Thatchers Funeral - Evidence of the Great Class Divide.

Originally posted by MrInquisitive

Originally posted by eletheia
reply to post by MrInquisitive

 

Surely if you are directing someone to a 'George Galloway' rant/site in the interest of

fairness you should also provide an alternative site for comparison??

Well try this one

britainwatch.co.uk... and click onto

Margaret Thatchers Passing

No, surely I shouldn't have to. I'll leave that to Thatcher apologists/hagiographers such as yourself. But I do encourage all to check out some George Galloway videos as he talks truth to power like no other politician.

Do people also realize that Thatcher and her Tory party never had a majority government? Her party won 44% the first time she came to power as PM, then 42% and 40% respectively the next two times. Her downfall was trying to institute the poll tax, a medieval and regressive tax that is meant to disenfranchise the poor.

Just to point out that the UK isn't a 2 party system - there are various parties all competing for seats. Therefore you do not need over 50% to get a majority government. As Skalla rightly says, it is First Past the Post.

I don't have a problem with an honest assessment of Margaret Thatcher's leadership. What I would like to know, is, isn't it the case that most of you haters of her would prefer a Barack Obama top-down sort-of approach? Because that's my basic assumption, that most of you are Obama types.

reply to post by Witness123


it would help if you provided a clear definition of what you mean by "obama type".... after all, this could mean a deep cover communist agent with a pakistani husband given what we read on ATS. or perhaps the antichrist.

reply to post by Freeborn


Hi Freeborn, sorry for the late reply.

Regarding the nationalisation, i would make the argument that it would be worth keeping a national stake (small scale) in many of the industries that were privatised. For example (going back to the Steel industry), we had high standard and hi tech steel manufacturing facilities all over Sheffield (and nationwide). However, in a competitive global economy it cannot compete in terms of productions costs, wages, etc so it was only ever destined to significantly contract. However, because we have not only the facilities but also the skilled workforce (and considering the importance of what they actually manufacture) it was short sighted to completely privatise - at least a couple of plants could have / should have remained as national entities.

I would also extend that to include all the Rail; network and all the Post Office as these are, primarily, for national communication and navigation. Coal i would treat the same as steel - close most but keep some nationalised. And that was actually what Maggie tried to negotiate on before the miners strike - the National Coal Board (NCB) advocated closing at least 60% of pits and Maggie instead went to the Miners Union with proposals for 40% closures (unprofitable pits but some unprofitable pits still to remain in national hands). This was rejected and then descended into chaos.

Basically, privatisation makes sense in failed industries but to completely privatise is, i will admit, short sighted. Global conditions could be completely different in 30 years, for example, and these industries could be phased back in. It would make sense it we at least had a toe hold still in them, instead of having to start from scratch again.

Originally posted by HelenConway
reply to post by SearchLightsInc

 

Evidence of a class divide - hey.

I do not think so,.

I think the death dancers and grave celebrations show a gap between normal people who show respect at someones passing and a nasty, mean, callous element of British society.

The death dancers are just full of hate and need to grow up and work on themselves. they cause the problems in todays Britain, with their violence and small hearts.

The rest of us are just not vicious like this. We show good old fashioned respect at someone's passing and funeral.

NOTHING to do with class in one sense, everything to do with class in another sense.

IE: The death dancers ''sure got NO class.''..

edit on 17-4-2013 by HelenConway because: (no reason given)

Are you now insinuating that people are born bad? Come off it.

reply to post by skalla


By Obama type, it would mean someone who is decidedly liberal fiscally and socially.

reply to post by Witness123


personally i think it's very hard to make a comparison - mostly on the basis that the US and UK are very different, more so than some realise... the language and shared military action ios about all we have in common sometimes.
obama is seen by many here (ie: ATS) as near as dammit to communist, whereas a brit or european would regard that as high comedy.
even under thatch the NHS just about survived and some nationalised industries remained and a modicum of support was there for the unemployed (if only as she was unable to dismatle it wholesale in the time she had) - in the US i gather that this would be near unthinkable and some would see that as liberal.

apples and oranges in my book, it's hard to compare the two lands and their politics

Originally posted by SearchLightsInc
reply to post by DISRAELI

 

She "won" her battles? Did you miss the part about putting 3-5 million people out of work, effecting and destroying many families, the loss of secure well paid jobs where people could actually have a dispute with their employer? The loss of industrial skill sets, such as ship building, steel working?

You dont think there's a little more to it than people feeling defeated by this woman?

They still do have "disputes" with their employers (and potential lawyers) through lawsuits and litigation.
www.dailymail.co.uk...

Otherwise they emigrate. Two million already have done so, simply because they can't afford anywhere safe to live:
www.telegraph.co.uk...

Originally posted by christina-66
reply to post by something wicked

 

Thatcher destroyed unionism in the UK and as a result the average union rep today is little more than a go between for the 'bosses'. That has resulted in thousands of people being employed by corporations declaring billions in profits yet paying their employees a wage so low that it has to be topped up by the government in the form of tax credits. Free enterprise? Nigh on free labour more like.

The masses of long term unemployed were switched onto sickness benefits, and remained there, to disguise the real impact of those positive reforms. .And when people were denied the opportunity to train in useful and skilled employment they were instead supplied with readily available credit to keep the high street busy and the economy rolling. Boom bang a bust....that's how it goes.

It was entirely unnecessary to completely destroy the manufacturing base in this country - and as we now know - unwise to believe that our economy could survive on services alone. The over dependence on capital led to banking deregulation and an over reliance on the City to provide high tax revenues. Look where that got us - anything the City ever put into the economy has been sucked back out by the massive subsidies the ordinary tax payer had to provide it. In any event - almost all tax revenue in the UK pays for the massive social security bill we have had for decades now. Not exactly healthy.

How are we going to get out of recession with nothing to sell?

A true visionary would have upped our game, moved with times in manufacturing and assisted with modernisation of the many outdated factories extant in 1970's Britain.

Labour had signed the UK up to something known as "The Lima Declaration of 1975".

www.nationallibertyparty.com.au...

Basically, they agreed internationally to hand over 30% of manufacturing jobs to overseas countries.

Margaret Thatcher was tied down by this. She had no option but to declare that the UK would become a "service industry".

reply to post by stormcell


I must say I'd never heard of The Lima Declaration and whilst noticeably one sided I must say the link you provided proved interesting reading.
Definately worth a deeper look.

I did a bit of leaping from link to link etc and ended up reading about a most curious fellow - Phillip Blond - a man whose influence upon David Cameron can not be under-stated.

reply to post by stormcell


Interesting, but I can't agree that Thatcher had no option, or the UK in general, had no option but to disregard manufacturing. The Lima Declaration set out declarations of intentions that were not, and are not, legally binding..

It has, in legal terms, exhortatory force only; that is, it sets out recommendations on assistance to developing countries. The Declaration does not have treaty status and therefore does not require signature or ratification. It is not, and never was, binding on the Australian Government under international law. The Australian Government formulates its policy on developing countries on the basis of what it judges to be the national interest.

www.gwb.com.au...

What that document does expose is that the oh so clever people in charge simply aren't as clever as they think they are. The developed world DID have to stop exploiting the developing world - our growth was at the expense of the majority of the world's population - and that's simply not fair. But their approach was way too simplistic.

A few years ago, for a short time, I was roped into promoting a document called 'The Earth Charter' which, on the surface at least, appeared to be a document of good intent. However, it was produced after the declarations of the world's leaders 1992 Rio Summit failed to amount to anything. The thinking was that because it was the people at the top who had signed the declaration that they had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Soooo....they came up with The Earth Charter 'Ethics and Principles for a Sustainable Future for the Planet and its People'. - So far so good. It was being used to promote a so-called grass roots movement to effect change from the bottom up. After I'd been involved for a little while - getting so far as pitching it to the newly formed Scottish Executive I then discovered that while Mikhail Gorbachev was the face of the Earth Charter - it was actually being funded by Prof. Stephen Rockefeller.

The key mantra of the document was that INTERDEPENDENCE was the future. Cute huh? The document stated that in this world of globalization none of us could claim to live an independent nation any longer and that we must adopt and embrace the interdependent world. It was quite simply a first attempt at marketing the global government on us.

The Earth Charter

It;s still going - although its mantra has been slightly altered.

Oh - and after my pitch the Scottish Executive offered me a job - nice lady from London - wanting me to travel round different groups and talk to them about how the Scottish Exec wanted to talk to them. I nudged the nice lady in the ribs and said 'you only offered me that because I've got a Scottish accent didn't you'.

reply to post by Flavian


The quality of UK workmanship has never been questioned.
Unfortunately it was hard to compete against countries that pay their workforce the proverbial 'bowl of rice a day' or states that heavily subsidised their manufacturing industry.

I remember during The Miners Strike as part of Thatcher's justification for her stance against the miners she said that UK coal just wasn't competetive and she repeatedly stated that 'we' could buy coal cheaper from Poland - of course we could because the Polish communist government massively subsidised it's coal industry.
Ironically and hypocritically Thatcher despised the eastern european communist states yet felt it perfectly ok to buy coal from them to undermine our own coal industry.

Of course re-structuring was required but the mass sell off was going too far.
And if the nationalised industries were to be sold off as one poster previously mentioned every single tax payer should have been given free shares as they were the 'owners' and not the government of the day.

A possible compromise may indeed have been retaining controlling ownership whilst selling off a minority share holding to private investors etc.

The sell-off of the utility businesses bordered on the criminally insane.
The vast majority are foreign owned and help contribute to the ongoing bleeding of money out of the UK to foreign countries and companies.

The profits from these utilities could, and indeed should, be plowed back into the UK economy.

Nationalisation has been so succesfully demonised that no mainstream politician would dare suggest it as an option yet as you have highlighted there are options.

Originally posted by mirageman
Should those industries have been privatised or not? Some things needed to change for sure. But the energy industry made a dash for cheap gas fired power stations and most are now owned by foreign power companies. Now there is a looming energy supply problem and large investment needed in new power stations. If you think the power companies are ripping us off now then you might like to know things are not going to get better any time soon.

The councils took part it in as well. They all held gasworks demolition parties. They organised parties where they had families, MP's, mothers, fathers with kids on their shoulders, picnic parties, all standing and sitting around the storage facilities, having a countdown and letting some little kid press that red button that would ignite the explosives, collapse the gas tanks and then everyone would cheer and applause that the "blight on the landscape" had gone. They didn't quite understand that having more supply than demand meant that you could keep costs down. The TV channel crews and newspaper reporters would be there too. And this was done all around the country.

She's gone now and there will be no tears from me. Because once where there was harmony now there is discord. She encouraged the greedy, look after No.1, get what you can, grab it all now society. And it exists in every element, even down to the social underclass who don't work anymore. Make money out of whatever, however and whoever you can.

Not everyone believes that is all that life is about, but there are a lot more people like that since her time as PM.

That's very true. It's every person for themselves in the DK (Disunited Kingdom) now. The banks, MP's and universities are all in it together. They get the students in the country, get them to take out loans, then charge interest. Though the international students are smart enough to leave the country without paying.

edit on 17/4/13 by mirageman because: corrections

The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate... I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed.

I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place.

I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes.

We shall wipe them out, everyone of them, men, women, and children. There shall not be a Japanese left on the face of the earth’

I think I'll chose Thatcher over your low borne socialist hero Churchill

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I don't like Margaret thatcher I'm glad she's dead just like how ill be glad when dick chenys dies even though i don't know if soul sucking vampire Draco reptilians. Die but if/when he dies I'm gonna be glad to. Basically the people in power have been getting way outta hand and if dont rise up as against them then things will just continue to get more outta hand

Originally posted by SearchLightsInc

on a lighter note....



JLP/PS and CA strikingly familiar... was gonna post the borg queen for thatch, but frankly i'd rather be a borg than a tory

reply to post by NoMatterNeverMind


I suspect, however, that the citizens of countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iraq, South Africa and Chile might disagree. The inconvenient truth for Thatcher fans is that the freedom-loving, democracy-defending British premier was a close friend and admirer of the thugs, thieves, despots and racists who ruled over those nations in the 1980s.

"In Pakistan, Margaret Thatcher was best known for supporting General Zia ul Haq's military dictatorship," tweeted Time magazine's Pakistan correspondent Omar Waraich yesterday, referring to the Iron Lady's anticommunist alliance with the country's vicious, Islamist dictator. In a speech at a banquet hosted by Zia in 1981, Thatcher praised the general's "courage and skill" and toasted "the health and happiness of His Excellency". She made no reference to the need for democracy or elections in the self-styled 'Islamic Republic".

Consider also the case of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Remember the infamous Al Yamamah arms deal with the corrupt and totalitarian Saudis, signed by the Thatcher government in the mid-eighties and described by the Campaign Against The Arms Trade (CAAT) as "the largest ever UK arms contract with a foreign customer" and by the Financial Times as "the biggest [UK] sale ever of anything to anyone"? Well, she was just batting for British business, right? Wrong. Thatcher shamelessly praised the Saudi regime, an absolute monarchy and exporter of Islamist terror, as "a strong force for moderation and stability" at a Chatham House conference in 1993, three years after leaving office. "I am a great admirer of Saudi Arabia," she proclaimed, adding: "I have no intention of meddling in that country's internal affairs." How the repressed women of Saudi Arabia, denied not just the right to vote but the right to drive, must have cheered this supposed feminist icon back in 1993.

How about General Suharto of Indonesia, whose 32-year dictatorship was rightly described by the New York Times as "one of the most brutal and corrupt of the 20th century"? Suharto's military coup in 1965 was followed by the torture and killing of around 500,000 suspected Communists in Indonesia; his invasion and occupation of East Timor in 1975 resulted in the deaths of around 250,000 men, women and children on the island - yet the liberty-loving Thatcher later celebrated this blood-soaked Indonesian tyrant as "one of our very best and most valuable friends".

How about the bloodiest dictator of them all, Saddam Hussein? According to investigative reporters David Leigh and Rob Evans, it was on Thatcher's watch that "£1bn of Whitehall money was thrown away in propping up Saddam Hussein's regime and doing favours for arms firms".

In fact, we now know that the Thatcher government began selling arms - sorry, "non-lethal equipment" that just happened to include spare parts for tanks and fighter jets - to Iraq as early as 1981. A letter from junior minister Thomas Trenchard to the PM in that same year explained how a meeting with Saddam would represent "a significant step forward in establishing a working relationship with Iraq which ... should produce both political and major commercial benefits". Thatcher's response? "Very pleased" she scribbled by hand at the top of Trenchard's letter.

Seven years later, after the Baathist dictator deployed chemical weapons in his now-notorious attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja, Thatcher did not merely turn a blind eye to the atrocity; she and her ministers actively played down reports that the Iraqi regime had used poison gas against its own people. "Within a month of the Halabja attack," wrote US investigative journalist Barry Lando in his book on Iraq, 'Web of Deceit', "Thatcher's trade secretary, Tony Newton, was in Baghdad to offer Saddam 340 million pounds of British export credits."

This, I guess, is how liberty is championed and freedom is secured.

Then there's apartheid South Africa, where millions of black people were denied the most basic of liberties - and yet this British champion of liberty had little to offer them by way of support. "Thatcher resisted global efforts to isolate apartheid-era South Africa, including by vetoing sanctions," wrote the Washington Post's foreign affairs blogger Max Fisher yesterday. "Though she opposed apartheid as a policy, she still supported the government that implemented it..."

In fact, in 1984, Thatcher defied tens of thousands of anti-apartheid demonstrators and invited P.W. Botha to Chequers: the first South African premier to visit the UK since his country's departure from the Commonwealth in 1961.

Oh, and who can forget her despicable description of Nelson Mandela's ANC as a "typical terrorist organisation"? Is it any wonder then that Dali Tambo, son of the former ANC president Oliver Tambo, told the Guardian that "it's quite likely that when Margaret Thatcher reaches the pearly gates, the ANC will boycott the occasion". It's a shame, he noted, "that we could never call her one of the champions of the liberation struggle".

Apologists for the Iron Lady tend to excuse such shameful and anti-democratic behaviour by their heroine by invoking realpolitik and citing the backdrop of the Cold War and the struggle against Soviet communism.

Such arguments are both disingenuous and unconvincing. They don't, for a start, explain Thatcher's close, personal friendship with Augusto Pinochet, which continued long after the Cold War had ended and long after both leaders had left office? The Chilean general presided over a 17-year reign of terror in which a minimum of 3,000 people were killed or 'disappeared', tens of thousands were imprisoned and tortured and hundreds of thousands were forced into exile.

Yet in 1999, when Pinochet was arrested and detained in London on a Spanish warrant, Thatcher - who, in the words of Virginia Bottomley, believed in "the power of liberty" and "the rule of law" - visited Pinochet at the former dictator's rented Surrey mansion to thank him for "bringing democracy to Chile" and to denounce his arrest as "unjust and callous". There was no mention of the 'desaparecidos' (disappeared) from our former prime minister on that particular occasion.

"She recognised... the benefits of the military government," declared retired Chilean general and
Pinochet underling Guillermo Garin yesterday, adding: "President Pinochet always had tremendous admiration for her, they had a very close relationship highlighted by the visit she made to his place of detention in London."

Forget the row over who gets credit for the fall of the Soviet Union - Mikhail Gorbachev or Reagan and Thatcher. If (wo)man is judged by the company (s)he keeps, then Thatcher - self-professed friend to generals Pinochet, Suharto and Zia, ally of Saddam Hussein, admirer of the Saudi royals, soft on apartheid - must be judged a champion of despotism and dictatorship, not of freedom or liberty. The historical record is so clear and indisputable that to believe otherwise is wilful blindness.

reply to post by stormbringercompanion


Not forgetting Pol Pot - whose forces, the Khmer Rogue, were trained by the SAS under Thatcher from 1983 onwards, whilst publicly denying all links, as part of an agreement with Ronald Reagan. Pressure from the USA UK and China also enabled their recognition on the international community, with the UN shamelessly promoting their validity and respectability world wide. Pol Pot's dictatorship is thought to be responsible for the deaths of roughly 25% of the population of Cambodia. Today the UN created courts (ECCC) set up to deal with the perpetrators are financially backed by the UK and other superpowers and are mysteriously running out of funding...