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 …
She met Mikhail Gorbachev in 1984 before he became Premier of the Soviet Union. They spoke, got on and she saw he was different from his predecessors. She persuaded President Reagan that this was someone the West could do business with. The rest followed. That's a huge achievement on her part.
She was also the first senior politician (and a scientist at that) to point out that pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere was not a good thing.
Growing up in Northern Ireland in the late 70s’ 80s I missed the miners strikes, but do remember my older cousins coming over talking about walking to school past mountains of rubbish, 3 day working weeks and all that had come before her.
From my point of view she was the Prime Minister who stood up to the people planting bombs outside my school and trying to and succeeding in killing my family and friends because of what religion we were.
She was the one who supported people like my father, trying to support his family in a city torn apart by conflict, hatred, and division by not letting the terrorist run unions rule and determine your job based on your local terrorist group , instead of the Labour IRA sympathisers and appeasers.
People talk about all the evil she did to unions, but everyone forgets about the ‘other’ working class people she stood up for, for those she helped keep safe, or guaranteed a decent future, who were able to get jobs and an education because of what she did.
And I don’t just mean the forgotten in NI, but in the Falklands and Eastern Europe
But then I guess when you grow up in a place where your school gets bombed and the army get medals for going you have a different outlook on life.
Anon - Obvious reasons
We here in the USA had Reagan.
Both worked out pretty good, but their later successors have not done well.
Life goes on. Politicians buy votes (usually Liberal ones) with "other peoples money". Then claim their policies work. Unfortunately "other peoples money" ALWAYS runs out, as we here in the USA are figuring out all to sadly.
But life goes on. Politicians will come and go, and we will always complain about their policies, be it good or bad. (*SIGH*)
7% of the cost of everything you've bought for the last 30 years was to pay for the top rate tax cut she gave her mates, VAT went up from 8% to 15%.
She was an avid supporter of Apartheid and said Nelson Mandela would not make a leader.
The Falklands, the only war started to distract the electorate and won on behalf of a leader that needed to distract the electorate. She was very low in the pole rating and would probably have lost the following election.
Can't be arsed to post more, apart from she neither forgot or forgave the people who lost her her job and means of earning a living, so why should 3 million other people forgive her for taking theirs.
World leader wedded to market economy, privatisation and private property ruins the UK
In later years we will recall that a world leader in the 1980's changed the UK economy and the global economy for ever, and not always for the good.
Not it was not Margaret Thatcher or even Ronald Reagan, but Deng Xaioping who had the most immediate impact when he liberalised the Chinese economy and it became cheaper to manufacture in China than Manchester. Not a new phenomenon, the cotton mills of England went when the cotton was woven nearer where it was grown, but one overlooked when viewed with the parochial eye of blaming everything on M. Thatcher.
I saw someone say she was a warmonger too. Let's balance it up, 1 war (the Falklands), the ongoing Troubles in NI and I think that was about that. Whereas the peacenik T Blair had at least five wars or interventions to his name within 6 years.
She was strong government when strong government was needed. She made mistakes, I feel the poll tax was not one of them, but there again I've always been a rate payer, but she is not to blame for everything. When all is said and done we are responsible for our own lives and shouldn't expect someone else to sort everything out for us.
What a hopelessly biased article.
- No mention of the swathe of destruction she and her ministers wrought to our coal, steel and car industries.
- No mention of privatising national assets and using North Sea oil to fund tax cuts for the rich.
- No mention of destruction of British Rail and the massive taxpayer-funded subsidies (far more even inflation adjusted than was ever paid to British Rail) now paid to foreign companies to enrich their share holders.
- No mention of using the police to forward her party politics- running up such a huge political debt that even today the Conservatives barely dare implement the reform the police so badly need.
- No mention of taking us to war over some worthless rocks in the South Atlantic in order to distract from her domestic failures and impending defeat in the polls.
- And finally, and worst of all, no mention of the fact that she set the stage for possibly the most corrupt prime minister we've ever had: Tony Blair.
That taking BT public was a (partial) success you can only conclude was by accident rather than design.
I agree- the rail network was a massive failure. But that's because it was insufficiently privatised- the rail companies kept coming back to the government for more and more funds and the government, for some reason, kept forking over the cash.
Our Coal, Steel and Car industries could have survived quite happily if they hadn't relied on massive government subsidy. Removal of government cash doesn't affect a company that doesn't take any! All they had to do was make cars on time and that would start first time and the foreign imports wouldn't have been anywhere near as enticing.
The worthless rocks are full of oil, with the discovery of just how much oil leading to the recent Argentinian rumblings about them being theirs. Not sure if they knew that in the 80s, mind.
"No mention of the swathe of destruction she and her ministers wrought to our coal, steel and car industries."
I have no experience of the first two, but the third is a subject very close to my heart, and I think you need to read up on it more.
BL was a clusterfuck of the highest order. The result of a shotgun marriage of Leyland Motors (who made money making lorries) and BMC (who lost money making cars). The whole lot fell on it's arse in 1974, so the Government of the day nationalised it.
Of course, being the 70s, the workforce didn't take kindly to actually having to do work, so for a lot of the time you couldn't actually buy a BL car, as there weren't any coming out of the factories. So of course, the labour government decided the best thing to do was to give the unions a direct say in the running of the firm...
Fast forward to the 80s and the management have finally got around to sorting out the worst excesses of the overmanning and overcapacity. The problem was that it had taken too long, and BL launched in to the 80s with a range of cars that were uncompetitive, but the tie-up with honda soon sorted that. In the meantime Thatcher had privatised Jaguar and Leyland Trucks and buses. BL (now Austin Rover Group) was finally sold off to BAe in 1988.
Britain now makes more cars than ever. We have profitable, successful factories all over the country building cars that people want to buy (a strange idea to many I know). MINI, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Toyota, Honda and Vauxhall to name but a few.
I must admit while I normally refrain from booze mid-week, I had a celebratory drink upon receiving the great news Thatcher is dead. It actually made my day brighter. I don't consider this in bad taste because she was the cause of so much pain and suffering during the 80s. No amount of revisionist bullshit can take away the fact she failed to support sanctions against Apartheid, destroyed employee rights and our manufacturing induistry in her war against unions, put millions out of work throughout the country, treated nurses and teachers with contempt and of course was responsible for the poll tax. So good to know she's dead, just a shame it wasn't 34 years earlier.
I lived through Thatcher with her counterpart, Reagan. Those two are singularly responsible for the disaster economics that have destroyed the middle class of both GB and the USA.
Trickle down, de-regulation, voodoo (er) supply side economics, "free markets", and all the other ocean deep sheep poop they foisted on the average person, whose torch was carried by a mass media that was being consolidated in to just 7 world wide companies by the neocons on both sides of the ocean, presenting an illusion of choice, when none existed at all.
Do you like the current economic problems and the rewarding of the perpetrators? This is their love child. And it might still damn well lead to WW3.
Sorry folks, couldn't stand the woman but then, why should I apologise for disliking somebody who was too full of her own importance for her own good; false, pompous, overbearing, condescending, patronising, shallow, self-righteous and possessing a completely misplaced superior attitude over everybody else. How she lasted as long as she did as prime minister is totally beyond me. Must be something to do with her toadying cabinet ministers - most of whom were tarred with the same brush in my opinion. Every time she appeared on TV, with that particularly irritating smugness and an equally nauseous whine of a voice, I felt like hurling something at the screen. Quite the worst thing that ever happened for Britain. Brought the country to its knees.
Thatcher only survived because of lethargy. The lethargy of the voters.
Today the lethargy continues, the British Bulldog having turned in to the Lapdog it is.
Why do people even tolerate the government even considering tapping in to every communication in the country? Why do people tolerate the Seniors, the disabled, etc. being reduced to trash?
Get out, contact your MPs - contacting them at home really gets their attention - isolation keeps them immune to people's reactions.
Eton-educated, upper-class southern twats with no background in science or engineering...
What we need is a proper Northern Prime Minister. Someone who can keep hold of the purse strings. Someone with a background in the sciences or Engineering... chemistry, maybe. Maybe- since we're being hypothetical- maybe /even a woman/.
Her legacy is the crisis we face today. Like all the ideologies of the XXth century, her ideology led to disaster and suffering. Deregulation and developing outrageously the finance sector led to the subprimes and housing crisis, which degenerated in the debt crisis, countries having be obliged to take the debt of the banks for themselves to avoid the collapse of these 'to big to fail'.
How many, and what were the characters of, people who have induced such unusual reactions to a persons death?
Not too many, and none too savoury.
Ignoring the Benito Mussolini, Augusto Pinochet, Nicolae Ceausescu, Idi Amin or Saddam Hussein - there are others equally as bad but celebrations would not have been tolerated politically - I can think of few who generated this public outpouring from apolitical members of the public - maybe bLIAR will get a similar treatment when his number comes up.
Since Thatcher ruled, the UK has been through THREE recessions, THREE RECESSIONS since World War 2.
She believed the UK economy could be built on a SERVICE economy - destroying the British manufacturing base (not SDK assembly) - you will have a hard job finding a British made screw. Where are our Plessey's, Marconi's or Leylands now?
She also set the 'Fat Cats' on their route to raping the industrial sector. Scargill got her right, she was anti-worker (and NO, I am not a Labour supporter). Who else has used Plod and the Armed Forces as suppression of democratic strikes and protests.
Although I left the UK many years ago, before Thatcher, I hoisted a 333 celebrating her death, along with all those 'street' celebrations that had to be broken up by Plod.
She screwed Britain, in a way that no one else has managed to do. Good riddance to her. And may she rot in Hell.
Britain was all rosy before she screwed it, eh?
We all just imagined the waist deep rubbish, the constant strikes, the ridiculously high taxes to subsidise unviable state businesses.
Never mind maybe Ed can reset it back to how it was, and we can yet again see militant scum regain the right to throw concrete slabs through taxi drivers windscreens.
I wonder how many of the posters here actually were adults in Thatcher years...
I was and I remember just how crap things were in the 70s prior to her coming in. Let's start with some home truths:
Car industry was on its knees - destroyed by over-unionised workforce, rolling strikes and dreadful product. Reason it died was lack of competition against the German/Japanese imports. Our luxury cars weren't and normal cars were unreliable, lacking features and not using latest technology. Blaming Thatcher for this is a bit rich as it was in its death throes anyway.
Mining and steel industry - quite simply we could not produce at a good enough price - like tin mining before it (which we used to lead the world in) and clothing, other countries entered the market with a lower cost base (cheap labour, etc).
Other manufacturing, I remember in the 70s everything was "made in Hong Kong", again cheap labour. they, like us moved on into higher value business (when was the last time you saw anything labelled "made in Hong Kong"?) China is currently filling that void, next it will be India and Brazil - just natural progression. No point in us trying to compete.
British Rail was a laughing stock, bloated, inefficient, strikes, lack of investment. Whilst I don't like the rail prices at least when I travel now its on a modern, fast air-conditioned train that generally runs on time.
And the list goes on.
Thatcher was a catalyst, like it or not this was going to happen anyway. If she was guilty of one thing it was not providing the support for the people - the sudden crash plunged many areas into deep depression. But then I'm not sure what could have been done anyway.
I also laughed to see someone blaming Thatcher for Blair coming in. Hilarious.
And if there was one person who is more responsible for screwing this country over, it was him:
Got us involved in expensive and pointless wars
Spent like there was no tomorrow
Encouraged a dependency culture
Failed to control bankers
Almost sunk us into the Euro...
Wasted billions on vanity projects (Millennium Dome....etc)
This is it in a nutshell, you hit the nail on the head
It was crap before Margaret Thatcher become prime minister. We need to remember she was democratically elected into office three times.
before Thatcher, we had rubbish piled in the streets, bodies awaiting cremation and burial, and a closed shop labour market
The country needed the medicine, and it was delivered. Yup, it didn't taste nice, however it took a politician with balls to deliver it
The rosy eyed view of British industry is only held by those on the gravy train. Mr Scargill, who fervently wanted strikes was sitting pretty on 70K a year, whilst "his" miners striked and earnt nothing. Let us not forget all of Mr Scargills shinnanigans since the 70's and 80's
Many miners didn't strike, because they had families to feed, the travesty was the "flying pickets" putting immense presure on the ordainary working man. The bottom line with the mining industry was that the pits were not viable, and they could have either had a slow expensive painful death or a quick one
Industrial relations are much improved, with far less hours / year lost due to industrial action post Thatcher
Additionally let us think about her legacy.... the EU rebate, peace in Europe after the fall of Soviet Union, the ability to buy a council house, and the general shift of power away from institutions and unions, and corporations - towards the individual
Maggie came to power, those opf us on the otherside of the worl treated "made in britain" as a warning label.
Case in point: UK cars. A year after they stopped being a protected import in New Zealand in 1972 they went from nearly 405 of the market to 2%. The japanese not only ate them for breakfast, they gave them a sound thrashing and took their lunch money too.
It wasn't just the unions at fault. The entire system was broken from top to bottom.
What Thatcher did wrong was to approach things with unveiled hostility for her enemies and was prepared to allow unlimited collateral damage if it took them down, this in turn caused increasing militancy in the responses. Mine closures were inevitable (and already happening). British Leyland should never have been bailed out (there were already other manufacturers who could have picked up the workforces).
Privatisation was done as a matter of blind faith, without full research into the consequences (the privatisation of BT wasn't as badly done as it was in New Zealand though) and in later years it was pretty clear she had completely lost touch with the country at large, even from 12,000 miles away.
We should not be thankful that we don't have drab wired telephones. We should be annoyed there isn't a vibrant telecommunications business, with lines heavily regulated and completely separated from all suppliers, instead of a monopoly presiding over the (literal) rot of one of the greatest infrastructure investments in history to the detriment of all except the mobile companies.
BTW, try getting 1Gb/s fibre even 5 miles outside of a major city and tell me BT isn't a monopoly which charges like a wounded elephant. Noone else can supply it, because BT owns the ducts and won't allow anyone else to use them - at any price.
For the last 100 years or so, since before the Jarrow marchers, every UK government of any colour has sent billions in development aid to the regions.This continues to this day with massive flows of capital from, mainly, the south east.
What has this a achieved? The public sector component in the economies of Scotland, Northern Ireland, the north east, all the English regions in fact and Wales exceeds 60%. There is more state ownership in these countries and regions than was typical in communist Europe. The mining, steel making and shipbuilding communities in receipt of 100 years of subsidy or more (but supposedly devastated by Maggie 30 years ago) are still there; still with their mouths open and their hands out.
Had Maggie not started the privatisation process - copied by every other country in the world by the way - God alone knows what sort of state we would be in.
Re-establishing enterprise and rolling back the public sector is at least as big a challenge as taking on taming the unions was in the 70s and 80s.
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