Baroness Margaret Thatcher Has Died

[Lonan3]

Clement Attlee should have had the full works

+1 The best peace time PM of the 20th Century.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

What about Macmillan?

[Lonan3]

What about Macmillan?

 

"It breaks my heart to see—and I cannot interfere—what is happening in our country today. This terrible strike, by the best men in the world, who beat the Kaiser's and Hitler's armies and never gave in. It is pointless and we cannot afford that kind of thing. Then there is the growing division of Conservative prosperity in the south and the ailing north and Midlands. We used to have battles and rows but they were quarrels. Now there is a new kind of wicked hatred that has been brought in by different types of people."

 

His maiden speech in the House of Lords - about Thatcher's battle with the miners - and it brought him an unprecedented standing ovation.

[prism10]

 

The point you make though is reasonably valid, we don't remember these funerals because they weren't contentious. It is the divisiveness which makes all this comment worthy. No one thought it necessary to comment on the funeral arrangements of Heath - the 1500 people at Westminster Abbey probably only got a 20 second slot at the end of the evening news.

 

I watched Churchill's funeral procession which was broadcast live and lasted some 2 hours on a Saturday morning. It was repeated in an hour slot in the evening. I felt sorry for the Guardsmen pall bearers. Anyone who has done it will know that they are bloody heavy and the contents was no lightweight either! It looked very tricky loading it onto the launch.

 

 

 

 

It did no favours for Clement Atlee who had be out there in the freezing cold!

[thommo2010]

I have no opinion of Maggie Thatcher I wasn't old enough to be affected by her policies. However I do find it a little disturbing people having parties now that she has died, we look at people in the middle east who have celebrations when there is a terrorist attack on the West and quite righlty condemn them for celebrating the death of people yet there are people out there who are doing the same thing.

[slinkydevil]

I have no opinion of Maggie Thatcher I wasn't old enough to be affected by her policies. However I do find it a little disturbing people having parties now that she has died, we look at people in the middle east who have celebrations when there is a terrorist attack on the West and quite righlty condemn them for celebrating the death of people yet there are people out there who are doing the same thing.

 

And look how young these people are celebrating a womans death.

 

[Thomas Jefferson]

 

I have no opinion of Maggie Thatcher I wasn't old enough to be affected by her policies. However I do find it a little disturbing people having parties now that she has died, we look at people in the middle east who have celebrations when there is a terrorist attack on the West and quite righlty condemn them for celebrating the death of people yet there are people out there who are doing the same thing.

 

And look how young these people are celebrating a womans death.

 

 

What do you expect? Socialism is an ideology of hatred, with hundreds of millions of deaths on its hands.

[ballaughbiker]

OK. For the sake of debate here are some definitions for you. Let's say "rich" are those who had enough disposable income to be able to buy shares in the national assets that Thatcher plundered privatised. Let's define "poor" as those with no disposable income who were unable to buy shares in the national assets that Thatcher privatised.

So prior to privatisation every citizen had a share in their national assets. After privatisation the ownership of those national assets passed to the already well off. Result? For example we now have the most expensive rail journeys in Europe and for a G8 nation their safety record is poor.

An interesting definition of rich PK. I think we are in general agreement when it comes to the wrongs of selling shares in national assets. It should never have happened and neither should PS housing have been sold off without reinvesting for future provision. That said, the concept that we all owned a bit of a national asset is perhaps a bit too abstract for most people. I remember my grandma in the early 60s saying she owned part of the Co-op because she had a silly number she had to quote each time she shopped and they gave her some divvi at Christmas. What good did that so-called ownership ever do her and could she do anything with it apart from collect a meagre percentage in divvi?? No it was just a convenient concept to make her feel better.

 

I think where we do disagree is your apparent assertion that there have been no benefits to privatisation. Well times have changed in so many ways it's hard to compare but, for example, can you remember not being allowed to buy your own phone? You had to rent it off Post Office Telephones and they had to fit it. As for trains I think they are considerably better than when nationalised. I travel regularly from Lime Street to the other side of the Pennines (about 75 miles) for £3. OK, it's off peak but that journey would have cost more than that in the 70s and being west-east cross country would have involved a very circuitous route rather than the excellent direct 90 minute service I now enjoy. Just the first two examples I can think of but I think if we were honest and took those rose-tints off, nationalised industries were generally very inefficient.

 

Btw, going back to rich as a definition, if I was really pressed, I would say someone was "rich" if they were of working age but had enough money to not have to work (living on benefits doesn't count!). That's a bit different to being able to buy a few of the new British Telecom shares in 1984.

[P.K.]

An interesting definition of rich PK.

 

I must admit to making it a deliberately contentious one in regard to Thatcher plundering national assets. The better off had disposable income to buy shares in national assets that they then got back in tax cuts. Disgusting.

 

I think everyone who posts in this thread should give their D-O-B so everyone knows if their knowledge and opinion of the era is based on first-hand experience or reliant on second-hand experience i.e. the opinions of others...

 

Incidentally your definition of "rich" suits me as I "retired" at 51!

[Lonan3]

What do you expect? Socialism is an ideology of hatred, with hundreds of millions of deaths on its hands.

As is every other political dogma.

[Lost Login]

And look how young these people are celebrating a womans death.

 

 

And there are probably plenty of young people mourning her death. However there is no suggestion that they are to young to have experienced Thatcher and should not be mourning. Funny That!

[Lost Login]

. As for trains I think they are considerably better than when nationalised. I travel regularly from Lime Street to the other side of the Pennines (about 75 miles) for £3. OK, it's off peak but that journey would have cost more than that in the 70s and being west-east cross country would have involved a very circuitous route rather than the excellent direct 90 minute service I now enjoy. Just the first two examples I can think of but I think if we were honest and took those rose-tints off, nationalised industries were generally very inefficient.

I think nationalism of the railways or the way it was done is and was one of the least succesful privitisations and I think that is generally agreed. Yes you may get the odd offpeak cheap fares if booked in adavnce but generally UK fares are deemed to be the most expensive in the world.

 

Fixed term franchises are a disincentice to invest in rolling stock. There is no longer any surplus rolling stock to use for special occasions as each ioerator has its own. You want to put on special trains to ferry people from the North for an FA cup final or semi final, it can no longer be done.

 

Prior to privitisation the annual subsidy was kust over 400million, In 2006 it was £6billion!

 

Due to the series of fines etc for delays trains are these days timed to be slower than in the past. Then there is the conflict between the infrastructer and the operators. The safety record went down hill

 

It is worth reading the McNulty report published by the Coalition govt on rail privitisation

 

[ballaughbiker]

Well I readily admit to cherry picking that fare (although that should have been be obvious) but it is one I regularly take advantage of. Cross country travel E-W-E was a complete nightmare from Liverpool prior to privatisation and now there's a train every hour because the demand is there. That suggests that the nationalised version had restrictive practices that couldn't survive the open market situation.

 

As for fares generally, I only travel off peak because I can and realise that is hardly the norm. However the fares are an absolute bargain if you can wait until after 1000 before you travel and are usually considerably cheaper than putting petrol in a car. 20 years ago I would never have traveled by train and now I do regularly so it works for me. I may well think very differently if I was commuting every day in the London area but I'd likely think differently about many other things in life if I lived down there.

 

PK - I suspect we are a similar age based on our attitude and general level of scepticism. Based on my 'definition' I'm not rich though.

[Lost Login]

Well I readily admit to cherry picking that fare (although that should have been be obvious) but it is one I regularly take advantage of. Cross country travel E-W-E was a complete nightmare from Liverpool prior to privatisation and now there's a train every hour because the demand is there. That suggests that the nationalised version had restrictive practices that couldn't survive the open market situation.

 

As for fares generally, I only travel off peak because I can and realise that is hardly the norm. However the fares are an absolute bargain if you can wait until after 1000 before you travel and are usually considerably cheaper than putting petrol in a car. 20 years ago I would never have traveled by train and now I do regularly so it works for me. I may well think very differently if I was commuting every day in the London area but I'd likely think differently about many other things in life if I lived down there.

 

PK - I suspect we are a similar age based on our attitude and general level of scepticism. Based on my 'definition' I'm not rich though.

I am not one to argue that everything arising is bad or everything arisng is good. Althougth I dislike Thatcher immensley in terms of what her government stood for and much of what it did I am not blinkered enough not to accept that some of the changes were necessary.

 

There have been large changes in the railways in recent years although I am not sure it is down to privitisation rather than a change in attitude with regard to the importance and requirement of Railways. First you had Beaching and in the 70's and 80's there was a strong belief that railways unless profitable should be closed down and replaced with roads or bus services even though they were vital transport links for the areas and economies. If those in charge had their way many of the railways we see today would not be here. Under Thatcher there was not a huge support for the railways, her governments were much more prepared to support the roads. As an example look at the A55 which the Government spent huge amounts of money on upgrading whilst the railway that ran nearby was not provided with the funding it required to upgrade. This was much less than was required for the roads as from memory the EU was prepared to fund the majority provided the UK Govt funded a percentage but the UK Govt said no.

 

Fortunatly attitudes have changed in recent years and I expect that much of your cheap fare and improvement is down to the billions the Govt subsidies the railways with each year much of which is required as a direct result of the structure under privitisation. If that much of a subsidy was being paid to a nationalised railway many would would be calling for it to be privatised. However those who support the freemarket seem happy that it is paid to the nationalised railways and much of it falls into the shareholders pockets.

[prism10]

I have no opinion of Maggie Thatcher I wasn't old enough to be affected by her policies. However I do find it a little disturbing people having parties now that she has died, we look at people in the middle east who have celebrations when there is a terrorist attack on the West and quite righlty condemn them for celebrating the death of people yet there are people out there who are doing the same thing.

Well we celebrate Guy Fawkes night every year and.......... I am sure none of us knew him

 

As for the celebrations in the Middle East. let me take you back to the night of 9/11 when you saw the people celebrating in the West Bank. The footage rightly made people sick. However someone realised the timings did not make sense and found out the 'celebrations' were filmed several weeks earlier at a wedding. I still feel the news editors who showed such deliberate false distortion should be thrown in jail.