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[albitz]

I have stated a few times on the forum that I think she was over rated and wasnt the great leader that most people on the right remember her to be.I read this article by Peter Hitchens today with interest,discuss ?

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/debate/article-1214659/PETER-HITCHENS-Defeated-The-unions-running-Britain.html

[Dishevelled Den]

While Hitchens is a bit of a renegade and no lover of the Tory party as presently constituted I always enjoy his analysis.

To confine one's opinion on M T to this issue would be to do a disservice to a Premier who stirred the stodgy pot of British politics at a time when the country was left on its arse from yet another period of Liebour misrule.

Brussels was and always will be the bane of this nation and that sinister place has gained more control than is healthy over the fortunes of this nation.  The sad thing is that her government didn't poke sufficient fingers into the glaring optics of that malevolent place once and for all at the time.

I remember her with fondness and it's a pity that she was surrounded by quite a few gutless bastards who had no stomach for a fight.  She did go too far toward she end and when you make that number of enemies there's only one way to go.

Hitchins has his view, I have mine and it won't by swayed by his latest piece.

[albitz]

I agree with some of what you say (as always Z) but I will always maintain that her sledgehammer which cracked the union nut so to speak,destroyed British Industry and left us a nation of waiters and chambermaids.If the whole coal industry hadnt been sacrificed on her altar in  order to beat the lunatic Scargill,we wouldnt be paying ludicrous prices for imported coal for the new generation of coal powered power stations and held to ransome by all and sundry for our future energy needs.
I dont always agree with Hitchens but I greatly admire his independence of thought.Not an easy cross to bear in the U.K these days.

[Dishevelled Den]

That is one regret that I also have A, had those industries been properly nurtured and sensibly re-structured  then perhaps we wouldn't be so dependent on ethereal services like banking and the financial markets to provide the lions share of the national wealth.

I do wish the word had come down regarding Scargill and certain others; they would have been washed up in no time at all as they were, in effect, dead men walking.

[albitz]

I think he was given a lot more attention then he deserved tbh,he was a fruitcake and could have been dealt with in a way which didnt dominate the political landscape for a decade.Even his own wife saw through him eventually,I believe he now lives with a gullible lefty disciple and preaches to very small numbers of the converted to old style, head in the sand Marxists.
If this could have been foreseen the British industrial landscape could look so much different today,but I think she had a simplistic view of things - smash the unions and the future looks bright.
She was somewhat intellectually challanged imo.

[Nickbat]

I agree with some of what you say (as always Z) but I will always maintain that her sledgehammer which cracked the union nut so to speak,destroyed British Industry and left us a nation of waiters and chambermaids.If the whole coal industry hadnt been sacrificed on her altar in  order to beat the lunatic Scargill,we wouldnt be paying ludicrous prices for imported coal for the new generation of coal powered power stations and held to ransome by all and sundry for our future energy needs.
I dont always agree with Hitchens but I greatly admire his independence of thought.Not an easy cross to bear in the U.K these days.

You have to remember that it was only a short time after the miners strikes that new cheap coal supplies from the emerging European markets started to flood the UK. Polish coal, for example, was so cheap (even after transport) that our own output would never have been competitive. Additionally, it may be worth considering how many miners' lives have actually been saved, for the continuing production would no doubt have led to more deaths through underground accidents, emphysemia, and so on (and remember Aberfan?). OK, she didn't take on Scargill and the NUM for those reasons, but it is nevertheless a welcome legacy.

It was clear that the NUM and the unions in general were getting too big for their boots (remember Callaghan's tea meetings with the Union big bosses?).

The Unions were not, and never have been, democratic. They were rightly spawned when workers really were being exploited, but they couldn't adapt to the times and became a political menace. So, Mrs T took them on.

Oh, and you only need to look at the protests over Kingsnorth to realise that, even of we had all the cheap coal in the world, there would still be those that would try to stop us using it.

The future is nuclear. France knows it, Sweden knows it....we don't.   

[Dishevelled Den]

I agree with some of what you say (as always Z) but I will always maintain that her sledgehammer which cracked the union nut so to speak,destroyed British Industry and left us a nation of waiters and chambermaids.If the whole coal industry hadnt been sacrificed on her altar in  order to beat the lunatic Scargill,we wouldnt be paying ludicrous prices for imported coal for the new generation of coal powered power stations and held to ransome by all and sundry for our future energy needs.
I dont always agree with Hitchens but I greatly admire his independence of thought.Not an easy cross to bear in the U.K these days.

You have to remember that it was only a short time after the miners strikes that new cheap coal supplies from the emerging European markets started to flood the UK. Polish coal, for example, was so cheap (even after transport) that our own output would never have been competitive. Additionally, it may be worth considering how many miners' lives have actually been saved, for the continuing production would no doubt have led to more deaths through underground accidents, emphysemia, and so on (and remember Aberfan?). OK, she didn't take on Scargill and the NUM for those reasons, but it is nevertheless a welcome legacy.

It was clear that the NUM and the unions in general were getting too big for their boots (remember Callaghan's tea meetings with the Union big bosses?).

The Unions were not, and never have been, democratic. They were rightly spawned when workers really were being exploited, but they couldn't adapt to the times and became a political menace. So, Mrs T took them on.

Oh, and you only need to look at the protests over Kingsnorth to realise that, even of we had all the cheap coal in the world, there would still be those that would try to stop us using it.

The future is nuclear. France knows it, Sweden knows it....we don't.   

Nick, at the moment Downing Street hardly knows what day of the fiiggin' week it is.

Damn then for the bunch of gutless incompetents that they are!

[Dishevelled Den]

I think he was given a lot more attention then he deserved tbh,he was a fruitcake and could have been dealt with in a way which didnt dominate the political landscape for a decade.Even his own wife saw through him eventually,I believe he now lives with a gullible lefty disciple and preaches to very small numbers of the converted to old style, head in the sand Marxists.
If this could have been foreseen the British industrial landscape could look so much different today,but I think she had a simplistic view of things - smash the unions and the future looks bright.She was somewhat intellectually challanged imo.

....at that time misbehaviour by some elements within the trades union had caused great concern for the then future economic survival of many core industries and this problem needed to be addressed - she got the ball rolling in a blunt way perhaps but off it went.

[albitz]

I do agree with most of what both of you say,but I think it may be better to have some sort of home grown supply rather than having to completely rely on foriegn imports for the coal that we are going to use.Its isnt just about the coal of course,once that job was done the other heavy industries soon followed,so all the things we used to do best we didnt do at all,hence we now inport almost everything we buy.We couldnt buy British if we wanted to.We dont really make anything.In short,the job had to be done but I believe she threw the baby out with the bath water,and for what its worth,believe it or not so does Norman Tebbit.

[Dishevelled Den]

I do agree with most of what both of you say,but I think it may be better to have some sort of home grown supply rather than having to completely rely on foriegn imports for the coal that we are going to use.Its isnt just about the coal of course,once that job was done the other heavy industries soon followed,so all the things we used to do best we didnt do at all,hence we now inport almost everything we buy.We couldnt buy British if we wanted to.We dont really make anything.In short,the job had to be done but I believe she threw the baby out with the bath water,and for what its worth,believe it or not so does Norman Tebbit.

...I think that's a fair enough comment A, had wiser counsel been provided in a suitable format, the situation might well have been very different.

[albitz]

The political graveyards are full of people who thought they could provide her with wise council Z.
Listening was never one of her strong points.

[Turk]

We could certainly do with a Maggie now.

[Dishevelled Den]

The political graveyards are full of people who thought they could provide her with wise council Z.
Listening was never one of her strong points.

Her weak spot was good looking charismatic men I reckon she could have been turned by the right one.

[Dishevelled Den]

We could certainly do with a Maggie now.

You're not wrong there T, we badly need someone with balls before this entire country becomes a graveyard!

[Vamps]

We could certainly do with a Maggie now.

Why? there are no mines left to close down.... mind you, 25 years later things are a lot cleaner up here, but communities have collapsed..... :-/