Why Thatcher is hated

[d000hg]

I'm happy that I ... had a briefcase

Briefcase W**ker!!

[MarillionFan]

Briefcase W**ker!!

Fresh out of the West Country and never having been to London before I was introduced to the delights of the city by some mates of a mate from Dagenham.

As we walked across London Bridge a group of older lads spotted by briefcase. My mum had given it to me and to be honest it was more of a man bag. It was looking back very very gay. As they passed a couple sniggered and then shouted back taking the piss 'nice bag'!.

Shocked and needing an immediate retort my brain shot into action but not before my mouth which shouted 'Fook you, you black bastards!'

Not that I have any idea where the said racist retort came from. It was more of an involuntary Tourette's, not a single person in their group was black. Or Asian. They were all very white barrow boy traders. The lads looked back confused looking at each others trying to work out what I shouted. My new mates looked at be even more confused. I was confused.

This was broken by the sounds of 'right you cnuts!' And my new mates of 'leggit' as we belted across the bridge, gay briefcase in hand with a group of burly blokes behind.

'That mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble one day' I was told later. It never has.

[Sysman]

One of Thatchers great strengths was that she had no truck with the vested interests of the ruling and priviliged elite.

Please explain to me why she thought it was necessary to put my mortgage up from 12% to 15% (a rise of 25%) from January 1980, and then again raise it from about 10% to 16.1% in the early 90s.

The first time around it caused enough pain that I couldn't furnish my first house properly.

The second time demolished my then very adequate warchest because corporates were cancelling projects left right and centre. It became extremely difficult to find work that actually paid on time or before the clients went bankrupt

[Sysman]

Close them yes, feck the unions, but gradual with plenty of alternatives, programmes, training and encourage private sector to come in to take the place. This has probably happened now in a lot of places but it should have been planned much better so it was seamless.

Having had some bench time in Switzerland I can tell you that they do pay earning related dole money which gibes you a cushion and keeps you able to do networking.

Longer than 3 months on that and they will give you training too.

The last time I was unemployed in the UK I had a training course lined up but the sodding dole office would not allow me to do that: "Not available for work" was the phrase they used, and the tossers would only give me a fraction in benfeit of what I had paid in tax and NI per week over the few previous years.

It was my conclusion at that time tat the benefits system was set up in the time when there was nearly full employment with the aim of filling factories full of workers.

Unfortunately the UK welfare system has not adapted to what was happening even 20 years ago.

"Go stack shelves in your local supermarket" is not the answer for someone whose IT skills might not fit the nom du jour, and doesn't bring any wealth to the country.

[AtW]

Any supposed positive changes Thatcher did were completely undone by the thousand years of darkness of Labour administration, which was inevitable reaction to her work.

[vetran]

These were interesting

How Britain changed under Margaret Thatcher. In 15 charts | Politics | guardian.co.uk