Thank you Carnelian. I couldn't be bothered to put up the argument for the defence. 

Right twat he is.

Where's DEG 51E now?

You think the apartheid government didn't kill and torture people?  You think innocents didn't get caught in the crossfire?  Who are innocent people exactly?  Well guess what, the apartheid regime did kill and torture those it deemed as 'terrorists' within its racist dictatorship. 

Interesting testimony from Gorbachev. 

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/poli...garet-thatcher-death

I'm struggling to understand the amount of praise she gets... unemployment went from 1 million to 3 million in just 12 months. I wasn't even born when she was in Downing Street, but I can recognise how bad she is just from what my old man said of her. He had a picture taken with her the year she got elected when he was a student as she was at some speaking event... a tory supporter himself at the time, complete opposite now.

 

Nothing she has done sounds even remotely heroic to me.

Yes and they were simply striking to keep their jobs - all they wanted was the right to work and to keep their community alive - I still can't see what's wrong with that. A mans right to work is worth fighting for isn't it? Just look what happened when the pits closed - whole communities devastated.

Exactly, and to me, that makes them worse than Thatcher.  Scargill rallied the troops to go out on strike, and they did and they lived in with no pay, but yet HE sat back and still lived his life of luxury.  Horrid man in my opinion.  I remember seeing him do a speech off the balcony of a hotel in Durham during the Miners strike at the Durham Miners Gala, or the 'Big Meeting' as those from around there might remember it.  And I remember my Dad shouting calling Scargill all the names under the sun.

Thatcher's labelling of the ANC as 'terrorists' was hypocritical since she spouted about the evils of Communist dictatorship.  A sad thing to see the PM of this country siding against downtrodden people denied their freedom and siding with a racist elite. 

 

Today, even someone like Cameron would never dream of calling Mandela a terrorist nor defending apartheid.  Cameron would more than likely praise Mandela - and not just for appearances either but because he would genuinely admire Mandela's character and achievements.  Time has proven Mandela to be on the right side of history and Thatcher to be very much on the wrong side.

I'm old enough to remember the selling off of our state owned British Gas.."Tell Sid " etc cheap shares that the "ordinary " people could buy and own etc.Some did ,but then sold them on and the big old conglomerates bought them up,we now have very little home produced gas and have to buy in from  abroad,Russia etc.Same with the electric companies ,I  think most of them now are foreign owned.Market forces and all that...

The miners, for one wouldnt agree....

Fookin' Pinochet,over throwing a democratically elected socialist  government with USA help.Rounding up  the "opposition"  in football stadiums etc and murdering them.Thatcher thought he was an okay bloke...

Wait till Bliar goes.

I always admired Neil Kinnock for his denouncement of Scargill.  The tragedy was that Scargill was right but like several of the union leaders of that time, it was not entirely implausible that he was taking instructions from Moscow.  A ballot should have been called and his arrogant disregard for members was their undoing.  That said, back in the day, I'd have loved to see that government brought down and TBH, the bankers have done more damage to this country than even the most Trotskyite union baron could have managed.

Bankers and their ilk did the damage Carnelian but the poor etc must pay the price...twas ever thus!

Well he admired thatcher...

Wait till Cameron goes..His memorial will be "the man who broke the welfare state" 

He'd be proud of that epitaph

See if labour repeel it.

The "Vile Product of the Bullingdon Club"

My quick observations on the above baffled comments..... We had a lot of input in a particular local speech that Scargill gave, and it is true his Jag was in the Charity executive class. However I suspect that anything he subsequently claimed was written in stone in a Union contract. All power to him. I don't think that many Political Scientists would deny that Mandela fitted within the definitions of a terrorist. I'm pretty pissed off because I had Thatcher and Mandela in a double.

They won't. The "next government" never does repeal what the previous government has done. Still dont make it right though......

It's said that Thatchers' greatest achievement was Tony Blair.

 

She had an incredible game changing influence on British politics and not all of it was bad but for all the tributes to her, it's hard to think of anything good that's come of her consensus.  Even the stuff that looked good in the post Thatcher era now looks distinctly shit.

 

It's a given that high unemployment, destroying industry and making the rich richer and the poor poorer are bad but even the 'good stuff' looks rotten.

 

- Selling the council houses now means that property ownership is in decline

 

- Selling the utilities instead of creating efficiencies, as promised, costs us more and has even ended up with private companies being bankrolled by the tax payer - like the rail companies.

 

- Deregulation of banks sowed the seeds for the credit crunch.

 

- Public Private Partnership PPI have been a blank cheque for crony capitalists to pillage public funds

 

 

 

Terrorist in a illegitimate state that is a dictatorship. Politics isn't a science anyway.  As for Scargill - as Kinnock rightly said all those years ago "Lions led by donkeys"

What've I got to do with it?  

Apparently you were leading Lions?

Me a Millwall fan?

 

In the 80's?

You didnae do too bad in a two bed in Pimlico.

just been a fire on the waste ground that is the Ravenscraig site. Wonder if that was her returning to the scene of the crime? 

That's where I walk the dug    

 

Evening   

evening! ! 

don't be walking her there tonight, she'll be a hot dug !

DEG 51E? Good point, what happened to him?

Maybees..I live in Social housing ,in a reasonable area in Glasgow,I pay rent, two thirds myself due to having a higher rate pension due to early retirement for health reasons.The next door block has owner occupier flats,now rented out privately  ,the landlords etc don't give a fook who they rent them out to.They just rake in the cash,housing benefit etc.Drug dealing scum that the council would never rent to,probably been evicted previously,welcome to the free market.

I'm taking it Katty  

 

It was upside doon to start with  

Exactly, and this whole housing shortage with property being bought up into BTL portfolios and no new houses being built.

 

Between 2000 and 2007 papers like the Daily Mail reported how great it was that house prices were spiralling upwards and how it was adding to the 'feelgood factor'.  There were programs like "Homes Under the Hammer", Kirsty, Phil and Sarah Beeny all selling the idea that anyone with a bit of cash should get on the BTL money for nothing band wagon. 120% loan to value mortgages and self cert mortgages. 

 

So house prices spiralled and everyone (everyone who 'mattered' to Blair) was happy, spending on DIY, tradesmen etc. except that those who bought houses for let wanted a return on their investments and as prices escalated and their mortgage costs escalated they wanted higher rents.  Higher rents = higher housing benefits. 

 

Now the government complains that the housing benefits bill has escalated - well, WTF did they expect!

 

How many did Thatcher kill?

 

How many did Tone?

I'm sure I read that one of Thatchers pals has a portfolio of at least 60 plus ex council houses that they now rent out privately....