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Thatcher has died


NormanH
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Q wrote:

"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."

At the time of the miner's strike Mrs Thatcher had a majority of 144. She could have easily passed a law to curb the unions.

Hoddy

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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]

Wow 150 flights a year - you must have been exhausted and certainly earned your gold card!

You quite obviously didn't fly with Air Europe - I guess you were strictly scheduled - non mere charter....

Chiefluvvie
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Chiefluvie wrote:

"If one is brought up properly one wouldn't speak ill of the recently deceased - quite a simple concept to grasp. "

I was brought up that way too, the difference in this case is that some of the eulogies in the press have made Mrs Thatcher appear to be a saint. I have tried not to make my remarks about her too personal, but I absolutely understand why some people feel so strongly.

As for your remarks about the 'girls' on this forum I have always found that they are perfectly reasonable human beings who are quite capable of making their own judgements.

Hoddy
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[quote user="Chiefluvvie"][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[/quote]Just curious - how long after their death is it alright to mention their faults. Personally I was brought up that your rule only applied in the presence of the family and friends of the deceased not in other circumstances.  I feel that a "warts and all" description of the deceased is not in bad taste.  I remember an excellent obituary of Winston Churchill by Michael Foot that did not gloss over his failings but also gave full weight to his considerable achievements.  The fact that it was not sycophantic gave more emphasis to the strengths and made you realise it was about a real person and not some screenwriters invention.

 

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[quote user="Chiefluvvie"][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[/quote]

Sorry and nothing to do with Thatcher but thats cra*p. That we should not speak ill of Hitler, Stalin, Heydrich, Himmler, Pol Pot, the list can go on, is utter rubbish.

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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'....

Ahem......is the above not infantile ?

You have every right to put your point, but please respect that the views of other people are just as strongly felt and  try not to inflame the situation.

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[quote user="Chiefluvvie"]Well that's just infantile Quillan - you've just grouped Maggie in with a load of mass murderers - get a grip for goodness sake!

Chiefluvvie[/quote]

But what a splendid exemplification of Godwin's Law.

'As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Na zis or Hitler approaches 1.'

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I'm sick of the news, I'm sick of these stupid articles in the papers and now I'm sick of this thread.

And to answer Wooly, how Russell Brand gets to comment on anything is beyond me, doesn't make me angry just bewildered to be honest.

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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.<

 

[/quote]

Well, here's a thing.....as a working mother, under Thatcherism, I had no tax breaks or incentives to help with childcare. I had to pay for my childcare from my net income. I worked at the time in a company where I was the only woman doing my particular job, and was party to conversations about the appointment of colleagues where it was made clear that it wasn't a "suitable" job for a woman.

There were no female directors on the board of the company I worked for, and subsequently only one at the company I next worked for. At THAT company, where I was directly involved in succession planning, the two commercial directors often openly spoke at board meetings about NOT promoting capable women because they "would only get married and have children" - they didn't even hold back because I was present, and they certainly didn't hold back knowing that strictly speaking their comments were, by that time, illegal.

Remind me again, how many women served as cabinet ministers under Thatcher?

She got to the top in spite of being a woman, and I got the jobs I had back then also in spite of being a woman.

Let's face it, equal pay for women was enacted under Harold Wilson by Barbara Castle, and even THAT still hasn't been fully implemented: cases of pay inequality between men and women are still occurring.

Equality for women in the workplace is certainly becoming more common, but as for the glass ceiling, Thatcher crawled through it and then closed the gap behind her. Whatever has happened to the lot of women since then has been as a result of the efforts of individual women, and nothing to do with us once having had a female PM. As the Church of England aptly demonstrated only recently, the glass ceiling is not only still almost intact, but there are areas of life where it's being double glazed.
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“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

We are all entitled to our view, newspapers, Russell et al,

but History was made and my guess is it will show Margaret Thatcher as a great leader and stateswoman, to Britain's benefit; and perhaps also that A Scargill was defeated by his own choice of bully boy weapon. While G. Galaway will hardly merit a mention.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2306570/Weaned-Beebs-hatred-wonder-young-rejoice-death.html

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Why do we have to make this discussion about Mrs. Thatcher "not doing things for women" and not promoting them into her cabinet. My blood boils when I see promotions just for gender or race equality - 'Blair's babes', being appointments of women JUST because they were women in a lot of cases, invalidates the whole cause of feminism. In my case, in the 80s, I saw opportunities open up, the union that had a stranglehold on my company's business was broken, and rightly so. In fact, women I knew saw Mrs. Thatcher's appointment as PM as proof that they could do anything, and so applied for (and got) appointments that they wouldn't otherwise have reached for.

In her later years I'm not sure she was in her right mind, like Reagan, the diagnosis of Alzheimers came after they left office but I'm sure there were signs before. But she made real changes, and left Britain in a much better state than the strife-torn 70s.

It's funny that, in my group of friends, the ones who slate her are former government workers, teachers, etc., whereas the ones who say she was one of the greatest PMs are, like me, those who worked in private companies.

As for Russell Brand and the like, well he and Ben Elton and their ilk made their living (and a good one) out of political comedy in the 80s. Ironically, they're rich precisely because of Mrs. T,
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[quote user="nectarine"]

It's funny that, in my group of friends, the ones who slate her are former government workers, teachers, etc., whereas the ones who say she was one of the greatest PMs are, like me, those who worked in private ,[/quote]

I think you may find that, in most cases, those who say she was one of the greatest PM 's are more easily categorised by their political views than their job category. I know few public sector workers, but I will be spending this evening in the company of two particular people, both former public sector workers: one is a true blue Tory and thought Thatcher could walk on water, the other is old Labour and hated her.

In most right thinking companies and institutions in the late 20th and early 21st century, there have been and still are successful women. It is an insult to them and their efforts to suggest that they were put there by men who thought " oh, we've had a woman running the country, maybe we should see what the little women in the typing pool can do if we give them a bit of a chance ". Just like Thatcher, most successful women BEFORE and after her got there by their own efforts.
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Nectarine, I agree...it wasn't that Mrs Thatcher personally promoted a lot of jobs for women but she demonstrated to women that with hard work and determination women could achieve, that success was possible.

My OH was no great Thatcher fan, but even he admitted that we benefitted from her leadership. He is in the print trade where the unions pretty much had a strangle hold and it held people back. Like the coal industry the print industry was changing, the days of the hot metal presses were declining, but the unions were still ruling the roost. Many a time my OH would ask for a salary increase only to be told that he already was getting above the union rate and that was that. If you didn't belong to the union you couldn't get your work printed.

Betty, it wasn't that there weren't successful women before who had got there by their own efforts, I live d next to two highly successful women from the late 50’s onward, but they weren't the Prime Minister were they? And I suspect that our attitude to politics and politicians was different in the late 70's 80’s
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Just heard on the BBC that the intelligence and security forces will be scrutinising the internet for anti-Thatcher stuff after all the unrest of the past couple of days. Be careful what you put on the www, it may come back to haunt you!

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I really have a problem with those in the workplace who discriminate on the basis of sex, religion (always left that blank when applying for jobs), disability and ethnic background. I have always believed in employing the best person for the job whoever they are. Likewise I see no reason why women should be paid any different to a man who does the same job. On the other side I also disagree with 'positive' discrimination i.e. we must employ some women etc for the same reason.

Unfortunately Betty is right even today. My daughter gets paid slightly less than a male colleague doing the same type of work which I think is a disgrace because she is actually harder working than him and better at her job. This is recognised by her boss who tells her if it was up to him she would be on the same salary so clearly this is a corporate decision to pay women less.

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[quote user="Val_2"]

Just heard on the BBC that the intelligence and security forces will be scrutinising the internet for anti-Thatcher stuff after all the unrest of the past couple of days.

[/quote]

If their remit really was that broad, they'd be at it for a couple of years!
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I'm beginning to wonder if this shouldn't really be three separate threads. The first one for people's opinions of Mrs T, the second one for the extraordinary media response and thirdly her impact on the lives of women.

Hoddy
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[quote user="Gardener"]We can't speak ill of the dead? Can I hold people to that when Gordon Brown, Tony Blair or any other out-of- favour-on-this-board person dies ?[/quote]

As I always remember by mother saying "you shouldn't speak ill of the dead" which is in my mind a lot different to "you must not". There have been some very evil people over the years who have died and I see nothing wrong in speaking ill of them. My question however is can Thatcher be put in the same category as some of these past evil leaders like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot (to name a few and there are others)? I don't think so, not by anyone however much they despised her policies.

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[quote user="You can call me Betty"][quote user="nectarine"] [/quote] . Just like Thatcher, most successful women BEFORE and after her got there by their own efforts.[/quote]

But sometimes other assets came into play [6]

I actually agree with both sides of you ladies/women (pick your own because I know some of you dont like one of the titles) about Baroness Thatcher, I agree with Betty that they both got where they did through hard work and competence against the odds stacked against them, I agree with others that Mrs Thatcher and I am sure Betty as well inspired others that it could be done.

Things have changed a lot and still need to change, I think that Mrs T made her contribution along the way and probably her biggest contribution was indirect and hence not attributed to her, changing the way business is done, how many of the current generation of share dealers women or men would have been one before?

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[quote user="Russethouse"] Betty, it wasn't that there weren't successful women before who had got there by their own efforts, I live d next to two highly successful women from the late 50’s onward, but they weren't the Prime Minister were they? And I suspect that our attitude to politics and politicians was different in the late 70's 80’s[/quote] Agreed, lots of successful women aren't PM. That's still the case. Surely if Thatcher had left any kind of legacy in that regard, there might have been another female PM by now? I do find it a bit facile, and quite insulting to either sex, to believe that career decisions made by either sex were made on the basis of her becoming PM . In all my working life, I don't ever recall anyone using her name as a reason for a woman being successful, promoted, appointed in any role..
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