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[Bono]

[afleitch]

Couldn't agree more

[Michael Z]

Unfortunately/thankfully (depending on your point of view) the French do not share the British tendency to let themselves be walked all over, and would consequently not tolerate, say, the sort of escalating house prices, rising wealth gap, or the complete dismantling of the manufacturing industry that Thatcherism brought forward in this country. No, what France needs is an entirely different brand of Iron Lady:

[Colin]

No, what France needs is an entirely different brand of Iron Lady:

That will bring the exact same policies as her predecessors, have no unique ideas except to protect the status quo, not have the will or really the want to reform France in anyway towards a more sustainable economic system. I can't agree with the Economist more, which is true of most of what the Economist says, France needs a Margaret Thatcher, or heck I'll even take one of these third way dipsh**ts, either is better than protectionist Gaullists or anachronistic Socialists.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

France needs to deport its arabs and get a thatcher clone.

[Platypus]

Well, France is in a bit of a hole, but there are many ways to get out of holes beyond Thatcherism.

[Michael Z]

No, what France needs is an entirely different brand of Iron Lady:

That will bring the exact same policies as her predecessors, have no unique ideas except to protect the status quo, not have the will or really the want to reform France in anyway towards a more sustainable economic system.

But who's to say it isn't sustainable? I actually find Thatcherite fiscal policies to be seriously short-sighted (partly because "economic growth" in this country is devised by gross added value, meaning that Britain's economy is only "doing well" because people are borrowing lots and lots of money, ie. spending money that doesn't actually exist on expensive cars, high mortgages, et al - a perfect recipe for recession). I won't even go into how Thatcher's housing policy has caused property prices to rise almost continuously for the past 20 years, meaning that buying property is beyond reach for almost everyone, including yours truly (I earn more than double the minimum wage and couldn't even buy a studio flat in this city). We effectively live in a bubble economy, and once the bubble bursts, this country is going to have some serious problems.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

We effectively live in a bubble economy, and once the bubble bursts, this country is going to have some serious problems.

I think that might be true of London (and in economic terms that's including the entire Southeast), but elsewhere the economic situation is a lot more stable (which o/c is certainly not thanks to Thatcher).

[Michael Z]

We effectively live in a bubble economy, and once the bubble bursts, this country is going to have some serious problems.

I think that might be true of London (and in economic terms that's including the entire Southeast), but elsewhere the economic situation is a lot more stable (which o/c is certainly not thanks to Thatcher).

Yes, but we all know the rest of England doesn't matter.

Seriously though, the British economy is so centralised around London, in fact the entire SE, that once this region has problems it will affect the rest of the country.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, but we all know the rest of England doesn't matter.

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Affect yes, seriously no... the British economy is over-centralised, and has been since the early 20th century, but not really in a way that makes everywhere else dependent on London; if that was the case the rest of the U.K would have enjoyed the same economic boom of the late '80's/early '90's that London did. And we certainly didn't. The main thing that'd get hit by any problems in London would be retail and so on, and even then probably not very hard unless the media decided to panic everyone. Which it probably would.
Most of the remaining manufacturing industries are owned (or will soon be owned) by oversea's companies (and bearing in mind the sheer incompetence of British industrialists and managers over the past century, this is probably a good thing) or is very locally orientated, while the warehousing & etc sector is largely dependent on the economies of other countries as well.
The real worry for everywhere else in the U.K should be what happens as far as the wider European and World economies go.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Leaving London-bashing () to one side...

Well the Economist would say that, wouldn't they?

O/c the idea that Thatcher and Thatcherism saved the British economy from meltdown, etc, etc, is basically a myth... partly because the British economy was never in as much trouble as was thought at the time, partly because the overall situation stablized a lot under the Callaghan government (something that most newer work about the period tends to emphasise)... but most of all, because the main result of Thatcherism was to create a services (especially financial services) led boom in the South East, while following policies that resulted in the collapse of the economy in older industrial (and many remote rural) areas (this collapse was actually almost total in a few towns; at one stage it looked like we might have seen quite a few ghost towns in the coalfields), while, generally, neglecting the rotting inner cities. The richest region got richer, the poorer regions got poorer. A sort of shadow of what happend in Britain in the '30's actually (and that was, and is, why Thatcher is and was hated so strongly in so many places. If there are fireworks over Barnsley or the Rhondda when she dies, don't be suprised. Seriously).

O/c another myth is the idea that the problems facing the French economy now are anything like those facing the British economy in the '70's.

Little tip: if you want to reduce unemployment, Thatcherism is "probably" not the right road to go down.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But then again, I would say that, wouldn't I?