Should Thatcher get a state funeral?

[Doggy Styles]

"She should in my view have never come to power in the first place".

I'm not being sarcastic, I'm genuinely interested to know why such a 'true blue' would say that. Is it a mis-type?

As I said, I didn't hate her because she was a conservative, but because she was extremely, unashamedly and aggressively 'two-nation'. In other words a political civil war, which I believe damaged the country badly.

Dodgy means that it would have been preferable if the UK hadn't got into that state in the first place.

Someone with Thatcher's single-mindedness was required to sort out the dire state of the UK at the time. We were the sick man of Europe and sinking, and there was no way out other than some hard choices.

BTW the country is always in a political civil war. So are most other countries.

[DodgyAgent]

"The economy should never have been allowed to get into the state it was in. the Unions should never have accumulated so much power. Because we had indulged in socialism with our leading industries shackled by antiquated working practices and a lack of competition the economy went down the pan.
There was no money for investment, and no will to change (conservatives or labour)."

Agree totally...I was there and I remember it.

But do you not think that there was a 'third way'? Did it have to be achieved by splitting the nation in half?

In my view treat it like you treat cancer. Throw everything at it and rehabilitate from there. So whilst I think that there was no third way my criticism is of the ensuing Tory party who failed to take up the reforms and create the environment to retrain workers and rebuild manufacturing.

Thatcher should have gone earlier. Instead the Tories presided over a system of rich and poor - compounded I will add with the vice like grip over the public services that remains to this day the scandal of our society.

Then Blair got in

[KimberleyChris]

"my criticism is of the ensuing Tory party who failed to take up the reforms and create the environment to retrain workers and rebuild manufacturing".

If Thatcher had done this herself at the same time as slashing and burning, we would probably be living in a golden age now. She certainly had the drive, but she only did half the job. Given that she was a scientist by profession, I will never understand why.

If people had seen two new trees planted for every one felled, they would all have followed her.

[d000hg]

If you were not living oop north during the Thatcher era then I'm sorry, but you have nothing to say.

So what exactly should she have done? Our manufacturing was inefficient and the rest of the country went to work to pay taxes to subsidise the likes of British leyland, The miners, the airlines, the power companies and every other trade union run organisation. By the time the game was up and we could no longer afford to subsidise your northern "entitlement" the country had gone bust and someone needed to come in and administer the medicine.
How hard is it to understand? It is the Trade Unions, The labour governments and Edward heath's placatory wettishness that you need to blame not Thatcher. The Soviet Union collapsed for exactly the same reasons

Regardless, the North STILL lacks jobs or industry (barring a minor tech outgrowth recently), which means thousands are living on government handouts paid for by the south. That hardly seems a good outcome because it means the government has to find a huge amount of money to keep all those people alive.

The government could've subsidised industry and still lost money, but people in the North would have not forgotten how to work. Maybe

[DodgyAgent]

Regardless, the North STILL lacks jobs or industry (barring a minor tech outgrowth recently), which means thousands are living on government handouts paid for by the south. That hardly seems a good outcome because it means the government has to find a huge amount of money to keep all those people alive.

The government could've subsidised industry and still lost money, but people in the North would have not forgotten how to work. Maybe

They should create low/nil tax enterprise zones, build more and better transport links and introduce work for welfare schemes.

DA for PM you read it here first folks

[DodgyAgent]

"my criticism is of the ensuing Tory party who failed to take up the reforms and create the environment to retrain workers and rebuild manufacturing".

If Thatcher had done this herself at the same time as slashing and burning, we would probably be living in a golden age now. She certainly had the drive, but she only did half the job. Given that she was a scientist by profession, I will never understand why.

If people had seen two new trees planted for every one felled, they would all have followed her.

We are now getting somewhere

[KimberleyChris]

We are now getting somewhere

Not really. I can forgive her failure, and we have had plenty both before and after her.

I cannot forgive the malice. You do not create 'new life' by killing off the old and just leaving it to chance.

Sorry, but I saw too many good men just thrown on the scrap-heap without any hope. People come first. If people work in a mine and you want to shut it, then fine, but you have to use your power to give them somewhere else to work. It's not politics, it's just humanity.

As for the other comment about the north forgetting how to work..we have not forgotten, but with so many people applying for the same job, it's a race to the bottom.

Of course we are trapped here now, because you can no longer 'get on your bike', get a job down south and get your new employer to sponsor you for an early council house...but that's another story :-)

[d000hg]

They should create low/nil tax enterprise zones, build more and better transport links and introduce work for welfare schemes.

So do you think Thatcher (and later Tory PMs) made a mistake not doing that?

[DodgyAgent]

Not really. I can forgive her failure, and we have had plenty both before and after her.

I cannot forgive the malice. You do not create 'new life' by killing off the old and just leaving it to chance.

Sorry, but I saw too many good men just thrown on the scrap-heap without any hope. People come first. If people work in a mine and you want to shut it, then fine, but you have to use your power to give them somewhere else to work. It's not politics, it's just humanity.

As for the other comment about the north forgetting how to work..we have not forgotten, but with so many people applying for the same job, it's a race to the bottom.

Of course we are trapped here now, because you can no longer 'get on your bike', get a job down south and get your new employer to sponsor you for an early council house...but that's another story :-)

You make yourselves sound like victims. its pathetic. You have also completely failed to acknowledge the fact that these people made their own beds with the help of the Unions. these businesses did not close down because some madman stole them. They closed down because they were inefficient and being supported by everyone else. Why should everyone else subsidise these people? They've got two legs and a brain so why didnt they do what you do and get a job wherever.

I've got a Romanian woman working for me with two kids she hardly sees. She works hard and is earning good money. She is now marketable on EU markets thanks to the sacrifices she has made. she knows that no one owes her a living and it takes her considerably longer to get her caravan here from bucharest than it does for some whining Northerner to cycle to london from Doncaster

[KimberleyChris]

"You make yourselves sound like victims. its pathetic. You have also completely failed to acknowledge the fact that these people made their own beds with the help of the Unions. these businesses did not close down because some madman stole them. They closed down because they were inefficient and being supported by everyone else. Why should everyone else subsidise these people? They've got two legs and a brain so why didnt they do what you do and get a job wherever".

That's what I'm saying...most Northerners would leg it down south tomorrow if there was a reasonable job at the other end, but it's just logistics.

I grew up on a council estate. When I was a kid, these estates were 90% working people with good jobs. If you wanted to follow the work, then you could, by moving to a 'new town'. You could move to the other end of the country and your employer would sign the housing application form. There was mobility. The council houses were for workers, not layabouts. Now there are so few that you have to be a socio-economic basket case before you are even allowed on the waiting list.

We were sold the idea that council houses would be sold to long-term tenants on the logical assumption that the money would be used to build new ones for workers where they were needed. Again, a job half-done.

I would WALK down south to a new job if there was a reasonably-paid job and a realistic rent at the other end for me and my family. Governments mouth words about getting on your bike, but there is not a penny available to help you to re-locate where the work is. It's almost as though they would rather pay dole in one place than collect tax in the other.

A waste of a nation.