Ding Dong The Witch is Dead.

Dimples wrote:

Henry wrote:

Dimples wrote:

Henry wrote:I think Blair might be vilified for decades.

Well, he probably ought to be - but so far, he hasn't been. I wonder why that should be...?

I vilify him and always have.

Feel free to join me.

Only time will tell whether Tony Blair is ultimately regarded in a similar vein.

Unlikely in the UK, people in Britain don't much care about dead Arabs.

Dimples wrote:

Henry wrote:

Dimples wrote:

Henry wrote:I think Blair might be vilified for decades.

Well, he probably ought to be - but so far, he hasn't been. I wonder why that should be...?

Your feminist angle on this is weak. Thatcher was and is hated for what she did, not because of her gender. Moreover her selection of an all male cabinet (just one powerless female) was hardly a fine example for budding womanhood now, was it?

What I said was that she was doubly villifed because of it - not solely. I have no doubt that she would still be disliked for the policies alone but I do believe that this antipathy has been magnified because of her being a woman.

I didn't suggest that she was a particular figurehead for the cause of women in politics - because she wasn't - and I think she much preferred to have men in her cabinet.... with her in charge.

Although she was a powerful woman, she was not really a feminist but I just don't think that some people could reconcile a woman taking such a hard line in the cut and thrust of politics. They can now... but not then. The only other woman who even came close was Barbara Castle.

On the other hand it can be argued that she got away with so much precisely because she was a woman. If I hear one more accolade about her courage in a man's world I think I'll be sick.

vills wrote:

Dimples wrote:

vills wrote:A lot of other countries seemed to have muddled through with concensus politics.

I think most people in Britain have higher expectations than the ability to just "muddle through" forever.

Maybe Dimples, but their expectations haven't been fulfilled.

Other countries which don't have these levels of internal strife and class war,

seem to do better than the UK.

Do better in what regard? Can you be specific?

Prosperity for one Dimps:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/oct/30/global-prosperity-index-usa-economy

Henry wrote:

Dimples wrote:

Henry wrote:

I vilify him and always have.

Feel free to join me.

Only time will tell whether Tony Blair is ultimately regarded in a similar vein.

Unlikely in the UK, people in Britain don't much care about dead Arabs.

Nor apparently so they seem to mind the fact that he and his Labour government reverted to a very similarly consensual political philosophy thereafter which although it claimed to be a "third way", it used a lot of the elements of Thatcherism and he seemed to do very nicely out of that during his terms as PM.

Given the precarious state that the country was in at the time, I'd be very interested to hear people's visions of how they think Britain would have evolved during the 1980s if Mrs Thatcher had not won the General Election of 1979 and if another Labour administration was in charge instead.

vills wrote:Prosperity for one Dimps:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/oct/30/global-prosperity-index-usa-economy

Britain is ranked number 13, which on a global scale seems quite acceptable.

Perhaps but I think most people in Britain have higher expectations than to be "quite acceptable."

Or maybe not!

Henry wrote:

Dimples wrote:

Henry wrote:

Your feminist angle on this is weak. Thatcher was and is hated for what she did, not because of her gender. Moreover her selection of an all male cabinet (just one powerless female) was hardly a fine example for budding womanhood now, was it?

What I said was that she was doubly villifed because of it - not solely. I have no doubt that she would still be disliked for the policies alone but I do believe that this antipathy has been magnified because of her being a woman.

I didn't suggest that she was a particular figurehead for the cause of women in politics - because she wasn't - and I think she much preferred to have men in her cabinet.... with her in charge.

Although she was a powerful woman, she was not really a feminist but I just don't think that some people could reconcile a woman taking such a hard line in the cut and thrust of politics. They can now... but not then. The only other woman who even came close was Barbara Castle.

On the other hand it can be argued that she got away with so much precisely because she was a woman. If I hear one more accolade about her courage in a man's world I think I'll be sick.

Well, she was the only one - man or woman - who was brave enough to end the stranglehold that the unions and many of their self-serving leaders had over Britain. In my view, she ended up taking that too far and rendered unions almost powerless, which is wrong but Britain could not have continued to limp along in the way it was during the 1970s for an indefinite period of time.

There was no stranglehold.
That's tory mythology.

The workers were able to fight their corner.
Now they aren't.

vills wrote:Perhaps but think most people in Britain have higher expectations than to be "quite acceptable."

It would be interesting to see stats from earlier years though. I doubt you can really attribute the years between 2009 and 2012 to Margaret Thatcher.

vills wrote:There was no stranglehold.
That's tory mythology.

The workers were able to fight their corner.
Now they aren't.

Yes there was. the country was on its knees and previous PMs of either party were unable or unwilling to stop it. That situation could not go on indefinitely.

.... Oh and incidentally, even in the late 1960s, the Labour Party were looking at ways of reducing the power of the trades unions, so it's not a Tory myth at all.

Dimples wrote:

vills wrote:There was no stranglehold.
That's tory mythology.

The workers were able to fight their corner.
Now they aren't.

Yes there was. the country was on its knees and previous PMs of either party were unable or unwilling to stop it. That situation could not go on indefinitely.

The country wasn't on its knees whatever that means.

The ruling class felt under threat from the uppity workers

and used all the force at their disposal to crush and emasculate them.

Dimples wrote:

vills wrote:There was no stranglehold.
That's tory mythology.

The workers were able to fight their corner.
Now they aren't.

Yes there was. the country was on its knees and previous PMs of either party were unable or unwilling to stop it. That situation could not go on indefinitely.

I don't usually voice my opinion on politics but this is how I feel, no pm at that time could or would have been 'popular'

It will probably be played every year to commorate her death.
'Remember remember the 5 of November'.
People still sing it every year an he has been dead for a couple of hundred years.
Guy Fawkes I mean.

A cartoon in the Observer back in Thatchers reign by a guy who signed himself Trog had a split picture.
One picture was of a destitute elderly couple sitting in the rain in the North of England.
The other was a young couple partying and toasting with champers in the south.
The speech buble above the old couple said ... you've got your prime minister when do we get ours.
That was how severe the divide was.
The north had ships being built on river estuaries there were working mines steel mills everywhere large engineering factories massive textile industries chemicals all manner of work all swept away in an instant.
The machinery in the steel works was installed in Edwardian times.
The textile machinery in Victorian times much of the engineering stuff was old too.
The world was modernising.
Britain wasn't.
The British miners out did all of western and eastern Europe on a per man per tonnage production basis but every country ... especially Poland and Germany subsidized their mines to keep men in work.
To the tune of around a hundred quid a ton ... three quid a ton here.
The British miners were working the hardest but couldn't compete with such subsidies.
The business men had got used to building palaces over the last couple of hundred years off the sweat of the common man and putting bugger all back so we lost our competetive edge.
The unions had grown powerful trying to force companies to invest in men and infrastucture.
Of course the workers got the blame for the country being in a mess as usual.
Same then as now.
Now it's people on benefits sick people immigrants ... the finger never points to the true culprits of this nations misery.
Have you never had that feeling as your flying back into this country that your entering rip off Britain?

Government and unions had bugger all to do with the investment class putting nowt back into the pot for a hundred years.

vills wrote:

Dimples wrote:

vills wrote:There was no stranglehold.
That's tory mythology.

The workers were able to fight their corner.
Now they aren't.

Yes there was. the country was on its knees and previous PMs of either party were unable or unwilling to stop it. That situation could not go on indefinitely.

The country wasn't on its knees whatever that means.

The ruling class felt under threat from the uppity workers

and used all the force at their disposal to crush and emasculate them.

By "on its knees", I refer to various major problems facing the country during the 1970s, including

High inflation
High wage demands
Numerous widespread strikes and episodes of working to rule
Political instability and minority governments

plus

A global oil crisis
Global financial/economic turmoil

If you don't recall all of that or if you don't see these as the most significant issues which the successive governments of the 1970s had to contend with, I'm not sure then what you understand by the term "on its knees". Nothing which the administrations of Heath, Wilson or Callaghan put in place managed to resolve these crises for Britain. If any of them had had the answers, why then did they not act?

Whether we ultimately liked the monetarist policies and curbing of the power of trades unions or not, there can be little doubt that something had to be done in order to reverse the rot which was undermining the country. As has been said before, she was clearly deemed to have been doing something right for her to successfully lead her governments to three successive general election victories.

The country is "on its knees" now, in part because of financial deregulation set in train by Thatcher. I can't quite see the point you are making.

Henry wrote:The country is "on its knees" now, in part because of financial deregulation set in train by Thatcher. I can't quite see the point you are making.

How can you not see that I was explaining what I meant by "on its knees"? You're a supposedly intelligent guy and surely you can't be entirely oblivious to the state the country was in in the 1970s?

More accurately is the fact that you and Vils seem both to be in a state of complete denial about the 1970s and the mess the country was in back then. That's the only reason why you can't see the point I'm making.

Mama kaz wrote:

Dimples wrote:

vills wrote:There was no stranglehold.
That's tory mythology.

The workers were able to fight their corner.
Now they aren't.

Yes there was. the country was on its knees and previous PMs of either party were unable or unwilling to stop it. That situation could not go on indefinitely.

I don't usually voice my opinion on politics but this is how I feel, no pm at that time could or would have been 'popular'

So what if you don't usually voice your opinions on politics. In this instance, you are spot on.

After the War, the 50s, 60s, 70s:

Times were changing.

The Capitalist class were under pressure;

from youth, from workers, from the culture of the times.

Thatcher restored the proper order of things.

With the sorry consequences that we see today.

vills wrote:After the War, the 50s, 60s, 70s:

Times were changing.

The Capitalist class were under pressure;

from youth, from workers, from the culture of the times.

Thatcher restored the proper order of things.

With the sorry consequences that we see today.

..... and in your view, the alternative was....?

The alternative to Monetarism, Thatcherism, and social division..?

vills wrote:The alternative to Monetarism, Thatcherism, and social division..?

Any danger of you answering the question and perhaps suggesting why the Conservative party under Heath and the Labour party under Wilson and Callaghan were all unable to solve the crises of the 1970s?

Dimples wrote:

vills wrote:The alternative to Monetarism, Thatcherism, and social division..?

Any danger of you answering the question and perhaps suggesting why the Conservative party under Heath and the Labour party under Wilson and Callaghan were all unable to solve the crises of the 1970s?

Well I solved it by leaving.

Other countries govts didn't attack their own people with the vindictiveness of Thatcher and her henchmen.

And are thereby doing better today;

Without this legacy of hatred.

You don't cure an illness by killing the patient.