Naseem Ayub (Luton Cllr) Bhavna Joshi (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich 2010 candidate, Stevenage local election candidate) Alex Mayer (National Policy Forum Rep, former Cambridge Labour agent, South Cambridgeshire local election candidate) Paul Bishop (stood in Suffolk South in 97) Sandy Martin (Suffolk Cllr) Chris Ostrowski (Norwich North by-election candidate)
Second spot will got a lady here. Ah, Alex Mayer stands for Alexandra.
I hope the media left and right leave the family to grieve in peace.I am pleased there is not a state funeral-there is still a lot of unfinished business,Orgreave for example-which could have led to protests. I feel no hate nor love for Margaret Thatcher,just numbness but she was a huge part of all our lives for COHSE and NUPE members in health and council services.SLADE weren't too keen on her. Arfur Daley said the reason he admired her most was how she managed to sell all this stuff that people already owned,water,phones etc.That's how I will remember Maggie.I must have chanted her name 1000s of time usually with out out out at the end RIP Mrs Maggie Thatcher.
Your position is that Margaret Thatcher putting people on incapacity benefit is the single most destructive policy in Britain this century.
Did I miss anything?
That is often cited, but I've never really seen any evidence (Either way) to prove or disprove it. Wikipedia cites 'Disabled people against the cuts' on this issue, which is probably about as worthwhile as citing a Daily Mail Front page to get an unbiased view of EHCR legislation.
Worth remembering this will be BBC News trickiest moment for a while.
Very little danger of them not managing to upset those who don't think they are anywhere near gushing enough and those who think the opposite. Something else the papers can have a pop at in the days to come.
Just reading the thread I think it's a great shame to see people using this tragic news for petty political point-scoring. I know we all have our own opinions about her legacy, but at times like this we should come together and think about what's truly important.
Namely, where's the betting angle? It would dishonour her memory if we failed to find a way to make a profit out of this.
Namely, where's the betting angle? It would dishonour her memory if we failed to find a way to make a profit out of this.
UKIP boost for the by-election? Tories chance of doing better at the locals?
Or more specific to the event?
Which MP will go most over the top in a tribute? Which MP will be the first to trigger outrage and calls for them to resign for gloating? Which paper will have the largest pullout spread on 'the Thatcher years'?
My grandfather and uncle were miners and I live in a pit village in South Wales. I also lived through the strikes and watched as the miners marched through the village, then saw the horror of families turned against families through scabbing and the gangsters who'd come to the village as part of the flying pickets. On top of that I was fed a daily diet in school of the evil of Thatcher's government.
When I left school, completely disinterested in politics, I took the time to read and understand about the strikes. I've even read Seamus Milne's Enemy of The People - I got as much balance as you could get.
And I completely admire Thatcher. I believe she was a great leader and a great politician and someone who it is difficult not to admire. The pit closures hurt my family personally but the honest question someone like me has to ask myself is would I prefer Thatcher, noble, principled and extremely moral, over a scion of the socialists such as Scargill, who had his bullies intimidate the families of miners who wanted to return to work. There can only be one honest answer to that, regardless of the visceral nature of the politics.
Her achievements - whether one agrees with her politics or not - are astonishing. Truly astonishing. Any intelligent person will be forced to recognise that. In comparison to many of the politicians of today she is a collosus. Intellectually she was peerless, her level of conviction in her beliefs was awesome, her confidence in difficult situations intimidating, and her command of detail and her phenonemal (I suggest to anyone to read about it) sustained clarity of thought on policy right across the breadth of government is just frightening.
Easy to hate yes, but impossible not to admire in terms of her strength of character and achievements.
"Who would you rather have in charge of the UK, right now, dealing with the f*cking enormous problems we face?
Dave Cameron, Nick Clegg or Ed Miliband? Or Margaret Thatcher?"
The rather depressing (but honest) answer to that question is probably Ed Miliband, if only by a process of elimination.
To answer your earlier point, if Mrs Thatcher was 45 now she probably wouldn't become leader in the first place, because she doesn't fit the mould as a modern telegenic politician. She was very much of her time, as were her Labour counterparts Foot and Kinnock.
Margaret Thatcher was the UK's greatest peacetime PM. She achieved many notable successes in her time in office and left the UK in better shape than she found it. Nonetheless her achievements didn't come without a price and it will probably take some time before a balanced appraisal of her premiership is ready.
To answer your earlier point, if Mrs Thatcher was 45 now she probably wouldn't become leader in the first place, because she doesn't fit the mould as a modern telegenic politician.
I think this seriously underestimates her. In terms of presentational politics she would wipe the floor with them.
If you watch some of the interviews on YouTube from her period in opposition you can see a different side of her. Like in sports the greats in any era tend to find a way to rise to the top.
My grandfather and uncle were miners and I live in a pit village in South Wales. I also lived through the strikes and watched as the miners marched through the village, then saw the horror of families turned against families through scabbing and the gangsters who'd come to the village as part of the flying pickets. On top of that I was fed a daily diet in school of the evil of Thatcher's government. .
It is easy to forget the people who wanted to get on with their lives and go to work, to provide for their families, but faced the prospect of being beaten up for doing so.
@Edmund Think South Shields is as it was. If this had happened closer to the GE there may have been a CON surge from it as the country realises there is a straight LAB/CON choice, but this far out I can't really see it benefitting anyone - maybe UKIP a touch ?
Two facts about Margaret Thatcher that are often forgotten (especially by her own party).
1 She was strongly pro-European. She played a prominent part in the campaign for a yes vote in the 1975 referendum and fought all three of her general election campaigns on a pro-EU platform (Labour were the anti-EU party at that time). Towards the end of her premiership she became more sceptical but it's very hard to imagine that she would have supported withdrawal.
2 She ensured that most public sector workers (as distinct from workers in nationalised industries) were treated very well. She gave police, the armed services, prison officers, doctors, teachers etc generous pay and conditions and took great care to keep them onside politically. She would never have dreamed of taking the position of today's Tories in implying that they are all feather bedded shirkers who should have their pay and pensions cut and their security of employment undermined. Strange as it may seem now groups such as teachers, university lecturers, doctors and public sector managers were strongly supportive of the Tories in Thatcher's day.
There are many strongly and honestly held views of Thatcher, ones that promote opposite emotions.
At the time of her passing it is good to remember the human qualities of the person, and not to obsess on her political views.
Her energy, the hours she devoted to what I suspect she saw as her calling, was legendary. This was allied to a total commitment to do what she saw as best for the country, which she placed ahead of the party.
Her breadth, as she launched herself into policy and detail covering issues all over the globe.
Her humanity, it is very rare to hear any criticism of Thatcher from the 'little people' in her life, the cleaners, drivers etc who were in her employ.
If I were her advisor, I would have talked her into resigning as PM a couple of years before she was defenestrated, but we are all great with hindsight. Few of us had her foresight or ability to implement it.
Strange as it may seem now groups such as teachers, university lecturers, doctors and public sector managers were strongly supportive of the Tories in Thatcher's day.
To answer your earlier point, if Mrs Thatcher was 45 now she probably wouldn't become leader in the first place, because she doesn't fit the mould as a modern telegenic politician.
I think this seriously underestimates her. In terms of presentational politics she would wipe the floor with them.
If you watch some of the interviews on YouTube from her period in opposition you can see a different side of her. Like in sports the greats in any era tend to find a way to rise to the top.
Quite so as an old style conviction politician our current crop would squirm to find a way to hide what they mean. A policy of having no policies wouldn't last long.
This is my favourite of the Thatcher quotes which the media have been printing (it's from her 1982 Conference speech):
‘How absurd it will seem in a few years’ time that the State ran Pickford’s removals and Gleneagles Hotel.’
Yes, the UK before her really was that absurd. It is almost impossible now to envisage the utter pre-Thatcher madness which people either took for granted, or recognised was bonkers but thought was impossible to change.
To answer your earlier point, if Mrs Thatcher was 45 now she probably wouldn't become leader in the first place, because she doesn't fit the mould as a modern telegenic politician.
I think this seriously underestimates her. In terms of presentational politics she would wipe the floor with them.
If you watch some of the interviews on YouTube from her period in opposition you can see a different side of her. Like in sports the greats in any era tend to find a way to rise to the top.
Mm, I wonder if she'd have survived her big shift in policy, or if she'd have been endlessly tarnished by changing her stances so much.
Bearing in mind the left's obsession with GDP growth being the root of all good things, I wandered over to the ONS. Here is what I found (everything's in real terms):
1970-1980: GDP rose 23% (average 2.1%/year) 1980-1990: GDP rose 36% (average 3.1%/year) 1990-2000: GDP rose 31% (average 2.8%/year) 2000-2010: GDP rose 19% (average 1.8%/year)
So, as it turns out, Mrs Thatcher did the country a great deal of good. Labour, not so much.
@RichardNabavi Indeed. Those were the days in which Her Majesty's Attorney General attempted to explain to the House of Commons the difference between lawful and unlawful intimidation in the furtherance of a trade dispute.
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Strange as it may seem now groups such as teachers, university lecturers, doctors and public sector managers were strongly supportive of the Tories in Thatcher's day.
Not quite how I remember it in the late 1980s.
I agree that by the late 80s this was less true but in the late 70s/early 80s the Tories were strongly supported across all professional groups. One of the first acts of the new government after the 1979 election was to give the police a very large pay increase.
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
Who talks about Attlee ? Nobody on the right and just a few devotees on the Left. Everybody across the political spectrum talks about Thatcher.
If you are trying to predict the impact of her death politically, what did Reagan's death do in the US? From memory I don't think it did much at all. The days when they were in charge are so distant now. My son is 23 and was born three days before Mrs T stepped down. I still remember that day very clearly and being in the hospital looking at him and thinking you will never know my son ....
You'd have to be my age and above to remember anything much at all of the 1970s; and probably 10 years older than me to have any political memories. And given that means you'd be close to or over 60 you'd be a Tory or a UKIPer anyway!
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
Who talks about Attlee ? Nobody on the right and just a few devotees on the Left. Everybody across the political spectrum talks about Thatcher.
More people can remember the 80s! As time drifts, the Tories will continue to venerate her - just as the Labour Party venerates Attlee - and for everyone else she'll become another historical figure. Probably only Churchill transcends that and that's because of his wartime leadership.
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
Who talks about Attlee ? Nobody on the right and just a few devotees on the Left. Everybody across the political spectrum talks about Thatcher.
He generally rates very well in historical rankings, and plenty of people do in reference to the NHS etc.
Obviously Thatcher was 30 years later so her recentness plays into it, but Sean was talking about in another few decades when she's in the more distant past.
Bearing in mind the left's obsession with GDP growth being the root of all good things, I wandered over to the ONS. Here is what I found (everything's in real terms):
1970-1980: GDP rose 23% (average 2.1%/year) 1980-1990: GDP rose 36% (average 3.1%/year) 1990-2000: GDP rose 31% (average 2.8%/year) 2000-2010: GDP rose 19% (average 1.8%/year)
So, as it turns out, Mrs Thatcher did the country a great deal of good. Labour, not so much.
You'd have to be my age and above to remember anything much at all of the 1970s; and probably 10 years older than me to have any political memories. And given that means you'd be close to or over 60 you'd be a Tory or a UKIPer anyway!
From this last para, it sounds like you are looking forward to your imminent conversion as age advances!
Bob, :Let that be a lesson to you of how a great politician behaves, much better than the poncy lot messing up the UK in London, Thatcher would have chased the lot of them, she would not have let them make the tea.
If you are trying to predict the impact of her death politically, what did Reagan's death do in the US? From memory I don't think it did much at all. The days when they were in charge are so distant now. My son is 23 and was born three days before Mrs T stepped down. I still remember that day very clearly and being in the hospital looking at him and thinking you will never know my son ....
You'd have to be my age and above to remember anything much at all of the 1970s; and probably 10 years older than me to have any political memories. And given that means you'd be close to or over 60 you'd be a Tory or a UKIPer anyway!
I had to smile at that SO, I was reading it and got to your last sentence, and being 57, cannot agree more :-)
'I had many meetings with her when I put Ulster's case before her and condemned some of her actions in relation to this province. Nevertheless, through good report and ill report, she listened to the views of the unionist people, and respected them. Today we salute her as a truly great leader and offer our sympathy to her son and daughter.'
A far sight from his sermon of 1985, in which he said:
'We pray this night that thou wouldst deal with the Prime Minister of our country. O God, in wrath take vengeance upon this wicked, treacherous, lying woman: take vengeance upon her, O Lord, and grant that we shall see a demonstration of thy power.'
The BBC RSS feed has had "changes to disability benefits begin" as the 'newest' story for a lot of the day, as the journos keep finding reasons to tinker with it. It's back again now. I wonder why they do that?
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
A ludicrous comparison, but if you must make it.....
Thatcher had a global impact. Attlee, to put it politely, did not?
Thatcher and Churchill will be the only British politicians remembered by foreigners from the 20th century. And, I fear, from the 21st.
Oh I don't know Sean, what about the lying warmonger?
Bearing in mind the left's obsession with GDP growth being the root of all good things, I wandered over to the ONS. Here is what I found (everything's in real terms):
1970-1980: GDP rose 23% (average 2.1%/year) 1980-1990: GDP rose 36% (average 3.1%/year) 1990-2000: GDP rose 31% (average 2.8%/year) 2000-2010: GDP rose 19% (average 1.8%/year)
So, as it turns out, Mrs Thatcher did the country a great deal of good. Labour, not so much.
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
A ludicrous comparison, but if you must make it.....
Thatcher had a global impact. Attlee, to put it politely, did not?
Thatcher and Churchill will be the only British politicians remembered by foreigners from the 20th century. And, I fear, from the 21st.
Attlee was quietly very important in the administration of WWII in Britain.
But I was talking much more about how they're remembered in Britain. Attlee's remembered in that pantheon, especially as being less controversial than he was.
That last one is tricky, depending on which part of the world you asked, and when you asked it. Go back to Disraeli, Gladstone, Lloyd George, how many remember them now? I don't think Thatcher's in that Lincoln, Churchill bracket tbh.
You'd have to be my age and above to remember anything much at all of the 1970s; and probably 10 years older than me to have any political memories. And given that means you'd be close to or over 60 you'd be a Tory or a UKIPer anyway!
From this last para, it sounds like you are looking forward to your imminent conversion as age advances!
If I make it I may be one of the small percent of over 60s who does not vote Tory or UKIP. I hope that by that time I'll have the chance to vote in PR-based elections for a new centre-left party whose genesis may be in a Labour/LD coalition after 2015.
Following Lady Thatcher’s death, people who want to look impressively ‘political’ are acting like they remember Thatcher as something other than a vague abstract concept of evil.
Guardian website regular Tom Booker said: “Thatcher is dead! This is the best day of my life. I was really against everything she stood for, whatever that was. Especially her ‘prole tax’. She actually invented the word prole, the old bitch.”
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
Who talks about Attlee ? Nobody on the right and just a few devotees on the Left. Everybody across the political spectrum talks about Thatcher.
More people can remember the 80s! As time drifts, the Tories will continue to venerate her - just as the Labour Party venerates Attlee - and for everyone else she'll become another historical figure. Probably only Churchill transcends that and that's because of his wartime leadership.
Yes of course it's fresher but Thatcher was a world figure in the way Attlee was not. If we want to look at C20 PMs who had the biggest impact on the UK I'd go:
1. Herbert Asquith - took the catastropic decison to enter WW1 and thereby screwed the nation for most of the rest of the centrury. Biggest impact for the wrong reasons. 2. Winston Churchill - crap at most things bar writing, but took the hard moral stance in the darkest of days when most wanted to cave in. 3. Margaret Thatcher - brought a sense of stability and self confidence back to the UK after half a century of decline but not without pain. 4. Attlee - welfare state, nationalisation and man from the ministry gave socialism a trial, but largely a failed experiment. Biggest achievement may have been to dismantle the Empire in India.
Bearing in mind the left's obsession with GDP growth being the root of all good things, I wandered over to the ONS. Here is what I found (everything's in real terms):
1970-1980: GDP rose 23% (average 2.1%/year) 1980-1990: GDP rose 36% (average 3.1%/year) 1990-2000: GDP rose 31% (average 2.8%/year) 2000-2010: GDP rose 19% (average 1.8%/year)
So, as it turns out, Mrs Thatcher did the country a great deal of good. Labour, not so much.
God bless Scotland's oil!
Which must have run out in about 2000, it seems.
We were certainly past peak production well before the end fo the decade and, of course, the last two to three years rather buggered things up, as they did in countries across the world - not just the UK. As the current government and its supporters like to remind us, the financial crisis was not just a British affair.
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
Who talks about Attlee ? Nobody on the right and just a few devotees on the Left. Everybody across the political spectrum talks about Thatcher.
He generally rates very well in historical rankings, and plenty of people do in reference to the NHS etc.
Obviously Thatcher was 30 years later so her recentness plays into it, but Sean was talking about in another few decades when she's in the more distant past.
The UK has spent the last 50 years saying what a great chap Attlee was while slowly dismantling his legacy because it didn't work The last bit the NHS will not stand the test of time either.
Bearing in mind the left's obsession with GDP growth being the root of all good things, I wandered over to the ONS. Here is what I found (everything's in real terms):
1970-1980: GDP rose 23% (average 2.1%/year) 1980-1990: GDP rose 36% (average 3.1%/year) 1990-2000: GDP rose 31% (average 2.8%/year) 2000-2010: GDP rose 19% (average 1.8%/year)
So, as it turns out, Mrs Thatcher did the country a great deal of good. Labour, not so much.
God bless Scotland's oil!
Which must have run out in about 2000, it seems.
We were certainly past peak production well before the end fo the decade and, of course, the last two to three years rather buggered things up, as they did in countries across the world - not just the UK. As the current government and its supporters like to remind us, the financial crisis was not just a British affair.
Excuses, excuses. The first two or three years of Thatchers premiership were strongly negative too, in economic terms, as she struggled with Wilson and Callaghan's legacy.
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
Who talks about Attlee ? Nobody on the right and just a few devotees on the Left. Everybody across the political spectrum talks about Thatcher.
More people can remember the 80s! As time drifts, the Tories will continue to venerate her - just as the Labour Party venerates Attlee - and for everyone else she'll become another historical figure. Probably only Churchill transcends that and that's because of his wartime leadership.
Yes of course it's fresher but Thatcher was a world figure in the way Attlee was not. If we want to look at C20 PMs who had the biggest impact on the UK I'd go:
1. Herbert Asquith - took the catastropic decison to enter WW1 and thereby screwed the nation for most of the rest of the centrury. Biggest impact for the wrong reasons. 2. Winston Churchill - crap at most things bar writing, but took the hard moral stance in the darkest of days when most wanted to cave in. 3. Margaret Thatcher - brought a sense of stability and self confidence back to the UK after half a century of decline but not without pain. 4. Attlee - welfare state, nationalisation and man from the ministry gave socialism a trial, but largely a failed experiment. Biggest achievement may have been to dismantle the Empire in India.
Attlee was a major world figure. As you say India was given independence and, on top of that, the British Empire was still huge as was our comparative military spend; and we were one of very few nuclear powers. In terms of raw power he probably had much more than Thatcher -remember he was in charge before Suez. But he operated in an age before TV and mass communication generally, so we have less accessible material on what he did. There are no televised speeches or interviews, for instance; big summits involving global leaders, the likes of which Thatcher regularly attended, were also few and far between. And there is no Commons footage or sound recordings to refer to. At home, as with Thatcher he divided opinion, but left a very long legacy - one we are still living with today because all who followed him felt unable to dismantle what his government had set up.
‘How absurd it will seem in a few years’ time that the State ran Pickford’s removals and Gleneagles Hotel.’
It seems absurd now to think that there was affordable housing in rural England before Margaret Thatcher
Er, tim, remind us how much house prices rose under Brown? the biggest bubble EVER thanks to loose money and an illusory "boom" based on credit and borrowed money, life on the never never. Of all the things I thought you might crticise Thatcher for, this is a particularly weak one
You'd have to be my age and above to remember anything much at all of the 1970s; and probably 10 years older than me to have any political memories. And given that means you'd be close to or over 60 you'd be a Tory or a UKIPer anyway!
From this last para, it sounds like you are looking forward to your imminent conversion as age advances!
If I make it I may be one of the small percent of over 60s who does not vote Tory or UKIP. I hope that by that time I'll have the chance to vote in PR-based elections for a new centre-left party whose genesis may be in a Labour/LD coalition after 2015.
I've been looking forwards to that for years SO. Ever since I joined the old Liberal Party in the mid sixties, having been a Labour voter from 1959 onwards.
It seems absurd now to think that there was affordable housing in rural England before Margaret Thatcher
A lot of derelict houses too. As you rightly point out, economic success has pushed up house prices everywhere, made much worse of course by Labour's importation of 4 million people in a short time, with no corresponding construction effort.
Namely, where's the betting angle? It would dishonour her memory if we failed to find a way to make a profit out of this.
What would the bookies be willing to take bets on, and what bets might be seen as bad PR for them to accept, or even illegal?
There's plenty of room for speculation about the details of the funeral, and afterwards - Which foreign leaders and dignitaries will attend? What hymns will they use? Where will she be buried? What will they put on the tombstone? - but I don't know if the bookies would want to accept bets on such matters. I'm pretty sure though, they wouldn't accept bets on people disrupting the funeral, or desecrating the grave.
Also, now that she's dead, Thatcher is eligible to appear on British stamps. In principle, people could bet on when that might happen, or on various other commemorative gestures occurring. HMS Thatcher, a battleship of the royal navy, doesn't seem likely any time soon, but the bookies might be able to tempt some people into making that bet.
A PB favourite - Mike can we have a thread on this please?
Paddy Power have this market up
Applies to the 'first past the post' system in us for Westminster parliamentary elections being amended to allow more proportional representation. Must be passed and effective before the first day of 2021.
all who followed him felt unable to dismantle what his government had set up.
Luckily, most of it was dismantled. The sheer extremism of the post-war Labour government never ceases to amaze me.
Of course, it's slightly unfair to blame Attlee. Mostly it was a bureaucratic extension of wartime planning, and I suspect a lot of it would have happened under a post-war Churchill government. Even so - nationalising road haulage, for God's sake?
The biggest mistake in retrospect was the nationalisation of hospitals. We're still suffering from that piece of ideology.
A PB favourite - Mike can we have a thread on this please?
Paddy Power have this market up
Applies to the 'first past the post' system in us for Westminster parliamentary elections being amended to allow more proportional representation. Must be passed and effective before the first day of 2021.
What has any of that got to do with removing rented housing from rural England?
tim, please show some respect.
On a day like today of all days!
Get a life , what is wrong with discussing matters of interest. Are we suppose to ignore all the bad bits and just spout sycophantic drivel like you do. Let me tell you it will not bother her one bit if Tim disapproves of her housing policy.
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
Who talks about Attlee ? Nobody on the right and just a few devotees on the Left. Everybody across the political spectrum talks about Thatcher.
More people can remember the 80s! As time drifts, the Tories will continue to venerate her - just as the Labour Party venerates Attlee - and for everyone else she'll become another historical figure. Probably only Churchill transcends that and that's because of his wartime leadership.
Yes of course it's fresher but Thatcher was a world figure in the way Attlee was not. If we want to look at C20 PMs who had the biggest impact on the UK I'd go:
1. Herbert Asquith - took the catastropic decison to enter WW1 and thereby screwed the nation for most of the rest of the centrury. Biggest impact for the wrong reasons. 2. Winston Churchill - crap at most things bar writing, but took the hard moral stance in the darkest of days when most wanted to cave in. 3. Margaret Thatcher - brought a sense of stability and self confidence back to the UK after half a century of decline but not without pain. 4. Attlee - welfare state, nationalisation and man from the ministry gave socialism a trial, but largely a failed experiment. Biggest achievement may have been to dismantle the Empire in India.
Attlee was a major world figure. As you say India was given independence and, on top of that, the British Empire was still huge as was our comparative military spend; and we were one of very few nuclear powers. In terms of raw power he probably had much more than Thatcher -remember he was in charge before Suez. But he operated in an age before TV and mass communication generally, so we have less accessible material on what he did. There are no televised speeches or interviews, for instance; big summits involving global leaders, the likes of which Thatcher regularly attended, were also few and far between. And there is no Commons footage or sound recordings to refer to. At home, as with Thatcher he divided opinion, but left a very long legacy - one we are still living with today because all who followed him felt unable to dismantle what his government had set up.
SO I'd say we are dismantling bit by bit most of Attlee's legacy. The nationalised industries have all returned to the private sector, the welfare state will shrink as we can't afford it, the NHS will go because it's a monolith structure in an individual-first society. For as much as Attlee had his foreign policy mark - Potsdam, India, I'd say Thatcher's made more of an impact - end of the cold war, Euroscepticism and that's without Iraq1 and the Falklands. Where Attlee scores is the sense of something new to follow the post war society and bury the old. For ordinary people it opened up new possibilties, but over time it simply became deference to a new bunch rather than actual personal freedom. Mrs T. was more liberating in her own way and alllowed ordinary people to get on, something we tend to forget in the propaganda mire.
A PB favourite - Mike can we have a thread on this please?
Paddy Power have this market up
Applies to the 'first past the post' system in us for Westminster parliamentary elections being amended to allow more proportional representation. Must be passed and effective before the first day of 2021.
Applies to the 'first past the post' system in us for Westminster parliamentary elections being amended to allow more proportional representation. Must be passed and effective before the first day of 2021.
Yes 7/1
No 1/20
1/20 on a bet you have to wait eight years to collect???
What has any of that got to do with removing rented housing from rural England?
tim, please show some respect.
On a day like today of all days!
Get a life , what is wrong with discussing matters of interest. Are we suppose to ignore all the bad bits and just spout sycophantic drivel like you do. Let me tell you it will not bother her one bit if Tim disapproves of her housing policy.
Down, boy, down.
Today is not the time to be making a case for Scottish internment.
A PB favourite - Mike can we have a thread on this please?
Paddy Power have this market up
Applies to the 'first past the post' system in us for Westminster parliamentary elections being amended to allow more proportional representation. Must be passed and effective before the first day of 2021.
I take it that doesn't include the Lords becoming elected?
They have not used FPTP in the past for Lords elections (given that there have been none), so how can it be amended to "allow for more proportional representation"?
You'd have to be my age and above to remember anything much at all of the 1970s; and probably 10 years older than me to have any political memories. And given that means you'd be close to or over 60 you'd be a Tory or a UKIPer anyway!
From this last para, it sounds like you are looking forward to your imminent conversion as age advances!
If I make it I may be one of the small percent of over 60s who does not vote Tory or UKIP. I hope that by that time I'll have the chance to vote in PR-based elections for a new centre-left party whose genesis may be in a Labour/LD coalition after 2015.
I've been looking forwards to that for years SO. Ever since I joined the old Liberal Party in the mid sixties, having been a Labour voter from 1959 onwards.
As with supporting Spurs, it's not the losing that kills you, it's the hope. I thought there was a chance of a regrouping in 2010 after the Tories won a big majority and :Labour had nowhere to look but outwards after a horrible hammering on the MP front and being overtaken by the LDs in votes. Turned out I got that a little bit wrong! Maybe 2015 will be different.
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
Who talks about Attlee ? Nobody on the right and just a few devotees on the Left. Everybody across the political spectrum talks about Thatcher.
He generally rates very well in historical rankings, and plenty of people do in reference to the NHS etc.
Obviously Thatcher was 30 years later so her recentness plays into it, but Sean was talking about in another few decades when she's in the more distant past.
Farcical to compare Attlee to Thatcher. Attleeism? Come on, get a grip. Lefties only quote Attlee coz they have no-one else. It should have been Blair but he f*cked it up with Iraq and the economy.
Thatcher will be the benchmark as best peacetime PM for decades. I hope I'm wrong, we need another great PM soon.
A measure of her stature is how she still dominates and cripples both main parties. Labour basically accepts her economic legacy, though they rail against it, and it tears them up psychologically. The Tories are paradoxically hampered by her greatness - every Conservative leader since is compared, and found wanting. And I suspect their assassination of her has poisoned the party within, in some strange psychodramatic way. They've never been quite the same since.
OK now I gotta go buy some sashimi. Sayonara.
Never heard of the post-war consensus? It's a fairly major thing in political history.
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
Who talks about Attlee ? Nobody on the right and just a few devotees on the Left. Everybody across the political spectrum talks about Thatcher.
More people can remember the 80s! As time drifts, the Tories will continue to venerate her - just as the Labour Party venerates Attlee - and for everyone else she'll become another historical figure. Probably only Churchill transcends that and that's because of his wartime leadership.
Yes of course it's fresher but Thatcher was a world figure in the way Attlee was not. If we want to look at C20 PMs who had the biggest impact on the UK I'd go:
1. Herbert Asquith - took the catastropic decison to enter WW1 and thereby screwed the nation for most of the rest of the centrury. Biggest impact for the wrong reasons. 2. Winston Churchill - crap at most things bar writing, but took the hard moral stance in the darkest of days when most wanted to cave in. 3. Margaret Thatcher - brought a sense of stability and self confidence back to the UK after half a century of decline but not without pain. 4. Attlee - welfare state, nationalisation and man from the ministry gave socialism a trial, but largely a failed experiment. Biggest achievement may have been to dismantle the Empire in India.
You miss out Lloyd George why? (Alongside overlooking the pre-war Liberal reforms under Asquith's premiership).
What has any of that got to do with removing rented housing from rural England?
tim, please show some respect.
On a day like today of all days!
Get a life , what is wrong with discussing matters of interest. Are we suppose to ignore all the bad bits and just spout sycophantic drivel like you do. Let me tell you it will not bother her one bit if Tim disapproves of her housing policy.
Down, boy, down.
Today is not the time to be making a case for Scottish internment.
Applies to the 'first past the post' system in us for Westminster parliamentary elections being amended to allow more proportional representation. Must be passed and effective before the first day of 2021.
Yes 7/1
No 1/20
1/20 on a bet you have to wait eight years to collect???
Paddy's 'aving a larf, methinks.
But Richard, we could be a mere two years away from a Lab/Lib Dem coalition, which could enact electoral reform by say 2016.
But Richard, we could be a mere two years away from a Lab/Lib Dem coalition, which could enact electoral reform by say 2016.
7/1 in a couple of years....
Yes, that side of the bet is OK. Might even be value, although any LibDems who trust Labour to deliver on that one would be exceptionally slow learners.
Thatcher was deposed by the Tory Party who understood that you can only go so far in terms of social reform. It is a coincidence that she died on the day when new rules are going to be applied to disabled people on benefits. Cameron would do well to learn a lesson from history.
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
Who talks about Attlee ? Nobody on the right and just a few devotees on the Left. Everybody across the political spectrum talks about Thatcher.
More people can remember the 80s! As time drifts, the Tories will continue to venerate her - just as the Labour Party venerates Attlee - and for everyone else she'll become another historical figure. Probably only Churchill transcends that and that's because of his wartime leadership.
Yes of course it's fresher but Thatcher was a world figure in the way Attlee was not. If we want to look at C20 PMs who had the biggest impact on the UK I'd go:
1. Herbert Asquith - took the catastropic decison to enter WW1 and thereby screwed the nation for most of the rest of the centrury. Biggest impact for the wrong reasons. 2. Winston Churchill - crap at most things bar writing, but took the hard moral stance in the darkest of days when most wanted to cave in. 3. Margaret Thatcher - brought a sense of stability and self confidence back to the UK after half a century of decline but not without pain. 4. Attlee - welfare state, nationalisation and man from the ministry gave socialism a trial, but largely a failed experiment. Biggest achievement may have been to dismantle the Empire in India.
You miss out Lloyd George why? (Alongside overlooking the pre-war Liberal reforms under Asquith's premiership).
A PB favourite - Mike can we have a thread on this please?
Paddy Power have this market up
Applies to the 'first past the post' system in us for Westminster parliamentary elections being amended to allow more proportional representation. Must be passed and effective before the first day of 2021.
I take it that doesn't include the Lords becoming elected?
They have not used FPTP in the past for Lords elections (given that there have been none), so how can it be amended to "allow for more proportional representation"?
I agree with the interpretation, just disappointed by it. Elections to the Lords is more probable.
Thatcher will ascend to the pantheon now, as the divisions are forgotten and people seek a reassuring benchmark of political greatness and unquestionable achievement. It is human nature.
In about 30-40 years we will discuss her the way we discuss Churchill today, and the way Americans discuss Lincoln.
Perhaps Attlee would be the comparison.
A ludicrous comparison, but if you must make it.....
Thatcher had a global impact. Attlee, to put it politely, did not?
Thatcher and Churchill will be the only British politicians remembered by foreigners from the 20th century. And, I fear, from the 21st.
Vulgarly modern history isn't my thing, as people know, but didn't the post-war consensus of Attlee lead to continual decline until it was smashed by Thatcher?
But Richard, we could be a mere two years away from a Lab/Lib Dem coalition, which could enact electoral reform by say 2016.
7/1 in a couple of years....
Yes, that side of the bet is OK. Might even be value, although any LibDems who trust Labour to deliver on that one would be exceptionally slow learners.
The way I see it being value is if Scotland votes for Independence, I suspect Labour and the Lib Dems will want a form of proportional voting system in place to stop England consistently voting Tory under FPTP.
You'd have to be my age and above to remember anything much at all of the 1970s; and probably 10 years older than me to have any political memories. And given that means you'd be close to or over 60 you'd be a Tory or a UKIPer anyway!
From this last para, it sounds like you are looking forward to your imminent conversion as age advances!
If I make it I may be one of the small percent of over 60s who does not vote Tory or UKIP. I hope that by that time I'll have the chance to vote in PR-based elections for a new centre-left party whose genesis may be in a Labour/LD coalition after 2015.
I've been looking forwards to that for years SO. Ever since I joined the old Liberal Party in the mid sixties, having been a Labour voter from 1959 onwards.
As with supporting Spurs, it's not the losing that kills you, it's the hope. I thought there was a chance of a regrouping in 2010 after the Tories won a big majority and :Labour had nowhere to look but outwards after a horrible hammering on the MP front and being overtaken by the LDs in votes. Turned out I got that a little bit wrong! Maybe 2015 will be different.
I'd rather expected it in 1997, but Labour's massive majority did for the prospect. It was on the cards in 1981, but Galteri, the fool, wrecked it. I must confess I'm not (yet) optimistic about the prospect for 2015. I think 2020's more likely.
The way I see it being value is if Scotland votes for Independence, I suspect Labour and the Lib Dems will want a form of proportional voting system in place to stop England consistently voting Tory under FPTP.
Certainly a plausible scenario given the premise - but wouldn't it be better to take the 4.33 from Coral on Salmond pulling it off in the referendum?
Mr. Eagles, the potential problem there would be if a Lab-Lib coalition has a UK majority, but not a UK-excluding-Scotland majority. Then they'd be gerrymandering the electoral system to suit their own ends. (That said, I'd be staggered if they put such a change through without a referendum).
Comments
ok let's debate.
Your position is that Margaret Thatcher putting people on incapacity benefit is the single most destructive policy in Britain this century.
Did I miss anything?
Richard Howitt MEP reselected
Shortlist for new candidates
Naseem Ayub (Luton Cllr)
Bhavna Joshi (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich 2010 candidate, Stevenage local election candidate)
Alex Mayer (National Policy Forum Rep, former Cambridge Labour agent, South Cambridgeshire local election candidate)
Paul Bishop (stood in Suffolk South in 97)
Sandy Martin (Suffolk Cllr)
Chris Ostrowski (Norwich North by-election candidate)
Second spot will got a lady here. Ah, Alex Mayer stands for Alexandra.
I feel no hate nor love for Margaret Thatcher,just numbness but she was a huge part of all our lives for COHSE and NUPE members in health and council services.SLADE weren't too keen on her.
Arfur Daley said the reason he admired her most was how she managed to sell all this stuff that people already owned,water,phones etc.That's how I will remember Maggie.I must have chanted her name 1000s of time usually with out out out at the end
RIP Mrs Maggie Thatcher.
Glennis Wilmott MEP reselected
New candidates
Nicki Brooks (Gedling Cllr)
Khalid Hadadi
Rory Palmer (Leicester Cllr)
Linda Woodings (Nottingham council candidate in 2011)
Top vacant spot will go to highest polling candidate here.
Very little danger of them not managing to upset those who don't think they are anywhere near gushing enough and those who think the opposite. Something else the papers can have a pop at in the days to come.
"Maggie was in office in the last century.."
I get the impression @flyingtrain thinks her evil transcends time but yes I take your point.
Correction: this *and last* century.
Namely, where's the betting angle? It would dishonour her memory if we failed to find a way to make a profit out of this.
Or more specific to the event?
Which MP will go most over the top in a tribute?
Which MP will be the first to trigger outrage and calls for them to resign for gloating?
Which paper will have the largest pullout spread on 'the Thatcher years'?
No praises without reason lavished on the dead, but equally no political point scoring nor venom.
Ed in his less strident and more reflective moments can come across as a decent and mature politician.
When I left school, completely disinterested in politics, I took the time to read and understand about the strikes. I've even read Seamus Milne's Enemy of The People - I got as much balance as you could get.
And I completely admire Thatcher. I believe she was a great leader and a great politician and someone who it is difficult not to admire. The pit closures hurt my family personally but the honest question someone like me has to ask myself is would I prefer Thatcher, noble, principled and extremely moral, over a scion of the socialists such as Scargill, who had his bullies intimidate the families of miners who wanted to return to work. There can only be one honest answer to that, regardless of the visceral nature of the politics.
Her achievements - whether one agrees with her politics or not - are astonishing. Truly astonishing. Any intelligent person will be forced to recognise that. In comparison to many of the politicians of today she is a collosus. Intellectually she was peerless, her level of conviction in her beliefs was awesome, her confidence in difficult situations intimidating, and her command of detail and her phenonemal (I suggest to anyone to read about it) sustained clarity of thought on policy right across the breadth of government is just frightening.
Easy to hate yes, but impossible not to admire in terms of her strength of character and achievements.
Dave Cameron, Nick Clegg or Ed Miliband? Or Margaret Thatcher?"
The rather depressing (but honest) answer to that question is probably Ed Miliband, if only by a process of elimination.
To answer your earlier point, if Mrs Thatcher was 45 now she probably wouldn't become leader in the first place, because she doesn't fit the mould as a modern telegenic politician. She was very much of her time, as were her Labour counterparts Foot and Kinnock.
If you watch some of the interviews on YouTube from her period in opposition you can see a different side of her. Like in sports the greats in any era tend to find a way to rise to the top.
1 She was strongly pro-European. She played a prominent part in the campaign for a yes vote in the 1975 referendum and fought all three of her general election campaigns on a pro-EU platform (Labour were the anti-EU party at that time). Towards the end of her premiership she became more sceptical but it's very hard to imagine that she would have supported withdrawal.
2 She ensured that most public sector workers (as distinct from workers in nationalised industries) were treated very well. She gave police, the armed services, prison officers, doctors, teachers etc generous pay and conditions and took great care to keep them onside politically. She would never have dreamed of taking the position of today's Tories in implying that they are all feather bedded shirkers who should have their pay and pensions cut and their security of employment undermined. Strange as it may seem now groups such as teachers, university lecturers, doctors and public sector managers were strongly supportive of the Tories in Thatcher's day.
At the time of her passing it is good to remember the human qualities of the person, and not to obsess on her political views.
Her energy, the hours she devoted to what I suspect she saw as her calling, was legendary. This was allied to a total commitment to do what she saw as best for the country, which she placed ahead of the party.
Her breadth, as she launched herself into policy and detail covering issues all over the globe.
Her humanity, it is very rare to hear any criticism of Thatcher from the 'little people' in her life, the cleaners, drivers etc who were in her employ.
If I were her advisor, I would have talked her into resigning as PM a couple of years before she was defenestrated, but we are all great with hindsight. Few of us had her foresight or ability to implement it.
Not quite how I remember it in the late 1980s.
‘How absurd it will seem in a few years’ time that the State ran Pickford’s removals and Gleneagles Hotel.’
Yes, the UK before her really was that absurd. It is almost impossible now to envisage the utter pre-Thatcher madness which people either took for granted, or recognised was bonkers but thought was impossible to change.
1970-1980: GDP rose 23% (average 2.1%/year)
1980-1990: GDP rose 36% (average 3.1%/year)
1990-2000: GDP rose 31% (average 2.8%/year)
2000-2010: GDP rose 19% (average 1.8%/year)
So, as it turns out, Mrs Thatcher did the country a great deal of good. Labour, not so much.
Indeed. Those were the days in which Her Majesty's Attorney General attempted to explain to the House of Commons the difference between lawful and unlawful intimidation in the furtherance of a trade dispute.
You'd have to be my age and above to remember anything much at all of the 1970s; and probably 10 years older than me to have any political memories. And given that means you'd be close to or over 60 you'd be a Tory or a UKIPer anyway!
You think the PM that has a lot in common with SeanT is the greatest PM.
It is a view I suppose.
Obviously Thatcher was 30 years later so her recentness plays into it, but Sean was talking about in another few decades when she's in the more distant past.
The BBC RSS feed has had "changes to disability benefits begin" as the 'newest' story for a lot of the day, as the journos keep finding reasons to tinker with it. It's back again now. I wonder why they do that?
But I was talking much more about how they're remembered in Britain. Attlee's remembered in that pantheon, especially as being less controversial than he was.
That last one is tricky, depending on which part of the world you asked, and when you asked it. Go back to Disraeli, Gladstone, Lloyd George, how many remember them now? I don't think Thatcher's in that Lincoln, Churchill bracket tbh.
"...Where's the betting angle? It would dishonour her memory if we failed to find a way to make a profit out of this. "
Absolutely, Edmund.
It's what she would have wanted.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/people-with-no-idea-who-thatcher-was-ecstatic-that-shes-dead-2013040865066
Following Lady Thatcher’s death, people who want to look impressively ‘political’ are acting like they remember Thatcher as something other than a vague abstract concept of evil.
Guardian website regular Tom Booker said: “Thatcher is dead! This is the best day of my life. I was really against everything she stood for, whatever that was. Especially her ‘prole tax’. She actually invented the word prole, the old bitch.”
1. Herbert Asquith - took the catastropic decison to enter WW1 and thereby screwed the nation for most of the rest of the centrury. Biggest impact for the wrong reasons.
2. Winston Churchill - crap at most things bar writing, but took the hard moral stance in the darkest of days when most wanted to cave in.
3. Margaret Thatcher - brought a sense of stability and self confidence back to the UK after half a century of decline but not without pain.
4. Attlee - welfare state, nationalisation and man from the ministry gave socialism a trial, but largely a failed experiment. Biggest achievement may have been to dismantle the Empire in India.
Never one for faux populism, our Margaret.
https://twitter.com/CounteractMag/status/321253299175182336/photo/1
What a knob, hasn't he heard about Pornhub?
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"Love her or loathe her, we are all Thatcher's children now."
R.I.P. Thatcher
There's plenty of room for speculation about the details of the funeral, and afterwards - Which foreign leaders and dignitaries will attend? What hymns will they use? Where will she be buried? What will they put on the tombstone? - but I don't know if the bookies would want to accept bets on such matters. I'm pretty sure though, they wouldn't accept bets on people disrupting the funeral, or desecrating the grave.
Also, now that she's dead, Thatcher is eligible to appear on British stamps. In principle, people could bet on when that might happen, or on various other commemorative gestures occurring. HMS Thatcher, a battleship of the royal navy, doesn't seem likely any time soon, but the bookies might be able to tempt some people into making that bet.
On a day like today of all days!
Paddy Power have this market up
Applies to the 'first past the post' system in us for Westminster parliamentary elections being amended to allow more proportional representation. Must be passed and effective before the first day of 2021.
Yes 7/1
No 1/20
http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politics/other-politics/uk-politics?ev_oc_grp_ids=1214257
Of course, it's slightly unfair to blame Attlee. Mostly it was a bureaucratic extension of wartime planning, and I suspect a lot of it would have happened under a post-war Churchill government. Even so - nationalising road haulage, for God's sake?
The biggest mistake in retrospect was the nationalisation of hospitals. We're still suffering from that piece of ideology.
Paddy's 'aving a larf, methinks.
Today is not the time to be making a case for Scottish internment.
Do boundary changes/electoral registration changes count?
;-)
7/1 in a couple of years....
Hmmm.
I must confess I'm not (yet) optimistic about the prospect for 2015. I think 2020's more likely.