Margaret Thatcher dies at 87

[afleitch]

I will be moderating this thread HEAVILY. Be warned.

[afleitch]

Al's title and Stepney's outrage have been amended with no infractions or reporting of posts. But everyone should be on high alert from his point on

[afleitch]

Margaret Thatcher was not a monster. Monsters are made and created by people to create a crude caricature of their own fears, angers and vices and that was true of Margaret Thatcher. You can disagree with her and you can disagree with the direction in which she took this country but for many she was a person on to which they could direct their own anger. People had a very tough time in the 1980’s because of what her government did, people suffered, people lost and had to pick themselves up my own family included, but many people had a tough existence because they didn’t strive to better themselves when opportunities arose. I came from a family and a town of miners and steelworkers. But come the end of the 20th Century the mining stopped and the steel working stopped and for some their whole world ended. I fully understand it. It must have felt the same for my family and my town at end of the 19th Century when the cotton mills stopped because that was all they knew or for my family at the end of the 18th Century when they were thrown out of their farmland. But you pick yourselves up and you move on and adjust to the new economy because it will always change; that is the capitalist system. And workers have always responded to those demands; they’ve been smart enough to do that. My family did that and had that same spirit, yet some of my neighbours did not. You cannot blame that one woman thirty years later if you still have not adjusted and re-skilled to meet the demands of the economy and missed the opportunities because you pine for a past that really wasn’t as idealistic and as community spirited as you feel it was. That is my address to those who are of a certain age but it’s not really appropriate on this board.

For those on this board who are not of that age, then you don’t really have the right to ‘claim’ her, either as a great woman or as a monster. It wasn’t your life or your existence.

[afleitch]

All I can add is thank f-ck I don't have to rent a telephone from the General Post Office anymore.

[afleitch]

There was an impromptu 'gathering' in George Square in Glasgow this evening. No arrests.

[afleitch]

So this just happened like 10 minutes from where I live. Seen it on twitter.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BHW8lAyCAAAXbqV.jpg:large

Oh Liverpool trying to get in on the act as they always do

[afleitch]

Do you not understand that Chavez was a thug who forced his policies through as any dictator would? Do you not get the basic fact that Thatcher lost her share of political battles, while Chavez always won because he was the Nixon of South America? Thatcher was a democratic leader, and like her or not, deserves some respect, as does Obama, Jack Layton, or any other democratic leader. You are the hypocrite.

OK, you're not a hypocrite. You just have no idea what you're talking about.

Did Thatcher shut down opposition news services? I did not think so.

No, just other opposition organisations.

Like?

[afleitch]

I'm afraid that those who 'killed' coal in Britain are still alive. Who used coal in 1984? Industry generally didn't, trains didn't, ships didn't and increasingly power stations, businesses and homes didn't need it. Why? Because Britain was plugged in to oil and gas ten years before. Coal production (translated into the power of the energy of a million tonnes of oil) halved from 1970 to 1984. Gas production went from almost nothing, trebling by 1984 and overtaking coal in the early 1990's. And what did the governments of the 1970's do? Get homes plugged into oil and gas. Britain had it's central heating boom partly funded by central and local government grants hooking up working class homes to central heating for the first time. And what fired this? Not coal. Even if the functional domestic coal had been given a respite, those wringing their hands over the strike today would have been down their necks by the end of the 1980's and the beginning of the green movement.

[afleitch]

How's your compassionate conservatism going btw? Last I heard people more or less on their deathbed were being forced out to non-existent work so you can cut their benefits?

Or is it okay, because you now accept that the right don't hold any compassion?

Mindless socialist rhetoric versus the front cover of a profound left wing paper.

I'll take the paper as better evidence.

Funnily enough plenty of evidence for it though: http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2012/04/32-die-a-week-after-failing-in.html ?

Is there? I mean you do understand how mortality rates work? People on benefits relating to ill health can die, surprise surprise because of ill health.

http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/adhoc_analysis/2012/incap_decd_recips_0712.pdf

Here is an official paper from the Department of Work and Pensions responding to the Freedom of Information Request. The article refers to an FOI request made last February so it will only have figures to 2010/2011. It outlines the percentage of those who have 'rolled off' incapacity benefits due to death. In 2008/9 (Labour) it was 6%. In 2009/10 (Labour) it was 6%. In 2010/11 (Coalition) it was 6%.

So...er...no.

[afleitch]

Tributes now in the Commons.

[afleitch]

My indifference towards Thatcher has now moved towards mild respect in part due to reactions like those above.