kowenicki said:
I'm from near Manchester, thats VERY different to Liverpool as you know.
The context is everything. This country was totally fucked, going to the IMF for handouts. The Unions HAD to be destroyed. They were bringing down governments, holding new governments to ransom. There was bound to be casulaties and that is a shame for those individuals. But it HAD to be done.
Some of your list is a joke by the way. Hillsborough...? huh? S. Yorkshire police corruption (again) I think you'll find. Most Yorkshire polices forces appear to be corrupt or inept dont they?
Utilities privatisation has lead to higher prices? that about as far from the truth as you could get. You know how many Telephone companies in Europe were private before BT went public? None. How many now? All of them. Privatisation was absolutely essential. If you like state ownership move East... much further East. She didnt just start privatisation here, she made it happen in the whole of Europe, because its a good idea.
She didnt destroy British Maniufacturing, British manufacturing and the unions destroyed themselves. Manufacturing is actually alive and well contrary to popular belief.
She didnt care about the working class? She was working class. She liberated the working class... if you had an appetitie to work.
Every PM has handled the NHS badly... its beyond anything else, its basically a cash sink.
Falklands... not even going there. I dont know how anyone can question what happened there.
The one bad thing she did? Invented New Labour.
How many of the policies did Labout overturn? None. She won the argument big time and socialism was killed in her time in office. For that alone I thank her.
You missed out a very big deal.... helping bring down the Soviet Block and ensuring world peace. Reagan and Thatcher (after Thatcher persuaded Reagan) did "business" with Gorbachev and it all started from there.
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Maybe the unions had too much power before Thatcher came into power but she destroyed numerous rural communities out there, manufacturing and mining were especially hit hard. Many places that grew on these 2 things haven't recovered since then, despite being 30 years. You may point out the miners strike of 84, but she was going to shut them down anyway. These people were fighting for there livelihoods and she took it from anyway. The community spirit in such places was destroyed for good and to think we could of been in a good position selling our good coal to China and India right now if the mining industry had survived. The hatred from the North is because so gutted such mining communities of there souls.
And if manufacturing is so alive here, where is it? Every factory in my area has vanished, they are either abandoned or some housing development now.
And you surely can't defend the Poll Tax of 1989, in any system a Lord shouldn't pay the same tax rate as a council tenant, that's extremely unfair and i'm glad we the people defeated her on that (partly thanks to Scotland)
And you say she liberated the working class, how? Unemployment was much higher back then, i think it peaked at 3 million and she closed the GLC because that number was leaked. Deindustrialisation played apart but so did privatisation. Inflation was also high at 15% at times. Interest rates were as high as 15% at times. VAT was raised by alot, hurting the poor even more in a tough time. And i partly blame her for today's recession because of deregulating the finance sector (which only benefitted London by the way), which has lead to a rediculous bonus culture for CEO's of Banks. The massive sell off of our assets means we don't even benefit from the profit, British rail, BT, British gas and others had. The profits are now left in some off shore bank account doing nothing. And prices have gone through the roof since privatisation, just look at how expensive trains are these days and look at the huge profits British gas make despite falling energy prices.
I'm not sure how much this has to do with her, but the Media seemed to be biased in her favour by any media that Rupert Murdoch owned. It's possible she had a deal with him to get good press just like Tony Blair did. Man I hate the Sun, worst paper ever. News shouldn't be biased in anyway. Also, the BBC admitted it altered any footage of the Miner's strike to make it look like the police were attacked when it was the opposite way round.
Northern Ireland- she pretty much acted like the British Empire did there. She had the army repress the people there which caused widespread violence. It's no wonder the IRA tried to blow her up in Brighton in 1984. Since, Labour devolved power to Northern Ireland in 1999, there has been much more peace.
Education- she did little to make it better and new schools and equipment was needed. I'm proud to have been educated under Labour for nearly my whole education. It's a shame Tories want to fuck it up now.
I won't talk about Hillsbourough but there were many riots under her rule. Brixton being just one of them.
What good did she actually for Scotland, Wales, the Midlands etc. Scotland and Wales were completely controlled by Westminister back then but seemingly ignored by her
It's not all bad though i think some things she did were good.
The Falklands, she defended our territory as the people living wanted despite no backing up from Reagan or any non-communist european leaders. It's a shame, Argentina would just forget about it already. It was never theirs.
Despite mass privatisation, she left the NHS alone. Hopefully, Cameron will too.
She was a strong leader, did she ever really u-turn on anything?
Europe- i like that she was skeptic about the project. Just look at the mess it's in now, even though we are no better off.
Finally
Socialism may be dead for now, but do you really think this form of capitalism is failing big time. Growing up into such a broken system now, i don't trust it. I'm gonna start a degree this year and might not even be able to get a job when i finish in 3 and a bit years time. the current economy shows no future at all. Not Thatcher's fault but it's capitalism fault. Boom and bust must stop now. A mixture of capitalism with Socialism is best.
Overall, better than Blair but i still overwhelmingly disagree with her. At least she could win a war. Also, Blair's ID cards idea was also bad
USSR- all she and Reagan did was put pressure on them. The Soviets couldn't handle it and so dissolved it and went to Capitalism. Gorbachev lead a peaceful transition to Capitalism.
