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Thatcher has died


NormanH
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Miners rich on their strike pay............... what planet do you live on pet! 

FIL was a miner. No kids and he got no money as his wife had income and during that time she went from a poorly paid job to being a pensioner. And when they came to see us in France, she paid, on the bus they came. And then we kept them.

Thatcher was good at blowing up the South Sea Bubble and in her life time it has imploded. Let the greedy greedy bankers do as they please and the world suffers. That is her legacy.

Re women, well, what did she do for women???? Not a lot, personally I can only think of one thing and even that was no easy depending on cirumstances.

I'm bored now with this. I don't want it on the TV and the sooner they get her in the ground the better.

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Interesting interview with Lord Young, former Minister, on BBC this morning. He brought up one or two things that are now forgotten.

When Maggie became PM we were known as "the sick man of Europe": all that changed. We now build more cars in the UK than at any time previously and at much higher quality levels. The next one I'm not so sure about but he said that the reason the mining industry disappeared was that there was no more coal. I think he should have added that there was no more (coal) that could be economically mined.

I agree with Quillan that the Poll Tax could have been a very fair system if it had been thought through and implemented correctly. The more adult people in your house the more the household paid rather than the widow next door paying the same amount.

Devisive? Yes. Incisive? Most certainly.

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Who said anything about miners being rich on their strike pay? The ones I flew were taking overseas holidays when their colleagues were on the picket lines. Principles spring to mind. Arthur and his communist cronies were responsible for their downfall - not Maggie.

Oh and by the way - I was brought up never to speak ill of the dead - it's a core value and one that sits well with me. Speaks volumes about a person when they slag off those who can't defend themselves.

As for what Maggie did for women ? If you even have to ask that question you've obviously missed the point!

Chiefluvvie
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[quote user="Jay"]       Obviously you didn't have most of your family working in the mines at that time!
[/quote]

Might be a first (and last  [:D])  I'm backing Q on this one. No the majority of the population didn't have family members down a mine. I find it fascinating that lots of people blame Thatcher for every thing that went or is going wrong, didn't the other what is it 700 odd members of parliament have a say, and a vote on what went on? In my opinion a democracy is based on collective responsibility and if people voted for her and her mob so be it. Incidentally I didn't notice that Mr Blair and his mates rushed to reinstate the mines, docks or Fleet St, no they were too busy going to lunch with journalists.[Www]

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[quote user="Jay"][quote user="Quillan"]

I feel sorry for the union members at that time, especially the miners. They were done in not by Thatcher but Scargill who quite frankly was interested in only himself and just used them. Unfortunately he was not the man for the job, he lost and in doing so took them down with him. You can't run a country by winning an election then asking the unions in for a pint and a sandwich then ask them how to do it. She knew that, we knew that, in fact just about everyone knew that, You can't have unelected tails wag a dog.

[/quote]

Obviously you didn't have most of your family working in the mines at that time!
[/quote]

No I didn't and I wouldn't work in one either. I have no axe to grind with the miners just their leadership. You should try, as a starting point, reading the history section of the NUM website. The pits were going to be closed over a 10 to 12 year period (depending what you read but lets say 10 years) anyway due to lack of demand. By the time Scargill had finished trying to bring down the Tory government, the one that was voted in by a huge majority I might add, the government had decided enough was enough and closed the lot and that is down to him and him alone. Yes they were all going to loose their jobs but over time, many through retirement and plans were put in place to help regenerate the areas and to provide training in other skills but that went out the window thanks to  Scargill. But he didn't suffer did he, his grace and favour home, car etc, etc. He was eating at high table whilst those he had sworn to protect had nothing, not even enough money to buy a loaf of bread. So as I said I have no problem with the miners personally but Scargill, well I would certainly dance on his grave providing there was enough space on it to do so which I very much doubt.

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Chiefluvvie I am fully aware of everything I said, and I was brought up properly. Who on earth are you to judge my values as if yours are superior?????..........

As a woman I know exactly what Thatcher did for women, almost nothing, what Thatcher did was for Thatcher, I don't actually think that she had time for women in general and she said so in an early interview.

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How many would argue againts my hypothesis that the only chance that France may have an economic future is to have a president who is the re-incarnation of the late Baroness Thacher?

If you want to imagine what the UK would be like if she hadnt held her tenure you dont need to look far IMHO although the UK would by now be much further down the road that France is following.

Interesting to read that it was known that the coal industry was no longer viable, was it about that time that coal fired power stations were decided to be phased out?

My father and grandfather were miners and my particular interest is the ex-mining areas in the north of France just up from me, from photos and reports that I have seen the Nord Pas de Calais was a much bigger and more intensive mining area than the north of England and was still in full swing in the early 80's, what became of it?

I see so many French industries that are no longer competitive in a global market yet continue for many painfull strike filled years during stays of execution, redressement judiciare, looking for repreneurs etc, how did such a huge industry as mining in France dissappear completely in what I believe to have been a very short period, I dont hear ex miners or the unemployed from those towns having someone to blame like Beeching or Thatcher, did the government of the time just accept the true situation?

It just seems so at odds with what happened in the UK and I have no reason to believe the syndicalistes were more moderate (or should that be less extreme!) than their trade union counterparts, its also completely at odds with what I have seen in the last 8 years with Arcelor Mittal, Renault, Peugeot, the refineries, Goodyear etc etc.

I honestly know nothing of the history of the end of mining in France and that itself surprises me, I live very close, know lots of people from the region, were I a French person living in the north of England I would quickly know all about the miners strike and the Thatcher government.

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How very true Chancer.

Then there is the ship building. The world demanded bigger and bigger ships that could no longer be built in the UK and even NI. Loose the ship industry, don't need steel, don't need coke for the furnaces either. Electric and diesel trains, clean air act, natural gas etc all writing on the wall for the coal and steel industries. But as one door closes another opens. On the BBC today they showed some of the heavy and light industrial parks that opened up where the old pit heads once stood. Car factories, some of the most progressive and efficient in the world now stand where there were steel and ship building works with around 80% of the cars made for export. The world is always moving on and there is not a lot you can do about it so you need to embrace it and move with it else you get left behind and very sadly some have. Would Thatcher be in her prime today and would I vote for her, well I don't really know to be honest. She was unique to her time and we did need her back then. I did find it sad however that she behaved like she did in the last couple of years as PM. Her time was over but she couldn't see it. Better to go on a high my dad always said but she didn't. One thing I do know is that without her and her help to new businesses I would still be working for somebody else and would never have started out on my own and never employed people either.

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Nope, I've tried, I really have, and I'm still struggling to come up with an answer to "What did Thatcher do for women?"

So I have to ask. Go on, enlighten me.

I got married and had two children whilst she was running the country. I also worked full time. I also travelled all over the world, taking well in excess of 150 flights a year. I don't recall sharing a flight with any miners, but maybe they were travelling incognito.
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One thing Maggie did for Women was to break the glass ceiling which was recognised all around the world.

What the unions did for me just as I was getting married and starting a family was to put me on a three day week;
with rats running through uncollected rubbish and the dead waiting to be buried, the country was on it's knees under Wislon and Heath

Maggie sorted it for me.

 

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Well it's an opinion.  I look at the most powerful and prosperous country in the EU and I see a massive industrial section also manufacturing a lot of what we used to do.  The coal brought into the UK was subsidised by foreign governments and that is where the UK became un competitive.

Manufacturing, in particular someone mentioned more cars are now built in the UK on cutting edge technology.  Yes and if during the "Britain was washed up years", the owners and management (inc nationalised) had invested in the infrastructure and machines maybe we wouldn't have seen the dip in the first place. As an engineer, my apprenticeship was carried out on knackered old Ex war dept machines where the skill was being able to get this worn out crap to produce the correct size components.  The Germans, the Italians and of course the Japanese et al had modern equipment and could easily beat the pants of us!  Getting the most out of a new factory with new equipment is easy by comparison. 

There was a comparison made between a school leaver going into an office as a first job, endowed with private medical, private dentistry, health club, non contributory pension etc, let alone the altogether cleaner air conditioned environment.  By contrast a young engineer would get....................A clocking in machine and a whistle that told them when they could have a cuppa and use the toilet. Obviously Maggie thought that was unfair so closed lots of factories so the people could experience the "good life" Thanks [:)]  Likewise hospitals, nasty dirty draughty old Victorian buildings were closed so later when things changed we had some nice new hospitals, again much to thank the Conservatives for [Www]

Maggie's era was one of outright greed,  A winners only creed, where if you fell off the tightrope nothing and no one would catch you. Friendships were lost and superficial wine bar mentality one over. People used to brag how much they paid for items and you must have paid more that them to out do the other greedy people. Harry Enfield parodied this in some of his characters.  Queues of people dining out in restaurants in Putney and along side Clapham common, many of them torched for the insurance as the interest rates rose to 16%.

If Maggie meant well then the backroom boys cashed in on the loose ends like purchasing council houses for next to no money, guaranteeing a new breed of greedy people ripping out the equity for the his n hers Mercedes and then facing redundancy or pay and condition cuts rather than loosing the job so that is how the Unions crumbled from within as people now had something to loose whereas before the tenement and council houses were not taken away so they could fight on and on.   The proverbial rug was pulled from under them.   

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[quote user="You can call me Betty"]Nope, I've tried, I really have, and I'm still struggling to come up with an answer to "What did Thatcher do for women?" So I have to ask. Go on, enlighten me. I got married and had two children whilst she was running the country. I also worked full time. I also travelled all over the world, taking well in excess of 150 flights a year. I don't recall sharing a flight with any miners, but maybe they were travelling incognito.[/quote]

Maggie got lots of other women into her cabinet to aid the battle for women in politics........................Oh hang that was the other guy wasn't it.

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Like others, I was bringing up my children and buying my house while Margaret Thatcher was in power. Having always leant to the left I disliked many of her policies, and hated the protracted tussle with the miners, even though a part of me could not understand why men would want to continue working in the conditions they did. I thought Arthur Scargill did his men no favours, but that the police were sanctioned in their behaviour towards protesting workers was a disgrace. And I felt that the Falklands War was a power exercise for her.

So it has been interesting to read and hear all the tributes being paid to her, the retrospective view of her prime ministership. I haven't particularly changed my opinion of her, but I was glad to hear her described as  "a very kind woman" by someone on TV this morning, I'm glad for this lonely old woman that someone remembers her this way for I felt quite sorry for Margaret Thatcher (I cannot bring myself to call her Thatcher) in her old age. She doesn't seem to have had the support of her family, she was old and frail, she was a human being. 

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To put the miner's question in context, it should be remembered that the UK had to endure power cuts and a three day week because extremist miner's leaders decided to hold the country to ransom during Heath's premiership. They challenged the basic rule of parliament and democracy to try and install a left wing statist dictatorship. Thatcher had to break the grip of the NUM and Scargill (with others) on the throat of the country.

And, of course it was rough and nasty, as the police went for the crowds of strikers and their bussed in supporters. That was inevitable.

Thatcher gave Britain a chance for a decent future based on new industries, breaking the pattern that had subsisted since the end of Macmillan. And of course there had not been investment in British industry, of course it was run down when the risk was high and there were better opportunities elsewhere.

Thatcher's legacy was partly wasted by Major who was too weak politically, Blair too arrogant and Brown too mad to use it wisely.

The divisions that are mentioned in the press were already there, but not between them and us (ie rich and poor), but between those who live off or rely on the State for their livings and those who want to work for themselves, with others to build lives for themselves.

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I don’t think anyone who can remember what the UK was like in 1979 would want to suggest that all was well and that no changes needed to be made. My problem with what Thatcher did was the vicious divisiveness of it. As far as I could see the police seemed to have been given free rein to act as they liked without much fear of being disciplined for it.

I think that the politicians could have found a way of winding the mines down more slowly and of investing in our other doomed ‘rust bucket’ industries. The bitterness is still widely felt in communities where there are still no jobs and large areas of wasteland. Some miners did not strike; those in south Derbyshire for example. Those pits were closed down too. Calling decent working men the ‘enemy within’ went down very badly. There was very little ‘strike pay’ and some who tried to take donations to the families were sometimes turned away by the police.

The result is that we are now heavily reliant on foreign powers for our energy supplies. We know that Russia can and will withhold its gas for political reasons. There is no reason why other countries should not do the same.

In the following years some people became very rich, but they did not invest in British industry; they bought exotic foreign cars lived a high life. Being greedy and living a ‘loadsamoney life’ became respectable and those in lowly jobs were regarded as failures who hadn’t worked hard.

What you think about the state taking care of the poor depends on your point of view. I would like us to continue a tradition that started with Elizabeth I where we take care of those less fortunate. The failure of successive governments to enact suitable laws and administer them properly now allows them to demonise the unemployed. I fear that the non-productive elderly who are seen as leeches on society will be next.

Hoddy
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[quote user="Hoddy"]I think that the politicians could have found a way of winding the mines down more slowly and of investing in our other doomed ‘rust bucket’ industries. [/quote]

That was the original plan and to be carried out over 10 to 12 years with money being put in to the areas to help regenerate them. In the end, because of Scargill, who never allowed the miners a vote to strike, lost that through his determination to bring Thatcher down just like they had tried with Heath.

[quote user="Hoddy"]I fear that the non-productive elderly who are seen as leeches on society will be next. Hoddy[/quote]

I think you just hit that nail firmly and squarely on the head.

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I was unhappy to hear on the radio yesterday that there had been a street party organised in a part of London to celebrate the death of Margaret Thatcher. Whether you liked her policies or not I do think that people ought to show some respect, not just for here but also for her family and friends.
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[quote user="just john "]

One thing Maggie did for Women was to break the glass ceiling which was recognised all around the world.

What the unions did for me just as I was getting married and starting a family was to put me on a three day week;
with rats running through uncollected rubbish and the dead waiting to be buried, the country was on it's knees under Wislon and Heath

Maggie sorted it for me.

 

[/quote]

Takes a man to spell out the obvious to some of the less enlightened women on here - well said John and shame on you 'girls'....

Chiefluvvie
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The real tragedy with the mines is that there is still a huge amount of coal down there that because of the way the mines were closed is extremely difficult to get at. The UK is now heavily dependent on imported energy and if there ever was another European war would be extremely vulnerable.
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[quote user="idun"]Chiefluvvie I am fully aware of everything I said, and I was brought up properly. Who on earth are you to judge my values as if yours are superior?????..........


As a woman I know exactly what Thatcher did for women, almost nothing, what Thatcher did was for Thatcher, I don't actually think that she had time for women in general and she said so in an early interview.
[/quote] I wouldn't dream of judging you idun - you're way above being judged..... If one is brought up properly one wouldn't speak ill of the recently deceased - quite a simple concept to grasp. Chiefluvvie
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