Margaret Thatcher

Her easy, breezy Cover Girl look.

Union buster par excellence, "Don't Say Gay" bill, opposed the German reunification...

And that's just scratching the surface.

She'd have shat all over today's pussy men. Wonder what she'd have made of Trudeaux and Macron. Same as the rest of us probably.

[quote] She'd have shat all over today's pussy men.

This thread is making me HORNY as HELL!

Margaret Snatcher

She made Reagan look like Karl Marx. She let Irish hunger strikers die. She said poor people being poor was their own fault. She was a vile right-wing extremist.

[quote]Same as the rest of us probably.

You don't speak for me you bootlicking troll. Just STFU.

Her policies decimated working class communities.

Hating Margaret Thatcher is like hating the oncologist who put you through hell for several months but saved your life.

She was the right man for a job that had to be done.

[quote]She was the right man for a job that had to be done

What the fuck does this even mean?

Why is DL so rabidly fascist now?

Singing the praises of Margaret Thatcher on DL. Now I've seen everything.

Spits out coffee, her easy breezy cover girl look. Right!! That one is golden.

R10 It's the wisdom of maturity speaking.

She believed in the individual, not the community, and her policies reflected this.

She wasn’t universally hated or she would not have lasted so long. She was very tough and some of her positions pretty unpopular to many. She was not particularly charming, attractive or likable, for sure. It is said that QE II was not fond of her. But both were used to dealing with strong maen and not another strong woman.

Funny how the British don't revere her the way that Republicans revere Raygun.

She caused a huge amount of hardship and suffering for a great many people, she put ideology before compassion (specifically neoliberalism, which has fucked up society and the human psyche ever since), she fostered the judgement that if anyone wasn’t rich and successful it was due to personal deficiency in themselves rather than basic structural inequality at the heart of society. She was a monster and, yes, she instituted homophobic policies which were felt for a generation.

She pulled the plug, which had to be done, on industries existing only on financial life support. For doing what had to be done, she was blamed for the loss of jobs instead of the changing economic conditions.

Most of the clips have been taken off YouTube, unfortunately, but if you can beg or steal the collected episodes, you'll find Spitting Image nailed her. Some unforgettable scenes: the vegetables, gardening with Hitler, the bulldog and many more.

R2 I don't think many British people hate her because she opposed German reunification. That was a brief episode late in her career and amounted to very little.

R16 Tories did for a long time, although she was not as superficially likable as Reagan.

Short answer: she was an abrasive personality who made real change, love it or hate it. A big secret of Thatcher's success was that the Labour Party had a bad record in power in the late 1970s then in opposition went far to the left, causing a split and the rise of a centrist party. The other lucky break for her was Argentine dictatorship invading the Falklands, allowing her to be a successful wartime leader. She won three elections, but never got (or needed) close to 50% of the vote. She played this for what it was worth, seizing the moment. Even after her megalomania took over and she became such a liability the party dumped in 1990, she still was a very influential figure among them until her dementia set in 12 years later. She reshaped British politics. Tony Blair's New Labour centrism was entirely a reaction to her success. She really was at least as important there as Reagan was here, and an influence on him.

[quote] She pulled the plug, which had to be done, on industries existing only on financial life support.

And that gave me all the precedent from her I needed!

This gives you a flavor of who she was.

From the Guardian itself, R22:

[quote]Now, in comments that appear to exonerate the actions of the British commander of the Falklands Task Force, Admiral Sandy Woodward, and Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time, the commander of the Belgrano has broken a 21-year silence. He admits he had not only been commanded to attack the British fleet wherever he encountered it but was also 'anxious to pull the trigger'.

She is the go to negative example female leader when when people say the world would be better if women were in charge. She was a nasty bitch that used any dirty trick to push her Neolibral finance friendly agenda. Some consider her a hero some a villian. She tore up the old school rule book. She said of Regan "Poor Ronnie he has nothing between his ears."

She ushered in Neoliberalism to politics, greatly booted out socialist policies still persisting from post war English politics. She made right wing nutters acceptable as centrist. That is considered her greatest achievement by the political classes on both sides of the pond.

Costello wasn't a fan.

She couldn't have been any worse than Linda Lavin.

R7 butthurt for some reason. Trudeau not interested in your blown out old hole? No one is dear, you're about as attractive as Thatcher.

Love her or hate her, she was clear and blunt. You knew where she stood (which is not to defend her or some of her terrible views.). But there are not many politicians as forthright and fuck it as she was. I wish we could graft Thatcher's candour onto a Democrat. Imagine someone who believed in the good of government and wouldn't apologize for it.

Bitch delivered iconic speeches like no one else. Chew on this hags!

Her Poll Tax finally did her in.

At one point, nearly 80% of the population was opposed to it. If I understand the so-called “community charge” (as it was officially known) correctly, Every Brit adult paid the same amount regardless of wealth or property ownership, with each locale setting the rate. If so, that would seem to be extremely favorable to the wealthy.

She had a lot of trouble leaving office. She had never really thought what would happen if she left it--she seemed to think it was a lifetime position.

From Wikipedia, about the poll tax: “This was a fixed tax per adult resident, although there was a reduction for poor people. This charged each person for the services provided in their community.”

The British government faced the same problem as governments do in the U.S. People want the government to do things for them, but they don’t want to pay for it and instead want someone else to pay for it.

She's responsible turning masculine coal mining town sons into poofy ballerinas.

I could be wrong but didn't she denationalize the rail system and now it's in shambles? Sounds like a pretty stupid thing to do if true.

Didn’t she create a program that allowed people on the dole to buy their housing? And didn’t she move poor people from the city out to the country?

Were these good ideas or bad ideas?

When she died in April 2013, "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead" reached #2 on UK charts. The idea started with a Facebook group years before.

Yes, the poll tax was the last straw. After three big wins she increasingly wouldn't listen to people. She also was running out of agenda items that weren't really unpopular. The argument for the poll tax was that in many towns the renters didn't pay local (property) taxes, but voted for local governments that raised taxes on the minority of home owners without restraint, so the poll tax would make these people pay something. If this happened local Labour controlled-councils would be weaker and less popular or wouldn't be able to tax and spend as much. Not saying this was a good solution, but that was the rationale. In any case, by then she was really full of herself and getting on people's nerves and the Tories finally decided, as they have more recently with Boris Johnson, that she was a liability and they ousted her, even though there in her case was no scandal and she wasn't senile either.

R36 Yes at least to the first part. I think that in retrospect many people who were opposed admitted that was a good idea.

If you compare her to Johnson, Trump, Bush II or Reagan, I think she is by far the most impressive. Unlike Trump and Johnson she had actual beliefs and was hardworking and knowledgable and not corrupt. Unlike Bush, she was not born to great privilege (not poor either, but not like Bush.) She is most similar to Reagan, in that she was a conservative ideologue who won multiple elections and reshaped her party. Personality-wise she lacked his charm, but was more detail oriented.

She remade herself first. She had a Northern accent, which she dropped. There is a whole Meryl Streep movie on how she changed her tone to sound less feminine and more commanding. She also changed her religion from (middle class) Methodism to fit in with her upper-class husband.`Was she an empathic, compassionate person? Nope. But a major figure.

R19 a lot of the good scenes from classic Spitting Image are on Daily motion, including The Grantham Anthem.

"The weed respects you, even though it is dead!. ."

Here's Maggie getting tips from Hitler (in hiding as Herr Von Wilcox)

Margaret: Have you ever been inside no. 10?

Hitler in disguise: No... but once in 1945 I came thiiisss close. But with you there, it feels like I run the place!

Baby milk snatcher.

[quote]Didn’t she create a program that allowed people on the dole to buy their housing?

That's an incredibly stupid way to put it.

She allowed people living in public housing (and no, that wasn't just "people on the dole") to buy their homes at a ridiculous discount (up to 70%). Public authorities were then banned from using proceeds of these sales to build new houses. Fast forward a few years and, oh who would've thought it, Britain has a housing crisis and a huge house price bubble.

What exactly did they spend the money on if not new housing? It was a food idea if the money was used to build more housing

r43 They were obliged to spend it on reducing their debt.

And let us all remember one of her most poisonous and long-lasting legacies is the comparison of a national budget to a household budget.

She ripped away the miners job and didn't put in place any help or support for the miners. She feared that the education system was creating an anti-right wing government army, this is also played into her fear of the gays and led to anti-gay laws. She punished the north for being a labour stronghold and not being the south east. She punished Scotland for not being England. She punished Wales for not being English. She had no idea how to deal with the Irish situation. She brought in right to buy without building more homes, which has led the UK into a massive housing crises. She deregulated the banks and this in part led to the banking crises in the UK in 2008 (Brown and Blair didn't help by allowing the banks further free reign) which led to austerity which has failed the UK, causing an uprise in extreme right wing support, which has led to Brexit and to Boris.

She ripped away the miners job and didn't put in place any help or support for the miners. She feared that the education system was creating an anti-right wing government army, this is also played into her fear of the gays and led to anti-gay laws. She punished the north for being a labour stronghold and not being the south east. She punished Scotland for not being England. She punished Wales for not being English. She had no idea how to deal with the Irish situation. She brought in right to buy without building more homes, which has led the UK into a massive housing crises. She deregulated the banks and this in part led to the banking crises in the UK in 2008 (Brown and Blair didn't help by allowing the banks further free reign) which led to austerity which has failed the UK, causing an uprise in extreme right wing support, which has led to Brexit and to Boris.

When she ripped away miner’s jobs, was she doing that to end the power of unions? She certainly didn’t seem to be interested in what we today call a green environment.

r47 Yes. The green angle is the spin that her fans try to put on it, which ignores the fact that the importing of coal steadily increased

R42 Right to buy was a good policy, and housing was cheap in the UK until the 2000s when it was inflated by artificially low interest rates, exploding population and influx of foreign capital - the same things that have caused house prices to increase across most of the world (which didn't have right to buy).

r49 So you really think the shortage of affordable housing has nothing to do with it, do you? Idiocy.

She ordered the deaths of black boys on mopeds.

And all those who exercised their right to buy have become well-off greedy homeowners. Did anyone lose big who bought in?

She inspired a horrible movie and hammy performance which earned a friend an Oscar, but no one wants to remember.

She inspired a horrible movie which was twice as long as it needed to be; the make-up person deserved the Oscar and not the female impersonator who wore it.

R50 There's no shortage of housing in the UK, there's a shortage of housing which is available to buy. This is directly attributable to the influx of foreign capital (mostly Chinese) beginning in the late 90s, the legalisation of buy to let mortgages by the Major government and their adoption as pension plans as the result of Lawson, Clarke and Brown's attacks on the private pension system, and the adoption of CPI as the official barometer of inflation by the Blair government which allowed them to keep interest rates low while house prices rose.

It's a similar story all over the world. It's pretty much why every developed country is experiencing some level of housing crisis.

Does anyone think the giant housing projects in cities like Chicago were a good idea in retrospect? No one defends them anymore. It's not so different re right to buy and the earlier British public housing policies. The idea that "right to buy" was bad because many years later, due to monetary policy and nimbyism, the housing market went crazy is ridiculous.

Definitely Thatcher was not going after the miners' union because of any"green" concerns. I hadn't even seen that silly spin. That said, she did acknowledge climate change back in the day, which puts her ahead of some American and Australian conservatives. The miners' union however, was awful. Google Arthur Scargill.

The railroads were actually not privatized under Thatcher. It happened under John Major, not that she was against it. That has worked out very badly.

R56 Thatcher [italic]was[/italic] against rail privatisation.

Great friends with JImmy Saville. They really should be buried together in an unmarked grave.

Ever notice all of the murderous, right wing assholes of the 80s got dementia? Conveniently escaping any questions or consequences.

%29 Yes, very strange.

But was it privatisation in principle or the extraordinarily complex way it was done that created today's mess?

A grocer's daughter who, in class-ridden, bigoted England, took the party leadership and went on to become Prime Minister. She had more balls than the men in power who sneered and sniped at her.

Yanks, she’s the one person you should never casually bring up to people in the UK until you are certain you know where they stand and ready for a diatribe. She’s a completely polarising figure who engenders decades long and even inherited generational hatred. If you show an inkling of admiration or even neutrality for her, you will be permanently and scornfully written off by some. I have a friend who goes into repeated tirades about her out of the blue usually about how she took free milk out of the schools. My advice is to avoid discussing her altogether.

R63 Oh, I think the OP knew perfectly well what he was doing here, innocent as he pretends to be. Not to say he'd be foolish enough to pose the same question in a random pub.

R57- I know she didn't do it in her time. She privatized a lot of other things. But was she actually against it when Major did it? She was still around then and very outspoken.

[quote] I have a friend who goes into repeated tirades about her out of the blue

Working class Pommies are full of resentment despite getting the dole every fortnight.

Hated by the left because she persuaded a large number of working class voters that her policies, emphasising home ownership and "getting on in life" , were better for them than the left's emphasis on class solidarity and trade union activity. Hated by the aristocratic part of the Conservative Party because of her modest background and because of her emphasis on wealth creation and instinctive understanding of the aspirations of the British middle class.

Because she benefited from a North Sea oil boom that was baked into the British economy before she even took over, and credited her plutocratic, social-Darwinist policies with the ensuing prosperity—which tended not to trickle down. Also was a homophobe and generally narrow-minded, proudly ignorant person who covered her bad qualities with a belligerence and overconfidence that some people admire.

r56 Why are you bringing up American housing projects? Or is it just another example of a dumb American thinking everything must be the same as America?

She was always so forgiving of Sir Mark, but never anyone else.

[quote]Because she benefited from a North Sea oil boom that was baked into the British economy before she even took over

And completely squandered it

I lived on a council estate during Thatcher. People were given the right to buy, so they did. Then loads of them lost their jobs, couldn't pay the mortgage and were kicked out of their homes. We used to see the bailiffs throwing furniture out of the windows, it was horrible. After that the houses ended up in the hands of private landlords. The rents soared.

Margaret Thatcher was a bitch and I hope she's rotting in hell.

R69 Because most of the readers here are American. Most don't know what a "council estate" is. Anyway, the broader point is that this policy was a success. There's a reason why in thirteen years of Labour government it was only slightly modified.

Also, R68 Thatcher was not an "ignorant" person. She was not an intellectual, and didn't have much humor, but she was an excellent student. She wasn't a faker and bluffer like Johnson. She was very diligent. She was bad on LGBT issues, but I am not sure any Tory leader in her day would have been different. It wasn't some personal crusade that she was imposing on the party. It's possible to disagree with her and even think on balance she was a negative influence and still give her her due.

Well, if you don’t know much about British history, Datalounge is definitely the first place to go to improve your education.

[quote]Because most of the readers here are American

Including you, obviously. So fuck off pretending you know anything.

R75 You could refute something I said, but you just hurl insults and make assumptions. It suggests you just have prejudices and no real knowledge.

r76 It's not an assumption at all. You feeling the need to mention American housing projects as if they're the same as council homes, hell calling the railways "railroads", you're very obviously an American. And when you say she wasn't ignorant - in spite of her deliberately ignoring any fact she found inconvenient - you're quite clearly a stupid one.

R39- You mean she was not corrupt like Biden and his son.

R77 She was an ideologue. That's bad, but different from being ignorant. It actually takes some knowledge. In comparison Trump is ignorant, but not an ideologue. By the way, do you have an opinion on Trump? Or do you say, "I'm a Brit, so really I don't know enough to comment"?

r79 You really want to make sure you come across as the dumbest person in this thread, don't you? Is it the UK or the US which has outsized influence over the rest of the world?

You still haven't explained why you mentioned the Chicago housing projects, by the way. You bullshitted about people not knowing what council homes were, but you could've just said public housing. Instead you deliberately chose a notorious example of US public housing to try and colour the opinions of others.

Here let this two-time Oscar winner tell you why:

R79. I'm not R77 but I am British and I do have an opinion on Trump.

I can't stand the man, I think he's a narcissist. But I formed that decision before he went into politics. I can remember him from back in the '70s.

I don't comment on US politics because it's none of my business. I've never even been to the US.

I'd love to go one day because I'd love to see the National Parks but I'm unlikely to ever get the money to do it. Poor me. You should all feel sorry for me now.

Chicago housing projects were the most infamous, but they existed in many American cities and were failures almost everywhere. You don't know my nationality, or whether I lived in the UK or whether I am a journalist or an academic who might have reason to know things.

Anyway, Thatcher was Prime Minister for much longer than Trump was in power and even though of course the UK is a shadow of its former self, she really was a global figure. She was the first woman leader of a major western country. Thatcher really was an influence on Reagan and conservatives in other countries. It's hard to know at this stage, but looking back she may still be a more influential figure than Trump. If he doesn't make a comeback I think this may be the case.

Hard to compare Thatcher with any U.S. president because the UK parliamentary system gave her so much power. No Senator Manchin to stand in her way.

It's a shame she was a Tory.

Good point, R84. She dominated British politics to an unusual extent and for an unusually long time (the longest unbroken tenure since the early 19th Century). Her tenure and character do not lend themselves to discussions that lack nuance.

R86 Isn't it the opposite? Who has a nuanced view of her? A love-her-or-hate-her figure if there ever was one.

r83 Once again, what relevance do US housing projects have on a discussion about council housing? The answer is none whatsoever.

One poster makes a passing comparison between British and American public housing projects, and a good 30% of subsequent posts obsess over it. There's DL for you.

Most of the dislike of her is just slut-shaming.

She was mostly pretty vile, and stuck around waaaaay too long, which deservedly ruined her reputation.

But, most of the attacks on the unions in her early years were tbh needed – they were way too powerful, and were ruining the country. The coal miners in particular were demanding the nation pay to prop up a completely dead industry, largely for the benefit of a few well off nutters like Scargill. Her reforms ultimately gave the British economy a huge boost that continued all the way to 2008, and pretty much revived London as a great world city. And her approach towards the Cold War and Falklands was completely right.

Also, becoming a successful PM as a lower middle class woman with no family background in politics was a genuinely massive achievement at the time (and heck, even now Labour have still not had a female leader).

She’s one of the few British PMs that fundamentally, and mostly irreversibly, changed Britain in a meaningful way. Only Blair matches her in that respect in the last 50 years.

Blair helped destroy Britain.

R55 there is a great lack of social housing here in the UK for less well-off people to rent. The Housing queue is unmanageable.

It isn't about those who can afford to buy (although house prices are ridiculous).

r93 The issue being that poster doesn't give a shit about people who can't afford to buy. Hence the way they ignored me saying "affordable housing". Typical Tory cunt really.

[quote]Short answer: she was an abrasive personality who made real change, love it or hate it.

I notice this attitude in the recent right-wing trolls on this forum. Essentially, their argument is "at least Republicans do something" and the implication is that means they deserve your vote. I recall the same attitudes in the media in the 1980s, during the Reagan and Thatcher eras, and it never made any sense to me then, either.

R74 DL is actually an excellent source of knowledge and ideas if you can separate the good from the shite

R51 Sinead as trite as ever. She's proven herself to be as unhinged in her views as Thatcher. What's Sinead's views on her beloved Islam and women's rights? Gay rights? Don't bring a nutter like Sinead into a discussion on politics. Unless it's to ridicule her.

Start with Wikipedia and branch out to the volumes of available published material.

PS, as anyone would do to learn about an historical figure, even moderately recent- like her contemporary and political ally, Reagan.

R96 what kind of troll are you? The Man Sex Woohoo Troll? Mustard Sauerkraut Tabasco Troll? Modern Sexy Witch Troll?

^ Officer, I couldn't help but notice that MSW are also the initials of my TV show.