Kindly Join Me In Wishing Baroness Thatcher Continued Good Health...

[Annasfield]

Don't you mean tick tock?

[gallinello]

Apologies for the length of this, but lest we forget all HER 'achievements':

Margaret Thatcher presided over the destruction of more industry in Britain than that destroyed by the Luftwaffe in the Second World War. She plotted to smash the National Union of Mineworkers and to dismantle the welfare state and all the reforms that had been fought for over decades by the working class. She slashed welfare payments, attacked the old and the sick and basically co-ordinated a one sided civil war against the British (and Irish) working class. There were many people in Britain whose lives were cut short by unemployment, by sickness and poverty as a result of the politics of Thatcherism, many families that fell apart, many children who went hungry. Yet, she was admired by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who wants her to have a state funeral, the sort of event normally reserved for royalty.

Thatcher represented a new brand of Toryism, ostensibly more middle class and "ordinary" than many of their predecessors. Thatcher and Norman Tebbit - the Chingford Skinhead - sought to appeal to the backward prejudices of the middle class and to layers of the most backward workers. Thatcher was heralded as possibly the first woman Prime Minister. She would understand therefore the needs of ordinary women and so on. Hardly a day went by without her appearing on telly armed with a shopping basket bemoaning the lot of the "little people." The fact is however that she was anything but ordinary. Married to oil millionaire Dennis Thatcher, she represented the most vicious and small minded layers of the bourgeoisie.

The ideas of class compromise and a formal commitment to the goal of full employment that were dominant in both big parties during the period of the Post War boom and were based on the theories of Keynes were abandoned. Thatcher embraced monetarism and neoliberalism. Her ideology was a ragbag of reactionary prejudices and crackpot economic theories, but they represented a coherent set of ideas and programme to attack the working class with.

It's no surprise that the dominant economic and political ideas that Thatcher and Reagan supported were those of the Chicago school of economics - ideas known as monetarism - that had been promoted by the likes of Milton Friedman and Hayek. These ideas had been tried before of course. They had been put into practice in Chile under the murderous military regime of General Pinochet. There the 'Chicago Boys' had advocated tight monetary controls ostensibly to reduce inflation - which means smashing up the public sector, mass privatisation and attacks on the poorest in society.

This was combined with a political programme to advocate self help, standing on your own two feet, and all the other alleged petty bourgeois virtues. Thatcher went as far as to say that there was no such thing as society. This was the green light for a massive onslaught on the working class, their communities and their organisations. This onslaught wasn't restricted to Britain either. It generated a programme of liberalisation and deregulation, that was ruthlessly applied by the IMF and the World Bank across the ex-colonial countries. Thatcher dressed up this reactionary programme as the logic of commonsense and thrift, armed only with a handbag (and a small onion for when she needed to shed a tear - according to Private Eye) she set off to put the world to rights.

Thatcher's programme of privatisation and so called "popular capitalism" was wrapped up with the idea of a "property owning democracy", where everyone owned their own council house and had shares in the gas board and the electricity board. They would travel to work on privatised buses, or privatised tubes and trains. Because everyone was thereby "standing on their own feet" they would forget about the evil ideas of socialism and accept the god of "market forces". The fact is though that the assault on the public sector had much more to do with providing productive fields of investment for the bosses. Compulsory competitive tendering and the internal market within the health service served to batter down wages and conditions across the public sector. In the ?service? sector the vast majority of costs are in wages. The logic of compulsory competitive tendering meant that private companies could undercut council services, by the very straightforward policy of cutting wage levels and staff numbers. Thus, once they had also built their percentage profit into the equation, resulting in a massive growth in the exploitation of some of the poorest sections of the working class. Of course Thatcher also opposed the minimum wage as it would ?harm industry?.

The recession between 1979 and 1981 had a huge impact on the working class. Unemployment shot through the roof as millions lost their jobs. What was the Tory answer? These, they said, were weak old fashioned industries that were uncompetitive and overstaffed. In other words they took the same attitude as their Victorian predecessors; they introduced ?laissez faire? capitalism. In other words Thatcher did absolutely nothing; the Tories just let the industries fold with calamitous results for working class communities up and down the country. What about the unemployed? Well, they were lazy, layabout shirkers, ?moaning minnies? and scroungers. The Tories slashed the number of tax inspectors and took on hundreds of people to police the benefit system. There were huge tax cuts for the rich while benefits were cut and people were encouraged to ?get on their bikes? and look for work.

Did the medicine work? Monetarism meant that unemployment went higher sooner in Britain than in any other major capitalist country. Neoliberal policies didn?t solve anything. They are now totally discredited and the policies introduced by Thatcher in the 1980s are seen as being a factor in the present crash.

One of the biggest factors in the victory of the Tories in the general election was the Falklands war. Out of the blue, or at least it appeared to be, the Argentinean army invaded the Falklands Islands or Malvinas a small bleak and utterly inhospitable group of islands with a tiny population massively outnumbered by sheep, penguins and elephant seals. The Argentinean Junta?s invasion unleashed a wave of jingoism on behalf of the press, which Thatcher used to present herself as a great war leader, casting herself as the successor to Winston Churchill, Joan of Arc and of course Britannia. The Tories sent a task force to the South Atlantic to retake the islands in what was essentially the most expensive election campaign in history. It?s clear that the Argentine military were surprised by the level of the response from the British.

But for Thatcher it was too good an opportunity to miss, an opportunity to play on all of the long faded traditions of the British Empire, Rule Britannia and so on by showing ?the Argies? who was boss.

Thatcher has always been portrayed as a strong leader. She was certainly dogmatic, stubborn and inflexible, but her longevity in power was achieved in part as a result of accident and in large measure as a result of the absolute incapacity of the Labour and trade union leaders to seriously challenge the Tories. Weakness and prevarication invite aggression and the Labour Leaders helped to create the conditions whereby the Tories were able to lay in to the working class for over a decade. Thatcher was no great thinker either. Her social base within the Tory Party was the nouveau riche, the petty bourgeois upstarts and the yuppies, the city slickers and the wide boys, the very same people who brought us the credit crunch. Large parts of the country were decimated, whole industries wiped out of existence. Dogmatic monetarism drove the Tories? politics and it was the working class that suffered.

Viva the grocer's daughter!

[Sue]

Pardon?

[Tony.London Suburbs]

gallinello: the more I'm reading of your views, the more I'm gaining the impression that you are not a fan...::o

[SteveT]

Thatcher has relied on the 30 year rule of confidentiality to cover up some of her more degenerate misdemeanors according to a televised interview with Sir Robin Day.

As she was sixty plus there was little chance of her being truly exposed during her lifetime, very convenient that 30 year rule.

Perhaps that rule should be reduced to 30 months.

[Huguenot]

I can see your perspective Gallinello, but it's a little bit self-obsessed to think that Thatcher's single dirving force was the wholesale slaughter of 'the working classes'

You predicate your argument on the grounds that Thatcher was from one tribe, fixed genocidally on another.

Picking up a few of your words:

"destruction, smash, slash, attack, civil war, hungry, skinhead, murderous, onslaught, ruthless, assault" all meted out on the working class by "the nouveau riche, the petty bourgeois upstarts and the yuppies, the city slickers and the wide boys"

(Ironic of course that the 'wide boy' was the working class made good. ;-))

This is an embarrassing misrepresentation of history designed to divide society and generate conflict.

You criticise Thatcher for 'no such thing as society', whilst recommending wholesale class retribution. Hypocrite is too small a word for it.

Whilst you make many points that have value, the merit is lost in the spittle, bluster and contradictions.

Whatever we may learn of the Thatcher years, it seems some people have learned nothing.

[LegalEagle-ish]

Jah Lush Wrote:

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> Ha! Tony light blue touch paper and stand well

> back.

>

> I hate Thatcher and all that she stands for and

> when she dies and hopefully it will be soon I will

> one of many thousands of people queuing up to

> dance on her grave.

Me too!!

[Tony.London Suburbs]

LegalEagle-ish Wrote:

Jah Lush Wrote: Ha! Tony light blue touch paper and stand well back. I hate Thatcher and all that she stands for and

when she dies and hopefully it will be soon I will one of many thousands of people queuing up to dance on her grave.

Me too!!

This really is not the type of riposte that is required.

This is supposed to be a celebration of Blessed Margeret's recovery.

Lets raise a glass and wish her many more years of health and happiness and doting on her beloved Son, Sir Mark..:)-D

[LegalEagle-ish]

I agree with Gallinello, she set out to destroy the working class powerbases and left the North of England (plus many other countries) in ruins. I hope she has a long and agonising death.

[Keef]

Simplistic way of looking at it. And typical Northern view that everyone down south was having a wail of a time.

[HonaloochieB]

I hope her arm gets better soon. And anyone wishing bad things on her, consider being attended to by that horse's arse Mark for the rest of your days.

The poor cow must pray for sweet oblivion every day.

[Huguenot]

There is of course an argument that what with the three day weeks and the power cuts of the 70s, that society was being held to ransom by a phalanx of extremist unelected tyrants controlling a mob without conscience.

Personally I don't much care what their 'class' was, as I'm not into tribalism.

However if the grievance of the 'working class' is that Thatcher stripped them of this power, then they're very much mistaken. Thatcher's mandate was taken from the election of '79 on a clear pledge to free the electorate of this tyranny.

Jah, you and the people had tired of the despotism of under educated violent thugs in the hinterlands. Thatcher was merely the individual to hand. Contemporary historians suggest she was neither dogmatic nor particularly lucid at first.

Whatever their 'class' I'm glad that the nation isn't be run by people for whom 'class war' is more important that freedom and opportunity.

Had the unions had their way, the UK would now resemble the polluted industrial wastelands and blighted lives of Eastern Europe.

[giggirl]

To bastardise a New York poet "she's going to reap just what she sewed". Soonish by the sound of it.

[Ted Max]

Paul of Tarsus, NY, presumably.

[TillieTrotter]

Again, well said Hugo. I wish I was eloquent enough to get these points across but I'm not. I've read lots about Thatcher and I hate it when people just trot out the cliches about her ruining the country single-handedly.

[????]

Tillie - agree - I can't even be that arsed to go on threads like this anymore as so many poeple just want straightforward answers, simple paint by number polotics and carry around their supposed 'thought out' views in an easy accessible wikpedia place in their brain to download whenever the'political' topic comes up...robots

[????]

Sorry, well said too Hugo

[Keef]

Personally I don't much care what their 'class' was, as I'm not into tribalism.

I like that line, feel exactly the same. "Class" is as abstract a concept these days, as "love".

[LegalEagle-ish]

Keef Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Personally I don't much care what their 'class'

> was, as I'm not into tribalism.

>

> I like that line, feel exactly the same. "Class"

> is as abstract a concept these days, as "love".

Unless you inhabit the bottom of the shitpile.

[Huguenot]

...and everyone loves you ;-)

[Keef]

What, and they are "working class"? I don't know if you saw it LegalEagle, but John Prescott did a thing about class on telly last year, and from what I read on here, I'd say that your view of it is much the same as his.

I am a fan of Prescott (and Christ he has taken some shite from some far sleezier people than himself), but his steadfast, and outdated concept of class made me want to smash my skull against a brick wall!

[LegalEagle-ish]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> ...and everyone loves you ;-)

Thanks love.

[david_carnell]

Keef Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I like that line, feel exactly the same. "Class"

> is as abstract a concept these days, as "love".

I'm sorry but I could not disagree more. Whilst the strict three-tier definition of the past may no longer be relevant in an ever-more-diverse society, to suggest that somehow the strata of society you are born into does not impact upon your lot in life is naive.

Never has this country suffered from such huge variations in wealth. We have nearly a million children still living in comparative poverty whilst those that rode on the back of a flawed financial sector reap unjust rewards in the millions of pounds.

Class is not abstract but a real, visible and definable concept in modern Britain. It may require an expanded vocabulary than previously, but it is more vicious than ever before.

And as for the OP - I won't be shedding any tears.

[Sherwick]

I don't think I'd agree that it is more vicious than EVER before...

[david_carnell]

Yes, perhaps with a "modern era" caveat.

I suspect "class" was probably pretty bad in feudal times! :(