BS:Thatcher's Legacy

Subject: Thatcher's Legacy
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 06:11 AM

Just read on another thread (Folk music Broadcasting) - that Thatcher finished off a lot of folk music on commercial radio through deregulation.

I can think of a number of things that woman did to 'improve'life in the UK - (stopping free milk to schoolkids, bringing on the pensions timebomb, deregulating buses, demutualising building socities, saying "there is no such thing as society").

Would any 'Catters' like to add your contribution to what you think she did to 'improve' society, especially where it affected you directly?

Subject: RE: Thatcher's Legacy
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 06:22 AM

She created the ' greed is good ' society we live in today typical examples of which are Fred Goodwin and all the MPs milking their expenses system to get all they can out of it, and a certain council executive from Wakefield who has just been given over half a million quid to quit his job early.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Thatcher's Legacy
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 06:23 AM

I've said it before and I'll say it again. That bloody woman should have been strung up from the nearest lamp post. What did she do to improve society? Absolutely nothing.

Subject: RE: Thatcher's Legacy
From: GUEST,Bob L
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 06:44 AM

Got our finances back on a sound footing for a start.

Broke Gormley's stranglehold on the miners' union, and the union's on the mines.

Stood up to Galtieri - if Britain had shown any sign of weakness there, imagine what would have happened in Ireland.

The pensions timebomb had been ticking ever since the Baby Boom and school milk, though valuable in its time, had outlived its usefulness.

Subject: RE: Thatcher's Legacy
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 06:45 AM

I managed to land an egg on her car when she came to a dinner at the Cutlers Hall in Sheffield in the middle of the miners' strike, and 25 years on my only regret is that it wasn't something more damage-inflicting.

And if the planned state funeral goes ahead I'll be the one playing 'Tramp The Dirt Down' and 'Ding Dong The Wicked Witch Is Dead' on rauschpfeife all through the two-minute silence.

Grrr .....

Subject: RE: Thatcher's Legacy
From: Leadfingers
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 06:50 AM

Bob L - Point One - Our Finances are SOUND ???

Point Two - She wanted revenge on the miners for their screwing Ted Heath , and managed to screw the ENTIRE Trade Ubion Movement

Point Three - She set the Argentinians up with her indications that UK would NOT Take any action to defend the Falklands

Point Four - What has the pensions time bonb got to do with stopping
school milk ?

Subject: RE: Thatcher's Legacy
From: Big Phil
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 06:55 AM

A rather more apt question would have been, What have NEW LIEbour done to improve society. Apart from bankrupting the entire Country, NOTHING except line their pockets with our money.

Phil*

Subject: RE: Thatcher's Legacy
From: s&r
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 07:05 AM

Not my favourite woman: this should be in BS for many reasons

Stu

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 07:45 AM

About five years ago, during a lively pub session at Chippenham folk festival, it suddenly occurred to me that none of the participating musicians appeared to be between the ages of 25 and 50. During a brief lull in the music, I pointed out this absence to a neighbour who was a survivor, like myself, of the 1960s folk explosion. He replied "they're the lost generation – Thatcher's children".

At the time, that summed it up for me. But on reflection, it seems too simplistic to assume that big T created the prevailing ethos of those miserable years by herself. Indeed, it's arguable that she didn't create it at all – she was just a canny surfer who saw the wave coming, and rode it for all she was worth.

During those years, a lot of people spent a lot of time, effort skill – and money – trying to persuade the rest of us that their ethos was not only beneficial, but inevitable. ("There is no alternative.") So, we were encouraged to work our socks off (for other people's profit), and to spend our meagre earnings on attractively packaged status symbols that had little or no real value.

Opinion formers encouraged us to purchase (and praise) only the 'right' forms of entertainment – the ones that proclaimed to everybody what admirable people we were. Moreover, we also had to abstain from (and disparage) the 'wrong' forms of entertainment – including anything that might hint that we were thinking for ourselves, rather than blindly buying whatever was currently profitable for the masters of the universe.

People who dared to challenge this ethos were ritually mocked by the media, and by all those who let the media mould their opinions. Nevertheless, some of us managed to keep our own variety of home-made (and mostly non-commercial) entertainment alive, so that future generations – if they chose – could enjoy it. It's heartening that so many young people are now choosing to carry on the folk tradition, despite continual pressure from the media to shun and despise it.

Wassail!

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Folkiedave
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 08:48 AM

Anyone would think Mike was a historian!

I stand by what I said (since it was me) once de-regulation on broadcasting came the radio stations could forget "Community" which is how they had got their licences, and go for profit.

Never listen to the damn things myself.

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 08:51 AM

Guest Bob L, are you here on a visit from cloud cuckoo land ?

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: r.padgett
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 09:06 AM

Sold Gas shares when we already had the Gas industry owned by us!!!

Share owning is definitely NOT for the man in the street as evidenced by present mess in UK, it for gamblers

Sold council houses cheaply and encouraged house owners, but failed to let councils build new houses, this led to inflated housing prices (among other factors)

Ray

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 09:16 PM

Selling off council houses was a simple gerrymander.

She set up the Falkands conflict for electoral advantage.

She set any idea of social justice back by at least 40 years.

Denied "society" creating the disaffected underclass we see on the street.

Came close to Goebbels quality of propaganda with the name of "care in the community".

Set us on the road to privatisation of the NHS. Set about dismantling the welfare state.

Poll tax.

Set up the trough feeding that later led at least to re-nationalising rail infrastructure and gave us the danger caused by underground railway insolvencies.

BNFL

I would like to see her suffering in life and if there is an afterlife then in the afterlife come close to the sum of the misery she caused to so many.

An evil, selfish, arrogant woman. No misery is too great for her.

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 02:22 AM

Yeah, that ' care in the community ' was a belter, throw mentaly ill people out of hospital and let them fend for themselves.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 03:39 AM

She did that - closed the Mental Health institutions and hospitals - so there wouldn't be anywhere to put her.

Shame... I know of at least one Georgian built asylum still standing that would be the perfect place for her final years. It's been turned into luxury flats for people who've never needed to have council housing. The doctors who used to patrol its wards and corridors cannot afford to live there.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Acorn4
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 03:58 AM

It was when she said that anyone who had to travel on a bus was a failure that did it for me as well as all the things mentioned above.
As one of my favourite columnists reported at the time she was elected:-

"I refuse to vote for someone who talks to me as if my dog's just died".

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Folkiedave
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 04:19 AM

We had the best transport system in Western Europe in South Yorkshire (It was never just Sheffield) We now have one of the most expensive.

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Acorn4
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 04:22 AM

This refers to it obliquely - it's sung like a sort of square dancy thing, although it refers more to the Shannon Matthews type of situation.

Change Your Partners. (Aug 2005)

Do you Leanne take Wayne-"Wicked-Innit"
To text each other till you use up your minutes
With this ringtone I thee wed
Who said that romance was dead
Bun in the oven, pig at the trough
You said you effing loved me
And now you've buggered off.

Just sixteen when I dropped my third
Offspring of some spotty nerd
Knickers up and down, sprogs fast and thick
Might as well get fitted with a zip,
Dad's done a bunk as is their wont
Now you see them now you don't

Chorus:-

Change your partners one, two three
Exit Wayne, enter Lee
Change your partners round you go
Where's your father, I don't know
Hiss DNA will be love's token
May the cycle be unbroken.

Give your kids those role model slobs,
Stuff that pizza down their gobs.
Sit your children on your lap,
Fill their brains with American crap
AS "Listen with Mother" bites the dust
Just feed them tales of zombie lust.

Chainsmoke, wear bling, chew that gum,
Down those breezers, flash your bum,
Booze it,lose it, "watch it, you"
Then eff and blind in a pile of spew
Off to the costa, don't give a shit,
Laid by Mario, jammy git.

Chorus:-
Change your partners , two three four
Exit Lee, enter Jordan..

Let those burgers call the tune
Expand till you're like a balloon,
Flab round your belly button, flab on your thighs,
Already a pudding before you're twenty five,
Rings through his nose, tattoes on his knackers
Lets's strew the world with MacDonald's wrappers.

Grab those benefits, know your rights,
Let your dog crap where it likes.
Those celebs are like Greek Gods
In the glossy magazines or on the box,
With a Nokia your brains to fry,
Then paint the town like Celtic tribes.

Chorus:-
Change your partners three four five.
Exit Jordan, Craig's arrived..

And so we take the centre stage
We're Thatcher's children come of age,
Never went much on education,
Gimme, gimme, gimme that gratification,
But I'd be the Einstein of the class
If me brain were as big as me mouth and me arse.

So dumb it on down, dumb it down to me,
Reality chat show on TV
He's a really nice boy, they won't give 'im a chance
And we all like the smell of our own farts like…
Che and Churchill and Chanel and Snanette and Shinead and Shanelle and Shaniece and Chevrolet and Nectarine and Baguette and Bastuin and Yellow and Cyan and Magenta and Little Boob Job and…

Chorus:-

Change your partners four, five, six
Exit Craig, Duane 'll fix it,
Change your partners, five, six, seven
Exit Duane, enter Stefan,
Change your partners, six, seven, eight,
Exit Stefan, enter Stefan's mate,
Change your partners, seven, eight nine,
Exit Stefan's mate, enter rotten swine,
Change your partners, eight, nine, ten,
Exit Rotten swine, Wayne's back again,
His DNA will be love's token…
May the cycle be unbroken..

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Peter the Squeezer
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 06:32 AM

Mike mentioned "the lost generation – Thatcher's children". We are now living with the legacy from thier kids - i.e. her grandchildren.

Her whole basic idea was to transform us from a we / us / our society, into a I / me / mine one - and she succeeded in this. Many kids on our streets today have never known any sense of community, indeed, many of them have never even known what it feels like to be wanted by anybody.

The Right Honourable Bitch for Finchley did however wake me up politically, when the Belgrano was sunk, and all she could do was stand on the steps of number 10 saying "Rejoice, Rejoice", when real peoples sons, fathers and brothers had been killed.

We must do our all to make sure that this never happens again. All that is necessary for evil to prevail, is for decent people to do nothing.

Peter

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Peter the Squeezer
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 06:52 AM

Sorry. I misquoted Edmund Burke there.

Should have been "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Peter

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Acorn4
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 07:10 AM

And we can sum up all that is wrong with the honours system in three woreds:-

Sir Mark Thatcher.

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: GUEST,Smokey
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 01:44 PM

Much as I would like to see her fed to the pigs, she didn't have sole responsibility for all that happened. She was surrounded by plenty more pig food - and more importantly, people voted for her or didn't vote at all.

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Cllr
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 05:36 PM

hmm interesting quote of Edmund Burke who is considered to be the philosophical founder of modern conservatism. So is Lady Thatcher a legacy of Edmund Burke? discuss

Cllr

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: GUEST,Redhead
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 05:38 PM

Mrs T. did in effect, what Babs Castle wanted to do in her proposed legislation 'In Place of Strife'. Maggie ended the culture of strikes at the drop of a hat and we ceased to be the sick man of Europe.

That said, power currupts and it did not end there! She became a very vengeful woman, destroying industries and communities away from the Tory heartlands. Mining, Steel all but perished while the city was deregulated. The peoples utilities (OUR assets) were sold off cheaply and we now pay the price to foreign owners! To her credit, she did not privatise the railways (some of the periferal businesses maybe). Her trusted aides Nicholas Ridley and her Willy (Whitelaw) may have presuaded her to hold off. Rail privatisation is down to that 'grey man' Major, trying to prove he could out-privatise Thatcher.

Pity the incoming Labour government in 1997 lacked the guts to bring the railways back under public ownership! The short franchises would have allowed this to happen without compensation. No wonder fares are so expensive with so many greedy profiteering fingers in the railway pie! End of rant.

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 02:58 AM

This so called Labour government lack guts full stop.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 04:01 AM

Acorn4 - you need four words to sum it up. It's Sir Mark Thatcher Bart. She had the nerve to re-introduce hereditary knighthoods.

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 08:27 AM

The title of "Baronet" was invented by King James (Scotland's 6th, England's 1st of that name). He sold them, to raise the funds needed for maintaining his extravagant lifestyle.

Plus ca change? Deja vu? What goes around comes around? Pick your own cliche.

Wassail!

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 07:08 PM

For my twopence worth. I think giving the police forces the free reins they used on the miners and continue to have now. They seem unaccountable and unleashed in many circumstances. Not only the G2 recently but on new age travellers and many other times in between. We have turned into (With great help from new labour) an almost police state with spying, listening, recording and tracking our ordinary lives.Unlawful action blocking roads, cordons, sealing off whole areas the list can go on and on I believe in law and order but it has to be tempered with the freedom of the people it is supposed to protect. But now, who is to protect us from the state we have become?

I never liked her, her policies and the disregard she had for fellow humans. Her followers and devotees will also rue the days to come in time.

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 09 Apr 09 - 01:59 AM

Have to agree with 99% of the thoughts above.
Does anyone remember the (banned by Thatch) cartoon in Private Eye around the time of the Falklands War?
A bust of Thatch set in a graveyard, surrounded by countless crosses...
The inscription on the plinth....
"They died to save her face"
Just about says it all really.

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 09 Apr 09 - 02:51 AM

Probably the most unforgivable thing, she sent British soldiers to their deaths to further her political career.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS:Thatcher's Legacy
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 09 Apr 09 - 05:01 AM

I liked the Iron maiden cover myself.Don't forget the toads who slavered at her feet and proped up her policies and implimented them to the detriment of the rest of us. They should all be remembered for what they did and said. Then John Major who followed on with the same style. Conference speech..."New age travellers, no way, not in my day". That gave the police and local councils carte blanche to ill treat, threaten and harrass especially following on from their actions against lawful picketing. Who introduced sequestation of union funds?.Why? To weaken and stop union action so we have gone back a hundred years in the way employers treat the labour force.She didn't invent the greed culture, but she sure as hell helped it along with an almighty shove.

The problem is we are impotent against the machine now and that is part of Thatcher's legacy.