The one that cracked me up (saddened as well) was the picture of some 20 somethings spraying a bottle of champagne in celebration in Trafalgar Square. All I could think was:
1. You weren't alive/aware of her at the time.
2. You can afford to spray a bottle of champagne all over the place so she really can't have ruined your lives.
3. Fucking twats.
As for those pictures: Scots. That's all I can say.
It definitely is a minority though. They showed videos of some of the 'main' parties in public places and most of them had like 20 people and the occasional guy with a megaphone. It's just sad it's 'cool' to hate her amoung University aged people, particularly at lefty uni's and as a result that age bracket of between 20-30 seems to feel they know exactly what happened at the time and how ruined there lives are.
There are legitimate people who did have a hard time as a result of her policies, undoubtedly. But equally much of what she did can be considered necessary, and people have enjoyed a great deal of affluence in general since then, particularly as a result of service industry jobs, of which there are now millions in the UK and provide higher wages in general. I don't want to turn this to political but arguably many of the major complaints of recent years occurred as a result of labour administration, yet people still feel the need to blame their current troubles on an old figurehead. If people wanted things to be better they should take their head's out their arses and do something about it, not just whine and moan and above all, certainly don't disrespect someone who has died.
/rant
My post was doctored about twelve times before I released it, removing things such as "pictures from Scotland" since it really does make people think that everyone is like that. I'm 100% sure my Grandmother wouldn't have done that and she was a nurse so would have been quite close to the "student nurse uprising" over poll-tax.
As I say, it's a minority and not specific to one region but I agree wholeheartedly with number 3.
It doesn't really matter if you liked her or not. It's just a question of proper conduct really. Everyone deserves a basic amount of respect.
I am quite the old fart around here and I keep thinking this a lot of times: There is no more respect.
And it's not just about some internet forum that is rather low-priority. When I see young people on the street, it's the same thing. There is nothing left from "respect your elders" or anything similar. If you go around and ask people about their definition of respect, pride and honour, I am very sure that you won't get a proper answer.
I hold respect, pride and honour in a pretty high regard in my personal life. After all, there is not much else you have for yourself. If you say that out loud, you have to watch out that you won't end up in same Neo-chocolate chip cookie/Facist corner... but I digress...
You can think a lot of things but the only thing that matters is what you do. That's what people judge about you...
[...]I hardly disagree. When I was 12, I stood up when some old lady stepped into the tram. You don't see this any more here. Neither were 17yrs old little boys guilty of beating up a 45yrs old father of 3 cuz he stood up for some little girls who were bullied by those wankers in the train. Beating up to the extent that he died after 2 weeks in intensive care.
Also benkei, about the "no more respect" part, I can guarantee you it is you being an old fart. Your own elders had the exact same opinion of you, and their elders about them too and so on. All of that is perception.
I hardly disagree. When I was 12, I stood up when some old lady stepped into the tram. You don't see this any more here.
Neither were 17yrs old little boys guilty of beating up a 45yrs old father of 3 cuz he stood up for some little girls who were bullied by those wankers in the train. Beating up to the extent that he died after 2 weeks in intensive care.
I could give you a dozen of examples from where I am from. It's perception in a way, yea. People just don't give a shit. And that's exactly the problem.
I found my understanding of respect, pride and honour when I was something like 14/15 years old. It's a problem with the majority of a whole generation here. "Perception" is the lazy explanation.
I had a course called "thacherism and the cinema" last term in university. What we learned was that Britain under Thatcher was a police-state like country, were minorities like blacks, gays, people from Asia and so on were arrested and even beaten by policemen on a "regular" basis for no real reason.
Also, we learned that her government favored only the rich people, and gave a fuck about the working class. Also the fear that communists could infiltrate the country made them control many people and even arrest them for being affiliated with communists.
At least thats what I learned in that course about politics of Thatchers government. The course was about british cinema though, so this historical/politics stuff was not the main topic.
No wonder people from other countries have such a bad opinion about her and her government.
I find you rather ignorant right now, Kafein.
Statistics of a big raise in youth alcohol abuse, teen pregnancies and higher rates of violent crimes back me up. If you wanna see them, look them up yourself. I know what I've read and seen and I can't be bothered to proof my point to you. Besides, I wrote clearly "where I come from". Afaik, we come from different places. Be happy if in your world they are respectful...
Let's agree to disagree otherwise.
I had a course called "thacherism and the cinema" last term in university. What we learned was that Britain under Thatcher was a police-state like country, were minorities like blacks, gays, people from Asia and so on were arrested and even beaten by policemen on a "regular" basis for no real reason.
Also, we learned that her government favored only the rich people, and gave a fuck about the working class. Also the fear that communists could infiltrate the country made them control many people and even arrest them for being affiliated with communists.
At least thats what I learned in that course about politics of Thatchers government. The course was about british cinema though, so this historical/politics stuff was not the main topic.
No wonder people from other countries have such a bad opinion about her and her government.
Yeah; I felt the same. Also, after 5 terms at university, I have the feeling that most of the profs and like ALL of the younger (aged 25-35) lecturers are mid/left - left - hardline-leftists. You never hear anyone of them leave a good word about conservative or mid/right minded people, politicians, political parties or government.
I even know some profs and lecturers who openly tell that they vote left - hardline-left and how they dislike people who vote mid/more right/conservative parties.
Not that I got a personal problem with that, as I am rather unpolitical, but I feel like being surrounded by "everything-that-is-not-left-or-even-more-left-is-shit-conservative-or-right-voting-people-are-imbeciles"-thinking people, and that kind of scares me, as I always thought a university is a place of objectivity and neutrality ...
And also, almost the same goes for most of the students who are my age or even a few years younger. "Uh you don´t vote left/your parents vote conservative? Get the fuck out of my face facist!".
I already found myself to feel really uncomfortable just because of this.
I don't love or hate her, but I do respect her, she stood by her guns, she did not tell lie after lie like many other politicians, she wasn't perfect and she did cause alot of bad things, but she also did alot of good. Funnily enough some guy I know wrote this list.Sounds like bar-room politics to me.
Things Margaret Thatcher DIDN'T Do:
1) Abandon the Falkland Islands to the Argies.
2) Cow Down to the IRA.
3) Allow 200,000+ Immigrants into the UK EVERY Year (It was between 13-50,000)
4) Institute the Human Rights Act, thus allowing murderous scum & terrorists to live here with no chance of kicking them out.
5) Roll over and allow Europe to dictate what we can and can't do.
6) Run up huge debts by spending money the Country didn't have and getting our credit rating reduced.
3, 4,5 and 6 have been done by other politicians since, I'm on the fence about 2 as it's not a simple subject. Well where 1 is concerned any of our leaders would be mad to abandon the Falklands to the Argies.
Sounds like bar-room politics to me.
(conveniently ignore the many legitimate immigrants that move to the UK and work for a pittance doing jobs which are vacant because people would rather live on the dole)
As stated the issue is with the benefit culture and the national work ethic (or more over lack of it) rather than immigration. There are jobs out there, its a matter of whether people are willing to take them or not.
Yeah, maybe thats true for some of the younger ones. But I don´t get it why lecturers and profs are mostly left-minded.
An impressive career, although i disagree with the policies she enacted and the course she led society down. Economic revitalisation and the expense of thousands of peoples jobs, homes and communities. Its no surprise there was a lot of resentment to thatcher, i also don't think breeding 'new labour' is anything to be proud of.
Hindsight is of course 20:20, but tearing up the railways, closing the mines and the heavy industry in the UK were terrible decisions all made under her leadership.
Again you are talking about something I am not, I am talking about over population, not the laziness of people/people not geting jobs which has been an issue long before immigration. Over population means that those that do really want to work are going to struggle alot more in actually obtaining a job even for a shit wage. Things are getting better right now where work is concerned, but in 10 years if the current population growth and immigration continues, then people really will be fighting to earn a living again.
The other issue with having way too many migrant workers is that they are actively taking a lot of money out of the system, many of them send large sums of money back to their home countries in saving accounts or to their families, taking money out of our already shitty economy. Many of the immigrant workers I know all have quite a few people living in one home, the rent doesn't cost them much when it's split between them all and they don't mind living on the bare minimum to survive because the money they are saving will allow them to buy a house outright in their home countries. Which means that wages stay low even for the native Britishe struggling here who will never be able to afford to buy a home here, in their own country.
I'm all for migrant workers from the EU, I work alongside some of them and most of them are hard working, but there has to be a cap on how many can work here at a time, a migrant work force if limited will help us build our economy back up, but an unlimited flow of them pouring into the country will only damage it in the long run.
Not targeting this entire post but I was told the mines were running out anyway? I thought that was the reason she didn't give into their strikes, when the strikes went on, the miners turned violent. Again, as I mentioned beforehand, not my first hand account, that is what my Grandfather has said. I take no responsibility! :wink:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/datablog/2013/apr/08/britain-changed-margaret-thatcher-charts
That seems quite informative for graphs etc for certain things, I don't know how accurate it is because its a newspaper writing it but it visualises some things nicely. To be honest, I don't know if the Guardian is for or against Thatcher but that seemed to show good points and bad points although I can't see how the life expectancy comes into play since medical advancements are usually the major driving factor for that.
The major ones I would say are the economy stimulation, the unemployment rates & the decline in manufacturing. My favourite one however is the pay-gap between men and women, I would have expected it to have shot drastically towards equal for women, but it only started in the latter years of her office and continued.
I just wish she had died 9 days earlier so my uncle could have out lived the old bag!My sincere condolences to you and your family.