[SKUNKY]

Originally Posted by Cardinal

Now now MoMo, no one thinks you're a prima donna....

I think MoMo's a prima donna,........but I like all Donnas....

[Captain Eddie]

Originally Posted by SKUNKY

I think MoMo's a prima donna,........but I like all Donnas....

Skunky, I sure hope and pray that Mrs. Skunky's first name is Donna, "cause if it ain't.... (perhaps even if it IS)

[SKUNKY]

Actually her name is Salma..

[FormerViperDriver]

Originally Posted by MoMo

Thatcher is despised by a whole generation of people who found that they had no chance of a future when she destroyed 90% of our heavy engineering industry and stuck it to the coal-miners.

Quite the contrary, she is the one who gave the UK hope for the future after decades of Labour wrongdoing, and finally had the guts to "stick it" to these coal miners (I was stationed in the UK at the time, and got really tired of their moronic comments on the TV news every evening, not to mention their criminal behavior on the picket lines). Heavy engineering and digging up for coal aren't all they're cracked up to be in the age of information and global warming (I would have thought of all people you would have figure that one out, MoMo...).

But anyway, I could see how you wouldn't like her self-assurance and prima-donna behaviour (at times), but that's a different story.

FVD

[MoMo]

Quite the contrary, she is the one who gave the UK hope for the future after decades of Labour wrongdoing, and finally had the guts to "stick it" to these coal miners (I was stationed in the UK at the time, and got really tired of their moronic comments on the TV news every evening, not to mention their criminal behavior on the picket lines). Heavy engineering and digging up for coal aren't all they're cracked up to be in the age of information and global warming (I would have thought of all people you would have figure that one out, MoMo...).

But anyway, I could see how you wouldn't like her self-assurance and prima-donna behaviour (at times), but that's a different story.

Well, where do I start?

What sickened me about Thatcher was that all that she perpetrated was on the behalf of a very narrow group of advisors/informants/political bullies/spineless Tory Grandees/self-seeking neo-capitalist asset-strippers and generally smug middle-class moralists who wished to kick down the working classes and return to " Victorian Values", paving the way for a Conservative resurgence founded on Thatcher's own petite bourgois code.

It still sickens me.

That woman destroyed the economic base of the culture which was formed from 200 years of mostly peacefull opposition to the gross exploitation of the skilled and unskilled peoples who literally built this land.

Of course you are correct in your assumption that coal was on the way out. However, we still import vast quantities of coal from Poland which is cheaper, to be sure, but socially unacceptable in that its importation destroyed hundreds of mining communities up and down the land. This has dislocated the social fabric of this country and we are living with the fallout from this. We have shifted from a society with a sense of its own being to a country with no sense of its own being.

It is true that while while Thatcher had to deal with the same problems that Edward Heath had to deal with, she found that she had no time, or inclination, to deal with opposition to the dismemberment of the industrial base. You may think that it was clever of her to provoke the miners into a stand-off with the government, while forgetting that the miners had been brutalised by successive owners and governments from the 1930s onwards.

When the miners chose to strike, they were ill-advised as to the timing. However, they had no choice because it was 'put up or shut up' time!

From each side of the penny we see a diferent view. Thatcher's 'self-assurance', I see as gross stupidity, short-sightedness and arrogance. Her role as 'prima-donna' she assumed from the lack of ideas, courage, sensibility and political direction which was lacking in her own party and in the opposition. When an actress spies a hole in the drama, she naturally seeks to build up her own part in the belief that somehow, by doing so, she will bring off a triumph.

She did it with the miners by luring them into an unwinable strike and she did the same to the Argentinians by suckering them into open conflict over The Falklands.

All these things could, and should, have been settled by negotiation. She pushed the button on The Belgrano and made sure that she got her little war and came out the hero....even though it has been proved that she acted illegally in doing so.

This, together with imposing a Pole-Tax which everyone in the counrty thought was a stupid and ill-considered thing to do, eventually sunk her. The Belgrano haunted her, the ghosts of the destroyed communities and the opposition to her tax 'em till they bleed policy stink up her memory.

At the end, her own party stuck the knife in her. They had to. The country was comparing her to a mad dog. Instead of treating her like " Old Yeller", they let her dangle, like Promethius chained to his rock, on the edge of politics; the House of Lords.

But don't cry for her, Argentina, she makes millions from her pals in the bosom of capitalism, all congratulating one another on a job well done.

[FormerViperDriver]

Well, MoMo, I guess you guys in the Isles must have been real idiots for re-electing her (her party, anyway, and therefore her indirectly) many times which vast majorities. Go figure!

FVD

[FormerViperDriver]

Oh, and I forgot: the way you write, seems like Lenin, Stalin, Mao (if they were still alive), or Castro would make great UK Prime Ministers.

To each his own, I guess...

FVD

[jim]

One of her major mistakes was to tell people to stand on their own two feet and not expect the government to do everything for them.

But help was at hand, Good old Tony came and after 10 years we are now a nanny state were nobody thinks for themselves and the state tells every one what to do and how to think.

BTW I want an elected government in charge no matter how bad, not a trade union, and so did most of the people of Britain,thats why the miners lost.

Come on MO admit it ,the unions were just busting to have a go at Thatcher the minute she was elected.
Quote by Scargill, we saw of the last Tory government and we will see off this lot. We want a government of the unions.We want a revolution.

That was the year I threw away my union card.

Mo you are a nice guy and I enjoy your posts and I am sure if we met we could have some great discussions, however Politics is like religion, its almost impossible to change the other guys beliefs and I am sure I couldnt change yours nor you mine.

Therefore I shall not post again on this topic.

[Captain Eddie]

Originally Posted by jim

Mo you are a nice guy and I enjoy your posts and I am sure if we met we could have some great discussions, however Politics is like religion, its almost impossible to change the other guys beliefs and I am sure I couldnt change yours nor you mine.

Therefore I shall not post again on this topic.

Very wise words, Jim, VERY wise words!!

[Aircrafty]

I find myself agreeing with some things both Jim and MoMo said. When industry has the upper hand then workers suffer, but when workers have the upper hand then industry downsizes and moves offshore. The fact is that the ideal economic situation is when there is a balance. For example when the government encourages growth in the private sector with some conversion of state to privately owned industry together with providing secure employment through strong but fair Industrial Relation laws. I don't know much about overseas economies but I feel that this balance has been achieved in Australia.