Should Thatcher get a state funeral?

[KimberleyChris]

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

Sorry, but I really don't understand that comment ???

How did Mrs Thatcher enable me to take home 'wealth' that I would still be earning even if she had never been born???

Probably more, in fact. I work in Engineering - not IT, and I know that there were a hell of a lot more customers around in my field before her than after her.

[KimberleyChris]

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

Sorry, but I really don't understand that comment ???

How did Mrs Thatcher enable me to take home 'wealth' that I would still be earning even if she had never been born???

Probably more, in fact. I work in Engineering - not IT, and I know that there were a hell of a lot more customers around in my field before her than after her.

Also, please note that there was no insult tagged onto my reply to you.....

[DodgyAgent]

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.

I knew the money grows on trees brigade would come out with their patronising cliches about "communities" . If you bother to look you will see that your precious communities were protected by the trade unions and subsidised by the rest of us. They produced coal and cars uncompetitively and developed a sense of invincible entitlement. The country could no longer afford to continue to subsidise these communities and rather than modernise their closed shop monoplistic practices they went to the wall. Not because of Thatcher but because of hard economics.

As far as your assertion that she created generations of unemployment then bollocks. It was the ensuing welfare that stopped these people fom working and kept them living in the past. A similar event happened in Poland but fortunately the Poles had no welfare so what did they do? they came here to find work. Those that got off their backsides and adapted are now the ones who have good jobs. it may be harsh but harshness is so often the best way to deal with problems.

Her policies were indeed crude. Slash and burn maybe, but who is to say that killing the Unions and privatising the Nationalised Industries quickly wasnt the best way to handout the medicine. The economy has recovered and despite labours attempts to kill it, it has enriched the lives of millions of people in a way that would not have happened had Thatcher not been around.

The communities chose to vote labour and they chose to vote for their union leaders and they chose to go on strike, they therefore need to take responsibility for what they did.

[DodgyAgent]

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

Sorry, but I really don't understand that comment ???

How did Mrs Thatcher enable me to take home 'wealth' that I would still be earning even if she had never been born???

Probably more, in fact. I work in Engineering - not IT, and I know that there were a hell of a lot more customers around in my field before her than after her.

What sort of engineer are you? (apologies for the insult by the way - you use the word "hate" so I will crudely point out irregularities in the premise of your argument.) I would wager that the freedom to earn and take home the pay that you take home are by virtue of the Thatcher reforms. If you are freelancer particularly so.

[MarillionFan]

Choose your t-shirts carefully

For girly lefties who think they're hard.



Or for right wing IT Contractors



or for Dodgy Agents



or especially for Nick Fitz

[KimberleyChris]

What sort of engineer are you? (apologies for the insult by the way - you use the word "hate" so I will crudely point out irregularities in the premise of your argument.) I would wager that the freedom to earn and take home the pay that you take home are by virtue of the Thatcher reforms. If you are freelancer particularly so.

Than You. Gracious apology graciously accepted..end of.

I am a Technical Author. I compile operating and maintenance, repair/service manuals, safety case/risk assessments etc.

I don't think that Mrs Thatcher affected the nature of my work, although it is probably true, as you say' that there are more freelancers and contractors than before. This is probably not voluntary in most cases, as we all used to work as staff for manufacturing companies, many of which went to the wall during the 'holocaust' in manufacturing which followed her election.

If these old-style manufacturers with their outdated work practices and equipment had been physically modernised and reformed union-wise, we would not be in the pickle we are in now, where we rely to much on 'virtual' paper jobs in the city etc rather than 'hard' jobs in physically creating stuff.

There are more ships, cars, planes and trains in the world now than there ever were...we just had to re-align ourself in these markets.

[TimberWolf]

Weren't we once called "the sick man of Europe"? If so, does that mean we were worse off than the Greeks, Spanish, Portuguese, etc? And without the sunshine too

[DodgyAgent]

Weren't we once called "the sick man of Europe"? If so, does that mean we were worse off than the Greeks, Spanish, Portuguese, etc? And without the sunshine too

Plenty of sunshine here ;

[MarillionFan]

Plenty of sunshine here ;

Like a hot and runny afternoon in Bangalore.

[Paddy]

Weren't we once called "the sick man of Europe"? If so, does that mean we were worse off than the Greeks, Spanish, Portuguese, etc? And without the sunshine too

In the 70s it was the running joke in Europe that the GB stickers on cars stood for Gone Bankrupt.