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Maggie

DubaiSpur said:
I live in Mississauga. A city in Canada, part of the Greater Toronto Area. I lived in Dubai as a child, having been brought there by my parents. I had no say in the matter. I grew up, saw it for what it was, and left. Moved to the UK first and then to Canada, to pursue an education and a job that I felt I couldn't get in the UK.

My moniker remains one from my Dubai days, which I have not bothered to change because it remains a part of my online identity. But make no mistake; Dubai now is what Maggie's ideal society would have looked like. No taxes, little government intervention, a privileged life for the stratified super-classes and misery and labour for everyone else. A better life for everyone did not mean destroying the unions so comprehensively that most young people today don't know what one looks like. It did not mean decimating entire communities in the North, it did not mean alienating Scotland so compulsively that they're now on the verge of declaring independence, it did not mean abandoning vast swathes of the country to 'managed decline' while cheerily waving to more socially-oriented countries like Germany and France as they passed us by and we sunk deeper into this self-inflicted morass.

Germany had to deal with the re-unification, an event at least as difficult as figuring out what to do with the North's working population. France has such a powerful public sector and striking privileges that the sight of burning trucks on the Route Nationale is a common one whenever their people disagree with something the government does. Yet they are both doing better than we are, while providing socially-oriented policies that are rapidly looking far better than anything the Conservatives aim to provide for the UK.

The mark of a truly great leader is exercising restraint. Like I said, Maggie came to power in hard times. Inflation was running at twenty percent, and the all-powerful unions were strangling productivity. Yet she proceeded to utterly destroy the unions, British industries in the north, our steel and coal production, millions of working-class families across the country and the entire concept of 'society' being one in which we all pulled the same way together. She turned us into a de-regulated yuppy semi-paradise, and the effects of that we are still seeing today, with the financial crisis and bankers' bonuses proving amply the end results of Maggie's dream.

Today, the parties in the North are entirely justified. Over the long run, she will be judged by a far more powerful force than you or me; she will be judged by history, and we'll see what it has to say.
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She was judged three times by the residents of the uk in her lifetime, and won three times. Speaks volumes.
 
johnola said:
She was judged three times by the residents of the uk in her lifetime, and won three times. Speaks volumes.
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Indeed. That enough people were swayed by her divide-and-rule policies to vote her and her party into power is a sad reflection of the success of her polarization of society.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Indeed. That enough people were swayed by her divide-and-rule policies to vote her and her party into power is a sad reflection of the success of her polarization of society.
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You can't say that society was great and lovely and everything hunkydory when she took over though. The country was headed downhill and she made decisions and stood by them, right or wrong. More than can be said of every politician since her. Do you think we'll be having similar debates when John Major or Gordon Brown passes away?
 
I lived in the UK during the Thatcher era, and I have never known such a strong politician. You guys should have been proud of her as your country was a brickhole when I first arrived in the late 70's and she dragged it into the modern world. Never understood why there was so much angst regarding the Miner strike either. Don't people realise that industry dies and it is a natural state of affairs? You English are very much like the French in this regard, holding on to things far too long when it is clear it is time to let them go!
 
Old Bill said:
I lived in the UK during the Thatcher era, and I have never known such a strong politician. You guys should have been proud of her as your country was a brickhole when I first arrived in the late 70's and she dragged it into the modern world. Never understood why there was so much angst regarding the Miner strike either. Don't people realise that industry dies and it is a natural state of affairs? You English are very much like the French in this regard, holding on to things far too long when it is clear it is time to let them go!
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we're not all like that, where are you from, i'm guessing America?
 
interesting read for people knocking maggie

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c257da6-dfab-11de-98ca-00144feab49a.html#axzz2PuQNvRxl

Also i keep hearing this divide and rule thing, but is it divide in rule if you have always believed in the things that the tories do, which is why i guess so many people vote for them. I know how annoying it is to see someone you did not vote for in number 10, i had to put up with it for years with blair. But hey thats life :)
 
Old Bill said:
I lived in the UK during the Thatcher era, and I have never known such a strong politician. You guys should have been proud of her as your country was a brickhole when I first arrived in the late 70's and she dragged it into the modern world. Never understood why there was so much angst regarding the Miner strike either. Don't people realise that industry dies and it is a natural state of affairs? You English are very much like the French in this regard, holding on to things far too long when it is clear it is time to let them go!
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What an intriguing post.

Just out of interest, where did you arrive from and how long did you stay?
 
DubaiSpur said:
Indeed. That enough people were swayed by her divide-and-rule policies to vote her and her party into power is a sad reflection of the success of her polarization of society.
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That's a distant and dim view. There was shedloads of debate and controversy every day of her tenure. The key division was free market economics against communism. Voters wanted the lefties reined in as they were sclerotizing our industries at home and threatening us with nuclear Armageddon from the East. Policies were plain as day and it's patronising in the extreme to say voters didn't know what the were getting. They turned up in droves to back her policies. It wasn't that long ago for goodness sake.
 
I'm 16 and if I ever go in to politics, she will be my inspiration.

Never in my lifetime have I seen a politician with such passion and belief in the things they do. She had a clear vision of how she wanted our country to be and gave us a real sense of nationalism, which unfortunately faded away by the time I was growing up.
 
Regardless of anything else it's absolutely pathetic that people are partying away, organising mass gatherings and cracking open champagne because one frail 87 year old lady has died. It's sad how low society can sink really.

Was a tiny bit before my time to understand the policies when she was in power but one things for sure she didn't fudge around and moved Britain back onto the world stage. No one messed with us back then and she can't have been that bad or she wouldn't have been voted into power 3 times.

I'd rather see a politician who talks straight and makes decisions and shows some decisiveness. Better than pussy footing around like the politicians of today.
 
Won't confess to remembering her at all or her policies although she clearly divided discussion.

Seems she had a backbone though unlike today's crop!
 
Roy1983 said:
Won't confess to remembering her at all or her policies although she clearly divided discussion.

Seems she had a backbone though unlike today's crop!
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And Spurs won two FA Cups and a UEFA Cup when she was in power, when it actually meant so much winning those competitions!

I was sad about the Falklands because I loved Ossie and Ricky, but she was right about doing what she did there. I enjoyed my time living in the UK when she was there a lot more than when I came back in 96! Or maybe I was just younger :)
 
johnola said:
That's a distant and dim view. There was shedloads of debate and controversy every day of her tenure. The key division was free market economics against communism. Voters wanted the lefties reined in as they were sclerotizing our industries at home and threatening us with nuclear Armageddon from the East. Policies were plain as day and it's patronising in the extreme to say voters didn't know what the were getting. They turned up in droves to back her policies. It wasn't that long ago for goodness sake.
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I'm not saying it wasn't a complicated society, and I'm certainly not suggesting that voters were somehow tricked into voting for her. I am, however, suggesting that she focused on dismantling society to the benefit of the individual, usually the middle and upper-class individual, and that the voters who put her into power at the time were doing so without concern or regard for the people she intended to marginalize, impoverish and toss aside, because they had been conditioned to think that they were all Trots and pinkos who never did a decent days' work and that spending money on anyone but yourself was somehow inherently wrong.

She used the fears of unions and inflation to destroy all notions of a united society. What can you call that but polarization?

History will judge her, and might judge her very differently to how the people at the time judged her.
 
P.D. said:
Regardless of anything else it's absolutely pathetic that people are partying away, organising mass gatherings and cracking open champagne because one frail 87 year old lady has died. It's sad how low society can sink really.

Was a tiny bit before my time to understand the policies when she was in power but one things for sure she didn't fudge around and moved Britain back onto the world stage. No one messed with us back then and she can't have been that bad or she wouldn't have been voted into power 3 times.

I'd rather see a politician who talks straight and makes decisions and shows some decisiveness. Better than pussy footing around like the politicians of today.
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On the contrary, her Bruges speech set Anglo-European cooperation back years, leaving us more dependent on the United States than ever before. Her unabashed support for Augusto Pinochet was an embarassment even to her own party members, and to this day she is remembered as the Prime Minister than most fiercely labelled Nelson Mandela a terrorist and the one that most determinedly supported the apartheid South African government.

She won the Falklands conflict, and allowed U.S missiles to be stationed on British bases, making us a convenient first-strike target for the Russians. Those were her defining foreign policy moments.
 
johnola said:
What is wrong with Surrey pal? I am surrounded by working mines here mate pull your fudging fingers out you lazy crybabies.

My dad worked his nuts off to pay your dole money, where's the thanks?
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Nothing wrong with Surrey at all. As for working mines there, they sure ain't coal mines. Whatever they are, they are open, as you state. Unlike coal mines in this manor.

No, your father worked his nuts off to put a roof over your head and food on your table, just like many coal miners and steelworkers did for their families. The difference is in Surrey you didn't have massive redundancies and industrial destruction as happened with steel and coal here.
 
She turned us all into selfish money grabbing fluffy bunnies cuddlings!
She created the monster in the City that has sent us into an age of austerity!
She shat on the small people and treated them with derision as she closed down the manufacturing industry, an industry that so many (including my family) relied on to survive and then accused these people of laziness when they desperately looked to the state as a way to feed their families.

Don't know if anyone saw Neil Kinnock on BBC news but he summed her up quite nicely. She didn't care about the ordinary people and was so entrenched in her ideology she didn't care who she stepped on to get what she wanted.
 
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