Maggie Thatcher

celebtastic said:

Some really nasty vitriolic posts on here today, and the woman isn't even in her grave.

Shame on you.

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Why should people say nice things about her just because she is dead? People said the same things about her when she was alive so I don't see the problem.

Thatcher will always polarise opinion. Bit like her good friend in the US Ronald Regan. The thing I will say is that this was a woman from a working class background that made it to the very top and became a global political power in the 70's and 80's. No woman and not many men have come near to matching her achievements. For that alone, she was a remarkable woman. Having said that, I can't say I am going to sad at her passing.

I didn’t like her and while I agreed with many of her economic policies the heartless and draconian way in which they were implemented had severe and long term social consequences.
This is particularly the case where the coal industry is concerned. She wasn’t to blame for the state of the industry, they rests 100% at the feet of the Union leader, but the change should have taken place over decades, not months.
She did sign the Anglo Irish agreement and faced down the Unionists but her stance during the hunger strikes created the ground swell of support for Sinn Fein that let to the demise of the SDLP and has seen Gerry and Martin re-invented as statesmen. They should be thanking her; she made them what they are.

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Firefly said:

... there are plenty posters here who could get up on their high horses and say shame on you for most of your posts.

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Really?

I would hope I would never stoop so low as to laugh at the death of an elderly woman, who did so much to drag Britain free of the grasps of the unions.

Purple said:

but her stance during the hunger strikes created the ground swell of support for Sinn Fein that let to the demise of the SDLP and has seen Gerry and Martin re-invented as statesmen. They should be thanking her; she made them what they are.

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I agree she drove support for republicanism, but werent the SDLP the majority nationalist party until an election or 2 post the Good Friday Agreement?, by which stage SF had become somewhat 'normalised' - I wont use Bertie's phrase !!!!!!!!!!

celebtastic said:

Really?

I would hope I would never stoop so low as to laugh at the death of an elderly woman, who did so much to drag Britain free of the grasps of the unions.

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I meant your posts which don't refer to Margaret Thatcher, you know, the ones that all concern the same subject. In any case, I feel you are trolling at this stage, over-and-out.

celebtastic said:

Really?

I would hope I would never stoop so low as to laugh at the death of an elderly woman, who did so much to drag Britain free of the grasps of the unions.

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And this is partly why there will be vitriol.

The media has played down the views on her death as "divided", even using "bitterness" as if feelings were unjustified. The BBC decided it was better not to have any disenting voices or at least better not have any voice with a regional accent. Much better to have commentry from people from the Home Counties or the South East who never had to live under her regime.

And even though there is clear evidence of the effect of her policies on communites, at least she took down the unions eh? Showed them. Also showed Scotland, Wales and practically every county North of Watford too whether or not they were in a union. But the unions lost power and that's fine.

Her death is the perfect time to judge her in a balanced way and like anyone who showed such utter contempt for human beings and in some cases human life, there will be those who do not mourn her and who struggle to show compassion at her death.

Death does not mean you cannot be judged, death does not bring automatic respect.

Purple said:

... that let to the demise of the SDLP and has seen Gerry and Martin re-invented as statesmen. They should be thanking her; she made them what they are.

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The SDLP have no-one to blame but themselves for their collapse. They became a tired old party.

We're taking a very Hiberno-centric view on things here, which is only natural I suppose. It will be interesting to see what many Europeans say about her - I imagine the East Germans, Czechs, Slovaks and others might have fonder memories given her general stances on individual liberty and anti-communism. Another poster mentioned Mandela. Mandela thought that Britain should have supported sanctions against South Africa but went on to acknowledge that her work behind the scenes with de Klerk was of great long-term benefit.

On a day like today I think that it is appropriate to remember the following children, murdered by Maggie Thatcher's henchmen in Ireland on her watch:

@ Bill
For the purposes of a balanced listing, would you care to add the people killed by the IRA during this period?

Bill - more to the point - you might explain why she had a direct or even peripherally connected role in those deaths, bearing in mind the army was long on the ground before her arrival. I'm open to agreeing with you but I think we need some 'causal link' - e.g. did she sign off on the use of plastic bullets?

Or,though I'm loathe to use the line in this context, we could read from the book of Gerry to ask "Show me a war without civilian casualties"

Firefly said:

@ Bill
For the purposes of a balanced listing, would you care to add the people killed by the IRA during this period?

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John Hume described this sort of thing as 'whataboutery.'

Start up a thread on the IRA and we can list all it's victims. This thread is about oul Tinknickers and her deeds.

She let ten brave young men die, the first being a member of her own parliament (who incidentally garnered more votes than she did in her own constituency.) Whether you supported them or not, they WERE political prisoners, a fact later recognised by the early release scheme under the good friday agreement.[/QUOTE]

Some would suggest that Sinn Fein / IRA allowed their own men to die, knowing the support it would garnish.

Bill Struth said:

John Hume described this sort of thing as 'whataboutery.'

Start up a thread on the IRA and we can list all it's victims. This thread is about oul Tinknickers and her deeds.

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I'm sure you're also well aware that when it comes to keeping score on how many people were killed during "The Troubles", the IRA were well ahead.

Follow up to something I forgot to tackle:

T McGibney said:

By the 1980s, British coal mining was a dirty, unhealthy, polluting, uneconomic and anachronistic industry, whose workers routinely suffered chronic ill-health and widespread premature deaths. Blaming Mrs Thatcher for closing the mines would be like blaming an Irish Taoiseach for shutting the industrial schools.

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And

T McGibney said:

Classy.

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They were state run. The management ran them as such. Miners know all to well the risks of their jobs and indeed as do their families and the community. Do you think any of them would work in the mines at the risk of death and/or life-shortening disease if they didn't have a choice? Do you not realise that the only reason that standards were introduced for safety in mines (and other industries) was because of union involvement and direct action?

The unions had a lot to answer for for how they used the power they had, but there were no miners with second homes, holiday homes, two cars or kids in college. They lived in cramped, terraced housing and were lucky to even get a week in Blackpool, let alone site of anything other than work.

The unions may have had power, but the state and the management of the pits let them be dirty, polluting, unhealthy and unsafe.

You some how give the impression that they should be grateful she closed them down or that the workers were in some way responsible for those conditions.

The mines and British Industry was in a bad way when Thatcher came to power, but it takes two parties to make it so run down and unproductive, not just the workers. The argument is how she introduced her policy and the lack of humanity for those it would continue to affect to this day.

duchalla said:

She destroyed lives, families and entire communities with her policies.

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Just to be clear, regarding "She destroyed lives, families and entire communities with her policies" are you referring to closing down the mines? If so you would have to ask why the mines were dependent on taxpayer support in the first place and as I have already asked, why didn't Tony Blair re-open the mines? I agree with Purple, the speed at which she did this was indeed too fast, but she looked at the UK economy in the whole rather than focusing on a particular group/area.

duchalla said:

She supported dictorships, apartheid and is directly responsible for the deaths of both innocent civilans and political prisoners in this counrty.

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I don't know enough about this to comment, other than to say that if I was to make an un-educated guess I'd probably agree with you.

duchalla said:

Like I said, SHE WAS SCUM....

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[/QUOTE]
IMO, leaving this out would have made your post a lot better and not resemble something from a tabloid paper heading, but that's just me.

Betsy Og said:

Bill - more to the point - you might explain why she had a direct or even peripherally connected role in those deaths, bearing in mind the army was long on the ground before her arrival. I'm open to agreeing with you but I think we need some 'causal link' - e.g. did she sign off on the use of plastic bullets?

Or,though I'm loathe to use the line in this context, we could read from the book of Gerry to ask "Show me a war without civilian casualties"

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As Prime Minister she had British military intelligence reporting directly to her. If the leader of a country isn't responsible for their military, who is? She used the military to tread my community into the ground. I grew up with hardmen in military fatigues thinking it was funny to look down the sights of their rifles at children playing. I was one of those children. Carol Ann Kelly was a 12 year old child returning from the shop with a pint of milk and was shot dead by a thug from a passing British Army jeep. No soldier has ever been charged in connection with her murder.

Bill Struth said:

John Hume described this sort of thing as 'whataboutery.'

Start up a thread on the IRA and we can list all it's victims. This thread is about oul Tinknickers and her deeds.

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And as children caught up and down the country in schoolyards claim when caught fighting, "you started it"

Liamos said:

I'm sure you're also well aware that when it comes to keeping score on how many people were killed during "The Troubles", the IRA were well ahead.

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Keeping score on how many people were killed? I'll leave that to people like you.