Margaret Thatcher: four headings and a funeral

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1

John Ward – From The 2013 Archives: Winner, Most Comment Threads At The Slog – 1 January 2014 | Lucas 2012 Infos on January 1, 2014 at 12:57 pm

[…] beyond pompous certainty and vomit-making deification. I said last week that I would not add to my succinct verdict of the grocer’s daughter who was actually the Mayor’s daughter: but this is nothing at all to […]

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FROM THE 2013 ARCHIVES: WINNER, MOST COMMENT THREADS AT THE SLOG | The Slog. on December 31, 2013 at 2:31 pm

[…] beyond pompous certainty and vomit-making deification. I said last week that I would not add to my succinct verdict of the grocer’s daughter who was actually the Mayor’s daughter: but this is nothing at all to […]

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http://daveshomemadebeer.blogspot.com.au on April 16, 2013 at 9:51 pm

Do ya reckon the greenie weenies would allow tidal power generators across the Thames? They’re all for it until they have to see ’em polluting the scenery.

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New Slog Post. TROLLING ALONG: If the conflicting data feel like a stream of dissonance, ask yourself why. #johnward - NTMarkets.com on April 12, 2013 at 5:45 pm

[…] posted about the Baroness three days ago. My verdict, and the preference for brevity, still stand. I am at Thatchuration point with all this propagandic […]

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Trolling Along : If The Conflicting Data Feel Like A Stream Of Dissonance, Ask Yourself Why – 12 April 2013 | Lucas 2012 Infos on April 12, 2013 at 1:55 pm

[…] posted about the Baroness three days ago. My verdict, and the preference for brevity, still stand. I am at Thatchuration point with all this propagandic […]

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TROLLING ALONG: If the conflicting data feel like a stream of dissonance, ask yourself why. | The Slog. 3-D bollocks deconstruction on April 12, 2013 at 1:06 pm

[…] posted about the Baroness three days ago. My verdict, and the preference for brevity, still stand. I am at Thatchuration point with all this propagandic […]

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Mark on April 9, 2013 at 10:11 pm

@Mudplugger – Wrong, the majority of the coal mine closures occurred in the early 1990’s after the privatisation of the Central Electricity Generating Boards which began in 1989. The NCB (or British Coal as it became) simply lost its market to cheaper opencast imported coal. The Pits that closed following the miners strike in 1984/5 were uneconomic, dangerous or had become exhausted. It was the closure of the modern mines with hundreds of years of further supply of coal that killed the industry. The deep mined coal was simply too expensive and they lost their market. The coal industry was itself privatised in 1994.

@Me again – Quite right they imported open cast coal from Polish Silesia.

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Sion on April 9, 2013 at 9:13 pm

She was the wife of a millionaire so like so many present day politicians was above the fall-out of the actions of politicians. The destruction of our production industry has left us hostage to expensive inferior imports and is comparable to the far-sighted views of Beeching. The squandering of our North Sea windfall is unforgiveable. The underinvestment in our manufacturing industry in favour of short term shareholder returns leaves us in a position where we rely on German efficiencies as we have only service “industries” to produce GDP. (To be fair she is not the only one reosponsible here.) Furthermore, the destruction of our production industries led to the breakdown of social structures- neighbourhoods, workers welfare organisations- which have led to the social malaise blighting so many communities today. Some legacy.

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JHM on April 9, 2013 at 7:07 pm

Ioannis,

You should learn some facts about the German energy production before ending with completely wrong data. Germany produces, on a regular basis, far more energy than is used, *after* the closedown of half the German nuclear plants in 2011 following the Fukushima desaster. Even in March 2013 Germany exported Energy, despite this being one of the coldest months in years. In 2012, Germany exported 23 billion kilowatt hours of Energy, and had to resort to giving it away for free several times and even to pay for the overproduction, last at Christmas of 2012, when 220€ were paid per kilowatt hour by Germany to be exported.

Even if the Russians would stop gas delivery to Germany, (which would ruin their national budget in three weeks) Germany could produce enough energy to go on as usual.

Sorry to disappoint you.

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Andy on April 9, 2013 at 7:01 pm

How quickly people forget. I use to deal with f*ckwit trade union leaders like Scargill. They didn’t give a toss about their members interests: it was all about their revolutionary politics. Overthrowing the capitalist system and founding the glorious socialist claptrap. But they were hypocrites of the worst kind, sweeping up to the door in chauffeur driven cars. I hated them then and I hate them now. Maggie was their Nemesis and they deserve all they got.

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Andy on April 9, 2013 at 6:55 pm

Complete b*llocks. You simply do not understand what ‘Big Bang’ was actually about. Perhaps you should look at the actions of President Clinton and that idiot Gordon Brown. Therein you will find what you seek.

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Andy on April 9, 2013 at 6:53 pm

That’s what the Fascist Left hate about her. She won three general elections, and actually she gained more votes in the last one than in the first. All Blair did was lose votes.

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Andy on April 9, 2013 at 6:45 pm

You shouldn’t read that fascist rag. It only survives because of tax avoidance on a grand scale.

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Jannie on April 9, 2013 at 6:44 pm

Thatcher’s biggest legacy was raising living standards across the board for ordinary Britons. When I was a kid growing up in a council estate in the early 1980s, foreign travel was unthinkable: most families went to Clacton or Yarmouth. FFWD to today and family vacations to Vegas and Australia are the norm. I personally know many working-class men (trades/small business owners) who became millionaires thanks to Thatcher’s business-friendly policies. They’d be on the dole now if it weren’t for her.
Has a wealthier populace been an unalloyed good? Possibly not, as folk have become more selfish and less nationalist (no UK Tea Party, unimpeded flood of Third World “takers” under Blair, war in Iraq, etc.).

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Andy on April 9, 2013 at 6:40 pm

The Unions f***** that up.

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Andy on April 9, 2013 at 6:39 pm

I believe she stayed at The Ritz as a guest of the Barclay brothers, who own the place. I understand they were friends of hers so there is nothing in that.

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Me again on April 9, 2013 at 6:22 pm

The coal that replaced it came from Poland and is much lower quality which means it takes far more to get the same thermal benefit and is more polluting. However I can see that no accommodation would have been possible with the NUM as it was.

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Me again on April 9, 2013 at 6:20 pm

In a nutshell, agreed.

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Marie Smith on April 9, 2013 at 6:02 pm

Lynn Atkinson – so all prime ministers since have been Socialists? Have you been asleep for the last 3 years? David Cameron a socialist then – I think not.

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Gordie on April 9, 2013 at 5:37 pm

You should get an agent,why sit here handling yourself

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incubusblog on April 9, 2013 at 5:23 pm

Roughly 12% of the entire population voted for the hag. Some democracy.

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Markl on April 9, 2013 at 5:16 pm

@Mudplugger – Actually the time line does work and you’re simply wrong. I had friends who worked for the NCB/British Coal and come from a coal mining area.
The majority of the closures came about in the early 1990’s after the privatisation of the CEGB which began in 1989. Contrary to what many people believe the coal mining industry did not close down immediately after Mr Scargills disastrous strike in 1984/5 although there were closures of uneconomic pits.
It was the loss of their market when the GEGB started buying coal from overseas that sadly finished the industry. Incidentally the coal industry was privatised in 1994 nine years after the strike. Apologies if this contradicts your left wing views but it is the truth.

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incubusblog on April 9, 2013 at 5:05 pm

Blair openly admired Thatcher, and to my mind all the parties are Tory now, all of them in the thrall of finance, so stick any perceived ‘bias’ in your pipe and etc.

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incubusblog on April 9, 2013 at 5:03 pm

‘Which paedofile did Maggie support? Name them and be prepared to be sued if you are wrong.’
Sir Jimmy Savile, Sir Peter Morrison, Peter Righton and that’s just for starters (but if the freemasonic Police weren’t busy obfuscating over the Peter Righton Case, we’d know more…)

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incubusblog on April 9, 2013 at 5:00 pm

Lived through it all…Six years on the Dole. Now we’re definitely ‘finished’ thanks to Thatcherism’s central ethos- ‘I’m alright Jack- F*ck the rest of you’…

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Geo on April 9, 2013 at 4:32 pm

@Insanity
That’s fantastic and really captures all the ambiguity, love and remorse concerning figures such as Lady Thatcher.

Has to do with our recent rather metaphysical notions of good versus evil as compared with more ancient notions of such concepts. A biblical scholar explained it to me by saying that if you study old texts such as the OT and others the evidence is that popular notions of good versus evil were quite different in those days. Already seeing that I was not particularly inclined to abstract reasoning that morning he continued, ‘well, er, let me try to illustrate it for you. In those days try to imagine a grouping of people who were being terribly oppressed by some tyrant or other, a threatening enemy, say, whose behavior was unmentionably horrendous .. ”

“OK, I think I follow you so far,” I said.

“Excellent,” he replied. “Now imagine that the aforementioned terribly unfortunate besieged peoples, to get themselves out of the mess they were in, required a person able to summon extraordinary force of a similar nature to defeat said tyrant or oppressors .. not especially a ‘good’ person, by our modern notions, given the mayhem they would deal out. … Well, if he prevailed, then since he drove of what we, and they in olden times, called evil, he became ‘good.’ ‘So the notion of what is good and evil require a remake at lest for those time, and given we’ve inherited those exact terms and use them under very different preconceptions, it is wiser to notice this than otherwise.”

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Dirtbeard on April 9, 2013 at 3:52 pm

Mrs T. had more bollocks and backbone than any of the men she did battle with. That’s why they whinge cos they blinked first and lost face so it’s easier to blame her than face up to their own shortcomings. One tosser yesterday said “she wrecked my life”. Well chap, news for you: she’s not doing it now so get over it and do something about it. Rant over.

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Geo on April 9, 2013 at 2:34 pm

There’s much of substance to what you say about neoliberal economics. On the “OTT” commentary you mention, someone prominent was quoted neatly wriggling out a bit, or so I thought for a brief spell. Can’t recall if was online BBC, DT, or wherever, (and can’t recall the purported author’s name, so there’s evidence of a foolish consistency forming) but each of those transmitters rolled out encomiums by the megabyte by high, mighty and notable, listing them on down yon browser. One very near the top of these less than memorable lists managed to have it both ways, it seemed, by distinctly saying, within the usual layers of ‘lessons in hagiography,’ that she ‘..helped thousands of Britons realize their potential …’ — or words to that effect. Caught my eye was “thousands” — not too subtle, required a bit of courage I thought. But then I recalled our politicians this side of the pond who honestly can’t distinguish ‘millions’ from ‘billions’ in real time on screen and thought, ‘you know Geo, old man, that it could be another case of Dan Quayle misspelling “potato” for the school kids.’

I hate to single out VP Quayle because I rather liked him for his stance on the Murphy Brown TV show. And the potatoe spelling gaffe, I long ago concluded, was intentional and could only have gained his party votes in this benighted wasteland of resentful adults stung and shamed long ago in some school spelling bee or another.

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iain on April 9, 2013 at 2:13 pm

I suspect history might remember Maggie Thatcher as the leader, who with Reagan, deregulated many essential controls of the financial system and probably led to the biggest boom bust of history. For her other qualities there are both pluses and minuses.

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KJH on April 9, 2013 at 1:51 pm

Unfortunately Mrs T. did more damage to British industry than the Luftwaffe and we manufacture no more.

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gordie on April 9, 2013 at 12:18 pm

it always surprises me how people can switch from one party to a diametrically oppsed other one. If you voted for her you must have done so positively as you were against the opposition. How can you then change the next time?Generally parties don’t change their philosophy so why does yours change?

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gordie on April 9, 2013 at 12:14 pm

11 years of Blair and Labour bankrupted us again,as they always do. Its funny how history gets re written.

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lefeurve on April 9, 2013 at 11:52 am

Margaret Thatcher claims £535,000 for ex-PM duties along with Bliar and the rest of them… despite being worth millions…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15486792

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Anon on April 9, 2013 at 11:28 am

Not at all. I well remember the near-on 35 years of Hell since 1979.

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Mudplugger on April 9, 2013 at 11:24 am

Except that it was only years AFTER the pit-closures and 1984 Miners’ Strike that the CEGB was privatised, so that timeline doesn’t work.

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Mudplugger on April 9, 2013 at 11:17 am

Or mud-wrestling ?

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DomesticExtremist on April 9, 2013 at 11:07 am

That was her talent – getting ordinary people to vote for their own above ground burial.

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Carys on April 9, 2013 at 11:04 am

Replying to Dean, what would we lose? The problem we have is that some of the cleverest marketing people in the UK are employed by the German car industry. Their products are good, though very expensive. That allows the agents of other car companies to sell here at very high prices that they can’t sustain elsewhere. I don’t think I would miss BMW’s and Mercedes (especially as the Indians have taught us how to manage JLR) but then I run a Japanese car. I like reliability. But there are droves of people out there who have been conditioned by a generation of hefty marketing investment to think that German cars are wonderful.

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Mark on April 9, 2013 at 10:44 am

Err – she wasn’t inflicted on anyone she won 3 general elections and many of the people who voted for her had been lifetime Labour supporters, but I suppose you’re probably too young to remember.

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Mark on April 9, 2013 at 10:31 am

The British left never forgave Margaret Thatcher for winning the Falklands war and some of the loudest cheers came from Labour party supporters. How that must have hurt them being so clearly marginalised and sitting on the sidelines. Even former Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan was honest enough to admit he would have loved to be in her position.

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Stephenroi on April 9, 2013 at 10:27 am

Mrs T had more balls than all her cabinet colleagues put together. it is reported that in her latter years as PM they referred to her as “Daggers” ……….on the grounds that Dagenham is three stops on from Barking……

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Anon on April 9, 2013 at 10:19 am

I thought I might be alone in considering Thatcher to have been the greatest Evil ever inflicted on this country since the end of the Second World War.

Yesterdays events have proved that I am not alone.

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Mark on April 9, 2013 at 10:16 am

What ultimately killed the coal mines was the privatisation of the Central Electricity Generating Boards who up until that point had been obliged to buy British deep mined coal at twice the cost it could be bought on the world market. Once privatised they simply shopped around and imported cheaper coal. This was also about the time that cheap and cleaner North sea gas also became available and there was the so called dash to gas.
The supply of gas also had the benefit of not being subject to the continual threat of disruption of supply from the National Union of Mineworkers.
Now of course we have all the environmental tosh about carbon production which is a great pity as we are still sitting on a plentiful supply of coal which we could be using.

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London Girl on April 9, 2013 at 10:15 am

Dean – this would be a real clash of the titans! (my money is on the handbag …….)

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g-tax on April 9, 2013 at 10:07 am

-the German game which to “produce stuff to sell to others”-

Indeed, a very alien concept, which clearly is designed to achieve world dominance.

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DomesticExtremist on April 9, 2013 at 10:03 am

Sadly Inspector Knacker was unable to question her in time…

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DomesticExtremist on April 9, 2013 at 10:02 am

Thatcher dies, nation distraught:

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Altergoman on April 9, 2013 at 10:02 am

MT was the beneficiary of the North Sea Oil coming on stream and providing her government to give that away in tax reductions that lead straight into consumption rather than investment.Reportedly £70 billion inrevenues.

Also she was fortunate to have the effective neutering of OPEC due to the Iraq Iran war.

Next she came to power aided by the ad slogan labour is not working because 1.5 million were unemployed her gov’s sent unemployment soarng to 3 million in benign economic times.

Further the selling of UK’s family jewels aka privatisation netted between £29 billion (so her Lord Young claims and he added that they did not do it for the money!) also went into the consumer binge instead of investment. My personal views on the privatisations are that the vast majority should have remained state ownd and they were all so incompetently handled that they have materially weakened the UK.

As an aside on nakedcapitalism their is a superb but very long article on MT that is well worth investing time and effort in by M. Hudson. In this article he states privatisation brought in £65 billion and the banks/finance guys creamed off a mere £3billion just in fees let alone share allocations etc.

Finally no one has satisfactorily explained to me why then council housing tenants were the only UK citizens suitable for very substantial windall gifts through the crazy, IMO,right to purchase coupled with the banning of even using the funds received to replenish the housing stock.

Finally a fan of MT states she did pay her own rent in Downing street, I wonder if that came from Dennis’ income as apparently he was non-resident for UK tax purposes.

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True_Belle (@True_Belle) on April 9, 2013 at 9:54 am

So we’ve had an Argentinian Pope for over 2 weeks, and Margaret Thatcher dies.

Coincidence?

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gordie on April 9, 2013 at 9:44 am

totally true.If only we had someone of her conviction now

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gordie on April 9, 2013 at 9:35 am

not a Britain I recognise

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gordie on April 9, 2013 at 9:33 am

agree with most of that but the community charge wasn’t a bad idea. Why shouldn’t everyone contribute. Those surrounding her didn’t have her bottle and the lefties seized on it the way they always do. Invalidity benefit-they don’t show some sponger with a “bad back” but someone with spina bifida. In other words the people not going to be affected by change. look at how many disappeared off the register when re-examination was obligatory.

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Peter C on April 9, 2013 at 9:25 am

For me Delingpole has the most apposite comment and sums Thatcher up best. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100211088/lady-thatcher-was-a-statesman-blair-and-cameron-are-mere-politicians/

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TheOtherHobbes on April 9, 2013 at 9:22 am

Ah – the moral reality of Thatcher’s Britain, where it’s perfectly fine to steal food and hope from the disabled, the unemployed and the chronically ill, but complaining about the horror is so dreadfully infra dig.

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GingerBarker on April 9, 2013 at 9:10 am

There is some real b0ll0x written here. The woman was a lunatic, her and Regan and the Friedman free Market Nightmare they forced upon the world has led us to where we are now.
@FarmerBraun
“Tory aristrocrat Christopher Monckton ”

say’s it bleedin all really don it ! what a load of tosh
I don’t think there are many people north of Watford who hold one smidge of regret the old bag has gone.

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TheOtherHobbes on April 9, 2013 at 9:07 am

Er – the UK is still broke.

So what did she fix, exactly?

She broke the power of the unions, and sold the people of the UK to the bankers – who have been far, far worse as a destructive force.

And yes, I did live through the 70s. I remember the energy crisis, I remember how it created inflation, and I remember how a sane response would have been energy independence.

Instead Thatcher created an economy of fraud based on credit, theft, bullshit, candyfloss, evasion, dishonesty, and spivery – when we could have had a world-leading economy based on making the tools and equipment to export energy self-sufficiency to the rest of the world.

She was one of the worst of us. And that’s not even getting into her links to paedophiles like Savile and Righton and certain well-known individuals who are still living, and whom it has become unwise to name.

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MickC on April 9, 2013 at 8:55 am

Wasn’t it the Wilson/Callaghan government which began the mass closures of the coal mines-but didn’t have the strength to tackle the power of the unions?
As JW says the Unions wished to be the sovereign power-they had to be stopped, and Thatcher did it.

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ditchdigger1 on April 9, 2013 at 8:48 am

“bridges” or “britches”? I quite like the Freudian slip, but am convinced that German civil engineers would never let their bridges get overloaded.

Sorry for the flippancy.

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M Davis on April 9, 2013 at 8:46 am

For more insight into Margaret Thatcher, I suggest you read:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/

And to balance your view on paedophilia read the ‘labour25’ website.

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KittyB on April 9, 2013 at 8:37 am

This is the first balanced view I’ve read on the subject. Has anyone else noticed that having anything other than a baying-for-blood, dig ‘er up and hang ‘er a la Cromwell attitude is distinctly non-pc? I’m disappointed that almost every update I’ve read recently has been ‘ding dong the witch is dead’. Five of my friends updated with this yesterday alone. Can nobody have an original thought, but must express themselves via the medium of musicals? I personally missed most of the Thatcher era but do remember my parents having a bit more money under her rule. We had neapolitan ice cream instead of vanilla. It’s so worrying that it’s no longer possible to express an opinion, unless it’s to agree with the left. And here was I thinking we’d evolved. Perhaps it’s time for a great number of people to grow up and engage in rational debate about the issues, but I won’t hold my breath.

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DiP on April 9, 2013 at 8:34 am

MaxC
Greed and dishonesty pervade society, so we need laws to keep it in check. Thatcher removed regulation, hence the greed surfaced. Can you imagine what would happen to crime figures if you removed the police in the same way?

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Old Alleynian on April 9, 2013 at 8:31 am

If a cretin expresses his idiocy, are we to respect it?

The celebratory response is tasteless and despicable, whether one is rich or ‘poor.’

I have met more hate-filled people on the Left than on the Right, truth to say. (The rich seem to spend too much time contemplating their money to worry about individuals!)

The demonisation of whole social classes and individuals is inherent in much Left-wing politics, for obvious reasons. What will they do now without their pet hate-figure?

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Lynn Atkinson on April 9, 2013 at 8:28 am

Takes a Geordie to get some straight thinking. Honest too.

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Insanity on April 9, 2013 at 8:26 am

Texted joke:

“Thatcher has only been in hell for 20 minutes, and she has already shut down 20 furnaces”.

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Lynn Atkinson on April 9, 2013 at 8:26 am

You poor sad sods. Remember Kinnock at the Labour Conference saying that canvassing in the Valleys w impossible because ‘the Comrades were in the holiday homes in Marbella’. That was what Maggie achieved. She enabled the bright to create wealth which enriched the poor. Which paedofile did Maggie support? Name them and be prepared to be sued if you are wrong.

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Old Alleynian on April 9, 2013 at 8:24 am

How can a PM be responsible for what are, in fact, questions of private morality?

Really, the Guardian editorial is a classic example of self-serving (and hypocritical) Left-wing moral humbug.

I worked there for several years, on the commercial side, and one can sum up the business ethic of that paper as thoroughly cynical and capitalist, and the leading columnists as vain and certainly not content with average salaries (in the terms of their humbug, ‘greedy’.)

I suspect that the morality and wisdom of those who are so eager to throw stones at the Baroness would not bear very close inspection, and there is a very nasty, spiteful element in much of the criticism, so typical of the back-stabbing British of course. RIP.

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Lynn Atkinson on April 9, 2013 at 8:20 am

No. mrs Thatcher had and used her own resources. She even paid rent for the Downing Street flat, something no PM has done since, but then they have all been Socialists and therefore ‘Takers’, happy to live off the taxes of the poor and stupid who voted them in.

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Rhys Jaggar on April 9, 2013 at 8:17 am

Margaret Thatcher – 44 pages and we’ve not even got to the funeral yet.

This morning’s papers might have been written in the Soviet Union, so OTT are they in the coverage of the death of a woman who divided the nation.

It is of course critical for the neoliberal (aka fascist) orthodoxy, because without honouring her as a combination of the Pope, Mother Theresa, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, the unquestioned hegemony of neoliberal thought would now be under serious threat.

It will be anyway: you can’t do to hundreds of millions of people what neoliberal dogma is now doing and expect to survive. It just won’t happen.

However, as is usual, the ‘leader’ will merely change mask and re-emerge in a new guise.

The only question is what lies they will be deputed to tell next time round and whether the people doing the telling behind the scenes will have changed or not.

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Lynn Atkinson on April 9, 2013 at 8:16 am

Yes the fascist immigrants must be allowed to express themselves. I am planning one when Mandela dies. Even Amnisty Intnation would not recognise him as a political prisoner, but I remember him standing in Downing Strert after meeting Maggie and announcing to the Present that ‘there was no racism in Britain’. Bloody true, where is the clip!

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Lynn Atkinson on April 9, 2013 at 8:13 am

You are a truly stupid man. Just a reporter with good contacts. But for Gods sake spare us your ‘thoughts’

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dee on April 9, 2013 at 8:02 am

Lady Thatcher would have made mincemeat of Merkel et al. She was ahead of her time. Oh how I wish she were in power today, this country would not be in the mess it is in.

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Zoompad on April 9, 2013 at 8:01 am

Don’t despise poor people honestly expressing how they feel, there’s years of pent up anger expressed in those street parties

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Dav Guy on April 9, 2013 at 8:00 am

Incubusblog, I agree with you. She did protect paedophiles. She was a spooks moll, and the first born daughter of the Le Cercle.

She was vile and she did open the City to deregulation that, ultimately, had led to the current meltdown, through the uncontrolled greed of bankers.

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Old Nick Heavenly on April 9, 2013 at 8:00 am

graham d; the problem was that she went on and on and on and on and on etc.

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Tom on April 9, 2013 at 7:58 am

I agree. What I admired most about her was willingness to say the emperor had no clothes, and the way she always seemed to put the country above any other considerations. I am surprised how sad I feel that an elderly and frail woman has died.

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Caratacus on April 9, 2013 at 7:57 am

Millions of words being spouted hither and yon this morning ref. The Iron Lady. Only John’s most accurately reflect my own views.

The street parties in our ‘great capital’ yesterday reflect a new low in the depths to which some people will sink in order to display their boorishness, folly and spite.

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GrahamD on April 9, 2013 at 7:48 am

The Winter of Discontent brought down the Labour Government of James Callahan. I recall that back in 1978-9, Oxford Street, where I was working, literally stunk from huge pile of splitting black bin liners, strikes were rife on most forms of public transport and at my college, we were supposed to walk out over anything and everything, regularly disrupting many students education. The Unions that winter were totally out of control and the Election of Margaret Thatcher was very much of their own making……and considered to be necessary, even by many electoral waiverers.

I think that the Falklands War victory had a profound effect on lifting the confidence of the British psyche, which had been ground down by the recessions and difficult economics of the mid to late 1970’s, following the very buzzy late 1967-74’s “Carnaby Street(et Al)”. Our self belief that we should have a say in world affairs and had products and services to sell, came from that change in how we all felt about being British. France started to loose its confidence internationally about the same time under Mitterand. An un-intentional legacy: One commentator saying that Cristina Kirchner would not be running Argentina were it not for Margaret Thatcher…is perhaps stretching it…..but it is an amusing thought anyway!

Greatest achievement: I agree with JW, keeping the inherent rise of Germany in Europe in check through the 1980’s. One of her closest ministers, Nicholas Ridley was forced to resign for saying that “…… giving up sovereignty to Europe was as bad as giving it up to Adolf Hitler.” It sounded pretty emotive in 1990, but I suspect that the good people of Greece, Cyprus and Portugal (etc) would presently endorse every word of that today . What would Germany and the European Union look like in 2013, without Chancellor Kohl’s regular ‘handbaggings’ at her hands?

Greatest Disaster…..Obviously The Poll Tax…..The sort of really stupid mistake that seems to envelop almost any politician of any colour who clings to power for a couple of years past their ‘sell by’ date. Would Britain have been a better place today if Callahan & Co had continued to run the country throughout the 1980’s? Quite frankly, I seriously have to doubt it.

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gordie on April 9, 2013 at 7:43 am

old nick Which aspect of the country did you admire in the 70’s?

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gordie on April 9, 2013 at 7:39 am

she didn’t destroy what came after-greedy spineless weak politicians did that. She cured the country. It was not her fault the patient overdosed on the medicine

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gordie on April 9, 2013 at 7:35 am

the guardian? Ha ha Its been wrong on everything its ever written. Left wing propaganda like the BBC

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gordie on April 9, 2013 at 7:32 am

what tosh! How old are you?Did you live in the 70’s with the 3day week under Heath,the winter of discontent under Callaghan,the Red Robbos,Gormlys,Mick Mcgahy,and the last of the dinosaurs Scargill. The Uk was broke. Dennis Healey boarding Concorde to go to the IMF to beg for money only to be told don’t bother until you sort your economy out. Before Thatcher we were finished.What a shame we don’t have politicians of her caliber now. I very much doubt we’d be in the current mess. She changed the uk.What followed now is because its been allowed to go too far.

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True_Belle (@True_Belle) on April 9, 2013 at 7:25 am

So, did the Barclay brothers finance Lady Thatcher’s final months at the Ritz?

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Old Nick Heavenly on April 9, 2013 at 7:22 am

try to keep it all together until we can dump Club Mud back in the Med

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Old Nick Heavenly on April 9, 2013 at 7:20 am

Labour and the Left sure embraced this legacy with gusto.
Every politico since has fed and watered the seeds that she planted. I also blame Footy in Mouth and Pinnochio for her continuation. Useless, unvotable for wankers.

Life is vezry pleasant in Northern Europe where we have the marvellous Mrs Merkel to

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Old Nick Heavenly on April 9, 2013 at 7:13 am

Pretty much sums it up Alexandra. She made all the negative aspects of human nature admirable and the best ones despicable in the eyes of the masses. Vile woman.

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MaxC on April 9, 2013 at 7:12 am

@alexandra. I appreciate you are quoting here, but I fail to see how one individual – Thatcher in this case – can cause another to be greedy and selfish. If someone is greedy and selfish, they have chosen that for themselves, surely?
And the greed of people today, many not even born in Thatcher’s era, how is she responsible for that, exactly?
It seems to me that the Guardian leader writer has not lived long enough to come to the truth that whenever we make a comment, it says as much about us as it says about our subject.

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ADB on April 9, 2013 at 7:07 am

Well, IF Thatcher created such a legacy (and I’m agnostic on this), Labour and the Left sure embraced this legacy with gusto.

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True_Belle (@True_Belle) on April 9, 2013 at 6:52 am

She had strength of purpose but Westminster saturated her.. She was a millionaires wife .. How much did Denis influence her ?
I believe the social backbone of Britain crumbled when we lost our historical industry. Small tight old industrial villages were shattered forever. A tough hardworking mindset was wiped out , and not reutilised properly.

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alexandra on April 9, 2013 at 6:49 am

Everything I might want to say about the woman is summed up in this quote from today’s Guardian leader:
“Her legacy is of public division, private selfishness and a cult of greed, which together shackle far more of the human spirit than they ever set free”.

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Old Nick Heavenly on April 9, 2013 at 6:34 am

Believe it or not, the only time I ever voted was in 79 and I voted Tory. It was an anti cockroach vote. Her greatest and unforgivable sin was Big Bang, which has lead the west to its knees, soon to be flat on its face? London was the greatest City to live in until 85 when she abolished democracy there. Modern Britain is indeed the creation of Mrs Thatcher, a shithole!

Broadly you are right JW. She destroyed much more than she cured.

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incubusblog on April 9, 2013 at 6:32 am

Thatcher both admired and protected paedophiles, bankers and dictators alike, and like them, enjoyed destroying individuals and communities. We are still living with her vile legacy today, from the ‘Big Bang’ to the GFC.

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alexpurser on April 9, 2013 at 6:02 am

What is there not to like?!

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Ioannis on April 9, 2013 at 6:00 am

I think your idea has merit but is not politically feasible because of the embedded financial incentives (bribing) in those export countries… I know that was the case in Greece with Siemens and other big German exporters here… so I feel it may be standard operating procedure… I think the more easily attainable way of reigning in a runaway German republic is the energy issue… they need it, don’t have any… in a way that puts Russia in the drivers seat for this kind of thing (at least today), I am sure that they may even be planning some thing like this because of Cyprus (having stated they’re need to “rethink” having half of their currency reserves in Euros). In the future, depending on what happens with Russia… countries like Portugal (wave, wind, solar), Spain (same), Italy (same+oil), Greece same+gas+distribution hub), Cyprus (same), and Israel (same)… may be the ones to do this… unless they drop out, turn to Russia and the States in which case they will most certainly do this… I think you have a good idea but coordinating something like what you suggest sounds crazy difficult… the energy issue is they’re only real Achilles heel (if any).

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Ioannis on April 9, 2013 at 5:44 am

I would prefer pistols at 20 paces…

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Dean Plassaras on April 9, 2013 at 4:27 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power

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farmerbraun on April 9, 2013 at 4:16 am

Tory aristrocrat Christopher Monckton says Margaret Thatcher, who died overnight aged 87, will be remembered as the greatest British prime minister since Winston Churchill and in some respects
greater.

Lord Monckton, who was one of her policy advisers from 1982-86, says she “triumphantly” overcame an extraordinary diversity of challenges during her time in office.

During a gap in a New Zealand speaking tour he told that Baroness Thatcher inherited an economy “probably in a worse state than any other previous prime minister probably ever had.

“Inflation was at 10% and rising rapidly towards 27%, unemployment was at three million and rising, there was demoralisation, business bankruptcies and the whole country had
the feeling of becoming a Third World banana monarchy without any bananas.

“She turned it round in very fine style and that was battle No 1.

Battle No 2 was the Falklands war.
“No other prime minister, perhaps even including Churchill, would have dared to try to fight that one, but she fought it and won it with a reasonably contained loss of life.”
And, in doing so, Lord Monckton says she returned Argentina to a democratic state.
“It was a dictatorship before and it became a democracy as a direct result of the failure of General Galtieri to defeat her. So that was another great victory.

“Then almost immediately after that there was the miners strike and she won that.”

Lord Monckton says her most spectacular achievement was bringing the Cold War to an end with the collaboration of then US President Ronald Reagan.

“She and Ronald Reagan came from such similar backgrounds, they were both lower middle class if not working class.

“And they had both done the same thing – they had read text books of free-market economics in their spare time and they were both on the same page.

“She was very well versed in economics, so she and Ron Reagan together, because of their joint love of economics and of freedom, democracy and prosperity, managed to work together to bring communism down.”

Berlin Wall fell
Lord Monckton says it was the proudest day of his life when the Berlin Wall fell and “she had done it”.

“Then she had to face the [1990] Iraq invasion of Kuwait and once
again nobody else would have taken the decision that she took to encourage George Bush senior, who was rather wobbly, to send a taskforce to kick Saddam Hussein back out again, because otherwise he would have gone on and taken Saudi Arabia.
“I hate to think what the price of oil would now be if that had happened.

“Sadly, she was not there to see it through. Had she been there
to see it through, Saddam Hussein would not have got away with it first time round and we would not now have the trouble with Islam that we have, because at that time Islam was with us and
against Saddam Hussein.

“We had the mandate from the UN, we had the support of the Islamic world, but we threw it away under John Major because he wasn’t going to stiffen the backbone of
George Bush.

“As a result we now have the entirely unnecessary dispute with Islam that should never have happened and would not have happened had she stayed as prime minister.

“So for that and many other reasons it was a tragedy that the short-sighted, miserable little moaning minnies of her own party failed to stand by her the moment things were becoming difficult.

“Had they done so the world would be a different and merrier place.”

During his four years as one of her six policy advisors Lord Monckton says “she was a truly wonderful person to work with
because you knew exactly where you stood”.

“When you went in to give her a piece of advice, particularly if it was unwelcome advice, the best thing you could do was to give it to her
straight.
“She would then stiffen and she would say ‘look, for heaven’s sake, that’s completely against all that we stand for. We can’t possible do anything like that’.

“And then she would always pause, and you had to learn about that because if you cut and run at the point where she paused she never had any respect for you again.

“But if you stood your ground then she would listen very carefully.”
Lord Monckton says things could then get convivial.

“She would tiptoe to the door and push it shut and then she would go to the bookcase by the window in her study and reach in behind a tome of chemical formulae and produce a bottle of rather indifferent whisky and two beautiful cut glass tumblers, and we’d each have
a slug of whisky.

“Then we would have a real conversation about policy, which she was fascinated by and the entire business of government could stop if you really interested her.”

Lord Monckton says the last time he saw her was about two years ago when her “kitchen cabinet” had a dinner for her.

“She was in very good form, firing on all cylinders for the first
couple of hours and then towards the end of the evening she was tiring a little.

“I saw this and when she looked in my direction I held my thumb up and winked and she put both thumbs up in
response and winked back and smiled an enormous smile.
“She will be sorely missed.”

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Professor Metwetwe jnr on April 9, 2013 at 3:55 am

Tidal Energy.
Nothing to do with wellington bomber propellers and other innocences,
more to do with predictable, sustainable, low cost carbon neutral electricity.

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Whoflungdung on April 9, 2013 at 3:41 am

Sorry, O/T.
This man is a massive fraud!!! and all those people are sheep!
Obama in emotional plea for gun bill vote in Congress
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22075192

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Dean Plassaras on April 9, 2013 at 3:20 am

But by upping manufacturing you play the German game which to “produce stuff to sell to others”. Whereas the name of the game is consumption restriction. Why does Britain need to buy German products to begin with? what for? What would you lose if your consumption of German goods went down?

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Dean Plassaras on April 9, 2013 at 3:14 am

Sorry, I meant a Thatcher vs. Merkel debate….

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Mark Deacon on April 9, 2013 at 3:06 am

Personally feel she was the first to try and put the capitalist head back on the a socialist snake that is currently devouring itself. As it had never been tried before does anybody think it worked? I think not…

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Green Steamship on April 9, 2013 at 2:55 am

Manufacturing.

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Dean Plassaras on April 9, 2013 at 2:15 am

Here is something I always wanted to ask UK citizens about.

According to Germany’s trade figures for 2012 here are the top 5 export markets for Germany:

1. France …………. 104 Billion euros
2. United States … 87 Billlion euros
3. United Kingdom … 72 Billion euros
4. Netherlands ……… 71 Billion euros
5. China ………………. 67 Billion euros

On the other hand the top importers to Germany are:

1. Netherlands ………. 87 Billion euros
2. China ……………….. 77 Billion euros
3. France ……………… 65 Billion euros
4. United States …….. 50 Billion euros
5. Italy ………………….. 49 Billion euros
6. United Kingdom …. 43 Billion euros

Keep in mind that the total trade surplus for Germany 2012 was 188 Bil. euros.

Notice how Netherlands and China both outsell Germany with a trade ratio closer to 1:1. On the other hand the top 3 export destinations for German goods, namely France, United States and United Kingdom are all running trade deficits with Germany at a ratio closer to 2:1.

So here is the question for you:

What would it take for the top 3 exports markets to coordinate a more fair 1:1 trade with Germany and thus eliminate their trade deficits as well as in the process cut a significant portion of total German trade surplus?

For if you believe – like I do – that the German arrogance has become a little too big for its bridges, wouldn’t the rational thing then be to deflate the destructive German ego through trade?

Because it seems to me that’s the only language Germans truly understand. Everything else discussed in this blog on a daily basis flows from this “key” trade factor which allows Germany to derive all of its sense of power and self-worth. Take the trade surpluses away and voila; a new era of understanding between equal European partners.

And what would it take for Britain to lead the parade of leveling the trade game field?

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Viking Jack on April 9, 2013 at 2:03 am

“Why I voted for Margaret Thatcher in 1979”

Ditto.

“Why I never voted for her afterwards”

My honest excuse is that I was out of the country on election days – but I would have if I had not been on tour somewhere in continental Europe. Were there postal votes back then?

I had the misfortune in ’82/’83 to be present at a couple of speeches (tirades?) given by Scargill and his cronies (I had driven cartloads of faithful headbanger trade unionists to the rallies). That complete idiot and his cronies just had to be stopped, at any cost.

Just on the side – I knew Scargill’s chauffeur on a personal basis: Scargill used to watch me very closely from the stage whenever I had a chat with his chauffeur!

Actually, a very good case can also be made that it was the unions that destroyed GBs industrial base, though they would never admit it. It was certainly Scargill, not Thatcher or McGregor, that destroyed the mining industry. The Tories weren’t planning (at that time) on closing all of the mines, only the unprofitable ones.

“She had the foresight to grasp the evil of which the European Union is capable….and the German triumphalism that would follow reunification.”

By late ’84 I was resident and working in Germany, and one of the regular jobs I had was carting newly arrived GI’s (all ranks) from Stuttgart to the Inner German Border area around Hof – to inform them of why they were doing a tour of duty in Germany.

Very interesting tours with much detail: the watchtowers, minefields, self-activating machine guns, a shooting range concealed in a sort of cow barn/stables on what was supposed to look like a bog-normal farm, where the explosives were located to blow up the autobahn bridge over the river, how the fences were constructed to keep people in, not out, and the half-starved dogs on long chains that also guarded the border. They were quite something: it would appear that on occasion an NVA soldier would approach one a little too closely – it was not unkown that his lack of caution cost him an arm and/or fair-sized piece out of his leg!

Now listen up, as the Yanks say. Before the actual tour kicked off, the GIs were given a background talk by the Hof-based guide. In regard to German reunification, his/her words of wisdom/propaganda were: the chances of Germany ever being reunited are nil, even if the Iron Curtain falls. The main reason for this is that Germany would be likely to become an economic powerhouse that could destabilise Europe.

That was the US government policy message to its serving soldiers in late ’84. Five years later the Iron Curtain fell. Thatcher was against reunification, Gorbachow & Mitterand too, but what did Shrub Snr., the highest US government official, do? He went from Saulus to Paulus – after all, his daddy, Prescott, had always had a good business relationship with Germany. Perhaps the family business could now be ratched up a little!

Gorbachow eventually relented (in return for a lot of money), Mitterand thought he could keep Germany in check with a common currency to be known as the Euro, so what else was the fragrant Margaret to do?

Suffice to say, her attitude towards Germany is still in a lot of peoples memories if the comments on PI are taken into account – but, on the other side, almost all of those commenting would love to have MT in charge over here right now, rather than the traitorous Murksel/Schubbele pair.

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Gumnut on April 9, 2013 at 2:00 am

Dean,I would love to see that!
By the way the ghastly Rebekah Brooks is holidaying in Australia with the Murdochs. Urrggh!

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Dean Plassaras on April 9, 2013 at 1:31 am

Imagine a Thacther vs. Merkel exchange with us in the audience.

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wildninja on April 9, 2013 at 1:00 am

Thank you for mentioning her views on the EU. I think that is a point that many (conveniently) miss.

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