Thatcher at 80: What does she mean to you?

[emad]

Thatcher at 80: What does she mean to you?

Tonight, the Queen and Tony Blair will be among 650 guests at Baroness Thatcher's birthday party at a London hotel. Not invited: Tory leadership hopefuls David Cameron and Ken Clarke. The Independent asks several key figures what is the legacy of this extraordinary politician
Published: 13 October 2005

Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher's biographer and former editor of 'The Daily Telegraph'

Thirty years ago, Britain had lost confidence in its capacity to run itself economically and politically. People really did think Britain was finished and many emigrated because of it. But Margaret Thatcher turned around the economy. It was not merely a technical achievement but an exercise of her political will to tackle all the problems that people had been avoiding.

Her critics said she split the country but I do not think that's true. She opened up opportunities for people, whether it was by buying their own council house or creating a business.

She was the first woman prime minister. This radicalised everything. Her economics were based on home economics, the idea that we cannot spend what we haven't got, that we must be alert to value when we shop, that one must keep their house well - people would tease her and say it was crude but it represented women's understanding of life in that period. She imported all that language into politics and male politicians did not know how to deal with it. It made her formidable. No one can ever think that women cannot run anything.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article319145.ece

[emad]

1. The unchecked rampage of post-WWII nazism and related

organised crime run riot.

That's what.

[Nihil]

2. Quick send another 16 guests!

> Tonight, the Queen and Tony Blair will be among 650 guests at Baroness
> Thatcher's birthday party at a London hotel.

Well, it is *her* birthday isn't it?
:evilgrin:

[non sociopath skin]

3. She wilfully and knowingly destroyed the lives, livelihoods ...

and peace of mind of many, many people.

I try hard to see the best in people but for me she has no redeeming features at all.

The Skin

[tenshi816]

4. Clueless, no compassion, big handbags, bigger ego. n/t

[Taxloss]

5. People forget that 1979 was hardly a landslide.

It's characterised as the annihilation of the Callaghan government, but it really wasn't. The economic reforms were working. The Tories were divided and confused and a lot of them didn't much like their new leader. Saatchi won the election for them (on false pretences - they promised to cut unemployment and it more than tripled), a historical aberration. Even then, the new government wasn't secure - it only achieved iconic status in the 1983 "khaki election". Three factors secured this:

1. The Falklands
2. The Right to Buy (a hugely popular policy among people who formerly supported Labour)
3. The absurdly radical Labour manifesto.

Thatcher's second term brings a new meaning to the words "happy accident". The economic cycle was naturally recovering and the miners provided her with an ideal opportunity to make an example of the unions. Simultaneously, the computerisation of the City in 1986 (a technological step that would have taken place regardless of the party in power) prompted the "Big Bang", which inflated a bubble of wealth. The Lawson tax cut sealed Thatcher's reputation, and doomed both the economy and the Conservative party. The Crash was the inevitable result, and from there it was all downhill. She found the country recovering from recession, and left the country sinking into the deepest and longest recession in modern times.

The electorate was never able to achieve "closure" with Maggie, although she would have assuredly lost in 1992. She was a huge failure as a prime minister, buoyed by sheer luck and an opposition that was engaged in a decade-long civil war. She damaged millions of lives. She destroyed the manufacturing base of this country. She inspired an ideology of greed and selfishness that lingers in Conservatism. She embarked on a social policy based on fear and ignorance. She asset-stripped the country for a quick buck and bought Trident. And she crippled the Conservative party.

I'm not going to wish death to her. But if she should die, I'll smile.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. My reaction when she was forced to resign was

"ding dong, the witch is dead!", and my opinion of her has gone down since then (and to follow up on Taxloss's post, I imagine I'll sing the same thing when she croaks).

Thatcher = selfishness. She encouraged 'greed is good', and 'there is no such thing as society' sums her up - wrong, divisive and completely certain that she was right, no matter what everyone else says.

[LeftishBrit]

7. Absolute disaster!

Harshness, selfishness, the right of the strong to trample on the weak. The very essence of a bully, and advocate of bullying. Destroyed so much that was good in our country. Moved the country so far right, that her Labour successor is to the right of some of her Tory predecessors.

Like others, I don't wish death on her, but I won't pretend to mourn either.

[fedsron2us]

8. Nothing

I used to hate her. Now I simply do not care.

I suspect that most people under thirty can't even remember when she was PM.

Judging by this years Tory conference even her own party have forgotten her.

I will say one thing in her favour. At least she sailed under her true flag, unlike Blair.

[T_i_B]

10. Well I'm 26 next Saturday

And I can certainly remember the days when Thatcher was PM. I can remember when, as an 11 year old I came home to be told by my mum that Thatcher had resigned. I can remember thinking how funny it was that the same person who had been PM when I was born was only now leaving office.

I can remember the enormous amount of loathing virtually everyone in Sheffield other then my parents seemed to have for her. I can remember the anger over the Poll tax, unemployment and so on.

But if it's any comfort I think that the real worry about what people remember is still with the Tories. It's a lot harder for them to raise the bogeymen of the 70's with anyone under 30 like myself. And one of the major things still used to advance Thatcherism to this day is the inflation and union trouble of the 70's.

[fedsron2us]

12. I was a teenager in the early to mid 1970's

and, for all the problems of that decade, I infinitely preferred Britain then to what it became under Thatcher in the 1980s. The industrial economy of this country has never really recovered from the devastation that it suffered in her first period as PM. If that idiot Galtieri had not been so stupid as to invade the Falkland islands I am pretty sure she would have only ever served one term. I know that there will be some people who will miss her when she has gone but I am afraid that I will not be one of them.

[mr blur]

9. An evil old hag

I'm afraid that the very sight of the woman makes me angry. Interestingly she now closely resembles the pic of her that Steve Bell used to regularly draw during the dark '80s.

I despise her for all the reasons already mentioned by others above. Shame for her that her own son turned out to be such a moron and that Tony Blair turned out to be the son she never had.

I remember when Churchill died my grandfather sneered at the mass public display of grief and said, "He was all wind and piss!" When Thatcher goes I shall feel no sorrow.

[LeftishBrit]

11. That really says it all!

'Shame for her that her own son turned out to be such a moron and that Tony Blair turned out to be the son she never had.'

Too right!!!