Questions for our British friends

[palo5]

Originally Posted by rupertramjet

Thatcher again gets lambasted!

Correctly, imho

Aside from being an industry & jobs destroyer, she introduced special taxes for the poor, believed in privatization for the benefit of cronies and the detriment of everyone else, followed the brain-dead Reagan like a poodle, and liked monetarist policy even when any fool could see it made no sense

And aside from that, she made the "screw you, I'm ok" idea socially acceptable, and others continued it

I know you may like her in connection with the Falklands, but whose negligence lost the Falklands and made the campaign necessary in the first place?

[SanteeFats]

Originally Posted by palo5

Correctly, imho

Aside from being an industry & jobs destroyer, she introduced special taxes for the poor, believed in privatization for the benefit of cronies and the detriment of everyone else, followed the brain-dead Reagan like a poodle, and liked monetarist policy even when any fool could see it made no sense

And aside from that, she made the "screw you, I'm ok" idea socially acceptable, and others continued it

I know you may like her in connection with the Falklands, but whose negligence lost the Falklands and made the campaign necessary in the first place?

I like your attitude palo. I am glad your views are so balanced and not biased by your Russian origins.

[Brecht]

Originally Posted by palo5

Correctly, imho

Aside from being an industry & jobs destroyer, she introduced special taxes for the poor, believed in privatization for the benefit of cronies and the detriment of everyone else, followed the brain-dead Reagan like a poodle, and liked monetarist policy even when any fool could see it made no sense

And aside from that, she made the "screw you, I'm ok" idea socially acceptable, and others continued it

I know you may like her in connection with the Falklands, but whose negligence lost the Falklands and made the campaign necessary in the first place?

The Falklands War was supposed to divert the British public's attention from Mrs. Thatcher's disastrous policies.

[rotobott]

Originally Posted by Brecht

The Falklands War was supposed to divert the British public's attention from Mrs. Thatcher's disastrous policies.

Yes, I remember watching some current affairs programme just before the war, either World in Action or Panorama, warning about what was about to happen, and thinking why are they telling us about scrap dealers, on some remote island.

Now it's totally disappeared from the interweb

[rupertramjet]

I feel we are back on an old tread mill! Knock Thatcher, she was evil, she destroyed the coal industry, she closed factories, she destroyed the economy, she started the Falklands War, and so on in nauseous infinitum.

When the Thatcher government came to power we had a few unelected union leaders holding the nation hostage, refusing to allow industry to modernise, refusing to allow British products to become either commercial or even worth buying. Cars which were so badly made, so out of style that imports from both Europe and Japan began to outsell them, steel which lost billions and coal which was so expensive to produce, that only one customer bought it, the electricity power stations, because they were forced to by law!

The Wilson Government closed more mines than Thatchers ever came close to! Scargill, hated in Yorkshire, led the miners out on strike, without a ballot victory, and the other nationalised industries were losing so much money and also out on strike that it was ridiculoue, so something had to be done!

The Falklands was because of an act of aggression by Argentina, they needed to take attention from the situation at home and failed to realise that Britain would fight back, yes there were warnings, but no one expected an invasion!

As for Europe, of course they disliked her! She told them that Britain was sick of being the highest nett contributor, and lowest nett beneficiary, enough was enough and she demanded a rebate, she got it too! Many feel she actually has a positive effect on Reagan and even Gorbachev respected her!

So folks, out of office for thirty years, dead for a couple, perhaps time to say enough???

[rotobott]

And not to forget she closed the most hated Prime Minister thread, despite proving surprisingly popular, well the mods closed it for some reason, it was fairly polite considering the feelings felt.

[Brecht]

We're talking about history here, Rupert. Nobody can escape the verdict of history. Not Mrs. Thatcher, not Arthur Scargill. Look at the state of the British economy today. Its industry is dead. Do you think that's Scargill's doing? What exactly were Thatcher's plans to modernize industry? Of course, she can't be blamed for everything that went wrong in your country. But she opened the door for one desaster after another. Every prime minister after Thatcher was a Thatcherite, the biggest of them being Tony Blair. As for Mr. Scargill, he may have made many mistakes but he stood up for the right people and he was right when he accused the Thatcher government of a conspiracy to shut down 70 pits.

I agree that the invasion of the Falklands by Argentinian troops was an attempt to divert attention from the bad economic situation at home. That's what capitalist governments love to do. When there's a fire at home, let's set another fire somewhere else.

Margaret Thatcher wasn't stupid. To underestimate her role and influence would be a mistake even today. She knew exactly what she was doing and it was to break with every compromise made. The working class and their organizations were to be crushed, so they had to fight back. It may not be a revolution or even a general strike but it's still called class struggle and the short period of Falklands jingoism couldn't stop what was to come in 1984-85. Whenever a nation is faced with its class reality, its government uses methods like starting wars to create a state of "national unity". It's the same all over the world, Rupert.

[Mal Hombre]

Originally Posted by rotobott

And not to forget she closed the most hated Prime Minister thread, despite proving surprisingly popular, well the mods closed it for some reason, it was fairly polite considering the feelings felt.

The thread wasn't closed,It just faded away due to lack of interest.

[rupertramjet]

Brecht, you are completely wrong about Scargill, his fight had nothing to do with workers rights, it was all to do with him. He was a complete hypocrite, whilst his members were on strike, he was decent enough not to take delivery of his new Daimler car, whilst his members were having their second hand Robin Reliants and Escorts snatched back. He arranged a £100000 interest free loan for his daughter, not a miner or even a member, from the NUM. In the area she lives in, it is still possible to buy a terraced house for £60k, think what she bought with the miners money! He declared himself President for Life, a la Idi Amin, he continued to take a six figure salary, and keep possession of a flat in central London, forcing the by now cash strapped NUM to take legal action in both cases, to enable them to continue giving support to the people in need. Yeah right, man of the people! Ironically hid predecesor Joe Gormley, a real man of the people was ignored by Scargill when he told him it would end as it did. Remember too, Scargill never got the consent of the miners to strike, they were forced out, by bullying and often more unpleasant means.

Denaby Main, a Yorkshire pit was profitable only for one period in its Coal Board life, when the miners were on a work to rule, I was not told this by a Tory, but by one of the men who worked there.

You had to live in seventies Britain to understand the huge resentment towards the Unions felt by many. They were uncompromising, they certainly were not motivated by the needs of their workers, and British Industry was in massive decline. Refusal to accept new technology, working methods and reality, In Germany, the unions negotiated with management and worked with them to the betterment of the entire workforce and company, when BMW took over Austin Rover, years later, they told the workforce our way or no way. They introduced the German model and it worked, unfortunately, despite the cars being far better, the damage done to the reputation with so many years of bad cars under the Leyland badge, it was too late. A friend of mine who was a mechanic at a Leyland dealer, once showed me a newly delivered Jaguar, it was on its way to the bodyshop, to have the paint redone around the windscreen it was chipped and damaged from the lack of attention used in fitting it, he told me that was normal, most cars needed at least some remedial paint work on arrival from the factory.

We had flying pickets, basically people who had nothing to do with either the strike, or even the industry, who were basically just bully boys, looking for trouble, it was not safe even to walk by innocently without fear of abuse or attack. We had strikes for ridiculous reasons, cutting unofficial breaks, lack of paper in the toilets, all out! British Industry was in huge decline, and a part of that was the Nationalised Industries, no investment, poor quality and a lack of care or concern, a friend of mine worked for British Steel in Cardiff, he used to sleep most of his shift, and laugh about it.

Thatcher believed, I think, that if ||British Industry could become competitive, modern and produce quality goods, it would thrive, to do this, the Unions excess needed to be controlled, Privatisation, and giving the workers shares in their companies, might instill pride,provide the desperately needed capital to modernise, and reduce the burden on the tax payer, she did not realise that much of British Industry was already a corpse, living on Government handouts like a life support machine. Looking at the car industry, Jaguar Land Rover, remain hugely successful, because they chucked out the old, and the workforce suddenly realised they were in last chance saloon, firstly as a private entity, then under Ford and now new management, they are producing cars the World wants to buy! British Telecom, out of the dark ages, were there was only two choices of bland phone, to a modern company, with choice and competition and no longer a monopoly on what phone you can plug into their line, yes you could be prosecuted for having a none company phone plugged into their socket!

Yes she did get things wrong, yet so many countries have followed her example by privatising and with the new legislation from the EU, our nationalised industry would have fallen anyway, after all governments are not allowed to support failing business, we saw that over the last few years with the steel industry here.

The truth is Brecht, it was not a class thing, it was a few individuals fighting to make themselves mini empires, it was not just the unions, there were leaders of political factions forcing their views on the many, look up Liverpool City Council and Kinnock's speech on you tube, it really was that bad! This was Labour! I am no lover of the man, but this speech says it all! A faction within his own Party was being attacked by its leader!
tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWLN7rIby9s

As for me, as many have seen I am as low class as it is possible to be, I got lucky, I worked hard and rose in my profession, every single person in this country can do the same. But sometimes personal circumstance block the way.

[bloke57]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

The thread wasn't closed,It just faded away due to lack of interest.

The Thatcher thing is like Brexit and Marmite. 50/50.

Half loved her, half (including me) hated her. So it gets to the point where it's no longer worth discussing...it just was.

Amazing how divided as a nation(s) we really are.