I can't wait for Nick Clegg to bend over for Cameron so he can save the country just like Thatcher did.

>>889004
I'm not from the UK, so can't say with any certainty, but it appears she was just as bad as Ronnie.

She took away my school milk :(

There is no legitimate criticism of her. Thatcher was a god.

>>889004
>If it wasn't for her Britain today would be on the same level as a typical Eastern European shit hole.
yeah, ignore the decades of Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, dumb shit

I would enlighten you but it's not worth the time because you're pig ignorant scum (possibly troll)

She did what had to be done, the social costs of such action was extremely high. People will always blame her for what had to be done to fix the situation rather than blame the people whos irresponsibilty forced such action to be taken (previous labour AND tory governments). They do this because people are stupid.

bumping so I can get some answers

Getting rid of thousands of manufacturing jobs with nothing to replace them and then concentrating our economy in the London financial sector really paid off for us!

>>889073

>I would enlighten you but it's not worth the time because you're pig ignorant scum (possibly troll)

No come on, tell me, enlighten me.

If she wouldn't have killed our industry off, we would be like Germany now.

u mad?

Who the fuck still cares about this shit?

Working class yorkshire man here and

I think she was great. I see so many hipster college kids around me who complain about her, yet wern't even alive and just listen to there dumb fuck parents.

Why is everyone si butthurt over Miners? its a fucking horrible profession which fucks your respirtory sytem up.

In the seventies before Thatcher came in the country had called in IMF, there were growing fears of running out of energy and many power cuts. The country needed a good slap up the arse and thats what Thatcher delivered.

Also, many in the Labour party opposed retaking the Falklands, think if they had been in power would we have them now?

She seemed to be generally unpleasant, but her hardass approach to things tried to fix some deep problems.

Some of it worked, some of it backfired, and some of it was sabotaged.

tl;dr quit worrying about things, and just enjoy your life. The demonization of Thatcher's been a long time project.

>>889138
And that would be a good thing?

>>889158

It's not just the miners, buttfuck. Her actions are still being felt today in former mining towns where poverty is rampant and employment is virtually non-existent.

>>889172

Yes. They are loaded and their economy is doing well and their GDP is huge.

>>889188
yeh wel hipster fagert liburl fag, so there!

>>889204

Sorry bro, I can't reply. I am unable to find a Retard to English translator. Please elaborate.

>>889158
>hipster college kids

Did it ever occur to you that maybe because they are in college, they have perhaps taken recent history courses and thoroughly understand the impact of that horrid bitch?

Hell, I'd wager that even without rigorous study on her policies they would still know more about it than your simple arse. Learn your history from the newspaper do ya? Being a "working guy" doesn't yield any level of credibility on the subject, in fact it results in negative credibility as we all know that as a "working guy" you are too concerned with your own well being and own state of affairs to even KNOW about the world outside of your bed and office.

tl;dr
Get fucked you middle aged dumb shit

>>889188
Towns built around a dying industry usually tend to suffer. That is no surprise.

>>889004
>Claim that the prospect of power outages is "MUCH worse" than losing your job and the industry that keeps your town viable.
>Call people whiney pricks

american here. i heard those poll taxes were pretty nasty.

>>889105

That sums it up pretty nicely. I`ll give her credit for the Falklands, but that`s about it. She`s the reason why the economy is so fucked today.

>>889218
Thatcher is not on any exam specifications you silly bastard.

>>889219
This, Coal mining in Britain was unsustainible. It was shit quility, hard to reach, and it was cheaper for a Briton to buy foreign coal than british coal

>>889188
They've had 30 years to find new employment!

Would you hipsters be so incenced if the mines had all closed due to a new power source like fusion being made viable?

>>889188
because dumbfuck miners got what was coming to them.

>>889263
>>889262

TORY VOTERS DETECTED


It's always the same with you lot, Money this prcies this. Always thinking about money first and people last, it's actually more beneficial to pay the extra to get to the coal than to import foreign coal. Money goes to people, people buy from the businesses, businesses make money, more products better products as they sell. Fucking Geniouses ITT

>>889105
Rely on one industry that's what you get.

>>889218
If you look at courses on thatcher, they don't agree with the college fag point of view. As they are fact based not emotional.
Gtfo.

>>889262
History course in college has a module of post war leadership etc, thatcher has a whole section. Inb4 student kiddy, 23. ex-army, trying to improve life.

>>889286
The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other peoples money.

Problem with you is, you're a complete pussy and probably rely on the welfare state.

>>889287
And being fact based, they cast her in the same light as Reagan. A idiot of a politician who ruined the industry of their country and started it on a long road of decline.

>>889296

Not true actually, I don't rely on the welfare. I work hard everyday. Though, I realise that these are just petty comments because you can't argue with what I said.

>>889287
Labor government education demonizes previous administration shocker

>>889286
you're an idiot.

if domestic mining is unprofitable, than those workers should have started up another industry, one that would actually -help- the economy. yknow something like manufacturing or finance.

oh what? that's not competitive in the global market because of insane tax rates? mk. well at least those unemployed get 'free' health care right?

>>889296

Yeah but when you buy domestic coal over foreign coal, it may be more expensive but at least that money is over here. Also It's better than putting those miners on the dole.

>>889322

Wow, just start up an industry, just like that? holy fuck if it was that easy wouldn't everyone do it?

>>889325

Exactly, finally some sense in here.

>>889322
Thank you i was just about to reply to the tard.

>>889325
Gg protectionism at it's finest, stop the flow of money and watch what happens.. buy from abroad for cheaper, get those miners into better jobs / education etc and invest saved money in other systems.
Having people in jobs for sake of having jobs, ISNT always the best idea - it's useful in times like these, people digging ditches for pay is better than chav with white lightning on the dole, but you can't build a stable economy on a continual loss.

>>889312

History is impartial (well neutral in my opinion but that's another matter altogether), otherwise Toryfags would be in massive butthurt all the time about PC education, and no the Daily Mail whining doesn't count, none of actual Tory politicians ever bring up history education as being flawed so there.

>>889325
do you not understand the concept of trade? one country has one profitable industry, another country has another profitable industry, they trade their products, everybody wins

sure is bnp in here.

>>889325
Socialist: Subsidize own industry and then provide foriegn aid for those countries whose industry is failing

Capitalist: Buy from foreign countries, supporting their economy and enabling them to buy more advanced goods and services from us

>One in eight people unemployed
>High inflation
>Placing financial values far above human ones
Gee, I wonder why she was unpopular.

The main problem with Thatcher is that she did what needed to be done. But she didn't do it for the good of Britian. She did it for the good of Thatcher. Instead of dividing and conquering the unions. She obliterated them and crushed their sectors instead of a gradual transfer to other industries and investment in skills in the areas like in Germany. She re-ignited tensions in Northern Ireland due to her complete lack of humanity and compassion during the hunger strikes. She fucked over Scotland completely with the Poll tax and closing down the shipyards.

Sure, she saved Britain, but it was a legacy that left hundreds dead, lives and families destroyed and parts of Britain left socially stagnant for years, creating a culture of benefit fraud and cheating the system just to survive.

She saved Britain, but people still see the cost as too much and never want to have to repeat it again.

>>889004

I think her government banned the teaching of gayness in school.

Selling of nationalised industries under the pretense that anyone could buy shares in them when they where actually offered to private companies before they went on sale to the public.

The pole tax.

She wasn't as much of a cunt that everyone thought she was to be fair. She was a nesacary evil, the previous labour governments had turned the country into a basket case and she turned it back into a lean, mean, tea-drinking machine.

Margaret Thatcher was a wonderful woman, if only Cameron was a bit more like her.

She's a woman.

>>889364
>everybody wins

Well sure looks like it when people lose their jobs and their towns feel the impact of losing their main source of income, I know you like to keep up this image of yourself as manly and tough, but please drop it. Or how about someone cuts your job?

>>889374

Capitalism: Disregard workers, acquire currency.

>>889353
>>889364
>>889374

Then what do we do about the people who are then out of a job? I don't mind moving gutting an industry if it means better trade for other home goods, but it's just not right to just abandon some people and leave them without any future prospects.

>>889423

>Implying the state owes everyone a living.

>>889407
>she turned it back into a lean, mean, tea-drinking machine.

Ah, the tea sipping empire that was legendary for its trampling of human rights.

> Pole tax

Why the hate?
A tax designed to funnel money into local government enabling it to act without begging Westminster for money all the time.

"we are all Thatcherites now."
Peter Mandelson, 2001.


Now gtfo labour fags, and stop stealing tory policy.

>>889417
someone did cut my job. i now build fences under the table.

even your average dipshit blue collar worker like me can be innovative and resourceful. don't rely on the government to give you an business. look to the government to make it easier to start one and remain profitable.

>>889423
i think the fellow above my said it best, that thatcher handled it poorly. it could have been done better, but it was better than not doing it at all.

>>889286

So you support the expensive domestic coal industry at the expense of healthy domestic industries? If people have you pay $10 more per month to get electricity, that $10 isn't going to other parts of the economy.

>>889158

>>Also, many in the Labour party opposed retaking the Falklands, think if they had been in power would we have them now?

The previous Labour government where in secret talks with the Argentians to give them the Falklands and force the British inhabitants to move elsewhere.

As much as people hate Thatcher you've got to admire the fact that she put a stop to that.

>>889472

You need money also, you can't just decide to set up your own business with nothing, alot of people don't have the privilege of being able to do that.

>The only criticism I ever hear of her is "WAAAAHHHH MY DADDY LOST HIS JOB AS A MINER BECAUSE OF HER AND NOW I HAVE TO HATE HER TOO!"
How is that not a legitimate criticism? A lot of people grew up in poverty because of her policies.

>>889484

I care more about the workers, that money could be saved elsewhere through military spending cuts.

A lot of home-owners have thatcher to thank for allowing them to buy their council houses.

rule 34 on thatcher.

>>889004
>Can anybody give me a LEGITIMATE criticism of Thatcher?

She dogmatically brought in too much change too quickly for people to reasonably be expected to retrain quickly enough to fill the roles in the new service-based economy she engendered, thus destroying old mining and manufacturing communities in the long term (because they got locked into a cycle of dependency on the state).

That and trickle-down economics is the biggest crock of shit since Marxism.

>>889489
ever heard of loan? but if you have poor credit like i did, that's when you get investors. i had my truck, but no tools or materials at the time. so i got some friends, an uncle, and a former boss to invest in me, i got a few jobs done, and once i got my ball rolling, i paid them back with some of my profit on top. welcome to capitalism.

>>889526
And a lot of people who don't own homes have her to thank fo taking their jobs away.

>>889464

Cos it disproptionatly effected the poor.

>>889543

Well done to you, seriously. But really not everyone could do this.

>>889543
Kudo sir.

>>889538
>Implying any normal person couldn't cope in a service industry economy

Fuck, industrial is fucking harder :\ But yes I agree it was far too fast. Problem was.. scargill and his buddies caused it to be faster, it would have been phased more otherwise.

Family is from the valleys and hates scargill.

>>889538

>That and trickle-down economics is the biggest crock of shit since Marxism.

>Marxism

You mean that workers owning the means of production is a bad idea?

Only mugs pay the poll tax.

well, she completely destroyed englands industry, made countless people jobless and sucked all around.
Today UK is a puppy state of the USA and depends on the good will of the USA and EU.

All thanks to Thatcher.

>>889538

But we are richer now because of that. She turned an industrial economy into a knowledge and skills economy and she did it in a decade. If she hadn't we might only be half way though that process (or recently ended at least) and have of the country could still be factory workers.

>>889569
Just to be clear, I don't mean telesales and waitressing. Service industry jobs include things like accountants, lawyers, middle management, conveyencing information gathering. These skilled service industry jobs were what the new economy became built on, in addition to financial services. Ex-miners and shipbuilders can't be expected to immediately switch into such jobs - they need years of training (often to degree level).

But yeah I agree Scargill shot himself in the foot. He was a power-mad class warfarist, and needed to be utterly crushed. Breaking the unions was one of the things Thatcher got right.

>>889518

The spending going elseware created jobs. It's about efficiency, not jobs that makes economic growth possible.

>>889561
i believe anyone can. just gotta have a little faith in people. america's greatest generation grew up when there were no easy jobs or welfare to take, and they had to think to survive.

sure i'm not really making much money now due to the economic downturn, but it's better than being on welfare and contributing nothing to the economy.

taking money and buying something with it doesn't help anyone but yourself unless you produce or service something in return.

>>889607

No, really not everyone could. Say for example, you set up a business for making desks and no one wants desks etc then you fail, what do you do then? The debt from the loans pile up and the person is under extreme pressure and probably feeling like shit.

>>889573
I mean that a stateless society based on mutual egalitarianism runs counter to basic human nature. We're a tribal animal, not suited to a single global mutual society.

Some sort of hierarchy and the acknowledgement of individual self-interest are anathema to Marx's endgame. Marxism simply runs counter to human nature, and thus even if such a society were to come about, it would quickly implode.

I have no problem with co-operatives and autogestion, but basing an entire society on it is doomed to failure.

>>889652

AHAHAHAH oh it's the usual "human nature" argument, it's all pseudo-science bullshit, there were various African tribes that lived in a similar way to communism and they were fine.

Thatcher crippled the UK's industry and made the country overly-reliant on the financial sector - effectively destroying the livelihoods of thousands. While her policies of massive market deregulation did help to revive the British economy in the early 1980s, they did so at the expense of hundreds of thousands of working-class people (many of whom are still affected today), and devastated many industrial cities throughout the country. Futhermore, Thatcher's liberal approach to capitalism - and the work done by New Labour to continue her economic policies - laid the basis for much of our recent financial crisis. By allowing the market, and especially the banks, to act without restriction, these sort of Thatcherite policies made the UK especially susceptible to the global recession.

And that's not to mention things like the Poll Tax 'experiment', the Falklands War, and Thatcher's university reforms (which basically shut down hundreds of university departments, for the simple fact that they weren't business-related).

>>889604
>

But we are richer now because of that. She turned an industrial economy into a knowledge and skills economy and she did it in a decade. If she hadn't we might only be half way though that process (or recently ended at least) and have of the country could still be factory workers.

1) We are only richer on average - the gap between the haves and the have-nots has increased substantially. Vast swathes of people were doomed to long term poverty because of thatcher's zeal to privatise as much as possible as quickly as possible

2) What's wrong with manufacturing? I'd argue that we would actually have a healthier economy if more of it was made up of manufacturing.

>>889663

>African tribes.

>>889690

Yep, your bigoted mind would be shocked to know that there was actually a method of sharing under African tribes that flourished, until Imperialism arrived.

>>889663
Ya, but then you realise that didn't encapsulate 60 million people with far more "complex" lives that wern't self sustaining and didn't have such low standards. And it fails.

>>889700

Had the said African tribes invented the wheel by the time those evil Europeans turned up?

>>889602

>>well, she completely destroyed englands industry

This is both inevitable and good, we can't afford to produce things at an industrial level because we are a developed economy and can't compete with countries that pay their workers £2.00 a day. We're a knowledge based economy now and richer because of it. It's happened in every rich country.
>>made countless people jobless

Can't argue with that, but thats the inevitable outcome of my first point.

>>Today UK is a puppy state of the USA and depends on the good will of the USA and EU.

We are the 5th richest country in the world. We have one of the strongest militaries in the world. We are a world leader in finance, science and education. we have a permanent seat on the U.N security council. We are one of the only ( legitimate) nuclear powers. We are one of the largest contributors to the E.U, it is dependant on us, not the other way round.

If this is what a fucked up broken down country looks like I'd hate to see the rest of the world.

>>889663
You've just illustrated my point though. They lived as many smaller tribes, not as a cohesive supertribe. We're designed by nature to collectivise on a far smaller scale than the globalised group that Marxism implies.

We only come together in groups insofar as we can see that it benefits us as individuals, and the fact that the small scale tribe is how we've tended to form those groups aptly demonstrates this fact.

As I say, I have no problem with people coming together on a smaller scale (such as a single company, village, street, gated community or whatever) but a single global (or even national) tribe runs counter to the way we are wired. We're designed to compete on the larger scale, and this is something that Marxism simply doesn't account for.

SHE DESTROYED BRITAIN

NEVAR FORGET

ALWAYS VOTE LABOUR

Thatcher's African?

>>889722
or you could just lower taxes and break up unions <.<

industry in the us is starting to make a comeback as companies realize they can just relocate to the south instead of mexico.

selling off profitable utilities?

shutting down industrial base without a replacement plan?

euroscepticism?

magnifying a land of unequal opportunity?

running down the welfare state?

she remains the unforgiven. not by me, by the country.

/thread

>>889685


>>1) We are only richer on average - the gap between the haves and the have-nots has increased substantially. Vast swathes of people were doomed to long term poverty because of thatcher's zeal to privatise as much as possible as quickly as possible

I actually think Thatcher went too far, she was too dogmatic in her approach , but, the gap between the rich and poor might have increased but both are substatially better off than they where 40 years. It's an inevitable fact of capitalism that the rich get richer faster than the poorer do.

2) What's wrong with manufacturing? I'd argue that we would actually have a healthier economy if more of it was made up of manufacturing.

Cos we can't compete with countries that are able to pay their workers in pennies for a days labour. I don't know about you but I'd rather be working in an office than on a factory floor.

>>889776
>euroscepticism?

That was something else she got right. Fuck the EU.

>>889776

>Implying you speak for the entire country and not just the underclass.

>>889735
>We only come together in groups insofar as we can see that it benefits us as individuals, and the fact that the small scale tribe is how we've tended to form those groups aptly demonstrates this fact.

No it doesn't, it doesn't demonstrate that "fact" at all. I like how you or some other dumbass tries to claim something about human nature and when it's pointed out that anthropological evidence shows otherwise you start shift your argument to "but there's more people so it's different!". Maybe if you, like a lot of people much smarter than yourself, don't understand jack shit about human nature and you're just grafting your poorly thought out political ideology onto the very nature of man to give it a false sense of legitimacy and infallibility.

>>889793
But the point is that the dismantling of our manufacturing was artificial. There's nothing wrong with firms choosing to stop trading or to relocate because of competition from abroad, but Thatcher unilaterally decided it would simply end.

We could be a world leader in high-tech manufacturing if we hadn't sold everything off, but instead we've become a nation of stock gamblers and dole queues.

The new economy should be built on high value-added manufacturing, in which we do have a competitive advantage, due to it being more highly skilled education-intensive work, rather than the low-skilled trainers, footballs, and clothes manufacturing that we farm out to China.

>>889722
But there's a problem with a 'knowledge-based' economy: anybody in the world, with the right opportunity, can acquire the same knowledge.

What makes knowledge-based jobs or service jobs any more secure than manufacturing jobs? You think the Chinese can't steal those jobs too? They're educating an entire generation of professionals to do just that.

If a country's industry can no longer compete in the free market, the solution isn't to abandon the industry, the solution is to abandon the free market.

>>889837

I'm pretty sure you're trolling and I'm not the guy you're replying to but the fact that communism has failed in every single country that it's been tried in is testament to the fact that it simply doesn't work in a large scale society.

>>889845

>We could be a world leader in high-tech manufacturing if we hadn't sold everything off, but instead we've become a nation of stock gamblers and dole queues.

Sounds like what the U.S. has become

>>889845
OK genius, what does the fact that Africans band together in small tribes instead of a massive supertribe tell us about human nature?

Why, if we're not just selfish creatures who seek safety in numbers, but only to a limited extent, do we not naturally form a huge supergroup?

It's a simple fact that people try to screw each other over. That's natural. Marxism relies on us acting as if this is not the case, therefore it is an untenable ideology.

I'm not advocating a laissez-faire system - I'm just saying that Marxism is as much a crock of shit as the idea that tax cuts for the rich benefit us all. Both ideologies fail when put in the real world, with people acting as people are wired to act.

We need some sort of hierarchy, we need to allow for selfish greed, and we also need to collectivise to some extent. We naturally find a balance between these three things, and any successful ideology must embrace this balance.

>>889873
Doesn't surprise me, given the closeness of Thatcherism and Reaganomics

>>889845
>>. There's nothing wrong with firms choosing to stop trading or to relocate because of competition from abroad, but Thatcher unilaterally decided it would simply end.

Thats exactly what they did. They sold the unprofitable nationalised industries and started importing from abroad to save money, exactly how companies behave.
>>We could be a world leader in high-tech manufacturing if we hadn't sold everything off, but instead we've become a nation of stock gamblers and dole queues.

Maybe but I don't think we can even make high end technological stuff as cheap as they do in China or India. The only edge we had was in car making simply because it was a relatively skilled trade, but even now we've been overtaken.

A better argument against moving industry abroad is that it encouraged child labour and sweatshops, but if you have a problem with that you'd better throw half of your clothes cos that's how they're made.

>>889848

>>But there's a problem with a 'knowledge-based' economy: anybody in the world, with the right opportunity, can acquire the same knowledge.

That's inevitable eventually, but right now we're ahead of the game. And don't be fooled by Chinas or Indias image of progress, the vast majority of the population are still uneducated labourers.

In the last 200 years we've gone from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy to a knowledge economy, you might as well argue that we should all become farmers again .

>>889870
Implying there were communism is any place

>>890037

That's the point. Anywhere they've tried to create a communist society it's failed and turned into a totalitarian state.

It works in a small tribal society because people don't mind helping the people immediatly around them but don't give a shit about people they don't know. If humans beings where capable of creating a truely social society without personal greed on a large scale we wouldn't need government systems to enforce it, we'd just do it. We don't because we're not programmed to care about people we don't know and have no impact on our lives.

>>889939

However, this pretty much occurred under the brilliant leadership of Clinton ushering in the free-trade era

>>890127

Samefag we pretty much sold off our manufacturing to china with the agreement we would deal and a killing in the Intellectual property arena. Yeah that worked out to our benefit alright.

She did what was necessary, but she was an evil bitch about it. My local ex mining town is full of chavs, she created them.

To quote someone or other:

'The Labour party wanted to give everyone a fish, Thatcher wanted to give everyone a fishing rod. Unfortunatly some people ended up with neither'