Should Thatcher get a state funeral?

[AtW]

And who says transport or power would be any cheaper under the control and ownership of the UK government?

That's not the problem.

Problem is that successive UK govts fecked up industry in favour of the City, so now a lot less taxpayers doing actual jobs that are in demand.

Germany and France kept to their industry so they still have jobs and exports.

Thatcher is no Churchill, on this basis I vote NO.

[darmstadt]

blah blah blah

I see her current party aren't following her influences then:

She was influenced at university by political works such as Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, which condemned economic intervention by government as a precursor to an authoritarian state.

Mind you she was part of that 'Tunbridge Wells' mindest of Daily Mail/Telegraph/etc:

In confidential official documents she objected to the number of Asian immigrants in July 1979, in the context of limiting the number of Vietnamese boat people allowed to settle in the UK. Her stance on these issues was perceived as part of a rising racist public discourse, which professor Martin Barker called "new racism".

Eh, whats this, I knew it all along:

Milton Friedman claimed that "the thing that people do not recognise is that Margaret Thatcher is not in terms of belief a Tory. She is a nineteenth-century Liberal." Thatcher herself stated in 1983: "I would not mind betting that if Mr Gladstone were alive today he would apply to join the Conservative Party"

And more quotes:

Industrial production fell sharply during Thatcher's government, which critics believe was the reason for increased unemployment during her early years as prime minister. There were nearly 3.3million unemployed in Britain in 1984, compared to 1.5million when she first came to power in 1979, though that figure had fallen to some 1.6million by the end of 1989.

When she resigned in 1990, 28% of the children in Great Britain were considered to be below the poverty line, a number that kept rising to reach a peak of 30% in 1994 during the Conservative government of John Major, who succeeded Thatcher.

While credited with reviving Britain's economy, Mrs. Thatcher also was blamed for spurring a doubling in the poverty rate. Britain's childhood-poverty rate in 1997 was the highest in Europe.

So maybe by destroying the unions she also decimated the workforce, compromise might have been better.

I remember going on this due to Thatcher destroying the job market:

[Zippy]

Her greatest achievement was that showed that women were as capable if not more capable than men at running things. many men loathe her for this reason alone, and funnily enough so do some women who enjoy playing the helpless woman role.

If my second comment is so pathetic then you should have no trouble explaining why.?

Barbara Castle showed how women could "run things" with a great deal more thought and intellect (whether you beleved in what she had to say or not) a mere few years before. And she was by no means unique.
I think you do many men and women a disservice by implying that anyone who criticised (or continue to criticise) Baroness T was jealous or sexist. Maybe they just disagreed with her?

[AtW]

Agents would not be making any money if everybody had a happy job for life ...

[KimberleyChris]

Another problem is that we have now lost the 'manufacturing ethic' here. Even if David Cameron's new-found love of manufacturing bears fruit, we simply do not have the old skilled engineers any more.

In my youth it was "Work in a dull factory, or go to night school and become an 'x'). For many years now, an engineering qualification has been largely useless in the jobs market, so our youngsters have been left behind and don't even have the option of the dull factory any more.

I have spent too much time at my local job centre recently, and the people I meet there are, frankly, unemployable. I wouldn't build a paper-clip factory where I live, you would need to have somebody stood behind every one of them to keep telling them to put the second and third bends in.

All we are fit for is working in sweat shops for foreigners, and that is all we will get.

[DodgyAgent]

Barbara Castle showed how women could "run things" with a great deal more thought and intellect (whether you beleved in what she had to say or not) a mere few years before. And she was by no means unique.
I think you do many men and women a disservice by implying that anyone who criticised (or continue to criticise) Baroness T was jealous or sexist. Maybe they just disagreed with her?

The negative views on Thatcher are very personal which suggests that criticisms of her were driven by more than an assessment of her policies. She polarised the left and the right and exposed the left as nothing more than a self serving economy destroying kleptocratic ideology - incapable of creating wealth and incapable of providing any sort of decent public service.

After Thatcher, no longer was the state a virtuous institution, and no longer did money grow on trees - infact no longer were people fooled into thinking that the paying of taxes was morally good. because of her we realised that there was more to life than working to subsidise industries and feed inefficiency. People were forced to face realities that even today her critics refuse to face.
She introduced the concepts of individual choice and personal responsibility and when she tried to apply these to the working classes the left howled with rage (after all who would the left pretend to act in the interests for and further their own agenda if there were no longer any state dependent working classes) and screamed "greed and selfishness".

You will be surprised at just how much emotion is behind people's views on Thatcher. its cool to hate her because some sort of twisted logic shows you care about other people- well to those of you who pretend to care let me tell you - you don't. you hate her because she has exposed the hypocrisy of your "social consciences".

I hugely admire anyone who stands up to bullies - Churchill to Hitler, Thatcher to the Trade Unions and to the Tory party and Barbara Castle because (despite her idiotology) of the reasons you explain.

You will find that a lot of people base their views on the buttons that are pushed by the activities of people like Thatcher. Very few people form opinions from objective assessments of facts and events (except me of course )

[DodgyAgent]

Another problem is that we have now lost the 'manufacturing ethic' here. Even if David Cameron's new-found love of manufacturing bears fruit, we simply do not have the old skilled engineers any more.

In my youth it was "Work in a dull factory, or go to night school and become an 'x'). For many years now, an engineering qualification has been largely useless in the jobs market, so our youngsters have been left behind and don't even have the option of the dull factory any more.

I have spent too much time at my local job centre recently, and the people I meet there are, frankly, unemployable. I wouldn't build a paper-clip factory where I live, you would need to have somebody stood behind every one of them to keep telling them to put the second and third bends in.

All we are fit for is working in sweat shops for foreigners, and that is all we will get.

But you are quite happy to take home the wealth that Thatcher enabled you to earn - hypocrite.

[Zippy]

I hugely admire anyone who stands up to bullies - Churchill to Hitler, Thatcher to the Trade Unions and to the Tory party and Barbara Castle because (despite her idiotology) of the reasons you explain.

You will find that a lot of people base their views on the buttons that are pushed by the activities of people like Thatcher. Very few people form opinions from objective assessments of facts and events (except me of course )

Of course dear, of course. Now - what about that Boris Johnson chappie? Serious politician or comedy gold?

Or both ...?

[Paddy]

By the same conditions as Chruchill she lead us through a successful war so yes

The country did well despite Thatcher’s intervention and not because of it. Don’t forget that the only industry that Thatcher saved by giving a subsidy was Burma Oil run by her husband Dennis and Cementation of which a son miraculously became a director.

Governments should merely run the infrastructure, healthcare and education so that business can get on and do there own thing and every person has the basics of be able to have heat, water and food and be educated a have cheap travel. The rest will follow.

BTW. It was Thatchers cutbacks in the South Atlantic that gave the OK for the Argies to invade.

[doodab]

You will be surprised at just how much emotion is behind people's views on Thatcher. its cool to hate her because some sort of twisted logic shows you care about other people- well to those of you who pretend to care let me tell you - you don't. you hate her because she has exposed the hypocrisy of your "social consciences".

Those who despise her, despise her because she acted without humanity. Whole communities have been blighted by long term unemployment on a massive scale. She created the conditions for whole generations of whole families to simply not know what it's like to work or to be in a position to take personal responsibility for oneself, a vacuum which was ultimately filled by the culture of entitlement you profess to despise. Do you really think these people or their parents chose to be stripped of work, stripped of dignity and encouraged to suckle at the teat of the state? Cos lets be clear, history shows that many communities fought her tooth and nail to try and prevent it.

You criticise the welfare state for creating a culture of dependency and entitlement yet refuse to see that Thatcher's slash and burn approach is the reason it exists.