Re: Thatcher , Recovers WHY !!
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 4:27 pm
Just wondered if your mother or grandmother are still alive? Would it be OK for someone to wish them dead?
I think she did a lot of good and a lot of bad, the good was very good and it's legacy has endured, the bad was very bad and the legacy of that has endured too.
Examples of the good are: Trade Union reform, to ensure the terrible things the Unions did to this country in the 1970's could never be repeated; opening up home ownership, the white-collar workplace, and University education to the working classes (this particularly happened in the south-east) thus expanding the middle-class.
Examples of the bad are: shutting down any industry that wasn't profitable, thus bringing about the fastest rise in unemployment since the 1930's and creating a situation where one in seven people were on the dole just four years after she took office (by 1983). This figure was probably more like one in five but massive efforts were put in to trying to get as many people as possible onto Sickness Benefit to massage the unemployment figures. People got very used to being on Benefits thanks to her policies and Benefit dependency has been rife in all the areas affected since the 1980's.
I think she also created a large mistrust of politicians. She did and said anything just to win office and to stay in office. There was little cabinet Government when she was in power, she sacked anyone who didn't agree with her - unless when it meant her job could be on the line if she did. An example of this was going along with her Chancellor John Major about signing up for the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (the ERM). He was in favour and she wasn't but she went ahead with it, knowing it was bad for Britain, because if he resigned over the issue she would be gone too. Major was her second Chancellor that year and she couldn't lose two in one year. It cost us very dear indeed when we were ejected from the ERM in 1992 (John Major was PM by then).
She was very good at tricking people into voting for her then breaking promises straight after an election - knowing the people couldn't vote again for another 4 or 5 years. I remember the 1987 election, her last one, and just 4 months after being re-elected she screwed the people of the north-east by withdrawing the subsidy for the shipyards (in October of that year). That region sank back into the 1930's more or less overnight. This could have been done earlier, possibly not ever, but it was intentionally held back until after the election. Unemployment in that region devastated communities and families for years after. She wanted office at any price.
There are people in Britain who worship her, there are people in Britain who despise her beyond words. When she dies there will be some sad people and some who will be rejoicing. They may have to bury her at a secret location, or cremate her and tip her ashes into a fast flowing river, because her grave will be vandalised continuously. I remember a statue of her a few years ago that got instantly decapitated.