What Was Maggie's Greatest Achievement And Failure.

[modeller]

All politicians have their successes and failures. The longer they serve the greater they are . What were Maggies ?

[missnemesis]

*Danger UXD* apologies for typo

[Canary42]

I read somewhere recently that at least 40% of the houses bought under the "right to buy" scheme are now owned by private landlords letting out at exorbitant rates. No wonder the homeless figures are so high.

[emmie]

wonder who got the money from the sale of those homes, the tenants who had been paying rent all that time, until they had the chance to buy. Don't know about now, but you had to stay put for at least 5 years before selling up. And those people i know who bought their homes, didn't sell, they stayed put.

[jno]

fortunately, one Major survived, trigs

[DangerUXD]

No Missnemesis, but I don't expect any sort of reasoned argument from you. The fact is that in the early on the wet tories were bottling it and she carried on. Like any party before or since, when they gain power suddenly they forget the job at hand. So yes she had to do it with without most of them.

[jim360]

Well, if nothing else she seems to have been pretty effective at uniting the Left...

Before my tie, so hard to say really. I've seen history programs that have made me wonder how politics even survived the power of the Unions. Surely it's worth thanking her for that. Democratically elected MPs should never have been cowed into submission time and again by unelected, undemocratic Unions as happened in the late 60s and 70s. Maybe the balance has slipped too much the other way, but from what I can see it was vital for a politician to take the Unions on and win for a change.

Failures are many, though perhaps she's guilty of failing to understand fully the consequences of some of her reforms, particularly all the privatisation and London's Stock Exchange Big Bang. In the long run that led indirectly to the current mess we are in though by no means is she the only one at fault for that - there were 11 years for Labour to fix it, after all.

[jim360]

tie = time... sigh. I spotted that typo about half a second after submitting.

[emmie]

jim, which is one of the points i made before, that Labour held power for 13 years, so why if they are so angry at all the mistakes she made, didn't they fix them

[jake-the-peg]

Her greatest achievement was signing the Single European Act

Her greatest failure was losing the Falkland Islands and having to expend a small fortune and all those lives getting them back

Her second greatest success was persuading so many people that her greatest failure was her greatest success!

[DangerUXD]

sorry so MrsT invited the junta to take them did she? even by your standards jake that is crass.

[jno]

well, she withdrew the Endurance from the South Atlantic despite Galtieri's flag waving. He clearly thought that was an invitation.

[DTCwordfan]

Her greatest legacy failure was losing Hong Kong - they could have exited with a deal like Monaco has.....independence but with Chinese defence - and that could have provided a model for Taiwan.

Greatest achievement was the turn-around of the economy as the blood-letting of the economy was more than overdue - and she may well have averted a revolution/coup d'état.

[modeller]

jake you remind me of Ken Livingstone today on the radio, he blamed all the strikes , 17% inflation, destruction of British industry during the Wilson and Callaghan years on the bankers. So now you know .

[modeller]

DT She had no choice over Hong Kong our lease was finished . She tried to get it renewed for a further 50 years but there was no chance of that.
However they did agree that HK could run their economy on capitalistic lines and that has been largely achieved.

[DangerUXD]

DT so a lease signed in 1898 was her fault was it, right oh, she's now getting the blame for stuff that happenned before she was born!

Yes jno, no doubt a desperate military Junta would really have worried about an unarmed ice breaker.

You guys have me rolling in he isles!

[jno]

it wasn't the size of the ship that mattered, it was the fact that Britain was seen to be pulling out just when trouble was brewing. Massive mistake.

[jake-the-peg]

So you think she was blameless in losing the Falklands?

Really?

If the task force had failed - and it so nearly did nobody would have said 'Oh it was the fault of the military Junta'

If the previous Labour party had been responsible would you be exonerating them?

No - and rightly so

She withdrew the rights of the Islanders to emigrate to the UK along with all the other territories and left them with almost zero protection

It was a massive failure of intelligence and it happened on her watch

Churchill could claim to have warned of Germany, not to have been involved in the disasterous expeditionary force.

Margaret Thatcher had no such get out - Her government lost them and got them back again at huge cost.

There's no glory in bravely putting out your own fires!

[Mrsspagnoli57]

Greatest achievement: Humiliation of Arthur Scargill
Greatest failure: Taking advice from Nicholas Ridley and introducing poll tax

[jake-the-peg]

You can't even find a failure without blaming it on bad advice from someone else?

Of all Prime Ministers in the last 50 years I can think of nobody less likely to totally ignore the advice of others and decide for themselves!