The generally festive atmosphere, and an attendance of around 1,000 people, was a testament to the enduring antagonism still felt by many towards a woman repeatedly described as “Britain’s greatest peacetime prime minister”.
Personally I’d call it a damp squib. The majority, the vast majority, ignored them. They are an irrelevance. Many of those who hate Thatcher weren’t even there, so don’t know what it was like. I do. At the time, I hated her polices. Now, looking back, I can take a more nuanced view. Someone had to take on the evil little monster that was Scargill – the spawn of Stalinism. If not Thatcher, sooner or later someone would have had to. And the mining industry would have gone along with all the other state owned monoliths that were inefficient and dying on their feet. It is not the place of the state to provide employment producing stuff no one wants.
Many, like me, paid a personal price at the time. However, like the majority who stayed at home yesterday, I am not in a mood to celebrate the passing of an old woman who has been out of power for longer than many of those puerile, ignorant twats now celebrating her death have been alive. I’ve got better things to do. I grew up.
Well said (as always).
Many of us paid the price – but gained in the end. I just can’t understand how so many untruths are promulgated: for instance Wilson destroyed more miners’ jobs than Mrs Thatcher did. And so on.
And still these ignorant twats wheel out the old canard that she didn’t believe in society. It doesn’t take much effort to look up the quote in context. Whenever some jerk trots it out, I know I can ignore everything else they might say because they are terminally stupid.
“Many of those who hate Thatcher weren’t even there…”
How could they be? Many of them weren’t born… 😆
Precisely.
Many of them weren’t born…
Which is weird because it’s a well-known fact that thanks to Maggie’s odd views that the state shouldn’t run everything, most people were too poor to have children…
And those they had they ate…
Broiled, roasted and fried being the most nutritious.
Makes you wonder where they’ve all come from.
The thing I keep challenging people with Thatcher’s actions regarding the miner’s strike is “what was the alternative”.
1. The government wanted to close pits
2. The government knew the NUM were going to try to blackmail the country if they announced pit closures.
3. The country can’t be held to ransom by a small group of people.
With all of that, what else do you do but what Thatcher did. And anyone who says but.. but.. Orgreave, yes, the police got pretty brutal, but considering how many arrests and convictions there were and how miners dropped slabs on buses or threw bricks, you weren’t going to send social workers up there.
And I can’t believe these blokes in their 60s, still moaning about it. You can’t still be blaming Thatcher for your lot in life. There’s people who survived Auschwitz and went on to have productive lives, for fuck’s sake.
According to Rod Liddle who interviewed a few, those directly affected during the miner’s strike think the Thatcher parties are just plain wrong. If they are still blaming their lot on Thatcher, they at least have a decorum about them that decades of appalling education from lefty teachers has denied to the country’s youth on recent evidence.
Boo hoo. Thatcher never showed much “decorum” or respect for her political opponents so I see no reason why we should mince our words now. I didn’t when this evil freedom hating hag was alive and I see no reason to temper my comments now. Moreover, her supporters are using her funeral to overtly promote her brand of right wing conservatism so the idea that we must treat this charade with the respect normally owing to a funeral is self serving nonsense.
No one is saying anything of the sort. The liberal metro-sexual twats currently “dancing on Thatcher’s grave” say more about themselves than they do the object of their ire. They are childish buffoons and it shows.
No one is saying anything of the sort
Er, Rodd Liddle is, who Dick quoted!
Is English your first language? Nowhere does Liddle say anything of the sort. He comments on the decorum of the miners and the twats holding death parties, drawing a comparison between the two. You are reading something that isn’t there. He certainly said nothing about a promotion of neo-liberal polices, nor is he saying that we “must” show decorum or respect; merely that our behaviour reflects on us. He is right.
The country can’t be held to ransom by a small group of people
Strange how those rules don’t apply when the blackmailer is a financier!
Anyhoo, the miners weren’t blackmailing “the country”. What a silly non-nonsensical cliche. They were sticking up for their interests. Should they have simply capitulated because the state tells them to?
Scargill was an appalling tactician – certainly a donkey leading lions – and by not calling a proper ballot allowed the Nottinghamshire miners the excuse not to join the strike. However their treachery didn’t gain them much as they were all sacked by Heseltine in 1992. But that’s what happens when you trust the state.
By sticking up for their interests, they were holding the country to ransom. That’s what strikes do. It’s a form of blackmail. Very rarely is it justified.
Scargill’s attempt to bring down a democratically elected government had to fail. The idea of Scargill having any power or influence over the governance of the country would have been appalling.
At the time, as a committed lefty, I sided with Thatcher. Scargill was as much an enemy of the left as he was of the right. With him on side, we didn’t need enemies.
Someone had to take on the evil little monster that was Scargill – the spawn of Stalinism. If not Thatcher, sooner or later someone would have had to.
Sorry – this is drivel
Someone had to take on the evil little monster that was Thatcher – the spawn of fascism. If not Scargill, sooner or later someone would have had to.
That’s drivel too.
For f***sake you think you’ve got a nuanced view? and you think Scargill was a stalinist?
The only drivel here is your comment. 24 carat, frankly. Although I expected someone to come on here and post a piece of rampant stupidity. Well done. You win first prize.
Thanks. Just checking.
Pointing out that Scargill and the NUT needed to be tackled was an observation of fact, nothing more. It certainly is not drivel. Some of us remember the pain caused by miners’ strikes during the seventies – and, no, I don’t think Scargill was/is a Stalinist. He is a Stalinist. Even the lefties acknowledge that one.
I was doing laboratory research from September 1975 until mid 1978 and then a post doc 78’81. The mid to late 70s saw a load of my experiments, each of which took at least 4 weeks and often 6 weeks, buggered up totally by power cuts caused by politically motivated strikes by the NUM and then by the electricity workers themselves. It was an awful time, what with the three day week and OPEC doing their bit to screw everyone too. Utter misery for many with inflation at 23%. Mrs T was the creation of the unions. Someone had to stop the anarchy and a small, unelected cabal and their union troops bringing down elected government. Mrs T stopped this insidious evil in our society. She restored a form of democracy and reformed the unions. She wasn’t perfect and sadly the Nottinghamshire miners who stood up to Scargill got shafted later on. Unpleasant times. Harsh measures. The foundation of what we have today. The Scargills and Red Robbos had to go.
The three day weeks occurred from 1970-1974.
The 1979 energy crisis was due to the Iranian revolution, OPEC actually increased supply to compensate for the decline in Iranian exports. OPEC caused the 1973 oil crisis.
Hm. About a 1000 people, quite few of them bus-ins; out of a city population of 8.2m (ONS 2013). Not exactly a popular uprising is it…
My thoughts exactly.
About a 1000 people, quite few of them bus-ins; out of a city population of 8.2m (ONS 2013). Not exactly a popular uprising is it…
But that number is hardly representative of the numbers who loathed her. She is more widely hated than any other PM of living memory and for very good reasons. She set out to make a large portion of the country her enemy. Her supporters can scarcely complain that we returned her feelings with interest.
A significant number of people voted for her, despite many of us hating her polices. Those who still witter on about her after twenty odd years out of power need to do as I did – grow up and move on.
Those who still witter on about her after twenty odd years out of power needto do as I did – grow up and move on
Bollocks. This is not an exercise in twee nostalgia but an attempt by her supporters and the right of the conservative party to promote more neo-liberal policies. The issues are entirely contemporary.
Er, no, it isn’t.
Er, no, it isn’t
It is exactly what it is. The funeral and encomiums on TV and in the papers are precisely that and I support anyone who chooses to give the opposing view. Personally I wouldn’t be seen in public drinking bubbly at her demise as I prefer a more ideas based line of attack. But if people are overjoyed by this icon of destructive statism kicking the bucket, who am I to condemn them?
No, it isn’t. There were a great many people in this country who admired her. It is expected that they will want to express that. That is all it is.
That said the level of coverage and the big funeral is OTT, frankly.
Before you get ready to crown Thatcher as a Libertarian hero, perhaps you should acquaint yourself with her record.
Hers was the first post-war government to attempt introduce ID Cards in 1989. Initially only football supporters were targeted but the clear intention was to extend it to everyone in due course. It is no surprise that Blair, her disciple, tried to do the same again.
She centralised and made the state more powerful. She introduced the public order acts that for the first time made “offensive” speech a criminal offence. She criminalised the “promotion” of homosexuality. So much for freedom of speech, eh?
The only part of the state she wanted to make smaller was the welfare state.
Even taken on her own conservative terms, she was a disaster zone. She stole from the tax payer to give away council houses at well below the market rate. This coupled with the refusual to use the money to build more houses has led to a £15,000 milliion Housing Benefit bill. Well done Maggie.
Her neo-liberal policies of increasing structural unemployment to keep wage inflation down have led to millions of people in full time work unable to sustain themselves without claiming benefits.
She helped to create the very “dependency culture” that her successors now wail about. Certainly others must take the blame as well. It isn’t hers exclusively. And by following her dogmas, New Labour deserves a large slice of the blame.
I do not celebrate the death of this malignant freedom hating piece of trash. I simply would have preferred that she’d never been born. The world would certainly have been a better place.
Where did I claim that she was a libertarian hero? Take your time.
I dd say “Before you get ready to crown…” ;-p
I had no plans to. Whatever she was, she was not a libertarian.
I am NOT the Stephen who has failed so dismally above.
In 1973 I came to England and started work at Gedling Main, a coal pit in Nottingham. The NUM were active everywhere coal was being mined but not in Gedling. The ‘activists’ were kicked out, often physically. We had a good, productive pit with miners who were satisfied with the status quo. Those with whom I socialised vehemently opposed any strike action.
I found that Gedling has a long and very interesting history. Most of those resident there could point to grave-stones of relatives who’d died in the 1700s and 1800s and who’d lived in the same place. The now-Nottingham suburb still had a village identity, and it showed in the attitude of the miners to the ‘requirements’ of the NUM. The miners stuck up two fingers and went to work.
By no means were they fans of Margaret Thatcher, but they disliked Scargill even more.
I’m somewhat bemused by the reference to the Nottinghamshire miners as being treacherous. They were merely resisting a bully and standing up for their right not to strike.