have been interested to know that Thatcher was pro-choice on abortion and voted to abolish the sodomy laws in the 1960s.

Possibly, they'd give her a pass on those things, though. One thing I've noticed about anti-abortion people is that there dire concern about "the slaughter of untold babies" can become somewhat less urgent if the person supporting the "slaughter" also happens to advocate lower taxes and de-regulation.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

The thing I have against the Thatcher, and subsequent governments, was that rather than investing the North Sea Gas revenue into British industry and British manufacturing they used it largely to support those laid-off by the closures of the old, admittedly unwieldy, heavy industries ...

Sure, they were inefficient but nothing replaced them.

The price of mass unemployment was the price Thatcher and her ilk were prepared to pay in order to hamstring the unions.

Unlike Marvin, I was old enough to see what was happening after 1979 and whilst a short-sharp-shock of Thatcherism may have been a wake-up call to some extent it went on far too long ...

One could certainly argue that British industry had sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind - but towards the end of his life, my Dad (who was certainly not a lefty by any stretch of the imagination) had come to see the Thatcher experiment as a failure.

He worked in industry, shop-floor level, management level, he saw at first hand how once proud industries were brought to their knees.

The Thatcher regime was brutal. The former coal and steel communities of South Yorkshire and South Wales were literally bludgeoned into submission.

What replaced it?

It's all very well and good toffee-nosed Cameron and his Etonian acolytes railing against the Welfare State and a dependency culture ... but arguably they are their political forebears are the ones who created it - at least on its current scale.

Tebbit's 'On your bike,' my arse.

That's the real irony. The Tories who are railing about welfare and so on are the ones who created mass unemployment in the first place.

Blame the market if you must. I blame Thatcher.

Posted by dv (# 15714) on :

Sadly, the drab lick-spittle politicians of today are busy unpicking what remains of her legacy. She was the greatest Prime Minister of the past 50 years. A great achiever who brought freedom to many - and showed what ordinary folk (especially women) could do if they had vision and belief. That, of course, is why the lefties (including most pinko church leaders then and now) largely hated her.

RIP

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Oh, and I wonder if anyone who knows the history could explain this to me. Fourth paragraph.

The article is confusing. Was the Labour Amendment considered pro-choice or pro-life? I sasume the Northern Ireland MPs were pro-life, which would mean that Labour was supporting a pro-life amendment. But then, why did a pro-lifer like Widdicombe have to be whipped into supporting it?

Or was it a case of the amendment being too liberal for Widdicombe, but conservative enough for the Irish, and Thatcher supporting it out of sympathy for the slightly-conservative Irish position?

[This post was written as a continuation of my earlier post on abortion and sodomy laws.]

[ 08. April 2013, 14:29: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
These people were the remains of the vast unemployment caused by the closure of the steel mills by Margaret Thatcher.

The mills were already dead, all Thatcher did was turn off the (expensive) life-support machine.

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

Say what you like, she made this country what it is today.

Posted by hanginginthere (# 17541) on :

Does anyone else remember Thatcher's excursion into biblical exegesis? Apparently the real point of the parable of the Good Samaritan was that the Samaritan had enough money to be able to pay for the injured man's care. [Confused]

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

I loathed her - but I don't think it is her 'fault' that things turned out the way they did.

If it hadn't been her, someone else would have been elected to take the line she did. The electorate wanted a strong leader who would turn the country around'. They were fed up with Edward Heath's seeming weakness.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
In 1979 the country was virtually destitute, held to ransom by the unions, in hock to the IMF. She fixed all that - and all credit to her, it needed doing. But she replaced it with a "greed is good" economy, a financial services bubble that only finally burst in 2008. And great was the fall of that house that she built on sand.

This. Any talk of how now is better than before misses that now didn't need to be as bad as it is.

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

She did her best to stop the rot of unions and the like bullying workers and the country.

It was not the worker she did this to benefit.

I'll not be dancing in the street, even though I feel the net of her legacy wrought more bad than good.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Say what you like, she made this country what it is today.

Yes, and I like how it is today. I have a good life with my own house, a nice car, excellent transport links for when I don't want to use the car, excellent healthcare, efficiently-run utility companies and relatively low taxes.

Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :

Firstly, although my politics are huge way away from hers, people will be mourning her death so regardless of my feelings... [Votive]

for them.

That said, I think that the selfishness, greed and poisonous individualism that so many (of her party) complain about stem from her policies and her attitude of "God helps those who help themselves" (not a direct quote from her, but it seems to me to sum up the thrust of her policies). Certainly that's the impression I got from reading her autobiography: that if you could help yourself, great, if you couldn't then hard luck; that compromise and consensus were to be resisted; that it was her way or the highway.

I was born a couple of months before she came to power, so I guess I'm one of Thatcher's children, and to see photos/films of pre-Thatcher Britain is a bit like looking into another world. The society we live in now, for better or worse, is the product of Thatcher and no government since her, Labour or Conservative, has strayed too far away from her legacy. I wonder if the problems we're facing now are a result of that.

Perhaps Britain did have to change in 1979 - whether it had to change her way or not is another matter.

So no, no dancing on her grave and I won't speak ill of her as a person - but I'm not sure her legacy is the bundle of unbridled good that many on the right seem to think.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Well, bully for you, Marvin, but that's not what everyone has got. I'm not saying that Thatcher is responsible for the 'I'm-alright-Jack-stuff-everyone-else' attitude but I suspect we're all Thatcher's children now ...

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by hanginginthere:
Does anyone else remember Thatcher's excursion into biblical exegesis? Apparently the real point of the parable of the Good Samaritan was that the Samaritan had enough money to be able to pay for the injured man's care.

Indeed I do: at the Church of Scotland General Assembly in 1988 (not that I was there, I saw it on the news). This "Sermon on the Mound" didn't go down too well with the collected Divines ...

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Well, bully for you, Marvin, but that's not what everyone has got.

Yes, and that's why the ones who haven't got as much hate Thatcher's legacy. But if they're allowed to hate her because her policies made them poor, I'm allowed to love her because her policies made me (relatively) rich.

Posted by Sergius-Melli (# 17462) on :

Re: Mines and Milk.

Just to make something clear:

1. More mines were closed in the c.20th by Labour administrations than by Margaret Thatcher or any Conservative administration.

2. Labour began the removal of milk from schools, as Education Secretary, Margaret Thatcher mearly continued a Labour party policy...

All the bull about milk and mines drives me mad when so little of it is true - Thatchers legacy then:

Annoying the unions to such an extent that even to this day they hurt from their inability to hold the country to ransom ever again to the extent that they did in the '70s.

Just to say as well, it is surprising to understand the number of people who would never think to vote Conservative ever at least supported Thatcher and admired her, especially those in the working classes. My parents, and many of their friends, are very much Centre-Leftists working class peeps, but the way in which they admire/admired Thatcher is inspiring...

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

I recall a cartoon with Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Brian Mulroney all dancing together with a caption "conservatives of the world unite". We lived through the era as young adults, finishing post secondary education, considering having a family, wondering what we could afford to do.

The decade was awful for the average person. Incredible anxiety about the future, costs increasing, wages and ability to afford things decreasing. It seemed to be whole transfer of government largess away from the average person and toward those who already have.

It is an incredible legacy of privatisation, of deciding user shall pay, versus the former model of the public weal. We continue to follow the same path, and I can only say that we've waited for the end of it and it seems to never end.

I suppose I could say in the final analysis I benefitted some 3 decades later. I had to leave my civil service job, and ended up going into business as there was no other option, and I have ended up with far more money than I would have. So I could say hell with other people couldn't I? And thank Thatcher and people like her for making me rich. But I don't. I blame her and her ilk for an anti-humanity and anti-Christian approach.

[ 08. April 2013, 15:29: Message edited by: no prophet ]

Posted by dv (# 15714) on :

This is good on Margaret Thatcher's Christian beliefs and motivation:

Church Times article

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

Do folk think that Thatcher's genius was to appeal to aspirational working-class voters ("Essex men" if I want to be pejorative) in a way which no Conservative had ever succeeded in doing before?

And has that same now passed to UKIP, leaving the Tories stuck with an ageing and middle- and upper-class constituency which is not large enough to give them an electoral victory?

If that's the case, does this leave any British political party with enough support to gain a Parliamentary majority?

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by dv:
This is good on Margaret Thatcher's Christian beliefs and motivation:

Church Times article

Quote from the above:
"Lady Thatcher's faith was shown to be selective and highly personalised, but none the less genuine."

Are people entitled to have beliefs that bend Christianity to their ideology?

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:
Originally posted by dv:
This is good on Margaret Thatcher's Christian beliefs and motivation:

Church Times article
Quote from the above:
"Lady Thatcher's faith was shown to be selective and highly personalised, but none the less genuine."

Are people entitled to have beliefs that bend Christianity to their ideology?

Of course, on the grounds that we all do it. Everyone else is of course entitled to say "erm..."

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Are people entitled to have beliefs that bend Christianity to their ideology?

Yes, of course. What's the alternative - forcing us all to believe a specific set of rigidly-defined tenets?

Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Oh, and I wonder if anyone who knows the history could explain this to me. Fourth paragraph.

The article is confusing. Was the Labour Amendment considered pro-choice or pro-life? I sasume the Northern Ireland MPs were pro-life, which would mean that Labour was supporting a pro-life amendment. But then, why did a pro-lifer like Widdicombe have to be whipped into supporting it?

Or was it a case of the amendment being too liberal for Widdicombe, but conservative enough for the Irish, and Thatcher supporting it out of sympathy for the slightly-conservative Irish position?

[This post was written as a continuation of my earlier post on abortion and sodomy laws.]

The whipping would not have been anything to do with the amendment's precise stance taken on abortion but on the principle of not imposing abortion provisions on Northern Ireland.

My reading of the article is that abortion was not legal in the Northern Ireland at the time, unlike in the rest of the UK, so it would be a massive and controversial change. If abortion were to be extended to NI it would need to be after detailed policy consideration, white papers, public consultation etc, not stuck in as an amendment to another vaguely related piece of legislation.

My guess is that the whipping made no difference to the way Ann Widdecombe would have voted.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Well, bully for you, Marvin, but that's not what everyone has got.
Yes, and that's why the ones who haven't got as much hate Thatcher's legacy. But if they're allowed to hate her because her policies made them poor, I'm allowed to love her because her policies made me (relatively) rich.

And I am allowed to loathe her policies, despite the fact that I have undoubtedly benefited from them. Because the country she created is a far poorer one, even - maybe especially - for those with more money.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by dv:
This is good on Margaret Thatcher's Christian beliefs and motivation:

Church Times article

DV

that is an interesting piece, especially the final comment from it:

quote:
Lady Thatcher's faith was shown to be selective and highly personalised, but none the less genuine. As The Iron Lady prompts reflection on her premiership, we should not forget this vital element of her character, which tells us as much about the relationship between religion and politics in Britain as about the woman herself.

Weiss puts his finger on it for me, in that (and who am I to say who is and is not a Christian?) her faith was ''highly personalised''.

She had a non conformist Methodist background I believe. Yet she was a world away from the working class Methodist-socialists, say, of the Welsh valleys that were of her generation and earlier.

Personally, the only area that I think she did well was the end of the cold war and the thawing of the cold war with the USSR. I think the Soviets like a ''strong'' leader and there was a chemistry between her and Gorbachev. Reagan and Mrs Thatcher also got on well too.

I don't have the space or time to talk about other things and home politics and of course the Falklands Island period. She was contentious all right

Saul

[ 08. April 2013, 16:06: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
And I am allowed to loathe her policies, despite the fact that I have undoubtedly benefited from them. Because the country she created is a far poorer one, even - maybe especially - for those with more money.

But you are using the word "poorer" in a non-balance sheet way, so I doubt she would understand. I think Oscar Wilde can admirably sum up Thatcher and her political legatees: "They know the price of everything and the value of nothing."

Posted by Crazy Cat Lady (# 17616) on :

I never liked her policies and never will. But she did keep us all busy with going on protests, we protested at everything. I liked Aldermaston - met so many interesting people. I never saw a protest descend into rioting or looting, it was all rather polite (and probably very middle class) The rest of the time we covered ourselves in pin badges asserting all the campaigns we approved of. We wanted to be seen as 'edgy' but I guess all young people aspire to that.

I miss the protests, all I have done in recent years is to get chained to a petrol pump. And I can't say I hate Thatcher, I hated her policies but admired her guts - she became Prime Minister - she was a woman and she also wasn't a toff. It must have taken some steely determination to get that far up the ladder.

Oh and I never liked school milk - I used to give mine to Justin Newton.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

I went to primary school in the late 1980s and I got school milk. Was the affect of Mrs Thatcher's actions as Education Secretary really so widespread?

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crazy Cat Lady:
Oh and I never liked school milk - I used to give mine to Justin Newton.

I never liked it either! I lived on a farm, where milk was warm and came out of a cow. The stuff you got in school was cold and tasted funny. (It had been pasteurised!)

I was 17 in 1979. If I'd been 18 I would have probably voted Conservative in the election. Since 1974, prices of everyday things had doubled, or more. British manufacturing industry had already been destroyed by the unions and, as Marvin said, Thatcher just switched off the life-support. Between 1974 and 1979 an average of about 11 million working days a year were lost to strike action, and pay rises were as much out of control as prices were. I remember power cuts when the miners were on strike, walking to school when the bus drivers were on strike, the smell in the streets when the refuse collectors were on strike. It was horrible. And, as we know now, utterly corrupt: union "barons" were more interested in Marxist (or Trotskyist) ideology than in the welfare of their members.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Because the country she created is a far poorer one, even - maybe especially - for those with more money.

I don't see how I'm poorer now than I would be if I had less money, less opportunity and less choice in how to live my life.

Posted by Hairy Biker (# 12086) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
She allowed the British people to become what they'd always wanted to be, for good or ill.

I'd never seen her that way, but I think you hit the nail right on the head.

Mixed emotions from someone who spent his teenage and early adult life hating the woman, then grew to like her politics and now want to reflect on where she led me.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Marvin, I'd like evidence for your assertion that you are somehow wealthier as a result of Thatcher's legacy than you would have been otherwise ...

Neither the UK nor the USA score very highly when it comes to the league tables for upward social mobility.

Sure, some people will have benefited from Thatcherism, others won't have done.

Her legacy, like that of any politician's, is mixed.

One could argue that we're all better off in the longer term because Lloyd George introduced the old age pension for the first time ...

Or that we're all better off health-wise post-war because Labour introduced the NHS ...

I don't have an issue with enterprise and people 'bettering themselves' and so on, but I'd be interested to know how Marvin the Martian would have fared in a pre-Thatcherite Britain as opposed to a post-Thatcherite one.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't see how I'm poorer now than I would be if I had less money, less opportunity and less choice in how to live my life.

Because you are concerned about the poor in your country and how they are treated, if you are? That would be a major reason I'm worried about my country at least

[ 08. April 2013, 16:48: Message edited by: Gwai ]

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot
She and her party did massive damage to the British people. Her legacy is an evil one.
So you would have preferred dictatorship by the trades unions?

If it's a choice between two 'evils' (Thatcher versus Scargill & Co.) I know which I prefer!

Could the answer be that two wrongs don't make a right?

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't have an issue with enterprise and people 'bettering themselves' and so on, but I'd be interested to know how Marvin the Martian would have fared in a pre-Thatcherite Britain as opposed to a post-Thatcherite one.

I'll compare myself to my father. In the pre-Thatcher system, he left school with one A Level and worked in a bank for His whole life. In the Thatcher/ post-Thatcher system I left school with four A Levels, got a degree and have a great career in the university sector. He struggled to buy his first house, I managed it with relative ease. Given that dad is smarter and harder-working than I am, the fact that I've done so well is almost certainly down to the different systems in which we've had to operate. It follows that I'd have been worse off under the pre-Thatcher system.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't see how I'm poorer now than I would be if I had less money, less opportunity and less choice in how to live my life.
Because you are concerned about the poor in your country and how they are treated, if you are?

It's not one of my major concerns, no.

Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :

Please note: I am nor pre-Cambrian.

Thatcher's legacy?

the idea that being working class is something from which to escape
the denigration of working class values like community and shared struggle
the idea that working class values are incompatible with being "successful"
the idea that "success" should be understood primarily in terms of upward social mobility
the systematic dismantling working class culture and identity
the beginning of a programme of cultural cleansing in which working class culture is expunged from political discourse

I could go on.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Mrs T's strength was courage and her weaknesses were quick to judge and slow to forgive. RIP. We may not see her like again.

She took solace in music. Enjoyed brass bands. Liked Yeats. "The best are full of conviction." A conviction politician. I didn't like a lot of her convictions, but I respected her courage.

[ 08. April 2013, 17:25: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:
Originally posted by dv:
This is good on Margaret Thatcher's Christian beliefs and motivation:

Church Times article
Quote from the above:
"Lady Thatcher's faith was shown to be selective and highly personalised, but none the less genuine."

Are people entitled to have beliefs that bend Christianity to their ideology?

I'm sure we all do now and again.

I#ve got no grounds to think whe wasn;t as sincere a Christian as any of us. She at least sometimes went to church when there were no TV cameras around and no public ceremony or big festival going on. Which is more than 90% of the English population

Posted by Yam-pk (# 12791) on :

Well, people (mainly but not exclusively) in the south/south-east voted for her, despite the largely negative economic and social consequences of her policies elsewhere in the country.

Yet in many ways, she was more pragmatic and less unbending than the strident rhetoric suggests: the Royal Mail and British Rail were not privatised, the NHS remained free at the point of use (although with a botched "internal market"), she signed the Single European Act. As well, she was far less pro-Israel than might be supposed, and stood up to the Reagan Administration vis-a-vie British interests much more effectively than Blair’s did to George W Bush.

[ 08. April 2013, 17:08: Message edited by: Yam-pk ]

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :

1979 was my first election; I voted Conservative as I had been brought up to do. The next election I voted Alliance (Lib-Dem), the one after that I voted Labour, as I have done ever since. One effect of Thatcher was to make me a socialist; she showed me what unbridled capitalism was like.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

"She certainly put money in the Market Traders' pockets"

How true!

Best quote yet.

Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :

I was 7 when Thatcher came to power. I can remember the sense of antipathy towards the Conservative party in my household. Watching the news coverage of things like the miners strike only served to cement that antipathy. However, I always had the sense that my parents were equally afraid of the Labour Party.

Politically speaking - as working class Christians - they always seemed to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Inherently suspicious of Conservative social elitism but equally fearful of the militant socialism of Old Labour.

I now realise that Tony Blair simply managed to repackage Thatcherism for people like me - the children of the politically cautious working classes - whom Thatcher had successfully managed to dislocate from their working class cultural heritage and passed it off as something new. it wasn't new. it was the next stage in the Thatcherite campaign and I was taken in hook line and sinker.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

For what its worth I think this article is a very fair summary of her politics Written from a lefty point of view, but not at all bitter or nasty.

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'll compare myself to my father. In the pre-Thatcher system, he left school with one A Level and worked in a bank for His whole life. In the Thatcher/ post-Thatcher system I left school with four A Levels, got a degree and have a great career in the university sector.

Bollocks and you know it! You are too clever to really think that. Almost every country in the world has got richer steadily - with the occasional blip - since the end of the Second World War. Even if you just restrict yourself to Western Wurope, countries as different as Ireland, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, and Britain are all much better off than they were when our parents were our age, and they were better off when their parents were that age.

Each country has a different history in detail, but the general trend is the same. Regardless of who was in government or what their policies were.

The main reasons most of us in Western Europe are better of than we used to be are probably technological advance, gradual accumulation of infrastructure, cheap imports from poorer countries industrialising for the first time, liberalisation of international trade, and not having had any very big wars. Not who was or was not in government.

All the artificially inflicted economic pain and the suffereing and hassle of the early 1980s was just unneccessary. We all ended up in about the same place as each other anyway.

quote:

He struggled to buy his first house, I managed it with relative ease.

Wheras I do a similar job to yours in some ways (maybe even higher paid) and I can't dream of buying a house. Never have been able to. My parents found that sort of thing much, much easier than I did.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't see how I'm poorer now than I would be if I had less money, less opportunity and less choice in how to live my life.
Because you are concerned about the poor in your country and how they are treated, if you are?
It's not one of my major concerns, no.

To my mind, that is poorer.

Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :

Indeed. It would appear that Thatcher has been more spiritually formative than Christ in this regard. [Disappointed]

Posted by Drewthealexander (# 16660) on :

Thatcher's legacy was.... regional. I'm not entirely sure the North East of England has ever recovered. She hardly endeared the Conservative party to the Scots. Rebalancing our democracy in favour of Parliament, as against the unions was certainly a success. One wonders if she would have won three elections had the opposition not been so comically inept.

Posted by Edith (# 16978) on :

Has everyone forgotten that she supported Pinochet to the end and called Nelson Mandela a terrorist?

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Edith:
Has everyone forgotten that she supported Pinochet to the end and called Nelson Mandela a terrorist?

And in a fit of gay panic passed Section 28.

[ 08. April 2013, 19:01: Message edited by: ToujoursDan ]

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

But wasn't the ANC involved in acts that might well have been construed as terrorism?

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
But wasn't the ANC involved in acts that might well have been construed as terrorism?

Wasn't the South African government as well?

Posted by Yam-pk (# 12791) on :

Terrorist is a rather stupid word to describe someone who engages in violence for political ends, although in fairness, apparently she lobbied PW Botha for sometime to release Mandela.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Yam-pk:
Terrorist is a rather stupid word to describe someone who engages in violence for political ends.

Would you say, then, that Martin McGuinness c. 1972 wasn't a terrorist?

Posted by Sergius-Melli (# 17462) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
And in a fit of gay panic passed Section 28.

She also voted to decriminalise homosexuality, let's not forget that! Also the fact that Section 28, although despisable, was woefully misunderstood at the time at that misunderstanding has been perpetuated in its entirety with almost no proper historical revision that it deserves!

To address an earlier point:
Someone mentioned that the most recent banking crisis was founded on Thatcher's legacy, some digging around reveals that this is somewhat woefully wrong, since the latest banking crisis had it's basis in bank borrowing which since the '60s was steadly at around twenty times the banks capital, ie. before, during and after the Thatcher and Major years. It was only after 2000 that bank borrowings rose to the levels that were majorly damaging and contributory to the most recent crisis. After 2000ish bank borrowing rose to around 50 times the capital in the seven years upto the crisis... just thought it might help shed light on this idea that Thatcher is supposedly not only responsible for setting the groundwork for the longest period of prosperity that the UK has seen (which would be true) and the resultant crisis (which evidently would be false).

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:

quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
And in a fit of gay panic passed Section 28.
She also voted to decriminalise homosexuality, let's not forget that! Also the fact that Section 28, although despisable, was woefully misunderstood at the time at that misunderstanding has been perpetuated in its entirety with almost no proper historical revision that it deserves!

So everybody misunderstands it except those who agree with your (mysteriously undeclared) interpretation. A bit like your assertion in Hell that socialism is dead, except where it's alive.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:
Originally posted by dv:
This is good on Margaret Thatcher's Christian beliefs and motivation:

Church Times article
Quote from the above:
"Lady Thatcher's faith was shown to be selective and highly personalised, but none the less genuine."

Are people entitled to have beliefs that bend Christianity to their ideology?

Well many do.

“most Christian Prime Minister of the 20th century. Led by her "deep religious conviction"”

My arse.

Sounds more like Tony Blair – let‘s fight a war and kill people.

Posted by anne (# 73) on :

quote:
Originally posted by dv:
A great achiever who brought freedom to many - and showed what ordinary folk (especially women) could do if they had vision and belief.

Well, she showed what ordinary folk (especially women) could do if they had vision, belief and married a millionaire, certainly.

Like much of the rest of her legacy, her impact on the lives of British women - and on British feminism - is complicated. The symbolic importance of a female Prime Minister can't be denied. Some groups of women were definitely empowered as a result of her premiership - the groups of miners' wives who organised community foodbanks, campaigns and demonstrations during the strikes spring to mind. But she is not famous for having done a great deal to promote equality of opportunity or equality of pay for work of equal value when she had the chance.

Incidentally, I've never quite understood why those 'ordinary folk' not fortunate enough to have been born with, or have been taught vision and belief shouldn't get a shot too.

anne

Posted by Ronald Binge (# 9002) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Yam-pk:
Terrorist is a rather stupid word to describe someone who engages in violence for political ends.
Would you say, then, that Martin McGuinness c. 1972 wasn't a terrorist?

And I would certainly describe the Paras in Derry as a terrorist organisation in 1972 using the exact same criteria. State institutions need the consent of the governed and must never act outside the law.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

As Mrs Merton might have said, 'Mrs Thatcher, what attracted you to multi-millionaire businessman Denis Thatcher?"

Once you enter that world you are impervious to the lives and expectations of the vast majority of the population. Just like today's Bullingdon set.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Because you are concerned about the poor in your country and how they are treated, if you are?
It's not one of my major concerns, no.
To my mind, that is poorer.

How very convenient. I'll use the real definition, thanks.

[fixed the hideously messed up code, because I can]

[ 09. April 2013, 08:02: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

I can't believe nobody has mentioned the housing crisis yet... surely the original 'Right to Buy' rules, which forbade councils to use the money from house sales to build more council (= social) housing if they were running a deficit, were at least partly responsible for the current bubble in the property market?

As well as massively reducing the stock of available social housing, the 'Right To Buy' probably prolongued the Tories' time in power - the Labour Party only dropped their opposition to the scheme in 1985.

[ 08. April 2013, 20:53: Message edited by: Jane R ]

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

Mrs Thatcher, along with Ronald Reagan (a former actor in cowboy films) invented the slogan T.I.N.A: "There Is No Alternative."

But, hey ho, cheer up guys - there's another housing boom on the horizon! [Smile]

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

With the greatest of respect (because he's Admin) I didn't realise Marvin was a tory boy - I thought all the atheists on here were guardianistas.

No offence! [Razz]

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
With the greatest of respect (because he's Admin) I didn't realise Marvin was a tory boy - I thought all the atheists on here were guardianistas.

No offence!

Hey, I'm not an atheist so your presupposition can still stand for a while yet!

Posted by Lucia (# 15201) on :

Er, I don't think Marvin is an atheist.... (even if he might wish he were [Biased]

)

(x-posted with Marvin!)

[ 08. April 2013, 21:07: Message edited by: Lucia ]

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
With the greatest of respect (because he's Admin) I didn't realise Marvin was a tory boy - I thought all the atheists on here were guardianistas.

No offence!
Hey, I'm not an atheist so your presupposition can still stand for a while yet!

OK - it doesn't really matter, because nearly everyone else is a Guardianista on here, regardless of what they believe. [Biased]

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

I couldn't resist posting this:

Margaret Thatcher left a dark legacy that has still not disappeared (The Guardian)

BTW. I don't remember Margaret Thatcher being particularly religious. Tony Blair was (is), as we all know - but I never saw that as a bad thing, whatever else might be said about him.

Posted by Qoheleth. (# 9265) on :

... and then there was the privatisation of the electricity industry and so-called "downward pressure on prices". So now we're reliant on a nationalised French nuclear industry and a nationalised Russian gas industry to keep the UK lights on. And the Americans and French to build any new kit when/if we get round to it. Post-Thatcher, no-one has the responsibility to keep the UK lights on.

Oh yes, and abolition of the GLC and the loss of any strategic planning of services and infrastructure for the capital. And then the abolition of ILEA.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

You might be interested, Mark Betts, to hear that Maggie spoke quite highly of Orthodoxy in her autobiography - even though she found it baffling compared to the plain, no-nonsense Methodism of her childhood.

For some reason I feel that I'm going to regret telling you that ...

@Marvin - you're highly selective of course. I know people who had good jobs in the university sector only to have been booted out on their arses in recent years. I'm one of them. So fuck off.

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

Hers was the politics of revenge. The miners brought down the Tories under Heath, ergo she buried the mines.

I remembered that in 79, the despair amongst my fellow students, that there was a sense of despair and last one out turn off the light. Who woud've know that in 2 or 3 short years those same people who be sellig out to embrace Maggie's Market?

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I loathed her - but I don't think it is her 'fault' that things turned out the way they did.

If it hadn't been her, someone else would have been elected to take the line she did. The electorate wanted a strong leader who would turn the country around'. They were fed up with Edward Heath's seeming weakness.

Surely Leo, even you can remember that wasn't a choice the electorate ever got the chance to make. Mrs Thatcher won a leadership election against Edward Heath on a franchise of Conservative party MPs. The only choice the electorate got was between a Labour Party led by Jim Callaghan and a Conservative one led by Mrs Thatcher.

After that, she had an easy run against an opposition which then proceeded resolutely to commit hari-kari in public. The only thing that would have given Foot a remote chance in 1983 would have been if the UK had lost the Falklands War.

As it happened, the Labour Party in 1983 was saved from the wipeout which at the time it richly deserved by the country's bizarre voting system, which gave them on 27.6% of the vote, 209 seats and the Alliance on 25.4%, 23 seats. That was the moment which convinced me we need serious electoral reform. I still view with disgust anyone whom I discover voted against it in the referendum.

It's all very well the left moaning, but if they had been doing mature politics in stead of committing hari-kari, perhaps the years 1970-90 wouldn't have been something most of us non-politicals look back on as a disgusting nightmare.

Hawk says

quote:
If the electorate had been as sensible in '82 or '87,

The Electorate had no choice in 1982 and not much of one even by 1987.

I am not a supporter of hers, but she was neither as great nor as wicked as so many people maintain, and people piping and dancing in Glasgow when somebody has died is in bad taste.

And is, as one person has suggested, "her legacy the Hillsborough cover up"? That's a small piece of seamy underbelly, but it's hardly a legacy in comparison with recovering the Falklands (good), defeating Arthur Scargill (necessary but rough, as the alternative would have been worse) or wrecking the industrial base of large parts of the country (bad).

I sometimes wonder whether as the electorate, we got what we deserved. When Heath asked 'who governs Britain?' we gave an answer that made everything that followed inevitable.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Hers was the politics of revenge. The miners brought down the Tories under Heath, ergo she buried the mines.

No, I don't think so. In fact, one could argue that she wasn't good enough at revenge, which was why she kept so many pro-Europe types in senior positions in her cabinet and didn't promote her own supporters very effectively, which led to the ERM debacle.

The unions of the 1970s had to be broken, so she did. She was ruthless about it, and entire communities still bear the scars, but the unions were clear that they weren't interested in cooperating in any kind of sensible reform. The Winter of Discontent wasn't exactly a high point for the union movement.

If the unions had had a more rational approach to the Callaghan government, it's even possible that he wouldn't have lost the 1979 election (although that's a bit of a stretch.)

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
These people were the remains of the vast unemployment caused by the closure of the steel mills by Margaret Thatcher.
The mills were already dead, all Thatcher did was turn off the (expensive) life-support machine.

And if a colonial can chip in, not just the steel mills but the coal mines and a lot more besides. For those who are interested, there is Anthony Robert's book Eminent Churchillians which discusses the lost years after WW II, when Britain failed to modernise its society and industry - leading to the near bankruptcy of the 70s. It was that delay in the change that made and makes Thatcher seem so brutal. And I say this as someone who has been a life-long Labour voter here.

On a thread a year or so ago, many in the UK spoke of not having a home telephone until the 80s, of either not having a car or else using a MIni as a family car until then, and so forth. The changes brought in under Thatcher brought about the sort of prosperity of which Marvin has written above.

There were very real downsides as well. There was a substantial decline in a range of basic public services. As tourists, we noticed that footpaths were dirtier, trains not properly cleaned, roads not as well maintained, all in a small and densely populated country where the burden of such services on individual taxpayers is not heavy. While more children remained at school, the quality of their education appears to have dropped, although that is a problem here as well.

Above all, Ms Thatcher showed no understanding of the pain and grief felt by those affected by her reforms. She showed no sympathy to them at all then or in retirement, but gave every impression of relishing it. That will be the memory she leaves.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

I should have checked before posting. It's Andrew Roberts, not Anthony. Andrew Roberts is the biographer and essayist; read The Holy Fox, his biography of Lord Halifax. Anthony Roberts is a very minor local politician.

Posted by Og: Thread Killer (# 3200) on :

In this country, Thatcher is generally compared to Reagan.

Where Reagan is seen as a good consensus developing communicator who allowed others to implement his simplistic right wing views, Thatcher is seen as a divisive communicator who followed through on her simplistic views, to the point where a systematic theology developed around them.

She is the populist conservative blogger's star example of how to be a politician. Her approach begat what has become our renewed Conservative party. Even in her demise as PM, the lesson has been implemented in the form of a tight fisted control of all apparatus and views within the Tory party.

Her legacy can be found in every simplistic internet discussion. She is the angry internet troll's prime example of how their behaviour can be successful, if given power.

She changed the world more then any other person in the last two decades of the last century.

And we are not a better world because of it.

I feel for her family, as loss is never good.

[Votive]

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Personally, the only area that I think she did well was the end of the cold war and the thawing of the cold war with the USSR. I think the Soviets like a ''strong'' leader and there was a chemistry between her and Gorbachev. Reagan and Mrs Thatcher also got on well too.

Thanks Saul, the rest of this thread is really petty and parochial.

In the future, history students will be as bored by the issues being vented here as are students of nineteenth century history trying to recapture the passions surrounding free trade versus protectionism.

High-profile twentieth century politicians will be remembered above all things for their stance toward the century’s great threats to liberal democracy, fascism and communism.

As regards Pinochet’s Chilean fascism, which murdered about 3,000 victims, Thatcher was on the wrong side.

As regards communism, which murdered tens of millions of victims, she will always be remembered for being gloriously right.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

It has been mentioned that the ''Falklands Effect'' revived her fortunes.

Whatever our views most of us will understand what happened here and a fascist Argentine junta had negative resonance with British people.

General Galtieri was a right wing politician and this had echoes of the 1939 - 45 war, for many British folk. Many of whom still remembered people like Mussolini etc.

When ''plucky little Britain'' liberated the Falkland Islands long held patriotic views were released.

It was almost the last gasp of an imperial past that had pretty much slipped away.

Also, it was clear that the small number of Falkland Islanders were being occupied by a foreign power, against their wishes.

Was it Harold Wilson who said about the vagaries of politics? :

''Events dear boy, events.''

Thatcher played her card on the Falklands and she played it good (for her own and the Tory parties standing) it revived her flagging fortunes.

Events.

Saul the Apostle

PS Kaplan - the cold war and Thatcher's part in it is interesting. Reagan was popularly reviled, yet, he played his part in the downfall of the USSR as did Thatcher.

[ 09. April 2013, 05:49: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

A commentator on the radio here pointed out that Thatcher was one of the first prominent politicians to warn (rightly or wrongly) of the dangers of global warming.

Greenies should also be pleased that she closed down mines producing that currently vilified global polluter, coal.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

How did Thatcher significantly contribute to the end of the Cold War? My impression of the period suggests the Eastern Bloc was brought down by a.) courageous individuals within the Bloc such as Lech Wałȩsa and Václav Havel, b.) courageous mass protests such as the two million-strong human chain in the Baltic States, c.) Gorbachev's futile attempts to have his cake and eat it, d.) Boris Yeltsin's deviousness, and above all e.) the inherent contradictions in the Soviet system.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
How did Thatcher significantly contribute to the end of the Cold War? My impression of the period suggests the Eastern Bloc was brought down by a.) courageous individuals within the Bloc such as Lech Wałȩsa and Václav Havel, b.) courageous mass protests such as the two million-strong human chain in the Baltic States, c.) Gorbachev's futile attempts to have his cake and eat it, d.) Boris Yeltsin's deviousness, and above all e.) the inherent contradictions in the Soviet system.

That's how I recall it Ricardus. In world terms, that has been the biggest movement of my adult life.

The moment it really dawned on me the whole thing was on the skids was when the army took over in Poland. A Communist military coup!??

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

As regards Pinochet’s Chilean fascism, which murdered about 3,000 victims, Thatcher was on the wrong side.

As regards communism, which murdered tens of millions of victims, she will always be remembered for being gloriously right.

So on the one side you limit fascism to one example, while on the other side you look at communism as a whole.

If you were to look at communism in her lifetime, i.e. the communism she was worked against, you'd have different figures.

Not that she didn't benefit from the communism of Poland. She did a deal with the government here whereby coal was exported to GB in order to secure reserves during the Miner's Strike.

Oh, and mentioning the doubling of poverty between 1979 and 1990 is petty? So is the Battle of Ogreave? Hillsborough?

We really are seeing pathetic reactions from members of the right at the moment.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

The moment it really dawned on me the whole thing was on the skids was when the army took over in Poland. A Communist military coup!??

The communists were already in power, so it wasn't a coup. Many here in Poland believe that Jaruzelski ordered martial law in order to stave off a possible Soviet invasion.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

The moment it really dawned on me the whole thing was on the skids was when the army took over in Poland. A Communist military coup!??
The communists were already in power, so it wasn't a coup. Many here in Poland believe that Jaruzelski ordered martial law in order to stave off a possible Soviet invasion.

It may not have involved violence, cutting of telephone lines, field guns pointing at government buildings, but the military taking over from a civilian government and then the general going on television in uniform to explain what he's done, isn't the sort of administrative transition one normally gets in either a parliamentary democracy or a peoples' state.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
How did Thatcher significantly contribute to the end of the Cold War? My impression of the period suggests the Eastern Bloc was brought down by a.) courageous individuals within the Bloc such as Lech Wałȩsa and Václav Havel, b.) courageous mass protests such as the two million-strong human chain in the Baltic States, c.) Gorbachev's futile attempts to have his cake and eat it, d.) Boris Yeltsin's deviousness, and above all e.) the inherent contradictions in the Soviet system.

Ricardus,

yes, absolutely, I agree with you. I said:

quote:
....the cold war and Thatcher's part in it is interesting. Reagan was popularly reviled, yet, he played his part in the downfall of the USSR as did Thatcher.

Thatcher (and Reagan) ''played their parts'', I think the factors you mention are wholly valid too and important.

Thatcher was perceived as a strong leader (as Stalin perceived Churchill in 1941 to 1945) and as a consequence, she was a part of that decline of the USSR and the Communist bloc.

The communist edifice was shaky and corrupt and the internal dissent stronger and stronger.

The international legacy of Thatcher and the break up of the USSR demands a book length reply [Roll Eyes]

I'd certainly agree with the facts that you raise about the ''Iron curtain'' countries and the decline of communism.

Saul

[ 09. April 2013, 08:12: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Qoheleth.:
Post-Thatcher, no-one has the responsibility to keep the UK lights on.

And yet they stay on, in stark contrast to the regular brownouts and power cuts that came before. Isn't that interesting...

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Marvin - you're highly selective of course.

I'm focusing on the good. Others are focusing on the bad. If I'm being highly selective, then so are they.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

The moment it really dawned on me the whole thing was on the skids was when the army took over in Poland. A Communist military coup!??
The communists were already in power, so it wasn't a coup. Many here in Poland believe that Jaruzelski ordered martial law in order to stave off a possible Soviet invasion.
It may not have involved violence, cutting of telephone lines, field guns pointing at government buildings, but the military taking over from a civilian government and then the general going on television in uniform to explain what he's done, isn't the sort of administrative transition one normally gets in either a parliamentary democracy or a peoples' state.

No-one's saying that it is.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Marvin - you're highly selective of course.
I'm focusing on the good. Others are focusing on the bad. If I'm being highly selective, then so are they.

Do you acknowledge things like the doubling of poverty? That she played a part in Hillsborough?

Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Qoheleth.:
Post-Thatcher, no-one has the responsibility to keep the UK lights on.
And yet they stay on, in stark contrast to the regular brownouts and power cuts that came before. Isn't that interesting...

Under a Conservative government. In which Thatcher served.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Of course, Marvin ... it's just that you agree with some people's selectivity whilst I might agree with others ...

[Biased]

We are all selective.

In the interests of balance, though, I think there are two equal and opposite pitfalls here.

We could caricature both.

Yours might be represented as, 'I think I'm better off as a result of Thatcher's legacy so the rest of you can fuck off.'

Mine, as articulated upthread, might be represented as, 'After a slow start during the recession of the 1980s, I eventually prospered under the Thatcherite legacy until the bubble eventually burst beneath me and I ended up on my arse - so those of you who are continuing to do well can all fuck off ...'

Neither, I submit, would be an appropriate response.

I would agree with those who've said that pre-Thatcher the country was marred by the politics of greed and the politics of envy. That continued afterwards, perhaps in a starker way.

Someone once said to me that the people of The Potteries (Stoke on Trent) don't mind not having a great deal materially ... as long as no-one else has a great deal materially either ...

I think there's a quintessential Puritanism behind both the UK left and elements of the UK right, certainly Thatcher's small-shop/greengrocer's daughter end of things.

That gives both a certain charm but equally has particular pitfalls.

The legacy is mixed. On the one hand the market freed things up, on the other it dealt a death blow to communities and to industries that could, in some cases, have been turned around. Some of the things that happened to indigenous UK manufacturing wouldn't have been allowed to happen in France or elsewhere - world class names and world-class products allowed to go to the wall.

Bizarrely, for my own part I find myself self-employed and trying to be more entrepreneurial ... on one level that's no bad thing ... time will tell whether I have that tendency.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
Do you acknowledge things like the doubling of poverty?

I remain unconvinced. ISTM that the poor of today are better off than the poor of the 70s, it's just that the rich are even more better off.

quote:
That she played a part in Hillsborough?

Other than the slightly tenuous fact that the Prime Minister is ultimately responsible for the police force, I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Marvin - you're highly selective of course.
I'm focusing on the good. Others are focusing on the bad. If I'm being highly selective, then so are they.

The interesting things are those which are regardeed as good by some and bad by others. Thatcher's legacy includes lots of that, such as increased home ownership and a housing shortage, which have common roots in council house sales and banking deregulation, such as demutualisation.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

I should have said 1987.

quote:
From 1979 to 1987, the number of Britons living in poverty (defined as living on less than half the national average income) doubled, from roughly 10% to 20% of the whole population. In 1989, almost 6 million full-time workers, representing 37% of the total full-time workforce, earned less than the “decency threshold” defined by the Council of Europe as 68% of average full-time earnings

Source

Regarding Hillsborough, Thatcher's toleration of police abuses during the abuses during the Miner's Strike ("the enemy within"), including within the South Yorkshire Police contributed to a culture of impunity. In this context, her acceptance of SYP lies contributed to the cover-up. Cameron himself said that Thatcher had been advised that the SYP were "close to deceitful".

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:

quote:
From 1979 to 1987, the number of Britons living in poverty (defined as living on less than half the national average income) doubled

See, there's your problem. Normally a comment like "poverty has doubled" implies that lots of people are poorer than they used to be, but with that definition all it means is lots of other people are richer than they used to be.

I have a reasonably good standard of living right now. Should it come to pass that enough other people got richer to mean that statistically speaking I would be on less than half the national average income - but still with exactly the same standard of living - that would not make me poverty-stricken.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

It's been said that Thatcher was the enemy of the working class. But I don't remember many council house tenants refusing on principle to buy their houses, once they were allowed to. In fact, the first million sales went pretty quickly. I also don't remember crowds of people turning up their noses at the thought of buying shares in privatised industries.

In fact, there were many who bought their homes and then sold them quickly at a huge profit; and the same with the shares. And then, later, voted at the annual general meetings of their (mutual) building societies to convert those societies into banks, and bought even more shares!

To argue that Thatcher somehow destroyed what had been a morally principled working class is rubbish. The British are a greedy people, and she fed our greed.

Likewise, there's the allegation that she destroyed communities - usually meaning villages or towns where virtually everyone worked in the same mine or factory. Community my arse! If you were a working class lad who wanted to go to university instead of straight to work in the local plastics factory, you could forget getting served in the local pub. You could forget most of your former friends even acknowledging you in the street. You call that a community? Places like that needed breaking - it was 1979, not 1926. And Britain was eventually the better for it, except in those pathetic places where such "communities" are still living off a generation of resentment.

Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :

I refrained from comment on the day she actually died, and I'm not sure how long needs to pass before anything I say will be understood as being an unsuitable criticism so soon after the event, but I suspect the fact that she will have what essentially amounts to a state funeral will raise many mixed feelings in people.

As a first woman Prime Minister she obviously felt the need to leave her mark and to be tough in a mans world, and I cannot help but respect her for that; but as time went on there seemed to be a determination in her not to listen to anyone on anything. I remember vividly her last term in office, and it wasn't a good time. In many ways things from the past started to bite her in the ass and I honestly think that if she had run another term after that (as unlikely as that seemed at the time) it would have been truly disastrous. there was, unfortunately, an element of the corruption of power that seems to have gone to her head a bit.

On the one hand there are things she did well, but she will sadly be remembered for what she did wrong, because when she got it wrong, she got it spectacularly wrong. Her dealings with Northern Ireland were truly awful and her (almost stereotypical) Conservative response was always the same, with the result that the conflict was prolonged, bloody and ugly. Under Thatcher, Northern Ireland had a parade of ministers who had obviously received the post as a kind of booby prize - you could not have picked a worse pack of bumbling ineffective idiots who had no notion of why the troubles even existed if you'd tried. She completely and utterly failed at addressing RUC and army corruption, and even at times refused to acknowledge that it was there even when it was staring her in the face.

As a pro European I found her anti EU stance disheartening, but it wasn't the policy that galled me, it was the sentiment. It's one thing to be anti EU, it's quite another to believe in a 'great' Britain that ends up promoting xenaphobia and seeding racial fears, and I fear that is what she did. It's always a difficult line to tread, but she did it poorly and it is sadly something that Conservatives today still do poorly as part of her poisonous legacy on this.

Economically she reinforced class to a large degree, between the rich and the poor. She didn't need to totally decimate the unions and would have been far better served to limit powers to a degree rather than try a head on breaking exercise. She appears to have been hell bent on a policy of selling every public service to private companies, which depending on which side of that fence you happen to fall, was either a great thing or a terrible evil. In many ways her economic policy mirrored economic policy in the USA - you want it, you pay for it.

Lastly, and I think this is the most important thing, she stayed too long. If ever a case was to be made for limiting the period of office was to be made, she made it. It always puzzles me that it was never introduced after her, but I think she stayed too long in office. If her terms had been shorter I really doubt that there would even be half the invective leveled against her now by her critics. I don't think it's helped by people making foolish statements like, 'she was the greatest prime minister that ever lived', or as one headline put it 'the greatest woman of the last thousand years'. Statements like that just beg for inappropriate comment.

Posted by dv (# 15714) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
I can't believe nobody has mentioned the housing crisis yet... surely the original 'Right to Buy' rules, which forbade councils to use the money from house sales to build more council (= social) housing if they were running a deficit, were at least partly responsible for the current bubble in the property market?

As well as massively reducing the stock of available social housing, the 'Right To Buy' probably prolongued the Tories' time in power - the Labour Party only dropped their opposition to the scheme in 1985.

Surely that was more to do with massive uncontrolled immigration - especially under Labour but still, sadly, continuing to a large extent with the ConDems.

[ 09. April 2013, 09:47: Message edited by: dv ]

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

No-one has mentioned Niel Kinnock's appearance on the BBC retrospective.

He is still clearly filled with a passionate _loathing_ for...Arthur Scargill. He commented (I'm paraphrasing) that Scargill made it easy for Thatcher to play the opposite pole in a dualistic war-to-the-death in which Scargill led the working man to his doom.

I work in Engineering, and I find it notable that whereas Denmark (a high-cost economy) still has a major ship-building industry, we do not. There are lots of other examples, but the interesting counter-example is in the defence sector, where the strategic importance of defense electronics / jet engines / (even ships, though small-scale to what has gone) means we still have national design _and manufacturing_ capacity.

Perhaps that strategic importance helped keep the wheels on in that area (that is, constrained the worst excesses of an ideological power struggle? Led to a more collaborative approach? And yes, overlooked corrupt sales to wealthy foreign powers?) whilst the opposite poles of Scargill and Thatcher fought a battle in which much else was destroyed. The tragedy is that once it is gone, it is very, very hard to bring it back - and if I were to follow Tebbit's advice and get on my bike, well it's a f*cking long way to Shenzhen.

[ 09. April 2013, 09:50: Message edited by: mark_in_manchester ]

Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
I refrained from comment on the day she actually died, and I'm not sure how long needs to pass before anything I say will be understood as being an unsuitable criticism so soon after the event

From today's Comment is Free.

Thurible

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

An excellent editorial.

quote:
Much was wrong with the Britain she inherited in 1979, undemocratic union power among them, and many things, though not wrong in themselves, were unsustainable without radical change, including some nationalised utilities. Britain would have had to alter radically in the 1980s and 90s, and the process would have been hard and controversial. But, as Germany and other northern nations have shown, economic dynamism has been possible without the squandering of social cohesion that Mrs Thatcher promoted.

In the last analysis, though, her stock in trade was division. By instinct, inclination and effect she was a polariser. She glorified both individualism and the nation state, but lacked much feeling for the communities and bonds that knit them together. When she spoke, as she often did, about "our people", she did not mean the people of Britain; she meant people who thought like her and shared her prejudices. She abhorred disorder, decadence and bad behaviour but she was the empress ruler of a process of social and cultural atomism that has fostered all of them, and still does.

Posted by Amos (# 44) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Thurible:

quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
I refrained from comment on the day she actually died, and I'm not sure how long needs to pass before anything I say will be understood as being an unsuitable criticism so soon after the event
From today's Comment is Free.

Thurible

Exactly so. There was a thread here not so long ago upon the death of Hugo Chavez in which a number of the people now insisting that no ill be said of the dead were, in their turn, speaking ill of the dead.

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
To argue that Thatcher somehow destroyed what had been a morally principled working class is rubbish. The British are a greedy people, and she fed our greed.

Perhaps. But I don't think you can blame people for cashing in when the government's going to sell off the family silver one way or another.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't see how I'm poorer now than I would be if I had less money, less opportunity and less choice in how to live my life.
Because you are concerned about the poor in your country and how they are treated, if you are?
It's not one of my major concerns, no.

In short your attitude is "Fuck you, got mine." And this is why we will never see eye to eye.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

As regards Pinochet’s Chilean fascism, which murdered about 3,000 victims, Thatcher was on the wrong side.

As regards communism, which murdered tens of millions of victims, she will always be remembered for being gloriously right.
So on the one side you limit fascism to one example, while on the other side you look at communism as a whole.

If you were to look at communism in her lifetime, i.e. the communism she was worked against, you'd have different figures.

Chilean fascism was the one with which she interracted, though she she indirectly opposed Argentinian fascism.

Soviet communism was the one which she "worked against" (though she was opposed to communism in general, including its Chinese and other manifestations), and it was responsible for a minimum of nine million deaths.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
To argue that Thatcher somehow destroyed what had been a morally principled working class is rubbish. The British are a greedy people, and she fed our greed.

I wouldn't suggest that the British are more or less greedy than anybody else. Man is a wanting animal. Maybe there is more envy, but Britain, like it or not, has had a class system since the Normans arrived.

What Thatcher did was to enable many people to make a small cash gain from a number of state sell-offs and building society demutualisations, thus removing them from democratic control and placing them in the hands of profit- rather than service- oriented owners.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Mention of 'squandering of social cohesion' upthread reminds me that this isn't the only thing which Thatcher's government squandered. She came into power as North Sea Oil was coming onstream. Why haven't we now got a sovereign wealth fund like Norway has (the biggest in the world, apparently)?

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
In short your attitude is "Fuck you, got mine."

I'd phrase it slightly differently, but whatever.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

Interestingly balanced commentary by Ross Douthat in the NYT
discussing how

quote:
Thatcherism turned out to be “a much more complicated thing than many analyses contain”

...

quote:
And that was why she ultimately failed, as every politician always ultimately does. She wanted to return Britain to the tradition of her thrifty, traditional father; instead she turned it into a country for the likes of her son, a wayward, money-making opportunist.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
Mark Betts posted
BTW. I don't remember Margaret Thatcher being particularly religious. Tony Blair was (is), as we all know - but I never saw that as a bad thing, whatever else might be said about him.

1. She was brought up a Methodist - church 3 times on a Sunday, bible class, etc, etc, etc.

2. She continued church attendance when she left home for Oxford: but at Oxford it was easier to attend the CofE college chapel, which she did.

3. She continued to attend church whenever she could throughout her adult life. In fact, her attendance at the church nearest to Chequers is the most frequent of any 20th century PM, bar none (and Cameron comes second...)

4. Any who doubt that she was a woman of faith might do well to seek out and read her speech to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Read it several times, as I have, and then try to pick holes in her declared belief.

5. And to those who would riposte "by their fruits.." look at the testimony of the Downing Street "garden girls" - secretaries/clerks whose building is in the garden: they all say that she was very kind, marked weddings and babies with handwritten notes and thoughtful gifts, etc.

She may not have suffered fools, gladly or otherwise, but she was interested in people and never forgot or tried to hide he beginnings in the flat over the shop.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

I once heard a story that she used to learn out of the window of that flat above the grocer's shop, L'Organist, in order to spit at the kids passing underneath ...

This might have been a wild calumny of course.

There's a lot of legend mixed up in all of this.

The truth, as ever, is usually a lot more interesting.

Some good - her personal courage - some bad - her inflexibility - some indifferent.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

She did indeed have a reputation for personal kindness. I have a horrible feeling that had I worked for her as e.g. a driver I might have quite liked her. On the other hand, read what John Major (a man noted for his courtesy, on the whole) says in his memoirs about how she conducted cabinet meetings, especially at the end of her premiership: she could be really unpleasant and humiliate people. Some people are horrible to those aroudn them and good to people in general, others are the other way around, some are consistently both personally and generally good or horrible. Doesn't really take us any further.
As to your last point, L'Organist: oh no, oh very much no. Read the first volume of John Campbell's biography. She couldn't wait to get away from Grantham and put it very much behind her - psychologically and physically (she hardly ever went back)- until round about the time when she became party leader in '75, when she needed to project an image which was not the (would-be) posh Tory lady persona that she had developed over the previous 25 years. this isn't necessarily a criticism of her, but she was on the way up and out of that narrow background, and having to work very hard to make her way in the world.

[ 09. April 2013, 12:41: Message edited by: Albertus ]

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
In short your attitude is "Fuck you, got mine."
I'd phrase it slightly differently, but whatever.

And I'd call your phrasing both practically indistinguishable from "Fuck you, got mine" and incredibly short sighted.

The reason I call it shortsighted is that I do not know the full situation of everyone I care about. And even if I did I would not know where they would be. Further I don't know the situation of everyone I will care about in the future. So the best I can do to protect me and mine is work for a situation in which as close as possible to no one has unmet needs.

Posted by argona (# 14037) on :

Commentators have been noting Thatcher's lack of "sentimentality". Do they understand the term? She had sentimentality in abundance, nowhere more than in her romantic attachment to virtues of self-reliance and public service she identified in her father. Yes, real virtues, but sentimentality blinded her to the obstacles a divided world throws in front of them. It also blinded her to the carnivorous nastiness that exists higher in the food chain than the middling niche she was born into. When, through financial deregulation, she let the tigers out of their cages, I expect she thought they would, at least mostly, be decent creatures like her dad, to the good of all. Was she too senile by 2008 to see how they'd gobbled us up and run laughing to their (offshore) banks? Sentimentality is a curse, and Thatcher was cursed with it.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

I've heard David Willetts (who should know) say that she was indeed quite shocked by the failure of many of the people who she'd enriched to use their new money as charitably as she had expected them to.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
She didn't need to totally decimate the unions and would have been far better served to limit powers to a degree rather than try a head on breaking exercise.

Callaghan tried to play nice with the unions, and was rewarded with the Winter of Discontent - and he was on "their side"!

On what planet would "limiting powers to a degree" have actually worked? The unions made their bed in the 70s, and Thatcher made them lie in it.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Likewise, there's the allegation that she destroyed communities - usually meaning villages or towns where virtually everyone worked in the same mine or factory. Community my arse! If you were a working class lad who wanted to go to university instead of straight to work in the local plastics factory, you could forget getting served in the local pub. You could forget most of your former friends even acknowledging you in the street. You call that a community? Places like that needed breaking - it was 1979, not 1926. And Britain was eventually the better for it, except in those pathetic places where such "communities" are still living off a generation of resentment.

Indeed. I think staunch anti-Thatcherites need to take a long, hard look at the stagnated and entrenched social situation of pre-Thatcher Britain and it might help remove some of the rose-tint from their glasses.

Britain needed to change, it wasn't working. The workers were kept down, unable to think about any social mobility. Yes there was cohesion, unity, community spirit. But at what price? Thatcher gave hope that poverty and grinding labour could be left behind if you worked hard enough. That anyone could be a millionaire, not just the elites. People mourn the loss of the pits, but were they so great? Would anyone nowadays want to live in a town where the only job you could ever dream of was such filthy, dangerous, back-breaking labour? If the pits reopened today the only workers would be Poles.

Thatcher fought for the power of the individual, and against the entrenchment of privileged groups. The entitlements and perks of established groups were swept away and personal ability was raised up to be the governing factor. Some embraced the new way, succeeded and became rich. Others fought for the old ways and lost and drowned their resentment in hate and bitterness, mourning the loss of what they felt they were entitled to.

Many became unemployed, but the welfare system was a net that stopped them starving, and after the crisis of the economic revolution passed, many got better jobs, safer, cleaner, better paid jobs. They weren't tied to the pit or the mill, they weren't slaves to the unions. Personal choice, equal opportunity, and free competition. This is the evil 'individualism' that many see as the curse of the modern world. Suddenly university, once out of reach of the ordinary man on the street, was now open to everyone. Any company now takes anyone, no matter their background, if they have the talent. Social mobility is a good thing.

Boogie provided the quote “She glorified both individualism and the nation state, but lacked much feeling for the communities and bonds that knit them together.” This is perhaps true. I think she saw individualism as a powerful tool for bettering people’s lives, and the nation state as a means to bind them together. She may have seen the bonds of certain communities as selfish, short-sighted and parochial chains that people needed to be freed from to allow them to grow and succeed. The caricature that Thatcher hated poor people and wanted them to suffer is of course entirely ridiculous. Everything she did, she did because she thought it was best for the people, and would improve the country.

Could Thatcher have reformed things without causing so much division and damage? Perhaps. But we have to remember the context. Scargill and his comrades refused to allow reform, refused to even consider it. They threatened to destroy the economy and break the country rather than allow reform. The country was almost bankrupt and their response was to strike for higher wages and even more benefits and entitlements. The culture of 'me and mine' was certainly in existence before Thatcher, just in a different form.

It was a social war long before Thatcher came to power. She didn’t start the conflict, she only won it. If Scargill wasn’t so powerful, if the Unions had been willing to compromise and accept reform then the damage would have been lesser, the changes wouldn’t have had to be forced through against an entrenched opposition, and the shock of change wouldn’t have caused so much pain to the communities.

[ 09. April 2013, 13:40: Message edited by: Hawk ]

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Fletcher Christian

She didn't need to totally decimate the unions and would have been far better served to limit powers to a degree rather than try a head on breaking exercise.

She only decimated the brothers? Well - good news, surely? And there was me thinking they'd lost more than 10% of their members.
[Biased]

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

That was a very good post, Hawk.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

Indeed. Thatcher knew what she was fighting against, and won most of the battles she fought - many of which needed winning. What she didn't have a clue about was where she was going because the future is an undiscovered country. And after more than ten years in power she was still crushing opposition that no longer needed it, and supporting people she didn't understand and was surprised weren't like her or her father.

And the current lot of Tories are trying to emulate her despite the fact she'd succeded enough in her own term that she became a liability. I can't blame her for that - no one's sight is perfect and it's harder to see from the centre especially when you came in fighting a battle that needed it.

As I said on the first page, she was in power far too long.

Posted by Sighthound (# 15185) on :

I believe the full title of the Tory Party is 'The Conservative and Unionist Party'. In other words, they are (theoretically) about keeping the UK together.

Pre-Thatcher, there were many Tory MPs in Scotland, now there is one. When I was a young man, the City of Manchester - the City of Manchester! - was controlled by the Conservatives. Now they do not have a single seat on the Council. Stockport, a town I know well, was completely dominated by the Tories. Now, although relatively prosperous in Northern terms, it is run by the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are nowhere near power. This sort of thing is replicated across much of the country.

In my view, they key legacy of Thatcherism is that the UK is a much more divided country than it used to be, and the splits in it are actually dangerous, politically speaking. There is already a fair chance that Scotland will split off, something that would have been unthinkable 40 years ago.

I consider that this destruction of national cohesion more than outweighs any good Thatcherism may have done. Moreover, it is bad even for the Conservative Party. They have lost their local organisation in large swathes of England, Wales and Scotland, and are utterly reliant on their South Eastern heartland. It is significant that their share of the vote at general elections has dropped significantly over the years, to the point where they could not even get a majority against Gordon Brown, one of the most detested and reviled PMs since 1945. It is worth adding that it is practically unknown for *any* government to increase its vote share at second and subsequent general elections. The long term damage is obvious, and will come home to roost.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
It is significant that their share of the vote at general elections has dropped significantly over the years,

Here is the actual share of the popular vote held by the winning party since 1970. The trend you claim does not in fact exist. The only trend that persists for more than a couple of elections is the slow-but-steady increase in the share of the vote that goes to third parties, at the expense of both Labour and the Conservatives.

1970: Heath: 46.4%
Feb 1974: Wilson: 37.2%
Oct 1974: Wilson: 39.2%
1979, Thatcher: 43.9%
1983, Thatcher: 42.4%
1987, Thatcher: 42.2%
1992, Major: 41.9%
1997, Blair: 43.2%
2001, Blair: 40.7%
2005, Blair: 35.2%
2010: Cameron: 36.1% (no outright majority, coalition with Clegg (23.0 %))

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

It would be a good post Hawk, if it were true. But it isn't.

Thatcher or no Thatcher the UK, like the US, is towards the bottom of the scale for social mobility among OPEC countries.

The rise in university applications happened under Blair, not Thatcher. I went to university in 1979 at a time when only about 8% of youngsters did so - and I had a full grant and so on as I came from a 'broken home'.

It wasn't the Tories who got me to university.

Anyway, it's arguable whether Blair's 50% participation target was ever realistic anyway, but that's another story ...

I'd agree that there's a lot of rose-tinted sentiment about the pits and heavy-industry in general - but what have we ended up with? No industry.

We are a nation of financial services where nobody makes anything any more.

Some of you mewling and puking infants here who were barely alive when Thatcher came to power don't come from areas that were struck by the - perhaps inevitable - decline of the UK's industrial base.

That's not to suggest that the unions weren't corrupt and overly powerful in places - that was certainly the case - but it is to acknowledge the political reality of what the Thatcher revolution was all about. Sure, some benefitted, but there was a human cost.

Some days I can concede that one term of Thatcherism was a necessary evil, a short, sharp shock ... and yes, perhaps it was a nettle that needed to be grasped.

But three terms were two steps too far ...

We've got a divided society and whilst things are bright, light and flexible for some, they're certainly not universal panaceas for all.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Originally posted by Hawk:

quote:
The workers were kept down, unable to think about any social mobility.

Now they can think about it. Cannot accomplish it, but they now pretend.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Thanks lilBuddha, I think those were the stats I had in mind ... my brother-in-law is an economist and told me all about them ...

Social mobility for the workers under Thatcher, what a joke ...

[Killing me]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by dv:
]Surely that was more to do with massive uncontrolled immigration - especially under Labour but still, sadly, continuing to a large extent with the ConDems.

No. Firstlyu because there wasn no "massive uncontrolled immigration" and we have stronger immigration controlks than most coutries do now or than we ever had before.

Secondly because immigrants tend not to qualify for or complete for social housing anyway.

Thirdly because loads of those immigrants were working in construction trades and actually buiulding more houses - for somebody. And it was the bankers and estgate agents and property devlopers - and the government - who decided who they were being built for. Blame them if you muist blame somebody. The British government decided that we needed to buiold more houses for the rich and fewer for the poor. And the property developers were glad to oblige.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:

Britain needed to change, it wasn't working. The workers were kept down, unable to think about any social mobility.

Where the fuck were you living in 1979? Different planet from the one I was on by the sound of it. Who were all these workers who were unable even to think about bettering themselves until some Tories came and showed them the way? I never met any, or hardly any. Then or since then. The miner who doesn't want his son to go down the pit and is desperate to get him a good education was already a cliche in the 1970s, it probably was in the 1920s.

And what sort of cloud-cuckoo-land are you living in now? Economic mobility got HARDER during Thatchers' period and has never since recovered to whre it used to be in the 60s and 70s. People are on the whole MORE stuck in the station in life to which they were born than they were in my parents time. I'll not neccessarily blame Thatcher for that - the same is true of the USA where she never ruled, and possibly for Australia and even France as well - but its simple untruth to say that the problem was fixed in her time.

Economic mobility is one thing we have good data on, we're able to tell what the chances are that someone whose parents were in, say, one stratum of income will remain there when they are adult, or what the chances are of moving a certain distance along an income or status scale from where your parents were. And as far as I know in pretty much all the rich countries social mobility increased in the 1950s and 60s, and has been decreasing since the 80s. And it seems that nowadays Britain is rather less mobile than Germany (up to the 1950s they were less moblile than us) and we are all less mobile than Sweden. On the other hand income stratification in the USA is now more rigid than in the UK.

So what actually happened is the oppostie of what you seem to think happened. And the chances are that Thatcher didn't have much to do with it either way, though the policies of all British governments since then have done little or nothing to make things better.

Look, we actually have data on this. Facts Stuff we know. At least about richu industrial or post-industrial countries. Not to tell whether or not socialism would or would not be better than capitalism, becauyse we have no socialist economies to compare with the capitalist ones. But between the different styles of government we have, we can see which leads to greater social mobility or not. And the evidence is pretty conclusive that a more comprehensive welfare state with higher taxation tends to make a country more socially mobile, not less. We don't really actually know much about th elikely effect of government poilicies but that is one thing we do know. Oh, and we know that a fully funded natoinal health system is cheaper for everyone and more effective on average than private health insurance is. (We also know that higher unemplyment benefit makes it slightly more likely that unemployed people will get a job quickly, not less, but don't tell the Chancellor of the Exchequer)

Hmmm... I think we know that free trade cuts prices and and leads to economic growth. And I think we know that immigration is almost always of economic benefit to the coutries that the migrants leave asd well as the ones they go to. (If freely chosen - refugees and so on are different) And we know now (though I didn;t believe it until it ha[ppened here because it sounds so counter--intuitive) that a legally enforceable minimum wage can actually increase the number of people employed in low-wage jobs. I suppose we know quite a lot really.

[ 09. April 2013, 14:51: Message edited by: ken ]

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
The miner who doesn't want his son to go down the pit and is desperate to get him a good education was already a cliche in the 1970s, it probably was in the 1920s.

Be fair, ken, Thatch (and Major after her) went quite a long way to helping that miner achieve at least the first part of his wish.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Where the fuck were you living in 1979? Different planet from the one I was on by the sound of it. Who were all these workers who were unable even to think about bettering themselves until some Tories came and showed them the way? I never met any, or hardly any. Then or since then. The miner who doesn't want his son to go down the pit and is desperate to get him a good education was already a cliche in the 1970s, it probably was in the 1920s.

The planet where I was living was called County Durham, which I left in 1980. I haven't lived there since.

When I was at the local comprehensive in the late 70s, our "careers advice" was pretty simple: you decided which of three local factories you wanted to work in. If you wanted manual work, you did this at age 16; if you wanted clerical work you stayed on till you were 18. If you wanted to go to university, you were a problem. "And don't even think about Oxford or Cambridge - this school doesn't do that."

What passed for community cohesion in that town consisted of the people in whose company you walked out of the school gates, and in through the factory gates. It was inward-looking, parochial, and unambitious. The term "inverted snobbery" could have been invented for it.

And don't forget that "I'm all right, Jack" wasn't a catchphrase invented in the Thatcher years - it had been around at least since the Second World War, and had become the caricature of the British trades union by the end of the 1950s. Anybody who thinks the unions were about gaining a better society has rose-tined glasses on: some of them were about getting a bigger slice of the cake for their members regardless of the cost to anybody else; the rest were about wrecking British society in the hope of provoking a revolution.

Does anybody remember the Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch about union "democracy"? Four people sitting in a meeting room. The question is, shall we have tea or coffee? Three of them decide they want tea. The fourth is the union rep, who says, "Well I've got three million votes for coffee." That is what the unions called democracy.

I'm no great fan of Thatcher. I think she did great harm in all sorts of ways. But I'll certainly praise her for that one thing she achieved: she broke the old-style unions, and not before time.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Gamaliel
Thatcher or no Thatcher the UK, like the US, is towards the bottom of the scale for social mobility among OPEC countries.

The greatest driver of social mobility is education - good education with near-as-dammit everyone achieving a good enough level of literacy, etc, so that they can participate in, if they wish, or at least appreciate, all activities that make-up the cultural heritage of the country they live in.

We have accepted a state where no historic time-line is taught - thus depriving many of a framework with which to visit castles, museums, etc.

The English syllabus makes it possible to emerge from school at the age of 18 without ever having been exposed to a full Shakespeare play or having the faintest idea of the plotlines of any Dickens novel; and learning by rote is out so the best way to appreciate great poetry (Wordsworth or Keats anyone?) is denied to children when their minds are most receptive.

Music is in danger of disappearing completely - but even now that it is (supposedly) taught you can emerge from a school rated "excellent" for music having never been exposed to the works of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, etc, etc - but you've done a project on steelbands and written your own rap.

Visual art is something you do, not something that you appreciate - so a friend of my children thought Van Gogh was a cousin of Van Morrison (really). Monet, of course, used to play at left back for Marseilles.

And what do the US and UK have in common? A comprehensive education system which is not standard across the country, a "praise" culture from Kindergarten to A-level, and - final nail in the coffin - a hugely expensive tertiary education system that will increasingly deprive all but the richest of the best university level teaching. In the UK we have a National Curriculum which would be hugely improved if it aimed to get every child by age 18 to the level of a successful 1950s 11+ candidate in English, History and Geography.

And if you think I'm some out-of-touch crypto fascist in an ivory tower, I have children who have only just completed secondary school and with whom I verified the above about English, Music and Art. My children are well aware of the opportunities denied to pupils at a state school but enjoyed by those educated at public school and realise they are fortunate to have parents who could fill in the gaps left by the so-calld National Curriculum. The Duke of Edinburgh Award covers some of the ground previously dealt with by schools - map-reading, for example - but the cost of equipping a child for DofE can be prohibitive - and many schools don't do it.

And it doesn't all come down to money: how much, really, does it cost for a teacher to "do" a Shakespeare play once a term, rehearsing at lunchtime or after school? What does it cost to read To Autumn to pupils, rather than giving out a photocopied verse by Ogden Nash for them to make notes on?

Of course, it used to be that teachers saw it as their job to fill in a lot of these cultural gaps through extra-curricular activities but, in my very recent experience - at said "excellent (andCofE !) school - this doesn't happen.

... my youngest having just read this made the following comment: "Basically, if your parents didn't go to Public School, if they couldn't afford or wouldn't take you to museums and galleries, if they didn't know about and listen to classical music and take you to concerts, specially if they're under 50 when you're born, you're fucked." Not elegant but eloquent and heartfelt.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
When I was at the local comprehensive in the late 70s, our "careers advice" was pretty simple: you decided which of three local factories you wanted to work in. If you wanted manual work, you did this at age 16; if you wanted clerical work you stayed on till you were 18. If you wanted to go to university, you were a problem. "And don't even think about Oxford or Cambridge - this school doesn't do that."

That sort of school still exists, though. Mine wasn't like that, but I've met enough people who in the period 1995-2005 went to a school that simply had nothing to offer pupils who wanted to go to university, to be under any illusions that Thatcherism put paid to that mentality.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

Thatcher was divisive.

Coming from Liverpool I know that and many people have very strong views about her divisiveness. With hindsight I see her as a more divisive figure than when I lived among it in the early 1980s.

Cameron said she ''saved this country'' in his post mortem statement. I think some of us would robustly challenge that sentiment.

My view is that her legacy was incredibly divisive at home in particular - and by a strange twist of fate - she strode the world stage and was part of that era when great changes were happening (the end of the cold war etc.).

She took that world stage as a gift with both hands and as stated had a good working relationship with both Reagan and Gorbachev.

Overall I would tend to agree with Gamaliel with his take on things. The GDP for the economy may have been going up, but I certainly don't think we can just use economic measures to measure a countries well being.

In many ways we have become less of a society, less cohesive and more venal and shallow in some respects. It would be churlish to say there have been no markers of progress in our country from Thatcher onwards, but it is noticeable that the urban North of England, Scotland and Wales are virtually no go areas for Conservatives these days.

That must say something about her legacy and the lack of Conservative blue in a large area of these islands?

Saul

[ 09. April 2013, 15:33: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by lowlands_boy (# 12497) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by Gamaliel
Thatcher or no Thatcher the UK, like the US, is towards the bottom of the scale for social mobility among OPEC countries.
The greatest driver of social mobility is education - good education with near-as-dammit everyone achieving a good enough level of literacy, etc, so that they can participate in, if they wish, or at least appreciate, all activities that make-up the cultural heritage of the country they live in.

<SNIP LOTS OF STUFF>

... my youngest having just read this made the following comment: "Basically, if your parents didn't go to Public School, if they couldn't afford or wouldn't take you to museums and galleries, if they didn't know about and listen to classical music and take you to concerts, specially if they're under 50 when you're born, you're fucked." Not elegant but eloquent and heartfelt.

In what way does a lack of exposure to classical music result in your life prospects being "fucked"? I think we conclude from most of the posts on this thread that a bit of Beethoven or whatever is not what's been missing from all the people who think Mrs Thatcher "fucked" them.

Assuming we mean severely impaired in some way, I would think they would be more impaired by not being able to read, write, perform arithmetic etc etc. My parents didn't go to public school and neither did I. Nor did my daughter. I'm not into classical music, she is. But I struggle to see any way in which that has negatively impacted my life.

ETA

And how many people have both parents over fifty when they are born? I would imagine pretty much everyone has parents who are under fifty when they are born

[ 09. April 2013, 15:45: Message edited by: lowlands_boy ]

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Many became unemployed, but the welfare system was a net that stopped them starving

But Thatcher massaged the unemployment figures by getting many of them recategorised into incapacity benefit - which legacy we now suffer.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I loathed her - but I don't think it is her 'fault' that things turned out the way they did.

If it hadn't been her, someone else would have been elected to take the line she did. The electorate wanted a strong leader who would turn the country around'. They were fed up with Edward Heath's seeming weakness.
Surely Leo, even you can remember that wasn't a choice the electorate ever got the chance to make. Mrs Thatcher won a leadership election against Edward Heath on a franchise of Conservative party MPs. The only choice the electorate got was between a Labour Party led by Jim Callaghan and a Conservative one led by Mrs Thatcher.

I didn't remember it - i forgot that there was a gap between Heath's downfall and Thatchers election.

My abiding memory was of the 3 day week disrupting my exams and lectures.

Believe it or not, i was an idealistic supported of Ted heath and a Conservative Party member then. The folly of youth!

Mind you, I still strongly dislike Jim Callaghan.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Gamaliel wrote:

quote:
Thatcher or no Thatcher the UK, like the US, is towards the bottom of the scale for social mobility among OPEC countries.

Aw c'mon. Ya gotta be doing better than Iran and Nigeria!

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
The greatest driver of social mobility is education -

It would be nice to belive that. If you have any statistical ev idence for it please tell us. No-ones really been able to find any for some decades.

In practice the greatest driver for social mobility in developed countries seems to be the availability of decent jobs.

Improving general standards of education might well contribute towards the general trend to economic development and increasing prosperity - I'm almost sure it does, it sounds very plausible, it really ought to, I want it to, though I have no real evidence that it does other than that it seems likely - but after we've got to near-universal secondry education - which in this country was some time between 1870 and the Great War - then further increases in the general standard of education won;t have an effect on social mobility as such. "A rising tide lifts all boats".

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
When I was at the local comprehensive in the late 70s, our "careers advice" was pretty simple: you decided which of three local factories you wanted to work in. If you wanted manual work, you did this at age 16; if you wanted clerical work you stayed on till you were 18. If you wanted to go to university, you were a problem. "And don't even think about Oxford or Cambridge - this school doesn't do that."
That sort of school still exists, though. Mine wasn't like that, but I've met enough people who in the period 1995-2005 went to a school that simply had nothing to offer pupils who wanted to go to university, to be under any illusions that Thatcherism put paid to that mentality.

Well, yes. And the changes made to education by the Tory governments of the 80s & 90s, and continued by the nearly-Labour government that followed, have made that situation WORSE not better. Not particularly Thatchers fault, IIRC it was under Major that OFSTED and the National Curriculum and the target-driven league-table payment-by-results culture were imposed on schools, and the following Labour government did nothing to change that.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

lowlands boys:

I was commenting on a post referring to social mobility in the UK and the US.

It could be argued that the UK is riven by "class" and one of the causes for this may be a lack of shared enjoyments and experiences.

I was NOT saying that a lack of Beethoven is either going to "f**k" someone or that it is in any way down to Mrs Thatcher.

What I AM saying is that shared cultural experiences and values should be across the board and that this should start (must start) at school. If we accept that you can appreciate and value football whether you're a miner, manager or marquis, why no similar acceptance that child of the miner, manager and marquis have an equal right to be given a chance to appreciate Shakespeare as well as Die Hard, Van Dyke as well as Van Morrison, etc, etc.

Shared experience/culture/folk memory - call it what you will - can only be cohesive: people are marginalised if they don't have the tools to appreciate the same things. That is not saying that all must be forced to enjoy everything, just that they should be given a chance to that is not reliant on where they go to school and how much money the family has. Verdi for all YES, but not at gunpoint.

As for what this has to do with Thatcherism: it has been stated that her policies damaged or destroyed social mobility: but in reality the policy that did the most damage was that which decided that a "good enough" education was sufficient - because that's what we have in the UK in our comprehensives. Her government's introduction of a national curriculum should have reversed this but it failed miserably because, instead of being a bare minimum, it was swiftly changed into a gold-standard.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Um, I do not think so. Educate the hell out of a group and it does no good if there are no opportunities for them.

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Thatcher gave hope that poverty and grinding labour could be left behind if you worked hard enough. That anyone could be a millionaire, not just the elites.

I think I'll just leave this here.
Like it was an obscure piece of modern art.
People can come and stare at it.
Maybe poke it with a stick.

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

Suck it up, George Spigot - some people view Thatcher's legacy in a far more positive light that you. It isn't self-evident to everyone that she had a grotesquely negative impact on the UK.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Thatcher gave hope that poverty and grinding labour could be left behind if you worked hard enough. That anyone could be a millionaire, not just the elites.
I think I'll just leave this here.
Like it was an obscure piece of modern art.
People can come and stare at it.
Maybe poke it with a stick.

Oh, it's perfectly true. Thatcher gave hope to some who wanted to be millionares. That it's illusionary and Britain's social mobility is, after her reforms, about as bad as the US (which too has a mythology about being a "Land of Opportunity" despite having a social mobility lower than anywhere in Western Europe).

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
No-one has mentioned Niel Kinnock's appearance on the BBC retrospective.

He is still clearly filled with a passionate _loathing_ for...Arthur Scargill. ....

He has a lot of reason to be. It isn't only Scargill's contribution to a deeply polarised society. It was the way he repeatedly exploited, manipulated and abused the Labour Party's reluctance to disagree publically with Scargill or the NUM.

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht
Here is the actual share of the popular vote held by the winning party since 1970. The trend you claim does not in fact exist. The only trend that persists for more than a couple of elections is the slow-but-steady increase in the share of the vote that goes to third parties, at the expense of both Labour and the Conservatives.

1970: Heath: 46.4%
Feb 1974: Wilson: 37.2%
Oct 1974: Wilson: 39.2%
1979, Thatcher: 43.9%
1983, Thatcher: 42.4%
1987, Thatcher: 42.2%
1992, Major: 41.9%
1997, Blair: 43.2%
2001, Blair: 40.7%
2005, Blair: 35.2%
2010: Cameron: 36.1% (no outright majority, coalition with Clegg (23.0 %))

I've said it before and doubtless will again. The most disgraceful feature about those figures is that a party could get a healthy overall majority with only 35% of the vote.

quote:
Originally posted by Ken
... Economic mobility got HARDER during Thatchers' period and has never since recovered to where it used to be in the 60s and 70s. People are on the whole MORE stuck in the station in life to which they were born than they were in my parents time. ...

A lot of that is attributable to the post 1945 Education Act generation climbing the ladder and then pulling it up behind them in the interests of their own children.

quote:
Originally posted by Leo
My abiding memory was of the 3 day week disrupting my exams and lectures.

Believe it or not, I was an idealistic supported of Ted Heath and a Conservative Party member then. The folly of youth!

Absolvamus te Leo. Who wasn't? It was a very reasonable reaction at the time, particularly the three day week.

quote:
ditto
Mind you, I still strongly dislike Jim Callaghan.

Not very likeable, but you've got to have a certain admiration for a man who managed to keep his own show on the road for at least a year longer than anyone should have got away with.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:

Anybody who thinks the unions were about gaining a better society has rose-tined glasses on: some of them were about getting a bigger slice of the cake for their members regardless of the cost to anybody else; the rest were about wrecking British society in the hope of provoking a revolution.

The trouble is that whilst a large part of problem was generated by the unions - the root of those problems was essentially a division based on class, and the grievances based out of that (or unions wouldn't have got any support to start with).

Thatcher suppressed the symptoms, without dealing with the root cause and indeed - as the social mobility figures demonstrate - succeeded in making things worse in many ways.

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

Oh I really like this quote:

quote:
Fury as news of her death is democratised on Twitter and newspaper columnists are denied their natural right to control her legacy.

Posted by Sighthound (# 15185) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
It is significant that their share of the vote at general elections has dropped significantly over the years,
Here is the actual share of the popular vote held by the winning party since 1970. The trend you claim does not in fact exist. The only trend that persists for more than a couple of elections is the slow-but-steady increase in the share of the vote that goes to third parties, at the expense of both Labour and the Conservatives.

1970: Heath: 46.4%
Feb 1974: Wilson: 37.2%
Oct 1974: Wilson: 39.2%
1979, Thatcher: 43.9%
1983, Thatcher: 42.4%
1987, Thatcher: 42.2%
1992, Major: 41.9%
1997, Blair: 43.2%
2001, Blair: 40.7%
2005, Blair: 35.2%
2010: Cameron: 36.1% (no outright majority, coalition with Clegg (23.0 %))

Sorry, I am obviously missing something as by my reading those figures show a steady decline in the Conservative vote from 46.4% in 1970, to 36.1% in 2010, when frankly any remotely electable opposition should have won a clear majority. They also show that no government of any colour increases its vote share in a second or subsequent general election.

Therefore, unless hell freezes over, the Conservative share of the vote in 2015 will be lower still.

Now of course, it may be that the Labour share of the vote will go down too, but the figures for that party do not (IMHO) demonstrate a clear and steady decline. Two of Blair's vote shares were, for example, better than either of Wilson's.

The only sensible solution for such a deeply divided country is to introduce PR. That would give northern and Scottish Tories and southern Labourites some representation which they currently lack almost entirely. OK, it would probably mean endless coalition, but eventually the political wounds might heal.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
The trouble is that whilst a large part of problem was generated by the unions - the root of those problems was essentially a division based on class, and the grievances based out of that (or unions wouldn't have got any support to start with). ...

It was more fundamental than that. No state can function with power bases within it that are of comparable weight to the core that is supposed to be the fount of law and justice, whether they be the Praetorian guard, union barons or medieval ones. That was the same problem as Henry VII faced in 1485. The fifteenth century might make great theatre, but one can tell from the Paston letters that it must have been dreadful to live in.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
... The only sensible solution for such a deeply divided country is to introduce PR. ...

Hear, hear. It might even give us a more mature political class, or is that too much to hope for.

I hope you at least voted the right way in the referendum - even though what was proposed wasn't the best option.

Another bizarre effect of our infantile system - according to the figure above, there was a 2½% shift in the figures between 1997 and 2001, but in 2001, hardly any seats changed hands.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

l'organist, I went to a bog-standard comprehensive in South Wales, I came out with three straight A's at A Level, went to university, got a First Class degree and went straight on the dole.

That was Thatcher's Britain.

Sure, the South Wales I grew up in resembled the County Durham that Adeodatus left in 1980.

The country is a lot brighter and more interesting now than it was back then, certainly.

But there are gains and losses on both sides.

I'm not a fan of the National Curriculum and my wife's a school-teacher and is seeing at first hand the damage that Gove is doing to our education system. The guy needs stringing up. If anyone could provoke me to violent revolution it would be him.

And Boris Johnson.

And Cameron and the toffee-nosed Eton twerps ...

And ding-a-lings like Hawk who haven't the first idea what they're talking about.

I'll let you off ... why, I don't know ...

But Hawk's up against the wall, Marvin's up against the wall ...

[Biased]

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

I don't see the pre-Thatcher era through rose-tinted spectacles, the '70s were a dreadful decade ... although things got quite creative and sparky towards the end ... Thatcher gave the yoof something to rebel against (although it'd started before that, of course ... 76/77 with punk) ...

Sure, the unions could be sinister and corrupt and there was something very stultefying about the heavy industry culture. I remember my uncle taking me down the steel works to show me round, obviously thinking that I'd be impressed and want to work there when I left school ... I was petrified ...

So yes, they'd sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind. But when it came it was chilling in its intensity.

I knew a chap who was on the picket-lines during the steel strike ... one of the first confrontations between Thatcher and the unions. He was all talk really, and pretty harmless. He wouldn't have hurt a fly.

In the initial weeks of the strike there was banter between the pickets and the local bobbies. They shared braziers, mugs of tea.

Then, one day, without warning, a line of coaches pulled up. They'd bussed extra police in from Bristol. The local lads weren't there that day, they'd been sent on other duties. As soon as the coppers got off the coaches the blokes on the picket-line knew that something was different, something was wrong ...

The Bristol police lined up and began to turn over their lapels and arrange/button them upside down so that their identification numbers could not be read and recorded. Then they drew their truncheons ...

It was planned, premeditated. It was class-war.

That was Thatcherism, Hawk. That was how humane her vicious regime was.

That is who you are allying yourself with. Can you square that with your conscience?

Can you? can you?

She presided over the must vicious, divisive, wicked regime since the days of Castlereagh.

Withdraw your comments, withdraw your ignorant comments. For I defy you.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
Sorry, I am obviously missing something as by my reading those figures show a steady decline in the Conservative vote from 46.4% in 1970, to 36.1% in 2010

Now of course, it may be that the Labour share of the vote will go down too, but the figures for that party do not (IMHO) demonstrate a clear and steady decline. Two of Blair's vote shares were, for example, better than either of Wilson's.

Perhaps it would be clearer to look at the first plot at this page, which shows the vote share since the war. You'll see that the Labour and Conservative vote share follows the same downward trend, mostly in favour of the Lib Dems, with some going to the other parties (nationalists, mostly, I think). The Conservative years after Blair's victory don't really look any worse than Labour under Foot and Kinnock, before John Smith made them electable.

quote:

The only sensible solution for such a deeply divided country is to introduce PR. That would give northern and Scottish Tories and southern Labourites some representation which they currently lack almost entirely. OK, it would probably mean endless coalition, but eventually the political wounds might heal.

Unfortunately, every time somebody mentions PR in the UK, it turns into some evil party list system (cf. European Parliament elections), which is just about the worst of all possible electoral systems.

If you want PR (and there's a reasonable case for it) you need to have large multi-seat constituencies with some kind of sensible voting scheme. 'Sensible' here means something like CPO-STV, with Warren's method for surplus transfer.

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

Then there was the time that the BBC were pressured into reversing the order of footage so it looked as if miners had charged at police instead of the reality that the police had charged at the miners. Seriously! We are not making it up. This shit happened.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Yup. STV is a solid product of C19 British Liberalism, designed for Westminster systems (and AFAIK only actually used in them). Keeps the constituency link and is broadly proportional (depending on how many members to a constituency of course). When I was an impertinent undergraduate I asked Michael Howard why he was opposed to STV, since as a Conservative he presumably believed in competition and under STV voters would be able to compare his performance with that of their other MPs and vote accordingly. He didn't even try to give me a reasoned answer- just went 'hmph' and sipped his wine. But I still think that Conservatives who claim to believe in competition shouldn't support a system like First Past the Post which gives a constituency MP a monopoly, so to speak, of his or her constituents' representation.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Yes, it did. It happened with official sanction.

In the interests of balance, of course, I'd be the first to point to instances of aggression, dodgy tactics and pressure put on moderates and so on by the unions ... that was shit and that happened too.

But I dunno what it is, there are certain things that make my blood boil. I grew up in a solidly Labour South Wales and the local Labour Parties were as corrupt as could be. The local Freemasons were corrupt too. Nepotism and corruption were everywhere.

I'm not under any illusions about these things. British industry was almost Eastern European in its inefficiency back then. Something had to be done and I can see why it had to happen ...

And yet, and yet ... something in me baulks against the whole Tory establishment. It's visceral. I can't stand public schools and thick rich kids. Some of my best friends from university days were from public school so I don't have anything against them as people. It's a gut thing. It's visceral. It's under my skin.

I hate old Etonians. I hate the toffee-nosed English Rugby Union establishment. It's got bugger all to do with this debate but I can't abide it just the same. I can't stand UKIP, Little Englanders and the Daily Mail. I loathe the Torygraph.

I don't have any time for the hard Left either. A plague on both their houses ...

I don't know what it is. Call it the politics of envy, the politics of hate (now, steady on ...) but there's something about the elitist upper echelons of the Tory Party that brings me out in spots.

I have a less visceral reaction to the softer, milder, more human-faced old school pre-Thatcherite Tories ... guys like Kenneth Clarke. I've known Tory councillors in some places who've been the salt of the earth. I've known plenty of working-class Tories, my grand-dad was one. He grew up in a two-up/two-down slum dwelling as one of 12 kids and had to wear one of his sister's cast-off clothes until he went to school ... and then he was clothed on parish-relief in a uniform that made you stand out as a pauper ...

And yet he voted Tory all his life, he never threw a sickie, he never went on strike. I didn't agree with his politics but I admired him for all of that.

But it's when ignoramuses like Hawk come along saying that Thatcherism liberated the working-class and all that guff ... it just makes my blood boil.

I knew two girls who were both pretty moderate (and neither of whom knew the other) who were in London on that famous student demonstration when the police charged peaceful demonstrators on horseback and also drove land-rovers recklessly into the crowds ... as they were actually dispersing. It's a wonder no-one was killed.

They were both radicalised by the experience.

I fully accept that a lot of things were crap back in the 70s. I understand that.

But when Thatcher and her minions brought the full weight of the state to bear in order to oppress and stifle dissent ... when they stopped at nothing, when they used violence and brutality ...

Stuff the Tories. I defy them. I'm in my '50s back I'm reverting to my teens. Why? Because of mewling, puking, acne-faced spoilt-brats like Marvin and Hawk who pontificate about things they know sod all about.

Angry? You bet I'm angry. I'm angry despite myself. I don't like it but I am.

Stuff you. Stuff you. Stuff the lot of you.

[Mad]

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Thatcher gave hope that poverty and grinding labour could be left behind if you worked hard enough.

Working hard has never been enough to escape poverty and grinding labour. Hard work was the lot of the poor, and the reward, now as then, is for the owners not the workers.

quote:

That anyone could be a millionaire, not just the elites.

Especially if you do what Thatcher did, and marry a millionaire.

quote:

People mourn the loss of the pits, but were they so great? Would anyone nowadays want to live in a town where the only job you could ever dream of was such filthy, dangerous, back-breaking labour? If the pits reopened today the only workers would be Poles.

The pits were becoming cleaner, safer, heavily mechanised and believe it or not more productive all the time. If you could see some of the former colliery towns in South Wales

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
When I was an impertinent undergraduate I asked Michael Howard why he was opposed to STV, since as a Conservative he presumably believed in competition and under STV voters would be able to compare his performance with that of their other MPs and vote accordingly.

You do want to go with something like CPO-STV, though. Straight STV is a little too easy for political parties to try to game with tactical rankings.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
The trouble is that whilst a large part of problem was generated by the unions - the root of those problems was essentially a division based on class, and the grievances based out of that (or unions wouldn't have got any support to start with). ...
It was more fundamental than that. No state can function with power bases within it that are of comparable weight to the core that is supposed to be the fount of law and justice.

I don't know Enoch, I think your point is slightly orthogonal to the one I'm making. Of course a state that doesn't have a functional core will collapse, and plenty of states have done, and plenty haven't been founts of law and justice and survived largely due to their ability to wield raw power. I don't think there's some kind of natural law that states 'deserve' to survive necessarily.

The reason unions got the support that they did is because people had a set of class based grievances - some justifiable, others less so - and saw the unions as the better of a whole set of evils.

The prosperity that we have had since has been largely driven in this country by subsequent waves of speculative lending enabled by a liberalised financial industry - Thatcher's vision was of a property-owning democracy of savers with moral restraint. She got indebted spendthrifts.

Now that it's run out, the governing classes appear to have successfully turned the middle classes against the poor (mostly former working class) and managed to distract them from the fact that they too are gradually being emiserated.

Posted by dv (# 15714) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by dv:
]Surely that was more to do with massive uncontrolled immigration - especially under Labour but still, sadly, continuing to a large extent with the ConDems.
No. Firstlyu because there wasn no "massive uncontrolled immigration" and we have stronger immigration controlks than most coutries do now or than we ever had before.

Secondly because immigrants tend not to qualify for or complete for social housing anyway.

Thirdly because loads of those immigrants were working in construction trades and actually buiulding more houses - for somebody. And it was the bankers and estgate agents and property devlopers - and the government - who decided who they were being built for. Blame them if you muist blame somebody. The British government decided that we needed to buiold more houses for the rich and fewer for the poor. And the property developers were glad to oblige.

Firstly: Over 200,000 net immigrants per year is mass immigration by any historical standard. That must have an impact on housing need.

Secondly: Immigrants with children DO qualify for social housing and other housing benefits.

Thirdly: It is inaccurate to suggest that "loads" of the permanent immigrants came here to be involved in construction during this period. I haven't seen many South Asian or West African builders, for example.

(More data at migrationwatchuk.org for those with eyes to see.)

Posted by Og: Thread Killer (# 3200) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
...Economic mobility is one thing we have good data on, we're able to tell what the chances are that someone whose parents were in, say, one stratum of income will remain there when they are adult, or what the chances are of moving a certain distance along an income or status scale from where your parents were...

Yes but that maybe beside the point.

What stratum of income or status does not indicate is quality of life. The assumption that having less money then others means your quality of life drops is false. With advances in health care and communications,for example, all of us in the West are living better lives then the equivalent strata 40 years ago.

Where Hawk is wrong is that Thatcher had nothing to do with the rise of technology.

Yes, there is still a lot of poverty. But, the ability to access information provides a huge boost to mortality and quality of life. Life is getting better (if you live in a place where such things are affordable).

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

For many of us (be it for good or ill) Thatcher was the soundtrack to our lives.

The strong statement by Prime Minister David Cameron about Thatcher was:

quote:
"Margaret Thatcher didn't just lead our country – she saved our country,"

This is debatable of course and we've been knocking that around on this thread.

I came across an article in today's 'Independent' which examines the claim.

Makes interesting reading.....

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/did-margaret-thatcher-really-save-britain-8566596.html

Saul the Apostle

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Banner Lady:
I overheard an intriguing statement this morning: That Annette Funnicello (who died at the age of 70, this week from Multiple Sclerosis) arguably had more of an impact on our world's societies than Margaret Thatcher. Hmmmmm.....

Originally posted in a new thread now closed.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:

quote:
Originally posted by Banner Lady:
I overheard an intriguing statement this morning: That Annette Funnicello (who died at the age of 70, this week from Multiple Sclerosis) arguably had more of an impact on our world's societies than Margaret Thatcher. Hmmmmm.....
Originally posted in a new thread now closed.

Who was Annette Funnicello? I think she's unknown over here.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Og: Thread Killer:
Yes, there is still a lot of poverty.

And there always will be, so long as the ludicrous definition of poverty as "earning less than half the national average" is being used. It's ridiculous - everybody in the country could have a yacht in the Mediterranean and still some of them would count as poverty-stricken.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Og: Thread Killer:
Yes, there is still a lot of poverty.
And there always will be, so long as the ludicrous definition of poverty as "earning less than half the national average" is being used. It's ridiculous - everybody in the country could have a yacht in the Mediterranean and still some of them would count as poverty-stricken.

As in 'every school must be in the highest quartile'.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Who was Annette Funnicello?

M-I-C

See you real soon!

K-E-Y

Why? Because we like you!

M-O-U-S-E

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

Annette Funicello info.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

That's bollocks Marvin and you know it.

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:

quote:
Originally posted by Banner Lady:
I overheard an intriguing statement this morning: That Annette Funnicello (who died at the age of 70, this week from Multiple Sclerosis) arguably had more of an impact on our world's societies than Margaret Thatcher. Hmmmmm.....
Originally posted in a new thread now closed.

Who?

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Who was Annette Funnicello?
M-I-C

See you real soon!

K-E-Y

Why? Because we like you!

M-O-U-S-E

Ohhhh that thing. Yeah back in the day most of us lot were watching this:
Tiswas

Anyway, to avoid this becoming a tangent may I just add...

The ladys not returing.

Posted by Lucia (# 15201) on :

Margaret Thatcher became Prime minister when I was 10 years old and left power when I was 21 so her premiership covered the whole period of life when I became aware of politics and the wider world outside of my immediate surroundings. It seemed amazing that anyone else could be Prime minister as she was the only one I really remembered! I grew up in a leafy middle class true Tory part of southern England so I don't really remember a lot of antagonism against her or her policies except from a few of my more radical school friends. Conservative politics looked reasonable enough in the environment that I grew up in and I didn't particularly question it as a teenager. I can see now that other's experiences were radically different and that in turn has shaped their views.

Personally I think that the truth, as ever, is probably a mixture. Some bad, some good, some indifferent, like most of us really. I think she stayed too long and seemed increasingly unwilling to listen to anyone else in the later years. However I suspect that many of the changes that happened in Britain would have taken place in some form eventually, if not under her, under some other leader. Mainly because of the way the rest of the world has changed and dragged us kicking and screaming along with it out of our colonial past into the globalised future.

I thought this article written by an historian on the BBC was an interesting viewpoint.

He says "If she had fallen under a bus in 1978, would Britain today be so different? Her champions and her critics would answer with a firm yes. But I doubt it."

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
That's bollocks Marvin and you know it.

The exact definition of poverty being used is "household income below 60 percent of median income". It doesn't matter how much they're actually earning, or what standard of living they actually have. So which part of what I posted was bollocks, exactly?

[ 10. April 2013, 11:05: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]

Posted by Mr Clingford (# 7961) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
That's bollocks Marvin and you know it.
The exact definition of poverty being used is "household income below 60 percent of median income". It doesn't matter how much they're actually earning, or what standard of living they actually have. So which part of what I posted was bollocks, exactly?

I actually agree with Marvin here. This definition of poverty makes a mockery of the real poverty of previous decades.

Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
That's bollocks Marvin and you know it.
The exact definition of poverty being used is "household income below 60 percent of median income". It doesn't matter how much they're actually earning, or what standard of living they actually have. So which part of what I posted was bollocks, exactly?

Who is using this definition, Marvin? It doesn't appear on this thread until your post - is it in in a link someone has presented?

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Who is using this definition, Marvin? It doesn't appear on this thread until your post - is it in in a link someone has presented?

It's from Rosa Winkel's post here. The exact phrasing I used above is from the Wikipedia link in that post, where it is attributed to the Child Poverty Act 2010 (see the section headed "How poverty in the United Kingdom is defined and measured").

Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Who is using this definition, Marvin? It doesn't appear on this thread until your post - is it in in a link someone has presented?
It's from Rosa Winkel's post here. The exact phrasing I used above is from the Wikipedia link in that post, where it is attributed to the Child Poverty Act 2010 (see the section headed "How poverty in the United Kingdom is defined and measured").

Thanks, Marvin. That Wikpedia article mentions several different measures of poverty - the one Rosa used in the post you link to was

quote:
defined as living on less than half the national average income

not the one you quoted.

But in any case, is it correct to say that you don't accept any definition of relative poverty - in the sense that it's something that government policy should rightly be concerned with? If so, is there any (presumably absolute) definition of poverty that you would accept?

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
But in any case, is it correct to say that you don't accept any definition of relative poverty - in the sense that it's something that government policy should rightly be concerned with?

That would be correct, yes.

quote:
If so, is there any (presumably absolute) definition of poverty that you would accept?

Certainly. I think my definition would center around having (or not having) access to a certain absolute standard of living, including such things as adequate nutrition, shelter and so forth. If I was writing a manifesto I'd probably make reference to the more basic levels of Maslow's heirarchy of needs somewhere - certainly all the "physiological" needs, but perhaps many of the "safety" ones as well. Obviously the relationship between that standard of living and the amount of income one has will have an effect on whether one is in poverty, but to set the definition of poverty at a certain level of income without any reference whatsoever to what that income can actually buy seems ludicrous to me.

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

£8 million for the funeral?

Don't forget folks we all have to tighten our belts and all pull together in the spirit of austerity.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
£8 million for the funeral?

Don't forget folks we all have to tighten our belts and all pull together in the spirit of austerity.

Money well spent on 17' of reinforced concrete and lead shielding. Can't be too careful with these revenants.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

See yesterday's Steve Bell ?

Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :

With the extra http removed.

It made me smile.

Thurible

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Grand, thanks Thurible.

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

...after a few days, Lucifer gets God on the phone.

"Sorry, God, you'll have to take her off our hands".

"What do you mean - I checked and she's definately one of yours!"

"No, you'll have to take her. We can't go on like this. She's been down here less than a week and she's closed three furnaces already!".

I'll get me coat.

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

quote:
Margaret Thatcher’s funeral to have Falklands War theme

Riiiiiiiiight. What was that you were saying about
disgust and bad taste?

It's like I don't even have to atempt to troll you guys anymore. All I have to do is report on reality.

[ 10. April 2013, 13:58: Message edited by: George Spigot ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by dv:
Secondly: Immigrants with children DO qualify for social housing and other housing benefits.

Makes no difference when there is none to be had because its all been sold.

quote:

Thirdly: It is inaccurate to suggest that "loads" of the permanent immigrants came here to be involved in construction during this period. I haven't seen many South Asian or West African builders, for example.

Oh noes! The chinkies and niggers are WORKING IN OFFICES! They'll be wearing suits and marrying our women and wanting the vote next! Get them back out on the streets where they belong!

(More data at migrationwatchuk.org for those with eyes to see.)
[/QB][/QUOTE]

Garbage in, garbage out.

(Oooooh, I think I know what you are going to reply to this one....)

[ 10. April 2013, 15:23: Message edited by: ken ]

Posted by malik3000 (# 11437) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't see how I'm poorer now than I would be if I had less money, less opportunity and less choice in how to live my life.
Because you are concerned about the poor in your country and how they are treated, if you are?
It's not one of my major concerns, no.
In short your attitude is "Fuck you, got mine." And this is why we will never see eye to eye.

And, while one can not read another's internal thoughts, the reading of the content of the attitude expressed by Marvin -- and not just him but others on this board -- could be seen as verging on sociopathology.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Marvin always puzzles me. He comes out with this terrible chilling selfish bollocks, but it's perfectly clear from other things that he posts that IRL he's a pretty decent and responsible, indeed even altruistic, chap. I suppose all we can do is be grateful for the human capacity to think one thing and do another.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

Let's quit it with the personal comments! Purg is not the place for analyzing someone's personal character, particularly critically.

Gwai,
Purg Host

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

OK

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

It amazes me how some people are incapable of noting the difference between "not one of my major concerns" and "not a concern of mine at all". Or for that matter, between "look after me and mine first" and "never look after anyone but me and mine".

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

I studied and taught history (and still read it), I try to keep up with current affairs, and I lived and worked for seven years outside the West (in India), as a result of which I at least attempt to view issues in some sort of non-insular context and perspective.

That’s why I can’t believe the adolescent hyperbole about dancing on Thatcher’s grave, the drooling over her assumed destiny in Hell, the Manichaean political dissection undertaken with all the sophistication of a Trotskyite “revolution by Tuesday” splinter faction, and the embarrassing exhibitionist moral hysteria (Gamaliel knows what I’m talking about) displayed on this thread.

The deaths of actual tyrants, such as Kim Jong-Il and Saddam Hussein, have been previously discussed on the Ship in an infinitely more mature and restrained manner, but then they only imprisoned and tortured and murdered distant masses of anonymous Asians and Arabs, instead of annoying some white, middle-class, English-speaking Westerners and putting some trendy-left noses out of joint, so obviously there would have been no point in vilifying them.

When Bin Laden died, I posted that when all was said and done, he was an individual made in God's image for whom Christ had died.

I don't remember anyone raving about dancing on his grave, and if did I'm sure they got (quite appropriately) jumped on.

Thatcher was just another elected politician who did some things right, some things wrong, and some things over which voters disagreed at the time, and which will remain matters of disagreement amongst commentators and historians.

She wasn’t a dictator, she wasn’t a mass murderer, and she certainly wasn’t the fucking Antichrist.

Get a grip people, and while you’re at it, some sort of sense of proportion.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

Thatcher was just another elected politician who did some things right, some things wrong, and some things over which voters disagreed at the time, and which will remain matters of disagreement amongst commentators and historians.

No she wasn't. She wasn't Mao or Kim, or (her chum, let it not be forgotten) Pinochet, but she was much, much more than just another elected politician. Example: she was PM when beggars returned to the streets of Britain. I can remember people saying (up to the mid-80s, I suppose) that whatever else you might say about this country, you didn't see beggars here. People used to say that and take some pride in it. That changed under her watch: and it's not a coincidence. That - not just the poverty and the begging itself, but the demoralisation, the speed with which we came to accept as 'normal' and step round what had formerly been seen as unthinkably degrading - sums up her record.

I'm not celebrating her death- no sense in that - but I'm buggered if I'm going to be 'respectful' after what she did to my country.

[ 11. April 2013, 07:07: Message edited by: Albertus ]

Posted by OhSimone (# 16414) on :

That was Glenda Jackson's choice of the major legacy of Thatcherism in Parliament yesterday: link

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

The funeral..............

This from The Daily Telegraph. Worth a read and surprising as it is from a conservative leaning paper.

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

The fact MT put her mark on Britain is without doubt (be it for good or ill). But what amounts to a state funeral when you compare the funeral of Atlee in 1967 ( a ''transformational'' PM if ever there was one) which was a fairly quiet affair by accounts of the time in 1967.

My view? A simple funeral for family, political colleagues and friends , but please not a state funeral.

Read the article and you may agree with the journalist on this one.

Saul the Apostle

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
annoying some white, middle-class, English-speaking Westerners and putting some trendy-left noses out of joint

You don't come from around here do you? One of Thatcher's legacies around here is that on the weekend I can take the kids cycling around a number of "country parks" in this area. They're quite nice, but one can never quite get away from the observation that every one of them used to be a pit. Every one of them used to be a source of employment, employment that enabled working men to support their families on a single income, the way they wanted to. Or we can go shopping at Meadowhall - which is on the site of the steelworks that made Sheffield synonymous with steel.

An inevitable change? Maybe. Not exactly helped by the trade union culture of the mid 70s? Certainly. Just "a few middle class noses put out of joint"? I suggest you say that in Bolsover - you'd find out what having your nose put out of joint feels like. There's a reason The Beast's seat is safe.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
(her chum, let it not be forgotten) Pinochet

Far from forgetting it, I condemned it in an earlier post.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
An inevitable change? Maybe.

I would say definitely. Harold Wilson closed more pits than Margaret Thatcher.

quote:
Not exactly helped by the trade union culture of the mid 70s? Certainly.

I'm sure many would say that's something of an understatement.

quote:
There's a reason The Beast's seat is safe.

But Bolsover has always been a safe Labour seat. Labour won 50% of the vote at the last election, from around 80% in 1950. To be fair, Skinner is by all accounts a very good constituency MP which must count for something too.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Not exactly helped by the trade union culture of the mid 70s? Certainly.
I'm sure many would say that's something of an understatement.

There are some extenuating factors - that culture was a by-product of class antagonism, and the way in which the situation was resolved probably made that worse in the long term by creating large areas of the UK with little to no long term employment for a generation or so.

Meanwhile, we have a situation where a dominant ideology has again led to an economic crisis, with the financial industry playing the role of an unelected and unaccountable power preventing change.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
An inevitable change? Maybe.
I would say definitely. Harold Wilson closed more pits than Margaret Thatcher.

quote:
Not exactly helped by the trade union culture of the mid 70s? Certainly.
I'm sure many would say that's something of an understatement.

quote:
There's a reason The Beast's seat is safe.
But Bolsover has always been a safe Labour seat. Labour won 50% of the vote at the last election, from around 80% in 1950. To be fair, Skinner is by all accounts a very good constituency MP which must count for something too.

None of which alters my salient point, which was that the idea that all Thatcher did was "put a few middle class lefty noses out of joint" (I paraphrase) is bollocks of the highest order.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Not exactly helped by the trade union culture of the mid 70s? Certainly.
I'm sure many would say that's something of an understatement.

There are some extenuating factors - that culture was a by-product of class antagonism, and the way in which the situation was resolved probably made that worse in the long term by creating large areas of the UK with little to no long term employment for a generation or so.

This. The feeling (as I as an immigrant from Bedfordshire understand it) is that she closed the pits and the factories with no thought or apparent concern as to what would replace them, and now her spiritual successors kick people when they're down for still suffering the after effects (mass unemployment, lack of equivalent reasonably paid work for the sorts of people who previously worked in the pits and the factories) by categorising them as dole scum.

Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
The funeral..............

This from The Daily Telegraph. Worth a read and surprising as it is from a conservative leaning paper.

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

The fact MT put her mark on Britain is without doubt (be it for good or ill). But what amounts to a state funeral when you compare the funeral of Atlee in 1967 ( a ''transformational'' PM if ever there was one) which was a fairly quiet affair by accounts of the time in 1967.

My view? A simple funeral for family, political colleagues and friends , but please not a state funeral.

Read the article and you may agree with the journalist on this one.

Saul the Apostle

I think that's a good and wise article. I also note from
this article that the Speaker of the House of Commons didn't think yesterday's debate should've happened, as it wasn't in line with Parliamentary precedent for the deaths of political leaders in the past, and had to be strong-armed into it by the Prime Minister (and Ed Miliband).

Which makes it feel to me like all this is being used to make a political point by the Tories, elevating a hugely divisive and controversial figure to the likes of Churchill and rubbing the noses of those who opposed her and those whose lives were damaged by her government's policies in their "triumph".

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

And ding-a-lings like Hawk who haven't the first idea what they're talking about...

But it's when ignoramuses like Hawk come along saying that Thatcherism liberated the working-class and all that guff...

But it's when ignoramuses like Hawk come along...

mewling, puking, acne-faced spoilt-brats like Marvin and Hawk who pontificate about things they know sod all about.

Stuff you. Stuff you. Stuff the lot of you.

Apologise please. This isn't Hell. Anger is no excuse for personal attacks. You don't know me, or anything about me.

I'm not going to respond to your arguments. Anyone who speaks with such blind rage and personal character attacks has lost any civilised argument in my book.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
annoying some white, middle-class, English-speaking Westerners and putting some trendy-left noses out of joint

You don't come from around here do you? One of Thatcher's legacies around here is that on the weekend I can take the kids cycling around a number of "country parks" in this area. They're quite nice, but one can never quite get away from the observation that every one of them used to be a pit. Every one of them used to be a source of employment, employment that enabled working men to support their families on a single income, the way they wanted to. Or we can go shopping at Meadowhall - which is on the site of the steelworks that made Sheffield synonymous with steel.

An inevitable change? Maybe.

It was inevitable; these industries were on life support and she pulled the plug. Could it have been managed better? Of course.

Her legacy? On the plus side, during her term in office, she rescued us from being an economic basket case and broke the power of the anti-democratic union oligarchs who held the country to ransom in the 1970s, and empowered at least some of the working class by enabling to own their own homes. More long term - irony of ironies, given she was such a divisive figure - Britain is less polarised now than it was 30 years ago. On the minus side, she let communities and a much wider sense of community fall by the wayside and disenfranchised other members of the working class.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
I'm not going to respond to your arguments. Anyone who speaks with such blind rage and personal character attacks has lost any civilised argument in my book.

You haven't responded to anyone else's arguments either - especially the ones that draw doubts on the 'facts' on which you base your arguments.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

And ding-a-lings like Hawk who haven't the first idea what they're talking about...

But it's when ignoramuses like Hawk come along saying that Thatcherism liberated the working-class and all that guff...

But it's when ignoramuses like Hawk come along...

mewling, puking, acne-faced spoilt-brats like Marvin and Hawk who pontificate about things they know sod all about.

Stuff you. Stuff you. Stuff the lot of you.
Apologise please. This isn't Hell. Anger is no excuse for personal attacks. You don't know me, or anything about me.

I'm not going to respond to your arguments. Anyone who speaks with such blind rage and personal character attacks has lost any civilised argument in my book.

Hear, hear! I am getting increasingly concerned likewise with the amount of hate that has spewed from Lefties in recent days and weeks (not just about Thatcher's death, I'm thinking the likes of John O'Farrell and Jeremy Hardy for instance); they can't seem to distinguish between people and policies and I shudder to think what would happen if any of them were given real power...

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Her legacy? On the plus side, during her term in office, she rescued us from being an economic basket case

I'm not entirely sure what people who make this argument envisage would have happened 'instead'. As ken points out earlier, a lot of the prosperity since has been the result of other worldwide trends over which Thatcher had no control anyway. You would be hard pressed to name one Western European country that has actually gone into 'reverse' over that timeframe.

If you compare the period from 1979 to 1993 France - usually the bogeyman in these matters - experienced as much GDP growth as the UK. Oh, and the UK also had this small thing called 'North Sea Oil', take away that and her economic performance doesn't look as impressive.

quote:

Britain is less polarised now than it was 30 years ago.

Again, in what sense do you mean this? On the level of class polarisation it appears less so, because we all have a common bogeyman in the shape of the feckless poor who are on the sick (a situation Thatcher is largely responsible for).

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

By this I mean the issues dividing us these days are much more about conservative-v-progressive on social issues, rather than the deep bitter enmity of class division that characterised 30-40 years ago. Although we have sharp disagreements on the Ship about these new issues, I would say we're fairly atypical of society as a whole who seem far less interested in such matters.

Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :

I don't think anyone is saying that industries that are dying and with no hope of revival should be kept on life-support perpetually. Part of the reality of a changing economy is that yes, some industries do shut down.

However the responsibility of government is to ensure that people who lose their jobs as a result of economic change have ample opportunity to retrain and re-integrate back into productive well-paying jobs.

Thatcher changed western politics in that North American and British politicians no longer talk about full employment as a worthwhile political objective. Before Thatcherism, it wasn't considered too much to think of a "right to employment." Today, if that concept is brought up, some would call that a selfish entitlement, "No one has a right to a job."

[ 11. April 2013, 11:26: Message edited by: Anglican_Brat ]

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

I think I acknowledged the point of your second paragraph above. It was, as Austen said, "Badly done".

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
By this I mean the issues dividing us these days are much more about conservative-v-progressive on social issues, rather than the deep bitter enmity of class division that characterised 30-40 years ago. Although we have sharp disagreements on the Ship about these new issues, I would say we're fairly atypical of society as a whole who seem far less interested in such matters.

Though if social mobility is low and is getting lower (and it is), then that's not necessarily a good thing, is it?

Class envy is only acceptable these days if you are attacking the poor.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

...or bankers, apparently

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Class envy is only acceptable these days if you are attacking the poor.

Which is why no-one ever, ever mentions David Cameron's public school background.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

[Big Grin]

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Class envy is only acceptable these days if you are attacking the poor.
Which is why no-one ever, ever mentions David Cameron's public school background.

Let's see if people attack the new Archbishop of Canterbury on that basis. Some OEs (eg, Cameron, Osborne, Boris Johnson) become members of the Bullingdon Club, others do not.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

When I mention it, it's as a sort of possible excuse as to why the man is apparently clueless as to life at the bottom of the social heap.

As regards bankers, methinks that when one observes the people who fucked us still paying themselves orders of magnitude more than most of us will ever earn, envy seems like a perfectly rational reaction.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Some OEs (eg, Cameron, Osborne, Boris Johnson) become members of the Bullingdon Club, others do not.

A (very minor) point: George Osborne isn't an OE. He attended St Paul's. (Just in case you want to 'know your enemy' and all that.)

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Said it before but I'll repeat:

WHY is it fair to sling mud about school?

How many of you asked your children which school they'd like to attend? Honestly?

The PARENTS of Cameron, Johnson, Welby,etc, decided to send their child to Eton - and that only became fact after they'd passed a very tough entrance exam.

Same situation, different school for Osborne.

There were no "taster days" until very recently - you went where you were sent.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

Two things, firstly, people appointing their school friends is a tad suspect - sort of like scholarly nepotism. Secondly, if you are privileged to the extent to have gone to Eton in the first place - wittering on about how people can make it if they aspire hard enough is unconvincing. It is as if these people don't realise the size of their head start.

Posted by lowlands_boy (# 12497) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Said it before but I'll repeat:

WHY is it fair to sling mud about school?

How many of you asked your children which school they'd like to attend? Honestly?

The PARENTS of Cameron, Johnson, Welby,etc, decided to send their child to Eton - and that only became fact after they'd passed a very tough entrance exam.

Same situation, different school for Osborne.

There were no "taster days" until very recently - you went where you were sent.

We did.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Ok, I'm happy to apologise, Hawk.

And I am slightly embarrassed too, to be honest ... [Hot and Hormonal]

- so yes, Kaplan was right on that one.

That said, I was struck by a comment Maya Angelou made during an interview on last night's Front Row on Radio 4 that anger could be fine as long as it didn't lead to violence and that it burns itself out eventually, sometimes leaving some nutrients behind in the ashes that can be put to good use.

I believe that to be the case and I do believe that it can be right and legitimate to express anger at some of Thatcher's policies and legacy.

I would certainly dissociate myself from the lurid, dancing-on-her-grave nonsense that many have indulged in. I don't think you'll find any examples of my having done it here.

But I was angry and annoyed by both Hawk's comments and Marvin's stance - although I've mellowed since I posted my comments. I was sounding off. These things can be visceral ... a red mist (literally in Red Flag terms ...) can descend ...

I've seen the same in reverse in terms of right-wing reactions against looney-left shenanigans.

I apologise for any personal attacks I've made here. Unreservedly.

But I don't apologise for getting annoyed at suggestions that Thatcher had created more opportunities for the working-class and so on - because that patently isn't the case.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

Relative poverty (which doubled under Thatcher) is not a perfect way of measuring poverty, for the reasons already given by Marvin. Still, it does give a minimuum standard for living in society. As average incomes rise the question is whether poorer people keep up with these rises, that they keep up with the norm. Comments that mention differences between people as the average income rises are actually talking about inequality, not relative poverty. The former is about income distribution (whereby even just a few people getting a lot richer while poorer people stay the same would automatically increase inequality) , the latter is about those who are far beneath the middle of income distribution.

This shows itself in what the majority of the British public believe to be basic human necessities. I've looked at the report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation "Poverty and social exclusion in Britain".

Link

Its base year is 1983. It shows that "Between 1983 and 1990, the number of households who lacked three or more socially perceived necessities increased by almost 50 per cent". The report goes on, "Thus, just as poverty measured by income inequality has risen over the past two decades [...], so poverty measured by the enforced deprivation of necessities has increased - by an average rate of 1 per cent of households per year during the 1980s. [...] This represented about half a million extra people living in poverty on average each year between 1983 and 1990", poverty being defined by not income inequality, rather, the enforced deprivation of necessities.

Note that those things considered to be socially necessary between 1983 and 1990 stayed more or less the same, with 30 out of 33 items being common to both surveys.

Dealing with income inequality for a moment, while the amount of people who are unable to buy necessities increased, this graph shows that the share of income owned by the top 1% of UK society increased under Thatcher (and Major and Blair).

The graph here "Households accepted as unintentionally homeless, 1980-2008" showed the figure rise from 72210 to 163809 people between 1980 and 1990.

By the way, I came across this story which shows that Thatcher adopted a homeless cat by the name of Marvin [Biased]

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

L'Organist:

quote:
How many of you asked your children which school they'd like to attend? Honestly?

I have. Daughter will be moving on to secondary school next year and her views on where she wants to go will be taken into account when filling in the forms.

quote:
The PARENTS of Cameron, Johnson, Welby,etc, decided to send their child to Eton - and that only became fact after they'd passed a very tough entrance exam.

Eton must have a different admissions policy to my Other Half's alma mater, then. If your parents were rich enough, you didn't have to do the entrance exam there - that was just for scholarship boys.

Passing 'tough' entrance exams is easier for those with parents who can afford to pay for extra tuition, anyway.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Secondly, if you are privileged to the extent to have gone to Eton in the first place - wittering on about how people can make it if they aspire hard enough is unconvincing. It is as if these people don't realise the size of their head start.

That's fine, but we have a political class in the UK that is dominated by ex-independent and public school children (including Attlee, Benn, Blair, Darling, Balls, and Harman to name a few). But when left-wing politicians from privileged backgrounds talk (or 'witter') about aspiration people don't seem to get so worked up about things.

If we must accept that a 'Tory Toff' lecturing us about aspiration is irksome, the principle should cut both ways, shouldn't it?

[ 11. April 2013, 14:08: Message edited by: Anglican't ]

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
...or bankers, apparently

So either Thatcher heralded an end of the era of deep bitter enmity of class divisions or she didn't, make up your mind [Roll Eyes]

.. but specifically on the subject of bankers; you'll have a point when a political party runs on a ticket of destroying their industry. Or at least when the major new outlets stop publishing puff pieces and apologias for their behaviour.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
Relative poverty (which doubled under Thatcher) is not a perfect way of measuring poverty, for the reasons already given by Marvin. Still, it does give a minimuum standard for living in society. As average incomes rise the question is whether poorer people keep up with these rises, that they keep up with the norm. Comments that mention differences between people as the average income rises are actually talking about inequality, not relative poverty. The former is about income distribution (whereby even just a few people getting a lot richer while poorer people stay the same would automatically increase inequality) , the latter is about those who are far beneath the middle of income distribution.

But that's my point - inequality isn't the same thing as poverty, and attempts to conflate the two (for instance, saying stuff like "more people are dying through poverty" when what you're really talking about is people happening to move to a different statistical set) are odious.

quote:
This shows itself in what the majority of the British public believe to be basic human necessities.

I'm not convinced that that is a good way to measure poverty. It feels like the report writers were reaching for a definition that would enable them to claim that poverty was widespread in order to further their aims. It's notable that they call for child poverty to be eradicated while using a definition that makes it impossible to do so without making it so that everyone receives almost exactly the same income. To me, that makes a mockery of the whole project.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

Just like Thatcher didn't kill the industries (because they were already dead by 1979), she also didn't start a class war. The class war (or at least a sort of class cold war) was already well under way, and had been ever since the militant left began to dominate the unions. Class hatred and resentment had been building up since the Second World War ("We'll make Winston Churchill smoke a Woodbine every day / When the Red Revolution comes along") and really took off during the 70s, not the 80s. The civil unrest of the early 80s didn't happen because of what she did, so much as for what she was: she was a Tory. And the Trotskyites who ran the unions knew that it would have been politically inexpedient to show their hand if Labour had got back into power in 1979. Thatcher was the opportunity, not the cause. And the rioters and strikers were the dupes of the politically-motivated union bosses.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Secondly, if you are privileged to the extent to have gone to Eton in the first place - wittering on about how people can make it if they aspire hard enough is unconvincing. It is as if these people don't realise the size of their head start.
That's fine, but we have a political class in the UK that is dominated by ex-independent and public school children (including Attlee, Benn, Blair, Darling, Balls, and Harman to name a few). But when left-wing politicians from privileged backgrounds talk (or 'witter') about aspiration people don't seem to get so worked up about things.

If we must accept that a 'Tory Toff' lecturing us about aspiration is irksome, the principle should cut both ways, shouldn't it?

It's nor irksome because he went to Eton; it's irksome when it betrays a complete lack of understanding of life outside privilege. As Jarvis Cocker wrote:

"But you'll never get it right
Because when you lie in bed at night
Watching Roaches climb the walls
You can call your Daddy and he can end it all."

When they do this, I am given to wonder if having had a privileged background is their excuse.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Exactly. It's about getting outside what you were brought up in, whether that be the cocoon of Eton or the parochialism of a South Wales valleys town. One thing about Thatch- she knew that where she grew up was narrow and she got out into the big world as soon as she could. Admittedly, she then chose to put herself into another, different, narrow social experience.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

As regards bankers, methinks that when one observes the people who fucked us still paying themselves orders of magnitude more than most of us will ever earn, envy seems like a perfectly rational reaction.

Not for me: I'm fortunate enough to have as much as I need or want, so envy doesn't come into it. Contempt and disdain for the grossness and vulgarity of the bonus culture, on the other hand, do.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Just like Thatcher didn't kill the industries (because they were already dead by 1979), she also didn't start a class war. The class war (or at least a sort of class cold war) was already well under way, and had been ever since the militant left began to dominate the unions. Class hatred and resentment had been building up since the Second World War ("We'll make Winston Churchill smoke a Woodbine every day / When the Red Revolution comes along") and really took off during the 70s, not the 80s. The civil unrest of the early 80s didn't happen because of what she did, so much as for what she was: she was a Tory. And the Trotskyites who ran the unions knew that it would have been politically inexpedient to show their hand if Labour had got back into power in 1979. Thatcher was the opportunity, not the cause. And the rioters and strikers were the dupes of the politically-motivated union bosses.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'm not convinced that that is a good way to measure poverty. It feels like the report writers were reaching for a definition that would enable them to claim that poverty was widespread in order to further their aims. It's notable that they call for child poverty to be eradicated while using a definition that makes it impossible to do so without making it so that everyone receives almost exactly the same income. To me, that makes a mockery of the whole project.

I think The Lady herself had something to say about this sort of thing.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Secondly, if you are privileged to the extent to have gone to Eton in the first place - wittering on about how people can make it if they aspire hard enough is unconvincing. It is as if these people don't realise the size of their head start.
That's fine, but we have a political class in the UK that is dominated by ex-independent and public school children (including Attlee, Benn, Blair, Darling, Balls, and Harman to name a few). But when left-wing politicians from privileged backgrounds talk (or 'witter') about aspiration people don't seem to get so worked up about things.

If we must accept that a 'Tory Toff' lecturing us about aspiration is irksome, the principle should cut both ways, shouldn't it?

It absolutely bothers me that so many on the left are from independent schools too - happily not our current leader, however. There was a BBC documentary by Andrew Neil on this very subject a while ago, I think it was called Posh and Posher?

Posted by malik3000 (# 11437) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
[QUOTE]I am getting increasingly concerned likewise with the amount of hate that has spewed from Lefties in recent days and weeks […] they can't seem to distinguish between people and policies and I shudder to think what would happen if any of them were given real power...

It is not a question of "lefties" vs. "righties". And i submit that it certainly is not a failure to distinguish between people and policies. Totally the opposite! It is based on the fact that it is people who are affected by policies. The rage is against powerful people who set policies that hurt other much less powerful people -- for the benefit of those powerful policy-setters.

I totally understand Gamaliel's rage. I certainly will admit that, according to the rules set forth by the owners and administrators of this website, Gamaliel's comments seemed to me clearly too personally expressed for the Purgatory section, and was a bit surprised by what seemed a very un-Gamaliel-like post. And his apology demonstrates the big person that he is.

I felt Gamaliel's anger as a resident of the U.S. who lived before, during, and after the era of Reagan, Thatcher's ideological soulmate, the era that initiated the downward (and I fear likely permanent) slide that the U.S. has been on ever since.

As a visual example, prior to the Reagan era, the sight of homeless people on city streets was nowhere as casually ubiquitous as it has been since.

I'm not saying that there weren't grave social problems prior to that era. I say this as someone who lived in the Deep South in the tail-end of the segregation era. But things seemed to be lurching in a more hopeful direction until the Reagan era put an end to that.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by malik3000:

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
[QUOTE]I am getting increasingly concerned likewise with the amount of hate that has spewed from Lefties in recent days and weeks […] they can't seem to distinguish between people and policies and I shudder to think what would happen if any of them were given real power...
It is not a question of "lefties" vs. "righties". And i submit that it certainly is not a failure to distinguish between people and policies. Totally the opposite! It is based on the fact that it is people who are affected by policies. The rage is against powerful people who set policies that hurt other much less powerful people -- for the benefit of those powerful policy-setters.

Yes. And also because of a desire to remember. There is a struggle going on for control of the myth. The current government - even most of the last Labour goverment - and pretty much the entire news industry is in full-on "print the legend" mode about the late 1970s and early 1980s, and has been ever since then. People who were alive at the time and ought to know better are taken in by the "everything was shit the country was going to the dogs and everybody despised us then the Iron Lady came and made it all right to be British again and gave us a sense of pridce again and a nre purpose and set us free to become rich and happy" myth.

Our memories, our experiences, are being officially erased, just as strongly (if a little less violently) than the old Soviet airbrushing of photos of the May and October marchpasts.

So yes, ifthose who forget history are condemed to repeat it. then those who allow their opponents to rewrite their history for them are in deep deep deep shit.

That's the real point about nonsense like trying to make "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" the Number One song. Its not really directed in hatred at Margaret Thatchewr - after all she is dead - its about holding on to some self-respect in the face of a huge media machine that is trying to fuck with our brains.

And as for the idea of a militarised funeral with gun carriages and the rest of it, that's insane.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'm not convinced that that is a good way to measure poverty. It feels like the report writers were reaching for a definition that would enable them to claim that poverty was widespread in order to further their aims. It's notable that they call for child poverty to be eradicated while using a definition that makes it impossible to do so without making it so that everyone receives almost exactly the same income. To me, that makes a mockery of the whole project.

So, apart from not being able to buy basic needs, what would be a better way of measuring poverty?

You have anything to say about the big rise in homelessness?

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
But when left-wing politicians from privileged backgrounds talk (or 'witter') about aspiration people don't seem to get so worked up about things.

When that's all they talk about (and don't mention the role of wider society and government) they do get criticised in the left-wing parts of the press that you probably don't read.

quote:

If we must accept that a 'Tory Toff' lecturing us about aspiration is irksome, the principle should cut both ways, shouldn't it?

Well, there's something particular offensive about someone telling you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps while busying themselves with cutting off your thumbs.

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
...
If we must accept that a 'Tory Toff' lecturing us about aspiration is irksome, the principle should cut both ways, shouldn't it? [/QB]

To some extent, but there is a difference.

Tony Blair's 50% University campaign may have been foolhardy etc..., but it was (in theory) giving the people not like him the opportunities. It was aspiration "I had this advantage, they should have it too"

The OU funding cuts and the recent higher fees (also to a high extent Labours choice*) is them limiting the choices to people like themselves. It's aspiration "I did it (I even had to sell some bonds), they should do it too"

And similarly with the tax cuts, with the Tories taking both sides, (but in this case they then take back more than they gave).

*And was why I was actually glad when the Tories got back in because I thought Labour had got more Tory than the Tories, at least with the Lib-dems acting as a restraint (how naive I was).

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

On the subject of predicting Thatcher's legacy, check out this U.S. diplomatic cable from 1975, on first impressions of the new leader of the Tories.

quote:
UNFORTUNATELY FOR HER PROSPECTS OF BECOMING A NATIONAL, AS DISTINCT FROM A PARTY, LEADER, SHE HAS OVER THE YEARS ACQUIRED A DISTINCTIVELY UPPER MIDDLE CLASS PERSONAL IMAGE. HER IMMACULATE GROOMING, HER IMPERIOUS MANNER, HER CONVENTIONAL AND SOMEWHAT FORCED CHARM, AND ABOVE ALL HER PLUMMY VOICE STAMP HER AS THE QUINTESSENTIAL SUBURBAN MATRON, AND FRIGHTFULLY ENGLISH TO BOOT. NONE OF THIS GOES DOWN WELL WITH THE WORKING CLASS OF ENGLAND (ONE-THIRD OF WHICH USED TO VOTE CONSERVATIVE), TO SAY NOTHING OF ALL CLASSES IN THE CELTIC FRINGES OF THIS ISLAND.

THESE ARE STILL EARLY DAYS THOUGH. UNLESS THE ECONOMY GOES EVEN MORE CATASTROPHICALLY AWRY AND THE GOVERNMENT LOSES A SERIES OF BY-ELECTIONS, MRS. THATCHER IS UNLIKELY TO FACE A GERERAL ELECTION FOR THREE OR FOUR YEARS. IF SHE IS EVER TO BECOME BRITAIN'S FIRST WOMAN PRIME MINISTER, SHE MUST USE THAT TIME TO HUMANIZE HER PUBLIC IMAGE AND BROADEN THE BASE OF HER PARTY'S APPEAL. THE ODDS ARE AGAINST HER, BUT AFTER HER STUNNING ORGANIZATIONAL COUP D'ETAT THIS PAST MONTH, FEW ARE PREPARED TO SAY SHE CAN'T DO IT.

Sorry for the all-caps, but that's the format of the diplomatic cable. Unlike a lot of materials published by Wikileaks, this isn't sourced to a leak but rather an attempt to organize a lot of publicly available documents. This one was declassified in 2006.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
So, apart from not being able to buy basic needs, what would be a better way of measuring poverty?

You need more?

"Poverty" used to mean you couldn't feed yourself, that you had to wear rags because you couldn't afford clothes and that you didn't have a home to go to at night. Apparently it now means you can't watch I'm A Celebrity. Excuse me if I don't agree with that redefinition.

quote:
You have anything to say about the big rise in homelessness?

I think it's pretty clear that I would define anyone who doesn't have a home as in poverty. And if you want to start talking about such genuine poverty then I'm OK with that.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

Am I right in thinking that the definition of 'homelessness' that is often used doesn't quite chime with the definition ordinary people might use? I'd always assumed 'homeless' meant not having a roof over one's head, but I seem to remember some news report saying that one is homeless if one has to share a bedroom with one's family, or something like that.

[ 12. April 2013, 10:31: Message edited by: Anglican't ]

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
So, apart from not being able to buy basic needs, what would be a better way of measuring poverty?
You need more?

"Poverty" used to mean you couldn't feed yourself, that you had to wear rags because you couldn't afford clothes and that you didn't have a home to go to at night. Apparently it now means you can't watch I'm A Celebrity. Excuse me if I don't agree with that redefinition.

quote:
You have anything to say about the big rise in homelessness?
I think it's pretty clear that I would define anyone who doesn't have a home as in poverty. And if you want to start talking about such genuine poverty then I'm OK with that.

Our current subsistence level benefit is Job Seekers Allowance. You need to be in pretty good shape to get a job, such as clean, well-nourished, decently-clothed with the funds to get to interviews and the facilities to search for jobs. While Housing benefit looks after rent you need power and heat to make any home habitable and JSA has to cover that too. JSA might be adequate for short-term job-seeking, but right now people with a good long work record have been on JSA for six months plus, by which time your transport, even if it is only shoe leather, is getting thin and you might be looking to replace clothes too.

Prevention of poverty is only one aspect. Preventing exclusion matters too.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And also because of a desire to remember. There is a struggle going on for control of the myth. The current government - even most of the last Labour goverment - and pretty much the entire news industry is in full-on "print the legend" mode about the late 1970s and early 1980s, and has been ever since then. People who were alive at the time and ought to know better are taken in by the "everything was shit the country was going to the dogs and everybody despised us then the Iron Lady came and made it all right to be British again and gave us a sense of pridce again and a nre purpose and set us free to become rich and happy" myth.

Our memories, our experiences, are being officially erased, just as strongly (if a little less violently) than the old Soviet airbrushing of photos of the May and October marchpasts.

So yes, ifthose who forget history are condemed to repeat it. then those who allow their opponents to rewrite their history for them are in deep deep deep shit.

That's the real point about nonsense like trying to make "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" the Number One song. Its not really directed in hatred at Margaret Thatchewr - after all she is dead - its about holding on to some self-respect in the face of a huge media machine that is trying to fuck with our brains.

And as for the idea of a militarised funeral with gun carriages and the rest of it, that's insane.

I'm not sure that I agree with the proposition that history is being re-written.

I was a teenager in the late 1970s, old enough to remember being out of school because of strikes; the army covering for striking ambulance drivers; hospitals turning anyone away unless they passed unofficial triage as an emergency; haulage strikes leaving the shops empty; not being able to get home because the bus drivers had gone on strike for the afternoon without warning; inflation at well over 20%; Britain getting bailout money from the IMF.

All of that occurred within a year or so leading up to Mrs Thatcher's first election success, along with many other examples. Some of those impacted everyone directly, such as millions of tons of rotting refuse left in streets and gardens around the country by striking council workers. Others affected few people directly but were iconic enough to grab the attention of many through the media, like bodies piling up in warehouses because municipal gravediggers were on strike in Liverpool and elsewhere and wouldn't allow anyone else into the cemetaries.

A couple of months ago there was much soul-searching in the media because figures showed that in 2012 almost 1.4 million days had been lost to industrial action, the highest figure for 20 years. In 1979, with a significantly smaller workforce the figure was almost 30 million.

I don't think it is a revisionist legend thatthere was a common perception in 1979 (which may or may not have been justified) that some union leaders had sought to direct government policy by coordinating industrial action and generating public disorder and hardship. I think that had a significant bearing on Mrs Thatcher's electoral success in 1979.

Mrs Thatcher didn't sweep to power on a white charger and solve all these problems creating a new Jerusalem. But she was elected in 1979 and had popular support immediately afterwards because she set about dealing with real concerns not mythical ones. The harshness of her government may at least in part be explained, if not excused by that background. Certainly the intensely personal way in which she was demonised at the time and subsequently by her politial opponents has its roots there I think.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

I remember all of that too; I don't think there's much re-writing going on. It was a pretty grim time as I recall it.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Yes. And also because of a desire to remember. There is a struggle going on for control of the myth. The current government - even most of the last Labour goverment - and pretty much the entire news industry is in full-on "print the legend" mode about the late 1970s and early 1980s, and has been ever since then. People who were alive at the time and ought to know better are taken in by the "everything was shit the country was going to the dogs and everybody despised us then the Iron Lady came and made it all right to be British again and gave us a sense of pride again and a nre purpose and set us free to become rich and happy" myth.

Our memories, our experiences, are being officially erased, just as strongly (if a little less violently) than the old Soviet airbrushing of photos of the May and October marchpasts.

So yes, if those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. then those who allow their opponents to rewrite their history for them are in deep deep deep shit.

That's the real point about nonsense like trying to make "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" the Number One song. Its not really directed in hatred at Margaret Thatcher - after all she is dead - its about holding on to some self-respect in the face of a huge media machine that is trying to fuck with our brains.

And as for the idea of a militarised funeral with gun carriages and the rest of it, that's insane.

I am now in my sixties. My social and historical memory therefore goes back rather further than most of those who have contributed to this thread. So I can tell you a bit about how it really was, rather than the myths that younger people project onto it.

First, the late seventies were dreadful. May we never know such times again. I can well remember serious interruptions to bread supply and setting off to drive a round trip of 300 miles for the weekend not being sure whether one could find a garage with petrol to sell you so you could complete your journey. These were not the result of shortages like during the war but of the effect of strikes on supply.

Second, the place did look grubby and down at heel then. Compared with before and since, even guardsmen's uniforms didn't fit properly.

Third, though, society still functioned. Most of the time, bins were emptied, bits of the economy that were not on strike functioned normally, Any Questions broadcast every Friday evening, though the cantankerousness of the contributions was worse than any time before or since, worse even probably than during the Thatcher era itself when they were fairly bad. My daughter was born in a hospital that functioned well, and received excellent aftercare from home nurses etc.

Fourth, by an large in the sixties, i.e. before that, society functioned rather well. However, contrary to how modern people imagine it, most people were not in Carnaby Street, and still had many of the social assumptions of the previous era. There's the saying 'if you remember the sixties, you weren't there', but that's seeing them as though they were only the fons et origo of a particular take on what has happened since.

Besides, most of the social changes people attribute to the sixties happened in the seventies. Even drugs didn't really appear until about 1967, almost simultaneously with the sudden demise of the public dance halls. I suspect most moderns would assume those were only a war time thing.

Fifthly, things didn't suddenly change in 1979. There was a change of government but things were rough before and carried on being rough all through the eighties.

Sixthly, people didn't say, but I think most of us thought we were going to lose in the South Atlantic.

Seventhly, "class hatred and resentment" didn't suddenly appear in the 70s. It had been there all the time, since well before 1926. I think it's probably less now than it was, because people don't seem to need such a strong sense of class self-identity. I can see why some politicians and ideologues regret that. It males their job harder. But I think that is something that has improved over my lifetime.

Eighthly, and then I'll stop, it is true. There were no beggars in the sixties. There were tramps, but not beggars. I don't know why this has changed but I don't think it is entirely attributable to changes in government social policy.

Blessed is the country that is preserved from conviction politics.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

Grim, yes. And when the Tories got in everything got worse. Unemployment, crime, violence, riots, strikes, all the rest of it, all carried on getting worse. The worst year was probably 1982 but things didn't get much better till about 1984. And then mainly for the more prosperous parts of Britain, and for the better-educated middle-class.

Perhapos what was most hateful was the unfairness of it all. They decoupled willingness to work from income in a way that hadn't seemed to be the case before. If yoiu were on the right side of some failry arbitrary lines you prospered, if not you got stuffed.

[ 12. April 2013, 12:21: Message edited by: ken ]

Posted by Alaric the Goth (# 511) on :

It was the 'pendulum politics' of the '70s and 80s that was the problem. You had a much more 'socialist'Labour party, with backing from very powerful Unions (well Union bosses in particular) and an economic mess partly due to Govt. policy and partly due to wider economic conditions.

You had a Conservative Party that promised to sort the mess out with the 'novelty' of a woman leader, and its reaction when it came to power was to swing the pendulum to at least (actually beyond) the opposite extreme. So it did 'too much' of some things : Union-bashing, shifting control from public to private sector, going for a service-based rather than manufacturing/extractive based economy. And it was helped by its (main) opponents clearly wanting the chance to swing the capitalist-socialist pendulum as far in the other direction as they could.

So mistakes were made (I was very conscious of these at the time) but in retrospeact I can see some of the right things were said/done, but often in the wrong way.

Ironically Mrs T was ousted for starting to say very much the right thing re. the EC/EU.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

Six pages into a thread about the legacy of Mrs Thatcher and there appears to be no word on the battle against inflation.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
I was a teenager in the late 1970s, old enough to remember being out of school because of strikes; the army covering for striking ambulance drivers; hospitals turning anyone away unless they passed unofficial triage as an emergency; haulage strikes leaving the shops empty; not being able to get home because the bus drivers had gone on strike for the afternoon without warning; inflation at well over 20%; Britain getting bailout money from the IMF.

All of that occurred within a year or so leading up to Mrs Thatcher's first election success, along with many other examples...

And that's it. the 70s were a rough time in many ways, at least in the Anglosphere - I remember shiortages of bread, sugar, loo rolls, tomatoes, at different times- but the things that are being presented as typical of the decade are overwhelmingly things that happened in the winter of '78-'79. But these get trotted out every time as evidence of how uniformly and chronically dreadful things were before Santa Margarita ascended Mont Pelerin and came down with the solution to all our problems. Of course history is being rewritten. It's always being rewritten.

Inflation, by the way, had been very high in the mid 70s- about 24% in 1975, I think- but it was then on its way down again: until Geoffrey Howe more or less doubled VAT in 79. Then it went up to 18% in 1980 before starting to come down again.

[ 12. April 2013, 12:38: Message edited by: Albertus ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Six pages into a thread about the legacy of Mrs Thatcher and there appears to be no word on the battle against inflation.

Perhaps because inflation was going down when she got in and had been for two or three years, and then started to go up again?

And their chosen method, artificially high interest rates, impoverished millions of people?

In our lifetimes there has only ever been one Chancellor of the Exchequer who managed to get inflation completely under control, and he has a Scottish accent and a glass eye.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Give some credit to the podgy jazz fan with the balding suede shoes for starting the process, though.

Posted by Charles Had a Splurge on (# 14140) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Six pages into a thread about the legacy of Mrs Thatcher and there appears to be no word on the battle against inflation.

What's to say?

If you look at the figures inflation was about the same when she left office as when she got in.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
That's the real point about nonsense like trying to make "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" the Number One song. Its not really directed in hatred at Margaret Thatchewr - after all she is dead - its about holding on to some self-respect in the face of a huge media machine that is trying to fuck with our brains.

I disagree. I think trying to make that the number one song is about pettiness and small-mindedness. It's about bearing a grude for half a lifetime. It's about manufacturing your own bitterness and misery and not only living on it, but passing it on to a generation who weren't even born when Thatcher was PM.

Tell you what, some of the really nasty stuff I've heard this week makes me think that Thatcher and the British bloody deserved each other.

Posted by alienfromzog (# 5327) on :

This makes interesting reading.

AFZ

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
And that's it. the 70s were a rough time in many ways, at least in the Anglosphere - I remember shiortages of bread, sugar, loo rolls, tomatoes, at different times- but the things that are being presented as typical of the decade are overwhelmingly things that happened in the winter of '78-'79. But these get trotted out every time as evidence of how uniformly and chronically dreadful things were before Santa Margarita ascended Mont Pelerin and came down with the solution to all our problems. Of course history is being rewritten. It's always being rewritten.

Inflation, by the way, had been very high in the mid 70s- about 24% in 1975, I think - but it was then on its way down again: until Geoffrey Howe more or less doubled VAT in 79. Then it went up to 18% in 1980 before starting to come down again.

You're right about the inflation numbers. From a quick look at the ONS I am reminded that having galloped out of control in the mid 1970s it was brought down quickly (but very painfully) by the first Thatcher government, and stayed more or less on the postwar average until the end of the 80s when it began to rise again.

Many of the things I listed had been experienced from the early 1970s onwards, but less intensely than in 1978/9. For instance I remember an extended period off school in 1972 when it had no heating because of a miners strike, and of course there was the enforced three-day week in 1974. But I agree that the strikes and other disruptions reached something of a crescendo in the 12 months prior to Thatcher's success in 1979. The cumulative effect of so much hardship all at once boosted her electoral chances and the initial popular support she had. But that was because this "winter of discontent" came after several years of much the same thing, so it appeared to promise more of the same indefinitely rather than being a one-off period of chaos.

In the context of this thread, and the legacy of Mrs Thatcher viewed in the perspective of her death, I disagree that we are seeing history re-written. I think that objectively things were fairly dire during the 1970s and especially so from 1978 onwards and I suspect that without that background she would not have been elected. The US diplomatic cable quoted above by Croesos was pretty astute I think. I see no evidence in the press of her being portrayed as a saint and little evidence of her flaws being glossed over in the endless obituaries.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And their chosen method, artificially high interest rates, impoverished millions of people?

As opposed to 28% inflation under Wilson which impoverished millions of savers, you mean?

quote:
In our lifetimes there has only ever been one Chancellor of the Exchequer who managed to get inflation completely under control, and he has a Scottish accent and a glass eye.

You mean the guy who, in tandem with investment bankers, totally fucked up our economy?

Thanks for brightening a dull Friday afternoon; keep up the good work!

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
It's about manufacturing your own bitterness and misery and not only living on it, but passing it on to a generation who weren't even born when Thatcher was PM.

So every generation is to be born in Year Zero and no-one can ever tell their children about what happened to them when they were young? And each generation has to learn for itself what mistakes to avoid, or how to know their friends from their enemies?

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
You mean the guy who, in tandem with investment bankers, totally fucked up our economy?

Its always good to know that Tories attribute superpowers to Labour MPs. One man a;l on his own managed to fuck up financial system of about twenty-five nations states, including the USA? Really?

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
It's about manufacturing your own bitterness and misery and not only living on it, but passing it on to a generation who weren't even born when Thatcher was PM.
So every generation is to be born in Year Zero and no-one can ever tell their children about what happened to them when they were young? And each generation has to learn for itself what mistakes to avoid, or how to know their friends from their enemies?

I'm not sure that 'Ding dong the witch is dead' is particularly edifying to anyone who isn't already convinced that Thatcherism was a bad thing.

Tbh the one thing this thread has emphasised for me is that Thatcherism was an attempt to solve a particular situation that obtained in 1979. The question of whether Thatcherism as a whole was Good or Bad is kind of irrelevant unless we find ourselves back in 1979. And that applies as much to Tory hagiography as to left-wing rage.

It is, of course, always relevant to ask whether specific aspects of Thatcherism (e.g. monetary policy) were successful or unsuccessful in what they set out to achieve. But that would require a degree of subtlety alien to the 'ding dong the witch is dead' mentality.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
It's about manufacturing your own bitterness and misery and not only living on it, but passing it on to a generation who weren't even born when Thatcher was PM.
So every generation is to be born in Year Zero and no-one can ever tell their children about what happened to them when they were young? And each generation has to learn for itself what mistakes to avoid, or how to know their friends from their enemies?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying you shouldn't tell the stories, I'm saying you shouldn't teach the hate.

It's a typically British thing. Over and over again, we waste God knows how much time and energy, blowing on that inner flame of bitterness to keep it burning. If it's not the Left hating Thatcher, it's the old soldiers hating the youth of today. If it's not them, it's one village hating the next because of which side they were on in the Civil War! Dear God! if grudges were electricity, Britain could power the world. Sometimes I'd swear this country is built on bile.

Maybe Thatcher was wrong about "there's no such thing as society" - maybe she was being too generous. Maybe "society" in Britain isn't who'll rally round when you're in need: maybe it's who you'll unite with in hatred.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
You're missing the point. I'm not saying you shouldn't tell the stories, I'm saying you shouldn't teach the hate.

Sure, but if you are born into a former mining town in Mid Wales in the 25 plus years, what happened in the 80s isn't a story that happened 'once upon a time' but something that continues to have visible impacts to this day, including why there is such a high rate of unemployment and people on disability benefits in your home town.

To imagine that one should then feel completely neutral about such things seems to misunderstand human emotion.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Thanks for the supportive comments, Malik3000, I did feel embarrassed about my outbursts ...

I would maintain, though, that outbursts of rage over aspects of Thatcherism are legitimate. I would equally concede that some of the comments that have been made here about the unions and the inefficiency of 1960s and '70s industry are equally legitimate.

Even guys I know on the Left who worked in the mines and steel-works would concede that.

My rage has to be balanced out with that acknowledgement. There were blokes playing the system and throwing sickies, 'ghosting' was common and the stories of camp-beds on night shifts aren't made up ... that did happen.

As with all of this stuff, it depends on where you were. I was born in 1961 and lived on the edge of the Valleys ... we were £10 Poms and lived in Australia from 1964 to 1966. We returned the year of World Cup Willie and the Aberfan disaster - both of which I remember vividly. If we were beginning to enter the '60s over in the Eastern Valley, on the edge of the coal-field - the Valleys proper were like a 1930s time-warp. You look at photos of what the South Wales Valleys looked like then and you'd think you were looking at pictures taken in the Depression.

Obviously, I remember the '70s far more clearly - and yes, they were grim. We were young enough to enjoy the power-cuts as we used to go running round the pitch-black streets - we thought it was great ... but the adults didn't find it quite so funny.

Cities were grimy and brutalist in the '70s. I went to University in Leeds in 1979 and it looked like a throw-back to the '40s ... red-brick terraces, outside lavs, back-to-backs with washing strung out across the cobbled streets ...

Worst of all, most of the beer was keg.

I agree with ken, things did get worse after 1979 but began to improve from about 1984 onwards ... I did temporary and part-time jobs and had lengthy bouts of unemployment from 1983 until the back-end of 1985. I knew loads of people who were out of work. I hardly knew anyone who was in work ...

The boom came in fully about 1987/88 but then there was the bust of 1990 ... which didn't feel anywhere near as bad as what we're having now.

The '70s weren't all crap, of course, any more than the '80s were all me-me-me-loadsa-money either.

I think there was certainly a hardening of the moral arteries and some things were a lot tougher. I might be wrong, but I get the impression that the police are a lot more savvy and sensitive than they were back then ... I could tell you some genuine horror stories of people being beaten up or even tortured - yes, I'd call it that - over very minor offences and indiscretions. If this happened in small towns in South Wales and Yorkshire I dread to think what was happening in police stations in Brixton, Toxteth and elsewhere.

People don't believe you when you say this sort of thing, but I can assure you that it was true. My brother had a friend who was bent over a bench in a police cell and had his arse kicked systematically by loads of coppers in turn until it was so black and blue that he couldn't sit down for weeks. This is true. I am not exaggerating, I am not making it up.

Then people wonder why there's anger around.

All that said, I think the crowing and gloating and 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead' is grotesque and also counter-productive. It plays into the Tory's hands to have George Galloway as the only real spokesman for opposition or Glaswegians dancing to bagpipes over pictures of Maggie.

I'd oppose anything like that, mainly on the grounds of good taste and propriety of course, but also because it's counter-productive and leads to the dismissive tone of many of the Tory supporters on these boards.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
You mean the guy who, in tandem with investment bankers, totally fucked up our economy?
Its always good to know that Tories attribute superpowers to Labour MPs. One man a;l on his own managed to fuck up financial system of about twenty-five nations states, including the USA? Really?

Ahem! One man being the Chancellor of the Exchequer spent all the money (including lots that was borrowed) in the good times which meant that when we and the other 25 to which you refer hit the bad times the cupboard was bare.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Matt,
You mustn't forget the other seats of the tandem which have been occupied by Thatcherites peddling madly the entire time.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

Well, I did give the bankers a dishonourable mention.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think there was certainly a hardening of the moral arteries and some things were a lot tougher. I might be wrong, but I get the impression that the police are a lot more savvy and sensitive than they were back then ... I could tell you some genuine horror stories of people being beaten up or even tortured - yes, I'd call it that - over very minor offences and indiscretions. If this happened in small towns in South Wales and Yorkshire I dread to think what was happening in police stations in Brixton, Toxteth and elsewhere.

People don't believe you when you say this sort of thing, but I can assure you that it was true. My brother had a friend who was bent over a bench in a police cell and had his arse kicked systematically by loads of coppers in turn until it was so black and blue that he couldn't sit down for weeks. This is true. I am not exaggerating, I am not making it up.

Then people wonder why there's anger around.

But again, Thatcher wasn't responsible for the appalling practices of the police. For instance, the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four were falsely charged, allegedly tortured, and wrongly imprisoned in 1975. Under - remind me what government again? The police had been thugs for decades before Thatcher came to power.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Gamaliel wrote:

quote:
All that said, I think the crowing and gloating and 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead' is grotesque and also counter-productive. It plays into the Tory's hands to have George Galloway as the only real spokesman for opposition or Glaswegians dancing to bagpipes over pictures of Maggie.

I'm not overly offended by all the celebrations going on. Thatcher's death is hardly tragic, given that she was at the age where people are pretty much expected to die. And I've always found "Don't speak ill of the dead" a rather insincere sentiment, since people usually seem to haul it out only when the deceased is someone they liked.

The only thing I'll say is that the left-wing revelry is kinda making the left itself look pathetic, in the original meaning of the word. People are cheering a natural-causes death as if it is a major accomplishment dor the left, which must say something about how many actual accomplishements the left has to celebrate.

And yes, I get that Thatcher(and the people who voted for her) probably bare more than their share of the blame for the defeat of the left. Still, there's no need to go in front of the TV cameras and practically advertise your irrelevancy.

I did think the meme about privatising her funeral was clever. It displayed a bit satirical wit, making sly reference to her actual policies. Rather than just running around yelling about how happy you are that she's dead.

Posted by Og: Thread Killer (# 3200) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
.. So, apart from not being able to buy basic needs, what would be a better way of measuring poverty?

Why does poverty have to be measured?

Poverty is a subjective term. Frankly, the search to quantify and define it gets in the way of helping people. Better to spend money on known specifics, like the homelessness issue you discuss,youth unemployment, getting sick people back to work quickly, etc then trying to define a broad term that really does nothing for us.

If its an issue, fix it.

I would point out I'm not against scientific research into trends. But trying to come up with a definition of poverty is, at least in both Canada and the UK, getting in the way of helping people.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by alienfromzog:
This makes interesting reading.

AFZ

Yes - thanks for the link - cheered me up to think of a better legacy despite Thatcher.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

I was referring to the '70s in general, rather than the Thatcher era in particular, Adeodatus - although arguably things came to a head around the late '70s with the death of Blair Peach etc - although he was killed in April 1979, the month before Thatcher came to power.

I was also thinking of police actions against the unions - but then, the flying pickets and other activists were certainly guilty of provoking and causing violence. A friend of mine on a peaceful demonstration during the Miners' Strike was appalled at the actions of some of the very hard, militant Left who deliberately provoked a violent reaction from the police - and he was on the receiving end of that even though he wasn't causing any trouble himself.

So, yes, the whole thing wasn't black-and-white.

The meme thing about the privitisation of the funeral was very clever and did include some political comment and acerbic wit ...

And I agree that some drongoes on the Left are acting as if Thatcher's death from natural causes is somehow an achievement of which they can be proud ... as if they've brought it about themselves by their ill-will and spite.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
... And yes, I get that Thatcher(and the people who voted for her) probably bare more than their share of the blame for the defeat of the left. ...

Not that fallacy again. Why do politicians of every persuasion all seem to assume that it's somehow the electorate's fault when they don't win elections, that it's the people who have let them down. Why can't they face the prospect that it might be the product that's the problem? All through the 80s the left thought that and after 1997 the right did. Quite a lot of Conservatives think that at the moment.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
Why do politicians of every persuasion all seem to assume that it's somehow the electorate's fault when they don't win elections, that it's the people who have let them down. Why can't they face the prospect that it might be the product that's the problem?

Well, by "defeat of the left" I was thinking more of the policies that Thatcher implemented once she came into power.

If a party campaigns on a platform of doing X Y and Z, and then proceeds to do X Y and Z upon attaining power, I don't think it's unreasonable to blame(or credit, depending on your perspective) the people who voted for them.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

Very Brechtian of you.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Ahem! One man being the Chancellor of the Exchequer spent all the money (including lots that was borrowed) in the good times which meant that when we and the other 25 to which you refer hit the bad times the cupboard was bare.

Actually the primary surpluses were generally quite healthy, until 2008 when the GFC hit. The time to save would have actually been during the 80s/early 90s when state assets were being divested and North Sea oil was actually making a profit - as these were one off events.

The one thing he could have done would have been to introduce more regulation of the banks - something both Thatcher, and her intellectual heirs were against.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
The civil unrest of the early 80s didn't happen because of what she did, so much as for what she was: she was a Tory. And the Trotskyites who ran the unions knew that it would have been politically inexpedient to show their hand if Labour had got back into power in 1979. Thatcher was the opportunity, not the cause. And the rioters and strikers were the dupes of the politically-motivated union bosses.

This ties in with what others have said about agitators deliberately turning demonstrations violent . Middle England suspected as such and gave Thatcher the benefit of the doubt .
Throw in the Falklands ,(a place which most Britons previously never knew existed), and the myth of a Great Leader in our midst was born .

I'm neutral on this whole Thatcher thing . Rural hideaways weren't exactly on the front-line in the 70s and 80s, even though we had the power cuts.
Sticking to the non-partisan theme I see both extremes -- dancing on her grave, to believing Margaret Thatcher cured everything from the Cold War to common cold as equally ridiculous

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Yes. Rolyn speaks with the voice of common sense.

Posted by malik3000 (# 11437) on :

Not having lived in the UK in the 1970s I am not in a position to speak on what level of help Thatcher's policies may have helped. Certainly, in general, i dislike the black-white view of things since my own life's experiences have taught me very much the opposite. However, in the analogous situation of the Reagan presidency, ultimately, and sadly, i can think of no significant way in which his administration led other than in a bad direction for the U.S.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

I saw the division caused by Thatcher in Liverpool in the early 1980s. I also saw the very very frightening face of the hard left too (militant - Derek Hatton etc. etc. etc.). It wasn't very nice.

However, I never joined the labour party myself because I couldn't square the international failure of socialism/communism in the USSR and the Iron Curtain; I thought any country that had to build a wall to keep people in, has failed (East Germany).

The funeral of Thatcher concerns me. It sends all the wrong messages. It is costing the UK £ 8 million. We are supposed to be in a triple dip recession. What the flip is going on?

It is in all but name a state send off, yet Clement Atlee (you could argue he was as big a 'game changer' as Thatcher quite cohesively) never got such a send off.

Thatcher and her family ought to have had a quiet, dignified and as much as it could be, a private service.

Saul the Apostle

[ 14. April 2013, 09:32: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I would think that the Tories are desperate to win in 2015, so they are using the Thatcher tribal rites as a kind of slo-mo election broadcast, lasting about 10 days! The trouble is, that this could seriously backfire, as some people may not want to be reminded of her. Cameron is riding several horses at once here - the Tories haven't won an election for 20 years, and if he doesn't win in 2015, it's his funeral!

The right-wing are using the jamboree as a way of saying, follow Thatcher's lead, and we will win. Cameron is not totally convinced by this argument!

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I would think that the Tories are desperate to win in 2015, so they are using the Thatcher tribal rites as a kind of slo-mo election broadcast, lasting about 10 days!

And costing about ten million pounds of my money!

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I would think that the Tories are desperate to win in 2015, so they are using the Thatcher tribal rites as a kind of slo-mo election broadcast, lasting about 10 days!
And costing about ten million pounds of my money!

The obvious solution would be outsourcing to keep the cost down. Instead of 700 troops, you could have boy scouts, instead of the Queen, you could have Mrs Bercow (oops, no, she's not coming), anyway, I'm sure good housekeeping would prune the costs.

One odd aspect of it, is that it's beginning to resemble a Soviet funeral.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

One odd aspect of it, is that it's beginning to resemble a Soviet funeral.

With echoes of North Korea!

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

One odd aspect of it, is that it's beginning to resemble a Soviet funeral.
With echoes of North Korea!

Oh boy, there is the makings of a great cartoon here, along the lines of Rowson's already legendary one in the Guardian (Anthropological corner, funeral rites among the savages). I can't draw, so unable, but you can imagine drawings of various Tories as Stalinist henchmen, Thatcher as the embalmed Party hack, and so on. Come on Rowson, you can do it.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

As a lifelong non Tory, I find the funeral arrangements provocative.

In my frame I would respect the family and the Tory party much more if they gave her a dignified, quiet and private (as much as the last word is possible) funeral service.

After 30 years gap, there are still large swathes of the UK that do not cherish this ladies memory. But a dignified funeral on a much smaller scale should have been the way forward IMHO.

Some sort of major media event state (a la North Korea or the old days of the DDR East Germany and the USSR) funeral I find distasteful.

In this case less is definitely more.

Saul.

[ 14. April 2013, 10:59: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Apart from the fact that we are NOT in a triple dip recession, can anyone point to the source of the claim that funeral is going to cost £10m?

The last I heard was that the cost was not going to be made public until after the funeral has taken place.

And please don't talk about the cost of the armed forces taking part - they are being paid anyway, they are just being stationed somewhere else for the day. they won't get paid extra you know!

And from what I understand, the forces WANT to be there because MT was their commander in chief. It's only right therefore that she gets a military presence at the ceremony.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Yet at Attlee's funeral, there seems to have been about 150 people. I think Attlee actually served in the army, and was wounded. It was Major Attlee in my memory, but no such jamboree for the old boy. Quite right.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Apart from the fact that we are NOT in a triple dip recession, can anyone point to the source of the claim that funeral is going to cost £10m?

The last I heard was that the cost was not going to be made public until after the funeral has taken place.

Here is some info.

The Queen Mother's funeral cost over eight million. You can add at least two more for the extra policing. I reckon ten million is a conservative estimate for Maggie's Korean style send off.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Apart from the fact that we are NOT in a triple dip recession, can anyone point to the source of the claim that funeral is going to cost £10m?

The last I heard was that the cost was not going to be made public until after the funeral has taken place.

Here is some info.

The Queen Mother's funeral cost over eight million. You can add at least two more for the extra policing. I reckon ten million is a conservative estimate for Maggie's Korean style send off.

You can take the wages of the police and the armed forces out of that guestimate because they would have been paid anyway. It's not 'extra money' on top of the defence budget or the police budget for that day.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

Overtime isn't paid anyway!

Jengie

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
You can take the wages of the police and the armed forces out of that guestimate because they would have been paid anyway. It's not 'extra money' on top of the defence budget or the police budget for that day.

Good time to go out and commit a few crimes or invade a small country then.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

You can surely only say that the cost of the troops/police involved in the funeral is the actual amount spent over and above what would be spent on that day anyway for those man and women to be on duty in whatever task they would ordinarily been involved in. If PC Copper was on his beat in Whitehall next Wednesday anyway, his presence at the funeral is at no extra cost to the tax payer. The same goes for any policeman, any soldier on duty that day. S/He would have been paid anyway. The only cost, surely, is the cost of an extra man to take his job in his original place.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
And costing about ten million pounds of my money!

Gosh Boogie , I didn't realise you were that rich [Yipee]

What little ol' Britain has got to understanded is that dear Maggie's send off is for the benefit of the World stage .
I recall it being said in the latter stages of her Premiership that the further away from Britain she got the greater she was loved.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

Mudfrog

No it isn't, you need to look at the cost of policing for major event. Some of that is wages, police work set hours and if you have to get a constable to cover for someone, that usually means getting someone in on overtime so time and a half.

Then where do you get the extra policemen from? It is not like London can double its police force over night. Good chance these are loaned from other police forces, this costs more because you have to get them to London and house and feed them while they are there on top of overtime.

Jengie

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

The Beeb gives the costs of the Queen Mother's ceremonial funeral as follows:

quote:
Policing costs were £4.3m, of which £2.3m were opportunity costs (costs that would be incurred anyway if staff were assigned to other operations). The cost to the Ministry of Defence was much less at £301,000.

That was in 2002 - so you would need to correct for inflation.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

OK then; from THIS reposted blog I see that a report of the Queen Mother's procession said

quote:
Australian troops will form part of a spectacular funeral procession for the Queen Mother on Friday involving 1,600 servicemen and women from Commonwealth countries.

This is more than double the number that Baroness Thatcher will be afforded for her supposedly 'same-as-the-Queen-Mother's' funeral.
To HM's funeral costs you also have to factor-in the lying in state and the cortege journey to Windsor for the interment.

It just doesn't compare.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

One of the interesting aspects of her 'reign' was that she was assassinated (politically) by her own party. I guess this has not been forgotten or forgiven by some right-wingers - see Tebbit in today's Mail on Sunday.

But it has wider repercussions - since it now devolves upon Cameron to win the next election. So should he cleave to the right-wing path - maybe target Labour as friend of benefit-scroungers? Vote Labour and get Philpott as a neighbour! It has a certain ring to it.

So there is an underground and encoded struggle now for the soul of the Tory party - shall we go with the blessed Margaret, or more to the centre?

If Cameron gets it wrong, he is for the high jump himself, hence the great totemic power of the Thatcher tribal funeral rites. Who should be the keeper of the sacred flame?

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One of the interesting aspects of her 'reign' was that she was assassinated (politically) by her own party. I guess this has not been forgotten or forgiven by some right-wingers - see Tebbit in today's Mail on Sunday.

But it has wider repercussions - since it now devolves upon Cameron to win the next election. So should he cleave to the right-wing path - maybe target Labour as friend of benefit-scroungers? Vote Labour and get Philpott as a neighbour! It has a certain ring to it.

So there is an underground and encoded struggle now for the soul of the Tory party - shall we go with the blessed Margaret, or more to the centre?

If Cameron gets it wrong, he is for the high jump himself, hence the great totemic power of the Thatcher tribal funeral rites. Who should be the keeper of the sacred flame?

The problem I suspect Cameron thinks he's got is this. If he doesn't target the nuttier part of his core vote, it will leak to UKIP. If he does, he won't win any of the rest of the electorate. He must do that to get a majority. He may well be right.

The bigger conundrum about the next election though is this. Oppositions do not win elections. Governments lose them. The last change of power to which this may not apply was as far back as 1945. Nevertheless, the Opposition has to be inspiring enough to attract enough leakage to be able to win. Do we really perceive Milliband, Balls & Co as having the pulling power to attract those who aren't already committed to them?

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

The Labour Party is already beginning to fall apart - criticism is coming from their own people about being merely a party of protest. All their 'leader' does is sneer at PMQs and they have no policies except 'we would do what the Tories are doing, only slower.'

If the economy begins to turn in the next year, if people begin to see that the cuts are not harming them as much as the Daily Mirror said they would, if people realise that it's 'the scroungers' who are losing out and not them, Cameron will have a chance. There is no alternative - people know that the Labour party that caused the mess still doesn't have an answer.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The Labour Party is already beginning to fall apart - criticism is coming from their own people about being merely a party of protest. All their 'leader' does is sneer at PMQs and they have no policies except 'we would do what the Tories are doing, only slower.'

If the economy begins to turn in the next year, if people begin to see that the cuts are not harming them as much as the Daily Mirror said they would, if people realise that it's 'the scroungers' who are losing out and not them, Cameron will have a chance. There is no alternative - people know that the Labour party that caused the mess still doesn't have an answer.

Mudfrog, the Labour Party has always been like that. Even during the Attlee government the party wasn't united.

A main difference between the Labour and Conservative parties is that the former launders its dirty washing in public. There's just as much infighting in Tory ranks; how else would Thatcher have fallen?

As for the economy turning before 2015 that's a very big if, and one that affects a Conservative future more seriously as every quarter's economic statistics arrive.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Well, there is hope.

Posted by malik3000 (# 11437) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
The obvious solution would be outsourcing to keep the cost down. Instead of 700 troops, you could have boy scouts, instead of the Queen, you could have Mrs Bercow (oops, no, she's not coming), anyway, I'm sure good housekeeping would prune the costs.

Over in Ecclesiantics, Angloid noted that some have been thinking about it.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Matt Black:
Actually the primary surpluses were generally quite healthy, until 2008 when the GFC hit. The time to save would have actually been during the 80s/early 90s when state assets were being divested and North Sea oil was actually making a profit - as these were one off events.

That is only if Thatcher's government wasn't obliged to spend money renovating crumbling infrastructure and amneties left over from the cash-strapped 1970s. I remember power cuts being frequent in the early 80s. All very exciting for a young boy, mind you.

Possibly one G. Brown faced the same problem. If so, he waited an awfully long time before spending the money.

quote:
The one thing he could have done would have been to introduce more regulation of the banks - something both Thatcher, and her intellectual heirs were against.

Thatcher's dislike of closed shops of all types applied as much to stockbrokers as trade unions. Unlike miners and factory workers, stockbrokers found another way to earn a living

I've been told that miners were offered exceptionally large redundancy payouts. Does anyone know whether this is true?

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But that's my point - inequality isn't the same thing as poverty, and attempts to conflate the two (for instance, saying stuff like "more people are dying through poverty" when what you're really talking about is people happening to move to a different statistical set) are odious.

Magaret Thatcher made the point rather memorably here: Youtube: Thatcher v Simon Hughes.

It's fair to note also that the measures quoted by Rosa end in 1990 when, as I recall, Britain was back in recession and about to enter a decade of economic growth.

quote:

quote:
This shows itself in what the majority of the British public believe to be basic human necessities.
I'm not convinced that that is a good way to measure poverty. It feels like the report writers were reaching for a definition that would enable them to claim that poverty was widespread in order to further their aims. It's notable that they call for child poverty to be eradicated while using a definition that makes it impossible to do so without making it so that everyone receives almost exactly the same income. To me, that makes a mockery of the whole project.

The problem is that the alternative requires getting the Four Yorkshiremen to work out what is poverty, and we all know where that leads.

If a) the number of people without perceived basic necessities increases over a period of time and b) what is perceived as necessary doesn't change, there has certainly been a decrease in wealth. Whether one classifies that as poverty surely has to refer to what that society regards as an acceptable minimum standard of living. Otherwise, how can you establish any sort of objective standard for poverty? I expect there are plenty of people in the third world who don't regard themselves as poor, and probably aren't by the standards of their own society.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
I'm not entirely sure what people who make this argument envisage would have happened 'instead'. As ken points out earlier, a lot of the prosperity since has been the result of other worldwide trends over which Thatcher had no control anyway. You would be hard pressed to name one Western European country that has actually gone into 'reverse' over that timeframe.

If you compare the period from 1979 to 1993 France - usually the bogeyman in these matters - experienced as much GDP growth as the UK. Oh, and the UK also had this small thing called 'North Sea Oil', take away that and her economic performance doesn't look as impressive.

Apologies for the triple-post, but this does relate to a separate point.

The assumption being made here is that in 1979 the UK and France were both on equal economic trajectories, and therefore left-wing policies would have increased British GDP in line with France's.

Both assumptions are probably wrong. France's economic performance during the 1970s decreased but remained good. There was certainly no crisis of state finance requiring it to go cap-in-hand to the IMF like Britain.

I've never heard anyone deny that by 1979 British heavy industry had been declining for over thirty years. Union power took its toll. So did poor management, and also loss of markets associated with Empire, still substantial in 1970, minimal in 1979. I suspect that British industry had been relatively inefficient since before WW2, but colonial export markets prevented that being a problem.

I can well understand why 1970s British governments stepped in to subsidise these ailing industries. What I can't understand less is why removing the subsidies was wrong, or why (given that government intervention was such a failure) the government should have spent money replacing the jobs that were lost.

In short, there's no reason to believe that French economic policy circa 1979 would have worked at all in Britain.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Apologies for the triple-post, but this does relate to a separate point.

The assumption being made here is that in 1979 the UK and France were both on equal economic trajectories, and therefore left-wing policies would have increased British GDP in line with France's.

Actually no. The assumption being challenged is that it was specifically and only Thatcher's policies that led to some kind of stellar economic performance.

Economic performance was in line with other European countries - all of which generally grew over that period. Britain was neither the best, nor the worst.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
The trouble is that whilst a large part of problem was generated by the unions - the root of those problems was essentially a division based on class, and the grievances based out of that (or unions wouldn't have got any support to start with).

Thatcher suppressed the symptoms, without dealing with the root cause and indeed - as the social mobility figures demonstrate - succeeded in making things worse in many ways.

Yes, that seems to be the gist of it. And since Mrs Thatcher's time, the working class who still had jobs bought their own council houses on the cheap and became the "new middle class," whilst those who lost their jobs (with only the option of low paid work left) became the "underclass."

There is still class division, between the high earners and the "new middle class" - in truth, middle-class wannabes. Also between the "new middle class" and the underclass.

Now that the Unions have been gutted, there is nothing much the underclass can do about their situation, and now the "new middle class" are starting to feel the pinch too. Only the high-earners, some of whom get invited to dinner parties at No 10, know that they'll be looked after.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Actually no. The assumption being challenged is that it was specifically and only Thatcher's policies that led to some kind of stellar economic performance.

Economic performance was in line with other European countries - all of which generally grew over that period. Britain was neither the best, nor the worst.

But how many other European countries were suffering from the British Disease?

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One of the interesting aspects of her 'reign' was that she was assassinated (politically) by her own party. I guess this has not been forgotten or forgiven by some right-wingers - see Tebbit in today's Mail on Sunday.

But it has wider repercussions - since it now devolves upon Cameron to win the next election. So should he cleave to the right-wing path - maybe target Labour as friend of benefit-scroungers? Vote Labour and get Philpott as a neighbour! It has a certain ring to it.

So there is an underground and encoded struggle now for the soul of the Tory party - shall we go with the blessed Margaret, or more to the centre?

If Cameron gets it wrong, he is for the high jump himself, hence the great totemic power of the Thatcher tribal funeral rites. Who should be the keeper of the sacred flame?
The problem I suspect Cameron thinks he's got is this. If he doesn't target the nuttier part of his core vote, it will leak to UKIP. If he does, he won't win any of the rest of the electorate. He must do that to get a majority. He may well be right.

The bigger conundrum about the next election though is this. Oppositions do not win elections. Governments lose them. The last change of power to which this may not apply was as far back as 1945. Nevertheless, the Opposition has to be inspiring enough to attract enough leakage to be able to win. Do we really perceive Milliband, Balls & Co as having the pulling power to attract those who aren't already committed to them?

I think the Labour vote is pretty soft, partly because the last Labour govt is still pretty recent, and also maybe, Miliband is a bit like an earnest sixth former, and rather policy free.

On the other hand, I think it's difficult for Cameron to increase the Tory vote. They will try some pretty desperate measures, I suspect, e.g. Labour is the scroungers' party.

Thatcher's death and funeral may seem to offer a kind of free election broadcast, but it could backfire.

Of course, if the economy really bounces up, all bets are off. Then look out for various bribes to various groups, e.g. keep the OAPs sweet, and so on. It might work, but then they have flattened the economy. Now expect a few Keynesian measures, heavily disguised as non-Keynesian! Mrs T would be OK with that.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Actually no. The assumption being challenged is that it was specifically and only Thatcher's policies that led to some kind of stellar economic performance.

Economic performance was in line with other European countries - all of which generally grew over that period. Britain was neither the best, nor the worst.
But how many other European countries were suffering from the British Disease?

If "the British Disease" was characterised by a large public sector, government subsidies and mass industrial action then didn't France qualify? Still does, AFAICT.

[ 15. April 2013, 03:27: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Apologies for the triple-post, but this does relate to a separate point.

The assumption being made here is that in 1979 the UK and France were both on equal economic trajectories, and therefore left-wing policies would have increased British GDP in line with France's.
Actually no. The assumption being challenged is that it was specifically and only Thatcher's policies that led to some kind of stellar economic performance.

Economic performance was in line with other European countries - all of which generally grew over that period. Britain was neither the best, nor the worst.

In order to make that point meaningful you have to assume that Britain's economy would have been governed according to other, non-Thatcherite economic policy. The pro-Thatcherite argument is that her policies rescued Britain from disaster and, in the circumstances, that was a good result. I haven't heard that French business was in anything like a bad state in 1979 and government investment in it would have been a wholly reasonable course of action

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think the Labour vote is pretty soft, partly because the last Labour govt is still pretty recent, and also maybe, Miliband is a bit like an earnest sixth former, and rather policy free.

I would enjoy watching the Tories' trenchant opposition to AV come back to bite them on the arse when UKIP split the right-wing vote and deliver marginals across southern England to Labour and the Liberals.

One can dream a little..

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Oppositions do not win elections. Governments lose them.

True, and more true than ever with the current crop of no-marks.

For the next election, it's hard to see how the Lib Dem vote share won't be in the toilet. They've lost support by "selling out" to the Tories. If the economy is still bad, nobody will vote for them, and if the economy picks up, the Tories are likely to get the credit.

Cod might be right - it might all hinge on UKIP.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

The LD vote will be in the toilet insofar that it won't get back to 25%. It might well get back to 16% as in 1997. Even if it is lower, however, it is unlikely in the extreme that they'll be reduced to none or even just ten seats. Quite a few LD MPs have strong personal votes and well-developed constituency parties: they will fight tooth and nail to keep their seats and across southern England they'll still be able to squeeze the Labour vote as Eastleigh demonstrated.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
believing Margaret Thatcher cured everything from the Cold War

It is a gross oversimplification to describe Thatcher or Reagan as having "won" the Cold War, but it is not unreasonable to admire their opposition to communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular, in the same way as we admire Churchill's opposition to Nazism despite the fact that it was not defeated by him and Britain, but by Stalin and the Soviet Union.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I would think that the Tories are desperate to win in 2015, so they are using the Thatcher tribal rites as a kind of slo-mo election broadcast, lasting about 10 days!
And costing about ten million pounds of my money!

It's not your money, it's the State's.

Unless you actually are the State. In which case can you stop taking so bloody much of my money to pay for the stuff you want, please.

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

So now they are planning to silence big ben.

It's like reading a fantasy novel.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
So now they are planning to silence big ben.

It's like reading a fantasy novel.

Or a party political broadcast on behalf of the Conservative Party. It's getting completely ridiculous. It's like the Queen died or something.

Oh, but wait. What's that? A voice from beyond the grave? "We have become a dead Prime Minister...".

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

They're afraid that Big Ben will start playing Ding Dong.

But, on the plus side, the police have said that people will be allowed to turn their back on the procession. This is truly gracious of them, as turning your back is technically illegal under the 'Provision of Counter-Measures to Left-Wing (Terroristic) Tactics Order in Council of 2034'. No, sorry that's the sci-fi novel again.

[ 15. April 2013, 15:49: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
They're afraid that Big Ben will start playing Ding Dong.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Do you think the hearse will have 'Vote Tory' posters on it? Bit tacky, I suppose.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

[Killing me]

For this and your previous post.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

One of the truly delicious ironies about this funeral, is that it has been nationalized. Maybe there should be a short demo, demanding the privatization of funerals.

'Say no to the big state, now taking over our funerals. We demand private funerals!'

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

For this and your previous post.

Well, some of us have been waiting a long time for this moment! The jokes have only just started, plenty more on-stream.

I should think every stand-up in the country is staying awake at night, trying to think of a new gag.

Posted by John Holding (# 158) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

And from what I understand, the forces WANT to be there because MT was their commander in chief. It's only right therefore that she gets a military presence at the ceremony.

Then someone needs to set them straight. She was no more their Commander in CHief than I am.

There used to be such a position...I believe it last belonged to the then Duke of Cambridge, one of QUeen Victoria's cousins and lapsed before WWI.

You could argue that it was the the CIGS -- Chief of the Imperial General Staff -- but I believe that was overtaken by events. You in t he UK may have a Chief of the GEneral Staff, and possibly that person could be referred to as Commander In CHief.

But in reality, absent a specific appointment, the QUeem is the Commander in Chief.

No politician -- and in partifular, no prime minister -- has been Commander in Chief since the Duke of Wellington, so far as I recall, and he may have resigned as CinC when he took office as PM.

John

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Stop being so pedantic. For the right-wing, Thatcher was commander-in-chief, she was actually the Queen (Elizabeth is a sort of surrogate), she was a divine Presence, and lots of other jolly things. So ding dong to us all, said Tiny Tim.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Precisely. British PMs are not Commanders in Chief. The Guardian reported last week- on what authority I don't know- that

quote:
In discussions about the funeral held over recent years, it is understood that questions were raised by senior figures [in the Royal household, apparently] about whether it would be right to associate the military with such a divisive figure, according to a well-placed Whitehall source

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One of the truly delicious ironies about this funeral, is that it has been nationalized.

Good - I wish she knew. But I don't think we can afford it just now. Cardboard coffin and quiet, private funeral should have been the way.

This iron lady's legacy is full of ironies.

But ...

I would defend anyone's right to protest at the event - but I don't think they should. Funerals are not the time for protest as the Phelps saga shows.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

The Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces[1][2] is a position vested in the British monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II, who as Sovereign and head of state is the "Head of the Armed Forces".[3] Long-standing constitutional convention, however, has vested de facto executive authority, by the exercise of Royal Prerogative powers, in the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence, and the Prime Minister (acting with the support of the Cabinet) makes the key decisions on the use of the armed forces. The Queen, however, remains the "ultimate authority" of the military, with officers and personnel swearing allegiance only to the monarch.[4]

From Wikipedia (yes, I know...)

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Boogie

I agree about private funerals - decidedly tacky to demonstrate at them, except in exceptional cases.

But it's been turned into a Thatcher-gasm special, hasn't it? I mean, a political demonstration by the establishment, or at least, the Tory wing thereof. This seems to me to change the rules.

I still wouldn't do it, as some chief inspector would probably love to clap you in irons, thus earning the praise of the Daily Mail.

[ 15. April 2013, 16:50: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

I agree about private funerals - decidedly tacky to demonstrate at them, except in exceptional cases.

But it's been turned into a Thatcher-gasm special, hasn't it? I mean, a political demonstration by the establishment, or at least, the Tory wing thereof. This seems to me to change the rules.

Yes - good point.

It will be very interesting to see what the police decide is 'crossing the line' of offense/alarm/distress at the parade. The police themselves could cause more kerfuffle by stopping people carrying placards etc than by leaving them be.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I don't think many people will risk it actually during the procession. The protests will probably go on somewhere else, much safer.

I, along with a few select friends, will be having a light lunch, washed down with a nice fizzy wine, accompanied by some light music, of the Judy Garland variety.

Posted by pete173 (# 4622) on :

I suspect that the Rabid Right think they have won. It's absolutely not appropriate to disrupt or protest at a funeral, so the fact that they have got the recall of Parliament, a procession, a quasi-state funeral, the silencing of Big Ben, and a tide of eulogies from the Press and politicians means that they have quite a major propaganda coup.

The question remains whether the British public will find this to be a commensurate way to remember her, or whether many will find that this attempt to place her on a par with a truly great PM such as Churchill will not ultimately prove to be hubris. Peter Oborne's piece in the Telegraph here would repay close study for those who have acted as the cheerleaders for her funeral to be carried out in this way.

Better that she should receive a proper Christian funeral with dignity.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Thanks for the link. A good article from a surprising source.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by pete173:
I suspect that the Rabid Right think they have won. It's absolutely not appropriate to disrupt or protest at a funeral, so the fact that they have got the recall of Parliament, a procession, a quasi-state funeral, the silencing of Big Ben, and a tide of eulogies from the Press and politicians means that they have quite a major propaganda coup.

The question remains whether the British public will find this to be a commensurate way to remember her, or whether many will find that this attempt to place her on a par with a truly great PM such as Churchill will not ultimately prove to be hubris. Peter Oborne's piece in the Telegraph here would repay close study for those who have acted as the cheerleaders for her funeral to be carried out in this way.

Better that she should receive a proper Christian funeral with dignity.

Yes. Politically, I think the Tories are playing a dangerous game. Do people want to be reminded so forcefully of Thatcher and her various aims and accomplishments? Well, maybe they do, and the Tories will sweep onwards to an election victory in 2015. On the other hand, it's also possible that the right-wing will look at Cameron, and see a not-Thatcher, and others will be repelled by Operation Overkill.

Labour seem so far to have deftly avoided various traps, but it's all imponderable. But after all, I suppose it's the economy, stupid.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by pete173:

The question remains whether the British public will find this to be a commensurate way to remember her, or whether many will find that this attempt to place her on a par with a truly great PM such as Churchill will not ultimately prove to be hubris.

I am not convinced by the wisdom of some of the "quasi-state" aspects of this funeral, but I think it was inevitably going to be a public, international affair - she was a rather more international figure than Lord Wilson, say, or Earl Attlee, and of course, she is beloved of the right in a way that most politicians aren't. So you're never going to get away with a modest do at her local church.

The gun carriage and troops? That's either a fitting tribute to a wartime leader or it's ceremonial arrogance, and I could probably argue it either way.

[ 15. April 2013, 18:04: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

A sort of protest has been started, inviting people to aim to match the spend on the funeral with donations to charities which counter the effects of Thatcherite policies. It started this morning, and currently has £229 - I'm just about to add mine. The address for Matching Thatcher's Funeral should be in my sig.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by pete173:
I suspect that the Rabid Right think they have won. It's absolutely not appropriate to disrupt or protest at a funeral, so the fact that they have got the recall of Parliament, a procession, a quasi-state funeral, the silencing of Big Ben, and a tide of eulogies from the Press and politicians means that they have quite a major propaganda coup.

The question remains whether the British public will find this to be a commensurate way to remember her, or whether many will find that this attempt to place her on a par with a truly great PM such as Churchill will not ultimately prove to be hubris. Peter Oborne's piece in the Telegraph here would repay close study for those who have acted as the cheerleaders for her funeral to be carried out in this way.

Better that she should receive a proper Christian funeral with dignity.

Hear hear!

As I posted (rather less appropriately) in the Hell thread on this the case against a State Funeral is simply put. Such things are used for the dead who have come to symbolise the nation or the State in some way - either by being born to symbolise it, like kings, or by defending it against its enemies, like Nelson or Wellington or Churchill. Thatcher's main "battles", for right or wrong, were fought inside the nation, setting one group against another, and leaving a legacy of division, "...scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt..." between communities. For many of the British people she symbolises what is wrong with Britain, not what is good about Britain.

Even people who hated Wellington or Churchill (and there were plenty of them) could look on them as in some way representing and defending the British State, and so, to whatever extend they identified with the State, they could see those men as representing or defending themselves. That's not the case with Thatcher.

I should think that a moderate conservative would want a State funeral for Thatcher less than anyone else. Because there are millions, probably tens of millions, of people who look on her as an enemy, a persecutor, someone who deliberately and sometimes violently acted against their interests and in favour of the interests of money and power. A moderate conservative would surely want to include those people in the nation as much as possible, to encourage their identification with the British state. Over-the-top adulation for Thatcher would do the opposite. If would be a demonstration to many people that the State really does not represent them, really does not act in their interests. Someone on the far left might think that was merely being honest. ("See! We told you! There really is no future for us in this system!") Someone on the far right might simply not care ("we're in charge now,. we'll do what we want, piss off!") But a moderate of any colour really ought to want to see her buried as decently and as quietly and with as little fuss as possible.

A State Funeral for Thatcher says to millions of unemployed, of disabled, or low-paid workers, of the propertyless: "You have no share in this nation, its meant for people like us, not people like you!". So maybe every true left-wing revolutionary ought to be praying to bring it on. It could be the best recruiting opportunity for decades.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Good post, Ken.

Actually, peace-time Churchill was loathed by many people, which is one reason he lost in 45. But war-time Churchill was admired by many, and hence the state funeral seemed appropriate.

There is no comparison with Thatcher.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

My brain's sound track has moved on from ding-donging to "Iolanthe" - "Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes, bow ye tradesmen, bow ye masses"... It had a go at the undertakers' song from Oliver, but couldn't do anything useful with the words.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I think this is one reason that Attlee didn't get a state funeral. (Another reason is that he was a very modest man).

If anybody deserved a military send-off it was him, as he'd been a major in the army, was seriously wounded in WWI, and was Deputy to Churchill in WWII.

But of course, Attlee was remembered very much as a Labour man, who had introduced measures such as the NHS, nationalization, and so on, very much associated with Labour.

Hence, it's likely that a state funeral would be felt as inappropriate for such a partisan man.

Hint, hint.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
My brain's sound track has moved on from ding-donging to "Iolanthe" - "Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes, bow ye tradesmen, bow ye masses"... It had a go at the undertakers' song from Oliver, but couldn't do anything useful with the words.

Excellent. I have friends who are stand-up comedians, and they are relishing this time, and burning the midnight oil inventing new jokes and references, such as yours. May I borrow it?

Go forth and multiply, ye merchants of mirth!

Posted by Charles Had a Splurge on (# 14140) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The gun carriage and troops? That's either a fitting tribute to a wartime leader or it's ceremonial arrogance, and I could probably argue it either way.

The gun carriage and troops would be admirably suitable for a war leader.

But Mrs Thatcher was never a war leader. The Falklands Conflict was never a war.

And if anyone thinks I'm being picky, it certainly wasn't the kind of life and death situation that Churchill dealt with. At least not for the country. For her government it was.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quetzalcoatl - Please do - and if they can do anything with the Oliver song, do let me know. Of course that is still in copyright, while G&S isn't.

I heard that in Northern Ireland there is some graffiti - The Iron Lady, may she rust in peace. That was a comic on Radio 4, perhaps the News Quiz, should attribution be needed.

[ 15. April 2013, 19:57: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by roybart (# 17357) on :

I'm not sure in which of the Thatcher threads to post this.

Whatever the "Legacy of Thatcherism" turns out to be, it seems that there will definitely be a big dose of hagiography. Here is The Economist's awe-inspiring entry in the icon sweepstakes. St. Margaret, Patron of Freedom Fighters, anyone?

web page

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Good post, Ken.

Actually, peace-time Churchill was loathed by many people, which is one reason he lost in 45. But war-time Churchill was admired by many, and hence the state funeral seemed appropriate.

There is no comparison with Thatcher.

Have we forgotten the Falklands war? [Biased]

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Good post, Ken.

Actually, peace-time Churchill was loathed by many people, which is one reason he lost in 45. But war-time Churchill was admired by many, and hence the state funeral seemed appropriate.

There is no comparison with Thatcher.
Have we forgotten the Falklands war?

No, I'm sure we haven't. Actually, it rather illustrates the contrast between the two.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
quetzalcoatl - Please do - and if they can do anything with the Oliver song, do let me know. Of course that is still in copyright, while G&S isn't.

I heard that in Northern Ireland there is some graffiti - The Iron Lady, may she rust in peace. That was a comic on Radio 4, perhaps the News Quiz, should attribution be needed.

Cheers. There is tons of stuff, some of it unprintable on a family show. It will be interesting to see how much filters out. Did you see the Rowson cartoon in the Guardian ('Anthropological Corner, funeral rites among the savages')? A very fine piece, I thought, still deciphering some of it. I guess censorship will kick in.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Good post, Ken.

Actually, peace-time Churchill was loathed by many people, which is one reason he lost in 45. But war-time Churchill was admired by many, and hence the state funeral seemed appropriate.

There is no comparison with Thatcher.
Have we forgotten the Falklands war?

Hey, I hadn't had you figured as a stand-up comedian! Nice one. You should try an open mic night at a club. Loadsamoney in it. (Note, subtle reference to 1980s greed is good culture). Topical, eh?

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

[QUOTE]Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Cheers. There is tons of stuff, some of it unprintable on a family show. It will be interesting to see how much filters out. Did you see the Rowson cartoon in the Guardian ('Anthropological Corner, funeral rites among the savages')? A very fine piece, I thought, still deciphering some of it. I guess censorship will kick in. [/QUOTE
]I did see it, but need to look at it again. I know I miss a lot in the cartoons, whoever by.

I found the lyrics of the Sowerberry's song, after a diversion where I entered the lines about coughs and sneezes, and even with the refrain, I ended up with academic medical papers. So far, I haven't come up with much.

Then the coffin on gun-carriage
That's her funeral
Not our funeral
All this pomp let's not disparage
That's her funeral
Not our funeral
It's just here to glamourise her for that
Endless sleep
Keep her ideas going on when
She is six feet deep

[ 15. April 2013, 20:54: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Penny S

Actually, the cartoonists are having a great time. Well, I have caught Rowson and Steve Bell and another guy. I think one of Bell's was reprinted in the Daily Mail as an example of extreme left horrorshow utter awfulness, and of course, I think he wants payment for it! It was the cartoon of hell gaping, Thatcher sliding into it, and the caption, 'why is this pit still open' or something, referencing the miners' strike. Scroll to bottom.

http://www.theworld.org/2013/04/cartoonists-remember-margaret-thatcher-in-their-own-way/

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

I think the Falklands would have felt pretty much like a war, Charles, if you'd been on The Belgrano when the torpedo struck or HMS Sheffield or the Atlantic Conveyor and the Glamorgan when the exocets hit home. Or between the decks of the Sir Galahad, burning to death ...

Of course it was a war. A small scale one, admittedly, but to those who died or were injured and those who've suffered from depression and Post-Traumatic Stress ever since - many of whom eventually took their own lives ... it was just as much a war as any other that's been fought.

I've met veterans from both sides. You like into their eyes and tell them it wasn't a war.

The punk band Crass put it succinctly. 'The Mother of a 1,000 Dead.'

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Charles Had a Splurge on:

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The gun carriage and troops? That's either a fitting tribute to a wartime leader or it's ceremonial arrogance, and I could probably argue it either way.
The gun carriage and troops would be admirably suitable for a war leader.

But Mrs Thatcher was never a war leader. The Falklands Conflict was never a war.

Erm, a slight display of ignorance here and an example of forgetfulness.

Baroness Thatcher is not having a military funeral, she's having a ceremonial funeral and the in the UK such things do have a n element of the military because they are the processional-type people. What else would you use? a high school marching band?

Diana, Princess of Wales, was carried on a gun carriage pulled by troops on horseback, as was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Such military ingredients are not reserved for wartime leaders; and neither, I might add, is it ceremonial arrogance.

It's how we in the UK do these things and we are renowned and admired throughout the world for it.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Charles Had a Splurge on:

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The gun carriage and troops? That's either a fitting tribute to a wartime leader or it's ceremonial arrogance, and I could probably argue it either way.
The gun carriage and troops would be admirably suitable for a war leader.

But Mrs Thatcher was never a war leader. The Falklands Conflict was never a war.
Erm, a slight display of ignorance here and an example of forgetfulness.

Baroness Thatcher is not having a military funeral, she's having a ceremonial funeral and the in the UK such things do have a n element of the military because they are the processional-type people. What else would you use? a high school marching band?

Diana, Princess of Wales, was carried on a gun carriage pulled by troops on horseback, as was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Such military ingredients are not reserved for wartime leaders; and neither, I might add, is it ceremonial arrogance.

It's how we in the UK do these things and we are renowned and admired throughout the world for it.

Which brings us back to wondering why something similar wasn't done for decidedly less confrontational and divisive former PMs such as MacMillan, Attlee, Heath and Wilson.

To grant a "ceremonial" funeral to Margaret Thatcher 23 years after she stepped down, but not to have done so for Attlee 16 years after he did, looks inconsistent at best. Aren't we renowned for fair play and even-handedness?

I hope there isn't a call for a minute's silence in the civil service office I work in during her funeral. At the very best it will be ignored.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Pete173 has hit the right note for me with his reference to that eminently sensible article in The Telegraph that suggests that a full-on ceremonial funeral on this scale is inappropriate and perhaps even counter-productive from a Conservative point of view.

I'm not saying that the occasion shouldn't be marked and I would have expected more of a fuss than usual, but this seems overboard.

Still, the arrangements have been made, the funeral has been planned. I just hope no idiot tries to spoil it and that it all goes ahead with dignity.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

My friend's idea was to drown out their silence with an even deeper silence.

But he's a bit of a surrealist.

[ 15. April 2013, 21:58: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

This was posted in Ecclesiantics by Cantus Firmus.

quote:
quote:
Who said the battle was over?

On one hand you say the PM is not as powerful as a US President, on the other hand you are battling a dead woman who has been out of power for 23 years!

If you want a battle, fight the living, not the dead.

In line with hostly direction, I'm commenting on it here.

Thatcher herself has been out of power for 23 years. But her philosophy (if you can call selfish greed a philosophy) has been the driving force of British politics ever since. It appeared in a slightly gentler manifestation under Blair and New Labour from 1997 to 2010, but has undergone a violent resurgence under a government which is even more right wing in some ways than Thatcher. (The only way they are more 'liberal' is on social issues like gay marriage: which in fact is more in harmony with right-wing libertarianism than Thatcher's puritanism)

So yes, it is irrelevant to attack Thatcher personally, but Thatcherism is a dragon still needing to be slain.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Charles Had a Splurge on:

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The gun carriage and troops? That's either a fitting tribute to a wartime leader or it's ceremonial arrogance, and I could probably argue it either way.
The gun carriage and troops would be admirably suitable for a war leader.

But Mrs Thatcher was never a war leader. The Falklands Conflict was never a war.
Erm, a slight display of ignorance here and an example of forgetfulness.

Baroness Thatcher is not having a military funeral, she's having a ceremonial funeral and the in the UK such things do have a n element of the military because they are the processional-type people. What else would you use? a high school marching band?

Diana, Princess of Wales, was carried on a gun carriage pulled by troops on horseback, as was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Such military ingredients are not reserved for wartime leaders; and neither, I might add, is it ceremonial arrogance.

It's how we in the UK do these things and we are renowned and admired throughout the world for it.
Which brings us back to wondering why something similar wasn't done for decidedly less confrontational and divisive former PMs such as MacMillan, Attlee, Heath and Wilson.

To grant a "ceremonial" funeral to Margaret Thatcher 23 years after she stepped down, but not to have done so for Attlee 16 years after he did, looks inconsistent at best. Aren't we renowned for fair play and even-handedness?

I hope there isn't a call for a minute's silence in the civil service office I work in during her funeral. At the very best it will be ignored.

As I keep on pointing out on another thread, Lloyd George is much more significant historically both as a PM and as a war leader. He was also controversial in his day. His funeral was a biggish affair but it wasn't an official ceremonial one.

This is a thoroughly bad precedent. After this, they'll all want one.

[ 15. April 2013, 22:53: Message edited by: Enoch ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Blair's already drawing up the plans for his - an Iraqui marching band, a fly past by the Red Arrows, go for it, son of Thatcher!

Posted by John Holding (# 158) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Baroness Thatcher is not having a military funeral, she's having a ceremonial funeral and the in the UK such things do have a n element of the military because they are the processional-type people. What else would you use? a high school marching band?

Diana, Princess of Wales, was carried on a gun carriage pulled by troops on horseback, as was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Such military ingredients are not reserved for wartime leaders; and neither, I might add, is it ceremonial arrogance.

It's how we in the UK do these things and we are renowned and admired throughout the world for it.

Both the Late Queen Mother and the late quondam Princess of Wales were Colonels in Chief or Honourary COlonels of many regiments (in the QM's case) or some regiments (Princess D). As such, both were entitled to military honours. Baroness Thatcher held no such position. SHe wasn't even Warden of the Cinque POrts, which might also have entitled her to such honours.

Apart from Churchill, no retired PM has had a "ceremonial" funeral or military honours. What makes her so special from a national, rather than a purely partisan political basis?

More generally, I would have thought that the most appropriate demonstration of negative opinion would be to avoid the areas where the procession is: nothing would be so effective as to have the procession pass through empty or nearly empty streets.

John

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Surely, Attlee should have had military honours at his funeral, since he was a major in the army, and Deputy to Churchill in the war. But he didn't.

I think 'partisan' is the word. It's a Tory jamboree, dressed up as a 'national' event. The hearse should have 'vote Tory' stuck to it.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Just drawing attention to the address in my sig again, where there is a way of doing some good as well as showing disagreement with the expense and type of the funeral.

I had been thinking of going up to London to do something at the Natural History Museum, which I am going to do sometime anyway, but wearing a T-shirt with a suitable message. This is better.

Posted by Clemency (# 16173) on :

Must have my twopennyworth here. She scared me, partly because she looked (and thought) very like my mother-in-law, but I fear had a lot more impact, not wholly for the positive!. Both made in the Image of God, but flawed; may both rest in peace! However, as often, I cannot resist dittification...

An M T Eulogy

She was a very famous person, well, she was always in the news
She was a very famous person, had such very famous views
She was a very famous person, all the attention that she got
Some of us thought a lot about her, some thought about her quite a lot

She was a formidable person, responsible for the state
This country finds itself in, she made Britain truly grate
on the nerves of all our neighbours; never one for turning tail
Such a formidable person, that ferruginous female

She was a rather frightening person, even today it still seems
I see her face and hear her voice, re-echo in my dreams
She was a rather frightening person: say it with restraint and tact
We shall not see her like again! Let’s celebrate that fact

Now she’s a very former person, but she’s not with us any more
She’s a very former person, now she’s slipped out through the door
She is a very former person, whom no longer we will see
Now it’s St Peter gets to meet her,
Boy am I glad that I’m not he!

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

It's how we in the UK do these things and we are renowned and admired throughout the world for it.

Actually it typically hasn't been - both for the reasons John mentions above as well as the fact that the people you are drawing comparisons with were members of the Royal family.

In fact, the entire thing is becoming less British and more resembling one of those tinpot states praising their past "Glorious Leader", the Mail naming and shaming, the police deigning to allow people to protest, the 7 hours of parliamentary encomiums. All very un-British to me.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

A bit like North Korea?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

In fact, the entire thing is becoming less British and more resembling one of those tinpot states praising their past "Glorious Leader", the Mail naming and shaming, the police deigning to allow people to protest, the 7 hours of parliamentary encomiums. All very un-British to me.

This!

During thatcher's reign I often thought 'Are we becoming a police state?' Her funeral fits in with her legacy [Disappointed]

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
A bit like North Korea?

If you don't properly mourn a leader's death in North Korea, you get sent to the gulag, or shot, or have a mortar round fired at you.

If you don't mourn a former leader's death in the UK, you can vent your thoughts on Twitter, Facebook, the comments sections of various newspapers. You can read newspaper columns by like-minded people and buy songs on iTunes that express how you feel.

I struggle to see the North Korean comparison at all. Except that both feature men in uniform. But men in uniform of one sort or another are a feature of major occasions in all countries, from the most transparent democracies to tinpot dictatorships.

Posted by Sighthound (# 15185) on :

People should remember that Britain stood alone, with only 6000 miles of sea separating us from the armed fascist might of Argentina. Without Mrs Thatcher we might be holding this conversation in Spanish. How can anyone say she does not compare with Churchill?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Except that both feature men in uniform. But men in uniform of one sort or another are a feature of major occasions in all countries, from the most transparent democracies to tinpot dictatorships.

No women in our armed forces?

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

On the plus side, from the point of view of cultural semiotics, it's surely a great addition to the proud British tradition of pantomime. Exaggerated, over the top, inflated, with lots of fancy dress, and a great villain, whom we can hiss. But I do resent it being nationalized, for shame.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
A bit like North Korea?
If you don't properly mourn a leader's death in North Korea, you get sent to the gulag, or shot, or have a mortar round fired at you.

If you don't mourn a former leader's death in the UK, you can vent your thoughts on Twitter, Facebook, the comments sections of various newspapers. You can read newspaper columns by like-minded people and buy songs on iTunes that express how you feel.

I struggle to see the North Korean comparison at all. Except that both feature men in uniform. But men in uniform of one sort or another are a feature of major occasions in all countries, from the most transparent democracies to tinpot dictatorships.

You may see the resemblance, as Great Leader is wheeled through the sunshine,and crack North Korean troops stand at attention, and Great Son of Great Leader looks on with relief, sorry, grief, and police scan the crowds for any sign of dissent from disgraceful helots and extremists. Great honour to Great Leader!

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

I hope to be able to pay my respects in person tomorrow. I'll have a look and report back to you.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
On the plus side, from the point of view of cultural semiotics, it's surely a great addition to the proud British tradition of pantomime. Exaggerated, over the top, inflated, with lots of fancy dress, and a great villain, whom we can hiss. But I do resent it being nationalized, for shame.

I resent the cost - double shame [Disappointed]

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
and police scan the crowds for any sign of dissent from disgraceful helots and extremists.

...so they can take them off and shoot them.

Yep, Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
Without Mrs Thatcher we might be holding this conversation in Spanish.

Get real, will you?

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
Without Mrs Thatcher we might be holding this conversation in Spanish.
Get real, will you?

I was about to reply, then I realised my irony detectors were in "Standby" mode.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

This is a brilliant post-modern thread; I can't tell who's being satirical and who isn't now. But am I being satirical?

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I resent the cost - double shame

I'm beginning to admire this new-found parsimony by many on the left. Will this niggardly attitude be applied to other areas of public spending? I live in hope.

[ 16. April 2013, 11:27: Message edited by: Anglican't ]

Posted by Hairy Biker (# 12086) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One of the truly delicious ironies about this funeral, is that it has been nationalized. Maybe there should be a short demo, demanding the privatization of funerals.

'Say no to the big state, now taking over our funerals. We demand private funerals!'

It's good. The death of Thatcherism. In the end they had to nationalise her body. Turns out there was such a thing as society all along.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I resent the cost - double shame
I'm beginning to admire this new-found parsimony by many on the left. Will this niggardly attitude be applied to other areas of public spending? I live in hope.

I'm all for cutting the Trident replacement budget to zero, if that helps.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I resent the cost - double shame
I'm beginning to admire this new-found parsimony by many on the left. Will this niggardly attitude be applied to other areas of public spending? I live in hope.
I'm all for cutting the Trident replacement budget to zero, if that helps.

The bomb-magnets (aka aircraft carriers) can go too. Especially if there won't be aircraft for them to carry.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Oh yes- HMS White Elephant and HMS Chocolate Teapot- Broon's biggest vanity project.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One of the truly delicious ironies about this funeral, is that it has been nationalized. Maybe there should be a short demo, demanding the privatization of funerals.

'Say no to the big state, now taking over our funerals. We demand private funerals!'
It's good. The death of Thatcherism. In the end they had to nationalise her body. Turns out there was such a thing as society all along.

I believe Co-op Funerals are doing two for one, so if there is anyone else in line, maybe? Too left-wing I suppose.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Anglican't:

quote:
Will this niggardly attitude be applied to other areas of public spending?

Well, it all depends on your priorities, doesn't it.

The government seems to be saying that there is no public money and everyone needs to tighten their belts, especially the unemployed/poorly paid/disabled who are all Welfare Scroungers.

Yet there seems to be plenty of money for waging war in Libya, buying new aircraft carriers, bailing out Irish banks and oh look - there's 8 million or so left over to give Thatcher a glorious sendoff! If there really is no money to spare, why is public money being spent on these projects?

You will forgive those of us who are not dyed-in-the-wool Conservatives for interpreting 'no public money available' as meaning 'we're not going to waste any money on people who are unlikely to vote Tory in the next election, even if they happen to be taxpayers'.

[ 16. April 2013, 12:34: Message edited by: Jane R ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

There's also the question of all the billions not paid in tax, or hoarded in off-shore accounts, and in other dodgy places. This is not of course public money, but perhaps it is withheld public money, since it avoids tax.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

This article shows how the government is trying to limit a state NI contribution for children who are too disabled to work to families below a certain income, thus not enabling those children to later lead independent lives (and meaning that those families lose their savings). The saving the government is trying to make is 11m.

The funeral tomorrow costs 10m.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Maybe someone would like to donate to Scope and report on the site in my sig?

Though I am becoming increasingly angry and less wishful of a peaceful and positive means of protest.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

The beloved newspaper of the right, the Guardian have produced an article saying what 10m could otherwise be spent on, including 272 secondary school teachers, 320 fire officers and 292 paramedics.

This tells you all, especially bearing in mind that other article I provided a link to about the 11m cut in care given to severely disabled people.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It is a gross oversimplification to describe Thatcher or Reagan as having "won" the Cold War, but it is not unreasonable to admire their opposition to communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular, in the same way as we admire Churchill's opposition to Nazism despite the fact that it was not defeated by him and Britain, but by Stalin and the Soviet Union.

There is a problem with comparing Churchill to Thatcher. One united the Country against a determined and vicious enemy from without, the other split the Country by describing a large number of her own people as the 'enemy within' .

In the minds of most native Britons there is no comparison between Churchill and Thatcher at all . This is what's making tomorrow's large funeral controversial . Not that I agree with disrupting a person's funeral , that's just plain wrong.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
There's also the question of all the billions not paid in tax, or hoarded in off-shore accounts, and in other dodgy places. This is not of course public money, but perhaps it is withheld public money, since it avoids tax.

Given that a significant proportion of the worldwide tax havens are either ruled by or associated with the UK, I suspect the British government has nothing to gain from clamping down on tax avoidance or evasion, and knows it.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Given that a significant proportion of the worldwide tax havens are either ruled by or associated with the UK, I suspect the British government has nothing to gain from clamping down on tax avoidance or evasion, and knows it.

Which seems to suggest that they gain currently from not clamping down - individual ministers perhaps, the government not so much.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Given that a significant proportion of the worldwide tax havens are either ruled by or associated with the UK, I suspect the British government has nothing to gain from clamping down on tax avoidance or evasion, and knows it.

I thought most British Overseas Territories and the Channel Islands were self-governing and self-financing?

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It is a gross oversimplification to describe Thatcher or Reagan as having "won" the Cold War, but it is not unreasonable to admire their opposition to communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular, in the same way as we admire Churchill's opposition to Nazism despite the fact that it was not defeated by him and Britain, but by Stalin and the Soviet Union.
There is a problem with comparing Churchill to Thatcher. One united the Country against a determined and vicious enemy from without, the other split the Country by describing a large number of her own people as the 'enemy within' .

In the minds of most native Britons there is no comparison between Churchill and Thatcher at all . This is what's making tomorrow's large funeral controversial . Not that I agree with disrupting a person's funeral , that's just plain wrong.

You have deliberately or inadvertently missed my point, which was not about whether Thatcher was of comparable stature to Churchill, but simply that it is possible to admire someone for opposing a manifest evil even when they are not primarily responsible for finally defeating it.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I thought most British Overseas Territories and the Channel Islands were self-governing and self-financing?

I'm most familiar with the situation in the Isle of Man.

AIUI, the Isle of Man and the UK operate a common VAT scheme, whereby rates are set by the UK Treasury and VAT income is shared by the two territories. The revenue sharing formula used to be heavily biased in favour of the Island and was changed in 2011 (by this Government).

This has the effect that the UK exercises oversight over Manx indirect taxation, which affects poor people, but not direct taxation, which affects the rich.

Acts of Parliament are generally extended to the Island by means of an Order in Council, with the consent of Tynwald. It is theoretically possible for an Order in Council to overrule Tynwald but this is Not Done. The effect is nonetheless that most Manx law is based on UK law.

[ 17. April 2013, 07:44: Message edited by: Ricardus ]

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I thought most British Overseas Territories and the Channel Islands were self-governing and self-financing?

Let's just say that if they were businesses rather than statelets, they'd probably be non-self-financing for tax reasons.

But as it is, they're coining it.

More relevantly, most of the people operating schemes that run through these territories don't live there. They are more likely to be found in posh offices in Canary Wharf or the City earning large salaries which are spent in the UK economy, generating VAT.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I thought most British Overseas Territories and the Channel Islands were self-governing and self-financing?

Postscript:

I'm not sure of their constitutional status. My understanding is that the leftover bits of Empire are ruled by the British crown, whereas the Channel Islands are constitutionally separate, just with the same person as head of state - as is the case with NZ, Australia, Canada etc. Wikipedia disagrees with me though. Link.

Either way, political control of Man and the Channel Islands could, in this matter as with all others, effectively be operated from Westminster if the UK govt chose.

[ 17. April 2013, 08:08: Message edited by: Cod ]

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
The beloved newspaper of the right, the Guardian have produced an article saying what 10m could otherwise be spent on, including 272 secondary school teachers, 320 fire officers and 292 paramedics.

For one year only! Are these teachers, fire officers and paramedics going to be made unemployed after one year?

Where does this supposed £10 million cost come from? Who came up with this number? What is it being spent on? A large amount will be the salaries of police officers, military personel, and other people involved. Surely they deserve a job as well as teachers etc.

This cost is largely non-existent money on a balance sheet, based on already existing wages. If the police and soldiers weren't being paid to guard the procession, they would still have to be paid to do something else, drill, train, or whatever. As revealed on Radio 4 by Francis Maude: "There are costs which are people doing their ordinary jobs which are costs which are being borne in any event. We have not hired more soldiers, we haven't hired more police."

And even the additional costs that wouldn't be spent if the funeral wasn't happening: it's all going to pay people for doing their jobs, making work for people who are probably very grateful for the opportunity to earn the money. This '£10 million' isn't being burned in a big bonfire, or being buried with her. It's financing industry and services, and going into the pockets of hardworking people.

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
The beloved newspaper of the right, the Guardian have produced an article saying what 10m could otherwise be spent on, including 272 secondary school teachers, 320 fire officers and 292 paramedics.
For one year only! Are these teachers, fire officers and paramedics going to be made unemployed after one year?

I'm agreeing with your whole post, Hawk, but this particular point highlights the mess of Labour's last few years in government. I can't remember the exact figures but public spending increased way above inflation from around 2000 to 2010 and much of that was on salaries; costs which you can't just 'switch off' when the economic climate turns chilly.

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

David Cameron just told me that I was a thatcherite. Can I play? David Cameron you are a cumquat.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
The beloved newspaper of the right, the Guardian have produced an article saying what 10m could otherwise be spent on, including 272 secondary school teachers, 320 fire officers and 292 paramedics.
For one year only! Are these teachers, fire officers and paramedics going to be made unemployed after one year?
I'm agreeing with your whole post, Hawk, but this particular point highlights the mess of Labour's last few years in government. I can't remember the exact figures but public spending increased way above inflation from around 2000 to 2010 and much of that was on salaries; costs which you can't just 'switch off' when the economic climate turns chilly.

I thought that tories believed that if you don't pay people well they'll go abroad or not do the jobs at all or something. At least that's the excuse they use for ensuring that their natural constituency are incredibly well paid.

Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :

quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
I'm agreeing with your whole post, Hawk, but this particular point highlights the mess of Labour's last few years in government. I can't remember the exact figures but public spending increased way above inflation from around 2000 to 2010 and much of that was on salaries; costs which you can't just 'switch off' when the economic climate turns chilly.

I'm not an economist, but that seems a little unfair since that period includes the crisis of 2008 onwards, when the economy turned more than chilly and a big increase in public spending was always likely. What would be interesting would be how Labour's figures compare in more "normal" times: there's some stats here (which, although on the Guardian's website, are taken from the Treasury) but I haven't got the expertise (or the time) to translate that into anything useful - perhaps another shippie has?

On the point about the costs of the funeral, my understanding was that the costs of policing, armed forces etc were normally taken into account (even when they would have been paid salaries anyway), so on that basis including them in the cost of funeral doesn't seem so unfair.

It's what they're being used for that bothers me, the symbolism of the whole event. By giving her a ceremonial funeral in London, by making it such a big public event, we seem to be being asked to believe that this hugely divisive PM is someone the whole nation should pay respects to. Given the deep divisions which her death have brought to the fore, that seems wrong somehow and I hope somewhere in the funeral those divisions will be addressed.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Yeah, but haven't you heard, she saved us!

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

EDIT - in reply to Stejjie:

It's that period between 2000 and 2005 or so which is the problem - spending increased (as a % of GDP) by a rather large amount in this period of strong economic growth. And a fair chunk of that was spending which couldn't easily be reduced when the crash came in 2008.

[ 17. April 2013, 10:16: Message edited by: South Coast Kevin ]

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Either way, political control of Man and the Channel Islands could, in this matter as with all others, effectively be operated from Westminster if the UK govt chose.

As was done to the Turks and Caicos Islands in 2009.

What I'm not sure of is what condition the various dependencies would be in if they declared full independence. My perception is that they are holding on to the benefits that come with association with the UK state while simultaneously undermining our tax laws. However that may be unfair - there are apparently calls on Jersey for independence, suggesting those benefits aren't that great.

Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :

What seems to have happened (looking at the data I linked to) is that spending fell as a % of GDP from 1992/3 (I presume as we came out of the early 90s recession) to 1999/2000, so encompassing the first 3 years of the New Labour government, when Brown's watchword was "prudence" and the government pledged to follow the previous Tory government's spending plans (which, so I've heard, the Tories had no intention of doing), which was as much a political move (proving Labour's fiscal/financial credibility) as an economic one.

THen it goes up again to 2005/6, before hovering around the 40-41% of GDP mark, then going up again as the crisis hits. Again, I suspect the rise up to 2005/6 was a political move, although probably aimed more at showing Labour was investing in schools, hospitals etc. (I'm not saying I agree or disagree with that, just saying what I remember to be the context of these changes). I also wonder whether the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had an effect on these figures?

I guess as well there's a political/ideological element to this: if you see public spending (and the necessary borrowing attached to it) as generally something to be kept to a minimum, then the rise in 2000-5 is worrying. If you see it as a good thing (investment in public services etc.) then that rise is nothing to worry about. The figures themselves don't prove anything apart from it went up: it's the interpretation we put on them (normally from our own views about "right" or "wrong" spending) that we end up arguing about.

But my lack of economic competence will be starting to show any minute now... [Hot and Hormonal]

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
This cost is largely non-existent money on a balance sheet, based on already existing wages. If the police and soldiers weren't being paid to guard the procession, they would still have to be paid to do something else, drill, train, or whatever. As revealed on Radio 4 by Francis Maude: "There are costs which are people doing their ordinary jobs which are costs which are being borne in any event. We have not hired more soldiers, we haven't hired more police."

This has been amply answered elsewhere. Where do you think the additional police come from? Leave has been cancelled - police from the Home Counties will require transportation and lodging nearer London to cover for Met personnel who are elsewhere, and so on.

quote:
This '£10 million' isn't being burned in a big bonfire, or being buried with her. It's financing industry and services, and going into the pockets of hardworking people.

I'm glad to see that you are a recent convert to Keynesianism.

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
I guess as well there's a political/ideological element to this: if you see public spending (and the necessary borrowing attached to it) as generally something to be kept to a minimum, then the rise in 2000-5 is worrying. If you see it as a good thing (investment in public services etc.) then that rise is nothing to worry about. The figures themselves don't prove anything apart from it went up: it's the interpretation we put on them (normally from our own views about "right" or "wrong" spending) that we end up arguing about.

Perhaps this just shows my ideological view, but I think it's not simply an ideological matter of what level of public spending one considers appropriate. It's the borrowing, as you suggest. We increased our spending (as a % of GDP) when the global economic situation was very strong and paid for it by borrowing more money, meaning we had little or no scope for stimulus spending post-2008.

I consider myself to be slightly on the left-wing when it comes to public spending (i.e. I definitely want there to be a strong safety net) but IMO Labour have been utterly financially illiterate over the last 12+ years and stand no chance of getting my vote until that changes.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

Does anyone know where this figure of £10 million came from in the first place? Or even how it will be calculated? If we're to include police overtime, do we offset the VAT on all the extra sales of snacks to the crowds around Westminster?

It seems to have become "established fact" by reason of mass repetition in the media and by opinionated bloggers and twitterers that £10 million is about the measure of it, but I can't see how anyone commenting would know. For all the actual information there is in the public domain the true cost could be far less or perhaps even more than this. And whatever the overall cost actually is nobody knows how much of that cost he Thatcher estate intends to pay.

Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :

@SCK:

Except that's not true, either: according to the stats on this page (see the chart headed "UK budget deficit and borrowing"), borrowing as a % of GDP went from 40.3% in January 1998 (8 months after Labour came to power) to 36.2% in September 2007 (in the mean-time, it had fallen to a low of 31% in February 2004 and begun to rise since then).

The reason I use Sept. 2007 as a cut-off point is because that's the month when Northern Rock Building Society went belly-up and asked for assistance from the Bank of England - when the storm hit. Before that, it seems debt as a % of GDP had stayed relatively low, certainly lower than when Labour came to power and according to the stats, it stays low if you exclude the cost of financial interventions. But then Northern Rock hits the, er, rocks, the whole system begins to go belly-up and everything's in turmoil - and, not surprising, the debt goes up.

(This is matched by the deficit figures: although Labour did run a deficit from 2002 onwards, until 2008 this was much the same as during the Major/Clarke years - again, it was only after the financial crisis that the deficit ballooned).

So the accepted narrative that Labour was profligate with the nation's finances during the good years simply doesn't ring true: in fact, as a % of GDP, the debt actually went (slightly) down until the crisis hit.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
This cost is largely non-existent money on a balance sheet, based on already existing wages. If the police and soldiers weren't being paid to guard the procession, they would still have to be paid to do something else, drill, train, or whatever. As revealed on Radio 4 by Francis Maude: "There are costs which are people doing their ordinary jobs which are costs which are being borne in any event. We have not hired more soldiers, we haven't hired more police."
This has been amply answered elsewhere. Where do you think the additional police come from? Leave has been cancelled - police from the Home Counties will require transportation and lodging nearer London to cover for Met personnel who are elsewhere, and so on.

Good news for drivers and hotel owners then. They'll be earning good money, which will help them in this time of recession.

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
This '£10 million' isn't being burned in a big bonfire, or being buried with her. It's financing industry and services, and going into the pockets of hardworking people.
I'm glad to see that you are a recent convert to Keynesianism.

Dunno about Keynesianism. I'm just arguing against the idea this £10 million is being 'wasted' on a funeral. It is entirely the wrong perspective IMO.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
@SCK:

Except that's not true, either: according to the stats on this page (see the chart headed "UK budget deficit and borrowing"), borrowing as a % of GDP went from 40.3% in January 1998 (8 months after Labour came to power) to 36.2% in September 2007 (in the mean-time, it had fallen to a low of 31% in February 2004 and begun to rise since then).

It's not that simple. The usual claim about Brown is that during those years when the economy was doing very well, he spent all the money, which created an unsustainable situation when the economy faltered. This story is entirely consistent with the borrowing figures that you quote. Essentially, the claim is that he normalized ongoing public spending to the high point of government income, whilst masquerading as Prudence.

Whether it's completely fair criticism is a different story. Personally, I think it's entirely fair - the only unfair part is not to mention that Brown is far from unique on this front.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Good news for drivers and hotel owners then. They'll be earning good money, which will help them in this time of recession.

In which you presumably believe that the present policy of austerity is misplaced.

Posted by alienfromzog (# 5327) on :

Stejji is right.

From The Institute for Fiscal Studies

quote:

Over the first eleven years of Labour government from 1997 to the eve of the financial crisis in 2007 the UK public finances followed a remarkably similar pattern to the first eleven years of the previous Conservative government, from 1979 to 1989. The first four saw the public sector move from deficit to surplus, while the following seven saw a move back into the red. By 2007 Labour had reduced public sector borrowing slightly below the level it inherited from the Conservatives.

And more of that borrowing was being used to finance investment rather than the day to day running costs of the public sector . Labour had also reduced public sector debt below the level it had inherited. As a result the ‘golden rule’ and ‘sustainable investment rule’ that Gordon Brown had committed himself to on becoming Chancellor in 1997 were both met over the economic cycle that he eventually decided had run from 1997–98 to 2006–07.

[Emphasis mine]

One could argue that Labour should have used the good years to further reduce debts. Two things need to be said about this. Firstly a small surplus 2005-7 would have made virtually no difference to the current situation (if you look at the data). Secondly, moreover such a policy would have had macroeconomic effects that can only be estimated but would have reduced growth (quite apart from the broader non-economic effects on squeezing public services). As such the overall fiscal situation may have actually been worse.

One of the great problems is the idiots or liars who compare a national economy to a household budget. Because the public sector is a third-40ish% of the economy there are big knock-on effects to what you do with the public sector; this is especially true in a financial crisis where the private sector is retrenching.

I will try to explain this in household budget terms. So let us suppose that you have an income of £2000/month and outgoings of £3000/month. Naturally that is unsustainable, so you decide to cut your spending. You look at your budget and realise you are spending £600/month of petrol. So you sell your car. In theory you should now be only £400 in deficit each month. Which might be fixable some other way.

Unfortunately you were using your care to get to work. Now you can't get there you lose your job and end up on an income of around £250/month with outgoings of £2400/month. So instead of a monthly budget at -£1000, you're now at -£2150.

This is basically what George Osborne is doing.

That is not to say that all public sector spending is good. Similarly not all is bad. The key concept here is the 'multipliers.' Investment spending as opposed to current spending is more effective and stimulating an economy and some kinds of spending are better than others. So may be buying a bike for a capital out-lay of £500 and cycling to work is the solution to my example above.

To be honest, I think the IFS report is being slightly generous in its assessment there towards Gordon Brown because his rule about only borrowing to invest is one he probably cheated at slightly. As how one defines the economic cycle is metaphysical really and he moved the goal-posts a little to make the figures fit perfectly. However the idea of 'gross economic incompetence' by Labour is not supported by the data at all.

Conversely, whilst overall the Thatcher/Major governments had a similar course of surplus->deficit in the same time-frame, they also had huge revenues from privatisation. Whether privatisation was the right policy or not is moot; you can only sell things once. As such the figures are massively helped by huge inflows of cash from the sell-offs. (It's something like £40Bn at 1997 prices or around 10%GDP - I can't remember exactly...). If you take out that data and also the big revenues from North Sea Oil, the Labour government was unbelievably economically sound compared to the one that preceded it.

This is interesting analysis

If you want to argue that the Blair/Brown governments did not do enough to regulate the banking sector and rebalance the economy to prevent such a crash then that's an argument with merit. And of course, both Cameron and Osborne were arguing for more regulation pre-crash... no wait.

Furthermore, given that the major issues were in the US, it would be interesting to see any analysis of what a difference that would have made. All of the Western economies have suffered significantly.

AFZ

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

I went to St Paul's this morning but even at 9.15am the area was jam packed. I walked through Paternoster Square and found a decent-ish spot on Ludgate Hill, near the Church of St Martin within Ludgate, three rows back from the fence lining the street.

The atmosphere was calm and respectful. The coffin got to the bottom of Fleet Street at the same time that the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh arrived at St Paul's. so there was an odd mix of cheering and applause to my left and sombre music to my right.

I thought the chap in front of me was going to be trouble, judging from his poor tailoring and unkempt facial hair, and I was sadly right: when the coffin went by he cried out 'rot in hell you witch', or something like that. But you could barely hear him over the respectful applause that echoed throughout the street. A very emotional moment.

I felt sorry for the Royal Marine nearest to me. Before the funeral procession a corporal walked the route adjusting marines' uniforms and he seemed to pick on this chap more than the others.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
....

I thought the chap in front of me was going to be trouble, judging from his poor tailoring and unkempt facial hair, and I was sadly right: when the coffin went by he cried out 'rot in hell you witch', or something like that....

Oh dear. But then that's (+)+Rowan for you, isn't it?

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

One major (IMO) problem with the '% of GDP' figures is that you can reduce the % of debt / deficit by increasing the GDP element of the calculation. The argument goes that Labour did just this by increasing public expenditure and also encouraging individuals to spend more money (through allowing house price inflation to run riot). People withdrew £billions of equity from their houses and (to some extent) spent it on funding a lifestyle which was not sustainable on their normal income but which made the economic performance look good.

The figures I'm half-remembering are from this article in the Independent, summarised on my sadly-neglected blog here.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Oh dear. But then that's (+)+Rowan for you, isn't it?

When the coffin came into view, I noticed that this chap switched to the Black Eyed Peas on his iPhone / iPod (I couldn't see which song). I'm not sure that's quite Lord Williams' style.

[ 17. April 2013, 14:41: Message edited by: Anglican't ]

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
One major (IMO) problem with the '% of GDP' figures is that you can reduce the % of debt / deficit by increasing the GDP element of the calculation.

Sure, except the GDP of the UK didn't grow out of line with the rest of Western Europe during that time period, so this element was a relatively minor one.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

My very quick impression of the funeral service is that here was a full on pomp and circumstance funeral.

She was given a full state funeral with full honours, even if it is not official ''state funeral''.

Whether George Osborne and David Cameron think that this will revive their fortunes, maybe they have a sneaking hope that her demise will give them some ''Thatcher legacy'' twinkle and boost their poll ratings?

I was so glad that there were no foolish protests as far as I am aware?

But why oh why the wall to wall media coverage?

Saul

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

I don't think it's appropriate to stop at 2007 when judging the Labour government's spending, and thus leave the bailouts out of account. All governments have to deal with bad times as well as good and should ensure they have the means to handle the bad times.

Furthermore, the bailouts were the result of a situation that developed on Labour's watch, notwithstanding that Thatcher could be argued to have set it in motion, oh, some 22 years before.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:

Furthermore, the bailouts were the result of a situation that developed on Labour's watch, notwithstanding that Thatcher could be argued to have set it in motion, oh, some 22 years before.

Or you could argue that the Tories under Thatcher shifted the Overton window sufficiently that further regulation of the financial industries wasn't politically feasible regardless of intent. As alienfromzog points out above, the Tories are hardly champing on the bit to regulate after (or before) the event.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
My very quick impression of the funeral service is that here was a full on pomp and circumstance funeral.

She was given a full state funeral with full honours, even if it is not official ''state funeral''.

Sorry?

'full on pomp and circumstance funeral?'
The service itself was exactly the same as anyone would have - except with more and posher guests and a better choir.

The 'procession' was one marching band and a gun carriage with a handful of attendant military personnel. I've been in Salvation Army funerals that were bigger - one marching brass band, a coffin and mourners car in the procession! The only difference is that we had a flag carried in front of the the band as well!

Her Majesty the Queen Mother - the last ceremonial funeral we saw - had over 1600 military personnel, including troops from the Commonwealth. Baroness Thatcher had to 'make do' with 700.

A big number and very impressive, police presence as well, but hardly 'full on pomp and circumstance' as you claim.

Some people would have complained if she'd been put in a bin bag and thrown over a wall - they'd have moaned at the cost of the bin bag!

[ 18. April 2013, 07:15: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

I wasn't sitting there counting the numbers myself, but if had to say "was Maggie's send off more like (a) Brenda snr.'s or (b) Mrs KLB's granny's?", then it's (a) by a feckin' mile.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I thought it had a semi-royal flavour. I noticed on Question time last week, one speaker made a nice Freudian slip, when he said, speaking of Thatcher, 'during her reign ...'. Much mirth, yet maybe he was revealing a certain way of thinking.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I thought it had a semi-royal flavour. I noticed on Question time last week, one speaker made a nice Freudian slip, when he said, speaking of Thatcher, 'during her reign ...'. Much mirth, yet maybe he was revealing a certain way of thinking.

Yes. Hers.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

L'etat, c'est moi?

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I wasn't sitting there counting the numbers myself, but if had to say "was Maggie's send off more like (a) Brenda snr.'s or (b) Mrs KLB's granny's?", then it's (a) by a feckin' mile.

There were over 2,000 mourners at Margaret Thatcher's funeral. I guess that is par for the course for a world leader in power for over a decade. Now I'm sure your wife's grandmother was a great gel, but if she didn't attract as many people to her funeral then surely they're never really going to compare?

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Saul
But why oh why the wall to wall media coverage?

Because in many parts of the world she is seen as someone who shamed/exposed their own governments into behaving better towards their people.

Lech Walesa wasn't at St Paul's out of duty - he was there because he wanted to be: for many in Eastern Europe Mrs T was someone who helped them to be in the situation where Poland, and other countries, are now members of the EU (we may think of dubious benefit, they value it) and it is unimaginable that totalitarian rule could return.

In the US, they see the UK as a nation which is kindly disposed towards them; the Far East saw Mrs T as someone who appreciated drive and ingenuity.

Like her or not, she had qualities that were appreciated far beyond these shores: and it was those qualities, frequently unappreciated at home and still derided by many on sites such as this, that made for a great deal of interest around the world.

THAT is why the BBC and, in particular, Sky, covered the event. She was a WORLD leader, not just a UK ex PM.

Posted by Hairy Biker (# 12086) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I wasn't sitting there counting the numbers myself, but if had to say "was Maggie's send off more like (a) Brenda snr.'s or (b) Mrs KLB's granny's?", then it's (a) by a feckin' mile.
There were over 2,000 mourners at Margaret Thatcher's funeral. I guess that is par for the course for a world leader in power for over a decade. Now I'm sure your wife's grandmother was a great gel, but if she didn't attract as many people to her funeral then surely they're never really going to compare?

That all? The BBC radio told us it was 10s of thousands this morning. The whole thing smells of a put-up job to make it look like she really was loved, even after half the country rejected her and then her own party stabbed her in the back.

They even got the Bishop of London to try to talk her out of the "no society" quote, as though better orators had not already tried that line over the years. (She said what she meant and we all understood. She didn't believe in any kind of community larger than a nuclear family - at least not unless you were "one of us". Why do her supporter keep trying to argue against her?)

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
That all? The BBC radio told us it was 10s of thousands this morning. The whole thing smells of a put-up job to make it look like she really was loved, even after half the country rejected her and then her own party stabbed her in the back.

I was referring to the number of mourners in the cathedral. There were many more thousands lining the route up to the cathedral.

quote:
They even got the Bishop of London to try to talk her out of the "no society" quote, as though better orators had not already tried that line over the years. (She said what she meant and we all understood. She didn't believe in any kind of community larger than a nuclear family - at least not unless you were "one of us". Why do her supporter keep trying to argue against her?)

I think Bernard Ingham said it best:

'Only the ignorant, the unprincipled left or the downright lazy still allege Thatcher said “there is no such thing as society” without regard to context.'

[ 18. April 2013, 12:07: Message edited by: Anglican't ]

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I wasn't sitting there counting the numbers myself, but if had to say "was Maggie's send off more like (a) Brenda snr.'s or (b) Mrs KLB's granny's?", then it's (a) by a feckin' mile.
There were over 2,000 mourners at Margaret Thatcher's funeral. I guess that is par for the course for a world leader in power for over a decade. Now I'm sure your wife's grandmother was a great gel, but if she didn't attract as many people to her funeral then surely they're never really going to compare?

Didn't expect them to. I was merely addressing Muddy's rather silly idea that Maggie's funeral was in any way "ordinary". It was errant nonsense.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I thought she was criticizing people who feel entitled to help from the state - she was saying that society consists of individuals and their families. Cameron parsed this recently by saying that there is society but it is not the state. OK, but the state qua state, is obviously committed to welfare. I don't get my pension off my relatives.

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
That all? The BBC radio told us it was 10s of thousands this morning. The whole thing smells of a put-up job to make it look like she really was loved, even after half the country rejected her and then her own party stabbed her in the back.
I was referring to the number of mourners in the cathedral. There were many more thousands lining the route up to the cathedral.

quote:
They even got the Bishop of London to try to talk her out of the "no society" quote, as though better orators had not already tried that line over the years. (She said what she meant and we all understood. She didn't believe in any kind of community larger than a nuclear family - at least not unless you were "one of us". Why do her supporter keep trying to argue against her?)
I think Bernard Ingham said it best:

'Only the ignorant, the unprincipled left or the downright lazy still allege Thatcher said “there is no such thing as society” without regard to context.'

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider: I was merely addressing Muddy's rather silly idea that Maggie's funeral was in any way "ordinary". It was errant nonsense. [/QB]

I didn't say it was ordinary - why you used quotation marks to suggest I said the word, I don't know.

I was trying to argue against the idea that there was "full on pomp and circumstance."

I myself was surprised that the funeral procession was one band, one coffin. No troops marching, no flags, no cavalry, not even mourners trailing on behind in a car. It was quite restrained. The service was, as I said, consisted off a 'big number' of people and was 'very impressive' but the content - hymns, readings, choir music - was familiar to us all, just on a grander scale as befits cathedral worship, I guess.

Of course it wasn't ordinary!
But it wasn't 'full on pomp and circumstance.'

And I bet it cost far less than the shrill media has claimed, thereby causing all those falsely-based protests.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Muddy, your idea of what "pomp and circumstance" are, and what consitutes "restrained" are rather different to mine.

All the funerals I've been to have consisted of four pall-bearers and a ham sandwich at the pub afterwards.

All paid for by the family of the deceased.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

To me, 'pomp amd circumstance' is like the massed bands, parades, mounted troops and carriages of occasions like a coronation, a trooping the colour, a royal wedding; even the Queen Mother's own 'ceremonial' funeral had 1600 commonwealth troops.

MT's funeral was indeed impressive but it was half the size of the Queen Mother's and, quite importantly, there were no current heads of state apart from our own Queen and PM, not even any other Royals.

There was no lying in state, there was no funeral procession that involved anyone else other than the coffin and the pall bearers and the band in front. As I said, a Salvation Army funeral can have that much!

And it was all over by lunchtime so they could go and get their ham sandwiches.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

But we are her family, Karl: haven't you remembered that she was Mother Of The Nation (TM)?

[ 18. April 2013, 13:16: Message edited by: Albertus ]

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
To me, 'pomp amd circumstance' is like the massed bands, parades, mounted troops and carriages of occasions like a coronation, a trooping the colour, a royal wedding; even the Queen Mother's own 'ceremonial' funeral had 1600 commonwealth troops.

You mean this sort of thing?

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/4/17/1366192837267/Margaret-Thatcher-funeral-010.jpg

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
But we are her family, Karl: haven't you remembered that she was Mother Of The Nation (TM)?

Was that Maggie or Brenda snr.?

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Try THIS starting at 29 minutes and keep watching.

This was 'the same ceremonial funeral' as Baroness Thatcher supposedly received.

There is no comparison. THIS is pomp and circumstance.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Try THIS starting at 29 minutes and keep watching.

This was 'the same ceremonial funeral' as Baroness Thatcher supposedly received.

There is no comparison. THIS is pomp and circumstance.

Difference in degree. Maggie's funeral and ordinary people's funerals differ in kind.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

What do you mean? Why should she have the sort of funeral we have? This was the funeral of a world leader.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What do you mean? Why should she have the sort of funeral we have? This was the funeral of a world leader.

What I mean is that your earlier statements that her funeral wasn't pomp and circumstance and was the same sort of thing that everyone else gets is rubbish. Whether she should get anything different is a different question. For my money, I don't see the value in state or ceremonial funerals. Everyone is equal in the eyes of God and to my mind making certain people out to be special sits very uneasily with that understanding.

But that's not what I'm talking about here.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What do you mean? Why should she have the sort of funeral we have? This was the funeral of a world leader.
What I mean is that your earlier statements that her funeral wasn't pomp and circumstance and was the same sort of thing that everyone else gets is rubbish. Whether she should get anything different is a different question. For my money, I don't see the value in state or ceremonial funerals. Everyone is equal in the eyes of God and to my mind making certain people out to be special sits very uneasily with that understanding.

But that's not what I'm talking about here.

I think you're reading what you want to read.
I summarise my position:

The funeral procession of one band and one hearse/gun carriage was not as big as I expected - it was certainly not the full on (as you called it) pomp and circumstance of that other ceremonial funeral for the QM (nor for that matter, the Princess of Wales) and the youtube of the QM's funeral bears that out.

The funeral service, though big in scale and impressive in the guest list of people who attended, was familiar in that the rest of us, depending on the musical facilities of our local church, could easily receive. There is nothing in her order of service that none of us could not have if we had a choir.

I think you reveal your hand when you said that no one should receive any funeral like this. Well that's your right to believe that but you are in a tiny minority.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

I'm not referring to the order of service. I'm referring to the military presence and whatnot. Definitely pomp and circumstance, whether of the same order as the Queen Mother's funeral or not. As I said before, you might not consider that 'pomp and circumstance' but it sure as hell looks like it to me.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I'm not referring to the order of service. I'm referring to the military presence and whatnot. Definitely pomp and circumstance, whether of the same order as the Queen Mother's funeral or not. As I said before, you might not consider that 'pomp and circumstance' but it sure as hell looks like it to me.

I've seen similar for deceased firemen, police officers, returning troops who hsve died. I don't see your problem. Why should a former PM not have one military band and a gun carriage?

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I'm not referring to the order of service. I'm referring to the military presence and whatnot. Definitely pomp and circumstance, whether of the same order as the Queen Mother's funeral or not. As I said before, you might not consider that 'pomp and circumstance' but it sure as hell looks like it to me.
I've seen similar for deceased firemen, police officers, returning troops who hsve died. I don't see your problem. Why should a former PM not have one military band and a gun carriage?

Muddy, you have not seen ceremonial funerals on this scale for any such people. I'd really not bother about one military band and a gun carriage (though I completely fail to see the point) but that really isn't all it was, is it.

From Downing Street:

quote:
So far more than 2,300 guests have confirmed they will attend the service at St Paul's Cathedral
32 – all of the current Cabinet Ministers and Minister who attend Cabinet are planning to attend
Over 50 attendees associated with the Falklands, including veterans
Over 30 attendees from Baroness Thatcher’s Cabinets from 1979-1990
2 Heads of State will attend
11 serving Prime Ministers from across the globe attending
17 serving Foreign Ministers from across the globe attending
Around 170 countries will be represented by foreign dignitaries (including members of Royal Families; serving Presidents, Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers; former PMs and Presidents; and Heads of Missions)
11 Overseas Territories will be represented
8 horses from the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery will be appearing in the procession - 'Mister Twister' is due to lead the procession
The Met police have confirmed over 4,000 police will be on duty

"State Funeral in all but name" was how it was described on Radio 4 last night, and that seems pretty close to the mark.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

I thought you weren't bothered about the service, you were only moaning about the military procession.
Would you have been happy just for the service, all those guests included?

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I thought you weren't bothered about the service, you were only moaning about the military procession.
Would you have been happy just for the service, all those guests included?

As long as her estate paid for it, as with every other poor sod, like these:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/margaret-thatcher-funeral-cost-row-1836360

[ 18. April 2013, 14:44: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Let's just wait for the figures to come out shall we, instead of harping on about this mythical £10m.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Let's just wait for the figures to come out shall we, instead of harping on about this mythical £10m.

Well, if it's only four or five million the estate'll have no bother paying it, will they?

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
That all? The BBC radio told us it was 10s of thousands this morning. The whole thing smells of a put-up job to make it look like she really was loved, even after half the country rejected her and then her own party stabbed her in the back.
I was referring to the number of mourners in the cathedral. There were many more thousands lining the route up to the cathedral.

And let's not forget the vast crowds watching broadcast versions.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I was surprised how military it looked. Gun carriage, pall-bearers, troops lining the streets, with arms reversed. I don't know if this is full military honours or not, but it looked like a four-star general's funeral.

Repeating myself, but old Clem, who'd been a major in the army, and also seriously wounded, and Deputy PM in WWII, didn't have that. Good old Clem.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I thought it looked Ruritanian.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
That all? The BBC radio told us it was 10s of thousands this morning. The whole thing smells of a put-up job to make it look like she really was loved, even after half the country rejected her and then her own party stabbed her in the back.
I was referring to the number of mourners in the cathedral. There were many more thousands lining the route up to the cathedral.
And let's not forget the vast crowds watching broadcast versions.

I don't think she was too popular in Leeds either.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
My very quick impression of the funeral service is that here was a full on pomp and circumstance funeral.

She was given a full state funeral with full honours, even if it is not official ''state funeral''.
Sorry?

'full on pomp and circumstance funeral?'
The service itself was exactly the same as anyone would have - except with more and posher guests and a better choir.

The 'procession' was one marching band and a gun carriage with a handful of attendant military personnel. I've been in Salvation Army funerals that were bigger - one marching brass band, a coffin and mourners car in the procession! The only difference is that we had a flag carried in front of the the band as well!

Her Majesty the Queen Mother - the last ceremonial funeral we saw - had over 1600 military personnel, including troops from the Commonwealth. Baroness Thatcher had to 'make do' with 700.

A big number and very impressive, police presence as well, but hardly 'full on pomp and circumstance' as you claim.

Some people would have complained if she'd been put in a bin bag and thrown over a wall - they'd have moaned at the cost of the bin bag!

Tell me you ARE joking aren't you?

The serious point is that we live in a constitutional monarchy with separation between an unelected head of state e.g. the queen and an elected government.

This little point means that we can (if we wish) acknowledge a monarch as our head of state until he/she dies. We may or may not vote for a party that forms a political government.

The fact that Thatcher had an all but in name full state funeral, means that the line between head of state and elected first minister is crossed. A backwards step IMHO.

A short, dignified service is much more in keeping with an elected politician. The exception being of course WC who was a wartime leader that was the head of a coalition government during the darkest days of our recent history.

Thatcher was primes inter pares - first among equals NOT a head of state.

Saul

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
But we are her family, Karl: haven't you remembered that she was Mother Of The Nation (TM)?
Was that Maggie or Brenda snr.?

Th Blessed Margaret, the Leaderene, Rhoda the Rhino, of course

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Now that has articulated something, which I was struggling to express. It did look like the funeral of a head of state, with full military honours. Quite wrong and over-blown for a former PM. There is the grandiosity of Thatcher writ large.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
That all? The BBC radio told us it was 10s of thousands this morning. The whole thing smells of a put-up job to make it look like she really was loved, even after half the country rejected her and then her own party stabbed her in the back.
I was referring to the number of mourners in the cathedral. There were many more thousands lining the route up to the cathedral.

quote:
They even got the Bishop of London to try to talk her out of the "no society" quote, as though better orators had not already tried that line over the years. (She said what she meant and we all understood. She didn't believe in any kind of community larger than a nuclear family - at least not unless you were "one of us". Why do her supporter keep trying to argue against her?)
I think Bernard Ingham said it best:

'Only the ignorant, the unprincipled left or the downright lazy still allege Thatcher said “there is no such thing as society” without regard to context.'

I agree - now that's a first!

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
That all? The BBC radio told us it was 10s of thousands this morning. The whole thing smells of a put-up job to make it look like she really was loved, even after half the country rejected her and then her own party stabbed her in the back.
I was referring to the number of mourners in the cathedral. There were many more thousands lining the route up to the cathedral.
And let's not forget the vast crowds watching broadcast versions.
I don't think she was too popular in Leeds either.

Though, to be fair, I have walked through that square on many occasions and there is never anybody watching anything.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
[

The fact that Thatcher had an all but in name full state funeral, means that the line between head of state and elected first minister is crossed. A backwards step IMHO.

A short, dignified service is much more in keeping with an elected politician.

I didn't watch all the gun salutes, etc., but I think the organisers wanted to emphasise that Mrs Thatcher had been an effective wartime leader. Considering that the later wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have never come to a proper end I suppose there's some justification in that. It's not my cup of tea, though.

The actual service wasn't all that long. Mind you, I'm not an Anglican, and I'm not used to normal Anglican funerals. I've heard that the CofE can dispatch you in 30 minutes. Is that so? That would be extremely 'short' by my standards.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

It depends what you mean by 'an effective wartime leader'. Argentina attacked the Falklands in 1982 because they believed that Britain would not defend them: the reason that they believed this was that the British government - led by Mrs T- was trying to negotiate soem kind of transfer of sovereignty with leaseback and had announced that it was withdrawing HMS Endurance, which was the permanent RN presence in that part of the South Atlantic.

By contrast, in 1977 Jim Callaghan (who came from a naval family and had been a naval officer during the war, but didn't have anything like all this fal-de-ral at his funeral) deterred an Argentinian attack on the Falklands that the FO thought was being planned by sending down, without any fuss, a small naval force.

Now, which one of the two do you think was the more effective leader in terms of defending the Falklands?

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
The fact that Thatcher had an all but in name full state funeral, means that the line between head of state and elected first minister is crossed. A backwards step IMHO.

She didn't have a state funeral so the line hasn't been crossed. This soundbite that is doing the rounds that it was one 'in all but name' is just meaningless rhetoric.

For this soundbite to have any meaning involves broadening the definition of a 'State funeral' to include anything that is 'quite impressive looking'. You can't make up definitions to suit your argument I'm afraid. The fact is that it wasn't a State funeral, it had nothing in common with a State funeral except it involved a funeral, and took place in London. It didn't involve lying in state for three days in Wetminster Abbey on a catafalque, guarded by the Household guards, it didn't involve a national holiday, the gun carraige wasn't pulled by sailors from the Royal Navy, it didn't involve any of the distinctive features of a State Funeral.

Posted by Mama Thomas (# 10170) on :

Sorry if it's been linked before, but I found this assessment by John Milbank to be fascinating.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

Regarding Bernhard Ingham, well, words fail me. Let's just say that I don't respect him.

Contemptible lies.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
It depends what you mean by 'an effective wartime leader'. Argentina attacked the Falklands in 1982 because they believed that Britain would not defend them: the reason that they believed this was that the British government - led by Mrs T- was trying to negotiate soem kind of transfer of sovereignty with leaseback and had announced that it was withdrawing HMS Endurance, which was the permanent RN presence in that part of the South Atlantic.

By contrast, in 1977 Jim Callaghan (who came from a naval family and had been a naval officer during the war, but didn't have anything like all this fal-de-ral at his funeral) deterred an Argentinian attack on the Falklands that the FO thought was being planned by sending down, without any fuss, a small naval force.

Now, which one of the two do you think was the more effective leader in terms of defending the Falklands?

This is too complex for the likes of me to analyse without making a careful historical study. I simply meant that Mrs Thatcher had won the war that she had, for good or ill, chosen to engage in. Are you suggesting she engineered this war for her own reasons? She wouldn't be the first leader to do such a thing. But even an engineered war has to be won. (Unless the intention is to lose it, or to create an indefinite state of 'terror'....)

I have no doubt that whoever organised the military aspect of the funeral was trying to create a certain atmosphere, to influence the response of the public in some way. After all, funerals are for the living, not the dead, so people say. Mrs T. is a very strong and convenient symbol for certain right-wing sentiments, so her funeral was never going to be a hush-hush affair; that would've looked too much like fear. And having a public event has allowed plenty of angry people to let off steam. In that sense the big funeral has served as a kind of safety valve.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

It's also been part of current political debate. The right-wing press has gorged itself on images of the Saviour Margaret; Labour has tried to remain discreet; more left-wing opponents have been more raucous.

Will it make any difference? Probably not. No doubt the Tories might hope for a Thatcher bounce in the polls, but they might also be nervous of a reminder of her toxicity.

No doubt all are relieved it's over.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

Good shout on the Falklands War Albertus . I could quite easily go conspiracy-side on that lot when considering how dramatically the conflict turned Tory fortunes around at that time .
Remembering of course how Maggie set the whole damn thing alight by sinking the Belgrano outside of the exclusion zone , then tried to deny it , then claimed the Conqueror had lost it's logbook , and then... and then .... and so on.

But Hey, she got away with it . Respect to the Iron Lady, may she indeed "Rust in Peace" .
< As a maker of gravestones , I really do like that joke >

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Thanks, Rolyn. On the Falklands, I tend to go with cock-up (veering towards criminal negligence) rather than conspiracy. I haven't made an historical study of it, but I remember as a 14 year old schoolboy in 1982 seeing very clearly the things I've mentioned, and the point was made at the time and has been often made since.
Still, there's no doubt that winning a war helps a PM greatly. I think it's Alan Clark, in the first volume of his diaries, who recalls Callaghan at the time of the Falklands War telling him that 'I wish I'd had a war' - ironic in view of the fact that he'd avoided one.
Oddly enough I've never managed to get too worked up about the Belgrano- the sinking, that is, not the cover-up: IANAL but I'd have thought that as a major enemy unit she'd have been a legitimate target wherever she was, even (as Clark said again) tied up at the dockside in her home port. Always slightly surprised that Thatch didn't take that line and went to all the trouble of the cover-up, but that's by the by.

[ 18. April 2013, 20:34: Message edited by: Albertus ]

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
The fact that Thatcher had an all but in name full state funeral, means that the line between head of state and elected first minister is crossed. A backwards step IMHO.
She didn't have a state funeral so the line hasn't been crossed. This soundbite that is doing the rounds that it was one 'in all but name' is just meaningless rhetoric.

For this soundbite to have any meaning involves broadening the definition of a 'State funeral' to include anything that is 'quite impressive looking'. You can't make up definitions to suit your argument I'm afraid. The fact is that it wasn't a State funeral, it had nothing in common with a State funeral except it involved a funeral, and took place in London. It didn't involve lying in state for three days in Wetminster Abbey on a catafalque, guarded by the Household guards, it didn't involve a national holiday, the gun carraige wasn't pulled by sailors from the Royal Navy, it didn't involve any of the distinctive features of a State Funeral.

Hawk,

I have to say that reply was incorrect. Service at St.Paul's, coffin bearers from the services, attendance by H.M. Queen and all the accoutrements of an English grand hurrah send off - come on you've got to be joking.

I was surprised there weren't Soviet style banners that adoring members of the public could have waved outside the church.

I am surprised that the BBC that Charles Moore (Thatcher's biographer) lambasted and berated so visciously for it's anti Thatcher stance, wasn't made to play funereal music 24/7 down it's media channels.

No, a quiet dignified, and as private as would be possible service would have sufficed.

But then again that was the rational and dignified option.

Saul

[ 18. April 2013, 22:36: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Svitlana2

By contrast, in 1977 Jim Callaghan (who came from a naval family and had been a naval officer during the war, but didn't have anything like all this fal-de-ral at his funeral)...

...err actually his father originally enlisted to got out of Ireland, eventually rising to Chief Petty Officer.

Young Jim started life as a Tax Officer, which job he did for nearly 7 years before becoming a full-time trade union official. He joined the Royal Naval Reserve as a rating and was called up as such before being offered an RNVR Lieutenancy in 1944 but he never served on board ship as such since he never completed the training due to prolonged treatment for TB before being given a desk job prior to demob. He was out of the Servce in time to stand for election (in Cardiff) in 1945.

He began campaigning in his RNVR uniform but went into civvies pretty swiftly having been heavily barracked by a group of RN veterans while campaigning - I know, my mother was a junior cog in his army of foot-soldiers. For all time he was always referred to in Cardiff as "stoker Jim".

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

I didn't post that.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Ooops. So sorry, SvitlanaV2, mea culpa.

I should have noted it was a post from Albertus.
[Hot and Hormonal]

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

That's okay.

Posted by malik3000 (# 11437) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by Saul
But why oh why the wall to wall media coverage?
Because in many parts of the world she is seen as someone who shamed/exposed their own governments into behaving better towards their people....
In the US, they see the UK as a nation which is kindly disposed towards them

Some of the "they" in the U.S. to which you refer might beg to differ. I sure as hell do. Since the time of Thatcher's U.S. pal Reagan the government of this political entity in which we reside has done precisely the opposite of behaving better towards its people, except for the very rich.

(For just one example out of many many, the days are long past when the average person could get a post-secondary education without the expectation of a lifetime of debt hanging over their head. I consider myself very blessed that i was able to complete my college education before the evil that was the "Reagan Revolution" took place.)

[ 19. April 2013, 01:04: Message edited by: malik3000 ]

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

We can argue about the scale of the funeral, the style of the funeral, the cost of the funeral, etc, etc, etc. We can debate whether Baroness Thatcher was worthy of such attention.

What I think has surprised many and annoyed many, is the public reaction to the funeral procession - you could almost hear the BBCs disappointment that no coal/milk bottles were thrown; you could tell they were waiting for the skirmishes at the side of the road, the howls of protest, the visible placards, the sight of crowds of people turning their backs. And, as far as the live coverage of the procession was concerned, it never happened!
We heard a some muted booing - and David Dimbleby commented on it.
We saw a couple of skittish horses at one point and DD commented that someone had thrown 'something' but they didn't know what - it could have been roses!

The applause, the cheering, the flowers indeed; actually, the numbers of people: ten deep in some places. It reflected the fact that actually, to the annoyance of the Left, some in the media and some Shipmates here, this was a popular occasion supported by a great many people who believe that Margaret Thatcher was indeed a great stateswoman, worthy of such an honour - even if you didn't agree with everything she did.

Now.
I know that there were places where people expressed their displeasure up and down the country but there were no alternative funeral street parties, that I am aware of.
I know that on the route, at Ludgate Circus for example, there was a lively crowd of protesters - but they had been just about drowned out by Baroness Thatcher's supporters as they clapped and cheered louder. It was only on the news that the BBC showed these people (and an ugly bunch they were) and showed us quite clearly, by their sunique position, that these people were actually not represenative of the feelings of most of those people who were attending the procession.

There will be all sorts of excuses made as to why the protests were muted and sparse - I would simply suggest that Mrs Thatcher was a lot more popular to most British people (young people included) than the Left would actually want to admit.

The proof was the funeral procession itself - and regardless of what some say about the cost, the truth is most people appear to believe it was fitting.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

Or else it means that most of the Left think street parties protests at a funeral are inappropriate.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by Svitlana2

By contrast, in 1977 Jim Callaghan (who came from a naval family and had been a naval officer during the war, but didn't have anything like all this fal-de-ral at his funeral)...

...err actually his father originally enlisted to got out of Ireland, eventually rising to Chief Petty Officer.

Young Jim started life as a Tax Officer, which job he did for nearly 7 years before becoming a full-time trade union official. He joined the Royal Naval Reserve as a rating and was called up as such before being offered an RNVR Lieutenancy in 1944 but he never served on board ship as such since he never completed the training due to prolonged treatment for TB before being given a desk job prior to demob. He was out of the Servce in time to stand for election (in Cardiff) in 1945.

He began campaigning in his RNVR uniform but went into civvies pretty swiftly having been heavily barracked by a group of RN veterans while campaigning - I know, my mother was a junior cog in his army of foot-soldiers. For all time he was always referred to in Cardiff as "stoker Jim".

Well, yes, his father was a CPO. He was born in Portsmouth and always had an affinity with the Navy. I count that as a naval family, if not a hugely long-standing one. I think he did actually serve on board ship - IIRC accoprding to kenneth O Morgan's biography, at the time of VJ Day he was in the Indian Ocean, although he didn't see combat. But my point is that Callaghan knew a bit more about defence than Thatch did.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I don't think you can extrapolate from the paucity of protesters at the funeral. I have fierce objections to Thatcher, but I would not disrupt a funeral, as I think it's tacky.

I think Cameron may see it all as a double-edged sword. He has to win next time, otherwise, he will be compared with the Great Leader, unfavourably. Aren't the knives already being sharpened, and the regicide planned?

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

This shows the popularity of the funeral in Bradford.

In Leeds.

In Edinburgh.

In Westminister.

I'm not saying that no-one was in London, but let's just say that there was less people in the UK who wanted to show respect during the wedding than expected. Of course, this was a work day, but still, if people really cared they could have taken a day or few hours off. Or retired people.

I doubt the unemployed would be too interested.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
\
I think Cameron may see it all as a double-edged sword. He has to win next time, otherwise, he will be compared with the Great Leader, unfavourably. Aren't the knives already being sharpened, and the regicide planned?

So on the one hand we have David Cameron, who is nearly as popular as John Major, and on the other we have Ed "as much personality as Niel Kinnock" Milliband. Does that mean it's down to the Sun?

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Oh Muddy, thou dost protest too much! The right would have loved it had there been mass "Thatcher's Dead!" parties - they could have pointed at all the wicked evil lefties.

Sorry we didn't live down to your expectations, but the main response, apart from some varied quality gallows humour, has been irritation that we're all being somehow expected to agree with the "you may not agree with everything she did but at least she had convictions and she rescued the country from the wicked unions etc. etc." line, which frankly I consider bollocks.

Up here I can't find anyone with a kind word for her. I know people like Deano exist, but they're rare.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I think it means that Cameron is on double or quits. The right wing may be temporarily quiet at the moment, because of the Thatcher-gasm, but they will be watching. Cameron is not in an enviable position, because he has to reclaim votes lost to UKIP, which means tacking to the right (e.g. vote Labour for a benefit scrounger neighbour), yet this might lose votes in the centre (hug a husky).

I watched that late night programme last night with Andrew Neill, and it was quite amusing as they had one guy on who said that Labour could not win, and Portillo basically saying that the Tories couldn't.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
This shows the popularity of the funeral in Bradford.

In Leeds.

In Edinburgh.

So no-one made a special journey to a windswept city centre to watch a funeral? Hardly surprising (though I can see how the photos are amusing).

quote:
In Westminister.

I'm not saying that no-one was in London, but let's just say that there was less people in the UK who wanted to show respect during the wedding than expected. Of course, this was a work day, but still, if people really cared they could have taken a day or few hours off. Or retired people.

In your view, how many were expected v. the number who did attend? The reports I've read suggest there were more well-wishers than expected and the photograph you've posted of the situation in London is misleading (though I suspect you know that). There are plenty of photos on the internet showing the large crowds, but if you can't find any I can e-mail you some of the photos that I took.

quote:
I doubt the unemployed would be too interested.

This unemployed man was.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think it means that Cameron is on double or quits. The right wing may be temporarily quiet at the moment, because of the Thatcher-gasm, but they will be watching. Cameron is not in an enviable position, because he has to reclaim votes lost to UKIP, which means tacking to the right (e.g. vote Labour for a benefit scrounger neighbour), yet this might lose votes in the centre (hug a husky).

I watched that late night programme last night with Andrew Neill, and it was quite amusing as they had one guy on who said that Labour could not win, and Portillo basically saying that the Tories couldn't.

Cameron is in deep doo doo. He is happy to have the ''Thatcher effect'' rub off on him and his government.

That Thatcher as Cameron spouted a few days ago, ''saved'' this country is a bit rich coming from Cameron as he and his party stabbed her in the back in 1990. It was an in house coup d'etat.

Saul

[ 19. April 2013, 09:53: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Then again, the economy will determine it. If there is some growth before long, the Tories may benefit. Hence I expect some Keynesian stuff to be rolled out, although it won't be called that!

Yes, the irony of Thatcher, the Great Leader, being assassinated by her own side, is one of history's jollies. Cameron does not want to join her.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Hawk,

I have to say that reply was incorrect. Service at St.Paul's, coffin bearers from the services, attendance by H.M. Queen and all the accoutrements of an English grand hurrah send off - come on you've got to be joking.

Is that the definition of a State funeral now? Just because you haven't got a clue what a State Funeral is, doesn't mean that anything that makes you go 'oooooh' qualifies as one. Sorry for the disapointment.

There are strict protocols for what a State Funeral is. Thatcher's was just a Ceremonial funeral.

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
I was surprised there weren't Soviet style banners that adoring members of the public could have waved outside the church.

I am surprised that the BBC that Charles Moore (Thatcher's biographer) lambasted and berated so visciously for it's anti Thatcher stance, wasn't made to play funereal music 24/7 down it's media channels.

Why surprised? Is it because of all the people that the state forced to attend the funeral and cheer her coffin, all the papers that were censored and banned for daring to print negative things about her. Oh, wait, that didn't happen because we're not living in a communist dictatorship, despite your wild fantasies.

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
No, a quiet dignified, and as private as would be possible service would have sufficed.

But then again that was the rational and dignified option.

According to you.

It's always amusing when people claim their own opinion is the only rational and dignified opinion. It's everyone else that's wrong!

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Hawk,

I have to say that reply was incorrect. Service at St.Paul's, coffin bearers from the services, attendance by H.M. Queen and all the accoutrements of an English grand hurrah send off - come on you've got to be joking.
Is that the definition of a State funeral now? Just because you haven't got a clue what a State Funeral is, doesn't mean that anything that makes you go 'oooooh' qualifies as one. Sorry for the disapointment.

There are strict protocols for what a State Funeral is. Thatcher's was just a Ceremonial funeral.

And it was tiny compared to the only other 2 ceremonial funerals held in living memory - HM the Queen Mother and Diana, Princess of Wales.

The QM's cost £8m but just look at the huge scale of it all.
Baroness T's funeral was a fraction of the size and therefore was appropriate and far less expensive.

As I said before, had she been put in a bin bag and thrown over a wall someone would have complained about the cost of the bin bag!

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Look, this State Funeral/ Ceremonial Funeral thing is largely irrelevant: it's the difference between Bling ++ and Bling +++, but the contrast is with previous PMs (apart from Churchill, Gladstone, Wellington and Palmerston) who had merely Bling or even Bling -.

The one respect in which it's NOT irrelevant is that AIUI a State Funeral has to be authorised by Parliament and that authorisation must include a budget being voted for it. I'm sure this isn't the only reason that Thatch's funeral was Ceremonial rather than State, but in the current economic and political climate Boy George and Call-me-Dave must have been mightily relieved not to have to publish the expected costs in advance.

Posted by M. (# 3291) on :

Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:

quote:
I'm not saying that no-one was in London, but let's just say that there was less people in the UK who wanted to show respect during the wedding than expected.

The photo you linked to is very interesting - I wonder when it was taken? As it was taken from almost exactly the spot where I was standing (for the 30 seconds it took for the hearse to go by) and the whole place was crowded then - as I say, for about 30 seconds. Numbers of people seem to have wandered out from the surrounding offices to pay their respects - as did I.

However, I'm not sure people had realised they were watching a wedding.

M.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by M.:
However, I'm not sure people had realised they were watching a wedding.

M.

So now we know, Rosa Winkel is actually BBC Presenter Charlie Stayt!

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by M.:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:

quote:
I'm not saying that no-one was in London, but let's just say that there was less people in the UK who wanted to show respect during the wedding than expected.
The photo you linked to is very interesting - I wonder when it was taken? As it was taken from almost exactly the spot where I was standing (for the 30 seconds it took for the hearse to go by) and the whole place was crowded then - as I say, for about 30 seconds. Numbers of people seem to have wandered out from the surrounding offices to pay their respects - as did I.

However, I'm not sure people had realised they were watching a wedding.

M.

One public celebration tends to blur into another (happy now Muddy? [Biased]

)

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Hmmm, may I just remind you that Baroness Thatcher was 87 when she died. It was not an unexpected event and it was long-anticipated and long-prepared for.

And might it alter things in the minds of some to know that in actual fact the arrangements for this funeral were agreed by Messrs Blair and Brown under their tenures as PM?

Did you really think that on the evening of Baroness T's death Dave and George had a quick meeting at No. 10 in order to sketch out all the funeral plans they way they wanted them, including booking the bands and the military and sending a quick note to the Queen asking if she happened to be free?

This was planned years ago - don't forget she was having strokes before 2002!! She could have dropped dead at any time over the last decade and the Labour Government were prepared and the funeral would have looked just the same under brown as PM and is did under Cameron.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Ah dinnae really care. I'm one of those who lament that we don't actually have a proper lefty party in the UK any more, so what Blair and Brown would have approved of means very little to me.

I was disappointed enough to learn that Blair had apparently had Thatcher around to give him advice at the beginning of his time as PM.

If it's been planned so long in advance, why were they unable to tell us how much it's actually cost? You could be right that it's less than the £10 million, but you've got to understand why the lack of an official figure is leaving space to speculation, surely?

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

I daresay there were areas where a lot of people were. I'm just questioning how many of these areas there were.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Ah dinnae really care. I'm one of those who lament that we don't actually have a proper lefty party in the UK any more,

Ah, like in the 1970s and 80s?
Oh that would be good.

[Roll Eyes]

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Ah dinnae really care. I'm one of those who lament that we don't actually have a proper lefty party in the UK any more,
Ah, like in the 1970s and 80s?
Oh that would be good.

I didn't say they'd get elected. Unfortunately. I've never quite understood why, but very few people seem willing to abandon the defence strategy of threatening to poison the earth and turn children to dust ((c) Leon Rosselson) for example.

I can dream.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Ah, like in the 1970s and 80s?
Oh that would be good.

While a right-wing party of the 1970s or 1980s would be marvelous.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
This shows the popularity of the funeral in Bradford.

In Leeds.

In Edinburgh.
So no-one made a special journey to a windswept city centre to watch a funeral? Hardly surprising (though I can see how the photos are amusing).

It was the middle of the day! Even on a windswept and rainy day our city centres are usually full of people. In all those cities there must have been hundreds of people in the streets, they just didn't care to worship at the Thatcher shrine.

Posted by M. (# 3291) on :

Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:

quote:
I daresay there were areas where a lot of people were. I'm just questioning how many of these areas there were.

So why did you link to that photo? I had assumed that you had posted the link to demonstrate that that particular area was empty at the time the hearse was passing. It was not.

I do not have personal knowledge of other parts of the route but I do have personal knowledge of that part.

M.

Edited to add: All I am doing is suggesting that that photo in particular is misleading.

[ 19. April 2013, 13:10: Message edited by: M. ]

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:

There are strict protocols for what a State Funeral is. Thatcher's was just a Ceremonial funeral.

Paid for by the State. Which Thatcher wished would become insignificant.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

And might it alter things in the minds of some to know that in actual fact the arrangements for this funeral were agreed by Messrs Blair and Brown under their tenures as PM?

No. Blair, Brown, Cameron, Osborne: all the same as far as I can see.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:

Furthermore, the bailouts were the result of a situation that developed on Labour's watch, notwithstanding that Thatcher could be argued to have set it in motion, oh, some 22 years before.
Or you could argue that the Tories under Thatcher shifted the Overton window sufficiently that further regulation of the financial industries wasn't politically feasible regardless of intent. As alienfromzog points out above, the Tories are hardly champing on the bit to regulate after (or before) the event.

I'm not sure what the Overton window is, but it seems to me that 9 years (1997 to 2008) is enough time to become responsible for its location.

Plenty of countries round the world had Thatcherite reforms, including this one (and it is interesting to note how much less reviled their proponents are than Thatcher is in the UK). Their banks did not get themselves tied in knots like those in the UK.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
This shows the popularity of the funeral in Bradford.

In Leeds.

In Edinburgh.
So no-one made a special journey to a windswept city centre to watch a funeral? Hardly surprising (though I can see how the photos are amusing).
It was the middle of the day! Even on a windswept and rainy day our city centres are usually full of people. In all those cities there must have been hundreds of people in the streets, they just didn't care to worship at the Thatcher shrine.

If that was the case, then presumably the photos would show lots of people going about their business but not watching the screens?

I can't speak for anyone else, but watching a politician's funeral on a giant outdoor screen seems a bit odd to me. If I was living in the provinces and wanted to watch it, I'd stay at home to do so, otherwise I'd ignore it and go about doing whatever I needed to do.

Though I suppose if one is celebrating her death then one might camp outside one of these big screens with one's fellow travellers to make an event of it.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I'm not sure what the Overton window is, but it seems to me that 9 years (1997 to 2008) is enough time to become responsible for its location.

Absolutely, and his mistakes on this point were largely confined in following the ideological example of Mrs Thatcher.

quote:

Plenty of countries round the world had Thatcherite reforms, including this one (and it is interesting to note how much less reviled their proponents are than Thatcher is in the UK). Their banks did not get themselves tied in knots like those in the UK.

Yes, and the difference was an over active financial sector (see point one), and an overheated housing market (see point one).

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

Repeat: other countries, including this one, underwent Thatcherite reforms but retained perfectly healthy financial sectors.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

We had our warning with the Baring's Bank fiasco, chose to ignore the spread of sharp practice, and have now paid the price.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

The Achilles heel, I would suggest, with ''Thatcherism'' and the legacy of Thatcher is fundamentally - selfish greed.

Unbridled Thatcherism was -in part - responsible for the catastrophe of Northern Rock in 2007/08.

The financial market even under Labour's Blair/Brown saw the city of London as if it could do no wrong. This Labour worship of Mammon was built on Thatcher and Major's deification of the city of London.

When the scale of the greed and inept investments came to light people were shocked. My view is that Thatcher laid the foundation of this manic greed and self obsession - the get rich quick mentality and **** everyone else.

Thatcher supporters may argue that the good lady was prudent and would not be so crass as to support unbridled venality and greed. But her deregulation set the tone for the Harry Enfield ''loadsamoney'' stereotype - which had some reflection in actual reality IMHO. This barrow boy in the city culture, tended to enthrone money and financial markets almost as a godlike can do no wrong divinity. It was the easy money factory and the worship was something many of us participated in. Credit was oh so easy and it was borrow borrow borrow.

This for me is the legacy of Thatcher, it helped set the scene for the triple dip recession , in part, that we are now in.

Saul

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
The Achilles heel, I would suggest, with ''Thatcherism'' and the legacy of Thatcher is fundamentally - selfish greed.

Unbridled Thatcherism was -in part - responsible for the catastrophe of Northern Rock in 2007/08.

The financial market even under Labour's Blair/Brown saw the city of London as if it could do no wrong. This Labour worship of Mammon was built on Thatcher and Major's deification of the city of London.

When the scale of the greed and inept investments came to light people were shocked. My view is that Thatcher laid the foundation of this manic greed and self obsession - the get rich quick mentality and **** everyone else.

Thatcher supporters may argue that the good lady was prudent and would not be so crass as to support unbridled venality and greed. But her deregulation set the tone for the Harry Enfield ''loadsamoney'' stereotype - which had some reflection in actual reality IMHO. This barrow boy in the city culture, tended to enthrone money and financial markets almost as a godlike can do no wrong divinity. It was the easy money factory and the worship was something many of us participated in. Credit was oh so easy and it was borrow borrow borrow.

This for me is the legacy of Thatcher, it helped set the scene for the triple dip recession , in part, that we are now in.

Saul

Two things.
What do you think London was built on? It certainly wasn't sheep-farming!! It has always been a trading/mercantile/banking city. There are Guilds and Societies and warehouses (now flats) to show that for centuries London has been the very centre and focus of finance and commerce. You cannot say that MT invented wealth creation - it's the very soul of London.

And secondly you are incorrect.
We are NOT in a triple dip recession.
Though it's not good news yet:

see here

[ 21. April 2013, 12:01: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
The Achilles heel, I would suggest, with ''Thatcherism'' and the legacy of Thatcher is fundamentally - selfish greed.

Unbridled Thatcherism was -in part - responsible for the catastrophe of Northern Rock in 2007/08.

The financial market even under Labour's Blair/Brown saw the city of London as if it could do no wrong. This Labour worship of Mammon was built on Thatcher and Major's deification of the city of London.

When the scale of the greed and inept investments came to light people were shocked. My view is that Thatcher laid the foundation of this manic greed and self obsession - the get rich quick mentality and **** everyone else.

Thatcher supporters may argue that the good lady was prudent and would not be so crass as to support unbridled venality and greed. But her deregulation set the tone for the Harry Enfield ''loadsamoney'' stereotype - which had some reflection in actual reality IMHO. This barrow boy in the city culture, tended to enthrone money and financial markets almost as a godlike can do no wrong divinity. It was the easy money factory and the worship was something many of us participated in. Credit was oh so easy and it was borrow borrow borrow.

This for me is the legacy of Thatcher, it helped set the scene for the triple dip recession , in part, that we are now in.

Saul

Having a bogeywoman to blame for everything one thinks is wrong with Britain today lets one off addressing actual issues now. It's all so much easier. She wrecked the mining communities, rather than that they had dug out all the coal. Scargill was demanding the right for people to carry on being paid danger money to dig out exhausted coal seams in dangerous and filthy condition. She made financiers greedy, rather than that they might themselves be selfish crooks. It's rather like preachers who attribute every sin to demons.

It's 22½ years since she left office. There was a Conservative administration which hung for its full term after her, and then three Labour ones totalling 13 years. That's a comparable duration to everything between the end of the war and Harold Wilson's 100 days in 1964.

Blaming her for everything is an excuse for people who haven't the vision to imagine how things could be and then try and do something to improve them.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I don't think the coal was mined out. FRom a variety of sources:

According to 2011 estimates, Britain still has a total coal reserve of 3,196 million tonnes (surface and underground). Labour list.org

The UK Coal Forum estimated the UK's underground coal reserves to be about 105 million tonnes in 2009. In addition to these underground reserves, there are surface-level coal fields, but mining these requires planning permission. EDFenergy.com

Britain has sufficient coal reserves for 200 years...
At the moment, most of the coal in Britain is too deep and inaccessible to be economically viable.

Daily Mail

The UK has abundant reserves of coal, according to the latest assessment given by then Energy Minister Charles Hendry in July 2011:

Underground 2,344 Mt
Surface 852 Mt
Total 3,196 Mt

ukcoal.com

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
The Achilles heel, I would suggest, with ''Thatcherism'' and the legacy of Thatcher is fundamentally - selfish greed.

Unbridled Thatcherism was -in part - responsible for the catastrophe of Northern Rock in 2007/08.

The financial market even under Labour's Blair/Brown saw the city of London as if it could do no wrong. This Labour worship of Mammon was built on Thatcher and Major's deification of the city of London.

When the scale of the greed and inept investments came to light people were shocked. My view is that Thatcher laid the foundation of this manic greed and self obsession - the get rich quick mentality and **** everyone else.

Thatcher supporters may argue that the good lady was prudent and would not be so crass as to support unbridled venality and greed. But her deregulation set the tone for the Harry Enfield ''loadsamoney'' stereotype - which had some reflection in actual reality IMHO. This barrow boy in the city culture, tended to enthrone money and financial markets almost as a godlike can do no wrong divinity. It was the easy money factory and the worship was something many of us participated in. Credit was oh so easy and it was borrow borrow borrow.

This for me is the legacy of Thatcher, it helped set the scene for the triple dip recession , in part, that we are now in.

Saul
Two things.
What do you think London was built on? It certainly wasn't sheep-farming!! It has always been a trading/mercantile/banking city. There are Guilds and Societies and warehouses (now flats) to show that for centuries London has been the very centre and focus of finance and commerce. You cannot say that MT invented wealth creation - it's the very soul of London.

And secondly you are incorrect.
We are NOT in a triple dip recession.
Though it's not good news yet:

see here

Well, I think we're straining at gnats here aren't we?

Even the arch Tory ''Daily Express'' business pages talks about it, OK we're not actually in the ''church'' of triple dip but we're through the lychgate and almost through the door.

http://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/393538/Flatlining-UK-at-risk-of-triple-dip-recession

I wouldn't disagree with you and (I am not a socialist BTW) about the city of London.

You may have noted that I didn't blame ''capitalism'', I actually fired off at unbridled greed and this is what was set off in Thatcher's Britain. It continued after her demise and it was the free enterprise culture with no limits and it was the no limits that got us into this mess we're in.

Credit and easier and totally no holds barred credit - credit and a lack of understanding that you can't just go on living on credit got us into this mess.

The city of London ethos clearly changed in the 1980s and that WAS part of Margaret Thatcher's legacy - and I am not saying she is to blame for all our ills, but the unleashed city greed is partly to be laid at her door IMHO. Thus it is part of her legacy to the nation.

Saul

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Well, I think we're straining at gnats here aren't we?

Even the arch Tory ''Daily Express'' business pages talks about it,

Not really. There's a definition of 'recession' and the UK economy doesn't fit that definition on the current data.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Having reserves of coal that are inaccessible is, to me, a definition that the mines are 'mined out.'

In any case it's a cheek that the Labour party would talk about the coal that's left when it was Harold Wilson that closed more mines than Mrs T ever did.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

I think we could bat this one until Kingdom come could we not?

Standard Chartered take a rather downbeat view:

quote:
Sarah Hewin, head of research on European economies at Standard Chartered, said the UK will not be able to avoid a triple-dip recession. She said: "The real weak spots of the economy are manufacturing and construction. Employment is still rising, but wages are weak. The economy is moving ahead but there is a lot of stopping and starting. "We won't avoid a triple-dip recession. We are at risk, but we'll see a pick up later in the year."

At the end of the day we're on the brink of another wobble.

Of course it would be wrong to blame all ills on Thatcher and I haven't in fact done this if you read my posts have I?

But the post war one nation ideal perished in 1979 when Thatcher was made Prime Minister. The body politic wasn't happy of course and the big bogey of the Tories - Trade Unionists - were still too strong for Thatcher.

Saul

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
... The city of London ethos clearly changed in the 1980s and that WAS part of Margaret Thatcher's legacy - and I am not saying she is to blame for all our ills, but the unleashed city greed is partly to be laid at her door IMHO. Thus it is part of her legacy to the nation.

That's the same sort of moral thinking as 'it's the man behind the bar who sold me the beer who is to blame because I beat my wife'.

Human nature has its strengths but also its weaknesses. Give some people the opportunity to be greedy and dishonest in their own favour, and they will take it. Give some leaders of the commanding heights of the Trade Union Movement in the 1970s the opportunity to exploit economic decline to use their power base to try and take over the state, and they too will take it. Give a dodgy South American cabal of generals with domestic problems of their own the temptation to distract attention from them by grabbing two islands that don't belong to them, and they too will give way to the temptation.

What distinguishes the better from the worse human being isn't whether we escape being tempted. The temptations are different, but are always there. It's whether we give into them. But it's also, when we do, whether we accept responsibility or whether we blame somebody else - it's all his, or in this case, her fault. 'The serpent or the woman tempted me and I did eat'.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Yes, but this cuts another way too. You have to take responsibility for the reasonably foreseeable consequences of your actions, even though you might not desire those consequences. In fact, quite a lot of what governments do - like deregulating the financial sector- is done with a view to allowing or encouraging other people to act in particular ways. So when, as a government, you are planning or designing courses of action, you need to think about what the likely outcomes will be, and accept responsibility for them.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
... The city of London ethos clearly changed in the 1980s and that WAS part of Margaret Thatcher's legacy - and I am not saying she is to blame for all our ills, but the unleashed city greed is partly to be laid at her door IMHO. Thus it is part of her legacy to the nation.
That's the same sort of moral thinking as 'it's the man behind the bar who sold me the beer who is to blame because I beat my wife'.

Only if the man behind the bar actively wanted to promote wife-beating. That would be a more accurate analogy.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Albertus
Yes, but this cuts another way too. You have to take responsibility for the reasonably foreseeable consequences of your actions, even though you might not desire those consequences. In fact, quite a lot of what governments do - like deregulating the financial sector- is done with a view to allowing or encouraging other people to act in particular ways. So when, as a government, you are planning or designing courses of action, you need to think about what the likely outcomes will be, and accept responsibility for them.

Reasonably foreseeable consequences maybe, but I fail to see how anyone can blame Margaret Thatcher, or her "ism" for the shambles at Northern Rock.

Northern Rock failed in 2007 - nearly 16 years after Margaret Thatcher left office and more than 10 years after Tony Blair and Gordon Brown took over as PM and Chancellor.

The so-called De-regulation of the City - more commonly called "Big Bang" was in 1987: it was primarily to do with investment selling and dealing and covered, among other things

separation of selling and research departments in investment houses
separation of dealing departments and nominee holding departments to present boiler-house dealing
registration of every person involved in dealing in stocks, shares, government gilts and unit trusts
registration of every person holding a position as either a director or in the finance department of all dealing houses and stockbrking firms, including those that were part of a retail bank
mandatory statements being sent by nominee services to all clients on whose behalf they held shares and other investments
for the first time all dealing and broking firms could be subject to inspection: if the regulator thought fit this could be without notice

Big Bang did NOT affect the inspection regime of retail banks, which was left to the Bank of England. Building Societies had their own regulatory authority.

The so-called "light-touch" regulatory system for banks was brought in under Gordon Brown soon after Labour's general election victory which brought an end to 18 years of Tory rule. A lot of the big ideas in the light-touch regime were produced by Ed Miliband during his period as a Special Advisor to the Shadow Treasury team under Harriet Harman and then Gordon Brown and were then further worked on by Ed Balls. The final regulatory framework was a joint effort between Balls and Miliband with Brown taking overall charge as Chancellor.

It was THIS piece of legislation that brought about the perfect conditions for a catastrophe such as Northern Rock to happen. A lethal combination of de-mutualisation, granting of banking licences without any health-check on whether the staff (directors and investment teams, in particular) were up to the job, and a total lack of any meaningful oversight meant that Northern Rock could throw its investors' - still largely its customers from when it was a mutual - money into worthless junk bonds based on US sub-prime debt.

The near-collapse of the whole UK banking system must be laid at the feet of the people who put in place the conditions for it to come about - and they are Gordon Brown and Eds Ball and Miliband.

Make no mistake, the Tory Big Bang and accompanying legislation were not to blame for Northern Rock, RBS or HBOS/Lloyds. Furthermore, after the collapse of Barings (a merchant bank, not a retail outfit) the Tories strengthened the inspection regime for ALL banks to ensure that investors' money was safe and that banks and their employees didn't play casino with clients' money.

The case of HBOS/Lloyds, in particular, is tragic: Lloyds was a pretty well-run bank that was, effectively, strong-armed into taking over another Scottish instutition to prevent a collapse by Messrs Brown and Darling.

Consequences??? Well, Margaret Thatcher is still being blamed for many things but the banking crisis of 2007 to now is nothing to do with her. In fact, she mistrusted the whole "city" thing and was also deeply suspicious of what a windfall could do to otherwise sensible people and institutions - that was one of the reasons why she (wrongly, IMHO) made sure that councils couldn't touch the money from the sale of council houses. Don't forget, when eventually the Labour government post 1997 loosened controls so they could invest this money, many councils promptly sank it into junk bonds and the like or thought it prudent to invest it in Iceland...

[ 21. April 2013, 17:58: Message edited by: L'organist ]

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

I think if you read my post I am not blaming Thatcher for sudden infant death syndrome. For avian flu or indeed premature melting of ice cream other things that popular myth and magic may like to imagine that the ''baddie'' has done.

What I meant was that Thatcher set the scene for unbridled greed by the de-regulation. The spirit of the age was moved by Thatcher and that spirit was one of greed and selfishness. That was the parody by Harry Enfield (loadsamoney) it's not a question of the blame Maggie for all bad things; that would be a nonsense. But she was a key player in this deregulation which in turn did lead on to a market which would brook no opposition (it became greedy and engorged) and even the Labour government of Blair and Brown was in thrall to it's power and wealth.

Of course that is IMHO.

Saul

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Having reserves of coal that are inaccessible is, to me, a definition that the mines are 'mined out.'

In any case it's a cheek that the Labour party would talk about the coal that's left when it was Harold Wilson that closed more mines than Mrs T ever did.

Please note that the source of the figure that the labour site gave was the coal industry itself, and referred to by a minister in July 2011.

Also that it was the Mail which suggested the reserves were inaccessible, not a science based resource. Most of the problem, which I did not quote, was the cost of extraction, which is only a problem of economic accessibility.

I tend to think of geological accessibility - and in addition, accessibility for underground processing into gas and derivatives. No-one would label this stuff as reserves if it were not able to be exploited. "Mined out", to me, means that anything that is left is in pockets or seams which are too thin to be worked at all, ever. And with the amounts of reserves being in millions of tonnes, that is obviously not true.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

There are a number of what amount to be 'yah-boo' posts on this thread, by Thatcher supporters asserting that 'the other side' are equally or more to blame for the problems. The problem with this is that they assume (New) Labour had a different ideology from Thatcherism and indeed was/is even 'left wing'. Blair and his cronies might have offered a different (and in some ways softer) version of Thatcherism, but Thatcherism is what it essentially was. Ed Miliband is the most left-wing leader Labour has had for some time, but even he is not prepared to challenge the basic premise.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

Penny, I'm not arguing that there is no coal left under the UK. I'm saying that a large number of the individual mines that Scargill was fighting for in the 70s and 80s were old and mined out. They were also wet, nasty and very dangerous. If you were going to sink a modern mine, then or now, you wouldn't do it the way it was done in the early C20. You wouldn't extract the coal with men hewing the stuff out with picks in the dark with ponies.

It's all very well for sentimental middle class leftists to admire the proletarian solidarity of the working classes from afar, but they don't go down the things. Nobody should have to earn their living endangering their life and lungs in that way if it can possibly be avoided.

In the late seventies I met a man who was dying of pneumoconiosis. He had worked in a mine in South Wales for a few months over thirty years previously. Though he'd worked in the fresh air ever since, it had still got him. It was like watching somebody drown slowly.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

Yes I could never understand the determination of the NUM to fight for their right to work under appalling conditions and risk an early death. Scargill and Thatcher were made for each other really. However it was the latter's contempt for the miners, and willingness to write off and destroy whole communities, that was the biggest tragedy. A phased withdrawal from dependency on coal, and a development of new industries and new forms of energy, should have happened. But that needs a long-term vision which neither Thatcher's government nor any other of any flavour, have been much good at.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Yes I could never understand the determination of the NUM to fight for their right to work under appalling conditions and risk an early death. Scargill and Thatcher were made for each other really. However it was the latter's contempt for the miners, and willingness to write off and destroy whole communities, that was the biggest tragedy. A phased withdrawal from dependency on coal, and a development of new industries and new forms of energy, should have happened. But that needs a long-term vision which neither Thatcher's government nor any other of any flavour, have been much good at.

Yeah yeah yeah - the myth of mine closures.
I repeat. Harold Wilson closed more mines and sacked more miners than Mrs Thatcher ever did.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Yeah yeah yeah - the myth of mine closures.
I repeat. Harold Wilson closed more mines and sacked more miners than Mrs Thatcher ever did.

No, we know this. What we also know is that Wilson didn't pursue the scorched earth policy that Thatcher did, and managed the closures far, far better, by extending employment rights, regional development funds and other important industrial and social reforms.

It's this you fail to recognise.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
[E]xtending employment rights

What sort do you have in mind? My initial thought would be that employment rights aren't that great a use if one's place of employment ceases to exist.

[ 21. April 2013, 22:55: Message edited by: Anglican't ]

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
[E]xtending employment rights
What sort do you have in mind? My initial thought would be that employment rights aren't that great a use if one's place of employment ceases to exist.

You're absolutely right. But do you think that introducing say, maternity pay and making the sacking of pregnant women illegal (both of which Wilson did) was going to make the unions believe he had working people's best interest at heart even though mines were being closed, or that he was intending to throw them all on the scrapheap and couldn't give a shit about what happened to them? Take your time...

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

Mining in this country was decimated by Thatcher.

We have proven reserves and mined correctly (using modern safety procedures) the deaths and injuries can be made much smaller than say in the 1950s.

There is no good reason why coal mines should not be operating today. With clean burn technology coal is a perfectly viable fuel and there is plenty left here in the UK.

One legacy of Thatcher - hardly any coal mines.

Saul

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Mining in this country was decimated by Thatcher...

One legacy of Thatcher - hardly any coal mines.

Saul

I think THIS might give a sense of balance and perspective.

[ 22. April 2013, 07:10: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]

Posted by Sighthound (# 15185) on :

So now we import coal from places like Poland. British coal was a strategic asset which we have basically thrown away.

I suppose it's OK as long as foreign countries continue to accept our currency as being worth slightly more than the Confederate Dollar. But it seems to me that the UK is in a very weak economic position, way too dependent on the banking and insurance sector, and extremely vulnerable in the face of any significant crisis. A wise government would be busting a gut to reduce our dependence on foreign imports, particularly in regard to energy supply.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

Just as denationalising the utilities has ended up with them being owned by government. Just not our government.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
[E]xtending employment rights
What sort do you have in mind? My initial thought would be that employment rights aren't that great a use if one's place of employment ceases to exist.
You're absolutely right. But do you think that introducing say, maternity pay and making the sacking of pregnant women illegal (both of which Wilson did) was going to make the unions believe he had working people's best interest at heart even though mines were being closed, or that he was intending to throw them all on the scrapheap and couldn't give a shit about what happened to them? Take your time...

I don't. First off, in the context of the overwhelmingly male-dominated coal mining industry I can't imagine the NUM was that fussed about maternity pay. Secondly, the mining union had effectively toppled one government and was willing to topple another, having said that in its view there was no limit to the amount of subsidy that should be given to keep open a pit. Against that background (and considering that redundancy offers had been rebuffed) I'm not sure how the NUM could have been appeased I very much doubt that the sops you're suggesting would've worked.

Thanks for letting me have time to consider the matter, but I stand by my initial thoughts.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
So now we import coal from places like Poland.

I saw a graph on Facebook (can't remember on what page) where it was shown that coal from Russia is the biggest amount used in the UK. I can't remember if Poland was there. Germany was there as well. The UK was higher than I expected, something which surprised me given the "inferior coal" claims.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Yeah yeah yeah - the myth of mine closures.
I repeat. Harold Wilson closed more mines and sacked more miners than Mrs Thatcher ever did.

I agree, not a myth at all, but the motives were very different. Wilson closed mines on grounds of efficiency and safety while Thatcher did so on ideological grounds, as part of her fight against the unions. She was good at fighting, hence the bitterly opposed views to her.

eta: 'and safety'

[ 22. April 2013, 11:27: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I very much doubt that the sops you're suggesting would've worked.

Firstly, you consider a rule against sacking pregnant women a sop. Interesting, especially when it's included in a raft of labour reforms.

Secondly, if you were right and the NUM was wrong, how come large parts of former mining regions remain to this day deep in poverty? Wilson got mine closures through by being sympathetic and putting schemes in place that would help redundant miners and their families.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Saul the Apostle
What I meant was that Thatcher set the scene for unbridled greed by the de-regulation. The spirit of the age was moved by Thatcher and that spirit was one of greed and selfishness.

And what I'm saying is that, in fact, there was precious little, if any, "de-regulation". In relation to banking, stockbroking and share-dealing, investment management, etc, the Thatcher years saw more, in some cases in fact the first, regulation applied: of particular relevance was the first move to look at individuals who work in the sector so that the person attempting to sell you a product had to be registered. Increasing regulation of the City led to more jobs being created; more prosperous people bought more investment products and the commissions on these not only paid the salaries of their salesmen, they also enabled the City bonus to become a standard salary add-on - the "loadsamoney" character was portrayed as a bit of an Essex wide-boy because that is what some of them were, and certainly where many of them lived.

The first building societies didn't demutualise until she'd been in power for a decade so firms like Alliance & Leicester couldn't operate like a bank, which was outside their field of expertise and the regulatory framework was specific to a mutual loan operation.

Where there was a huge change was in the area of consumer credit (remember HP?):from 2 British credit cards - Access and Barclaycard - the market was opened up and suddenly every bank had a tie-in with either Visa or MasterCard, and the Storecard was invented as another credit vehicle, where previously any such thing had been along the lines of the traditional Amex, i.e. pay back the total balance every month.

The "Spirit of the Age" that you mention has probably rather more to do with the mortgage interest rate being relatively low and (crucially) stable from one month to the next. This co-incided with the baby-boomers earning more as they rose up the work ladder, their children reached secondary school which enabled stay-at-home mums to go back into the workforce and people suddenly had a much higher disposable income: this enabled them to take advantage of council house sales or to move further up the property ladder.

Mrs Thatcher's own instincts were as a saver and it is clear that she thought people would save more (either as straight cash in the bank or hold money in unit trusts) and pay down their debt. She may have been naive but it is not her fault that thousands of Brits chose not to save for a rainy day or pay off mortgage debt but rather to start on the consumer splurge that continued until the late 2000s.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Firstly, you consider a rule against sacking pregnant women a sop. Interesting, especially when it's included in a raft of labour reforms.

It's a sop if it's the kind change that one cannot benefit from directly.

quote:
Secondly, if you were right and the NUM was wrong, how come large parts of former mining regions remain to this day deep in poverty? Wilson got mine closures through by being sympathetic and putting schemes in place that would help redundant miners and their families.

Are you saying that villages whose pits were closed by Wilson are better off than those whose pits were closed by Thatcher? If you are, could you give some examples?

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
... Secondly, if you were right and the NUM was wrong, how come large parts of former mining regions remain to this day deep in poverty? ...

Possibly because many pit villages were in places where the only natural resource was coal, and where if the coal had not been there, they would be as empty as many other rural areas are these days. Most people know that the area round Radstock in Somerset had a coal field because it lasted until the sixties. Likewise, Kent. How many people can remember that West Pembrokeshire once had one?

The same applies to a wide range of other extraction industries, stone, slate etc.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Enoch
How many people can remember that West Pembrokeshire once had one?

It was a very small mine but plenty of people know about it because it produced the coal for use in the royal household - because it burnt clean.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Firstly, you consider a rule against sacking pregnant women a sop. Interesting, especially when it's included in a raft of labour reforms.
It's a sop if it's the kind change that one cannot benefit from directly.

Again, interesting, but typical of conservatives. I'd like to think the labour movement would see something that benefited their wives and daughters as benefiting them directly. Especially as working women kept coalfield areas afloat during the closures.

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Secondly, if you were right and the NUM was wrong, how come large parts of former mining regions remain to this day deep in poverty? Wilson got mine closures through by being sympathetic and putting schemes in place that would help redundant miners and their families.
Are you saying that villages whose pits were closed by Wilson are better off than those whose pits were closed by Thatcher? If you are, could you give some examples?

The only example I'm able to give is the fact that Wilson's mine closure program didn't raise the ire that the MacGregor plan did. Consequently, I can conclude that the miners involved accepted the closure of their pits as economic necessity, as opposed to naked political savagery. As evidence, it requires rebuttal.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by Saul the Apostle
What I meant was that Thatcher set the scene for unbridled greed by the de-regulation. The spirit of the age was moved by Thatcher and that spirit was one of greed and selfishness.
And what I'm saying is that, in fact, there was precious little, if any, "de-regulation". In relation to banking, stockbroking and share-dealing, investment management, etc, the Thatcher years saw more, in some cases in fact the first, regulation applied: of particular relevance was the first move to look at individuals who work in the sector so that the person attempting to sell you a product had to be registered. Increasing regulation of the City led to more jobs being created; more prosperous people bought more investment products and the commissions on these not only paid the salaries of their salesmen, they also enabled the City bonus to become a standard salary add-on - the "loadsamoney" character was portrayed as a bit of an Essex wide-boy because that is what some of them were, and certainly where many of them lived.

The first building societies didn't demutualise until she'd been in power for a decade so firms like Alliance & Leicester couldn't operate like a bank, which was outside their field of expertise and the regulatory framework was specific to a mutual loan operation.

Where there was a huge change was in the area of consumer credit (remember HP?):from 2 British credit cards - Access and Barclaycard - the market was opened up and suddenly every bank had a tie-in with either Visa or MasterCard, and the Storecard was invented as another credit vehicle, where previously any such thing had been along the lines of the traditional Amex, i.e. pay back the total balance every month.

The "Spirit of the Age" that you mention has probably rather more to do with the mortgage interest rate being relatively low and (crucially) stable from one month to the next. This co-incided with the baby-boomers earning more as they rose up the work ladder, their children reached secondary school which enabled stay-at-home mums to go back into the workforce and people suddenly had a much higher disposable income: this enabled them to take advantage of council house sales or to move further up the property ladder.

Mrs Thatcher's own instincts were as a saver and it is clear that she thought people would save more (either as straight cash in the bank or hold money in unit trusts) and pay down their debt. She may have been naive but it is not her fault that thousands of Brits chose not to save for a rainy day or pay off mortgage debt but rather to start on the consumer splurge that continued until the late 2000s.

Yes, the idea we'd save all our disposable income was a chimera. I think figures for Germany are different? Germans save a higher proportion of disposable income than British people.

Thatcher undoubtedly wanted us to be an industrious nation of hard working savers.

However, what I call the spirit of the age is crucial IMHO, because the Harry Enfield ''type'' whilst humourous reflected the psychological and moral changes in the City of London (perhaps predating Thatcher but accelerated under her ''reign''). As you know the market is built on confidence. As that grows, people become willing to invest and to become part of wider share ownership etc.

However, what happened was the moral decline (part of a wider process IMHO much wider and deeper than Thatcher per se) combined with the years of Thatcher's premiership.

She set the tone and scene for the Harry Enfield stereotype; there were Yuppies in the city earning more money than they'd ever known before. Porsche's were flying off the garage showrooms and greed and gold fever was palpable.

I would also say that the wage differentials became much more acute from the 1980s to present - so that city types earned massively obscene amounts far higher than say a city gent of 1950.

The greed of course was part of a moral decay far wider than Thatcher and was part of an erosion of values and the enthronement of self that really commenced under Thatcher.

Hers was a desire to liberate; she was a free market radical not a Tory in the strict sense of the word. So she set in train events which (IMHO) culminated in the fast and loose unaccountable city culture that we saw so clearly in the farce of the UK bailing out Northern Rock and HBOS. Did Thatcher cause this? No. not directly but she certainly set the scene for the tragedy.

Saul

[ 22. April 2013, 15:29: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Doc Tor
The only example I'm able to give is the fact that Wilson's mine closure program didn't raise the ire that the MacGregor plan did. Consequently, I can conclude that the miners involved accepted the closure of their pits as economic necessity, as opposed to naked political savagery.

The mines closure programme during the period from Harold Wilson's first government in the 1960s to the 1981 took place when a feasible and (more-or-less) affordable redundancy scheme could be agreed with the NUM. Although the redundancy payments at the end of this period (1979-81) were large they were still, as had always been the case, underwritten by the government of the day, led by Margaret Thatcher.

During this period the only area where closures were difficult to achieve was in the Scottish coalfields but eventually the union went back to negotiating closures and they took place.

Mick McGahey was leader of the Scots region of the NUM at the time and his action in bringing the miners out so enraged Joe Gormley that he stayed in office as General Secretary much longer than planned just so that he could ensure that McGahey didn't inherit the job. Unfortunately, Gormley didn't spot the rise of Arthur Scargill as being an equal danger to the union and its members.

The MacGregor closures, when eventually they took place, were on less favourable terms. Had the NUM entered negotiations in 1984, rather than going on strike, then it is very likely that terms for redundant miners would have been equally favourable in the mid to late 1980s as in the 60s and 70s. However, the cost of the coal strike once the miners did go back to work in 1985 was so great that the government was no longer prepared to underwrite the redundancy payments so generously. Moreover, the length and bitterness of the strike - and what was perceived abroad as an intransigent and luddite workforce - made it next to impossible to attract inward investment to traditional mining areas. The calling of a strike without a ballot - even McGahey was in favour of a vote, remember - combined with the actions of secondary amd flying pickets scared off firms which had previously expressed an interest in investing in those areas and so providing jobs for ex-miners.

The terms that were offered to the miners ahead of the 1984-5 strike were far more generous than those in the original Plan for Coal but were dismissed out of hand: not surprising since Mr Scargill had gone on record after the 1983 general election saying he didn't recognise the result.

Almost the only place in the UK where the inward investment materialised was in South Wales and that was partly because (a) some deals had already been signed, and (b) the areas were not exclusively mining but had also had iron and steelworks.

Arthur Scargill claimed for a long-time that rumours of financial support for the NUM from the USSR were lies spread by MI5 and Special Branch stooges to discredit him; however, papers found in the archives of the secret police in Poland and East Germany after the collapse of the communist regimes in those countries showed that the rumours were true. The irony is that Poland had the foreign currency to help prop up the NUM leadership only because of coal exports to, among other place, the UK.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

Thatcher's legacy will always be controversial.

Even today, I would offer, her legacy is clear and the addiction to ''easy money'' and the veneration of the great god of money is all to clear to see. One of her legacies I might suggest.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/banks-need-to-become-more-moral-institutions-says-archbishop-of-canterbury-rt- rev-justin-welby-as-he-warns-that-britain-is-in-some-kind-of-depression-8583612.html

Saul the Apostle

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

So Saul, you accept that Thatcher herself probably did not approve of the unbridled greed now found in the City. It seems you must be obliged to say that Thatcher was incapable of saving us from ourselves.

Hardly her business, and hardly a fair criticism to level at her.

On another point, I have been told that miners retrenched in 1985 received 1,000 pounds for every year spent in the pit. Is this true?

Posted by Higgs Bosun (# 16582) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
There are Guilds and Societies and warehouses (now flats) to show that for centuries London has been the very centre and focus of finance and commerce. You cannot say that MT invented wealth creation - it's the very soul of London.

Does 'finance' actually create wealth? I suppose that if it is functioning correctly (i.e. not as it is at the moment) it can enable others to create wealth. But nothing comes out of a bank that does not go into it, and a lot of what comes out is in the pockets of the bankers.

It can be argued that it is precisely the shift from actually making things to relying on 'finance' - i.e. trying to get a share in the wealth created by others - which is at the root of our present economic malaise.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
Does 'finance' actually create wealth? I suppose that if it is functioning correctly (i.e. not as it is at the moment) it can enable others to create wealth. But nothing comes out of a bank that does not go into it, and a lot of what comes out is in the pockets of the bankers.

Not in Mutual banks it doesn't. Why not go back to mutual banks?

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
Does 'finance' actually create wealth? I suppose that if it is functioning correctly (i.e. not as it is at the moment) it can enable others to create wealth.

Do roads create wealth?

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Mutual Banks - such a beast would be difficult to get past the regulations as they are now BUT you could/can start a Credit Union or a Savings & Loan venture. (Bank of Dave, as featured by Channel 4 is good on this).

It is now recognised that for SMEs the old-fashioned bank with a local manager who got to know customers was a better bet - and the default rate SMEs in the old days was much less than now, even with so-called "Personal Business Bankers" in every branch.

FYI Justin has gone on record saying that banks need to be more local - in effect we should go back to the days of properly separate merchant and retail banks.

How do roads create wealth? - they don't, but they can enable businesses to trade more widely and effectively, expanding markets so limiting risk and thus putting in place the possibility of growth.

Wealth creation? The simple truth remains that you need someone to start a concern that makes widgets that other people need, of a quality that will generate repeat sales, at a price which will keep sales buoyant. On the whole state companies are not good at this - think British Leyland.

The largest remaining state concern, Remploy, is a special case that should, in my view, continue to be underwritten but re-structured so that the core of its activity becomes training, with only the most disabled who really need the protected employment environment being retained as permanent employees: that was the vision of one of the founding fathers of Remploy, Sir Harold Emerson.

As for a ways to discourage personal debt and encourage thrift:

1. Abandon tax on all savings income up to a personal limit of £5,000 per annum.

2. Make it possible for dividend income to be used within that allowance: this will be a two-for-the-price-of-one measure because people will hold onto shares for longer meaning greater stability for firms, and share ownership will be more attractive which will help to loosen the stranglehold banks have on businesses, particularly SMEs.

3. Future privatisations - thinking RBS & Royal Mail - should have a clause that any shareholdings sold within 5 years of privatisation will be taxed at 40% - this will discourage stagging.

4. Stop IHT on intact savings accounts under £100,000. At the moment it is possible that tax is paid 3 times on an amount like this: before the savings are put into the bank; when interest is added to the account; and when the account is left as a legacy.

The biggest area that needs to be tackled is FOREX trading: bscially gambling on exchange rates, the possibilities of market rigging are too tempting while the "wealth" created is a chimera.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by cod
On another point, I have been told that miners retrenched in 1985 received 1,000 pounds for every year spent in the pit. Is this true?

The average redundancy payment was £11,000 which worked out at roughly £1,000 for every year employed. As with all redundancy payments, this was tax free.

In addition, ex-miners over the age of 50 got and additional £109 per week (in addition to unemployment benefit) until they either got another job or reached state retirement age and got a pension.

Of course, many miners got into debt during the strike and so redundancy payments went towards paying down those debts. And since it was not an official strike according to trades union legislation at the time, nor national, absences during the strike were seen as a break in employment. [But that was known by the NUM hierarchy before the strike was called which was why ex-miners leaders such as Joe Gormley were so appalled when Scargill pulled the men out. Even Mick McGahey urged Scargill not to go on strike without a ballot... which should have told him something.]

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
So Saul, you accept that Thatcher herself probably did not approve of the unbridled greed now found in the City. It seems you must be obliged to say that Thatcher was incapable of saving us from ourselves.

Hardly her business, and hardly a fair criticism to level at her.

On another point, I have been told that miners retrenched in 1985 received 1,000 pounds for every year spent in the pit. Is this true?

I said:

quote:
Thatcher's legacy will always be controversial. Even today, I would offer, her legacy is clear and the addiction to ''easy money'' and the veneration of the great god of money is all to clear to see. One of her legacies I might suggest.

Thatcher's legacy in part is venality in financial circles; the get it quick culture. So I can't be clearer than that can I? Thatcher set off a train of events that encouraged personal greed and personal gain.

Now it would be unfair to say that those things did not exist before Thatcher, they did, but she ploughed the ground and planted the seeds in larger fields.

The rest as they say is history.

Finally, her legacy is divisive. Many in the UK think she ''saved'' the country, the other half remain very very skeptical.

Personally I well remember, as a small example, the way her government railroaded through the de-regulation of Sunday as a special day of quiet rest and allowed Sunday trading.

Here was a woman who paraded her faith; yet did not have the reflective ability to see, spiritual guidelines aside, that a rested workforce is a better workforce - she pushed through that Sunday trading legislation with a blinkered demonic energy - Christian principles? Yes when it suited her.

Saul

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
... Thatcher's legacy in part is venality in financial circles; the get it quick culture. So I can't be clearer than that can I? Thatcher set off a train of events that encouraged personal greed and personal gain. ...

So, the serpent, or in this case, the woman, tempted me and I did eat - except, even odder, I assume - you're not saying you were tempted and ate, but others were. So, as I said before, you're arguing, it's not their fault. They're entitled to blame the woman.

I'm sorry. Ethically, that's duff.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
... Thatcher's legacy in part is venality in financial circles; the get it quick culture. So I can't be clearer than that can I? Thatcher set off a train of events that encouraged personal greed and personal gain. ...
So, the serpent, or in this case, the woman, tempted me and I did eat - except, even odder, I assume - you're not saying you were tempted and ate, but others were. So, as I said before, you're arguing, it's not their fault. They're entitled to blame the woman.

I'm sorry. Ethically, that's duff.

I haven't got a clue what you're talking about?

My statement was clear (about Sunday trading deregulation) and at the time one of her M.P.s (He was MP for Watford in 1987 can't recall his name) absolutely twisted and turned on the ''Keep Sunday Special'' campaigners.

Simply this was because as Thatcher wanted Sunday to be like any other day and he despite large mass meetings opposing it , from varied ranks including evangelicals and Trade Unionists, helped push it through along with most other Tory M.P.s.

I went to see this MP at Westminster and he did Thatcher's bidding and it was shameful. It was railroaded through and it is such a pity today (unlike some other parts of Europe) Sunday is just another trading day here in the UK with few restrictions.

Legacy.

Saul

[ 23. April 2013, 21:32: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

From what I can recall, the Shops Bill that Mrs Thatcher proposed was defeated in around 1986/7, although a different permutation was finally passed under John Major in 1994. But there had been dozens of other failed attempts from the 1950s onwards to deregulate shopping on Sundays, of which Mrs Thatcher's attempt was just one of the more determined. This isn't a very obvious element of the Thatcher legacy.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
From what I can recall, the Shops Bill that Mrs Thatcher proposed was defeated in around 1986/7, although a different permutation was finally passed under John Major in 1994. But there had been dozens of other failed attempts from the 1950s onwards to deregulate shopping on Sundays, of which Mrs Thatcher's attempt was just one of the more determined. This isn't a very obvious element of the Thatcher legacy.

Well, that is open to dispute.

The ''Keep Sunday Special'' (I think it was formed by a broad coalition of folk many Christian who wanted to keep Sunday a special quieter day) campaign was formed around the period 1985 1986.

There was a very determined push and effort by Margaret Thatcher's government to de-regulate Sunday trading laws at that time. It would not have happened without her blessing but the opposition surprised her and initially she was defeated and I think Major picked up the cudgel to smash it through eventually.

I was there in the mid 1980s and I remember the facts reasonably well - it was a Thatcher thing blessed by her.

Grocer's daughter from Grantham with a Methodist background was showing she was a market radical not a ''conservative'' in that narrow sense of the word.

I think there is a little bit of disingenuous thinking going on here. I was active in that campaign and I seem to remember it wasn't just Christians active but Trade Unionist, who foresaw the hard won rights for workers were on the way out.

So, I would say this, one small, but significant example of Thatcher's legacy.

Saul

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

I'm not saying that she didn't approve of de-regulating Sunday retailing Saul. She pushed hard for it as you say, and any kind of de-regulation would have been in keeping with the ethos of her government. If it had been a criminal offence to run with scissors she would have tried to repeal that too.

But she didn't get the Sunday trading laws relaxed. She failed to push her proposals past a combination of opponents in Parliament, a fair few of them in her own party given that her outright majority at the time was about 140. And she was neither the first nor the last to propose de-regulation. I was just reading a couple of newspaper reports from the time the law did change, in August 1994, and they reported at the time that prior to the 1994 Act there had been no fewer than 26 unsuccessful attempts to amend or repeal the Shops Act 1950 as to Sunday Trading. The 1986 Bill sponsored by the Thatcher government got further than any of the others, but it was one among many.

It seems a stretch to characterise as a significant element of the Thatcher Legacy something that was neither Mrs Thatcher's idea nor her accomplishment.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

Thank you very much for your intelligent and factual posts L'organist and Pottage. I'm reading with interest and learning a lot about the period.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

The point about any significant person is this, they can be hijacked and ''claimed'' for good or ill by many in posterity (Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Winston Churchill to name but a few).

Thatcher is ripe for this retrospective treatment too and the idea she was a home and hearth conservative defending Christian values is well wide of the mark - she wasn't.

Thatcher's legacy was (IMHO) to divide what had been, to some extent, a ''one nation'' approach by many Tories. She was a free market radical and not a conservative in the strict sense of that term.

The Sunday trading example shows how keen she was to push through a piece of legislation that shows her free market credentials and desire to free up the law, regardless of long held traditions and hard won protections for working people (Sunday working practices). She pushed the deregulation hard in the mid 1980s when she was arguably at the zenith of her powers. She failed, but the intent was there and her successors took up ''the flame''.

As far as I am aware she was no ''lover'' of evangelicalism and how far she was sympathetic to Christianity I am not sure either. Obviously her own (Christian)faith was known to her; but she didn't always conform to the popular stereotype that some have of her, rose tinted and retrospective as such views tend to be.

Ultimately she was deposed in an in house Tory coup as the unpopularity that she suffered from pre Falkland Islands war (that is pre 1982) had resurfaced in the late 1980s and her own party was intent to depose her and they did so in 1990.

Saul

[ 24. April 2013, 10:05: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
... Thatcher's legacy in part is venality in financial circles; the get it quick culture. So I can't be clearer than that can I? Thatcher set off a train of events that encouraged personal greed and personal gain. ...
So, the serpent, or in this case, the woman, tempted me and I did eat - except, even odder, I assume - you're not saying you were tempted and ate, but others were. So, as I said before, you're arguing, it's not their fault. They're entitled to blame the woman.

I'm sorry. Ethically, that's duff.
I haven't got a clue what you're talking about? ...

Which bit don't you understand, the reference to Genesis or the notion that one can't dump on a third party the blame for one's own or anyone else's lack of moral fibre?

I agree with you, though, that successive governments should not have gone limp on Sunday trading, but that's a different issue from venality in financial circles.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
... Thatcher's legacy in part is venality in financial circles; the get it quick culture. So I can't be clearer than that can I? Thatcher set off a train of events that encouraged personal greed and personal gain. ...
So, the serpent, or in this case, the woman, tempted me and I did eat - except, even odder, I assume - you're not saying you were tempted and ate, but others were. So, as I said before, you're arguing, it's not their fault. They're entitled to blame the woman.

I'm sorry. Ethically, that's duff.
I haven't got a clue what you're talking about? ...
Which bit don't you understand, the reference to Genesis or the notion that one can't dump on a third party the blame for one's own or anyone else's lack of moral fibre?

I agree with you, though, that successive governments should not have gone limp on Sunday trading, but that's a different issue from venality in financial circles.

quote:
Which bit don't you understand, the reference to Genesis or the notion that one can't dump on a third party the blame for one's own or anyone else's lack of moral fibre?

You lost me with your Genesis reference.

What I was saying was that in the mad rush to 'deregulate' and to sell off /privatise nationalised assets, that Thatcher et al, set off a train of events that have ramifications to this day. She also kick started a mind set that enthroned greed and self.

That mind set is as old as mankind itself (IMHO) but as assets were sold off, there was this deification of the market. It could do no wrong, the sun would never set on it's wisdom and wealth would never bite us when least expecting it etc.

OK it is a matter of debate as to how much or how little Thatcher was involved in this. But we now know (post Northern Rock and the sheer greed of the city of London and other financial bodies abroad) that such blind trust so prevalent in the 1980s was misplaced.

I am not blaming Thatcher for all ills and this was explained in my previous post. But Thatcher is fair game to be party to setting off a chain of events, the outcome of which was less than beneficial for our nation - IMHO.

Saul

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

I am starting to wonder whether some also blame her for not arranging coal to be put in the ground in order to provide jobs for miners.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I am starting to wonder whether some also blame her for not arranging coal to be put in the ground in order to provide jobs for miners.

That would be going too far, although you could ask why her successors have all put money into the economy for bankers to play with.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I am starting to wonder whether some also blame her for not arranging coal to be put in the ground in order to provide jobs for miners.

Actually, no. Don't be silly.

I think the business with the mines for me is summed up thus - it's been claimed that the industry was dying and Maggie just pulled the plug. Problem was, what she actually did was rip the tubes out of the patient, push it off the bed, kick it down the stairs and tell the grieving relatives to get over themselves and how they were enemies of the hospital with their demands for medical care.

There are ways of dealing with death, and ways of dealing with societal and economic changes. The ways we select to do so matter.

[ 25. April 2013, 08:57: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I am starting to wonder whether some also blame her for not arranging coal to be put in the ground in order to provide jobs for miners.
Actually, no. Don't be silly.

I think the business with the mines for me is summed up thus - it's been claimed that the industry was dying and Maggie just pulled the plug. Problem was, what she actually did was rip the tubes out of the patient, push it off the bed, kick it down the stairs and tell the grieving relatives to get over themselves and how they were enemies of the hospital with their demands for medical care.

There are ways of dealing with death, and ways of dealing with societal and economic changes. The ways we select to do so matter.

And of course, Arthur Scargill didn't already call a strike with no ballot having already said he would not allow the government to survive.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

[checks post for defence of Arthur Scargill.]

Nope. Can't find it.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

That takes all culpability away from Thather, of course.

That she bought coal from a communist state which was in financial bother, thus helping to prop it up and last longer was also down to Scargill.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
That takes all culpability away from Thather, of course.

That she bought coal from a communist state which was in financial bother, thus helping to prop it up and last longer was also down to Scargill.

Indeed. And then later the complaint that the miners were "holding the country to ransom and trying to bring down the government" rings a bit hollow when she was so vocally supporting the Solidarity movement in Poland doing exactly the same thing.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
And then later the complaint that the miners were "holding the country to ransom and trying to bring down the government" rings a bit hollow when she was so vocally supporting the Solidarity movement in Poland doing exactly the same thing.

In order for that comparison to work, doesn't one have consider Thatcher's government and the Communist regime in Poland to be somehow comparable?

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
And then later the complaint that the miners were "holding the country to ransom and trying to bring down the government" rings a bit hollow when she was so vocally supporting the Solidarity movement in Poland doing exactly the same thing.
In order for that comparison to work, doesn't one have consider Thatcher's government and the Communist regime in Poland to be somehow comparable?

Up to a point. But it does mean that you've got to go a bit beyond "unions trying to bring down government bad", doesn't it?

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

Doesn't it depend on the kind of government? I struggle to find the equivalence between, on the one hand, an undemocratic union and a democratically-elected government (whose predecessors had faced attempts to bring it down by said union) and on the other hand an autocratic or perhaps even a totalitarian regime and a union (I don't know how Solidarity was organised, whether its strikes were balloted or not).

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Not equivalent, just ironic.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I struggle to find the equivalence between, on the one hand, an undemocratic union and a democratically-elected government ...

The democratic structiures and procedures of British trade unions are, on the whole, a lot more democratic than Parliament and the government are. Streets ahead really.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I struggle to find the equivalence between, on the one hand, an undemocratic union and a democratically-elected government ...
The democratic structiures and procedures of British trade unions are, on the whole, a lot more democratic than Parliament and the government are. Streets ahead really.

Thanks to Mrs T....?

But, seriously, we're talking about the NUM here, which was intent on bringing down a democratically-elected government (if it could) through an illegal strike. This much is clear, isn't it, regardless of the procedures in the rest of the trade union movement?

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I struggle to find the equivalence between, on the one hand, an undemocratic union and a democratically-elected government ...
The democratic structiures and procedures of British trade unions are, on the whole, a lot more democratic than Parliament and the government are. Streets ahead really.
Thanks to Mrs T....?

But, seriously, we're talking about the NUM here, which was intent on bringing down a democratically-elected government (if it could) through an illegal strike. This much is clear, isn't it, regardless of the procedures in the rest of the trade union movement?

Yes, it's very clear.
The divisiveness, the splits in families, the community hostility, came about not because of Mrs Thatcher, but because some miners didn't want to go on strike! They didn't agree with a strike being called without a ballot. It was the 'scabs' and the ones loyal to Scargill that caused the trouble.

I blame it all on Scargill. A more rational and reasonable man could have negotiated a lot better and the whole thing would never have happened in the way it did.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I struggle to find the equivalence between, on the one hand, an undemocratic union and a democratically-elected government ...
The democratic structiures and procedures of British trade unions are, on the whole, a lot more democratic than Parliament and the government are. Streets ahead really.
Thanks to Mrs T....?

But, seriously, we're talking about the NUM here, which was intent on bringing down a democratically-elected government (if it could) through an illegal strike. This much is clear, isn't it, regardless of the procedures in the rest of the trade union movement?
Yes, it's very clear.
The divisiveness, the splits in families, the community hostility, came about not because of Mrs Thatcher, but because some miners didn't want to go on strike! They didn't agree with a strike being called without a ballot. It was the 'scabs' and the ones loyal to Scargill that caused the trouble.

I blame it all on Scargill. A more rational and reasonable man could have negotiated a lot better and the whole thing would never have happened in the way it did.

Maybe, or maybe he'd just have got the same assurances that were made to the UDM in Nottinghamshire.

Which turned out to be empty and worthless when their pits were closed as well.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

Well further good news, folks, Lady Thatcher's funeral cost only a third of the reported figures at a mere £3.6 million.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

Here is a view from a Nottingham miner. He believes that if Scargill had had the sense to hold a national ballot the Nottingham miners would have joined a (legitimate) strike. If they had, the outcome might have been different.

He sees his former colleagues as having been trapped between very hardline left wing leaders of the NUM and the fiercely anti-union Thatcher administration. The NUM leadership's aims were only partly motivated by the desire to secure the position of their members; there was a thinly disguised desire to subvert an elected government they disapproved of and wield political power themselves. The Thatcher administration was only partly motivated by a desire to uphold the authority of the elected government and the rule of law in the face of those challenges; there was a thinly disguised desire to take on one of the most militant and aggressive unions and beat it into submission to send a message to the remainder.

The Nottingham miners on the other hand mainly knew their mines had a limited lifespan - had known this since the 1960s - and their motivation was to keep them viable as long as they could and secure as many as possible of the relatively lucrative redundancy payments that were then on offer.

Nobody won.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

I would have thought now that the miner's strike was nearly 30 years old some objectivity might have come into it.

The Union of Democratic Mineworkers the UDM was stuffed as their mines were shut down, as has already been mentioned. So NUM or UDM all the miners were stabbed by Thatcher and her successors. An industry that could have had a good future was completely mucked up by the Conservative party.

Incidentally at the time I was sent to Coventry in my work place as I voted the wrong way at a union meeting. I was no hard left militant.

I saw ''Militant'' at work (I lived in Liverpool in the early 1980s and was born there) I had no time for militant brand of socialism BUT why oh why **** up a perfectly good industry (the coal industry) because you want to score political points over a Union big wig with a comb over?

Surely the sensible thing to have done was to not utterly decimate the coal industry but rather to have honoured the fact that many coal miners felt passionate about the industry despite it's hardships and safety concerns, and make a genuinely supportive economic and social decision on the industry; keep it going and continue to modernise it?

Coal is a proven asset why did a government seek to emasculate it? Sadly another one of Thatcher's legacies.

Saul

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

Well, certainly that's a more plausible element of The Thatcher Legacy than Sunday Trading. But, giving the topic the objectivity you advocate Saul, we must also acknowledge that the 1980s miners' strike was only one factor in the long decline of the coal industry, which began in the 1960s. By the 1980s the coal industry's fate was tied to energy production and the world price for coal, not Conservative Party policy. The "perfectly good industry" you describe had shed more than half its workforce in the two decades before Mrs Thatcher came to power and was continuing to lose pits at the same rate, despite being given eye-watering levels of subsidy that the rest of the country couldn't afford to continue.

Where Mrs Thatcher's handprint is more clearly to be seen, and where her legacy is distinctly shabby, is in the half hearted attempts made to alleviate the effects on mining communities of the pit closures. Admittedly it would have been challenging to persuade businesses to relocate to places that had often been sited where they were purely because of the presence of coal underground and which often lacked any other attribute (such as accessibility to markets or transport infrastructure) that investors would be looking for. But Germany's efforts in the former East Germany show what can be done if there's a will.

Coincidentally, I also lived in Liverpool during Hatton's turbulent reign - dealing with the City Council in those days was interesting, wasn't it! I wasn't sent to Coventry figuratively, but that's where I had to move to in the mid 1980s to get a job.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Well further good news, folks, Lady Thatcher's funeral cost only a third of the reported figures at a mere £3.6 million.

Still a heck of a lot more than mine will cost.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Well further good news, folks, Lady Thatcher's funeral cost only a third of the reported figures at a mere £3.6 million.
Still a heck of a lot more than mine will cost.

Do you think yours might be on a slightly smaller scale (and with fewer hecklers to police)?

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Well further good news, folks, Lady Thatcher's funeral cost only a third of the reported figures at a mere £3.6 million.

Could you do me a favour? Could you please let us know when you're linking to The S*n, so I know not to click on it?

Otherwise, if The S*n says it, it must be true.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

If you'll reciprocate when you post links to the Mirror or Guardian, yes.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

You're from GB, aren't you? Surely you're aware of the S*n lies about the Hillsborough disaster, lies that smeared Liverpool fans, lies that were part of the cover-up? Surely you are aware of the boycott of the S*n?

There is no comparison with the other papers you mention.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

From this - and your other posts - I can see that the Hillsborough Disaster and subsequent events relating to it are very close to your heart. I'm also aware that there is continuing antipathy on Merseyside towards the Sun. But in all honesty this appears to me to be a Merseyside-specific concern (otherwise the Sun wouldn't be the biggest-selling paper in the country, regardless of its faults).

[ 25. April 2013, 18:48: Message edited by: Anglican't ]

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
URL=http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4903067/Thatcher-funeral-cost-just-36m-a-THIRD-of-reported-figure.html ]cost only a third of the reported figures /URL

The link* is nicely amateurish too (I'm not sure about the contents it points to)
The BEEB does quote the 3.6. I was wondering for a minute...

*as in the website address, not Anglican't UBB

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
From this - and your other posts - I can see that the Hillsborough Disaster and subsequent events relating to it are very close to your heart. I'm also aware that there is continuing antipathy on Merseyside towards the Sun. But in all honesty this appears to me to be a Merseyside-specific concern (otherwise the Sun wouldn't be the biggest-selling paper in the country, regardless of its faults).

Leaving aside the issue of whether the link between state incompetence which led to the death of 96 people followed by a state cover-up is a matter only for Merseyside or not, I am asking you (and any others reading) simply to make it known when a link to that newspaper is made.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
Leaving aside the issue of whether the link between state incompetence which led to the death of 96 people followed by a state cover-up is a matter only for Merseyside or not, I am asking you (and any others reading) simply to make it known when a link to that newspaper is made.

To be clear, I didn't say (or certainly didn't intend to say) that the issues that you have listed above are Merseyside-specific. What I intended to say was that continuing antipathy towards the Sun newspaper appears to be Merseyside-specific.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

OK, I misunderstood you.

The boycott of the S*n certainly has its capital in Liverpool, but is not restricted to Liverpool. I know plenty who avoid it from other parts of GB, though largely for political reasons.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Oh well, If I must!

Satisfied now?

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
The boycott of the S*n certainly has its capital in Liverpool, but is not restricted to Liverpool. I know plenty who avoid it from other parts of GB, though largely for political reasons.

I am one of them. For 96 non-political reasons.

But now that the cost figure is confirmed by the Guardian, well it must be true!

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

So what anyway? It's still a hell of a lot.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
originally posted by Rosa Winkel
The boycott of the S*n certainly has its capital in Liverpool, but is not restricted to Liverpool. I know plenty who avoid it from other parts of GB, though largely for political reasons.

I avoid the S*n.
I am not from Liverpool or anywhere in the North-West of England.
I don't avoid it for "political" reasons.
I avoid it because

it is not a newspaper
it considers trivia about football and the people who play it to be news
I prefer not to buy something which is extremely misogynist
I can't support a publication so hypocritical that it will thunder about the sexualisation of pre-teens on page 1 with a bare-breasted lovely on page 3
I disapprove of giving succour to something or someone which harasses people in the news, even "celebs"
I have no time for a paper that hounds the innocent
oh, and I can think for myself, ta very much

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

* Rupert Murdoch
* Kelvin McKenzie
* Trevor Kavanagh

Three good enough reasons to think twice about even wiping my arse with the thing. There are plenty of ring-piece germs I consider to be too far above the aforementioned individuals for them to be forced into close proximity against their will.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
Well, certainly that's a more plausible element of The Thatcher Legacy than Sunday Trading. But, giving the topic the objectivity you advocate Saul, we must also acknowledge that the 1980s miners' strike was only one factor in the long decline of the coal industry, which began in the 1960s. By the 1980s the coal industry's fate was tied to energy production and the world price for coal, not Conservative Party policy. The "perfectly good industry" you describe had shed more than half its workforce in the two decades before Mrs Thatcher came to power and was continuing to lose pits at the same rate, despite being given eye-watering levels of subsidy that the rest of the country couldn't afford to continue.

Where Mrs Thatcher's handprint is more clearly to be seen, and where her legacy is distinctly shabby, is in the half hearted attempts made to alleviate the effects on mining communities of the pit closures. Admittedly it would have been challenging to persuade businesses to relocate to places that had often been sited where they were purely because of the presence of coal underground and which often lacked any other attribute (such as accessibility to markets or transport infrastructure) that investors would be looking for. But Germany's efforts in the former East Germany show what can be done if there's a will.

Coincidentally, I also lived in Liverpool during Hatton's turbulent reign - dealing with the City Council in those days was interesting, wasn't it! I wasn't sent to Coventry figuratively, but that's where I had to move to in the mid 1980s to get a job.

Pottage well said.

I suppose at the time (1981 - 1985 in particular) I had a sneaking admiration for Thatcher but mainly in respect of her foreign policy at the time. I couldn't square the circle with, say East Germany, and how it appeared to build a wall to keep it's people in! I felt a robust (yet peaceful) relationship with the USSR was the way to go and perhaps events proved that approach the correct one.

That said, with the vast benefit of hindsight, the Thatcher legacy was clearly divisive and vast swathes of England and Scotland (and Wales) you dare not speak her name to this day without spitting. In fact I would probably say since the miner's strike I have become more and more sympathetic to their cause. The venality in some of our national bodies is a sad reflection on the state of many of our institutions today (maybe the financial sector has learned some positive things out of it all?) and we sold off the ''family silver'' far too much IMHO. Not all privatisation was a good thing.

Thatcher was a one off. Iconic to her admirers and a saviour also to folk like David Cameron. To me? Well I've said all I can on this woman who was like all great people, all I will say is, she left her undoubted mark on Britain.

Saul

[ 26. April 2013, 16:38: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
* Rupert Murdoch
* Kelvin McKenzie
* Trevor Kavanagh

I know people dislike Rupert Murdoch and Kelvin MacKenzie, but what do you / people like you have against Trevor Kavanagh in particular? I don't read the Sun so haven't read any of his stuff, but I've seen him as a pundit on television and he comes across much like any other political editor.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

I've just checked up and his main claim to fame is leaking the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly. It was a unnamed source. How convenient. How News International.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
It was a unnamed source. How convenient. How News International.

Assuming the source came from within government, surely 'how New Labour'?

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
So now we import coal from places like Poland. British coal was a strategic asset which we have basically thrown away.

No: I think you'll find it's still in the ground, notwithstanding that even miners' jobs don't justify continuing to contribute to the greenhouse effect.

But leaving that aside, it is absurd to say that a government should be obliged to continue to operate uneconomic mines, regardless of one's political views, because doing so requires the public to subsidise the miners' jobs either through taxes or through paying an increased amount for coal. The same principle applies to all other industries controlled by the State, most notably the crisis-riven rust-bucket maker that was British Leyland, once the third largest car manufacturer in the world.

It is also absurd to say that a government can never choose to close a mine or a factory on purely political grounds either. If a government finds itself dependent on a workforce that is prepared to inconvenience every other member of the public in that country, it is quite reasonable for a government to take steps in order to avoid a repetition of the inconvenience.

I don't buy the comments about ripping out the tubes, kicking the patient out of bed etc. The government operated the mines. It closed them. It made redundancy payments to workers who, for years, would have known that they were working in a declining industry. To state that it is the government's responsibility to prevent any effect of any economic vicissitude on ordinary people is the strongest argument for the free market one can make.

Like just about everyone who doesn't work in an investment bank, the bank bailouts appal me. However, they are not so very different from the financial support given to heavy industry in the 70s - a stop gap to prevent crisis in a business capable of holding the country to ransom. I very much hope that British government will take steps similar to those taken by Thatcher to avoid any repetition being possible, and I'm sure you all would applaud them.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
So now we import coal from places like Poland. British coal was a strategic asset which we have basically thrown away.
No: I think you'll find it's still in the ground, notwithstanding that even miners' jobs don't justify continuing to contribute to the greenhouse effect.

But leaving that aside, it is absurd to say that a government should be obliged to continue to operate uneconomic mines, regardless of one's political views, because doing so requires the public to subsidise the miners' jobs either through taxes or through paying an increased amount for coal. The same principle applies to all other industries controlled by the State, most notably the crisis-riven rust-bucket maker that was British Leyland, once the third largest car manufacturer in the world.

It is also absurd to say that a government can never choose to close a mine or a factory on purely political grounds either. If a government finds itself dependent on a workforce that is prepared to inconvenience every other member of the public in that country, it is quite reasonable for a government to take steps in order to avoid a repetition of the inconvenience.

I don't buy the comments about ripping out the tubes, kicking the patient out of bed etc. The government operated the mines. It closed them. It made redundancy payments to workers who, for years, would have known that they were working in a declining industry. To state that it is the government's responsibility to prevent any effect of any economic vicissitude on ordinary people is the strongest argument for the free market one can make.

Like just about everyone who doesn't work in an investment bank, the bank bailouts appal me. However, they are not so very different from the financial support given to heavy industry in the 70s - a stop gap to prevent crisis in a business capable of holding the country to ransom. I very much hope that British government will take steps similar to those taken by Thatcher to avoid any repetition being possible, and I'm sure you all would applaud them.

Cod,

I was around the North West of England and with hindsight I regret so much when Thatcher and her acolytes launched an attack on a noble industry. In fact as I look back i see how much of that attack was mean, spiteful and a stab into an industry that ought to be playing a key role in the UKs energy production in 2013.

By the way, coal is not such a spent force see here (from January 2013)....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/coal/9790939/Life-wont-be-a-gas-if-we-give-up-on-British-coal.html

Also, it is a bit suicidal for a nation with proven coal reserves to not use them, coal can be used with much much less pollution than in previous times.

Wind power is a chimera, nice to have, but it's ROI is puny.

Coal is an energy source we ignore at our peril here in the UK. Look at some up to date stats. Wind power and renewables just won't do it and I for one would prefer more coal power than more nuclear power (Fukishima anyone?).

http://www.ukcoal.com/why-coal/need-for-coal/world-coal-statistics

Of course the coal industry needed modernising and it's safety record and mining engineering techniques were improving year on year. Until the industry was destroyed as a revenge attack by a government that played up the bogeyman image of miners (yes Scargill was a liability i accept that).

We get most of our coal now from Russia; what a pity we don't give British people the chance to mine a large useful natural asset.

Saul

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
We get most of our coal now from Russia; what a pity we don't give British people the chance to mine a large useful natural asset.

Saul, who is getting in the way of British people mining coal in the UK? And how are they stopping it?

For example, have people tried unsuccessfully to get permission (would this be planning permission or some other permit, I don't know) to resume coal mining?

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

That's a fair question, though a bit of a tangent from Mrs Thatcher's legacy. What's stopping people developing coal in the UK is diminished economic viability. That's also principally what caused the long, painful demise of the industry (employment in the mining industry peaked around 1920). The struggle between Mrs Thatcher and the more militant unions (politically motivated on both sides) was only one chapter in that story, and it could certainly be argued that the chapter recording nationalisation in 1947 was at least as significant.

In global terms we don't have huge coal reserves in the UK but set against our actual use these days - largely for base load power generation - our proven coal reserves represent many years of supply. But it's considerably cheaper to import coal from faraway places than to mine it here. So it doesn't make economic sense for anyone to invest massive amounts of capital in mining our own reserves. Some few existing mines remain viable because the cost of developing them was incurred long ago, but they teeter on the brink and at any time any of them could be killed off by a single operating problem that it would not be financially worth while to overcome.

But without wanting to put words into Saul's mouth I think his case may be that policies of power security could justify the UK investing in coal production with a hefty public subsidy, even though it is otherwise uneconomic. That way we're not reliant upon potentially hostile or unstable foreign suppliers for essential fuel supplies. This is part of the justification for the huge cost of developing wind power being subsidised.

I can see the logic to that, but I don't know how much subsidy we would be talking about, and for how long. In 1984 the Thatcher government withdrew subsidies because the cost of these had been rising for decades, had reached unaffordable levels, and for the foreseeable future were more likely to continue to rise than to fall. In the case of wind the initial subsidy costs were big but not open ended. The technology would plainly become cheaper and more efficient with investment (as has already proven to be the case) and so the need for subsidy would fall. And there was the added benefit that introducing a large element of wind power to the mix would reduce the overall carbon output from generating power for the UK.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

I don;t think anyone has poseted a link to thei s article on Fulcrum: The Church of England and the Funeral of Baroness Thatcher by Jonathan Chaplin:.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Wow! What a good article - and from a source I normally wouldn't like.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
We get most of our coal now from Russia; what a pity we don't give British people the chance to mine a large useful natural asset.
Saul, who is getting in the way of British people mining coal in the UK? And how are they stopping it?

For example, have people tried unsuccessfully to get permission (would this be planning permission or some other permit, I don't know) to resume coal mining?

SCK

well, any large industry e.g. power generation and say nuclear power specifically takes 20 to 30 years to consult, plan, implement and run. When you dismantle a major industry like coal you run down the engineering, the tooling, the expertise, transportation mechanisms, the health & safety infrastructure etc etc.

The nearest comparable industrial demise of this scale I can think of is Beeching's rail chop in the early 1960s.

Incidentally, the Fukishima experience has made a number of people think that coal is not so dirty after all. No one, least of all the Japanese risk manager's considered a major tsunami and look what happened?

You are right of course, a business decision would have to be made (about a new coal industry) and unlikely that a major industry will be ressurected. But when you look at wind and solar power, nice to have though they are, they just don't stack up to the efficiency of coal.

Saul

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Incidentally, the Fukishima experience has made a number of people think that coal is not so dirty after all. No one, least of all the Japanese risk manager's considered a major tsunami and look what happened?

Not much happened, actually. The only deaths at the plant or in the surrounding area were due to the earthquake/tsunami, not the meltdown. The worst case projections from the WHO suggest that there may be a slightly increased risk of cancer for those living in the area, but the increase is less than for someone who smokes or regularly uses sunbeds. Sure, the reactor itself was totalled - but I doubt a coal-powered station would fare much better under the circumstances.

People keep treating Fukushima as if it was some terrible nuclear disaster, rather than the triumph of nuclear engineering it was. It's ridiculous.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Incidentally, the Fukishima experience has made a number of people think that coal is not so dirty after all. No one, least of all the Japanese risk manager's considered a major tsunami and look what happened?
Not much happened, actually. The only deaths at the plant or in the surrounding area were due to the earthquake/tsunami, not the meltdown. The worst case projections from the WHO suggest that there may be a slightly increased risk of cancer for those living in the area, but the increase is less than for someone who smokes or regularly uses sunbeds. Sure, the reactor itself was totalled - but I doubt a coal-powered station would fare much better under the circumstances.

People keep treating Fukushima as if it was some terrible nuclear disaster, rather than the triumph of nuclear engineering it was. It's ridiculous.

You must be on another planet Marvin the Martian?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21737910#story_continues_2

Saul

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

It's going to be hellishly expensive to clean up though, Marvin - $250bn at last estimate.

I'm by no means anti-nuclear, but a design that is originally based on the hyper-compact needs of nuclear submarines needs 101% failsafe cooling by design. Other reactor designs have far more levels of failure protection anyway. At least at the level of safety engineering, this design of reactor - as realised at Fukushima - is very far from being a triumph of any kind.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

Saul,

If energy security is the issue, it seems best not to use one's own coal reserves until they are needed.

Leaving that aside, of course a huge amount was lost from the pit closures of the 1980s and 90s. It was the end of a way of life which left a legacy of its own, specifically the coming of age of trade unionism and the first Labour governments: the mining communities were were the most staunch supporters of left-wing politics during this time, and contributed much to its rise. There is no question that across the north of England and south Wales certain areas have never entirely recovered from the closure of the pits, the unravelling of the community cohesion they supported, and the loss of pride people had in their communities and the mines.

As substantial as the mining tradition was, it simply does not follow that it was permissible for miners to hold the country at economic knifepoint.

Someone earlier - I can't remember who - it may even have been you - mentioned that Thatcher's legacy was the promotion of greed. It is appropriate to accuse corporate bankers of greed. I think it is hard to accuse people who undertake a dirty, dangerous job for moderate wages of greed. But it is fair to say that Thatcher did put paid to something unwittingly akin to greed, specifically the right to work in a particular job, for a particular wage, under particular conditions, in perpetuity, at the expense of others, and without regard for what was happening in the world outside. I am inclined to think that the srong trade union legacy of mining caused Scargill and others to overreach themselves, both in the 80s and in the 70s - not just politically but morally too.

I am no fan of Thatcher, but when I consider what she did to mining and heavy industry, I find myself asking: what was the alternative? Should she have continued subsidies? I don't think many people advocate that now. Should she have managed economic decline more slowly? Don't know. Are things actually worse other than in particular pockets of the country?

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
In global terms we don't have huge coal reserves in the UK but set against our actual use these days - largely for base load power generation - our proven coal reserves represent many years of supply. But it's considerably cheaper to import coal from faraway places than to mine it here. So it doesn't make economic sense for anyone to invest massive amounts of capital in mining our own reserves. Some few existing mines remain viable because the cost of developing them was incurred long ago, but they teeter on the brink and at any time any of them could be killed off by a single operating problem that it would not be financially worth while to overcome.

Thanks, Pottage. This is roughly what I was getting at - the story I've heard is that Thatcher merely ended the subsidies for UK coal mining, leaving the mines to compete on a level playing field with imported electricity and other forms of domestic generation. That seems like quite a positive legacy.

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
You are right of course, a business decision would have to be made (about a new coal industry) and unlikely that a major industry will be ressurected. But when you look at wind and solar power, nice to have though they are, they just don't stack up to the efficiency of coal.

Fair enough, I should think you're right about this. But there is very little coal mining left in the UK, presumably meaning that the cost of extracting it is too high to make a profit. Where is Thatcher's culpability in that?

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Perhaps the true legacy of Thatcherism is to hold up a mirror to UK society and show that nothing has changed, at least in regards to women.

Why?

Because I doubt that this level of passion would be expended over the "legacy" or otherwise of an ex-Prime Minister.

But Margaret Thatcher was a woman, so she is judged differently.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Saul,

If energy security is the issue, it seems best not to use one's own coal reserves until they are needed.

Leaving that aside, of course a huge amount was lost from the pit closures of the 1980s and 90s. It was the end of a way of life which left a legacy of its own, specifically the coming of age of trade unionism and the first Labour governments: the mining communities were were the most staunch supporters of left-wing politics during this time, and contributed much to its rise. There is no question that across the north of England and south Wales certain areas have never entirely recovered from the closure of the pits, the unravelling of the community cohesion they supported, and the loss of pride people had in their communities and the mines.

As substantial as the mining tradition was, it simply does not follow that it was permissible for miners to hold the country at economic knifepoint.

Someone earlier - I can't remember who - it may even have been you - mentioned that Thatcher's legacy was the promotion of greed. It is appropriate to accuse corporate bankers of greed. I think it is hard to accuse people who undertake a dirty, dangerous job for moderate wages of greed. But it is fair to say that Thatcher did put paid to something unwittingly akin to greed, specifically the right to work in a particular job, for a particular wage, under particular conditions, in perpetuity, at the expense of others, and without regard for what was happening in the world outside. I am inclined to think that the srong trade union legacy of mining caused Scargill and others to overreach themselves, both in the 80s and in the 70s - not just politically but morally too.

I am no fan of Thatcher, but when I consider what she did to mining and heavy industry, I find myself asking: what was the alternative? Should she have continued subsidies? I don't think many people advocate that now. Should she have managed economic decline more slowly? Don't know. Are things actually worse other than in particular pockets of the country?

Cod,

very good post thank you.

Yes, I see where you are coming from.

The mines and coal industry slot into the wider and very current absence of a sensible long term UK energy policy. I hope I have pointed out well enough, that due to things like Fukishima, rare though they are, show us the vulnerability of nuclear power (although I am not totally anti nuclear myself).

No one should have a job in a redundant industry for life.

Surely Beeching (British railway cuts and wholesale slaughter of the rail network early 1960s) should have taught us something?

A large well organised coal industry, with less manpower, more safety, and lower costs per tonne was the way to go in the 1980s towards the new century.

Sadly politics got in the way and part of Thatcher's legacy is to destroy a coal industry that could have had a bright (but changed and modernised) future.

Saul the Apostle

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

From Cod:

I am inclined to think that the srong trade union legacy of mining caused Scargill and others to overreach themselves, both in the 80s and in the 70s - not just politically but morally too.

I support the remainder of your post, but am not so sure about this. There was more than a touch of Squealer in Scargill, who was far more divisive than Thatcher. He could not accept that Thatcher had obtained a parliamentary majority more than sufficient to entitle her to put the Conservative Party's policies into effect. Rather, he insisted that his wishes, which had attracted very little support at the ballot box, be those adopted.

The period in the 80's after the defeat of the miners's strike must have been a hard time for the traditional left in the UK. The parliamentary party had split, that split having been caused both by Scargill and the inability of Foot and later Kinnock to insist upon the primacy of the electoral process over the street. The Social Democrat group had neither the money or the support of a party machine to pose a viable alternative. Much the same could be said for the Liberals. From the figures quoted above, it seems that in the absence of compulsory voting, many simply did not turn up at the polling booths. By default, Thatcher continued in power.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Like just about everyone who doesn't work in an investment bank, the bank bailouts appal me. However, they are not so very different from the financial support given to heavy industry in the 70s - a stop gap to prevent crisis in a business capable of holding the country to ransom. I very much hope that British government will take steps similar to those taken by Thatcher to avoid any repetition being possible, and I'm sure you all would applaud them.

I agree substantially with much of what you say (though we seem to differ as to how bad we think the result of Thatchers reforms were). I think the paragraph above points to the difference though.

I think the banking situation is substantially due to the particular direction that Thatcher started the country down (which doesn't mean to say that it was solely her fault). I think it's unlikely to be remedied because she managed to successfully define some types of government support as 'living off the state' and others as 'free enterprise' - and people continue trotting out that definition to this day.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Perhaps the true legacy of Thatcherism is to hold up a mirror to UK society and show that nothing has changed, at least in regards to women.

Why?

Because I doubt that this level of passion would be expended over the "legacy" or otherwise of an ex-Prime Minister.

But Margaret Thatcher was a woman, so she is judged differently.

That's not pure, unadulterated bollocks. But it's pretty close.

Ask me about the legacy of that lying, war-mongering shit Blair.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:

The mines and coal industry slot into the wider and very current absence of a sensible long term UK energy policy. I hope I have pointed out well enough, that due to things like Fukishima, rare though they are, show us the vulnerability of nuclear power (although I am not totally anti nuclear myself).

No one should have a job in a redundant industry for life.

Surely Beeching (British railway cuts and wholesale slaughter of the rail network early 1960s) should have taught us something?

A large well organised coal industry, with less manpower, more safety, and lower costs per tonne was the way to go in the 1980s towards the new century.

Sadly politics got in the way and part of Thatcher's legacy is to destroy a coal industry that could have had a bright (but changed and modernised) future.

Saul the Apostle

I still think it's difficult to say that the present state of the coal industry in the UK is the legacy of Mrs Thatcher. Her government played a role, but principally what she did was to refuse to allow the majority of taxpayers to continue to sustain an industry that could not pay its own way in the world and which had then already been withering away for decades.

Yes, there were wider political motivations as well, and yes her government is culpable for its callous failure to deal with the plight of the former mining communities. But the bottom line is that a diminished and sickly mining industry was clinging on at the time by being pickled in subsidy. For political reasons and from motivations of fairness to the majority and good stewardship, this situation was unacceptable to Mrs Thatcher's government and (unlike the preceding governments) they had the political will and clout to oppose it.

How much might it have cost if she had not? Even now, a generation later it remains uneconomic to mine most UK coal. How much might it have cost the rest of us over the last 25+ years to keep sustaining a 1970s mining industry let alone to upgrade it as you suggest? At some stage, rising world prices or a revolutionary technology might change that equation, but it hasn't yet and it might never.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Reword your middle paragraph as follows:

"Yes, there were wider political motivations as well, and yes a diminished and sickly mining industry was clinging on at the time by being pickled in subsidy. But the bottom line is that her government is culpable for its callous failure to deal with the plight of the former mining communities."

and I wouldn't much disagree with you. That's the bit that's still blighting people's lives around here.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

I wouldn't disagree that the failure to address the effects of mine closures is a stain, not just on the Thatcher government but on all those who followed. That's not uniquely her legacy of course, because in 20 odd years since Mrs Thatcher left power nobody has done much to help those communities either, despite the fact that for many of those years the country was considerably more affluent either than it is now or than it was at the time she left power.

But I don't see it as a strong part of Mrs Thatcher's legacy from the 1980s that UK mining became uncompetitive from the 1960s onward (arguably before that in fact, though the effect was masked by the war). Most pits that have closed down, closed long before she took office. Many of those that closed on her watch or later would have gone regardless of who was in Number 10 because nobody could possibly have afforded to keep them open.

On the other hand the legacy of bitterness left by the strike (and indeed the level of bitterness that allowed the strike to be so long, violent and divisive) certainly does have something quite specifically to do with her. Thatcher supporters would doubtless say that she was used as a bogey figure by her political opponents at the time and subsequently. I think there's truth in that, but equally the tone of her administration was extremely uncompromising and invited that sort of treatment.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Perhaps the true legacy of Thatcherism is to hold up a mirror to UK society and show that nothing has changed, at least in regards to women.

Why?

Because I doubt that this level of passion would be expended over the "legacy" or otherwise of an ex-Prime Minister.

But Margaret Thatcher was a woman, so she is judged differently.
That's not pure, unadulterated bollocks. But it's pretty close.

Ask me about the legacy of that lying, war-mongering shit Blair.

Bollocks mixed with bullshit I'd say.

The unusual depth of political feeling about Margaret Thatcher's government has nothing to do with her being a woman.

Posted by Alaric the Goth (# 511) on :

I disagree, ken. My father was much more bothered by her being a woman (and he saw her as a 'certain kind' of woman, and there's little doubt that she was unlike most women) and hated her more than if she'd been a man and done/said the same things she did. His (misogynist) view undoubtedly rubbed off on me to some extent: witness my reaction to John Major's election, whom I always disliked less than I did Mrs T., even though the privatisation of BR under him was perhaps the most botched of them all.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Reword your middle paragraph as follows:

"Yes, there were wider political motivations as well, and yes a diminished and sickly mining industry was clinging on at the time by being pickled in subsidy. But the bottom line is that her government is culpable for its callous failure to deal with the plight of the former mining communities."

and I wouldn't much disagree with you. That's the bit that's still blighting people's lives around here.

I'm not sure this was necessarily so.

Assuming we agree that the cause of mining communities' decline is the lack of jobs to replace those in the mines, what obligation did the government hold towards the former miners and their communities? Was it to replace those jobs? Or was it to put in place appropriate measures to enable the economy to creat jobs? What wasn't done that should have been done?

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:

Assuming we agree that the cause of mining communities' decline is the lack of jobs to replace those in the mines, what obligation did the government hold towards the former miners and their communities?

Was it to replace those jobs? Or was it to put in place appropriate measures to enable the economy to creat jobs?

None. Thatcher destroyed the concept of "One Nation Toryism", popularised the virtue of hard work for its own sake, and replaced the welfare state with a very minimal safety net, which we have to this day.

quote:

What wasn't done that should have been done?

Thatcher didn't believe that anything needed to be done. Tebbit thought people should go where the work was, but I seriously believe that, as a grocer's daughter, Thatcher believed that all the ex-miners could have stayed put, opened shops and small businesses, and survived rather like those communities of fable and legend that survive by "taking in each others' washing".

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

I now live (after Liverpool birth and youth) in West Sussex.

People vote by instinct Conservative. Tribal Tory country.

Even dirt poor ''white trash'' vote Tory down here and always seem to do so. In fact in the recent County Council elections the Tories.............you guessed it stayed in control (45 seats) , with the largest opposition being UKIP (10 seats) and Lib Dem and Labour bring up the rear.

Thatcher destroyed the UK coal industry - simples.

Her modus operandi was to take the high ground against a pantomime villain (and what a gift Scargill was to her) and then ''win''.

It is all so very sad. I firmly believe the coal mines should have had a good future, rocky times sure, but when you look at the hazards of nuclear power, coal does have its attractions especially when mined to high safety criteria and it can be used in a far less polluting way than the tree huggers would have you believe.

Saul

Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

Perhaps she challenged a culture of entitlement. The idea that the world owes one a living.

Perhaps we are owned nothing. Just a fair day's wage for a fair day's work.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
Perhaps she challenged a culture of entitlement. The idea that the world owes one a living.

Perhaps we are owned nothing. Just a fair day's wage for a fair day's work.

Hang on, wasn't she married to a guy who made his income and wealth from the work of hundreds of others? That's what millionaires were back in the day.

I'm all for a fair wage and all that, and some should be paid more than others, but for some to receive £500,000 while others receive a fortieth of that destroys the notion of a "fair wage".

[ 04. May 2013, 11:56: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
Perhaps she challenged a culture of entitlement. The idea that the world owes one a living.

Perhaps we are owned nothing. Just a fair day's wage for a fair day's work.

Surely the 'culture of entitlement' was/is held by a relatively small number of people? Most people in most parts of the UK I would suggest don't hold to that view.

She challenged a political movement by her own political movement and had the good political fortune to be challenged by a pantomime figure on the right (General Galtieri of Argentina) and a pantomime figure on the left (Arthur Scargill).

Both of those pantomime characters ensured she was swept onto a world and national stage as some sort of Boudiccean saviour queen; like we've said her own party stabbed her between the shoulder blades and dispatched her with quick savagery.

Saul

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

I think in most times and in most places, the vast majority of people expect to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. While I'm sure expectations do vary, I'm sure this was just as true in the 1970s as today.

My query doesn't really relate to the extent to which Thatcher's government changed working expectations (in any event, what appears to have changed is not people's expectations of themselves but their beliefs about other people's expectations or lack of them). What interests me is why it is said that her government is responsible for continued deprivation in the former mining and heavy industrial areas. If a town's prosperity depends on a nearby coal seam, and that seam is mined out, then the town has a problem. I don't see how any government can see to it that all the former miners in that town can be provided with suitable alternative jobs in that town, or possibly even elsewhere. The most a government can do is smooth the way for alternative employers, such as are willing, to increase business in the town, or ensure that retrenched workers are able to retrain.

Another example is the automotive industry. Time was, so I'm told, that the majority of jobs in south Birmingham were in car manufacturing (and at Cadbury's). Given the lamentable record of car manufacturers, not least poor union-management relations, was it feasible for alternative employers such as Nissan to step into the gap left by British Leyland? Is it fair to blame the government for failing to secure alternative employment?

Getting made redundant is a truly horrid thing, and I hope if it happens to me (and I note that it's happening right and left in my profession) I will continue to support my family by securing alternative employment. But is it fair to assume the government always has the means of securing everyone's jobs if it chooses?

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I think in most times and in most places, the vast majority of people expect to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. While I'm sure expectations do vary, I'm sure this was just as true in the 1970s as today.

My query doesn't really relate to the extent to which Thatcher's government changed working expectations (in any event, what appears to have changed is not people's expectations of themselves but their beliefs about other people's expectations or lack of them). What interests me is why it is said that her government is responsible for continued deprivation in the former mining and heavy industrial areas. If a town's prosperity depends on a nearby coal seam, and that seam is mined out, then the town has a problem. I don't see how any government can see to it that all the former miners in that town can be provided with suitable alternative jobs in that town, or possibly even elsewhere. The most a government can do is smooth the way for alternative employers, such as are willing, to increase business in the town, or ensure that retrenched workers are able to retrain.

Another example is the automotive industry. Time was, so I'm told, that the majority of jobs in south Birmingham were in car manufacturing (and at Cadbury's). Given the lamentable record of car manufacturers, not least poor union-management relations, was it feasible for alternative employers such as Nissan to step into the gap left by British Leyland? Is it fair to blame the government for failing to secure alternative employment?

Getting made redundant is a truly horrid thing, and I hope if it happens to me (and I note that it's happening right and left in my profession) I will continue to support my family by securing alternative employment. But is it fair to assume the government always has the means of securing everyone's jobs if it chooses?

Cod,

I would broadly agree with you......but [Smile]

....there's always a but isn't there ? Thatcher's legacy for me is encapsulated in an outlook and direction of travel which has been less than wholly beneficial to the people of Britain.

An example. Our water companies in England are private. The cost to the consumer has sky rocketed of an essential basic - water. Salaries for top executives are obscene and compulsory metering is now being rolled out where I live. Bills have doubled and in some cases tripled.

In wales the water authority is a not for profit company and in Scotland they are still in public ownership, same as N.Ireland.

Thatcher set the tone for all of this. She paved the way she was the grand dame of privatising things and liberating them from the ''dead hand'' of state control.

Council houses - the reason that property is so unavailable in the UK (due to exhorbitant prices) is that the stock was diminished in the 1980s and 90s by the sell off to owners. You could argue that no one should be denied the right to own their own property, but the government now has a massive shortage of housing for British people.

Thatcher's legacy was not all gloss and roses. There has been a harder side and a darker side.

Saul

[ 05. May 2013, 06:45: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

I agree that the housing policy set in motion by her (ie, selling state-owned houses at knock-down prices and removing laws that in effect controlled prices) was clearly silly in hindsight. Likewise, it seems wrong that the profits from utilities should flow into private hands, and silly that those hands should be overseas. I also well remember Thatcher's hectoring tone that brooked no debate on any matter, and how that angered my parents and their friends - and me for that matter.

I'm specifically interested in how a government can be held responsible for high unemployment in areas where jobs had previuously been in uneconomic industries. To blame a government in such circumstances doesn't strike me as fair, and even in Thatcher's case, one ought to look past her government's rhetoric about bikes and whatnot and ask that question.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:

I'm specifically interested in how a government can be held responsible for high unemployment in areas where jobs had previuously been in uneconomic industries. To blame a government in such circumstances doesn't strike me as fair, and even in Thatcher's case, one ought to look past her government's rhetoric about bikes and whatnot and ask that question.

Let's put it this way: if the Brown* and Cameron governments hadn't bailed out the financial sector, would they ever have been forgiven for doing to London and the South-East what Thatcher's government did to heavy manufacturing industry in Wales, Scotland and most of the North of England?

*having fucked things up, wasn't Blair a smart cookie, getting his ass out of the way just as the shit hit the fan.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:

I'm specifically interested in how a government can be held responsible for high unemployment in areas where jobs had previuously been in uneconomic industries. To blame a government in such circumstances doesn't strike me as fair, and even in Thatcher's case, one ought to look past her government's rhetoric about bikes and whatnot and ask that question.
Let's put it this way: if the Brown* and Cameron governments hadn't bailed out the financial sector, would they ever have been forgiven for doing to London and the South-East what Thatcher's government did to heavy manufacturing industry in Wales, Scotland and most of the North of England?

*having fucked things up, wasn't Blair a smart cookie, getting his ass out of the way just as the shit hit the fan.

@ SS - I sometimes wish I could have thought of things people wrote and said. Well said and well put.

@ Cod - I don't think the government has in perpetuity any duty to keep people in uneconomic jobs. But if Maggie Thatcher went into a metaphorical corner newsagents/sweetie shop and smashed it up and the owner had no insurance or ability to repair it what is the result?

A weakened coal industry was effectively dispatched by Thatcher's government, like I said partly because of her national standing having faced down and won a South American junta and fascist General (Galtieri). Then having the great good fortune to be given a story book villein in the shape of Arthur Scargill to fight the good fight against; what a gift for her and what retribution on an industry that humbled her predecessor (Heath).

You couldn't write the script. It would stretch credulity - but events, dear boy, events......

Saul

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

"silly in hindsight"? My Father was a Labour Councillo at the time and he and most of the left knew it was silly then and predicted the results at the time. Hindsight was not required.

Posted by vw man (# 13951) on :

I dont think we will ever know what Good or bad she did for the couintry,proubly a bit bit of both no pain no gain

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