The Gooner Forum

Probably a fair few TL. After all mining was obviously a huge huge employer in South Wales for decades and people didn't know everything else.

I have to say though despite nearly all my family coming from the Rhondda Valley which is one of the biggest coal-mining communities there is relatively little bitterness towards Thatcher there. I'm not saying that she isn't unpopular but there doesn't seem to be the burning resentment that exists in other areas, people seem to have accepted their lot.

I think that places like that feel completely detached from Westminster and really don't distinguish one politician from another. A shockingly large number of people probably couldn't tell you who is in power.

Top Londoner wrote: imo she set a precedent for the me me me culture that we now live in.

I used to think that, but no longer.

She was very much about self help, but also about communities helping each other through hard times.

The antidote to the "Me" culture ultimately has to be about individuals having enough strength of character to stand up for what is morally correct.
So much of the "Me" culture has resulted from the lack of solid family structure, drug proliferation and the fall in religious belief which has affected the UK from the mid sixties onwards.

Was Thatcher responsible for that?
I do not think so, these catalysts run contrary to what she espoused.

I do not claim that an atheist child of a single parent family who smokes weed will obviously be a bad person, but the lack of parameters enables people to drift towards irresponsibility and away from self respect and respect of others through community awareness who might otherwise have been less able to go off the rails.
That said, it has never been a perfect word, and mankind's dark tendencies have emerged in all kinds of societies, and from all kinds of family backgrounds.

The selfish and lazy "Me" lifestyle of Mick Philpott was as far removed from a Thatcherite ethos as possible.

It is a very complex and possibly impossible question to answer?

Sorry to disagree Quartz, but I feel that she helped those to help themselves.
The Harry Enfield 'Loadsamoney' character epitomised her time as PM.
I wish that I could articulate it better, but my strong feelings are that she is responsible for the north/south divide.
The affluent south riding on the back of the demise of the north.

London is now a microcosm of the rest of the UK.

I speak from experience, but unfortunately I struggle to express it better.

Of course Bliar is guilty of much worse, but we can start a thread about that *word censored* whenever the inevitable happens.

LDB wrote:

QuartzGooner wrote:The interesting thing is how people seem to have either loved or hated her.
Am I the only one who thinks she was a bit of good and a bit of bad, as per my earlier post?

I also think that Quartz but for me the often ill-informed and short-sighted bile that gets spouted about her makes it hard to appear like anything but a lover. When there are people who think she is "pure evil" there is no reasonable position you can take that isn't going to make you a "tory boy" or some such rubbish.

But I would like to talk about FACTS. Mining was on its way out across Europe regardless of what Thatcher did, uncooperative militant unions merely sped up the process. More mines closed in the preceding Labour government then did during Thatcher's govt, FACT. Government spending increased in real terms throughout her time in office, FACT. It was Thatcher who bought Japanese investment (Nissan) to the North East of England, FACT.

The mistakes? Single European Act sold this country far down the river into Brussels and her crocodile tears after the event are no consolation. The Poll Tax was a decent idea not done properly. The rates are/were a diabolical system and that we essentially still have them today is an unfunny joke. However, the poll tax needed to be introduced with a rebalancing of income tax to make sure it was not just a tax for the poor.

I think a lot of people would agree that some of the things she did had to be done. What I think causes so much anger and hatred is the way she did it. The police tactics against the miners for one.... She was totally without compassion.

I don't think the bile is ill-informed or short-sighted. I've had 30 odd years to reconsider/reappraise the Thatcher legacy....and I still hate her as much now as then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ngZFRisurU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gn9A-kdsRo

Former prime minister Baroness Thatcher dies peacefully in her suite at the Ritz after suffering a massive stroke at 87

The last days of Britain's Iron Lady: How Margaret Thatcher died at the Ritz Hotel after spending months living in a suite away from her family after operation

'Margaret Thatcher has died from a STRIKE': BBC forced to correct breaking news error moments after death announced

From grocer's daughter to Iron Lady: How Margaret Thatcher made history to become Britain's first woman Prime Minister - and kept on making it...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wish that my father had been remembered after his death like this woman/leader......choke.
He did more for the common man than this BAITCH.

He died in a Macmillan ward, and not in the Ritz.

Top Londoner wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ngZFRisurU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gn9A-kdsRo

The fact you even take the time to post stuff like this is truly sad. You are embarrassing yourself but carry on.

Top Londoner wrote:Sorry to disagree Quartz, but I feel that she helped those to help themselves.
The Harry Enfield 'Loadsamoney' character epitomised her time as PM.

I think the media latched onto it as such at the time, but in retrospect I am not sure that character represented much at all.

Yes, people who had council houses had the right to buy them, and yes, class divides became more based on income and less on cultural/political identity under Thatcher.
But I cannot help feeling that global economic and technological changes far greater than Thatcher played a bigger part.
We are all now on a more level playing field in one massive respect which is down to technology...anyone with an internet connection and a bit of gumption to learn how to build a website and learn a bit of SEO can get ahead if they have the right commercial idea.

Not that the internet was a big feature under Thatcher, but the idea that working class people must vote Labour, and must be socialist, and must be devoid of entrepreneurial ambition, is not an entrenched feature of British life.
It was a strong feature from 1918 - 1980 only.

Top Londoner wrote:
I wish that I could articulate it better, but my strong feelings are that she is responsible for the north/south divide.
The affluent south riding on the back of the demise of the north.

I think the roots of that divide go way back into history with the border of the Danegeld.
The South's proximity to Europe and the usefulness of the River Thames as a commercial highway, it's milder climate, the different genetic make up of the Northerners (more Viking) from the Southerners (far more mixed), the demise of the great industrial processes from the 1960's onwards (industry being more concentrated in the North and the Midlands) to name but a few.

I will agree that Thatcher seemingly did less to help regenerate the North, but more economically aware posters will have to go into more detail

Top Londoner wrote:
London is now a microcosm of the rest of the UK.

I disagree.
I think London has been a bit different since the Romans built it.
These days it is anything but a microcosm, it is very much it's own place with it's own unique characteristsics.
It is probably the most cosmopolitan multi-cultural city in the world, and I intentionally include New York, LA, and Amsterdam in that comparision.
It is majority non-white British, with an astonishing variety of nationalities living here.
It has a massive rail network and 24 hour bus service.
It has far higher property value to income ratios than any other large city (there are towns with extremely high property prices i.e. Oxford).
It has far more sporting, cultural, business, diplomatic and commercial activity than anywhere else.
Whilst Birmingham and Manchester have some similarities, and there are now small pockets of overseas populations to be found in many places, London is massively different from the country outside the M25.

the daily mail printing some hugely embarassing stuff

Henry Norris 1913 wrote:the daily mail printing some hugely embarassing stuff

Cant be anymore embarrassing than some of the stuff on this thread

g88ner wrote:

DB10GOONER wrote:

flash gunner wrote:
A mod of the people

He's actually gone on a little holiday

It's ok - I'm back! Panic over!! I'm the only real Mod on here and Flash in particular NOSE that!

Blimey DB, your ego DWARF's the rest of us mods

So true. Or for g88ner, sew true!

Huge celebrations in Derry last night and from what I can gather, in many parts of the UK.

and we are enraged when Muslim extremists celebrate terrorist action like the twin towers

DB10GOONER wrote:
Sorry Don, have to jump in there. It's a myth that Major or Blair did anything to initiate the peace process as indeed it's a myth that Clinton did. One man initiated the process and did it when it wasn't a popular thing to do. That man was John Hume and he was initially rebuked and criticized for sitting down and talking to both sides of the sectarian divide by Major in particular. But Hume kept trying to bring the real power brokers in the North on board. Then when the politicians in England and Ireland saw that it might just work if everyone was included they all jumped on the bandwagon. Hume was then a major organiser of the unofficial talks between the British government and Sinn Féin, in effort to bring Sinn Féin to the discussion table openly. Those talks led directly to the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985. He was then a key part of the talks that delivered the 1994 IRA ceasefire which ultimately led to the Good Friday agreement. So many politicians took credit for his ideas and his work it is sickening.

Met him in RTE studios in Dublin once and he is an absolute gent. A very humble and decent man.

WHAT!!! You mean it wasn't Bono??

goonersid wrote:Huge celebrations in Derry last night and from what I can gather, in many parts of the UK.

hope they had a good night. My dad hardly ever drinks anymore but as soon as he heard the news he texted me saying "the bitch is dead, party time". By the time I got back from work he had been in the pub for a few hours having a celebratory drink. I understand the point that some of the changes were going to happen anyway (albeit the mines if modernised and ran properly could have remained open longer than they did but still, no one who worked down the mines really wanted that life for their kids) but it was the callous way that the bitch make the changes that pissed so many people off. Basically the north east (and many other areas) were never going to vote Tory anyway so she didn't give a fuck, the mines were closed and the areas were left to rot, many still haven't recovered.

Personally, I'm hoping to move to Sunderland so I can move in with my girlfirend and her kid but when I look for work there is fuck all (I'm a commercial manager in Scotland and there are very few small private companies doing well in the city that I could try to move to). If I want to work part time in a shop (like me lass does) or if I want to feel like a battery hen and put my hand up when I need a piss working in a call centre then there's jobs to be had like, thats the service industry for ya, part time work on shit pay.

She brought Nissan in (well, she didn't really, she tried to take Nissan to South Wales but Nissan wanted to see other possible sites and the labour led tyne and wear council made it happen in the north east but still) but that was one employer, yes it employs a good few people but nothing like the jobs that have been lost.

Don't get me wrong, its not all Thatchers fault and I am far from a left winger, Labour are a fucking shambles as well and in many ways they care as little about the region as the Tories did. Stupid people keep voting them in ("my dad voted for them, my granddad voted for them and I hate the Tories so I'm voting for them" type attitude) and as a result they have as little reason to help the area as Thatcher did. She knew they'd never vote for her so fuck them, labour know they'll always vote for them so fuck them, both would rather spend money making a difference in marginal areas. I'd actually be more likely to vote Conservative than Labour if I was in the region, if enough people do it the safe labour councilors might actually get off their fat arses and do something.

There is blame all round but that didn't stop my dad having a good night out. He remembers the way the miners were vilified (described as "the enemy within"), he remembers people who didn't have much money themselves buying food for striking miners and being smacked about by the police who were basically being used as Thatcher's private army, he remembers people being arrested for "picket line offences" and he remembers a proud area, with proud men working in conditions that today's primarily office based workers wouldn't last half a shift in being torn apart and left to decay. He remembers some of the same proud working men hanging themselves due to the shame of not being able to work and provide for their families. Walking round parts of the north east, an area close to my heart due to my dad being from a working class area in Newcastle and my mam being from a working class area in Sunderland, is gutting. The community spirit has been broken, large areas are dilapidated with very little investment and proud, working areas have been reduced to drugs ridden hell holes with people on benefits with very little prospects queuing up to get into the pub when it opens. Its not all Thatcher's fault, of course its not, but she had a hand in it and I can absolutely understand people hating her for it.