As I write this I am close to the centre of Manchester. The big match (United v City) is on and I am looking down at some students letting off fireworks and celebrating the passing of Mrs T.
I will not be celebrating the death of Mrs Thatcher as these students are, none of which will remember her as PM, nor will be I be mourning her passing as my opinions on this controversial Prime-minister are divided.
We should be grateful to Mrs Thatcher for her determination and inspirational leadership during the Falklands conflict. Had the Labour Party been in power in 1982 we would have lost the islands for ever as Michael Foot would never have gone to war to liberate the Falklands. Mrs Thatcher was also a credit to Britain on the world stage. She and Ronald Reagan made an impressive double act and both played a key role in helping bring about the end of the Cold War.
Thatchers defeat of the hard left trade unions was something I admired her for at the time. Not because I am an opponent of trade unions, trade unions have been a force for good in times gone by and still could be with a leadership who put British workers rights ahead of their Internationalist agenda, they were a crucial factor in bringing about reforms which helped save millions of workers from exploitation and poverty. However by the 1970's the unions had been totally infiltrated by Marxist agitators (as most still are today) and when the Thatcher government of the 1980's broke the power of the unions many people celebrated.
On the downside the Thatcher years witnessed the decimation of traditional industries. She was an enthusiastic proponent of free trade and globalisation. Whereas other countries subsidised industries to ensure their long term survival the ethos of Thatcherism was survival of the fittest and few if any subsidies. This policy meant vast swathes of our manufacturing base disappeared. Thatcher shifted Britain away from being a traditional manufacturing based economy into an economy reliant on banking the service sector. Had it not been for the lottery win of the century courtesy of the natural resources of the North Sea the Thatcher years would brought about total economic ruination.
Another aspect of the Thatcher years which I truly resented was the selling off of our 'family silver' via privatisation. Everything from gas, electricity, water to railways was fair game as far as the Conservatives at that time were concerned. We, the little people were given sweeteners and encouraged to buy a couple of hundreds of pounds worth of shares during in the sell off of our national assets in return for a quick buck when we sold them on. The real winners were the monied classes who made unimaginable millions during this time. We are still feeling the pain of this policy today as we all suffer extortionately high bills as a result of the 'for profit' nature of the multinational conglomerates who own our utility companies.
This is only a very brief insight into my thoughts on Margaret Thatcher and her legacy. The subject is worthy of far greater study but unfortunately time is against me so I will conclude by asking if any TC readers have strong opinions regarding Margaret Thatcher? If so, please keep it decent and respectful.
48 comments:
The Great Struggle Is Here!!
The Struggle comes from the heart not the mind!
As the great battle rages in the hills, people will begin to see the truth.
We are looking down into HELL.
And the lands are on fire once again!
Whatever else she was, she was a CONVICTION politician who had formulated her essential views and values by her late teens and stuck to them.
Such politicians were rare back then, now they are virtually non-existent, with all the main parties indistinguishable and all their upper echelons believing in nothing, concerned only with how their empty words will play out in the gutless media.
I don't think Blair divides opinion, he's despised by almost everyone.
Born in '78 I remember Britain as a better place generally speaking when she was PM, despite coming from a poor working class family. The country still knew what it was, and whatever damage Thatcher may have done it pales into insignificance next to the New Labour years. Now the native British are aimless atomised wanderers without any sense of roots or identity, and for that reason I'll have no Labourite gloat to me about this.
Baroness Thatcher’s death unleashed a wave of vitriol and hatred from the Left.
The first of several planned ‘Thatcher death parties’ across the country began last night with more than 200 revellers gathering in Brixton, south London.
They danced the conga, drank champagne and chanted: ‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie – Dead, Dead, Dead.’
She may have done her duty sending the armed forces to defend our territory, but doing your duty is not enough to justify treason. She put globalist companies before state property and before the people. I for one will be getting drunk and celebrating the death of that terrible woman. I will celebrate the same amount if not more when Blair and Cameron drop dead also.
The enemy of my enemy is not my friend, especially when they serve the same masters. Let us hope that she is sent to the same part of the underworld inhabited by dead miners and their families, that thought puts a smile on my face.
While I don’t revere the lady, I would sooner have another Iron lady leading the country than the bunch of spineless sycophants we have had since.
I lost my job under MT but guess what, I went out and got another one. Not a nationalised job where the tax payers at the time subsidised the nationalised workers wages but a job where I got paid for what I did.
My dad and his side of the family were miners so I have been told about all the tricks that were used to get your bonuses and all the free coal that miners had as part of their contracts. Of how the unions bullied non-union members with threats of violence., even threatening what they would do to their wives and children.
Scargill and the unions is what got the mines shut because of their insistence on outdated communist working practices.
The unions then, much like the unions of today don’t give stuff about the ‘working classes. They are only ever concerned about how much they can screw from the members and then using the members as pawns to be sacrificed.
@serpent slayet...
"The enemy of my enemy is not my friend"
Bit strange coming from someone who lauds everyone from nazis like Adolf Hitler to commies like Hugo Chavez. And I'd much rather have someone like Thatcher than president Assad of Syria, another one of your heroes.
You haven't been around long enough to remember the Thatcher years, and whatever internal squabbles we had about who got what and how, the real treason under New Labour was in an entirely different league The revellers you'll be joining will probably be the kind of morons who don't have a word to say about that.
TC's summary of Mrs T is fairly damning in its restrained way.
Have been struck by the fanatical protectiveness extended towards her by her cult's followers, more suited to the public grieving accorded to Kim Jung Whatever in North Korea. This personality cult was in force long before she died.
She laid the ground for New Labour, performing the principally-economic side of a task that Blair and co provided the cultural-cum-legal corollary to, whilst riding on the coat-tails of her making the City into the only part of Britain that mattered.
If the country still seemed familiar when she was in power it was only because her works' effects hadn't had long enough to show at that point.
R
Like yourself TC, I too have a divided opinion on Thatcher.
She did destroy communities by virtually closing down the coal industry. Plus she was the main cause of Britain losing it's manufacturing base.
What was once described as the "Workshop Of The World" is now nothing more than a nation of call centres, takeaways and service industries.
On the other hand she did bring the out of control unions to heel. She also had the conviction to recover the Falklands from the Argentine bully boys - which modern politicians would do that?
I would say she was the most effective leader since Churchill and while not agreeing with a lot of her decisions, the Poll Tax was a fairer method of paying for local services than the present system.
Bill
http://www.walksintameside.co.uk
I don't think SS lauds them because they are Nazis or Commies. It's more likely because they were both traditional socialists. I would wager a bet that SS would be a Labour supporter if Labour was still true to its founding principles instead of the globalist tool of the rich which it now is.
What you really mean is that SS is prepared to credit Hitler and Assad for their good points and overlook their bad. But Thatcher (in his eyes) had no redeeming qualities whatsoever, so he'll dance on her grave along with the bedraggled student set and Dyolsdonian flatcap Labourites.
Britain in the 70s was under the cosh of Trade union reds, intent on bringing the entire country down. Thatcher was a capitalist who had to deal with them in her way, not always just but damned effective. SS's hero on the otherhand put them all in concentration camps or up against a wall the moment he set foot in power.
Thatcher fought the IRA unflinchingly, she defended the Falklands and she dragged the country out of the doldrums. The Labour government of the late 70s halved the value of the pound, and when she left office the ecenomy was in far better shape than how she found it. The New Labour boom was a baton she handed to them, and one they ran with and eventually wrecked.
Anon@13.42 I cannot argue with any of that and the scenes of the scum dancing and partying at her death made me sick. She was also one of the few people to call Nelson Mandela by his true name - a terrorist. Mandela was jailed for planting bombs at schools, sedition and numerous other crimes. When Mandela crokes it, what would happen if I went into town and started celebrating his death singing Mandela Mandela Mandela Dead Dead Dead? If not lynched by the worshipers of this terrorist icon, certainly arrested under some kind of hate law.
The case against Emma West and all white people in Britain.Is again adjourned. The next trial date is the 10th of May. It was adjourned for what they are calling legal reasons.Maybe the legal reason is the prosecution offered no evidence at the first crown court trial.If no evidence is offered by the prosecution the judge is obliged to dismiss the case.
Hopefully the eventual outcome will be dismissal.I doubt it though. Everyone that can make it on the 10th of May.Please do.
This young white English woman has had a year and a half of massive stress and intimidation including 2 weeks in a prison hell hole and the threatened abduction of her children by social services that is riddled with foreigners and paedophiles. Show Emma some love and make a big effort people.
Emma is just an ordinary white woman living in a place that in a short space of time has gone from a nice white middle and working class area. In to a stinking infested living nightmare. A few months before she lost it on the tram. Her small town had been over run with looters. The police done nothing so the white folk came out on to the streets and sorted the problem out. Our wonderful police force responded to the law abiding white locals with baton and horse charges. While the police were attacking white people Croydon was burning. On the tram Emma was on some arrogant immigrant spat on the floor next to Emma and her child. Unfortunately this tipped her over the edge and she responded in the way she did. If Emma had had a few hours to work out what she was going to say to the taunting masses on the tram I'm sure she may have done things a little differently.
Celebrate the death of a former foreign terrorist and you'd be instantly arrested by the same police who stand by while one of our former Prime Ministers who, whatever her mistakes did a lot of good for Britain, effectively has her grave spat on.
Join the modern police and that's the sort of 'policing'(i.e. attack who your political masters tell you who to attack and turn a blind eye when they say) you'll be carrying out. Forget about the impartial enforcement of the law, many new laws are specifically designed to target those who 'haven't got their minds right'. The thought police are HERE.
Remember the relative lack of public interest and outrage at the two WPCs blown up last year. When WPC Yvonne Fletcher was killed in 1984 there was mass public rage because the police had the strong and overwhlming support of the vast law abiding majority. Now the police have succeeded, by their slavish obedience to political correctness, in alienating a massive amount of that inherent support.
If it's the Chief Constables and their accolytes fault, the solution is simple, don't join a force that largely exists to enforce a politically driven agenda.
The police are just dumb blue sheep who take the money and pension to assist in the destruction of their own country. They are paid traitors, now badly paid due to the 21% reduction in the starting salary, £19,000 a year to do a job like that. The powers that be have spat on them as thanks for their assistance in destroying our country, but they'll still be queueing up to join.
Your arguments about the good of Thatcher are spurious TC.
Foot wouldn't have been PM, Callaghan would. There was only a leadership election because Labour lost the 79 election. The Argies only invaded the Falklands because they believed the soft Tories would do nothing about it - Why they believed that we will discover in 2081.
As for the end of the cold war, Gorbachev and Regan did that. Thatcher had no more a role in ending the cold war than Blairs influence on Bush in Iraq, ie none
I agree with Tony Benn. A woman of conviction and determination. Unfortunately that determination and conviction meant the devastation of the working class, the consequences of which are still with us.
Not being a supporter of Thatcher,that was when I began showing a renewed interest in Labour,and that`s when the huge rot set in in our Country with even more unscrupulous people taking us markedly down the route towards widespread sleaze and enormous lies which cost our military,and the
normal Iraqi families vast numbers of lives.
The basic problem with Politicians is that none of them has the slightest respect for those who produce products whether it be in Cotton,Engineering,
Science,Mining,Car Production,or Technology.
But also the Unions played their part in destruction by racking up wage demands
every time another Union leapfrogged over competitive Unions settlements.
We still have a classic case with Teachers who have kept the same tactics alive today.
Look at all the Labour & Tory politicians you know of,how many can you count who have a defined technical qualification,or the background of actually running a large production enterprise or an experienced capability of producing exports in the engineering and electronics fields.
Our education misplaced targets are swamped with courses which are mainly extremely soft options for studying and observing the high streets with numerous Nail,Tanning,Beauty,
Hairdressing,Cosmetic changes,all directed at a society who have an ambition to be parasitic celebs,
When we ever and I do not think it will ever occur again respecting, appreciating and valuing the foundations of our families,children,
parents,grandparents,
countryside,friends,and respect for our homes all of which are being stripped out of our society rapidly.
The signs are clear when you watch football matches and observe the horrendous
viscous faces chanting and
gesticulating for a full 90 minutes,and the constant need to surround the thousands with security which can erupt at any moment.
This society has allowed constant,perpetual advertising to create the
me,me, me, brigades of I want.and will get it regardless of who is disadvantaged,and I must state a modern reality which occurred through the emancipation of women which created the demise of feminism and left a multitude of foul mouthed, viscous,common and threatening females who put themselves first in family units.
I loved,valued and appreciated the gentleness.modest
and caring attitudes of females ,but now after many years if I turned the clock back I would have an extremely difficult job in finding a warm,caring,sharing,modest wife who would be an equal partner in my life.
We have created a monster society encouraged by advertising,media sordid displays of what society should be and its now well beyond any just,honest, and trustworthy society we needed.
Anon@19.54 sums it up to perfection.
The poster at 19.39, has to cause of the Falklands war been put under the 100 year rule like the Dunblane massacre enquiry?
Thatcher destroyed whole communities. She sold off huge portions of our infrastructure and enegy supply. She destroyed Britain, and we have NEVER EVER recovered from her time in office. You go to the former shipbuilding communities on the Clyde and Tyne and see the results of her handiwork. No future and no hope thanks to Thatcherite policies of managed decline.
If, from the mid 1950s on, the unions had taken a sensible approach based on what was best for their members, their country and themselves instead of a Marxist ideology driven desire to destroy, confront and grab whatever was going, a union detesting zealot like Thatcher would never have existed. She decided to take them on and give them a good kicking and did so comprehensively.
The unions had developed by the 70s an 'everyone else in the country exists to prop up our subsidised industries and communities' attitude. Consequently Thatcher had massive public backing for what she did to the unions, because tens of millions of Brits were sick of their arrogance and the stranglehold they had on the country.
The intransigent Marxist union leaders (who are all either now dead or very comfortably off) steered their own strongholds and members into a Thatcherite hurricane and those ordinary people and their communities are still suffering from that rank, lunatic ideology based, generalship today.
Many parts of the north of England, Liverpool in particular, South Wales etc are s**tholes. That's all the fault of one old lady who died yesterday who effectively retired 23 years ago and 'destroyed their communities' over thirty years ago. Yeah right. Will they still be using that pathetic excuse in another 30 years.
Margaret Thatcher put Britain's interests first - ALWAYS! Can you say the same for wishy washy politicians such as Blair, Brown and Cameron? They only aspired to her greatness. The moronic student fringes celebrating in the streets is quite depressing and sums up the state of this country. Can you imagine that our future leaders are supposed to arise from this uninformed rabble? Reactions from Gerry Adams and George Galloway were predictable of course but what do you expect from bitter Neanderthals.
TC I was somewhat surprised to see Alan Kibble and Paul Wilson (solicitor)both of new charter on the Grove on Monday out of new charter hours.
Alan Kibble turned up at my partners house on the 6th of December 2012 with another man. He turned up without an appointment, no announcement he was coming.
No BBC cameras with him.
Kibble hammered on the door.
He said I've got two letters for you and your partner. This man thinks he can just turn up at someones house like that.
Roy West!
TC My neighbour leaves her dog in the house for hours at a time, It's left howling all that time.
What can I do?
@Roy West
You contact environmental health at Tameside Council....
http://www.tameside.gov.uk/noise/nuisance
Your neighbours are quick to complain when the odd mildly unpleasant sound travels their way over the garden fence, you'd surely have a case. Start by gathering video evidence.
Australian foreign minister Bob Carr has also caused controversy by claiming Lady Thatcher made "unabashedly racist" comments after she left office.
Mr Carr, who has a Malaysian-born wife, said she told him Australia could end up like Fiji "where the Indian migrants have taken over".
Speaking to ABC in China, he said: "I recall one conversation I had with her in her retirement where she said something that was unabashedly racist.
"She warned Australia ... against Asian immigration, saying that if we allowed too much of it we'd see the natives of the land, the European settlers, overtaken by migrants."
He added: "I couldn't believe it.
"It reminded me that despite, yes, her greatness on those big questions, the role of the state, the evil nature of the communist totalitarianism, there was an old-fashioned quality to her that was entirely out of touch and probably explained why her party removed her in the early 90s."
(so according to this creature stating an absolute fact is "unabashedly racist")
There are some truths which are so obvious that for this very reason they are not seen or at least not recognised by ordinary people. They sometimes pass by such truisims as though blind and are most astonished when someone suddenly discovers what everyone really ought to know.
- AH
@Roy West I've done that, they've told me to keep a log. Which I do every day. It's a pain in the arse.
The one at the other side of me goes out leaving her dog to howl.
I went out at 12 just come back and it's still howling.
Roy West
Well if the council don't act and leave you to suffer the noise, then do like I've said.... record the noise of dogs barking / wolves howling etc (from something like youtube) on to a CD. Then leave it playing for an hour each time you leave the house on a stereo at the same high volume you have to listen to their dogs (though preferably louder). That sounds fair to me.
Here's the kind of thing I'm talking about. You need to transfer it to a CD, but have it loud enough through big loud speakers to piss the neighbours off while you're out and they are in. If you played normal music the council might act against you, but if it's the same noise you have to suffer from them, then it's another matter entirely. Even if it meant having to fork out for the right equipment I think it would be worth it after what they've put you through.
Thanks for that advice.
This is what we've had all day today.
It's the same everyday!
TC I just love making videos like this (see link) I put a link to this blog on all my videos!
Ivan Wright of new charter housing made a police statement, saying that I own this blog!
It would not be quite true that I have nothing positive to say about Mrs. (later Baroness) Thatcher’s political record. I have two remarks about her that might be considered, at least, to be some mitigation.
She was followed by those who were even greater scoundrels: Major; Blair; Brown; and Cameron.
Secondly, there are reasons to think that her ‘Iron Lady’ image was, at the very least, misleading. She certainly acted aggressively towards those in her Cabinet, who, she had been persuaded, were her political enemies. However, the word ‘persuaded’ should not be forgotten. For all her apparent aggression, she was supremely capable of being manipulated. Those who knew how to manage her, controlled her. For all her academic prowess in the natural sciences, she was a babe in arms when it came to Realpolitik.
She had her favourites, who knew where they and their policies were leading: Sir Keith Joseph, who saw himself as the populariser of Milton Friedman’s ideas. Sir Keith had other (non-economic) ideas that were much sounder but that is another article for another day. She adopted ‘austerity policies’ before they were called ‘austerity policies’ and delighted in the prospect of workers being forced to lower the wages for which they were prepared (or forced) to work. Unemployment was a Grantham, non-conformist lesson in humility.
Her election victory in 1979 was largely fuelled by the strikes of the ‘Winter of Discontent’. There were pernicious Communists in the trade union movement, like Red Robbo who helped to destroy our car industry. However, the strikes of 1978/79 however disruptive and counter-productive, were against the ‘Social Contract’ agenda of wage restraint.
Her destruction of Britain’s manufacturing industry, and later our coal mining industry, were, by some quirk of reasoning, seen as positive. The National Union of Mineworkers was certainly led by the appalling Marxist, Scargill, but the other Non-Marxist leadership candidates were just as defensive of miners’ jobs – as they should have been. Coal is a lost British resource for the loss of which Thatcher is personally responsible. She was persuaded by shadowy political gangsters to refuse negotiation and to follow the failure of the strike with the destruction of the industry.
“But at least she was patriotic,” I hear you say.
She affected to be a Euro-Sceptic but one of her first acts as Conservative Leader was to campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote in the 1975 referendum. In 1986, she embraced the Single European Act with its erosion of our sovereignty. In the late 1980s, she was apparently ‘unaware’ that her Chancellor, Lawson, was manipulating the value of the £ to shadow the Deutschmark. In 1990, in a last desperate attempt to remain Conservative leader and Prime Minister, she allowed her Chancellor, John Major, to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism – the fore-runner of the Euro. She rated the retention of her job as more important than her Nation’s sovereignty.
“Well,” I hear you say, “at least she was an inspirational war leader, during the Falklands War”. That cannot be denied; it helped her to win the 1983 (and perhaps 1987) General Election. However, she had been conniving for two years with her Foreign Office ministers to hand the Falklands to Argentina on a plate. It was those negotiations that emboldened the Argentines to invade. Her negotiations led to the invasion; the invasion led to the Falklands War, which led to the deaths of 253 British servicemen. Their blood is on their hands.
“On the most important issue of immigration, Mrs Thatcher must, at least be seen as sound,” I hear you suggest. She undoubtedly said a lot to create that impression. In 1978, she explained how she understood the fear of British people at being ‘swamped’ by immigrants of a different ‘culture’ (by which she meant ‘race’). In reality, no fewer unassimilable immigrants landed on our shores and at our airports after she was elected as did before she was elected. On immigration, as on everything else, she was a practised fraudster.
I must revise my earlier ‘commendation’ of her. I implied that her successors were worse than she was. They at least were (and are) openly Anti-British. Thatcher pretended to be a patriot. She was an unmitigated scoundrel.
Will there be a party in Tameside on Wednesday to celebrate her funeral?
Why do the votes on your eu voting poll keep going down from the 261 that voted no?
TC On the 6th of July last year 2012, Tameside County court.
The Judge put a really good question to Paul Wilson of new charter, he said "whatever happened to free speech in this Country"
Paul Wilson thinks it's incitement to dislike new charter housing.
No wonder he lost that case for wrongful eviction.
Roy West Defend Free Speech!
Andrew said...
She affected to be a Euro-Sceptic
Hells Bells could this "andrew" person be Tameswides charlatan two faced MP imposter.
So Alan Kibble is Ex Cop.
Bloody good eulogy by 'Andrew' (no, it couldn't be THAT Andrew).
Belated implacability over the Falklands and Right-To-Buy are about the only things I can really think of with any positivity from her long long reign (which at the time, seemed like that of an immovable occupying army).
Nice to see someone remarking upon her usefulness as a tool by those scheming types less well remembered, holding assets in, say, Chile.
R
Worth a read -
http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/get-over-her.html
"She turned Britain into the country that Marxists had always said it was, even though, before her, it never actually had been."
Less talk and more action is required if the feminised west is to survive. Ironically Thatcher, for all her mistakes was that almost unique thing, a woman concerned with issues as opposed to being obsessed with herself, the latter is a disease now increasingly out of control amongst western women.
Thatcher was once told that feminists loathed her, she replied she wasn't surprised because she loathed them too and stated that feminism was 'poison'.
Anon@08.39, I have no idea. I have no control over the poll other than setting up and deleting it. I have no way of interfering with the votes cast. I know that once you have voted you can change your mind and vote for the other answer. Maybe someone had a change of heart and decided the EU was for them after all.
What the poster does demonstrate (once again) is how the average Conservative is (and always has been) even further removed from reality than the left. The mere fact in itself that they seriously believe black / ethnic minority votes is a cause even worth pursuing with one single poster shows how deluded they are.
Cameron's no different - currently engaged in frantically trying to figure out how to woo the coloured vote, fearing what the demographic shifting sands mean for future Tory electoral fortunes. The odd exception aside (eg - Johnson for mayor), our black communties will never vote Tory unless they become more Labour than Labour. And STILL, some Tories want to keep the floodgates open for the old sacred capitalist cause called the economy. The Republicans in the US are exactly the same, importing cheap foreign labour at the behest of their friends in big business and killing their electoral chances at the same time. Of course, no talk of immigration errors, just soul searching as to how our new fellow non-white citizens are now to be won over.
But then that's political correctness for you, it blinds its subjects quite unlike anything else and is a very unique brand of stupidity. Seeing these people in action is like watching a gerbil in a wheel that fails to recognise that stepping off is the easiest way to actually start getting somewhere.
QUOTE
Anonymous said...
So Alan Kibble is Ex Cop.
11/04/2013 12:14
UNQUOTE
THAT ISN'T ALL.
Go to:- http://jlr-rac.forums-free.com/jlr-rac-pennant-t555s10.html
Then scroll down to:-
Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 8:55 pm
Cut and paste the link into Google, not the address bar at the top of your screen, otherwise it wont let you view the posting
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