O/T Maggie Thatcher

[Maxross]

Well we wouldnt be paying through the nose for gas for a start. Paying all this money to overseas companys who don't care a jot about us or GB. Unless when things like Corby steel works got closed 11000 people lost a job all at once. Suppose if you think thats a good thing 11000 familys ruined. Hey good for you I say.

Indeed no we wouldn't just be paying through the nose for Gas it'd be for everything and banckrupt as a country.

I think if you think the developing nations of the world are going to stop trying to take the jobs of un competative industries your deluded.  Why should they as a popultion live in real squalor and accept their lot? This while the people backing unions here wanted to lie back and take it easy with a short working week and work to rule and demarkation?  Big business will migrate to exploit where is best for their interests and profits and there is no control of any rules that one nation could put in place to prevent it.  In the 80's our industry generally and productivity mostly was down the pan and the unions liked it like that.

Equally I don't think loosing jobs is a good thing but refusing to change, buying your head in the past and waving a socilaist workers flag isn't going to enable the country to remain competative either.  Just take a look at the end of the USSR and that's the state our economy would have been in without the hard calls made. 

Trabant anyone ?

This is the line pedalled time and again by the Tory party but the old industries didn't have to necessarily go to the wall. I think it's clear that reform was needed, but I believe that could have been done so that we could shape our industrial sector for the 21st century.

If you look at what the Germans did when faced with similar challenges to us I think we got it wrong. They accepted they couldn't ever compete on price and therefore decided to focus on marketing their products based on quality. In addition they kept a representative of the workers on the board of directors to aid communication between the two and I believe managing directors were promoted from within the company. Ie you could work your way all the way up.

The fact is time has told us one thing, thatchers big plan hasn't worked. We are now in the longest reccesion in living memory (it is now longer than the great depression) and all the talk is of "re-balancing" the economy, to guess what... Manufacturing! We live in a society of individuals, every man for himself where we tread on others to get to the top.

Just a final note to what could have been done. Rolls-Royce, the firm I work for went bankrupt in 1976 I believe. Too important to the country's defences etc the state stepped in and ran them. The company wasn't re-privatised until 1991 and has gone on to become a shining beacon of engineering and without doubt our best manufacturing company. Ok it was always a good brand, but their is no reason similar success couldn't have been achieved with other companies rather than letting them go to the wall, lost forever and thousands unemployed.

Food for thought....

[The Big M]

My brother lives near a little rolls Royce factory near hucknall. Other than that it's a dead area around there and it's just that thats sad the thousands of unemployed

[BostonGoals]

I think PM's should do their upmost to care for all their citizens not just a select few. She paid too high a price for the changes she made, and left us overly reliant on the financial services.

Was society a happier place before or after her?

[Dave H]

Well she took power in 1979 when there was a three day week and the period was known as  "The Winter of Discontent"  , Bins unemptied, limited times for electricity , society certainly wasn't happy then.

[Dipdodah]

Well she took power in 1979 when there was a three day week and the period was known as  "The Winter of Discontent"  , Bins unemptied, limited times for electricity , society certainly wasn't happy then.

True, things were bleak.  The unions DID have too much power and something had to be done.  The problem was that she showed no middle ground and crushed the unions.  Generations of fight and denial wiped out by a dictator type Police state.  You only have to look at Hillsborough to see how corrupt South Yorkshire police were.

[ianh]

The fact is time has told us one thing, thatchers big plan hasn't worked. We are now in the longest reccesion in living memory (it is now longer than the great depression) and all the talk is of "re-balancing" the economy, to guess what... Manufacturing! We live in a society of individuals, every man for himself where we tread on others to get to the top.

Thatchers plan would have worked, only its been changed over the last 20 years by too many lily-livered politicians (who are still with us), do you really think we would have had this recession if we had kept to her policies and not spent more than we earned, if Gordon Brown hadnt sold off our gold to the lowest bidder.
its alright tring to be socialist and look after everyone here and worldwide...........until other people (the taxpayers) money runs out

[Scots Pilgrim]

Certainly no tears being spilled over her up here north of the border

[The Big M]

Why not. Closing all the steel works and ship yards with no plan for getting people back to work ruining thousands of Scottish peoples lifes for generations. Places never recovering. Sounds like a great leader to me

[les]

Well most of you claim to believe in the British democracy and she was elected every time she ran as party leader. She put the Great back into Great Briton.
She started the movement to allow companies and individuals to save towards their own pensions, to take some of the burden off the state. When Blair and Brown came to power, in the very early stages they robbed the pension funds of 5 billion in the first year, wasted the money and set the decline in the economy on the downward slope we are still trying to get out of. Pensioners are still trying to recover from that great pension fund robbery after the previous Government decimated the pension system, and are not looking back to the state to cover what was taken from them.
The only thing she seems to have done wrong is she was a Lincolnshire girl.

[truffleshuffle]

The only thing she seems to have done wrong is she was a Lincolnshire girl.

You should know by now, if they are local their no good  :dan

[Fairfax]

If we're going to talk about pensions, I was a software designer for a payroll company and had to make the payroll program changes. I can assure you that Thatcher was the prime minister when I had to alter the programs allowing employers to take "a holiday" from paying into pension funds. I have my diaries to prove it.

[Myleftfoot]

I cannot believe the supposedly poor British people on here espousing the virtues of Thatcher. Whilst  she and her cronies set about the destruction of the manufacturing infrastructure of the UK! The fancy Tories of Lincolnshire have conned the locals for decades, and this continues! Vote Tory or your jobs at risk is the old tack.  8)

[Dipdodah]

I cannot believe the supposedly poor British people on here espousing the virtues of Thatcher. Whilst  she and her cronies set about the destruction of the manufacturing infrastructure of the UK! The fancy Tories of Lincolnshire have conned the locals for decades, and this continues! Vote Tory or your jobs at risk is the old tack.  8)

I remember in the 60's a local farmer of the time used to give time off to vote.  Not only did he give time off, his wife gave all his workers a lift to the polling station.  Only condition was that they voted Tory.  I remember my neighbour telling me and I asked him if he did vote Tory, or did he vote for who he wanted.  He said he voted Tory because his boss told him to.  He was afraid for his job.

[dubai camel]

[green hats mate]

Don,t forget Gordon Brown saved the WORLD .