This

What a quality specimen of humanity you are !
Do you share the same view for the war criminal now proving himself to be a first class Middle East peace envoy
who didn't look to make too good a job ensuring peace for his mate Gaddafi ?
I don't think she is being ignored by her loved ones as she gave up on her son a long time ago - after he was lost in the desert,and her daughter after her relationship with Jonathan Aitken.
As you seem to be referring to 'other people', and not yourself, when suggesting she 'did enough to destroy whole communities in this country' could you be more specific?
As for her progeny showing some sense - so did Scargill and his mate Ricky Tomlinson,and of course Derek Hatton - those 3 have hardly suffered,have they ? One or two sheep suffered,but they would,anyway.
With you not being religious I do hope you didn't celebrate Christmas - and if in employment ensured you worked and eschewed the possibility of any holidays.You being such a man of principle,of course.

Wow - A Tory humanitarian





No, seriously folks, I'd like to commend SCR on the incredible political sophistication of this post, and humbly venture to follow it up with a riposte which I trust will live up to his lofty standard of debate:

Ner, ner, na, ner, ner. My dad's bigger than your dad.

Nothing more to add but a quote from the woman herself whilst holding the office of Prime Minister in her third term...



A Prime Minister who feels no obligation to look after the population, who feels that its up to each individual to look out for themselves (however well or ill equipped that individual is) is a Prime Minister who didn't fully understand the job description when he/she came for the interview.

The moron would not have any of his trappings if it was not for his mother fixing it for him, she deserves all the pain and misery she gets, I hope she lives until she is 150 and suffers every day.

Good point. As Albert Meltzer wrote: "What would the crimes of Hitler have amounted to had he to carry them out by himself?"

There isn't an interview it's decided by a democratic process where people choose it.

I think the electorate didn't understand the job description otherwise they would have voted for Callaghan, Foot or Kinnock

I am briefing neither for nor against Thatcher, but sad to say your quote is deliberately selective misrepresentation, as this was not what Thatcher was saying at all. The bit you missed out was:


To briefly paraphrase that particular quote, she was saying that instead of being a safety net to help those unfortunate enough to need help, she thought that there were now those manipulating the system, and who would not work simply as the dole paid just as well.

To suggest she was saying in that quote that those ill-equipped to look after themselves should nevertheless have to do so is simply wrong. You cannot claim a person who clearly states that benefits should ".. reassure people that if they were sick or ill there was a safety net and there was help" in fact said the opposite.

I know likes of Cod-ed think we should/could turn the clock back 30 years that is simply unrealistic. If Thatcher had not got into power do you honestly think we would still have a mining industry as it was? The world doesn't seem to be missing our coal does it?

Our manufacturing base when the Tories came in was uncompetitive and that was before the Chinese really got a grip. Our unit cost of production was too high and our quality was shoddy, especially in the public owned industries. Benn was suggesting protectionist measures to counter our inefficiencies. We had huge union labour manipulation issues - the unions had pushed through increase of close to 30% in the wake of Heath's defeat Strikes were called if there were no paper in the loos or the tea lady didn't serve the union rep first. The country had had enough of the tail wagging the dog and the government's inability to control the unions. Do you honestly think Postman Jim would have put Arthur, Scanlon, Jones et al in there place?

Someone had to get a grip - monetarism has proved to be a flawed mechanism in the long term but the country was dealing with rampant inflation 11% in 1974, 9% in 1975 almost double the highest previous figure since 1947- something had to be done. How anyone could take the likes of Healey seriously after he needed IMF intervention to prop up the pound. With it came budget cuts to public spending - notice a pattern here when Labour get in?

Whilst Thatcher may have many faults the thought of five further years of Callaghan, Healey, Benn etc does not bear contemplation - you think things were bad under Thatcher?

And yet as we saw then and we have seen again in the past twelve months the "demon" of those who apparently spend all day long sitting on their doorstep drinking cheap lager on the proceeds of "the dole" while "society" picks up the tab is seemingly untouchable while those with genuine debilitating illnesses, the one who should be in the safety net, are the ones who are soft targeted by zealous civil servants driven by an office target to strike off as many of those "demons" as possible - there are several who use these boards who will relate.

Its certainly a conundrum to see how to get "the demons" back into work at a time when the formally employed are joining their ranks in increasing numbers, if the aim is to reduce dependency on state aid at a time when more are requiring it (even in the short term) then again, that is a cruel failure of a government to protect and aid its population and you have to ask if they are not prepared to accept that responsibility then what is the purpose of a government ?

Inflation was just under 10% when Mrs Thatcher left office in 1990 so it's hard to say that she was a raging success on getting on top of inflation.

As for a pattern, when the Tories get in you usually get
- industrial unrest
- social disorder
- high unemployment

What we need is strong governments that can deal with unions and strikers, focus on the rule of law so people don't think they can take liberties, and clamp down on the lazy and scroungers but Tory governments breed all three problems.

I remember breaking the news to my grandmother that my grandfather had died the night before. And then telling her the same thing several times again in the next 30 mins. Eventually she said to me "Who's died, me?". At that point I realised the futility of it.

Cant blame anyone who decides to break any ties rather than destroy the way they regard a loved one. As long as they are sure that she's being taken care of and is comfortable I wouldnt blame them at all for keeping their distance.

My mum went the same way.
She didn't know me from Adam, but I still visited her in the nursing home.
One time I went to see her and she was asleep and grumpy when she was aroused, and she then fell straight back to sleep.
Rather than sign out 5 minutes after I signed in, I spent a respectful twenty minutes looking at the photos on her bedroom wall of our relatives.
I thought 'that's it', so I arranged that every time my sister visited I would go at the same time. That way I could talk to my sister and talk AT my mum and not feel such a spare part.
She died last August ... officially.

My aunt currently resides in a care home in an advanced state of dementia, I haven't been to visit her since she was admitted there two years ago, have no wish to do so then or now even though she was the aunt who introduced me to art and encouraged me to keep drawing all the way through school - I've got no wish to visit her as she is not the person that I recognise and she will not recognise me, my brother visits now and again but the last time he was there he left quite quickly when it was obvious that she was frightened of him and didn't know what he was doing in her room, to cap it all her husband died last February and she hasn't been told, her daughter doesn't see the point and I agree with her.

For those who have suffered a near and dearest relative in this set of illnesses: sympathy from another who remembers long hours visiting a home.

I actually have no time for Thatcher and am as against her having a State Funeral as I could be. I also have no truck with the views of my fellow Red. However, please remember that she is not suffering: her friends and relatives are.

What bit of monetarism is flawed did you not get?

Social disorder/industrial unrest will always happen when government policy makes the going tougher, usually when the tories have to sort out the crap they inherit from Labour.

High unemployment - again when you have a reality check and accept you cannot just keep borrowing to grow the public sector, unemployment will be inevitable - this is what happens when the Tories have to sort out the profligate nature of Labour policy towards public spending.

Funny how disability benefit claimers grew significantly under Labour strange that given: more spending on the health service, less manual labour, better diet etc.

Presumably this was the mantra all the way through from '79 to '97 with two deep recessions en route ?

It certainly seems to be the only excuse being used by the current incumbents.

Why would it be inevitable, surely reducing the amount of resources swallowed up inefficiently by the state means that those resources are free to be used by the efficient sector (the private sector) and so will create jobs and reduce unemployment?

This is why the Conservatives said they were going to end Labour's toxic legacy of social failure and get people off the dole and into work. Remember that's what Mrs Thatcher came in to do, to end those long unemployment queues in 1979.



I'm sure you will agree that jobs are created by the private sector and the private sector creates jobs when they have a government with market credibility that has an economic plan that they can believe in, so that private sector investment is stimulated.

Now fortunately thanks to George Osborne keeping the UK's triple AAA credit rating because of the confidence he has inspired in the markets, we have record low interest rates and this should trigger a boom in private sector investment that will soon solve the unemployment programme as long as the Conservatives can manage the economy with a degree of competence, would you agree?

You should understand by now that unemployment is a price worth paying.

Although for some reason, the people who claim this never seem to have to worry about themselves.

Odd that.

And along with that need to not have to worry about your own job comes a vilification of those who are not quite so fortunate and who must inevitably now be milking the system for all its worth.

Why does a drive to "get people off benefits and into work" always seem to coincide with rising unemployment?

It's unfair to say that Tories are unconcerned with unemployment.

They made it a centrepiece of their election campaigns in 1979 and 2010. In Opposition they can always be relied upon to bring up unemployment.

And in government they can always be relied upon to drive up unemployment

It doesn't always - in the late 1990s the drive was for "a hand up not a hand out" and the drive focused on ending the Tories poverty trap, by introducing a minimum wage and working families tax credit to make work pay, unemployment fell.

Spot on. The reason is, of course, that too many of those whose day to day job it is to say yea or nay will pick off the targets of least resistance, leaving alone the professional claimants, the aggressive, the nasty and the abusive. It isn't a trait restricted to benefits agency workers, and their pay may be so low and the job so depressing that the aggro of declining a violent and loud asshole may be a game not worth the candle.

It's a trait often mirrored in modern society. Not that people should be excused from speeding, or parking illegally, but it is always the ones who have registered their cars at DVLA and so can be traced that are the soft target. Whereas the millions who drive illegally, unregistered, uninsured and untaxed and cannot be traced go largely unmolested.


Largely agreed. But it is a while since Thatcher was in charge, and while in the immediate past we have had the Cleggerons foisted upon us, the last lot had no appetite for this either.

In fact the only major noticeable trends which they seem to be getting better at each year are (a) the art of spin, to be spun relentlessly sometimes at teh total expense of actually doing anything; and (b) the quite recent realisation that in fact, if you brazen it out, and let the fuss die down, you can ride out the worst of your excesses, or maybe at worst take a 6 month sabbatical before getting a double pay job back. (New Labour of course became the masters of that).