The new age...

[Kallima]

Maybe if all those people who got made redunant didn't go striking every couple of days, (I urge you to research the winter of discontent where many many people died because they had fuck all thanks to all the strikes), then there wouldn't have been all these problems..

Thanks to the strikes, for example the steel workers who all striked, these companies lost millions and millions of pounds, this has to somehow be made up, job cuts.. People brought it on themselves.

Now, many of the strikers didn't actualy want to strike but the Unions made them or they could lose their jobs, Thatcher made it so they'd get compensation if this happened, so they could continue with their jobs without worrie.. she did what she could..

Oh and not to mention the fact that our industrial boom had ended, and the profit wasn't in those industries anymore, so sooner or later people would have had to find new jobs anyway!

What would YOU have done differently?

The winter of discontent was under Callaghan's labour government. I was just picking some random unemployment statistics under Margaret Thatcher's conservative government to see that unemployement doubled. Not all of those redundancies were striking miners or steel workers or people involved in strikes. My relative had never been on strike, and had never belonged to a union. He was in the beer industry. Inevitably economic changes meant some industries were doomed, though we may yet wish we could return to coal mining in this country. I think beer is still with us as in industry.

[Cyfr]

Well I don't know of anything specific about Thatcher and the beer industry, although at a guess I'd say that the world economic resession and the strikers in Britain had an indirect effect on your relative.

What im trying to say is, if lots of people are on strike, and then the economic circumstances of the time in industry, cause many people to lose their jobs, I doubt there is going to be many people out drinking, and hence the beer industry needs to make cuts to ensure that they don't lose money..

I hasten to add, that if the previous governments hadnt been so socialist (and the conservatives are just as bad for not reversing a lot of the socialist policies until thatcher came in), then we'd proberbly have a more free market private industry at the time, and a lot less of this unemployment would have happened.

[Xest]

A relative of mine is one who still hates Margaret Thatcher, because he wasn't one of those drinking champagne, he was made redundant, and was too old to get a new job in the high unemployment climate. He will talk about this for hours.

So, I looked up some facts to see how typical his story was.

Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in June 1979.

Nov 22 1979 UK Building Societies put mortgage rate up 3.5% to 15%

Apr 22 1980 unemployment goes over 1.5 million

July 1980 unemployment goes over 1.9 million. Redundancies reach 40,000 a month.

Apr 1981 unemployment goes over 2.5 million

Feb 1983 unemployment goes over 3.2 million

I need to check on the turkey, but you get the idea. Think about a 15% mortgage rate and unemployment that high. Some people were drinking champagne, but some people still hate Margaret Thatcher. Ironically I gather my relative voted for her. I think that is why he really really hates her.

The people becoming unemployed though are those who were working in industries which were no longer sustainable to save the British economy - most prominently, mining. It's the same situation in France right now, they just have too many farmers, the problem is they can keep farming because of EU subsidies when in fact the subsidies need to drop and the farmers need to look elsewhere for jobs. I know it's harsh but if you're in an industry that's no longer working as it should - i.e. it's costing more than it's gaining just about then that industry needs to have cuts made, it's selfish to beleive you should be kept employed by subsidies even though it's at the expense of others.

Essentially what Thatcher did was killed off the dying industries and paved the way for modernisation of Britain such that Britain could focus on services such as finance, IT and such and she did that well. Realistically Thatcher was quite ahead of the game in that respect, she actually wanted in the 80s to have fibre cable distributed throughout the UK to replace our ageing copper phone lines only it was stopped by the telecomms regulator citing that it gave other telcos no hope of competing - i.e. the cable companies. Sad thing is, if she'd been allowed to order ahead her plans there then the UK would be a massively stronger country when it comes to todays world of interconnected net commerce and such.

Whilst your unemployement stats are very true, you should consider comparing them to stats of how the UK strengthened as a country as a result of that - the argument is that the unemployement was essential to ensure long term well being for the country and looking at the UK now and comparing it to how it was back then it's hard to beleive she was wrong as it certainly wasn't entirely the current labour goverment that made us as strong as we are right now.

[Kallima]

The people becoming unemployed though are those who were working in industries which were no longer sustainable to save the British economy - most prominently, mining. It's the same situation in France right now, they just have too many farmers, the problem is they can keep farming because of EU subsidies when in fact the subsidies need to drop and the farmers need to look elsewhere for jobs. I know it's harsh but if you're in an industry that's no longer working as it should - i.e. it's costing more than it's gaining just about then that industry needs to have cuts made, it's selfish to beleive you should be kept employed by subsidies even though it's at the expense of others.

Essentially what Thatcher did was killed off the dying industries and paved the way for modernisation of Britain such that Britain could focus on services such as finance, IT and such and she did that well. Realistically Thatcher was quite ahead of the game in that respect, she actually wanted in the 80s to have fibre cable distributed throughout the UK to replace our ageing copper phone lines only it was stopped by the telecomms regulator citing that it gave other telcos no hope of competing - i.e. the cable companies. Sad thing is, if she'd been allowed to order ahead her plans there then the UK would be a massively stronger country when it comes to todays world of interconnected net commerce and such.

Whilst your unemployement stats are very true, you should consider comparing them to stats of how the UK strengthened as a country as a result of that - the argument is that the unemployement was essential to ensure long term well being for the country and looking at the UK now and comparing it to how it was back then it's hard to beleive she was wrong as it certainly wasn't entirely the current labour goverment that made us as strong as we are right now.

Yes, but I thought your question was why people hated Margaret Thatcher, and whether the unemployment ensured long term well being for the country or not, those who lost their jobs hated her because they personally suffered.

It is debatable whether it did help the country or not. Economically we are a lot stronger now than when the conservatives lost power. In fact there is a strong argument that what governments do is irrelevant economically, what really counts far more is things like population demographics and relative age distributions. North Sea oil existing was luck rather than a government decision. They started pumping that in 1975 which should have helped the economy under the last couple of years of the Labour administration and then under the Conservative government. Its trueMargaret Thatcher did control the decision to for good or ill (probably on the whole good but I'm no expert) sell off virtually all the state owned industries starting in 1984 and presumably that shored up the economy in the short term.

Anyway I can't get excited about it. The whole thing is of largely historical interest when it comes to voting now. New Labour is absolutely nothing like old labour and Callaghan's administration. The Conservative party now is nothing like Thatcher's government, and is suffering from Labour moving right wing. And the Liberal Democrats don't bear any resemblance to the Liberal party under David Lloyd George.

I suppose the main relevance is when you get the situation when something like a major car factory is closing down. Its bad for the area economically, and a lot of people in related and service industries lose their jobs too. But we now have historical precedent that means governments are less likely to support something that is no longer financially viable.

[Lieva]

aww how can you guys have a politcal argument on the forums on christmas day.

youre sposed to be argueing with youre family

[OohhoO]

aww how can you guys have a politcal argument on the forums on christmas day.

youre sposed to be argueing with youre family

Get back to the kitchen wench
<hides VERY fast>

[Lieva]

Get back to the kitchen wench
<hides VERY fast>

purlease

its too crowded with my mum and dad in there

[Xest]

Yes, but I thought your question was why people hated Margaret Thatcher, and whether the unemployment ensured long term well being for the country or not, those who lost their jobs hated her because they personally suffered.

It is debatable whether it did help the country or not. Economically we are a lot stronger now than when the conservatives lost power. In fact there is a strong argument that what governments do is irrelevant economically, what really counts far more is things like population demographics and relative age distributions. North Sea oil existing was luck rather than a government decision. They started pumping that in 1975 which should have helped the economy under the last couple of years of the Labour administration and then under the Conservative government. Its trueMargaret Thatcher did control the decision to for good or ill (probably on the whole good but I'm no expert) sell off virtually all the state owned industries starting in 1984 and presumably that shored up the economy in the short term.

Anyway I can't get excited about it. The whole thing is of largely historical interest when it comes to voting now. New Labour is absolutely nothing like old labour and Callaghan's administration. The Conservative party now is nothing like Thatcher's government, and is suffering from Labour moving right wing. And the Liberal Democrats don't bear any resemblance to the Liberal party under David Lloyd George.

I suppose the main relevance is when you get the situation when something like a major car factory is closing down. Its bad for the area economically, and a lot of people in related and service industries lose their jobs too. But we now have historical precedent that means governments are less likely to support something that is no longer financially viable.

Well I may have phrased it badly, I'm interested in what the Conservatives as a whole did to be hated rather than just Thatcher - I'd hate to be voting in a party that were two faced which is what many people say the conservatives are, I'm just struggling to beleive after a lot of research whether that's the case nowadays though, the more I research it the more it just seems the hate for conservatives is manufactured by those who lost their jobs working in failing industries. I'm just not content with Labour giving everyone a free ride and going to war despite the entire nation wanting otherwise amongst other things.

[Kallima]

Well I may have phrased it badly, I'm interested in what the Conservatives as a whole did to be hated rather than just Thatcher - I'd hate to be voting in a party that were two faced which is what many people say the conservatives are, I'm just struggling to beleive after a lot of research whether that's the case nowadays though, the more I research it the more it just seems the hate for conservatives is manufactured by those who lost their jobs working in failing industries. I'm just not content with Labour giving everyone a free ride and going to war despite the entire nation wanting otherwise amongst other things.

Taking an ethical stance against Labour's decision to go to war is of course perfectly valid if you believe the Conservative's would have decided differently if they had been in power.

I don't know whether the Conservative party are two faced currently. Its hard to have an opinion since I'm not even sure what the Conservative party policies are, even the party web page talks about beliefs rather than how they would actually do things. I don't entirely have faith in politicians in general. I suppose things like the Jeffrey Archer perjury case didn't do the Conservative party image much good, but in fairness you could point at dubious politicians in most political parties.

<goes back to playing with the ice cream sundae set someone gave her for Christmas>

[Lieva]

thing which annoys me most in the elections tbh is when they dont tell you how theyre going to fix the country but how the other party is so bad
Seriously - if Conservatives stopped winging about tony blair and just made a statement saying their policys they would get in no problem

Then again - seeing prime ministers question time - nursery school children are better behaved and football yobs are quieter