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Thatcher has died


NormanH
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I don't think people would mention her specifically, its more a change in atmosphere.....

It's true there has not been another female Prime Minister yet, and Margaret Thatcher certainly did not promote women into her own cabinet, but there are a deal more women in the cabinet /shadow cabinet now and if Yvette Cooper or Theresa May were to throw their hat into the leadership ring they would be taken more seriously than they may have been before. Perhaps more women entered politics because of her example, I imagine some fell by the wayside because they didn't have the support Dennis Thatcher offered.

In truth the real liberators for women in the workplace were probably WW1 & WW2

My personal feeling is that Margaret Thatcher wanted to espouse the idealogy that means that anyone/everyone could have the opportunity to work hard and get on in life and enjoy the fruits of their labours, without an archiach class system or a trade union getting in the way.

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Val 2  Wrote :   

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!

I don't think GCHQ will pass our posts on.........Unless we are planning  to meet up  holding hands with  a baguette across Fleet St next Wednesday

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[quote user="Russethouse"]

My personal feeling is that Margaret Thatcher wanted to espouse the idealogy that means that anyone/everyone could have the opportunity to work hard and get on in life and enjoy the fruits of their labours, without an archiach class system or a trade union getting in the way.

[/quote]

Couldn't agree more RH.

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[quote user="Frederick"]I don't think GCHQ will pass our posts on.........Unless we are planning  to meet up  holding hands with  a baguette across Fleet St next Wednesday

[/quote]

If someone gets the impression that "baguette" is a euphemism for something less innocuous, then the black helicopters will be overhead chez vous very soon ...

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[quote user="Hoddy"]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[/quote]

Remember the old format where we could have actually had three separate lots of opinions on one thread? I do, and I liked it.

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I seem to remember my husband losing a lot of work through her schemes as she stopped all the local Council grant schemes for which we were an approved company back then and it brought in around 75% of our turnover each year. A lot of household benefitted from financial help to improve their living conditions and many many building contractors like ourselves could employ several people and actually make a decent living from it. Apart from that, I never bothered with politics and still don't as being a councillor here in France is not political even if its a socialist council but most of the elus are capitalists with lots of money and property etc.
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[quote user="Val_2"]I seem to remember my husband losing a lot of work through her schemes as she stopped all the local Council grant schemes for which we were an approved company back then and it brought in around 75% of our turnover each year. A lot of household benefitted from financial help to improve their living conditions and many many building contractors like ourselves could employ several people and actually make a decent living from it. Apart from that, I never bothered with politics and still don't as being a councillor here in France is not political even if its a socialist council but most of the elus are capitalists with lots of money and property etc.[/quote] Yep - and all funded by the good old working tax payer...... Chiefluvvie
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Can we therefore conclude that she (and son) was slightly more right wing than Mr B"liar".

Totally disagree with the politics, but she must have been quite a woman, contrary to Glenda's views.

Stupid though to give a military funeral, including the queens right wing approval, to the woman.

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Val_2

I assume you were a private company that would benefit from Maggie's wonderful ideas to the demise of the working class. Perhaps that is why you are now resident in France. Sorry if personal circumstances defy the norm.

On a slightly larger scale, regarding PFI in the NHS and local councils, who has benefited other than the private companies?

On the contrary, in France the worker is still screwing the employer. Perhaps there is a compromise??

NB unfortunately it should be the lib dems, but their leader has made a farce of that???

.

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Not quite sure what you mean but we were a general building firm with employees and registered with the local council to carry out home improvements for all householders who gained a council grant payment which in turn kept us in business, kept suppliers and other businesses going and paid taxes etc. We came here when the recession hit in 94 and many of our competitors went under and we just managed to hang on but OH said, why carry on here when we have a home already in France and its cheaper to live there instead which we did in 94 and he never stopped working from the day he arrived to the week before he died.
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"50 more spacious plots of ground may be allowed to the clergyman and schoolmaster, and other persons superior to the working class."

Discourse containing a Summary of Proceedings of Society for extending Fisheries & improving Sea Coasts of Gt Britain. 1789

So hardly a media invention.

Hoddy

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I have always regarded the working class as being those people who earn their living doing manual work. Of course these are the people who if they went on strike had the power to reduce the country to chaos quite quickly. We need our rubbish collected, our roads repaired etc. It is to a large extent a similar group that americans refer to as "blue-collar" as opposed to "white-collar" workers.
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Rabbie, manual workers in France wear 'les bleus de travail'........ so blue collar workers too and often essential workers as you pointed out.

Miners in my family and my husbands' and my mother worked in a factory sometimes, she had passed her 11plus, but no money for her education and she said that we had to get white collar jobs. No menial tasks, no factory work, because one could eventually earn a decent wage and not be under a relentless and unachievable work load. For my mother, blue collar for women, meant being underpaid and overworked. As I eventually saw myself when I worked in the offices at a clothing factory........ and to add insult to injury the women had to buy their own needles, thimbles and scissors, part of my job was  to collect the pennies from them every week to pay for them. I doubt I would have stayed if I had had to pay for my pens etc.

I grew up with respect for blue collar workers, and was thankful that I escaped such work.

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For information about social grouping i.e. what defines a 'class' then the following document in "easy bite" format may help you.

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/DownloadPublication/1285_MediaCT_thoughtpiece_Social_Grade_July09_V3_WEB.pdf

That said my fathers 'test' for "working class" in my opinion is the best "look at their hands son, look at their hands". Looking at mine what with all the cleaning, washing etc as a result of my B&B and gardening activities I would say I am now working class. [;-)]

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[quote user="idun"]Rabbie, manual workers in France wear 'les bleus de travail'........ so blue collar workers too and often essential workers as you pointed out.

Miners in my family and my husbands' and my mother worked in a factory sometimes, she had passed her 11plus, but no money for her education and she said that we had to get white collar jobs. No menial tasks, no factory work, because one could eventually earn a decent wage and not be under a relentless and unachievable work load. For my mother, blue collar for women, meant being underpaid and overworked. As I eventually saw myself when I worked in the offices at a clothing factory........ and to add insult to injury the women had to buy their own needles, thimbles and scissors, part of my job was  to collect the pennies from them every week to pay for them. I doubt I would have stayed if I had had to pay for my pens etc.

I grew up with respect for blue collar workers, and was thankful that I escaped such work.

[/quote]

For someone who was leaving this thread never to return several pages ago I'm surprised that you're still posting or is it a platform for you to trot out your own political beliefs over a remarkable woman's death?

My Dad also started his working life in the pits but I don't feel it has moulded my thoughts for ever and a day

.

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My grandfather was a Welsh coalminder and a real activist in the unions there. He was so high in the unions that he went on a miners visit to Russia in the 30s- sort of to see how the comrades were getting on, I think - and when he came back he said "I have seen communism in action and it doesn't work" then prompted voted Conservative for the rest of his life.

Not sure what the moral is, but just wanted to tell this tale.

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[quote user="nectarine"]  Not sure what the moral is, but just wanted to tell this tale.[/quote]

The moral is that some are fed stories, some of which are old wives tales and some are based in reality.

Britain was switched to a Market economy, No subsidies. Reality is that the Mines were shut and no-one wanted to open them again.

Despite the fantasy that the Pits would be too difficult to re-open, the reality was that there was insufficient market value to make it worthwhile then
or now when energy is more important than ever, Coal is not green enough.

Time to move on, get Fracking.

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Benjamin, I had not realised that in this world once we say anything it is suddenly written in stone and  then must be stuck to forever. My life isn't like that. I can change my mind and do quite often.  And you can think what you like of your father's work, I don't care. I just know that my thoughts are formed by everything I see/hear/learn and by everyone I have dealings with in my life, but my ideas and thoughts remain distinctly my own.

Thatcher........I left as her reign began. Obviously many of my compatriots liked her as she got in several times. I never liked her, never voted for her and didn't like most of the things she did. I won't grieve for Blair either when he goes, I think that he was equally as bad as she was.

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