melon said:Look on the bright side. If Margaret Thatcher hadn't been such an intolerant bitch, the UK probably wouldn't be so liberal now. Who would have ever guessed that the Tories would have become so socially progressive? Now all they need to do is create a strong and cohesive right-wing fiscal policy, and they might get elected again.
Thatcher's legacy has been double-edged. She helped destroy her own party and its great governing tradition, ending the political hegemony it had enjoyed for 100 years. But this was partly because her success helped to transform Labour, forcing it to modernise and so removing the enemy against which the Conservatives had organised for so long.
[...]
Under Thatcher, the policy unit used to ask of any policy: can the private sector deliver this? Now Conservative leadership contenders ask: how will this policy affect the worst-off? Thatcher transformed Labour, but New Labour is now transforming the Conservatives.
Irvine511 said:is anyone else bothered by the use of the world "bitch" to describe a female politician?
(no matter how awful she may or may not have been)
Here are a few reasons why she is so hatefulfinanceguy said:
I am not bothered, in and of itself, by the term "bitch" to describe a female politician (maybe on this side of the pond, standards of political discourse are a bit more....robust ).
I am however bothered by the one-sided responses on the thread, with the exception of A_Wanderer's.
I fail to see what was so hateful about Thatcher, given that she rescued the UK economy from a decade or more of moribund depression, and that she provided an example to many other countries (including my own) that enterprise wasn't something to be afraid of, that hard work wasn't something to be ashamed of, that socialism offered no solutions. These things bother me slightly, just a tad, but not the specific use of the term 'bitch' if other posters think that is appropriate.... but I disagree with them.
Would the UK people who posted have preferred the Communist sympathiser Michael Foot to have been PM, a man who would probably have sold your country down the river to the Soviet Union?
u2lassie said:
Here are a few reasons why she is so hateful
1. Her government single handedly destroyed entire communities through her decimation of the mining industry, resulting now in areas of extremely high drug use and crime. These were people who very much knew of the 'hard work' you speak of and she kicked the legs from under them.
2. she was the catalyst for the running down of the NHS, a job Mr Blair seems happy to continue...
3. If her example of ruthlessness and dictatorial leadership is an example to other nations then heaven help us!! Give me socialism any day...
4. She dumped all her most gruesome ideas on Scotland as she knew she hadn't a hope in hell of getting even one MP here, and for that she shall not be forgiven...bitch!!
So,yes..I would have preferred communist sympathiser (???!!!)Michael Foot, a good man who was systematically ridiculed by the right wing press at the time, but who stood for decency and egalitarianism. More people like him in politics and we might not need organisations like Make Poverty History.
Yes. But I figured maybe the nuances I heard in it weren't there for anyone else.Irvine511 said:is anyone else bothered by the use of the world "bitch" to describe a female politician?
(no matter how awful she may or may not have been)
financeguy said:I fail to see what was so hateful about Thatcher, given that she rescued the UK economy from a decade or more of moribund depression, and that she provided an example to many other countries (including my own) that enterprise wasn't something to be afraid of, that hard work wasn't something to be ashamed of, that socialism offered no solutions. These things bother me slightly, just a tad, but not the specific use of the term 'bitch' if other posters think that is appropriate.... but I disagree with them.
Victorian social values were idolised. Single parents and gay relationships stood accused of being the scourge of society, the cause of the crumbling social fabric.
The developing HIV epidemic was held up as the consequence of this 'immoral' behaviour. The Tory-supporting press fanned the flames of prejudice with screams of 'gay plague', provoking some ultra-right-wing Tories to openly incite gay bashing. December 1986 to November 1991 saw 70 gay men murdered.
The community had to get organised fast. Support groups and pressure groups emerged to provide services, carry out urgent education amongst the gay community and to counter the ignorance fostered by the government and media's bigotry.
But the Tories were relentless. New anti-gay laws were proposed which together represented the biggest attack on lesbian, gay and bisexual people since the 1950’s.
(The 1950s McCarthyite witch-hunts against communists and gays in the United States was paralleled in Britain by the viciously anti-gay Home Secretary Maxwell-Fyfe's 'clean-up' campaign which resulted in a five-fold increase in the number of arrests of gay men for gross indecency.)
In 1991, demonstrations took place against 'Clause 25' of the Criminal Justice bill which empowered the courts to view everyday contact between consenting gay men as serious sexual offences.
2,913 men were prosecuted for 'indecency' between men between 1990 and 1992. The sentiments of an Early Day Motion put down by Tory MP Harry Greenway to ban lesbians and gay men from fostering and adoption, were picked up by the junior health minister Virginia Bottomley. Her new government guidelines on the 1989 Children Act aimed at the same target but were defeated by the vigorous campaign against 'Paragraph 16'.
A further spur to the gay community came as the Tories prepared to hide an unprecedented attack on local government funding and services behind the smokescreen of Section 28.
40,000 marched against Section 28 in 1988. That summer, 60,000 marched on Gay Pride day - marches in preceding years had never topped more than a few thousand. Since then, Pride demonstrations have increased in number each year.
Out of interest what unadulterated evil did that sinister alliance born in the deepest pits of RWDB hell yield?blueeyedgirl said:Margaret Thatcher's unholy and perpetual dick sucking of Reagan, together with her appalling social policy (not to mention what damage she did to the economy) means I hope she rots in the deepest hell, together with Ronnie.
financeguy said:
"Give me socialism any day" - oh wonderful, I suppose you would have prefered to live in the Soviet Union where millions were sent to the gulags. "Dictatorial leadership"- I think that Magaret Thatcher was democratically elected. On three separate occasions.
Thatcher was elected each time with less than 40% of the overall vote and in Scotland, as I've stated, the Tories had not one MP. Democracy??? Excuse me...I'm off to the Gulag with my Guardian...
Kieran McConville said:Gee no offence Finance Guy but weren't you just saying in another thread a few days ago that it's silly to equate socialism or social-democracy style policies with full on soviet communism?
And now you're doing it!
Isn't that just a bit over the freaking top????
Don't take this personally, but I couldn't not say it.