Margaret Thatcher - the Marmite PM

[flip_flop]

Granted the following two articles are vey brief (one pro, the other anti), but I think it rather neatly shows the polarisation she caused/causes.

http://news.uk.msn.com/features/article.aspx?c p-documentid=16615246

http://news.uk.msn.com/features/article.aspx?c p-documentid=16585034

Personally, I feel she is the greatest leader in my time, and I hope Cameron can emulate her when he lands the PM job next year, as the similarities in terms of inheriting a broken economy are startling.

So, pro or anti, love her or hate her?

[jno]

hate her. She did some good things in privatising things that shouldn't have been nationalised (carmaking, for instance). But she's largely responsible for the money-driven, selfish society we have today in which bankers make zillions while other people lose their homes.

(Actually, that's not quite hating her, I'd say about 75% and 25% good. And there's no chance Cameron will emulate her - he's modelled himself on Blair, not on her.)

[jno]

sorry, that was 75% bad and 25% good

[janbee]

100% loathing for the bitch

[R1Geezer]

best peace time PM in history, 100% needed at the time to see off those lefty ****3rs systematically destroying the country. Most of those that hate her do so because they have been brainwashed by lefty teachers, I'll wager a pound to pinch of ****1 that the 2 tw4ts above where born after 1970, they never knew what it was like in the 70's.

[andy-hughes]

As John Sargeant's superlative biography proves with an insider's balanced view -

Margaret Thatcher was a pragmatist who made the most of the excellent opportunities that came to her.

Her downfall was her inability to understand dissent - only opposition, and to believe that her opinion was the only one that really mattered.

In some ways she was an exceelent PM, but I honestly believe that as the wife of a millionaire, she had no understanding what ever of the ordinary working person's issues and fears - something which to be fair, she shares with any politician in the modern political world.

I think she was of her time, and wanting her, or someone like her, back is rose-tinted nostalgia and has no bearing on the current issues facing the next PM, whom ever that may be.

[paraffin]

An acquired taste I think it's fair to say about Mrs T. I wonder how much of the criticism is just sexist? She certainly made headlines - a godsend for any editor!

She was never dull or boring, hence the reasons why we still talk about her today and that the very mention of her name can arouse extreme passions rarely attributable to any other British politician of modern times.

You either loved her or loathed her.

[Gromit]

Summary of the Thatcher era

Disasters
Piper Alpha (167 dead)
Clapham Rail Crash (35 dead)
Hillsborough Stadium (96 dead)
Zeebrgge Ferry (193 dead)
Kegworth (47 dead)
Marchioness (51 dead)
Manchester Air crash ((55 dead)
Lokerbie (270 dead)
Hungerford (17 dead)
Kings Cross (31 dead)

Riots in...
Toxteth
Brixton x 2
Handsworth x 2
Strangeways
Trafalgar Square
Broadwater Farm
Bristol

War
Falklands War (258 British dead) - More than Iraq and more than Afghanistan

Terrorism
Warrenpoint (18 dead)
Airey Neave assinated
Mountbatten Assinated
Brighton (5 dead)
Hyde Park (8 dead)
Enniskillen (11 dead)
Hunger Strikes (10 dead)
Kent Barracks (10 dead)

[Rollo]

People must have approved, why else would they have re-elected her and then re-elected her again?

[jno]

nice try, geezer, but decades out. Yes, you're right, rollo, but with the proviso that the opposition made itself unelectable with its constant ideological turmoil for most of her reign - much as has happened with the Tories over the last 10 years.

[DrFilth]

gromit you missed out the moss side riots

one good thing about them days if you had toothache you could find a dentist. as a last resort you could go to the mancheter dental hospital.
you try that now , they start queuing outside the dental hospital at around 4-30am it has been known people to start queuing at midnight to get treatment.

what a great job labour have done


:::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[kestrelg]

Let me take you back to a time shortly before the Falklands war. She was very unpopular with her own party and the country. At that time (without knowing the outcome) she asked Sir Rex Hunt (Governor of the Falklands) to arrange a handover of the Falklands to Argentina who were already providing hospital services and higher education.
By pure chance a madman called Galtieri was the dictator in charge of Argentina and he didn't want a handover, he wanted the glory of a forced takeover. The rest is history as they say.
Perhaps I'm biased but up to 1996 ( I think) I worked for a company
making mines and small rail locomotives.
Our biggest customers were the National Coal Board, Regional Rail and Transmanche( builders of the Channel Tunnel).
Within one month the tunnel was completed (as expected)
but then she and Heseltine closed down over 80 per cent of the coal mines and announced the sale of British Rail causing all purchasing to be suspended.
Result, another wonderful British company went to the wall.
I like many others in industry absolutely hated her.

[jno]

quite so, kestrelg: it was during her rule that the country went from manufacturing industry to service industry - bankers and such. In fact it was her 'big bang', deregulating banking activities in London, that led US authorities to do the same, which is what led to the subprime mess and the recession we are currently enjoying. Truly a woman of long-lasting influence.