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Ten reasons why Thatcher was a disaster

 

1. The first few years 1979-82 A disaster by any yardstick, the Thatcher Government’s catastrophic monetarist economic policy saw unemployment and inflation shooting up simultaneously and Thatcher becoming the least popular PM on record. That’s 20% of Britain’s industrial base destroyed forever . It’s never coming back.
2. The Falklands War: Thatcher milked the 1982 victory here shamelessly to secure re-election the following year. But even John Campbell’s sympathetic biography recognises that the war was preventable, largely a result of her government’s errors and unnecessary. And, yes, the General Belgrano was sailing away when it was sunk.
3. Unemployment: “Labour isn’t working” read the famous 1979 election poster showing a queue of “ unemployed” (actually Young Conservatives). But unemployment was only around a million then. Under Thatcher it soon rocketed towards the four million mark.
4. The Sun’s “Gotcha!” headline. Yuppies. “No such thing as society”. She hardly brought out the best in our national character did she?
5. Europe: Well, at least she always stood her ground on this one. Well, no. Actually she was all over the place. The Single European Act actually pulled us further into Europe than Maastricht. She was also very pro-Yes to the EU on first becoming Tory leader in the 1975 referendum. But most of the time, her xenophobia and stubbornness set us back. They also helped tear the Tory Party apart after she’d gone.
6. Two recessions, one unsustainable boom. Hardly a glorious economic legacy.
7. Homelessness, tuberculosis. Both came back. Thank you Maggie.
8. The Poll Tax. Enough said.
9. The crazy years. 1987-1990. Became obtrusive, stubborn and began referring to herself in the royal “we”.
10. Britain suffered under Thatcher but in the long run it was worth it then? Actually, no. True, the unions had grown too strong but the Miner’s Strike was bloody, divisive and ultimately wrecked many communities. By most important measures too, Britain got much worse (mostly due to underfunding of public services). The NHS got worse. Schools got worse. Universities got worse. Transport got worse. Crime rates rocketed. Homelessness returned.
It’s hard not to feel Thatcher herself will be long gone before we fully recover from the effects of her leadership.

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Well the majority of the people in this country were better of at the end of Maggie's term in number 10 than at the end of Bliar and Brown's disasterous 13 years which has landed us in the mire we now find ourselves in. You really do have a blinkered view of the world. Lt kije.

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Unfortunately we are seeing some of the result of Maggie's over zealous selling of the country's utilities in the soaring prices of gas, electric & water which is strangling the public's spending power & in turn strangling the economy. If i remember correctly one of  Thatcher's  governments was the first to come up with the idea of putting the unemployed on the sick to improve the jobless figures .

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I for one couldn't wait to see the back of her, she was obstinate to the point of being arrogant and totally oblivious to the needs of the working class of this nation, the one thing that I will give her credit for is that she sorted the Argies out over the Falkland War, yes it was at the cost of over 250 British military personnel, and that was unfortunate, but as we know war does involve fatalities. Thatcher can't be blamed totally for everything retrograde that took place during her term of office, this country was in industrial decline prior to her leadership and the British worker and their unions must shoulder a major part of theat responsibilty along with the capitalists that were pocketing large profits without injecting investment in the improvement of their businesses thus allowing other countries to overtake us and capture what had been our share of the world market, large engineering companies were rapidly setting up factories abroad taking advantage of cheaper materials and labour and closing UK factories down. To me Margaret Thatcher has a lot to answer for as did major shareholders of large industrial companies along with the unions of this nation and everyone must share responsibility for the sorry state we are in today.

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Wolfie I could go through your hate list but to be honest I couldn't be arsed and you wouldn't take any notice anyway.

I didn't think you would and you probably wouldn't believe them anyway. :wink:

But if your defence of her is to continually compare her with Blair and Brown then it proves how weak your argument is, because I agree with you that both of them were a disaster also.

The only good thing Blair achieved was to get Labour in power and that's were it ended, because it then resulted in a government that was more Conservative than the Conservatives. A leader that tried to emulate Thatcher in everything he did and who also ended up ruining the country.

BTW it's not my hate list.. 

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