For those who lived through it, yes.

I think you may be wrong on that score.

Have you or have you not been engaging in a debate with El Barbudo about whether or not electoral statistics tell us anything about her popularity?



She was never elected by a majority of the UK population. This very simple fact seems to be stretching you.



Let's try again: presumably you applaud the financial situation now?

Yes, I geddit.
Show me how the majority now think she's "the best".
None of your quoted polls show that.

Actually, don't bother, I have done my best to show you how logic works but it seems that either you can't grasp it, or refuse to admit it, or are just arguing for the sake of it or are just plain trolling.
Whatever, I'm out.

It's embarrassing isn't it? I would agree with Mintball's earlier post on the education system but I'm the same age as ajw, so I can't blame that for his ridiculous and increasingly embarrassing posts.

How are my posts embarrassing when the majority of people (including academics who I bet know a tad more than you about the issues) agree with me?

Please provide independent, credible, reliable evidence that shows that she is not one of the best prime minsters the UK has had.

I look forward to your response.

"In September 2008 the BBC Newsnight programme conducted an online poll. Asking voters to decide who they thought was the greatest"

"In December 1999 a BBC Radio 4 poll of 20 prominent historians, politicians and commentators for The Westminster Hour produced the verdict that Churchill was the best British Prime Minister of the 20th century, with Lloyd George in second place and Clement Attlee in third place"

"In September 2008 the BBC Newsnight programme conducted an online poll. Asking voters to decide who they thought was the greatestand worst of postwar Prime Ministers"

Data from the recent Reuters/Ipsos MORI Political Monitor shows that the two longest serving prime ministers of the last thirty years are also the seen as the most capable

"Greatest", "Best", "Greatest", "Most Capable"

Oh and FYI, I have never maintained she was [ithe[/i best, just one of the best. The polls agree.

Well, for a start, York Minster:

Easily a better minster than Thatcher ever was, although sadly it was more attractive to lightning than she.

If that senile old bitch gets a state funeral when she pops her clogs there'll be riots. Her grave will have to be as heavily protected as Diana's but for entirely different reasons. Find a disused pit shaft (there's plenty around thanks to her) and chuck her down it.

No I have been engaging in debate with El Barbudo about whether she is now considered one of the best / greatest prime ministers the UK have seen.

I said the majority agreed with me, as all the polls show.

Then he began to introduce arguments about election results, stating quite correctly that a majority of people never voted for her.

I then stated that using election results adds nothing to your side of the argument because:

1) No PM since 1945 has ever won a majority of voters, so this isn't a point unique to Thatcher therefore cannot be used to determine her greatness.

2)Election results at the time, cannot be used to determine how she is viewed now.




I have never disputed this. What I have disputed is its relevance to what we are debating.

This is a good poll, which I had forgotten, although I remember watching it on tv. 2002 BBC Poll of the '100 Greatest Britons'. 33,000 people. alchemipedia.blogspot.co.uk/2009 ... -2002.html Thatcher ranked 16th. Second highest PM behind Churchill.

This is a good poll, which I had forgotten, although I remember watching it on tv. 2002 BBC Poll of the '100 Greatest Britons'. 33,000 people. alchemipedia.blogspot.co.uk/2009 ... -2002.html Thatcher ranked 16th. Second highest PM behind Churchill.

Quote ="Ajw71"This is a good poll, which I had forgotten, although I remember watching it on tv. 2002 BBC Poll of the '100 Greatest Britons'. 33,000 people. alchemipedia.blogspot.co.uk/2009 ... -2002.html Thatcher ranked 16th. Second highest PM behind Churchill.'" Statistics not your strong point then...

Quote ="Ajw71"This is a good poll, which I had forgotten, although I remember watching it on tv. 2002 BBC Poll of the '100 Greatest Britons'. 33,000 people. alchemipedia.blogspot.co.uk/2009 ... -2002.html Thatcher ranked 16th. Second highest PM behind Churchill.'" Statistics not your strong point then...

Or reading.

Something he should be able to do well as a result of Thatcher's legacy

And to be honest, there are people on there that "voters" in 2002 had no experience of and they STILL thought some were better than Thatcher

Whoops, a small error.

Doesn't detract from the fact that Thatcher is ranked 16th Best Briton.

Christ. What is wrong with you? You can't possibly be this stupid. They're embarrassing because you bring up "polls", found on Wikipedia, with varying questions, unrepresentative samples and with varying answers as your "evidence" for your assertion. Which has also varied wildly from "best" to "most successful" to "one of the best" to "greatest Briton". None of those polls should be taken seriously by anyone, and you know it, or you should if you passed GCSE maths.

Again, embarrassing, why? Because I have made no assertions, I have merely ridiculed the evidence you have provided following your obviously extensive google search that reached as far as wikipedia, therefore I am not required to provide any evidence. You have made assertions so you are required to and have failed.

I do not look forward to your response, it makes me fear for the Comprehensive system.

Polls are only as good as the data that goes into them - if those answers the questions don't do so truefully then the poll has no validity no matter who is conducting it. I remember the Mori exit poll from the Major election win suggested a significant Labour majority!!

Very little - but what it did do was to prevent a brand new plant importing outdated and inefficient union cultures. If Ms Dean still had her way they would have been setting page layouts using metal!!

Obviously obstructive union cultures didn't contribute to the decline of manufacturing in the country it was all Maggie's fault!!

You haven't provided any evidence because you simply haven't got any.

It's embarrassing to try and discredit 9 different polls from various sources simply because you don't agree with them and whilst offering nothing yourself.

Now you try to question my education, probably becuse your intentions are to 1) no longer debate the substantive issues because you have been comprehensively out thought at every turn and 2) start a slanging match so that they thread gets locked which then removes your obligation to introudce any evidence, which I have repeatedly asked for.

Welcome to RLfans

So it really is just entire coincidence that the company with no independent trades unions at all seems to have been the biggest culprit, over a long period of time?



There were negative aspects to trades union culture at the time. There was poor management too. Indeed, poor management seems to be a national problem, in all sectors. Businesses where it didn't seem to occur to owners that new plant might be worth investing in (we had this mentioned only recently here, in terms of the textile mills – still using machinery from the beginning of the 20th century in the late 1970s). It happened in car production and was a considerable shock to the Germans when they took over production of the mini, in an era well after privatisation and the attacks on the unions. No investment, no new training – nothing.

I've seen it myself on countless occasions in small, private businesses: poor management, with the workforce always having to shoulder the blame and the consequences. And I'm talking about in non-union workplaces. Management that bullies; management that shifts responsibility for its own inadequacies onto others; management that has never even considered training – and so on.

But in your 'real world', it's only ever the plebs who dare to want a decent cut for themselves and – horror of horrors – actually get together to improve their chance of getting it.

It was a specific decision by the government of the day to change the balance of the economy, so that manufacturing was replaced by the service sector (including financial services and retail).

This was a central tenet of what was proposed by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of economists, and was particularly popular and particularly enthusiastically embraced by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, for whom Friedman was their favourite economist.

The 'theory' was that the developed nations could stop manufacturing, because they had reached a point enabling them to do so, and they could switch their economies to service models, allowing the developing world to do the manufacturing and thus grow.

To do this relied greatly on deregulation. In the case of the UK, whole industries packed up and cleared off quickly – shipbuilding is a case in point. Entire communities were thrown onto the rubbish dump and left to rot. It was the start of the 'benefits' culture'. There had been large numbers of skilled, manual jobs – and those simply disappeared. They have still not been replaced.

The deregulation continued apace. Sunday trading laws were battered open – a move sold to the public on the grounds of inconsistencies in the law (you could buy porn on a Sunday but not a [iBible[/i was the prime example used). It was, however, much more to do with encouraging a vastly increased consumer culture. You needed cheap and far more readily available credit to fuel that – done. You needed to encourage people to be 'aspirational' (translation: wanting lots and lots more things) to drive that – done (although this cultural change took a little longer).

Selling off utilities, using the con of 'giving the consumer more choice', was also done. Result? Vastly inflated domestic fuel bills and companies pretty much acting as cartels. In the case of rail, a service that is actually more highly subsidised than before, but which fleeces customers ever more – just so private companies can make a profit: nothing to do with what is good for the nation as a whole or the general public.

Housing: persuade everyone they need to buy – and then refuse to let the funds be used to build more housing. Result? An increased housing shortage and a massive inflation of housing costs, requiring more deregulated mortgages, more debt etc – prime causes of the financial crisis.

The neo-liberal ideologues also, in spite of every piece of historic experience (including but not limited to the Great Depression, FFS) continued to prate on about 'trickle down': let those at the top have the freest rein possible and everybody else will benefit. It has never worked in the past and it has not worked in the last 30 years.

In the Western countries where neo-liberalism was followed most ardently – ie the UK and US – the income gap between those at the very top and everybody else has widened.

This core economic approach has been continued by successive governments for over 30 years.

These were not accidents. They were political, ideological decisions.

The decline of manufacturing was not inevitable.

And, as has already been pointed out, those attempting to claim that the only costs involved were in, say, the cost of a bag of coal, are ignoring the vast array of other costs of those policies – and then, in many cases, blaming the very people and communities who were dumped on for the consequences of that. And other countries, which did not follow the neo-liberal route in the same way, have largely done better than we have, have more manufacturing, have lower income inequality and, with that, lower social problems (see Wilkinson and Pickett, [iThe Spirit Level[/i).

Let us be quite clear: either Thatcher and her government, in making the decisions that they did, to start the process that they did, did not realise what the consequences of those decisions would be on ordinary human beings – or if they did, they did not care. Given "unemployment is a price worth paying", I am minded to the latter. Which begs the question of precisely whom government is elected to serve. Because increasingly, these days, it seems to be big business alone.

You have been given the evidence of successive elections, which were the biggest polls ever taken on the issue.

On the legacy ...

Since you mention 'answering questions', let's try this one for (IIRC) the third time of asking: do you consider the current financial crisis to be a good thing – ergo, the policies that led to it have served us well?

Minty 2 AJW71 0. FT

Possibly the best post i've ever read on here.

Many thanks.