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With the passing of Margaret Thatcher, many obituaries have been written (or at least dusted off and had the dates filled in) alongside as many pieces about her time in power and that word that hangs over every politician, legacy.
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When a female leader turns the women off as well as the men there is no way back. Gillard is suffering the same fate but Labour in Oz although helpless at 29% primary suport are unsure how to remove her. Even with 2nd preferences it is a 57-43 split with a loss of huge numbers of seats which is massive in Oz political standards.
And women now almost supporting the opposition as much as the men. So different to when she first came in, when we all hoped if not quite believed she might be an innovator.
Being stubborn and not prepared to listen to her cabinet let alone the country are not virtues in my eyes. And that will be Thatcher and Gillard's legacy.
When I was 17 I worked in the immediate clear-up of a very large fire, with minor explosions, trying to get ready to get some of that part of the plant working once again. I'll never forget some of the scenes. Fortunately no-one got injured or killed, which was bit of a miracle.
Thatcher was right in the early 80s to go against the post-war corporatist consensus on union reform but as Corporeal makes clear in his leader, she also picked her fights carefully. The reason why she's regarded as stubborn is that she rarely did back down *in public* or U-turn, but that's mainly because she worked out what was achievable in advance; it wasn't because her policies of the day necessarily represented what she wanted to ultimately achieve.
Likewise with the pace of change. By the end of her first parliament, virtually every state-owned and -run industry remained with the DTI. The big privatisations came after 1983. The top rate of tax at that election - and at the next one - was 60%. It didn't come down to 40% until 1988, nine years after she came to power.
"Let me tell you what it stands for. It stands for sound finance and Government running the affairs of the nation in a sound financial way. It stands for honest money—not inflation. It stands for living within your means. It stands for incentives because we know full well that the growth, the economic strength of the nation comes from the efforts of its people. Its people need incentives to work as hard as[fo 1] they possibly can. All that has produced economic growth.
It stands for something else. It stands for the wider and wider spread of ownership of property, of houses, of shares, of savings. It stands for being strong in defence—a reliable ally and a trusted friend. People call those things Thatcherism; they are, in fact, fundamental common sense and having faith in the enterprise and abilities of the people. It was my task to try to release those. They were always there; they have always been there in the British people, but they couldn’t flourish under Socialism. They have now been released. That’s all that Thatcherism is."
see http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106647
IMO this is not Thatcherism, it is modern Conservatism and her real skill was stripping away the fripperies of day to day politics and media to give these unvarnished truths. It is a lesson this government still needs to relearn.
Nice words, but words is all they are.
If the Ritz pays no corporation tax for 17 years as I read, and yet has the money to give Thatcher a suit foc, it tells me that those less well off seem to be the jokers paying more than what I would deem a fair share of tax.
And do not get me started on her London house registered in the BVI. Who does that belong to now or is that covered by the official secrets act? It merely confirms the ricjh get richer, and that is often at the expense of others.
But I agree that capitalism red in tooth and claw can result in gross disparities of wealth, unacceptable concentration of wealth and abuses of that wealth by an international elite. It is also true that the poor were excluded from this property owning democracy. These are social issues to which Thatcherism did not have particularly convincing answers.
That does not mean that it was not a very sound way for the government to organise its own finances. That was the problem at the start of her premiership and it is the problem Cameron also inherited.
Okay, this is incredibly poor taste, but I couldn't resist.
My memory of her time in office is moving from one shambolic situation to another. Arguments between her chancellor Lawson and her American moneterist advisor Alan Walters.
Leon Britton v Hesseltine wets v dries riots on the streets. Inner cities on fire. Begging on an unprecedented scale. Rent boys all over London's major stations. People living in cardboard boxes in shop doorways throughout the West-End (A Spanish client said to me in '87 on a visit to London that even in Madrid he had never seen so much poverty on the streets).
Poll tax riots a politicised quasi military police force and wrecked inner cities with zero investment.
It didn't start getting cleaned up till Major arrived and put Hesseltine in charge and civilization was restored
It's a pity that SeanT wasn't around at that time or we might get an insightful post from him rather than the gushing drunken rubbish he's vomiting out these past several days
Man up lefties - take control of your own destinies instead of continually whining about the man.
I just can't help believin' that it would ever have got to anyone senior. There are too many suspicious minds to check.
And if later her father became better off through hard work doesn't that reinforce her message?
Personally the fact that someone is working or middle class or whatever is the least interesting thing about them.
The criticism of council house sales is not the discount but that the money raised was not invested in housing for others. I also agree that leaving people on benefits was - and is - pointless, for them and the rest of us. That is something that this government is trying to address.
Sad to see a thread in such poor taste. A Little Less Conversation of that nature would be welcome.
In unexpected news Sturgeon et al. now claim that it would be normal to separate, retain sterling and have full fiscal independence.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-22188277
Er, what?
Latest from South Shields, where Ed is campaigning with Emma Double-Yellow-Line today:
"Already confirmed as standing are: Emma Lewell-Buck (Lab), Karen Allen (Con), Hugh Annand (Lib Dem), and Richard Elvin (UKIP), while Ahmed Khan and John Robertson are set to stand as independents, and Alan ‘Howling Laud’ Hope is set to represent the Monster Raving Loony Party."
http://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/local-news/commons-writ-formally-sets-by-election-date-1-5588833
The Lib Dem:
https://www.facebook.com/hughannand.libdem
http://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/Hertfordshire/Hertfordshire-North-East-candidates-their-election-pledges.htm
"Having lived in Hertfordshire for most of my life, and in North East Hertfordshire for four years, it is an honour for me to have been selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for this constituency."
Yes Kevin Maguire was whining about it on the Sky papers review last night
More pressure must be put on state schools to get pupils into the UK's top universities, MP and former Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy has urged.
Mr Murphy, tasked with getting more Welsh children into Oxford and Cambridge universities, partly blamed a lack of ambition among teachers.
The number of pupils accepted into Oxbridge is falling.
The Torfaen MP has also said he is worried the Welsh Baccalaureate might be a barrier.
Mr Murphy, who was appointed in the Oxbridge ambassador role by the Welsh government last month, said he believed fewer teachers in Wales had been to Oxford and Cambridge compared to 40 years ago so had less knowledge about getting pupils in.
"I'm sure there's lots of youngsters who would like to go but don't know how to go about it," he said. The Welsh government need to be ambitious for our students to attend the best universities whether it's Oxford or Cambridge or the USA or growing our own universities”
"It's getting rid of the fear of the perceived elitism when they go there. "Unless we up the pressure on schools and colleges in Wales to do this, then it's not going to do anything about it."
One head teacher in Wales, who did not want to be identified, told BBC Wales News website there was little support on offer from the Welsh government for schools trying to get pupils into the very best universities.
Figures obtained by BBC Wales show the number of comprehensive pupils getting into Oxbridge has fallen from 96 in 2008 to 76 in 2012.
Figures also show the number of students from Wales' independent schools have remained stable for the same period - 28 in 2008 to 29 in 2012.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22093484
@Cyclefree.
SO: "I thought that Thatcher was born in a house with no running water"
This is the house she lived in until she married the millionaire Dennis who took her out of her penury. If she had no running water I can only think her Alderman father was being frugal
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Maison_natale_de_Margaret_Thatcher,_Grantham.JPG
""But as the experience of the euro area has shown, a single currency without full fiscal and political union is a very different thing."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/18/ed-miliband-right-to-ignore-blair-centre-transform
What Ed Miliband must do next
The Labour leader is right to ignore Blair's advice: he's not retreating to the old centre but transforming it
You are advocating rebalancing the economy via an increase in social housing (Maggie failed to do this and so of course did New Labour).
This would involve a sharp correction in house prices and a concomitant drop in consumer activity 'cos we all love it when the value of our houses rises.
It is a coherent strategy albeit would involve much pain in the short- to mid-term.
Do you think EdM will grasp this nettle?
Must look at the Nuffield Election Studies for 79, 83 and 87 to refresh mind about how Mrs Thatcher's victories were viewed at the time and what made them possible.
Last week's tributes in the HoC showed how all of the parties use Thatcher to send out coded attacks on each other, and also against current leadership.
Would stronger unions be good? Probably not. (45-34)
Should government concentrate on growth and jobs rather than inflation and reducing borrowing? Probably. (49-41)
Should we keep nukes? Absolutely. (59-26)
Are we more like America or Europe? Probably America. (44-35)
Are social problems mainly for government or individuals to tackle? Definitely government. (59-29)
Should there be lots of regulation constraining business? Hmm, not sure. (40-45)
Is profitability a sign of efficiency or exploitation? Efficiency. (52-32)
Should utilities be state-owned or is competition better? Definitely state-owned. (61-26 - even Tories agree)
the utilities one is interesting: if we consider telephony a utility would gadget rationing quickly follow ? Likewise should bread and butter banking ( Giro, TSB style ) be added back to the mix ?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/17/bishop-address-thatcher-funeral-text
"She described her own religious upbringing in a lecture she gave in the nearby church of St Lawrence Jewry. She said: "We often went to church twice on a Sunday, as well as on other occasions during the week. We were taught there always to make up our own minds and never take the easy way of following the crowd."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alf_Roberts
And- big apologies are due to Roger. Years ago I slagged off his Apple laptop. What nonsense- five laptops later- I should have bought one then and saved myself years of hardship and money.
Ugh! to some of the question wording:
"Is profitability a sign of efficiency or exploitation?"
Is it really that binary?
Thanks you.
"Hard decisisons" are just decisions you approve of right?
As you're in Italy you could've renamed yourself Tysonicus Maximus Italicus
There were 2 types of people who got laid off in the 80s - one who got on their bikes and made a new career for themselves - and the other who continue to feel sorry for themselves now.
The government is not there to do everything SO - the more it gets out of the way the better - doing less better should be the motto.
I guess you dream of a government that chooses your newspapers, chooses what shops you have in your highstreet, chooses which apprenticeship scheme your children can have and chooses how a much higher % of your money is spent - if so vote Miliband.
I have to say I am genuinely confused as to why more houses aren't built. Surely with our prices it must be profitable to build a house? Is it all in the planning, or is there something more complicated?
Anyway, obviously the problem is finding somewhere to put them. That is where the "hard decisions" lie and a lot of political capital and energy expended. We need at least a new large town or take a town and make it a city or take a city like Liverpool and transform it.
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/bulletin/winter10/gregg.pdf
"As the government says, there has been a 40% real increase over the last decade, but the rise was much greater in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
Indeed, apart from the current recession, the growth of welfare spending has slowed rapidly since the mid-1980s, and is less out of control now than at any time since the Second World War."
More to the point, is the USA under some sort of general attack?
First the Boston explosions.
Secondly, The Ricin letters.
And now this morning (night in Texas) this giant factory explosion in Waco.
A campaign or just coincidence?
Who was PM in the mid-80s?
My view, and I think you imply this, is that Thatcher's position in the national (sic) psyche revolves mainly around perceptions of authenticity. Despite all the image burnishing, u-turns and compromises, there's a group of people that will forever think of her as the embodiment of pure conviction, the real deal. Personally I always found her pretty phony: the manufactured home counties accent, the artificially lowered vocal tones, the 'jokes' written by other people, the queasy expressions of empathy (where there is despair, may we bring hope etc, etc), the farther she was from Ur Thacherism the hollower they rang. There's an hilarious interview Thatcher did in Scotland where she speaks of 'we in Scotland', 'we Scots' and 'Sassenachs'; at least half the hilarity lies in her total lack of self-awareness of how she came across.
I guess in the end we have to accept that there is no objective measure of authenticity. The views of those applauding as they lined London's streets yesterday are as sincere as those who put together the Scab floral tribute. They're competing myths, neither of which will ever overwhelm the other.
Housing - having enough of it, of good quality, in the right places - is going to be a big issue. No-one seems to have a sensible thought-out policy about it.
As always, the problem comes down to one of negative externalities. Society would benefit from lower house prices, but building is typically concentratyed in specific areas - the monetary costs (woner occupiers) and other costs (views, infrastructure, etc) or all residents. I'd tend to be much more aggressive with compulsary purchasdes & much more generous with compensation payments: there is real value to speed. If you leave this kind of strategic decision to the locals it won't get done (but local decision making is best for man
y things).
Where you have vested interests you can either fight & break them or you can stuff their mouths with gold. On planning I'd go for the latter.
Started under Thatcher, continued by her successors....
Don't be ridiculous. He was quite mad. I worked in the Department of the Environment (after he had left). The civil servants who worked in his private office thought him quite bonkers and quite unfit to be let loose in No. 10. By contrast Nicholas Ridley was utterly charming and a very good boss, particularly to me as a very junior lawyer (whatever what might think of his policies).
I grew up and had my first jobs in the 80's and very vividly remember the 70's - I have a much more nuanced position than you seem to about that time.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/politics/8891541/power-struggles-in-a-cynical-age/
All gone, swept away by her and her alone, not just here but throughout most of the world. It is testament to her achievement that even the EU has enshrined in its law her views on subsidising duff industries.
no hard decisions are the ones Labour always run away from because they only like to dish out sweeties. So you want to build all these houses; I agree. What is your policy on where they should be built ? What is your policy on how they should be built ? Should UK nationals have priority over others on allocation ? How many houses should be built and how will they be funded ?
He was a back-stabber at the first opportunity: Heseltine as PM would have dragged Britain back to the 1970's. He is still trying to turn back the clock in his many appearances on QT.
High house prices have little to do with lack of housing supply but more with over supply of credit by banks to borrowers. If we hadn't had Interest Only mortgages, 100% mortgages and fully fraudulent mortgages during the last decade then people would never have been able to bid up house prices by so much. We also shouldn't forget Brown's role in removing house price inflation from the BoE's inflation targeting remit...
So she won that argument, didn't she? Even her opponents continued to implement her policy.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/04/the-margaret-thatcher-ice-cream-myth.html
Fundamentally the price of an asset reflects (a) the availability of the asset and (b) the cost of purchasing it (ie financing cost) you need to address both.
Also you need to be careful with natiuonal figures on hosuing - there are plenty of spare houses where people don't need them and not enough where people do. The contributes to, for instance, longer communting times to London (I know people, eg, who commute from Derbyshire) but this has a social cost not always reflected in the economic analysis
You can spend billions of pounds of taxpayers money rebuilding some where like Liverpool, but where do the jobs come from to keep the place going? Liverpool grew into a great city because of the trans-atlantic trade. That trade, in as much as it still exists, now uses other ports which can handle the massive container ships. So where are the industries that would give such "redundant" cities a new lease of life?
As for building where the jobs are, it is already happening. The South-East is experiencing massive housebuilding, though without the infrastructure development that needs to go with it. The property developers are making fortunes from building houses but the spending on new transport links, hospitals, etc. isn't happening.
Perhaps a neater and cheaper solution would be to encourage, pensioners from the SE to go North making space for economically active people to come South. The pensioners would as a by product create jobs in the health and care sectors in the areas of their new abodes and enjoy a better quality of life.
Just got back last week from a tour of a beautiful vaccine manufacturing plant in former GDR. Everything that a manufacturing guy could have dreamed of was there - all bells, all whistles, lots of toys. Built at a cost of Eur 300m, 80pby theGerman/EU taxpayer.
Only problem is the plant is virtually empty. They are desparate for product to fill the place.
O
In the end, her primary achievement and the thing that makes her noteworthy is that she was our first female PM.
Perhaps they should introduce a fixed fee tax to enable the fine people at Sky news to give their product away free ?
I'm in favour of your solution if it would work, building up the SE as it is going now just can't work from an infrastructure basis. It isn't just roads and hospitals. What about the water?
Mrs Thatcher transformed Britain, and indeed much of the world, thank goodness.
Get over it.
He was also very much an opportunist rather than a man of principle. Back in 1979/80 I was a student member of the Tory Reform Group which back then was very much then a Heathite think tank and pressure group of the Tory left. The late Peter Walker was a principled and much admired patron of the group. Ironically though he was a far more loyal and effective "wet" minister than the showboating Heseltine ever was. Heseltine joined the TRG around 1980 as a johnny come lately and was much derided among those "in the know" for only doing so because of wishing to establish a power base within the party.
That should nail down the final lid on his coffin with the left.
zerohedge @zerohedge
Spain’s Sovereign Debt Is Close to Unsustainable: BBG economist David Powell
I must say, I don't think I have ever heard anyone, from anywhere on the political spectrum, express that view before.
The Uk's nationalised industries were/are a total joke.
You're making me all UKIP - bring back the good old days, eh? Can we scrap Ryanair and First Capital Connect and ambulance-chasing accident compensation spammers and rival directory enquiry services while we're at it?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9999148/Francois-Hollande-faces-austerity-revolt-from-own-ministers.html
Secondly, I know a heck of a lot more about vaccines than you do.
Compliance is the most important thing. MMR has advantages on the compliance and cost front for the government. However, for the individual combination vaccines do have disavantages.
Individually the pereference is 3xsingle > MMR > none
For the government the better option is MMR > sinlge > no vacccination.
To try and save money to governments pushed MMR. I understand why they did it, but it doesn't mean that for an educated individual the risk profile might not be different.
Fundamentally, though, the most important thing is to get vaccinated. The debate is more interesting when it is a choice between MMR and two of the recommended vaccines.
Respect for being "on message" with rEd's new "we will manage the high street and only have nice happy corporations allowed - like the Guardian"
Without Ryanair, hundreds nae thousands of your former constituents would not have been able to travel - you claim to know better than they do what they want ?
Wilson transformed Britain
Heath transformed Britain
Thatcher transformed Britain
Blair transformed Britain.
Arguably the biggest change was brought about by Heath. Thatcher isn't all that remarkable IMO. The idea that she saved Britain is bogus.
If you have a globalist banking system concentrated in London such that all the spare capital in the country flows to that centre for allocation on a global basis then it will go to wherever the rate or return is highest globally. What are the odds that the highest rate of return available in the world at any one moment is going to be in Hull?
Pretty much zero.
So what you get is a very high return in the financial sector in London while the rest of the country - with a few exceptions like the oil regions - get completely starved of capital. The outcome of long-term capital starvation is the slow gradual destruction of the national economy outside the City of London. Seems to me this should be pretty obvious?
For this setup to be a good idea for the country as a whole - rather than just the City and their pet politicians and journalists - the tax from the very high rate of return in the financial sector needs to be able to compensate for the capital starvation everywhere else - and if you believe the government is generally useless at this sort of thing then that's not likely to happen.
The alternative setup i.e. the old one, had regional capital flows going into what was effectively a local & regional banking system where investment decisions were based on getting the best return from the possible investment choices available locally & regionally - which included Hull. So you get a lower average rate of return on the capital available in the country but the benefit is spread round the whole country.
So seems to me a healthy country needs an outward facing international banking sector and a sealed-off inward facing local & regional banking sector.
http://beestonia.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/smokin-beestonia/
Good point about the water supply. I don't know if my idea would work, I suspect the numbers would come out about right but there are social issues that would need to be considered. You mentioned people moving South to be near their working off-spring, may be there would be the same drag that would prevent the elderly moving North. I dunno, but it seems certain to me that the idea that "redundant" areas can be revitalised by government action has been tested to destruction - it has been going on since the end of WW2 (see the Atlee cabinet papers). As the old motto goes if what you are doing isn't working doing something else.