Margaret Thatcher returns to Downing Street

[EternalOptimist]

I was never really politically minded, but I vivdly remember the three day week, playing Dover Patrol by candlelight during the power cuts.
Most vivdly of all, and confusing, was a Liverpool docker, whom we knew personally, on the telly, with foam on his lips, spittal flying, mad staring eyes, saying 'we will close these docks down'.

and they did.

Years later the old f@rt stopped me in the street and asked me of he could borrow 50p for a pint. It was only then that I realised what these fools had done.

[DodgyAgent]

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

I agree.

[Alf W]

What is so interesting about the anti Thatcher lobby is how vitriolic their hatred of her is, despite the fact that....

Sheesh! Tory-boy's off on one again


For the record, I dislike Thatcher and her policies because she and her cronies never considered people and communities and thought that it was perfectly acceptable to trample over and ignore these things in the interests of blind capitalism (ie making a few rich people even richer and more powerful).

That's my considered and educated view. Not one ingrained in me at my father's knee whilst he was reading the Daily Mail.

[minestrone]

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

"I wonder when Dennis is coming back from the golf"

[Gonzo]

People's memories are letting them down aren't they?

The three day week was in 1974 during Ted Heath's Conservative government when the coalminers stopped deliveries getting to the electricity generators. Don't think for a moment that this did not affect the government's attitude to the coal mining industry during the 1980s.

Maggie was really only the "frontman" for Sir Keith Joseph during the early 1980s. The economic policies that were pursued were really a continuation of the ones that the IMF had imposed upon Britain in 1976, although Denis Healey had a different approach with his "incomes policy" attempting to centrally control wage settlements, in the way left-wingers think they can do things, which broke down in the Winter of Discontent.

The conservative government of the early 1980s went for savage expenditure cuts and control of the money supply via interest rates.

1980 and 1981 were torrid with an oil price shock stoking inflation making the government's intended policies very painful and a lot of industry was lost at this time. The conservatives would not have won the 1983 election if it had not been for the Falklands War.

But by the mid eighties a lot of this pain was over and at the same time the government relaxed the polices that it had introduced at the start of the decade.

1987 was a good year! Inflation and unemployment were low, taxes were lowered before the election and the stock market crash in October did not effect the wider economy too badly. This was the time that Harry Enfield was doing his "Loadsamoney" character.

Nigel Lawson had always wanted the UK to join the ERM but Maggie always refused. In 1989 Lawson was out and replaced by John Major and in 1990 the UK joined the ERM.

Economists argue that the rate at which the pound joined was too high and this kept UK interest rates high which then dragged out the recession of the early 1990s. It wasn't until the pound was withdrawn from the ERM in September 1992 that interest rates were lowered, the GBP fell and the economy could begin to recover.



So all this is my rambling way of thinking that although Maggie is the hate figure for many people, the real mistakes of the 1980s were not made by her except for when she was losing the plot at the end.

[Scary]

Three day week sounds fantastic, they could re-brand it as the 4 day weekend.

[Gonzo]

Three day week sounds fantastic, they could re-brand it as the 4 day weekend.

I was too young to notice but I think the electricity was rationed so you could only use it at certain times depending on where you were living or working.

One bonus to come from it was if a public holiday falls on a weekend then the following monday is always a holiday. That did not happen before 1974 but the law was changed because of concerns about making the holiday and the three day week fair for everyone.

[gingerjedi]

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

My agent refers to me as scum, not directly of course but the complete disdain she shows when I bother her gives it away.

Par for the course I'm afraid.

[DodgyAgent]

Sheesh! Tory-boy's off on one again


For the record, I dislike Thatcher and her policies because she and her cronies never considered people and communities and thought that it was perfectly acceptable to trample over and ignore these things in the interests of blind capitalism (ie making a few rich people even richer and more powerful).

That's my considered and educated view. Not one ingrained in me at my father's knee whilst he was reading the Daily Mail.

Your view is neither considered or educated. You may like to explain just how she could have "considered people" and "communities". And to sweepingly say that she served only the interests of the rich is at best a lie.

She swept away the evil that was the control of the lifeblood of the UK economy and she trusted the working classses to make their own decisions about what they did (decisions that rich beneficiaries like you take for granted) by enabling working people to own their own homes (you call it "blind capitalism")

Again you are the epitome of the "fat cat" beneficiary of Thatcherism. You are more than happy to gorge yourself at the Thatcher trough. Yet at the same time you seem to think that people will be impressed in purging your guilt by demonising this one person who has brought you wealth beyond the dreams of most people.

[Bagpuss]

She swept away the evil that was the control of the lifeblood of the UK economy and she trusted the working classses to make their own decisions about what they did (decisions that rich beneficiaries like you take for granted) by enabling working people to own their own homes (you call it "blind capitalism")

How patronising, the implication that working class people lived off the state! Maybe yours did, wouldn't surprise me as you seem like an inverted snob. My family owned thier own homes long before the 1980s as did most people, they didn't need thatcher or council houses to do it.