Mandotim

Point 1:
Poll Tax was replaced by Council Tax so anyone who is not a householder does not have to pay for the services provided by the Council they benefit from – a situation that you appear to find as being fair and equitable – I don't, if you benefit from something you should pay your whack. Unlike most in the "socialist" camp I acknowledge the following reality – There is no such thing as "Government Money", the Government has no money, the Government collects taxpayers money and then "manages"/spends it rather inefficiently. Little exercise for you mandotim, look up the numbers of households in your town, then look up the number of people who make up the population, compare that to the electoral role, tell me how many are getting a free ride.

Point 2:
Refusal to institute any sort of minimum wage, or any other legislation hardly falls into the category of having policy reversed.

Point 3:
"Your economic analysis could do with some attention too; the consensus among even right-wing economists is that the need for IMF intervention was caused directly by the 'dash for growth' perpetrated by Anthony Barber."

Really? When exactly were those concerns voiced? Or is this one of those 20 x 20 hindsight things? It was certainly not the consensus at the time the decisions to float the pound, expand the money supply and aim for a 5 per cent rate of growth were widely supported among economists and across the political spectrum.

The Government's whole economic strategy was undermined by circumstances largely beyond its control:
-        The ending of the Bretton Woods exchange system produced great instability;
-        The rise of militant trade unionism posed a challenge to any anti-inflation policy and made the Industrial Relations Act inoperable;
-        The steep increase in commodity prices and the quadrupling of Arab oil prices fuelled inflation.
-        The old Keynesian methods of economic management, so enthusiastically embraced by previous Labour Governments from the time of Harold Wilson, although generally accepted, were approaching their demise.

Thatcher took over three years after the James Callaghan Government had concluded that the Keynesian approach to demand-side management failed to do everything, realising that as the economy is not self-righting and that new fiscal judgments had to be made to concentrate on inflation, a view accepted by the Thatcher Government.

Point 4:
"If Margaret Thatcher did have any achievements, (and I doubt that there were many of any lasting, strategic significance) they pale into insignificance beside the damage she did; again, the facts are worth repeating;"

Yes mandotim the facts are worth repeating, such as:
-        Restoring the rule of Parliamentary Democracy in the United Kingdom
-        Instrumental ally of the United States of America in facing down and ultimately defeating Soviet Russia in what was known as the "Cold War". Look at the millions liberated mandotim, or would you have rather seen them still part of communist Russia and it's trading bloc.
-        Providing leadership, conviction and resolution when British Territory was invaded and occupied by a foreign power
-        Having the courage to prove to the world at large that the UK was not to be trifled with when she ordered the Task Force South to land and liberate the Falkland Islands.

Point 5: - Law and order. When she left office, recorded crime was at a historic high, far higher than when she came to power, and despite record numbers of people in jail.

Fascinating Tim, unfortunately what you state above does not reflect what is presented in the British Crime Survey figures for 1979 and 1990, which shows very little change, your "far higher" actually translates to either a "marginal" increase or decrease depending upon the type of crime committed.

Point 6: - Higher education. Universities and colleges received less investment per student when she left than when she arrived, and research funding was slashed

And yet total government expenditure on education presented as a percentage of GDP amounts to roughly the same. It was 4.98% when Maggie left office and was about 5.4% in 2004 (Figures for 2007 not available).

By the bye Tim have you got a problem for students paying for their university education as they do in almost every other European country? Or should that be done with all that money the Government doesn't actually have, yet another socialist free-ride.

Point 7: - She presided over the highest sustained levels of unemployment in our history, consigning whole communities to an economically inactive role, and costing the economy huge amounts in benefits.

OK then Tim, the alternative was what exactly? Continue to pour hundreds of millions per day down the pan to subsidise and support industries that were doomed to failure because of the restrictive working practices and the "I'm-all-right-Jack" mentality of the British Trades Union Movement – ref Sid Weighell's 1979 "Snouts in the trough remark".

Expend all that money for absolutely no return? Putting off till tomorrow because it presents the more convenient and easier path to follow? That is not the way of responsible Government, besides it would not have prevented the swing of the axe that ultimately had to fall.

Point 8: - She left investment in manufacturing industry at a lower level than when she took office, far behind our competitor nations, and decimated a once powerful manufacturing base. This has caused a concomitant loss of important skills, of which we are now in dire need.

Really? What investment are you talking about Tim? – Government investment (Spending all that Government money again like a good little socialist)? Harking back to Harold Wilson's Keynesian methods of economic management? But they didn't work Tim or had you forgotten that.

Maybe you do wish for a number of large high-tech public sector corporations guided by a Ministry of Technology. Economic planning through the new Department of Economic Affairs, as did Harold Wilson. But you'd be wrong Tim, Nationalised Industries are grossly inefficient because they must continually strive to maintain the status quo for their workers, can't have efficiency cutting the numbers of workers employed can we Tim. Doesn't matter if what we produce is high priced, poor quality, useless crap that nobody wants to buy, we don't have to worry about that as the Government will always bale us out – After all we've got jobs for life – Hell as like!!

Margaret Thatcher was rather good at attracting investment into the UK, damn sight better than any before or after her that's for sure.

Point 9: - the overall tax burden was higher when she left than when she arrived.

On direct taxation? No the Conservatives reduced direct taxation and increased indirect taxation. What you spend your money on determines how much indirect taxation you pay. Anyone who wants to discuss this particular point must also include the "stealth taxes" so far introduced by NuLab's Dynamic Duo, Tony Blair and Gordon of Cartoon.

Point 10: - Despite savage cuts in public services, the full flow of North Sea oil and a rise in taxation, government borrowing rose sharply on her watch, as did national debt.

In what terms Tim:

This is from Hansard - Written Answers to Questions, Tuesday 2 May 1989 - NATIONAL FINANCE - Government Debt
"National Debt is measured annually at the end of the financial year. The total outstanding at the end of 1978-79 was £86.9 billion (47 per cent. of GDP) and at the end of 1987-88 was £197.3 billion (44 per cent. of GDP).
National debt however, is not the best measure of public sector indebtedness, for instance because it covers only central Government debt, not the whole of the public sector. A better measure is net public sector debt, which was £95.3 billion (50 per cent. of GDP) at the end of 1978 -79, and £171.3 billion (38 per cent. of GDP) at the end of 1987-88."
So about the time she entered office National Debt was 47% of GDP/Public Sector Debt was 50% of GDP.
Around the time she left office National Debt was 44% of GDP/Public Sector Debt was 38% of GDP
Ah I can hear Tim saying but the numbers went up. Quite correct Tim but if the numbers went up then so too must the GDP of the country have gone up, which oh! My goodness, my gosh, indicates that the country must have been prospering.

Point 11: - Trades Union membership was higher when she left office than it was when she arrived; so much for 'destroying the Unions'.

Tim I couldn't give a tupenny-ha'penny damn about what the Trades Unions do as long as they restrict their activities to looking after the interests of their members and stay the fuck out of the business of the elected Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Oh, and by the way, Trades Unions Leaders elected by a ballot of the Union Membership, are elected to look after the interests of those members. They have not been elected by those Union Members to interfere with the workings of the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom. Involuntary donations deducted at source from Union Members salaries and handed over to the Labour Party does not entitle the leadership of any Trades Union to dictate what the Government of the United Kingdom, duly elected by the electorate of the country, can or cannot do.

Point 12:
As to this "…culture of selfishness she propounded as a virtue is still echoing through the society she claimed not to exist, and is at the roots of much of our current difficulty."

Left-wing Myth. Go take a look at what she actually did say in that interview. I agree whole heartedly with it. She did not propound selfishness as a virtue she propounded self-reliance as a virtue, nothing at all wrong with that. And what is, "at the roots of much of our current difficulty" and our malaise as a nation is the overwhelming "Culture of Dependence" that has been nurtured and the insanity of "political correctness" that has been encouraged since 1997 as part and parcel of NuLab's vision of "Cool Britannia".

Take off the blinkers, Tim, and get real, from 1964 to 1979 the Government of Britain in both Labour and Conservative hands was shambolic to say the least. From 1979 to 1990 Britain was fortunate to have someone at the helm who clearly understood what common-sense and leadership was all about and delivered it in spades.