BS: Maggie Thatcher Day

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: banjomad (inactive)
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 10:43 AM

RIP MRS T [ asap ]

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: ced2
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 11:37 AM

Why Dave, should she RIP? If there was any justice in the world she would suffer, in exactly the same magnitude and order all the pain she gave to millions all over the world. And if this had to be eternal damnation so be. RIA (Rest In Agony) I say.
Ced

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: GUEST,Falklands Vet
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 02:48 PM

Well, you can't please all of the people all of the time.

Ask the Kelpers what they think of Mrs T and ask the unions and unemployed what they think.

Differing views.

Instead of complaining why don't you stop whingeing and work towards a better future?

As for me, I stand with Claymore, I don't believe he glorifies war at all but I'm fairly sure he does have real nightmares because of his experiences.

Que sara Que sara

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 04:04 PM

Claymore, I don't care what you think a claymore is. It is actually a traditional Scottish weapon.

I am glad to hear Thatcher had a stroke. I enjoy it every time I hear it. I hope she suffers long dying. I hope she rots in hell for eternity thereafter.

She destroyed the progress this country and the western world (possibly except America) were making towards civilisation, and towards reducing the gap between rich and poor.

For selfish and doctrinaire reasons she made millions suffer so her few fair weather friends could benefit. She did no good and much harm.

There may be others who have recently been more evil and malevolent than she. But not many.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 05:57 PM

I think "Claymore's" choice of his name is particularly apt- an American bastardization of a Scots term, mis-applied in the U.S. military's typically bombastic style (e.g., 'Hellfire' missile) to a particularly nasty version of anti-personnel mine-- an indiscriminate killer and maimer of friend and foe, military and civilian, women and children; a "weapon of mass destruction" banned by every country in the world with even a pretension to civilization- except the U.S. of A. Sounds just about right...

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: JudeL
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 06:43 PM

1) the main reason her party stayed in power so long was not that people agreed with her policies but that her rich friends (who were getting richer) controlling the media ensured that the public were scaremongered out of returning a Labour govt , the Labour party then appeared to disagree internally about how to present itself to combat it's negative press and made the major mistake of dividing it's efforts by arguing internally instead of presenting a united front.

2) Whole areas of the country suffered massive unemployment because key industries were killed off. By shutting the mines in Wales, the pumping also stopped and as the water rose in the disused mines rivers started being poisoned by this.

3) We are now suffering a severe skills shortage because higher education has once more become something that you can only afford if you are rich. We used to have a system where most craft based employers took on apprentices, paid them an apprentice wage did some inhouse training and sent them on day release to the local technical college, and at the end of 3 or 5 years would take most of them on as permanent staff. Universities taught accademic subjects which were tax funded, students could concentrate on their subjects (lower drop out rates) and graduates were then available to enter professions such as teaching. Also because graduates tended to earn more they would be on a higher rate of tax and so pay more tax. The whole country benefitted by the investment in the workforce. Instead we now have very high vacancy rates, such that schools are trying to get teachers from abroad to plug the skills gap.

4) It was under the egg-snatcher that CCT was introduced. It has been proved repeatedly that handing the functions of local govt out to private contractors tends to end up costing more for a worse service, but govts of all persuasions are still buying into the lie that profiteering companies can magically make money without reducing the quality of the service. And this despite acknowledging that the quality of a service depends almost entirely upon the quality of the staff providing that service. If you don't pay them properly and you don't invest in their training do you really expect to get (and keep) quality staff? The phrase you pay peanuts you get monkeys comes to mind.

5) She engineered a change in our culture (controlling what is taught in schools and influencing media are very effective propaganda tools) away from collective responsibility and community values to self centred individualism. Made a virtue out of only looking after yourself and championed the idea that if someone has a problem, lost their job or are ill they must deserve it and are a "scrounger" and a "layabout" . This change in our culture now makes a virtue out of taking advantage of others.

For these and many other reasons I believe she did my country great harm. No, I do not wish her dead, the dead have peace, instead I would wish that having lost all her money (in some enron type disaster) she ends her days being looked after in an underfunded externalised care home where the insufficient, inadequate, undertrained, staff are all temps who are on their first shift and treat her the same way they treat hundreds of other elderly people that she condemned to the "delights" of lowest bidder care.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: harvey andrews
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 07:34 PM

Amen, Jude.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 12:45 AM

I don't know much about Thatcher, but I tend not to like what I have heard. However...

In the past, the schools of the United Kingdom were the laughingstock of the western world, people died from breathing the air in London, the Thames was an open sewer, and unemployment and recessions prevailed for years. Yet the men who governed then have never been subject to the nastiness to which Thatcher is subjected.

I don't think it's politics, I think it's jealousy. You are angry because a woman got to a high position. Worse yet, she was a woman and she didn't act like the national Mum! Isn't that it?

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 01:31 AM

Naw leenia, the real reason is that she did what the Labor Party had failed to do over the 50 years when they tried real hard, she demolished the Tory Party.

:)

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Cluin
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 01:47 AM

Mulroney did the same thing to the Tories in Canada. With 2 terms as a majority government.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: banjomad (inactive)
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 04:52 AM

For those of you unfamiliar with it check out Ewan MacColl's song   '.The Grocer ' Thatchers political career in a nutshell.
Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: harvey andrews
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 06:22 AM

I don't think it's politics, I think it's jealousy. You are angry because a woman got to a high position.

No,Leeneia. No.No.NO.

"Privatisation revenues were used simply to boost spending...Neither North Sea oil revenues nor privatisation receipts were used for major capital projects or for industrial modernisation. In that sense all the Conservative administrations of the 1980's and 90's threw away two once-and-for-all bonuses on current comsumption, and this in a country with low levels of public and private investment by international standards....Mrs Thatcher's enthusiasm for nuclear weapons was excessive. She saddled Britain with the costs of the Trident missile...The expenditure on trident could have modernised the UK's rail network and the London Underground"
"From Blitz to Blair" N. Tiratsoo.1997

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: ced2
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 03:40 PM

The comments from accross the pond about the greatness of Thatcher can only lead one to the inevitable conclusions about their time with old Ronnie Raygun. Either (a)he was much worse, or (b)he had such an influence on some Americans so as to make them even more gormless than he. One could easily conclude the latter was the case given the latest gormless sod to inhabit the White House. On the other hand perhaps it was both!

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 05:29 AM

IanC I think April 1st is a bad day for MTD.

May I respectfully suggest October 30th. We should all resolve to (appropriately) buy besoms and and make a clean sweep of politics on that day. Now the question, is Blair safe on a day like that?

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: banjomad (inactive)
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 05:33 AM

I think most americans do not understand the damage this woman did to a large section of English society.
She used mass unemployment as a tool to hold down wages while her cronies were awarding themselves pay rises that would keep most people in luxury for the rest of their lives. Her paranoid hatred of the trade unions devastated two great British industrys. coal and steel, { withe the help of an American, Ian MacGregor , may he burn in hell ]. The money paid to MacGregor and the money spent fighting the miners was more than the cost of the miners wage claim.
Don't call us jealous because we do not like this person who devastated the lives of many many ordinary British people.
Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: JudeL
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 08:11 AM

Leenia ... I am not angry because a woman got to a position of power, nor am I jealous of women, I am a woman and I believe in challenging the glass ceiling. I also beleve that Mrs Thatcher did the whole of womankind a dis-service and dealt equality issues a major set back because there were so few women who figured prominantly in politic those who were there started being seen as typical of what any woman in power would be like. It was not that she didn't act like a "national mum" it was that she acted like a self-centred, souless, ambitious, profiteering, short-sighted bully, putting the immediate needs of the few above both the the immediate and future needs of the rest of the country.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: JudeL
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 08:35 AM

correction the immediate WANTS of a few

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Teribus
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 08:57 AM

To all of the lady's detractors who have vehmently posted above as to the ills she inflicted upon the United Kingdom, can you please refresh our memories with regard to how great things were before she took office, collectively your singular lack of reference to the deplorable state of the country during the 1970's may give non-UK readers the impression that there existed a Utopian paradise - I am of an age that I did live through it, the country was going to hell in high gear due to complete and utter irresponsibility on the part of government and the Trades Union movement.

In making this illustration please provide details regarding industrial output (GDP and GNP), rates of inflation, percentage unemployment, growth, introduction of foreign investment, introduction of new industry. If you look at those statistics you will see a trend that indicates continued improvement from 1979 to the present day. As someone has pointed out above no sucessive government has ever attempted to reverse any of her policies.

Quite a number of people posting to this thread mention the usual myths:

1) She did not start the Falklands War

2) Great British Industries - Coal and Steel.

The Coal industry was costing the British Tax payer hundreds of millions of pounds a week, with a work force fully prepared to hold the country to ransom at the drop of a hat for the privelage of subsidising them in their "jobs for life". Reality check - you can buy something for £75 or alternatively you can pay £6 for the same item - which price would you pay?

Steel - we made the wrong product at too high a price, at a time when world demand for steel was decreasing, it still is.

3) We should copy the German model - not so wise - take a look at what is happening to them now. What ever government is in power in Germany they will have to take on the Unions, just as Maggie had to.

So she devastated the lives of many many ordinary British people did she? All those people thrown on the dole, consigned to the scrapheap - where are they? Britain has, and has had for some considerable time now, one of the lowest percentages of unemployed in Europe if not the world - so where are all of Maggie's victims?

A comparison of Britain pre-1979 and now, I believe, would reveal a number of significant improvements - most of the ground work and the seeing through of some extremely tough decisions was down to Mrs T. She might not have got everything right - but you tell me anyone who ever has got everything right. In viewing the period, look at the facts, look at it objectively - too often all that comes out is selective, inaccurate, subjective hysteria.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: fiddler
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 08:59 AM

I find it incredible that that woman can still engender such feeleings long after her political demise - which she truly deserved.

As a Brit we got waht she promised - she stuck to her guns thru and thru she was just clever at phrasing it so it seemed good.

She promised Victorian England (ie rich bluddy rich poor bluddy poor and heavily downtrodden) she didn't quite get the unions banned but she tried hard and the luddites nearly returned.

Judging by the antics of her cabinet was she big on the international stage or was she performing similar antics internationally (no insinuations here just a question) - think big eh!

Ronald R in America never seemed that bright even in his B movies (lets hit back shall we :-))

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: fiddler
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 09:00 AM

PS to may lat post - and speaking of last posts Gualtierri died today!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: banjomad (inactive)
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 09:11 AM

Thatcher was the ultimate hypocrit, while hell bent on destroying the British trade union movement, she had the nerve to tell the Polish government that they MUST listen to Lech Walesa and the Polish unions,
She was brought down by her friends which shows their true nature.
She also did a Robin Hood in reverse ie. the Poll tax made the less well off subsidise the wealthy.
Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: JudeL
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 09:37 AM

One of the things she did was to change the basis upon which such things as unemployment are calculated and to exclude from the figures many who were previously included. She also removed the fair wages legislation, making poverty pay legal. If you are going to compare please try comparing like with like. I also lived through that age and in addition have studied the politics and labour relations of the time with the benefit of information which at the time was suppressed. Have you forgotten the effect of the 5 fold hike in oil prices and the effects that had. Also try remembering that the cost and benefits to a country of a major industry are different to individual shareholders. When you throw large numbers of people out of work it has a knock on effect on the whole community and increases the burden on the benefits system paid by those who have not yet lost their jobs, even if like MT you try to reduce the number of people claiming by removing eligibility from those in need. Oh and on the reversal of policies, we are still living with the after- effects of having a generation that was encouraged to think that believing in co-operation and community was weak and that selfish ambition was admirable by "there is no such thing as society" Thatcher and her highly effective propaganda.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: ced2
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 09:43 AM

With refenence to not starting the Falklands war, was it not one of her ministers who sent out a loud clear message about removing the pre war military cover and thus opened-up the opportunity for the Agrentinians to invade? I believe he then fell on his sword... His name was John Knott. And as for the coal dispute, we now import coal, mined by children in southern America, whilst having to pay grant costs to areas devestated by the closure of the coal fields. In addition should we ever need to get at the coal that is now locked-up underground because we are in need of basic fuels the costs associated with its recovery have increased tremendously. I think I was too generous when I suggested that RIP could be Rest In Pain. A more considered response would be "(w)Rithe in Pain!

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 09:59 AM

Claymore doesn't have nightmares about the war, he has wet dreams --- see his posting from this thread about 'Friendly Fire':
Norton1, some of my favorite people were Angels (ANGLICO) also known as "Squids on the Ground". I had one shoot the New Jersey into some bunkers south of Cua Viet in '69. Nine rounds and the whole ridge line collapsed... still gives me a woody.
We should be grateful that Claymore and his buddies weren't helping out in the Falklands War. Just imagine how many more British troops would have died.

BJ

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: banjomad (inactive)
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 02:50 PM

Another of her disastrous policies was ' care in the community ' which meant throwing mentally ill people out of hospitals with no care at all.
This resulted in many innocent people being killed by mentally ill people who should have been in hospital.
We could go on forever about her evil policies.
Angry Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 05:09 PM

Since I can only get to the Mudcat when my works done, I just arrived after the weekend, only to find that while the cats away... So lets start straighting a few things out.

Bulfrog, if you had half a clue about what you quoted, you would realize that you just blew the hell out of your cohorts comments about the Belgrano. ANGLICO stands for Air Naval Gunfire LIaison COmpany, and are naval officers or senior enlisted who are forward observers for naval gunfire (in this case the battleship, New Jersey).


The use of naval gunfire is extremely important in an amphibious landing, but the British is the Falklands did not have a captial ship, due to the previous governments idiotcy, and the ground forces were forced to use close air support and landed artillery. The Belgrano would have caused two forms of havoc. By steaming directly towards the Falklands, she would have required the Brits to divide their already meager air power into three missions; ground support for the troops, air cover for the anchored fleet, and attack aircraft on the Belgrano. And when she arrived, she could have rained hell on Goose Green from any point of the compass around the Islands.

Your limited mind obviously does not comprehend that the Argentines already had land based airpower, that eventually sunk three ships with Exercets, and that their French Mirages were more than a match for the Harrier (which is not an air superiority fighter but a close ground support plane).

Now do try and pay attention: The Belgrano was a declared combatant, by it's own government the DAY IT SAILED, after the Argentines occupied the Islands, and herded the occupants/hostages into army concentration camps, and after Lady Thatcher had spent some three months working through the UN (which backed her actions, after the Argentines refused to negotiate) a point the BRIT TWITS refuse to acknowledge. I know that I've no chance in engaging in a battle of wits with a group of individuals who come to the match half-prepared, but I do hope that some of the other readers are able to catch some of the points being made.

Now to quickly clean up some of the other intellectual stragglers.

Greg F, I don't expect that you have a clue what you are talking about in mines, but the word COMMAND DETONATED means the mine does not indiscriminately kill women, children, yadayada, yammer, yammer, etc. It is set up temporarily above ground to cover trails, lines of attack, etc and is activated by a button attached to an electric detonator. It is never left behind, and is expressly permitted, and actually encouraged as a sane alternative, by the current UN Working Group on Anti Mining Treaty. And Greg, I don't mind insults, I just hate the really stupid, ignorant ones...

As for studying war, somebody has to keep the twits away from the buttons.

As for the lunacy that by not indicating a continuing interest in a piece of national property that has not been in dispute for over a hundred years, you have CAUSED a war when somebody forcibly occupies it; my question to the BRIT TWITS is this, any of you guys comtemplating a shot at Rhode Island?... Our government hasn't indicated a desire to fight for that particular state in my memory...

As for coal and steel, they were dying morbiund industries in the States too, and went the same way, without Lady Thatcher's help. When you charge too much for the job you are doing, and your business doesn't make a profit, and is only held up by government subsidies, eventually you lose your job and your industry...

Finally, I hope I do not bring fire down upon your head, but thanks Teribus... it takes two to recognize the truth...

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 06:31 PM

Oh, please...

and is activated by a button attached to an electric detonator

and just as often set up to be detonated by a trip wire

It is never left behind

Oh, right you are. Sure. I believe you; thousands wouldn't.

You're really quite good with that trowel aren't you?

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: GUEST,Brit Twit
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 06:40 PM

Hey big mouth ... keep still

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 07:29 PM

Good Lord! Who pissed in y'all's cornflakes this morning???

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: GUEST,Raedwulf
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 08:44 PM

Well, I can't say as I'm terribly impressed with half of what Claymore has said about the 'merits' of Milk Snatcher Thatcher ("egg-snatcher"? Where did that one come from?! *g*). I am, however impressed by the fact that he manages to keep his temper & keep to (what he believes are) facts, notwithstanding the ordure cast his way.

Now if only the rest of you would refrain from puking your bile all over the board, perhaps there might be some small chance to enlighten him as to some of the real damage she did.

So please do the rest of us a favour & quit with the pathetic insults, huh? As for those who are busy wishing pain & agony on the old cow, you really are sad, sick little bunnies. I can't stand the woman, & am of the opinion that the world would be a better place if she wasn't in it any more (less chance of her pontificating all over the place...). But wishing she dies (or lives) in agony? Some of you need help...

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: GUEST,I hate thatcher
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 10:23 PM

Of course you got a job, it's because of her that so may people don't have Jobs.
As wishing that she was dead, I just that she would just fade away and go into an old people's home, wait a minute she is it's the house of Lords.
And imgine making her a lady, to become a lady you need to be human first.
I just don't like the woman and what she and her party did to Britain.
It will be a happy day when she is no longer with us.

You might as well say that Hitler was a nice man, because he had the same ideas as Thatcher.
I could go on but I won't as I said I just can't stand the woman.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: GUEST,I hate thatcher
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 10:51 PM

P.s the only thing that she never did was kill millions of people,
however she did stop lots of folk getting jobs, she was in the decade of Greed and selfishness.
She only cared about herself and no one else.
And then you want me to like her, never.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 05:51 AM

Claymore, there's obviously a sharp brain at work there --- it's just a shame that it's encased in a head that's so far up your own arse that you can apply the word 'sane' to a landmine and entirely miss the point I was making that you get off on death and destruction.

BJ

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: banjomad (inactive)
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 06:48 AM

Claymore, if Thatcher had made you redundant or made you pay poll tax to subsidise the wealthy, or one of those unfortunate care in the community patients had killed your daughter you would not be so ready to defend this vile person.
Incidently why did all the British government papers relating to the General Belgrano mysteriously disappear ?
Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 07:18 AM

Banjomad: the idea of the Poll Tax was not to subsidise the wealthy, but to equalise the burden of cost. A wealthy person does not create more rubbish than a poor one, nor visit the library more often, nor require a greater standard of policing (and if they do they pay for it!), so the intention was for local taxes to be based on the number of people in a house, rather than the house's value.
The idea that the rich should pay more because they have more would see multi-tier pricing for bus tickets by the same 'logic'.
With the Poll Tax, the really poor could get subsidies and exemptions. It was the 'working classes' who were hit by the novel idea that everybody should pay at the same rate for the same services.

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: ced2
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 08:01 AM

What a cartload of rubbish! The effects of the poll tax as a burden of local taxation have been publically documented. I know that in Bradford for example where there were 30 council wards the burden of taxation per household increased in varing degrees in 27 of the wards of the metropolitan district. In only 3 of the wards did it go down. It is no coincidence that those three wards were the most prosperous in the district. Two of the names I remember clearly, Ilkley & Baildon, both pleasent suburban districts with lots of top band housing (as determined by the current system), the third I can't recall. Of the other 27 wards it was, by and large, the poorest, either in terms of per capita or household income or the most needy, in terms deprivation indicies that suffered the most. I would find it amazing if this large North of England city and urban district was so untypical as to be the exact reverse of what happened nationally. As for the statement rich people do not create more rubbish than poor, for example look at the amount of packaging that comes with purchases of items other than basic food. The more one buys, the more waste there is from packaging alone... and the more money one has the more that one can buy. Libraries... another cloud cuckoo land statement. For at least 50 years it has been well documented that it is the middle & upper classes that use such council services the most. Poorer families have tended not to use these facilities... and before we start but I know of so and so there are of course personal exceptions.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: JudeL
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 08:09 AM

sorry raedwolf, when I checked back *G* I realised for some unknown reason I'd managed to type "egg" and before you ask I have no idea why.

BTW, High quality Welsh Anthracite was still in demand, the decision to close mines was not even based on cost benefit analysis (either short or long term) it was a political decision. I have no knowledge of the state of the mining industry in the US, whether it was dying or not , but the coal industry in Wales was deliberately killed off.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Teribus
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 08:32 AM

Hi Banjomad, you ask:

"..why did all the British government papers relating to the General Belgrano mysteriously disappear ?"

Did they mysteriously disappear??

Or did they just disappear??

Or were they merely misplaced??

Or did they ever really exist??

I do know the guy who sank the Belgrano, maybe he can shed some light on the papers you refer to?

Claymore's appreciation of the situation wrt the Belgrano and the potential threat posed is spot on - that was why she was sunk - the Belgrano's anti-submarine escorts ran for cover, Conqueror could have sunk them and the vessels that returned to pick up the Belgrano's survivors, they were left alone because they did not constitute anything like the threat posed by the Belgrano. And before anyone mentions how old and obsolete she was, consider the following. In the Pool of London visitors can look round a Second World War 6" gun Cruiser, HMS Belfast. In the late 1960's she was HMS Bellerophon, Flagship for the Royal Naval Reserve Fleet. She was initially saved from the scrappers yard by an arguement being put to the Ministry of Defence to retain her purely for Naval Gunfire Support. In terms of armament she was comparable to the Belgrano. As a Forward Observer you direct gunfire from ships offshore to specific land targets, while ranging in you correct the fire from one gun until it drops on the target, you then give the order to fire for effect and all the guns on the ship open fire on the selected target. Albeit Second World War hardware from the time the Forward Observer calls for fire for effect until the first 6" shell lands there are 120, 6" shells on their way that cannot be called back - extremely crude but very effective. The lunatic fringe (Tony Benn and Tam D) can argue semantics and niceties wrt the declared exclusion zone around the Falklands in 1982 till the cows come home, the stark reality was an undeniable need to remove the remotest possibilty of allowing that sort of fire-power to be directed against our troops and fleet. There was no politics in the decision to sink the Belgrano at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: HuwG
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 08:53 AM

One second while I don the asbestos underwear ...

OK. I recall being in uniform in 1982 when the Falklands Conflict started, and can recall the change of mood which everyone felt on hearing that the ARA "Belgrano" had been sunk. Up to this point, there had been barely half a dozen deaths and for all the sabre-rattling and mobilisation, it was possible to imagine that there might be some sort of face-saving settlement. After the sinking, there was no doubt that we were in real earnest.

[I never went near the Falklands, though two of the people I had known in training were with the Task Force, and some of the radios with which we were to have been issued went as well, presumably on the "Atlantic Conveyor". Ooops !]

It should not be forgotten that Maggie's bellicose stance over the Falklands was fully supported by the Labour party under lifelong peace campaigner Michael Foot; after decades of railing against militarism and authoritarianism, he suddenly found himself facing a reincarnation of Franco [Galtieri], and it would have been a paradoxical betrayal of his principles to oppose Maggie at that point.

I always found Maggie's imposition of her own suburban prejudices on Britain to become increasingly dictatorial as time went on, and while I prefer not to join those howling for her public execution, I think it was unfortunate that she did not step down, or that a plausible alternative PM in the Conservative party did not challenge her, much sooner.

Maggie probably suffered from a swollen head after 1982, if her reported words to George Bush Sr on the outbreak of the Gulf crisis in 1990 are true; "Now George, this is no time to get wobbly!"

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Gareth
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 10:14 AM

At last a return to sanity.

She was evil / she is evil, and used class warfare.

The one crime that that appalling woman is not guilty of is the sinking of the "Belgrano".

Claymore may be miss informed about the British economy, but on the "Belgrano" afaire he is spot on.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 10:36 AM

Ced2: I avoided using examples,or 'rubbishing' anyone elses comments. But you state the case most clearly:

"What a cartload of rubbish! The effects of the poll tax as a burden of local taxation have been publically documented. I know that in Bradford for example where there were 30 council wards the burden of taxation per household increased in varing degrees in 27 of the wards of the metropolitan district. In only 3 of the wards did it go down. It is no coincidence that those three wards were the most prosperous in the district. Two of the names I remember clearly, Ilkley & Baildon, both pleasent suburban districts with lots of top band housing (as determined by the current system), the third I can't recall. Of the other 27 wards it was, by and large, the poorest, either in terms of per capita or household income or the most needy, in terms deprivation indicies that suffered the most. I would find it amazing if this large North of England city and urban district was so untypical as to be the exact reverse of what happened nationally. "

To clarify that I have understood your comments; Prior to the implementation of poll tax, 10% of the wards were paying a higher per capita rate than the other 90%. Anyone at the 'well-off' end of the poor district, or just entering the higher stratum of the rich district will surely have wondered what extra services were provided by the council to justify a massive (perceived) hike in local rates caused merely by moving home. And it must have been a massive hike if a reduction for 10% of the community caused such hardship when spread out over the remaining 90% as an increase!

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: GUEST,Raedwulf
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 01:19 PM

Nice to see the thread's got civilised again. :)

I will disagree with Gareth though. She was not/is not "evil" - that's plain silly. The problem with that "appalling woman" (a description I *do* agree with! *g*) is that she was & is a narrow-minded ideologue, with no bloody imagination whatsoever.

Ideology is all very well in theory, but when it's rigidly & unbendingly applied in practice it invariably turns out as a disaster. She was incapable of accepting that her policies weren't right & never had the wit to understand how much harm she was causing. A small-minded grocer's daughter, yes! Evil? Naaah!

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: banjomad (inactive)
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 02:52 PM

Raedwulf, it's just an anagram; vile, evil unfortunately live.
Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 06:06 PM

Now bear with me for a second...

In my first attempt to attach an article from todays Washington Times (A14) I do so because it gives a pretty clear second opinion on Lady Thatcher, and why the Unionists so hate her. What is interesting here is the theme of the emergence of the New Labor Party to occupy the vital center, and the very clear statement about the British voters opinion of Thatcher and Blair's adoption of it: (4th paragraph from the end, starting with "Blair perceived the obvious:). For the American reader it may open up a clearer sky to this mudfight, and give some perspective to some of the more vociferous comments made above. To some extent, I hear the last raging against the dying of the light. The question for the Leftist/Unionist/Socialist/Communist spectrum is not "Who won?" but how are you going to live with the peace? The below is submitted for your consideration...

Tories facing uncertain future

Arnold Beichman
    Is the Conservative Party of Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher on the way out as one of the more durable British institutions? It would appear so, according to all political portents. How great a loss would the disappearance of the Conservative Party be not only to Great Britain but to our country?
    Not much of a loss at the moment. Prime Minister Tony Blair has as leader of the Labor Party moved this once ideology-bound organization to a center-left position over the protests of the ultra-left Trades Union Congress that once ran Labor, usually into the ground.
    Mr. Blair's two election triumphs in 1996 and 2001 have brought ruin to the Conservative Party. Once it was a party with a definable national constituency. Today it is little more than a regional party: just one Member of Parliament in Scotland, none in Wales and hardly any seats in urban England. Coming up fast in Britain's historic two-party system is the Liberal Democratic Party, which could replace the Tories as the Opposition.
    As for the effect on America of a vanished or vanishing Conservative Party, there is no stauncher ally in the war against terrorism than Labor Prime Minister Blair, 49, even though segments of his party, in and out of Parliament, abominate the historic "special relationship" between the two English-speaking democracies.
    Recall Mr. Blair's presence in the U.S. House of Representatives balcony when in the week after September 11, 2001, President Bush, addressing a joint session of Congress, noted that presence and inspired an ovation to Mr. Blair from the audience. Compare Mr. Blair's conduct with that of Canada's Prime Minister Jean Chretien, our neighbor to the north, who became the invisible man in the aftermath of the American tragedy.
    True, premature burial of the Conservative Party has been traditional in British political history. Disastrous Tory electoral results in 1906 and 1945 persuaded many that the party was finished for good. The gloomy prophesies were ludicrously wrong. The Tories in each case came back at succeeding elections and remained in power in election after election. The Tories won four elections in a row from 1979, three of them under the redoubtable Margaret Thatcher.
    What made for Tory success was that within the British electorate was a hidden force, the "Tory Worker," (his counterpart in America was called the "Reagan Democrat) who was a union member but not a Labor Party loyalist. The Tory Worker shunned the class warfare ideology expressed in the House of Commons by a Labor MP in an exultant cry, "We are the masters now," after his party's 1945 smashing victory. But they were not masters for long.
    Within six years, in 1951, this same Conservative Party, whose post-1945 election demise was widely predicted, returned to power with Churchill once more as prime minister. The Tory campaign strategy, an early version of "compassionate conservatism," was simple and it worked: the British public wants nationalization and the welfare state? Well and good, but it would be under Tory auspices. In short, the Tories "re-invented" themselves.
    Under Mr. Blair, the Labor Party has reinvented itself as the New Labor Party; so much so that when he refused to knuckle under to firefighter union wage demands last month, the Sun, the 3.3-million circulation British daily, headlined the event on Page One in a tribute to Margaret Thatcher as: "Blair does a Maggie."
    Simply put, Mr. Blair has won back the "Tory Worker" and with it a substantial part of the middle class. But more importantly, in today's New Labor Party there are no off-putting Labor MPs as there were after the 1945 elections like Aneurin Bevan, Emanuel Shinwell, Stafford Cripps, men who loathed their opponents. Bevan referred to the Tories as "lower than vermin."
    The old Labor Party was a divided, ideology-driven, ultra-left, union-dominated, Marxist-based organization over which Prime Minister Clement Attlee and his successors had no real control.
    The party's controlling elements — the left of the left — preferred to lose elections rather than give an inch on the socialist ideology. Mr. Blair has changed all that; whether for good, we shall have to wait and see. (Incredibly, he recently honored the still Stalinist historian, Eric Hobsbawm, by appointing him a Companion of Honor, a much-coveted British title.)
    Mr. Blair perceived the obvious: The British voter liked what Margaret Thatcher was doing, and it was not some passing mood. So Mr. Blair did in the '90s what the Tories had done in the '50s. Presently, Mr. Blair faces a serious Cabinet and constituency rebellion against his Iraq policy, according to the London Daily Telegraph. Whether he will be able to quell that rebellion remains to be seen.
    As for the Conservatives, despite their humiliating 1945 defeat, they still had credible spokesmen like Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Iain Macleod, Reginald Maudling who won back the electorate in 1951 after the sour taste of Labor class warfare governing.
    Today the Conservatives have nobody who stands out as Mr. Blair's rival. The present leader, Iain Duncan Smith, 49, is leading a badly divided party, so divided in fact that he has just uttered a warning: "Unite or Die." As an example of division, Duncan Smith (or IDS, as he is known) says he is for tax cuts; his shadow chancellor, Michael Howard, is not. The Tory leader's future hinges on the local council elections in May. Should they turn out to be further defeats for the Conservatives, bye-bye, IDS.
    Perhaps the real problem is that, with the end of the Cold War, there is no big issue that divides the two parties. That means New Labor, as it is now called, will be Britain's governing party for a long time to come. Whether the Tories can survive so dismal a future is doubtful.

Arnold Beichman, a Hoover Institution research fellow, is a columnist for the Washington Times.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 06:13 PM

I'm sure that if Mrs Thatcher had of been a Labour Prime Minister we would now be enjoying the benefits of a model NHS and superb education system. She would have taken on big business and removed its sting and probably nationalised all foreign enterprises in the UK. But as she was on the other side of the coin this is just speculation - I know that she had a strong personality/character which means a strong positive side and a strong negative side - when she got it right or wrong she stuck to her guns.
I suspect that many in her Cabinet encouraged her to do what she did because they didn't have the balls/brassneck to do so themselves.
Rest in peace.
CD.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: BusbitterfraeScotland
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 09:00 PM

Maggie Thatcher gave the order to sink the Belgrano, it was sailing away from the Falklands, it was no way near the Falkands, And these people who believe that that The Belgrano was not sunk by the order of Thatcher, must of been away on holiday in another country.
Or else they are just Tories and Maggie Thatcher's ass lickers]

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: ced2
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 04:31 AM

Clearly there is a problem with comprehension about the poll tax in simple words "The rich paid a much less and the poor paid a lot more." Its difficult to argue with facts. Incidentally it got so embarrassing that it was the next conservative leader that had to promise to get rid of the poll tax in order to win the 92 election! The admission, by the deed of axing it, by the puportrators of the poll tax is, at the end of the day, one of the clearest statements that it was ill-concieved if not downright wrong!

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 05:33 AM

No arguments on that one, Claymore. Blair is Thatcher's bastard son. Those of us who lived through the Thatcher era despairing that we'd never again see a Socialist government are still despairing. Ever the pragmatist, Blair has simply tried to give Thatcher's policies a human face to attract the old-style Tories who loathed her as much as the Left did.

BJ

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Teribus
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 06:03 AM

Ah Tam Ah Tam, re: your last:

1)
"Maggie Thatcher gave the order to sink the Belgrano," Wrong ordered by Northwood, who strongly recommeded the sinking to the Cabinet - it was not Mrs T's decision. The "Rules of Engagement" governing the 200 mile Total Exclusion Zone were specifically altered to accommodate the threat posed by Argentinian Naval Task Forces TG78 (Aircraft Carrier 25th May) and TG79 (General Belgrano), the ammendments in force prior to the sinking of the Belgrano allowed submarines (Superb and Conqueror) to attack and sink those vessels outside the TEZ.

2)
"...it was sailing away from the Falklands, it was no way near the Falkands," Totally irrelevant wrt "Rules of Engagement" in force at that time. The shooting war had already started, the ship had been evaluated as a major threat, while Conqueror was manouevring to engage Belgrano, "25th of May" was preparing to launch Skyhawk aircraft against the British Task Force (Launch abandoned due to lack of wind over her flight deck). To introduce what you say above clearly demonstrates that you have absolutely no knowledge of naval operations, capabilities and tactics.

3)
"And these people who believe that that The Belgrano was not sunk by the order of Thatcher, must of been away on holiday in another country." The situation had been evaluated long before the event, the assessment as to whether or not to sink the General Belgrano was taken by Naval command, they passed that assessment and recommendations to the Cabinet (Not to the Prime Minister alone) who collectively agreed that the course of action recommended was the one to adopt. The order to sink the Belgrano was issued through RN chain of command from Northwood, in all probability copied to Woodward in command of the Task Force at sea.

4)
"Or else they are just Tories and Maggie Thatcher's ass lickers]" Alternatively they may be people who are prepared to read up on the incident and form an objective opinion on what was going on and why things were done the way they were.

The Leftist view that Mrs T went to war to win the next election was only ever voiced after the event with the advantage of 20 x 20 hindsight. At the time very few believed that what was achieved could be done - not surprising - we were bloody lucky, at no time whatsoever was the outcome a foregone conclusion - had the Argentinian Air Staff been better at arithmetic - we would have lost.

Subject: RE: BS: Maggie Thatcher Day
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 08:25 AM

Ced2: No argument about the lack of comprehension of the poll tax, it is your interpretation that suffers. "The rich paid a much less and the poor paid a lot more." This claim, together with your claim that "The rich" made up 10% of Bradford & "the poor" 90% cannot be made to tally.
The fact that the poll tax was scrapped is not an admission that it was "ill-concieved if not downright wrong", merely that it had been shown to be unpopular with a large percentage of the populace. This is not surprising if your claim that 90% were worse off because of it. But, it does not make the basis of the poll tax wrong.
Removal of the poll tax ( a fair and equitable charge upon each person as a share of commonly received services ) reduced the income of local councils. As a result we see local rates (the charge on houses based on size and locality) increasing, and support by central government requiring the raising of additional funds by other means.
Tony Blair promised 'no increase in basic rate taxation' and so has had to increase nearly every other form of fund raising available to him. This means that we are now taxed at a much higher percentage rate, whilst the 'basic rate income tax' has not increased.

Nigel