Thatcher changed Britain for the worse

First topic message reminder :

Through the Thatcher Major, years, millions of British people were made poor as a matter of policy, while others got rich as a matter of policy.

Blair and Brown embraced Thatcherism due to the change in the British, and now Milliband wants to change Labour again due to a changed Britain.

I personally long for a political party that sticks to it's core values, that has conviction, that does not change itself to suit a greedy selfish uncaring British populas who'se only thought is "self". In my view this "self" is mainly among the British middle classes.

Thatcher changed Britain for the worse, and now we are reaping through this dreadful coalition, what has been sown.

Must be good to meet old friends again!

Probably, like McCarthy, she has been chucked out of Hell and will be coming back. Serve the South-East of England right!

How the miners’ strike of 1984-85 changed Britain for ever

Some extracts from a very comprehensive article by Donald Macintyre:-

Those who with hindsight see the 1985 defeat as inevitable point to the unprecedentedly comprehensive arm¬oury of the state mobilised by Thatcher. Her biographer Charles Moore records how she summoned Willie Whitelaw immediately on taking office in 1979 and announced: “The last Conservative government was destroyed by the miners’ strike. We’ll have another and we’ll win.” The secret plan – denied during the strike but admitted by Thatcher in her memoirs – of Ian MacGregor, imported from the United States and appointed NCB chairman in 1983, had been to cut 75,000 jobs over three years. This was slightly more than Scargill was later ridiculed for predicting.

Many former miners believe that, without Orgreave, the lethal malfeasance – and subsequent cover-up – by South Yorkshire Police at Hillsborough would not have happened. Thatcher’s elevation of the police above the norms of local accountability, not to mention the law, surely helped to instil in them a lasting sense of impunity, which is only, slowly, unravelling today.

It is certainly impossible to separate yawning income inequality from the halving of union membership since its 1979 peak. That grotesque distortion, recently depicted by Oxfam, today leaves five families owning more in wealth and assets than the 20% of Britons – 12.6 million people – who are worst-off.

For the whole article:-
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/06/how-miners-strike-1984-85-changed-britain-ever

Battle of Orgreave when police fought miners should be investigated says Ed Miliband

From an article by James Lyons:-

The Battle of Orgreave on 18 June 1984 left 51 picketers and 72 policemen injured at the South Yorkshire coking plant. Dozens of striking miners were charged over the 1984 clash, the most violent incident of the miners’dispute. But their trials collapsed and the police had to pay out more than £500,000 in compensation and legal costs in an out of court settlement.


http://i4.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1820107.ece/alternates/s615b/Thatcher.jpg

Ed Miliband has suggested watchdogs should launch a full investigation into the battle. South Yorkshire Police has referred itself to the policing watchdog after accusations that officers involved in the failed prosecutions colluded when they wrote their statements. But 19 months on the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has still not completed its “scoping” inquiry. Mr Miliband said he wanted to see a full inquiry in a recent speech to the Orgreave Truth and Justice campaign in his Doncaster seat.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/battle-orgreave-police-fought-miners-3707483

The Police would probably like to get Hillsborough out of the way first.

I agree that Orgreave might usefully be investigated, but Miliband should seek to minimise opportunities for the likes of The Sun and Daily Mail to paint him as a 'friend of Scargill' by association.

He is already a big enough target for the doubters and adding to their number will not help his ever-decreasing chances of being the next PM...

Phil Hornby wrote:-
….his ever-decreasing chances of being the next PM

Any evidence to support that assertion?   

16 June polls:-
Populus: Labour 37, Tories 33, UKIP 13, Lib Dems 9.
Ashcroft: Labour 35, Tories 29, UKIP 15, Lib Dems 8.
YouGov/Sun: Labour 36, Tories 32, UKIP 14, Lib Dems 10.

17 June poll:-
Ashcroft’s poll of marginals: Labour 40, Tories 30, UKIP 20, Lib Dems 7.

Source:-
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

Electoral Calculus general election seat prediction:-
Labour 339, Tories 257, Lib Dems 18, Nationalists 17, UKIP 0, Others 19.

Source:-
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

I've never been a great one for evidence. It tends to spoil my well-honed prejudices and puts my trusty gut instinct into a parlous state of potential redundancy...     

I don't suppose we will ever stop talking about the evil woman who did so much damage to this country and destroyed the social democratic consensus which had existed since 1945:-

During the miners’ strike, Thatcher’s secret state was the real enemy within

The Tory leader’s eagerness to brand not only miners’ leaders but the Labour Party as enemies of democracy was a measure of her extremism and determination for class revenge.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/03/miners-strike-thatcher-real-enemy-within-extremism

Thatcher's government's plan to close down British Industry in order to emasculate the Trade Unions was only made to "work" by the happy coincidence of North Sea Oil coming on stream. Which for a short time made Britain a net exporter of petroleum.

Much of the proceeds went upon benefits for newly unemployed workers in the north of England, and for those of them re-classified as disabled in a cynical move to reduce the declared number of (truly unemployed) job seekers.

Gideon Osborne is now reduced to blaming the Germans for the slack demand for British exports. Sow the wind and reap a whirlwind.

Just the sheer mention of Thatcher makes me want to puke, as I was on strike those days, and spent about a third of my time in london, and another third with my uncles who were miners at the time.
The rest back at the hospital where I worked, and I was deputy shop steward for NUPE.
Thatcher was just a cow plain and simple. Even when I think of those times now a tear comes to my eye and I could break into tears.

edit to add last sentence

Strangely, I sort of missed a lot of the real harm Thatcher did until after the event.
As an aspiring young professional, the plight of the miners and the steel workers didn't seem all that relevant - just a trendy sideshow to the real drama of getting my post-graduate degree. Shamefully enough, I did my post graduate degree in Nottingham, so I should have known .

The thing, for me, that damned her totally was the Falklands - that was so self-evidently a cynical ploy to regain her electoral popularity, and I still can't understand how any human being could order the death and injury of fellow human beings in the interest of gaining a few votes - after all, she was already a wealthy woman and could have exercised power in other fields without causing death and destruction.

Later, I realised that, in destroying the industrial infrastructure she had effectively destroyed England as a world power and had incidentally destroyed the lives of whole communities and the British economy.

There are no words to describe my opinion of the dead bitch

I kept my post polite i'm afraid boatlady, the only good day for her was when she snuffed it.

The British Worker survived everything that Hitler could throw at us in the 1940s through what was first called The Dunkirk Spirit, later modernised as Bulldog determination.

But where Hitler failed, successive Tory administrations have ground down the less privileged so as to create a docile and compliant workforce.

The Tories must not be allowed to continue that onslaught beyond next May.

I really do hope not OW, But somehow I cannot see it happening.

What if Margaret Thatcher had never been?

From an article by Dominic Sandbrook:-

"It is often said that she was the most divisive leader of the last century, which is almost certainly true. At first, with unemployment soaring and the inner cities ablaze, she seemed certain to go down as a one-term fluke. But victory in the Falklands in 1982, when she risked her entire career on a desperate gamble to retake the islands from Argentina, changed her political image.

Her impact was much more complicated, even contradictory, than we often think. Thatcher called herself a conservative, but she led the most radical government in living memory. She promised to restore law and order, yet she presided over the worst urban riots Britain had ever seen. She talked of bringing back Victorian values, yet her decade in office saw divorce, abortion, illegitimacy and drug-taking reach unprecedented heights. She extolled thrift, hated profligacy and even paid for her own Downing Street ironing board, yet she presided over a gigantic credit boom and unleashed the power of casino capitalism. And although she talked of rolling back the frontiers of the state, in real terms public spending rose in all but two of her years in office.

When future historians look back at the Thatcher years, the familiar landmarks will surely loom largest - the savage battle over the economy in the early 1980s, the victory in the Falklands in 1982, the bitter struggle with the miners in 1984-85, the deregulation of the City in 1986, the disastrous introduction of the poll tax, and the high drama of her resignation in 1990."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22076886

And her determined dismantling of the British industrial infrastructure which has given rise to the current situation of the British economy

Probably the worst .PM. for poor people/normal working class people we have ever had, I was on strike for a lot of time whilst she was in power the old bitch.rip.

She is responsible for the great divide between har beloved rich and her downtrodden poor. She was also responsible for our involvemrnt in the banking crisis allowing international bank to bank lending whilst embracing Raegan's ideology which led to the downfall of Lehmans bank and look what the global concequences of that was.

I hope she is truly where she belongs--in hell!!!

Knowing her Mel she is probably running the place by now having sacked Satan himself, and is the first female Satan.

" I hope she is truly where she belongs--in hell!!!"

Whatever did Hell ever do to deserve that woman as a resident...?

Well Heaven would have been too good too Phil, where could she go?

I tend to think there should be a special afterlife reserved solely for Conservatives - perhaps called PurgaTory - which would allow the rest of us good old ordinary sinners to enjoy Hell without having to put up with even more of what we suffered on earth. It will be bad enough stoking that fire for eternity, without that woman constantly telling me about the benefits of privatising the whole operation and trying to sell me shares...

That's where I was thinking of for her PHIL

Rumour has it that hell has frozen over. Thatcher's been busy during the last eighteen months shutting down all the furnaces.

The real dishonesty lies in continuing Tory propaganda trying to blame on Gordon Brown, the ultimate effect of Thatcher's liberation of the City Banks to make money in any way they thought fit.

Well she was an icy bitch was she not Ivan?

Nail on head there OW. The real question in my mind is why when Brown is attacked for supposed d-regulation of the finance sector, does the Labour party not counter this with the FACT that Thatcher as you say "liberated the banks". It's about time this fact is plugged to the nth degree by Labour until the conned public realise at last the truth of the matter.

It puzzles me why things which are obvious to people like you and me, Mel are not also apparent to the average Voter.

Why isn't any organisation exposing such things to the general Public?

It is obvious to most members on this forum OW, SO IT SHOULD BE obvious to the majority of people off it so why not.?

The media/press will refrain from giving Ed & Co enough media time to make these points. Unlike Cameron and Gideon who are given every opportunity to make their points.

In any case the average Voter has been brainwashed into thinkig Brown and the Labour party
were resonsible for the banking crisis. Some even thing Brown was responsible for the Global Crisis.

I fear that Labour politicians will be given little time to make these important points by the Tory press/media.

You are right of course Mel, tory tory tory press and media, you only hear the bad things about our Ed and co do you not?

Thatcher - who claimed to be such a British patriot – avoided millions in inheritance tax, yet Cameron used taxpayers’ money to pay for most of the cost of her ceremonial funeral.  

Margaret Thatcher tax shock: £12m mansion where she saw out her days registered in tax haven

From an article by Nick Sommerlad:-

Flag-waving former PM Margaret Thatcher may have avoided millions in inheritance tax by keeping a chunk of her fortune offshore.

A copy of Tory Baroness Thatcher’s will shows she left a £4.7 million estate to be shared among family members. But the £12 million Central London mansion where she spent the last years of her life is owned by an anonymous trust registered in the British Virgin Islands – a notorious tax haven. Through this arrangement she could have avoided up to £5 million in inheritance tax – the 40% that would have been due if it was owned by a UK individual.

Richard Murphy of 'Tax Research', said: “It has always been strange that Margaret Thatcher, that most British of prime ministers, enjoyed the benefits of a property registered in the British Virgin Islands. It is possible that Denis Thatcher set up the trust or other offshore arrangements in order to save tax.”

Thatcher’s financial advisers refused in 2002 to explain why she did not appear to own her own house, and stated: “No one’s going to tell you about that.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/margaret-thatcher-tax-shock-12m-2866929

No hypocrisy apparent there. The Lady famously insisted "There is no such thing as Society!"

I think our blessed Margaret fully realised the irony of those she did the most for not appreciating her the most .
Jesus had the same problem .

Your blessed lady lost her mind before she died though did she not, I wonder if she wanted to help the poorer people before she did pass away, beginning to know how people were when they suffered from dementia.
Jesus did not exist either.

There is actually as much evidence that Jesus lived as there is that the Blessed Lady also did . Our Lady from Grantham that is , not J's wife .
It is just the details of his life as recorded in the New Testament that fail to meet decent scholarly analysis .
I write this as someone who does not like the Christian religion and on balance actively disapproves of it .

There is far less evidence that jesus lived, than maggie did I can assure you.
ANYTHING WRITTEN ABOUT JESUS, was written way after he was supposed to have lived.

I was offering you a simple fact not just my opinion .
Check it out and pay attention to the dozens of books that were excluded from the New Testament at Nicea .Add to that the evidence found in what has popularly become known as the Dead Sea Scrolls .
Of course he was not the exclusive Son of God but almost certainly an Essene whom Paul later decided to make divine because it pulled in new converts -- starting with the Romans .
Later the Church of Rome , headed by Jesus' brother James , allowed all mentions of his brother's wife and children to be erased .
A great real History once you start digging for the truth .

But how is "the truth" recognised when you find it?