[Archived] Baroness Thatcher Dies

[thenodrog]

Just as an aside there is so much guff written and remembered about the death of Coal fields that became uneconomic in the face of cheap imported coal in the 80's and the associated rioting and clashes between the police and the hard left. The miners strike has somehow entered the nations psyche BUT when this area was left devastated by the decline in the Cotton industry on the back of cheap imported clothing who fought for us? Who even cared? Am I correct to assume that because there was no political capital to be gained at the time that the people of Lancashire were simply swamped with an immigrant labour force that was no longer needed and cast to the four winds and simply left for dead?

[thenodrog]

My uncle for one was a miner in Barnsley .

I for one believe it or not was signed up to be a police cadet ( apprentice) at West Midlands. I then packed it in , too my parents horror , after 1st watching the police hammer the miners and then when rovers went to man city and lost 6-1 (I think) the police that day hammered anyone who got in there way and I decided there and then I wanted no part of being a thatcher henchman. Also she stopped drinking on away coaches !!

There's other things that I won't bring putting in the public domain

Daft bugger!!........ You'd be retired now on a masive pension! Anyway how come you bothered to listen to your Uncle before your own parents?

So let's get this right Abbey......she @#/? off the Military Junta who were nicking our territory with an intention to subjugate British citizens! Defeated the communists and hard left who had taken over the Unions and were intent on economic disruption rather than better working conditions for their members! Became the scourge of the IRA terrorists by 'introducing' them to the good lads in the SAS! Won her last two General elections with landslide results after putting the country back on it's feet after the dark days of the 70's.....

OH! and "she stopped drinking on away coaches"??? Now c'mon abbey.

[ABBEY]

You missed her own party booted her .

[Mike E]

Abbey, thatcher saved the country and then went ott (imo at least). Jimmy Savile was a sad pathetic man who liked to @#/? kids. Bit of a difference.

If people are so angry at thatcher and her ideology, I trust they'll equally be angry with major, blair, brown, cameron and clegg; all of whom haven't reversed those thatcher legacies.

[ABBEY]

Saved the country haha .. You do know April fools finished at 12 on April 1st ?

[adopted scouser]

If Saint Margaret made so many mistakes, why didn't 'new labour' reverse them when they won the election ?

It's a simple question really.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Abbey, thatcher saved the country and then went ott (imo at least). Jimmy Savile was a sad pathetic man who liked to @#/? kids. Bit of a difference.

If people are so angry at thatcher and her ideology, I trust they'll equally be angry with major, blair, brown, cameron and clegg; all of whom haven't reversed those thatcher legacies.

Simple answer, they didn't have the balls. You're confusing Blair's New Labour with a Socialist Party.

[Salgado Is A Hero]

Not my words by the way -

"MARGARET Thatcher reaped a massive Scottish tax windfall while her policies wiped out 250,000 jobs north of the Border, it was claimed last night.
Extra Scottish revenues handed to the UK Treasury during the Iron Lady’s 1980s heyday would be worth a staggering £130billion at today’s prices.
New analysis published by the SNP showed the booming North Sea oil industry meant Scotland consistently contributed substantially more tax per person than the UK average throughout the decade.
Effectively, it meant that Thatcher’s destructive agenda was bankrolled by Scottish cash – despite the country’s contempt for her policies.

SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson said: “These figures confirm that Scotland’s wealth was used to support the policies of a Thatcher government Scotland hadn’t voted for.
“No wonder the UK Government are so keen to talk Scots out of our oil wealth now.
“It is the final insult that Thatcher’s economic agenda – which caused so much harm to communities in Scotland – was funded by the very people it hurt.
“Scotland’s wealth was used to bankroll the Tories in the 1980s and continues to be used to underwrite their damaging economic agenda instead of being put to use for communities across the country.”
Finance Secretary John Swinney claimed the figures proved that Scotland’s oil wealth had been wasted by the Thatcher government.
He said: “The additional revenue paid by Scotland totalled £130billion during the 1980s – or an average of £2541 per person each and every year.
“That Scotland paid in this extra revenue at a time when we faced severe industrial decline and unemployment under a Tory government shows just how much of our oil wealth was squandered by Westminster.”
Thatcher’s rule coincided with some of the most lucrative years of the North Sea oil industry.
The figures show that while the Tories presided over the destruction of our skilled manufacturing and heavy industries, money was flowing from Scotland to the UK Treasury.
The research comes from a detailed historical analysis of Scotland’s financial position – part of Alex Salmond’s campaign to convince Scots to vote Yes to independence.
It claims that Scotland has contributed today’s equivalent of £222billion more in tax revenues
since 1980-81 than if we had simply matched the rest of the UK.
That means that when adjusted for inflation, tax revenue per person has been £1350 a year higher than in the UK as a whole."

[Mike E]

Simple answer, they didn't have the balls. You're confusing Blair's New Labour with a Socialist Party.

That was my point We haven't been run by Labour since before Thatcher. And Blair essentially got in on the pretence of reversing Thatcherism. Surely (in theory at least) Blair should be more hated than Thatcher, because at least she did what she said she would. And the way Cameron, his tea boys Clegg and Osbourne are going they'll get even more ire aimed their way.

If I've said this already, I apologise. But why the hell is a man-child with a degree in Modern History and a background in journalism in charge of the nation's finances?

[LeChuck]

Abbey, thatcher saved the country and then went ott (imo at least). Jimmy Savile was a sad pathetic man who liked to @#/? kids. Bit of a difference.

If people are so angry at thatcher and her ideology, I trust they'll equally be angry with major, blair, brown, cameron and clegg; all of whom haven't reversed those thatcher legacies.

Sorry but that theory doesn't work. It's much easier to do something than it is to undo it.

[Mike E]

Sorry but that theory doesn't work. It's much easier to do something than it is to undo it.

Rovers being a case in point :/

Still amounts to false promises in Blair's case, mind. Just because she was the first to do what she did, it shouldn't excuse the others should it? I think people of my generation will hate the current trinity of arses as much as Thatcher's generation hated her tbh (in terms of looking back, anyway. As there's no way I can compare life under the 2 regimes).

[Andy]

I won't pretend to know much more than what I've read in the news and encyclopedia sites this week, as quite frankly I'm too young to remember or be directly affected by Thatcher's government's policies.

But what is clear is that she was a strong and decisive leader, something this country has been lacking since.

The country was in the gutter at the start of her reign and, quite frankly, it was a force again by the time she walked.

As for dancing on her grave and getting silly songs to number one...well, these actions alone speak more for the type of person you are than anything I could say.

[LeChuck]

Rovers being a case in point :/

Still amounts to false promises in Blair's case, mind. Just because she was the first to do what she did, it shouldn't excuse the others should it? I think people of my generation will hate the current trinity of arses as much as Thatcher's generation hated her tbh (in terms of looking back, anyway. As there's no way I can compare life under the 2 regimes).

I wasn't really defending Blair and co as such, just questioning the "equally angry" bit as I don't think the act of undoing Thatcher's work is equal to the act of doing it.

I'm not old enough to have known her reign either. Then again, I wasn't alive during Hitler's reign but I still think I have a valid opinion. Not comparing the two by the way, just making a point.

Re the acts of doing and undoing. My favourite analogy for this had been squeezing out a tube of toothpaste then trying to put it back in. Sadly I think Rovers makes a better case though.

[Sandiway Blue]

Very few and in the overall scheme of things the cost was pennies. Now look at how your rich friends in Bacup evade taxes (see graphic above) to see where the real problem lies.

You clearly have never been to Bacup have you? If you added everybody's finances up together you would be lucky to find a million pounds!

The road where i live is full of couples and single parents who don't work just creaming money off the state.Because we live at the top of a hill and these people are lazy B**tards they swan up and down in taxis to get to places less than 1/2 a mile away despite being VERY able bodied.However i don't blame these people as the previous government have clearly made this a career choice in which they would gain far more by NOT working.

[SydneyRover]

This continual discourse about benefits for people without work is ridiculous. Sure, I think there is a very justifiable sense of injustice when you see some people struggling hard, putting in long hours at work to support their families, when they don't earn that much more than the combined benefits of some families.

However, the fact remains that firstly the benefits paid out to people seeking a job are a small fraction of the governments welfare spending - 3%. Housing benefit is paid directly to private landlords and in the last two years 80% of people applying for it were working, 18% is tax credits for people working, 8% is disability benefits for which the governments official figures state is the fraud rate is 0.3%.

According to the OECD the UK's benefit bill is less generous than at least half of Europe.

So this stuff about how a significant reason why we're in the financial state we're in is because Labour were overpaying benefits is absolute rubbish. It's the sort of stuff that the media (mostly controlled by the corporatocracy and right wing interests) will emphasise as it suits the powers that be. However if you actually look into the stats I don't see how anyone can fail to see it's nowhere near the truth.

Unfortunately some people are only too happy to hold onto such lazy opinions without bothering to actually look into what's really going on.

That picture that Salgado Is A Hero posted seems to have been mostly ignored. Why do we have so much talk in everyday society about people on benefits and not nearly enough on rich people who cheat the tax system? As they contribute a far, far bigger shortfall in the UKs finances than those on benefits.

There are undoubtedly some injustices in the welfare system and some people get money when they deserve a lot less. But ultimately it would almost certainly cost more to indivdualise the system and weed out those who are getting too much than it would be to just pay the benefits in the first place, as inconvenient a truth as that is. And given that it represents a relatively small part of our nations finances, I'd much rather we made sure a good safety net was in place rather than leave some without crucial support for what are ideological reasons.

One only needs to look at what ATOS are doing with their assessments to see an example of how this is playing out under the current government.

[jim mk2]

This continual discourse about benefits for people without work is ridiculous. Sure, I think there is a very justifiable sense of injustice when you see some people struggling hard, putting in long hours at work to support their families, when they don't earn that much more than the combined benefits of some families.

However, the fact remains that firstly the benefits paid out to people seeking a job are a small fraction of the governments welfare spending - 3%. Housing benefit is paid directly to private landlords and in the last two years 80% of people applying for it were working, 18% is tax credits for people working, 8% is disability benefits for which the governments official figures state is the fraud rate is 0.3%.

According to the OECD the UK's benefit bill is less generous than at least half of Europe.

So this stuff about how a significant reason why we're in the financial state we're in is because Labour were overpaying benefits is absolute rubbish. It's the sort of stuff that the media (mostly controlled by the corporatocracy and right wing interests) will emphasise as it suits the powers that be. However if you actually look into the stats I don't see how anyone can fail to see it's nowhere near the truth.

Unfortunately some people are only too happy to hold onto such lazy opinions without bothering to actually look into what's really going on.

That picture that Salgado Is A Hero posted seems to have been mostly ignored. Why do we have so much talk in everyday society about people on benefits and not nearly enough on rich people who cheat the tax system? As they contribute a far, far bigger shortfall in the UKs finances than those on benefits.

There are undoubtedly some injustices in the welfare system and some people get money when they deserve a lot less. But ultimately it would almost certainly cost more to indivdualise the system and weed out those who are getting too much than it would be to just pay the benefits in the first place, as inconvenient a truth as that is. And given that it represents a relatively small part of our nations finances, I'd much rather we made sure a good safety net was in place rather than leave some without crucial support for what are ideological reasons.

One only needs to look at what ATOS are doing with their assessments to see an example of how this is playing out under the current government.

This continual discourse about benefits for people without work is ridiculous. Sure, I think there is a very justifiable sense of injustice when you see some people struggling hard, putting in long hours at work to support their families, when they don't earn that much more than the combined benefits of some families.

However, the fact remains that firstly the benefits paid out to people seeking a job are a small fraction of the governments welfare spending - 3%. Housing benefit is paid directly to private landlords and in the last two years 80% of people applying for it were working, 18% is tax credits for people working, 8% is disability benefits for which the governments official figures state is the fraud rate is 0.3%.

According to the OECD the UK's benefit bill is less generous than at least half of Europe.

So this stuff about how a significant reason why we're in the financial state we're in is because Labour were overpaying benefits is absolute rubbish. It's the sort of stuff that the media (mostly controlled by the corporatocracy and right wing interests) will emphasise as it suits the powers that be. However if you actually look into the stats I don't see how anyone can fail to see it's nowhere near the truth.

You cannot change people's minds. Look at bacup blue - ignores all the facts presented to him over the real causes of the financial crisis and is concerned only about a few perceived welfare cheats in his street and spouting the usual stuff about "lifestyle choices". It's a symptom of the right wing to be unable to see past the end of their noses and not see the wider picture and it's evident on here I'm afraid.

[Paul]

Great post Sydney Rover. I knew this as a `fact` from the radio but had never seen it graphically illustrated. 70℅ of welfare spent on the elderly and infirm would seem exactly how society should behave.

[Sparky Marky]

However, the fact remains that firstly the benefits paid out to people seeking a job are a small fraction of the governments welfare spending - 3%. Housing benefit is paid directly to private landlords and in the last two years 80% of people applying for it were working, 18% is tax credits for people working, 8% is disability benefits for which the governments official figures state is the fraud rate is 0.3%.

Housing benefit goes straight to the tenant, not the landlord.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Well written post Sydney Rover. There's also the " elephant in the room"- where I live in Rochdale there are no jobs. My local paper used to carry page after page of vacancies, now all you get is about 1/2 a page of non jobs. My youngest son's partner, a 40 year old woman, is delivering leaflets two days a week at the moment because that's all the work she can get.

I'm also sick and tired of people who've obviously never been in a union slagging off union members. When I was a young apprentice I soon realised how important unions were in the workplace. The junior management of the company I worked for delighted in making every bodies working life a misery, without the union to defend your basic rights life would have been unbearable.

Just a couple of examples. When I was about eighteen I'd been working on one particular job and I'd left behind a small card board box with three or four used nuts and bolts in it. I'd been sent on another job straight away. Later that day I received a message to report to the foreman's office. I knocked and walked in - the foreman's opening words were " Get your coat on and kean off home, you're suspended for three days for leaving the job in a dangerous and untidy condition "! This would have been three days without pay obviously.

The shop steward saw me putting on my coat and asked me where I was going, when I told him the story he confronted the foreman and got my punishment reduced to one days suspension without pay.

Another time a work mate had been at the company six months and was entitled to join the company pension scheme, the foreman brought over his application form and in front of everyone said - " You're supposed to fill this in but if I were you I wouldn't bother because you won't be here much longer " ! He wasn't far wrong either. My pal was one of the best fitters I ever worked with but his face didn't fit with the foreman.

The same guy eventually got rid of me as well. I liked to play sport at weekend so he just put me on compulsory overtime ( your contract of employment stated " You will work a reasonable amount of overtime when requested "). This reasonable amount of overtime in his eyes was all day Saturday and Sunday, 7.30 whilst 4.30. This lasted about six months until until I got the message and managed to find another job.. I was single then and didn't really need the extra cash, guys with families who needed the overtime and the extra dosh that came with it but had fallen foul of the management were kept on forty hours a week as a punishment.

I could write a book about bullying managements.

[thenodrog]

If Saint Margaret made so many mistakes, why didn't 'new labour' reverse them when they won the election ?

It's a simple question really.

Just heard on the Andrew Marr show that the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher were responsible for the closure of approx 120 pits ....... whilst left wing Anthony Wedgewood Benn closed 250 serving in Harold Wilson's Labour govt!

Comments?

[thenodrog]

Not my words by the way -

"MARGARET Thatcher reaped a massive Scottish tax windfall while her policies wiped out 250,000 jobs north of the Border, it was claimed last night.

Extra Scottish revenues handed to the UK Treasury during the Iron Lady’s 1980s heyday would be worth a staggering £130billion at today’s prices.

New analysis published by the SNP showed the booming North Sea oil industry meant Scotland consistently contributed substantially more tax per person than the UK average throughout the decade.

Effectively, it meant that Thatcher’s destructive agenda was bankrolled by Scottish cash – despite the country’s contempt for her policies.

SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson said: “These figures confirm that Scotland’s wealth was used to support the policies of a Thatcher government Scotland hadn’t voted for.

“No wonder the UK Government are so keen to talk Scots out of our oil wealth now.

“It is the final insult that Thatcher’s economic agenda – which caused so much harm to communities in Scotland – was funded by the very people it hurt.

“Scotland’s wealth was used to bankroll the Tories in the 1980s and continues to be used to underwrite their damaging economic agenda instead of being put to use for communities across the country.”

Finance Secretary John Swinney claimed the figures proved that Scotland’s oil wealth had been wasted by the Thatcher government.

He said: “The additional revenue paid by Scotland totalled £130billion during the 1980s – or an average of £2541 per person each and every year.

“That Scotland paid in this extra revenue at a time when we faced severe industrial decline and unemployment under a Tory government shows just how much of our oil wealth was squandered by Westminster.”

Thatcher’s rule coincided with some of the most lucrative years of the North Sea oil industry.

The figures show that while the Tories presided over the destruction of our skilled manufacturing and heavy industries, money was flowing from Scotland to the UK Treasury.

The research comes from a detailed historical analysis of Scotland’s financial position – part of Alex Salmond’s campaign to convince Scots to vote Yes to independence.

It claims that Scotland has contributed today’s equivalent of £222billion more in tax revenues

since 1980-81 than if we had simply matched the rest of the UK.

That means that when adjusted for inflation, tax revenue per person has been £1350 a year higher than in the UK as a whole."

Did history start in 1980 Salgado? Surely you are ignoring (through convenience) that the English have bankrolled Scotland and NI for time immemorial. A drop of oil in the 80's was hardly enough reason to wipe the slate clean was it?

If I've said this already, I apologise. But why the hell is a man-child with a degree in Modern History and a background in journalism in charge of the nation's finances?

Ideally he shouldn't be... ... if for no other reason than the fact that Gordon Brown started out in a journalsitic career too.

[dave birch]

I didn't live under the "Thatch", thank goodness, but I know of a number of professional people (doctors, accountants etc) that emigrated because of her.

I have a similar dislike of John Howard for the same reasons.

Odious political idividuals trying to impose their beliefs on the rest of society.

To those that say she won X elections should remember that if the "Falklands" issue hadn't arisen, she probably would have lost, (as would Howard down here had the "Tampa" affair not happened).

[thenodrog]

Well written post Sydney Rover. There's also the " elephant in the room"- where I live in Rochdale there are no jobs. My local paper used to carry page after page of vacancies, now all you get is about 1/2 a page of non jobs. My youngest son's partner, a 40 year old woman, is delivering leaflets two days a week at the moment because that's all the work she can get.

I'm also sick and tired of people who've obviously never been in a union slagging off union members. When I was a young apprentice I soon realised how important unions were in the workplace. The junior management of the company I worked for delighted in making every bodies working life a misery, without the union to defend your basic rights life would have been unbearable.

Just a couple of examples. When I was about eighteen I'd been working on one particular job and I'd left behind a small card board box with three or four used nuts and bolts in it. I'd been sent on another job straight away. Later that day I received a message to report to the foreman's office. I knocked and walked in - the foreman's opening words were " Get your coat on and kean off home, you're suspended for three days for leaving the job in a dangerous and untidy condition "! This would have been three days without pay obviously.

The shop steward saw me putting on my coat and asked me where I was going, when I told him the story he confronted the foreman and got my punishment reduced to one days suspension without pay.

Another time a work mate had been at the company six months and was entitled to join the company pension scheme, the foreman brought over his application form and in front of everyone said - " You're supposed to fill this in but if I were you I wouldn't bother because you won't be here much longer " ! He wasn't far wrong either. My pal was one of the best fitters I ever worked with but his face didn't fit with the foreman.

The same guy eventually got rid of me as well. I liked to play sport at weekend so he just put me on compulsory overtime ( your contract of employment stated " You will work a reasonable amount of overtime when requested "). This reasonable amount of overtime in his eyes was all day Saturday and Sunday, 7.30 whilst 4.30. This lasted about six months until until I got the message and managed to find another job.. I was single then and didn't really need the extra cash, guys with families who needed the overtime and the extra dosh that came with it but had fallen foul of the management were kept on forty hours a week as a punishment.

I could write a book about bullying managements.

Have you had a bad career and not 'got on' Tyrone?

btw.... those nuts weren't part of the landing gear of a Jumbo jet were they? How about the cooling system filters at Sellafield?

Great post Sydney Rover. I knew this as a `fact` from the radio but had never seen it graphically illustrated. 70℅ of welfare spent on the elderly and infirm would seem exactly how society should behave.

Alternatively have you considered that without all that other leakage we could pay those OAP's who have worked hard all their lives twice or even three times as much?

[47er]

Just heard on the Andrew Marr show that the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher were responsible for the closure of approx 120 pits ....... whilst left wing Anthony Wedgewood Benn closed 250 serving in Harold Wilson's Labour govt!

Comments?

Piece of cake. Labour closed UNECONOMIC pits, ones where the seams were running out or the cost of maintaining the mine eg protection from flooding outweighed any profits.

Labour also paid for retraining schemes, relocation costs etc.

Thatcher closed PROFITABLE pits and left individuals, families and entire communities to rot.

You do realise don't you that Britain still relies on many coal-fired power stations? How are they kept running?

BY IMPORTING COAL----56 million tons of it a year at the last count!!! Meanwhile our own high-grade coal remains in the ground and scores of ex-mining communities are welfare dependent.

We could save ourselves the costs of importing coal AND export even more to the countries who are crying out for it. What would this do to the balance of payments? What would this do to the unemployment figures? How much would unemployment benefits be reduced?

The figure I've heard in any case are 191 pits closed by Wilson, 171 by Thatcher but the figure that really matters is how many miners lost worthwhile jobs not the number of pits closed.

[thenodrog]

I didn't live under the "Thatch", thank goodness, but I know of a number of professional people (doctors, accountants etc) that emigrated because of her.

Can't think why. Doctors, nurses, police, firemen all beneffited greatly under Margaret Thatcher (and Dave, so did the building trade). As for accountants....... grief! Are you being serious? Really?