A question for non British people

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Kallesh

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Jul 26, 2008
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I'm British, and half my family are One-Nation conservatives, the other are modern liberals; personally I think holding any single political ideology is Stubborn and close minded.

I think that on Argentina, Thatcher was right, they were a dictatorship, who wanted to conquer the islands to prop up support for their regime and displace the British population who have lived there for hundreds of years.

On Union reform I think it was right, the Unions held the country to ransom, she came in following the winter of discontent in 1979, where frozen corpses lay on the sides of the streets because grave diggers wewre striking, electricity used to cut out in the evenings, and the government was forced to pay for useless crap like coal which was not economically efficient to mine anymore.

However Poll tax was undoubtedly wrong, and she put too much empohasis on cultivating the financial sector of the city, replacing the old men in bowler hats with modern banking; and utterly neglected to support large scale infustry in the North and scotland.

Not only did this damage the UK as a whole, it made tories into hate figures,a stereotype which they still haven't shaken off.
Most Northeners and Scottish people seem to think of Tories as hard line Monetarists, who hate the EU, believe we should still have an Empire, who seek a capitalist Plutocracy where money rules.
However Old conservativism, One-Nationism was about reconciling the differences between the classes and creating a united undivided country without a social dialectic, the polar opposite of what both New Right Tories like Thatcher and Reagan , and New Socialism leaders like Blair and Deng Xiaopeng stand for, which is a divided plutocratic society.






http://isthatcherdeadyet.co.uk/
 

B Goy

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Jan 5, 2010
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I'm going to that guy who everyone is going to hate for saying this.

The thing about Thatcher is that, contrary to the attempts by everyone to make you forget this, Thatcher was not a dictator who everyone hated during those days but was a democratically elected leader who did the policies that were in her manifesto that gained her three election victories (two with majorities over 100) with a consistent voting base of over 40% of the nation and over 12 million votes which was a great achievement for a three-party system that uses the First Past the Post electoral system.

Another thing is that we sort of make it our aim to have Thatcher be someone that she wasn't. Some will call her a great defender of British sovereignty when she signed the Single European Act and others call her The Mine Closer when Harold Wilson and James Callaghan had closed down more mines then she did. She was a product of the era when trade unions could, and would, go on strike for someone being fired for sleeping on the job and the trade union leaders that she faced were more then happy to advocate ignoring the giant electoral victories she gained and tried to overthrow her and she was more then happy to fight.

Another myth is that Falklands was the only thing that kept her from losing 1983. While she was unpopular, her Opposition's manifesto was, to quote one of the people who wrote it 'The longest suicide note in history' and the other alternative was something that people say they would vote for, but don't really commit to it. She would have had a far smaller majority, but not lose the election.

Were all of her decisions good? No. Were all of her decisions bad? No. Did she lose the plot in the end and ignored her cabinet to the point of rebellion at the end? Yes. Did she have an electoral mandate for her policies that even made the Labour Party change so that it would maintain the principles of her policies? Yes.

Is the blind Thatcher hate a bit silly? Yes and I will now be mauled by said people.
 

Helmholtz Watson

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Nov 7, 2011
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jigilojoe said:
Recently, shooting began on a film about Margaret Thatcher starring Meryl Streep as the 'Iron Lady' (if you're interested, Iron Lady is the name of the film). Since Thatcher is now knocking on deaths door I'm guessing that the film is going to be more of a homage than a insult, but Thatcher was truly a woman without humanity or goodness, killing every ounce of community and industry in Britain and sending men out to a war which (in my opinion) could of been avoided.

So here's the question to all you non Brits, if you had heard of Thatcher before now, what was your opinion on her?

EDIT: If you are British express your anger for the ***** having a film made about her

Oh and a lot of people are talking about their reasoning for hating Thatcher, here's mine I was born 4 years after she left office, my family on my fathers side were both coal miners and industrial workers. When I go up North to see them it feels like something's been lost, it's just painful to see.

EDIT EDIT: This is getting a whole lot of views and comments, so as the Thatcher debate rages on, I'd like to ask the rest of the World (especially those of you writing from America) what's so bad about Socialism?

In Britain one of our main parties would be viewed as Socialist by most Americans, not forgetting the NHS which is an entirely Socialist idea. So why does everyone else hate, or why are you scared of Socialism?
While I don't like how she treated the Irish(they were political prisoners whether she wanted to realize that or not and it shouldn't have taken the death of Bobby Sands to realize this) or Argentinian people(the island doesn't belong to England, nor should it anymore than Hong Kong), but WOW. From the youtube video's I see of her, she really can defend herself against the Labor party! Here is what I'm talking about:


andthis one too...
 

The Artificially Prolonged

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Jul 15, 2008
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Not much love for her in the North of England, mining towns or Scotland. Alot of towns in those regions took big hits to their economies when industries starting being shut down causing alot unemployment and generating alot of of ill will towards Thatcher and the Conservative party in general down to this day.

I was walking to work yesterday, when I saw a bus with a banner advertising the movie. Someone had dented the poster so it looked like Lady Thatcher had a bullet in the head, which made be laugh and quite nicely sums up the sentiment of alot of Brits have to Thatcher.
 

Mr Cwtchy

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Jan 13, 2009
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On the day of Thatcher's funeral, an earthquake will strike the country.

It will be caused by almost the entire populations of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and probably a good half of England dancing on her grave at once.

So yeah, from what I've read and heard she was a cold hearted ***** who gutted the working class like a salmon, but with less respect.

I don't have a problem with the Falklands War though, aside from that incident with blowing up a retreating Argentinian warship.
 

SilentCom

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Mar 14, 2011
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I have heard of her however only her name and not much else. I guess I don't have much of an opinion of her.
 

realist1990

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Nov 18, 2011
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Ninjamedic said:
I hate her with the intensity of 10,000,000 Foreman Grills. (Irish BTW)

But Ireland has produced a far worse politician, one who screwed up the north, robbed our country blind, and ruined us.
which one? Ahern, Cowen, Leinihen, Harney, Adams, McGuiness, Haughey?
 

realist1990

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Nov 18, 2011
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Death_Korps_Kommissar said:
catalyst8 said:
Death_Korps_Kommissar said:
I'm Irish, i'll see if you can guess ;P
Give me a hand & perhaps we can murder the *****.
Well she's well known over here due to the way she dealt with the IRA. Mostly letting hunger strikers die. Since a lot of stupid people down south here still support the IRA they're like Fuck thatcher!
But i don't like her for her political position and being an evil *****.
All I want is Frankie Boyle to be head of the funeral.

one of the few things she did right letting them die, should have let the rest of them starve as well..and don't worry only 15% of us southies support seinn fein,
 

Rylingo

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Aug 13, 2008
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As far as im concerned she take her constant blatant class warfare indulging policies and stick them were the sun don't shine. Not that it matters. David Cameron is in charge, and he is busy privitising the NHS by stealth. Maybe we'll be lucky and have a lovely health system like america. Mind you if I lived in mainland england I would probably vote for him because the tories are the only party stuck up enough to tell the European Union to take a running jump. Preferrably off the nearest cliff.

realist1990 said:
one of the few things she did right letting them die, should have let the rest of them starve as well..and don't worry only 15% of us southies support seinn fein,
Considering a fair few of the hunger strikers didn't have a choice I find your stance a little harsh. What would happen to them if they didn't strike whilst their fellows did? How long before they were killed or had their families threatened?
 

realist1990

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Nov 18, 2011
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realist1990 said:
one of the few things she did right letting them die, should have let the rest of them starve as well..and don't worry only 15% of us southies support seinn fein,
Considering a fair few of the hunger strikers didn't have a choice I find your stance a little harsh. What would happen to them if they didn't strike whilst their fellows did? How long before they were killed or had their families threatened?
one could point out that they wouldn't have been there if they hadn't being a member of a terrorist organisation, they weren't innocent men..well most of them weren't
 

michiehoward

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Apr 18, 2010
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I think Thatcher is a great woman, great leader. She wasn't a waffler, which scores major points with me.
Canada
 

Rylingo

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Aug 13, 2008
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realist1990 said:
one could point out that they wouldn't have been there if they hadn't being a member of a terrorist organisation, they weren't innocent men..well most of them weren't
Considering how dodgey the cops were back then Id be willing to bet a sizable cash sum that a couple were innocent.
 

Broady Brio

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Jun 28, 2009
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Question for non British people? You can't stop me!
I wasn't alive when she was Prime Minister. Though my Dad was able to get a house because of one of her polices or something.
 

B Goy

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Jan 5, 2010
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Thatcher was less despised by the entire country, more then being despised by the entire media that wasn't called The Sun, Telegraph, Daily Shits and The Times.

She got over 40% of the vote in every election and was able to score three impressive victories in terms of seats so that claim is somewhat bullshit.
 

StBishop

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Sep 22, 2009
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Aussie here.

In the interest of heading off some quotes, (unlikely as they are all the way back here on the 11th/12th page) I know almost nothing about how the British political system works, I've never studied any history that's taken place in BCE and I've got no idea what she actually did.

From what I can gather she's seen to be as amazing at what she did, but no one actually wanted her to do it at the time/at all (Especially in Scotland because she basically ended coal mining or some shit).

EDIT: From what I'm reading in this thread I'm gaining a large amount of respect for her.

It feels a lot like this Carbon tax which had recently gone through in Australia. There's a bunch of complaining from people about how it's going to drive up the cost of living but realistically in 20 years people will point to it and say "Look how Australia led the charge on fighting climate change by instituting a tax on carbon emissions more than 10 times the amount of any other country in the world." and the people who're complaining about it now will say how proud they are to be Australian and point to the southern cross tattooed on their sagging pectorals.

Yeah, I can't say I have a problem with what I have read on her in the last 10 mins but I also don't have any Scottish family.
 

FamoFunk

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Mar 10, 2010
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I think this will go quite nicely here: http://www.isthatcherdeadyet.co.uk/

She ruined the lived of many families and towns that have still not recovered from her power.
 

Slippers

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Dec 7, 2010
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Lithuanian, from what I have heard. She took a mathematical approach to ruling a country and easily cut of the parts that couldn't stand. I highly approve of her.