Margaret Thatcher returns to Downing Street

[DodgyAgent]

I didn't realise how much I wished that witch dead until I followed that link. My emotional reaction even took my mind off my toothache.

If it wasnt for her scum like you would be pushing punch cards into the side of a light bulb.

[minestrone]

They weren't crap, they became under-invested and got past their sell by date. All the top selling cars of the 70s 80s and 90s were built in britain, that period of the 70s that everyone rushes to mention was not the reason to abandon an industry. There were many good ideas, even Germany knew that, they did buy the mini concept and are doing pretty well out of it. Land/Range rover are still selling pretty well. Jaguar are not doing bad. Aston Martin go from strength to strength. Bentley, Rolls Royce, you name it, we still make most of these cars here in Britain so there is absolutely no reason we couldn't own them too. It just needed new funding rather than short term thinking. We pretty much own Formula one, and that's where future development starts. So don't tell me we can't make good cars, and don't believe the hype that justifies the mistakes. Moreover, do you think Fiat didn't make the same mistakes of the 70s? and last time I looked they owned Ferrari and we trying to buy up half the motoring manufacturers. It's pretty easy to dismantle something but not so easy to rebuild it, alas we didn't even bother instead we make other countries richer.

One minute you are saying we have no manufacturing then you trot out names of cars that are manufactured here? British cars are great but 'they became past their sell by date'. Keep consistant.

Your knowledge of British industry comes from watching top gear every week, that is why you can only think of manufactoring as car production.

[Lockhouse]

Sorry but I like Mrs T. I grew up in the 70's and 80's and remember the 3 day week, the piles of rubbish, the power cuts etc that were common before she came to power. She was very much a product of her time and although she made one or two errors of judgement, she had conviction. It's easy to see where she went wrong now but hindsight is always 20/20. In my view she was the second best PM of the 20th Century.

[DodgyAgent]

What is so interesting about the anti Thatcher lobby is how vitriolic their hatred of her is, despite the fact that most of them (all of them on here if they are IT contractors) are the direct beneficiaries of her policies.

These people have earned small fortunes from the deregulation of the power industries, manufacturing and banking. These people are the cowardly little people who would probably have been the ones responsible for keeping the socialists in power pre Thatcher (the real culprits of ruining manufacturing).

Manufacturing had been completely stifled by the British people who had voted in the very socialists who had created a state subsidised car industry that did not have a hope of being able to compete commercially. All Thatcher did was close it down before we all went bankrupt.

The reason for the vitriol could be justified if I were a hard working miner who's livelihood had been stripped away by the closing of the pits. But the vitriol rarely comes from these people. The only explanation is that it is what I call "cowards guilt", where like sheep they jump on the hate wagon, thinking that in hating Thatcher they can somehow feel better about the squillions they have earned as a direct result of her.

What is all the more remarkable is that since she went the srew against the IT contractor is being turned by the socialists in the form of IR35, the opening of our borders and by regulation (and by god do you they moan about it). It seems some of you never learn.

As for me, I have earned a nice fat tidy little sum of dosh and I would personally like to say "Thank you Maggie", and it looks like we need you back.

[RichardCranium]

But on the balance of it, she crushed the unions (especially the miners) who were hell bent on destroying the country with their demands, she provided strong leadership, and she stood for no nonsense.

She also destroyed the manufacturing industry, bankrupted tens of thousands with 16% interest rates, created a state where homelessness stopped being an old-tramp-per-town to thousands of young people in every city, privatised a number of industries (making an awful lot of senior public sector people fabulously rich in the process although that never seemd to make the papers) and made them no better in the process, was managing an utterly corrupt bunch of politicians (although they all are so that is unfair)

If it wasnt for her scum like you would be pushing punch cards into the side of a light bulb.

Nice. I would also be a damn site better off if she hadn't resulted in me losing my last permie job and my home with the interest rates.

I shall be amongst the first for the queue to dance on her grave, but I shall be pissing on the headstone first.

[bobhope]

She also destroyed the manufacturing industry, bankrupted tens of thousands with 16% interest rates, created a state where homelessness stopped being an old-tramp-per-town to thousands of young people in every city, privatised a number of industries (making an awful lot of senior public sector people fabulously rich in the process although that never seemd to make the papers) and made them no better in the process, was managing an utterly corrupt bunch of politicians (although they all are so that is unfair)

Nice. I would also be a damn site better off if she hadn't resulted in me losing my last permie job and my home with the interest rates.

I shall be amongst the first for the queue to dance on her grave, but I shall be pissing on the headstone first.

Not to be too pedantic but:

- the 16% interest rates weren't 16%
- if you're referring to the spike in interest rates that was caused by defending GBP against DEM in the ERM debacle, well I seem to remember she was against joining the ERM whilst Labour were very much pro-joining.

BTW, I'm not pro-tory, just anti all politicians.

[TinTrump]

If it wasnt for her scum like you would be pushing punch cards into the side of a light bulb.

Totally unnecessary. If we're going to discuss issues can't we maintain some degree of politeness towards each other?

[DimPrawn]

Totally unnecessary. If we're going to discuss issues can't we maintain some degree of politeness towards each other?

Go **** a duck!

[minestrone]

When it costs more to create something than the eventual value of the goods then it can hardly be described as an industry.

She simply cut off the subsidies to failing industries who year on year cost more to run that what they made. Industry destroyed itself long before she came along.

Incidently when I hit Uni in the late 80s to do Mechanical Engineering all the courses had been changed to include many more management and quality courses, we had to learn what the japanese had learned 40 years previously. Yes the engineers of the past were great with a slide rule but they knew bugger all about manufacturing or how to run a process line.

Also everyone who graduated got a job in Engineering if they wanted one , only 2 out of 60 went on to do computing later. Manufacturing never died, it reinvented itself, people who warble on about the Thatcher killing manufacturing still think of people on factory lines with dirty overalls and milky cups of tea. A lefty fantasy that fits their incorrect beliefs.

[DimPrawn]

She simply cut off the subsidies to failing industries who year on year cost more to run that what they made.

I wonder what she would have made of propping up the bankrupt City to the tune of trillions of pounds?