No you're not getting it. 1 historian said Thatcher was good at implementing her policies, so she must have been awesome. That's how it works here in the real world.

Oh, she was very good at implementing her policies.

So was Adolf.

True. But a poll shows high support for and adoration of Adolf. It makes no difference that it was a poll of members of the American Nazi Party. It's a poll. All polls were created equal.

Ah, but some polls are more equal than others.

Ajw71 is making a classic error of logic.

I have already pointed out that the majority of voters in General Elections (which is a large sample across all sections of society, all on the same day) repeatedly voted against Margaret Thatcher.
Even when she was "popular" she was unpopular with the majority.

There are probably polls out there about who was the [uworst[/u Prime Minister ... and I'd put money on the witch being top of that one.
I am not going to look for such a poll because it would probably have as many failings as the ones that Ajw71 has mentioned.... and prove nothing.

I think I'll stick with General Election results ... in which more people thought that someone else was better to run the country than she and I very much doubt those people have changed their minds.

So did I.
I also saw VAT introduced at 7.5% and then increased by successive tory governments to 20%, 4 or 5 million unemployed, whole towns thrown on the scrap heap, 17% mortgage rates, tory ministers walking into directorships of newly-privatised companies, and the creation of a chronically unemployed underclass during a roller-coaster of boom-bust-boom-bust.
But hey, she smashed the unions, she must have been fantastic ... no, she simply didn't care, the working class were all the same to her.

Brings back memories of the paraffin lamps.



Old Rupert helped her with the union bit. I think it's a fair bet that it is not a coincidence that the media company that banned independent trades unions and insisted on an in-house staff association is also the one where sustained and widespread culture of criminal behaviour when it came to the garnering of 'news'.

She never lost an election



She was sacked by her own staff before she ever did that - and then the Labour Party contrived to get them re-elected for yet another term in 92, a condemnation of the flavour of politicians available in '92.

Whole towns - I think that is going a bit far!! Are you suggesting Labour MPs didn't also walk in directorships or was it just the Tory's?

Thatcher wasn't brilliant for sure but she was a whole lot better than the Labour bods that preceeded her, who were incapable of control government spending and never mind Arthur and his cronies.

As manufacturing declined - Thatcher realised we could not compete with emerging nations such as China for mass produced goods - unemployment would rise no matter who was in charge, unless you had a plan to compete on labour cost with the Chinese given the involvement of the unions!!

Are you enjoying the current crisis, Sal?

Do you think it was utterly unavoidable, and therefore the government that laid the foundations for it (as outlined above) should be applauded?

And apart from vilifying anyone on benefits, what do you suggest the unemployed that you see as inevitable should actually do?

As for "unless you had a plan to compete on labour cost with the Chinese given the involvement of the unions!!" – can you explain how you would have brought the cost of living down to levels that would have allowed wages to be cut in order to 'compete' on pay with other countries with lower costs of living?

And she never gained a majority of the votes cast.


No argument from me there.

What better day to bury bad news?

[url=http://www.teachers.org.uk/node/16317Gove sanctions unqualified teachers to teach in academies[/url

Happy with them making profits though.

Edumacation is safe under the tories.

Quote ="El Barbudo"Ajw71 is making a classic error of logic.'" Erm, 8 polls which all rank Thatcher in the top 5. The logical conclusion from this is that she was one of the best prime minsisters. Pretty simple really. Quote ="El Barbudo"There are probably polls out there about who was the [uworst[/u Prime Minister ... and I'd put money on the witch being top of that one. I am not going to look for such a poll because it would probably have as many failings as the ones that Ajw71 has mentioned.... and prove nothing.'" Check the other end of my polls for your answer. Thatcher is nowhere near the bottom in any of them. Quote ="El Barbudo"I think I'll stick with General Election results ... in which more people thought that someone else was better to run the country than she and I very much doubt those people have changed their minds.'" Strange point this, as you can say this about every single prime minister since 1945. www.politicsresources.net/area/u ... ntvote.htm In every single election since 1945, more people thought someone else would be better as PM rather than the person who was elected. This isn't unique to Thatcher as you imply.

Quote ="El Barbudo"Ajw71 is making a classic error of logic.'" Erm, 8 polls which all rank Thatcher in the top 5. The logical conclusion from this is that she was one of the best prime minsisters. Pretty simple really. Quote ="El Barbudo"There are probably polls out there about who was the [uworst[/u Prime Minister ... and I'd put money on the witch being top of that one. I am not going to look for such a poll because it would probably have as many failings as the ones that Ajw71 has mentioned.... and prove nothing.'" Check the other end of my polls for your answer. Thatcher is nowhere near the bottom in any of them. Quote ="El Barbudo"I think I'll stick with General Election results ... in which more people thought that someone else was better to run the country than she and I very much doubt those people have changed their minds.'" Strange point this, as you can say this about every single prime minister since 1945. www.politicsresources.net/area/u ... ntvote.htm In every single election since 1945, more people thought someone else would be better as PM rather than the person who was elected. This isn't unique to Thatcher as you imply.

The lack of calcium has clearly had an effect.. It just reminds me this, how horrible, mean and nasty the Tories under Thatcher were. They were also incredibly useless. Caused a war, country bankrupt, riots all over the shop, supporters of apartheid, just how anyone with the slightest bit of sense could think Thatcher was anything other than a nut job needs to take a good long look at themselves.

So because she became unpopular in some quarters at the end of her tenure we are supposed to forget all the good she did?

Doesn't really work like that.

If I cured cancer, the common cold and won 3 nobel peace prizes then slept with Kate Middleton. I might become unpopular for commiting adultery but I've still cured cancer, the common cold and won 3 nobel peace prizes.

In the cold light of hindsight she didn't do much good though.

She sold off the family silver, put millions out of work, wrote off at least one generation, spend billions trying to prop up the ERM, cost lives by defending tiny islands thousands of miles away, started the housing boom, destroyed communities and put us on the long slow slide to being a nation that knows the price of everything but the value of nowt.

So no, I don't forget the good she did, I never saw any good and if you'd have lived through it you wouldn't either.

There wasn't any

All the good for who exactly? Not me or my family, nor the ordinary man on the street or his family. A lot like todays lot.

Only to a simpleton

She wasn't just "unpopular in some quarters", she couldn't find an ally even in her own political party and still she tried to hang onto power - thats what power does to a person when you have no opposition, it corrupts.

So wrapped up in her self esteem was she that those tears outside Downing St were actually real, she really could not believe that her own party had just fired her, as far as she was concerned she was doing a great job and leading us down a road towards her utopian vista - it was just everyone else, EVERYONE else who didn't want to go there.

You need to go back to your books and read up on what a right wing dictatorship could look like in the early 90s, I keep mentioning Pinochet because he was an absolute hero of hers and a definite role model, you could do worse than to read up on that regime in order to realise where we were heading as a country while you were still pre-school, and then (and I never thought I'd say this) thank Heseltine for growing some balls and standing up to her.

Thatcher should also thank Heseltine for letting her slip out of Downing St in a car with Dennis, her best friend Pinochet would have had her shot.

On the other hand, it does seem that Ajw71 is proof of the dumbing down of the education system and the success of the promotion of the 'greed is good' ethos.

Quote ="Ajw71"Erm, 8 polls which all rank Thatcher in the top 5. The logical conclusion from this is that she was one of the best prime minsisters. Pretty simple really. Check the other end of my polls for your answer. Thatcher is nowhere near the bottom in any of them. Strange point this, as you can say this about every single prime minister since 1945. www.politicsresources.net/area/u ... ntvote.htm In every single election since 1945, more people thought someone else would be better as PM rather than the person who was elected. This isn't unique to Thatcher as you imply.'" You still don't get it, probably deliberately trolling. You said those who disagreed with you were in the minority. The election results show that they are not.

Quote ="Ajw71"Erm, 8 polls which all rank Thatcher in the top 5. The logical conclusion from this is that she was one of the best prime minsisters. Pretty simple really. Check the other end of my polls for your answer. Thatcher is nowhere near the bottom in any of them. Strange point this, as you can say this about every single prime minister since 1945. www.politicsresources.net/area/u ... ntvote.htm In every single election since 1945, more people thought someone else would be better as PM rather than the person who was elected. This isn't unique to Thatcher as you imply.'" You still don't get it, probably deliberately trolling. You said those who disagreed with you were in the minority. The election results show that they are not.

Please explain how the results of the general election in 79 can be a yardstick to measure how great Thatcher was? She hadn't even served a term in office yet.

In 1945, more people wanted someone else as PM instead of Clement Attlee. Was he not a great prime minister either?

To think you tried to discredit my polls. Talk about clutching at straws.

please explain



she single handedly managed to destroy the infrastructure of a nation which is now struggling because of it