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back to article Maggie Thatcher: The Iron Lady who saved us from drab Post Office mobes

Baroness Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister who worked alongside the world's first business computer and who privatised the UK's phone network, has died. She was 87. When Britain's Iron Lady came to power in 1979, your average Brit had just one phone, which was fixed to a wall by a wire and connected to a network …

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        1. Dr Stephen Jones
          Reply Icon
          FAIL

          Re: @Nuke

          @Nuke: Also, as the link says, it shows value, not the physical volume.

          So we should use physical volume as our measure of manufacturing activity?

          That's brilliant, Nuke. Absolutely brilliant.

          We therefore need to invest in mass manufacturing styrofoam. Or bouncy castles - we can measure them when they're full of air. Now that's a volume business.

          There are some geniuses on here for sure.

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  2. Andrew Moore
    Thumb Up

    A fitting eulogy...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOFvgiCyChA

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    1. Mnot Paranoid
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      IT Angle

      Re: A fitting eulogy...

      Mr Kipling 6 x Bramley Apple pies: then, £1.23 now, £1.49

      "Let them eat pies"

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  3. Clyde

    At least two sides to this story

    Yes she opened up state monopolies, yes she let in many chippy chappies who went on to make shed loads of dough, but she also opened the door to de-regulation - leading to all the financial woes we have today.

    She also destroyed the lives of millions of families by asset stripping and closing down whole industries. There are still villages and towns today which are derelict and depressed, and full of unemployment and all the social ills.

    She started a divide in Britain - the corner which she inhabited has done very, very nicely. But the other Britain - well, that's a different matter.

    She used the assets created by past generations to fund her dreams, she used the new oil wealth to buy off opposition, and most importantly she spawned a generation who look on greed as the right way to live. Greed as a creed.

    Yes she will have a legacy - but was it worth the human cost ? Could she have done things differently - better ?

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: At least two sides to this story

      "There are still villages and towns today which are derelict and depressed, and full of unemployment and all the social ills."

      So thirty years later it's Maggie's fault that the inhabitants of <insert 5hithole of your choice> haven't retrained or moved to where there skills might be more employable? When mining and iron working started industrially in this country, people moved from jobs as agricultural labourers and learned (undoubtedly at great cost) the skills of these industries. Fast forward a few hundred years, and you could easily believe that descendants of those early workers now think the rest of the country should still owe them a living, mining coal in locations that suit them and at far higher rates than the rest of the world pay, or making steel on a similar basis.

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      1. Professor Clifton Shallot
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        Re: At least two sides to this story

        The point is that these changes were abrupt and drastic and insufficient provision was made for things like retraining the people affected leaving them, and all the dependent business in their areas, all simultaneously struggling at a time when unemployment was incredibly high already.

        A slow and natural decline with alternative employment encouraged to grow through the same period would have been a great deal easier to cope with.

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        1. AndrueC Silver badge
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          Stop

          Re: At least two sides to this story

          The point is that these changes were abrupt and drastic and insufficient provision was made for things like retraining the people affected leaving them

          No - or rather that wasn't my point. I do think there could have been easier ways for what she did. I think she expected too much of people - her insistence that everyone should look after themselves is laudable but a lot of people either struggle with that or else take it to the extreme and refuse to help others.

          No, the point I was disputing is this insistence by some people that she should be blamed for the current state of affairs. There has been ample time for change since she left office(*) - and indeed a lot has changed. People should stop living in the past and look toward those leading us now. Or are people saying that she was such a powerful, insightful, capable politician that despite all that's changed since she left office there has still been no-one strong or clever enough to undo her work?

          If so then they may not realise what a fantastic epithet that is :)

          (*)Mauled by a sheep - the saddest and yet funniest part of her tenure :)

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          1. Naughtyhorse
            Reply Icon

            Re: At least two sides to this story

            She can justifiably be blamed for the current creek that we find ourselves in, and the propulsion options available to us.

            because since that glorious night that the tories stabbed her in the back and she inflicted that mindless fucktard Major on us there have been _no_ new policies.

            Major, Blair (brown? fuck brown he was only in office for 5 minutes) and Cameron

            are just thatch wannabes. There has been no choice, there has been no change.

            Thach brought about content free politics, and ever after parties can only lose. The other guy wins by default.

            Major wasnt a great mind - he did PR better then Neil.

            Blair was always a sniveling public school shit - but Michael Howard, really??? he gave even widdicombe the heeby jeebies ffs.

            and the last outing - we basically didnt give a fuck who it was, so long as it wasnt brown - and look what we got!

            !brown.

            from an intelectual standpoint it is well understood that the basis for her policies were as flawed (Nash was a loon, end of!), and simply wrong as anything marx or lenin ever considered. It's just taking politics a looooooong time to catch up with this, and buy into the next dose of snake oil.

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            1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
              Reply Icon

              Re: At least two sides to this story

              That's mostly a big old pile of drivel, but I've got to single one quote out:

              Thach brought about content free politics, and ever after parties can only lose.

              Surely the one thing you definitely can't accuse Thatcher of is content-free politics with no convictions, or doing only what would make her popular. That's just a bonkers thing to say. Given how absolutely everybody seems to have an opinion on her, and her policies, 25 years after she left politics - 5 elections and 4 Prime Ministers later.

              As for all the theories being her policies being discredited, nope again. Some have, some not so much. Extreme monetarism always looked like snake oil to me when I studied economics. But the problem of her time was high inflation, which isn't the problem in this current recession. Just like the problem of her time was over-regulation and too much trade union and state power. You probably wouldn't say that's the main problem now.

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              1. Naughtyhorse
                Reply Icon

                Re: At least two sides to this story

                I can and i did.

                all thatch was ever about was helping 'people like her' at the expense of everyone else.

                it was always dressed up as something else, but look at every policy decision she made and fundamentally thats what it came down to;

                how does this help 'my people', and fuck the consequences for everyone else.

                why so pally with pinochet?

                why flog council houses at way below market value and block replacements to the social housing pool?

                why flog the utilities at a fraction of their worth?

                why maintain an economy with 15% long term unemployment, while undermining the representation of workers?

                in the short term bribe bind fools to keep 'voting for britain'.

                in the medium to long term, lots and lots of money for 'her people'

                that is not an ideology. its a fucking shakedown.

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            2. Dr Stephen Jones
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              Re: At least two sides to this story

              brown? fuck brown he was only in office for 5 minutes

              Brown ran the Treasury for 13 years.

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              1. Naughtyhorse
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                Re: At least two sides to this story

                and how long was he PM?

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          2. Anonymous Coward
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            Anonymous Coward

            Re: At least two sides to this story

            Well she's been absolutely brilliant at destroying the Tory Party. The 'nasty party' has never really lost that gloss. And now they are sort of back in power they are continuing to destroy the lives of many low earners. Consistently down at 30% in the polls (their core vote). See, for example, ukpollingreport.co.uk.

            And as the older ones that vote for them die off that 30% will only get smaller.

            So if finally, after 300 years, they are consigned to history she'll get my vote. (Opps too late!)

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            1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
              Reply Icon

              Re: At least two sides to this story

              Funny that. The last 2 Conservative governments have come in when the country's been right royally screwed. Both had to cut government spending and try to get the economy on an even keel. In the current case after Labour properly screwed things up. It's a bit harder to be that definitive in the case of 1979, because it's not as if the Heath government was that much better (or even hugely different) to Labour.

              Anyway it's a great wheeze for the Left. We'll call the Conservatives 'The Nasty Party', leaving the implication that we're the nice one of course. Which obviously they are... Spend more money than you raise in tax, and, "hey presto!", everyone loves you. Course it's a bit different when the economy turns to shit, and the levels of debt have to be reduced. Then it's much nicer to be in opposition and admit that maybe a cut or two is necessary, but oppose every one, and claim you'd be much nicer.

              Fuck that for political analysis. Could we have something a little less simplistic and a bit more adult next time please.

              Not that I claim Thatcher got everything right, and we were certainly well overdue for a change by 1997. But I wasn't much impressed with what Labour had to offer. And I'm even less impressed by them now. I don't see much chance of sorting things out with Ed Balls as Chancellor, and I'm not particularly keen on Miliband either. Mid-term polls are meaningless, and Labour are averaging under 40% at the moment - which is shocking! I'd still make them favourites, due to the inbuilt bias of our current boundaries, I suspect both major parties will only poll around 36%, leaving Labour with a very slim overall majority (or possibly forced into a coalition). I think they'll make a mess, but maybe it's what the country needs. Perhaps we'll get some more realism from some sections of the voters when it's Labour that are forced to make the cuts. We currently spend £120 billion odd more than we tax. That is completely unsustainable - and although most of it will go away when the economy grows more, we probably have to make £40 billion more of cuts to government spending or tax rises to balance things up. Then there'll need to be a bit of surplus for a few years, until we can get debt below 80% of GDP.

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      2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
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        Re: At least two sides to this story

        That's true - when Darfield main closed I begged our dad to move to Canary Wharf and become a foreign exchange dealer but he were just to workshy and feckless to leave Barnsley and spent the next 20years looking for odd bits of part time work

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      3. DJO Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: At least two sides to this story

        So thirty years later it's Maggie's fault that the inhabitants of <insert 5hithole of your choice> haven't retrained or moved to where there skills might be more employable?

        Well if a house where there are jobs costs £175,000 and the house you occupy where there are no jobs would get about £25 on the open market then, yes, it is her fault. *

        * Maggie abolished the prohibition on building societies owning estate agents which directly caused house prices to double within a few months which still has repercussions today. When I was a kid it was normal for single wage earners to be able to afford to buy a house on their own - not anymore it's not.

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      4. Graphsboy
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        Re: At least two sides to this story

        Can't move - there's no affordable council housing anymore.

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      5. Johan Bastiaansen
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        Devil

        Re: At least two sides to this story

        Replace "miner" with "banker" and "5hithole of your choice" with "the city".

        Repeat.

        Try not to 5hit yourself laughing.

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    2. cnapan
      Reply Icon

      Re: At least two sides to this story

      There are at least two sides to this story about 'villages and towns today which are derelict and depressed, and full of unemployment and all the social ills'.

      It used to be that the people moved to where the jobs are. Today, we pay people to stay where the jobs aren't, and instead, enterprising people in their millions happily travel from the far side of Europe or even further afield to do the jobs there are.

      We used to build ships that were outclassed and undercut by the far east, and we used to dig coal which cost 3 times what it cost on the open market, and we built cars which were exceedingly crap. Some of these things were a matter of geology, some a matter of relative cost of labour, and some the result of stagnant businesses destroyed by the two arses of militant unions and feckless bosses.

      Thatcher wiped this world away, and frankly, good riddance. We're a modern nation now, albeit with some parts of the population still in denial about it.

      Anyone fancy sending their kids down the pit?

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      1. Heathroi
        Reply Icon
        Facepalm

        Re: At least two sides to this story

        To be fair, the cars were quite good, given the state of engineering at the time but tended to have one ,usually major component that was duff and blew the reputation for rest of the car and they kept badge engineered models in producttion for far too long. The dudes supposedly screwing the bits together didn't help much either.

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    3. Captain Hogwash
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      Re: "There are still villages and towns...full of unemployment..."

      And now the current crop of Tory bigwigs are pointing at those very people and blaming them for being a drain on the system.

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    4. AndrueC Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Down

      Re: At least two sides to this story

      There are still villages and towns today which are derelict and depressed, and full of unemployment and all the social ills.

      Really? 30 years (an entire generation later) and you want to blame her? How about blaming the politicians who came after her. The world has changed a helluva lot over the last 30 years and to blame Maggie for the current state of affairs is pretty ridiculous. There's been plenty of time and opportunity for those who came after her to fix the damage. Or hey - maybe you want to go back and blame Gladstone next?

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    5. Naughtyhorse
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      Re: At least two sides to this story

      the only way she could have done worse would be to behave like..... damn you godwin

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    6. rh587
      Reply Icon

      Re: At least two sides to this story

      "There are still villages and towns today which are derelict and depressed, and full of unemployment and all the social ills."

      Mining is by definition a finite job. When that seam runs out you up and move to the next one - as per the abandoned mining towns across America. Mine a seam and when it's dry pack up and go.

      Maggie hastened the demise of many a pit (as did the Labour government before her), but anyone still sitting around in a ghost town 30 years on and whining about how awful it all is has only themselves to blame - the mine was shut by politicians. Okay, that's not nice, but it's the same outcome as if the mine was worked out - you pack up, wave goodbye and find work elsewhere, not sit and feel sorry for yourself.

      22 5
    7. Dr Stephen Jones
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: At least two sides to this story

      @Clyde:

      It was Blair/Brown and NuLabour who deregulated finance, and then impoverished our grandchildren by bailing out the useless f@ckers.

      She used the assets created by past generations to fund her dreams

      Like what, exactly?

      The asset base of any manufacturer is written down very quickly, it needs to be replenished with newer and more productive technology. Thatcher ensured the state was not making these purchasing decisions or spending our money on basket-case industries or companies like British Leyland. Even the French socialists extracted the state from industry, eventually.

      You blame Thatcher for historical progress where low-skilled low-wage metal-bashing jobs are replaced by better paid jobs. A bit sad, really, but then it sounds like you could start a fight with yourself and a mirror.

      6 4
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "...your average Brit had just one phone, which was fixed to a wall by a wire..."

    You make it sound like she invented mobile phones.

    "...no competing communications services to keep the Post Office on its toes."

    And was the change a good thing? Now we have a crumbling post office system, which is the only way some people in the remote areas can get their mail. The other companies have been cherry picking the easy posts and dumping the expensive to deliver items on the post office for their flat rate delivery fee.

    And for privatising companies. Where has all the money gone in our almost bankrupt nation? All taken by the companies she sold off, keeping their owners in big houses and fat payouts.

    26 7
    1. Captain Underpants
      Reply Icon

      Better yet, in several cases the privatisation strategy decided that keeping the money within the national economy wasn't important so they sold them off to foreign owners, meaning that the profits derived from said companies are flowing out of the UK economy. Which is just excellent. (Source: http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/02/soaring-rail-profits-are-used-to-cut-fares-abroad-3567491/)

      Privatisation, in theory and if enacted correctly, can let us all benefit from competition. The problem is that privatising infrastructure on which we all depend and which we cannot allow to fail is a tricky business, and the Post Office is a great example of how, when done wrong, there's a net degradation of service in many areas while costs continue to increase.

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    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      She didn't privatise the Post Office. She hived off the telecoms bits, and privatised them as BT. Then its monopoly was regulated.

      As an example, in the early 80s a daytime national rate call was something like 40p a minute. By the 90s that was down to about 5p. Although I guess one downside of phone calls getting massively cheaper has been more sales calls - with Skype making it even worse...

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    3. GitMeMyShootinIrons
      Reply Icon

      "And for privatising companies. Where has all the money gone in our almost bankrupt nation? All taken by the companies she sold off, keeping their owners in big houses and fat payouts."

      Most of it went trying to keep the welfare state and the NHS staggering on, propping up the failed nationalised white-elephants like Rover (destroyed by civil servants 'good at spending YOUR money, badly' and union militancy).

      Not to mention paying off an obscene national debt that only seems to spiral further out of control whenever Labour get into power and spend beyond their means.

      2 5
  5. blcollier

    Prime time viewing

    Comfy chair? Check. F5 on standby? Check. This comment thread is sure to be interesting to watch; all I need now is some popcorn...

    Just do me a favour and try not to celebrate and rejoice in the fact that another human being has died, regardless of what you think of that person...

    22 6
    1. Intractable Potsherd
      Reply Icon

      Re: Prime time viewing

      "... try not to celebrate and rejoice in the fact that another human being has died, regardless of what you think of that person..."

      Why? I hated her when she was alive - I'm not a hypocrite like so many others to change my views just because she doesn't breathe any more. I will, however, not state my opinions regarding how she died for fear of being mderated off the board.

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  6. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

    The post office is shit != Thatcher is great

    Discuss.

    Whilst I'm ready to concede that the public sector and the unions needed shaking up, Thatcher went far too far, leading pretty much directly to the 'greed is good' privatisations of the 80s and 90s, and the mess this country is now in as a result, where utilities which should be publicly owned are owned instead as for-profit organisations that fleece everyone.

    She also destroyed cabinet politics in this country, leading to what is essentially an internal dictatorship within government, preparing the ground for other luminaries like 'call me Tony' Blair. Add to that that she was chummy with such lovely chaps as Pinochet, she destroyed the livelihoods of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people in the mining industry, and she took our milk away.

    23 6
  7. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Sadly, the under 40s

    will think we're making it all up.

    *If* you were lucky, you could get a phone in less than 2 months. And as for a *second* phone ....

    One of my first paying jobs in electronics was (illegally) fitting extensions for neighbours - because in those days only GPO engineers could do that (phones were hardwired - no plugs and sockets) AND you only rented the handset.

    Anyone remember party lines ?

    26 2
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sadly, the under 40s

      Like her or loathe her she was still a human being, some of the comments seen (not on the reg) show a very dark side to this country which I don't like, what happened to a bit of basic human sympathy when someone dies..

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sadly, the under 40s

        Thank you for making my point with such colourful language, I suspect you were not even born when she was in power.

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        1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. tabman
        Reply Icon

        Re: Sadly, the under 40s

        I agree, the comments and reaction have been disgusting. Regardless of the publics views on her policies and actions as PM, some comments on mainstream news sites have been disgraceful. I am ashamed to be British today knowing that people are reacting and have reacted in this way.

        More pitiable are the people commenting who weren't even alive when she was in power. I'm looking at you NUS.

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        1. tabman
          Reply Icon

          Re: Sadly, the under 40s

          Oh, and bring on the thumb downs - presumably from NUS members?

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      3. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sadly, the under 40s

        I agree.

        The biggest thing I have learned from social media is how much bile and hatred sits beneath the surface of so many people. You don't need to go far down comments on innocuous youtube videos to get to deeply offensive racists rants or threats of sexual violence. A window onto humanity's darker side I wish I had not seen through.

        3 3
      4. Neil B
        Reply Icon
        Unhappy

        Re: Sadly, the under 40s

        @AC 12:10

        You're describing the internet. It doesn't matter what the subject matter is.

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    2. LinkOfHyrule
      Reply Icon
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Sadly, the under 40s

      I'm only 29 but I do remember my grandparents having still into the 90s a hardwired phone with a big ass dial on it, connected up to a little box on the skirting board with probably "GPO" moulded into it!

      This is of course the reason why they used to use the old acoustic couplers isint it!!

      I'm not a Thatcher fan but yeah, maybe if it wasnt for her, you might be using broadband couplers to get online with your fondle slabs! Maybe someone should make an App in her honour - all it does is play her famous line "The lady's not for turning" whenever you turn the tablet to one side!

      Paris because she's a lady who certainly does turn!

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      1. Captain Hogwash
        Reply Icon

        Re: Paris because she's a lady who certainly does turn!

        Yeah. Stomachs!

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    3. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: Sadly, the under 40s

      > *If* you were lucky, you could get a phone in less than 2 months. And as for a *second* phone

      Ah yes, party lines. My Dad waiting to call in his sales figures while the neighbour's teenage daughter was on the phone to her boyfriend every evening!

      Funny, the article notes "This was the same Post Office that, in the 1970s, snubbed one of the world's first mobile telephones, which was designed by the British Chelmer Institute." but that wasn't the first such screwup. A hundred years before that the GPO even turned down the idea of being involved in telephones at all. They couldn't see a need, when there was such a good Telegram service...

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    4. Timbo
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Re: Sadly, the under 40s

      <quote>......(phones were hardwired - no plugs and sockets)</quote>

      I seem to recall in our house, on the end of the phone cable was a big 4-pole brown plug that was like a 1/4 inch (6.35mm) headphone jack, that pushed into a small brown box on the wall.....

      Was this "non-standard" or maybe just used on those properties deemed suitable for such forward thinking connectivity ??

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      1. Mnot Paranoid
        Reply Icon

        Re: Sadly, the under 40s

        I remember this exact connection.

        I grew up in Beverley which came under Kingston Communications, the only telecoms company that was completely separate from the GPO.

        White telephone boxes, jumpers for goalposts.

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      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sadly, the under 40s

        "I seem to recall in our house, on the end of the phone cable was a big 4-pole brown plug that was like a 1/4 inch (6.35mm) headphone jack, that pushed into a small brown box on the wall....."

        You probably had a Plan 4 setup in your house, which would have cost you more than for a standard phone.

        http://www.britishtelephones.com/pst1.htm has some more info.

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    5. Aldous
      Reply Icon
      Trollface

      Re: Sadly, the under 40s

      going on 1.5 months now waiting for a phone line to be connected (and on an estate) so things have not changed all that much

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      1. RubberJohnny
        Reply Icon

        Re: Sadly, the under 40s

        "going on 1.5 months now waiting for a phone line to be connected (and on an estate) so things have not changed all that much"

        A week for my VirginMedia connection.

        Or I can walk into Carphone Warehouse and have a connected new phone number in less than 5 minutes.

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    6. Jim Hague
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Down

      Re: Sadly, the under 40s

      Liberalisation of phones happended before the privatisation of BT.

      I asked BT to reactivate the existing phone line in my new flat on 29/11/12. It took them until 15/1/13 to do it, and then a further 8 days to activate ADSL.

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      1. Mnot Paranoid
        Reply Icon
        FAIL

        Re: Sadly, the under 40s

        "MBORC"

        "We don't give a shit."

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