How Will History Remember Margaret Thatcher ?

[nixie]

History has away of romanticising , hate to say it but she will likely go down as the second greatest PM in the 20th century. Not because of anything good she done but because she was the first ( and so far only) female PM in British history. The history books will portray a woman in a man's world, they will glamorise her strengths and gloss over the evil.

 

[BAYLOR]

History has away of romanticising , hate to say it but she will likely go down as the seconded greatest PM in the 20th century. Not because of anything good she done but because she was the first ( and so far only) female PM in British history. The history books will portray a woman in a man's world, they will glamorise her strengths and gloss over the evil.

She barely got into office in 1979. First Woman Prime Minster of The UK, yep . It does make sense that longterm history will blur some of her rough edges.

 

[Parson]

Margret Thatcher's place in history will depend on who's writing the history. If it's written in the States by the conservatives she will go down as the 2nd greatest PM after Churchill in the twentieth century.

 

[Michael Colton]

Like Reagan in the US, it is too divisive of a figure for this sort of judgment to be made yet. There will have to be quite a distance of time for the emotions to settle down - probably to the point where nearly nobody involved in politics at the time is involved in the discussion. Reagan in the US is absolutely adored by some and viciously hated by others - I hear the same sort of comments about Thatcher. Politicians are generally idolized for two to three decades after their deaths. It is only after that point that the ideological loyalty can start to fade and more neutral representations begin.

 

[thaddeus6th]

On the Poll Tax and its really stupid implementation - my understanding from listening to chaps more politically aware than me was this:
the Treasury civil servants hated the idea and deliberately devised a way of introducing it which would piss people off
Oliver Letwin was involved [for those unaware, Oliver Letwin is a very nice Conservative who couldn't run a piss-up in a brewery. Seems like a splendid chap but I wouldn't leave him in charge of a rocking horse]

Also worth mentioning by that stage I think (too young to remember, again using second hand info) Thatcher had passed the point of confidence into slightly bonkers arrogance.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Edited: deleted due to double-posting.

 

[The Ace]

Other then alienating the voters , what was the logic behind that policy ?

Officially she, 'Couldn't get her message across,' in Scotland. In reality, she knew we could see right through her and would never support her - so she set out to punish us.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Really? Wasn't the plan to roll out the Poll Tax across the whole country?

 

[The Ace]

Yes, but by introducing it in Scotland first, she actually violated the Treaty of Union.

Remember, most such projects are trialled in London, or at least in an area with strong government support. The Poll Tax was seen from the outset as unpopular (just necessary in a twisted way) so Scotland got it a year early.

 

[BAYLOR]

On the Poll Tax and its really stupid implementation - my understanding from listening to chaps more politically aware than me was this:
the Treasury civil servants hated the idea and deliberately devised a way of introducing it which would piss people off
Oliver Letwin was involved [for those unaware, Oliver Letwin is a very nice Conservative who couldn't run a piss-up in a brewery. Seems like a splendid chap but I wouldn't leave him in charge of a rocking horse]

Also worth mentioning by that stage I think (too young to remember, again using second hand info) Thatcher had passed the point of confidence into slightly bonkers arrogance.

Autocratic rule by any other name.

The book SpyCatcher. She couldn't stop it's publication but she keep it out of the Uk for years.

 

[Gramm838]

Bearing in mind that she came into office in 1979, her first real achievement was dragging us out of the 1950's - and then when Scargill tried to usurp power through the unions, she showed real balls by taking him on head to head and demonstrating that she was the elected power, not him.

As for the poll tax, it's still the fairest way to levy tax (i.e. pay your own way), and the fact that Scotland got it first is incidental - if it had been levied in Liverpool (another socialist enclave) the reaction would have been the same. You could say it was the first round of the battle against the benefits culture in the UK.

Let's not forget she also refused to give the Falklands up, and stood up to most of the European silliness, and as someone has already said, maybe her biggest achievement was allowing people to buy their own homes, but that has now come back to bite us, and until profits on house sales are taxed heavily and the housing market is killed stone dead, my 25-year old boy will never be in a position to buy a house.

Over to you, Ace...

 

[BAYLOR]

Britain's economy was in rough shape at that time . If Labour had somehow managed to hold on in the 79 election , wouldn't they have been forced into making entitlement cutbacks and economic reforms?

 

[Null_Zone]

A woman that inherited a truly terrible position and left the country in a much stronger state.

Her ways of achieving this, both the good and bad, will be marginalized to academic bickering in favour of the my dad says she's was evil/wonderful of internet debates on politicians and the tyrants she courted will be forgotten.

 

[The Ace]

I remember her, evil incarnate sounds about right.

I didn't attend a Thatcher death party, or download, 'Ding Dong ! The Witch is Dead,' but I can understand the people who did.

IMO they could've settled the whole Falklands thing by sticking Thatcher and Galtieri on a rock somewhere in mid-Atlantic, and then coming back later for the survivor - or not.

 

[Foxbat]

Some things to remember about Thatcher. She encouraged MPs to use the expenses system to supplement their wages (to keep the wage bill down and therefore avoid the ire of the public). We all know the results of that.

She moved huge numbers of people off the dole and on to incapacity benefit just to massage the numbers so she actually made the benefits system worse and almost single-handedly created the 'entitlement society' we see today.

She was happy to stand side by side with Pinochet - one of the worst South American tyrants.

Thatcher failed on The Falklands by withdrawing full British citizenship from the islanders in 1981. It was plain for Argentina to see that the time was ripe for a move as UK commitment was on the wane. She could probably have avoided the whole war and loss of life on both sides by showing greater commitment but chose to make savage economic cuts instead (which is partly why citizenship was withdrawn). The actual withdrawal of citizenship was because of fears of an influx of Hong Kong residents when China took over the city and was applied to all dependencies.

 

[paranoid marvin]

She will be remembered; which is more than can be said for most other PMs. She didn't pull any punches and did things her own way regardless of the consequences. She broke the back of the unions; remember up til the 80s strikes/3 day weeks/power outages etc were all common practice.

She also brought about the 'whats in it for me' society rather than people working as a community. Her policies put many out of jobs and almost destroyed parts of the country; her government's solution being to 'get on your bike' and work elsewhere. She courted foreign dictators. She shackled us to the US with our 'special relationship; the one were we became a nuclear missile silo and in return the PM got to go to Washington.

Pretty much came down to this; if you were rich you became richer, if you were poor you were ground into the earth, which is pretty much why those well off supported her and those not so fortunate hated her.

Personally I think the country would have been much better off without her. But it did make for some cracking episodes of Spitting Image with Maggie and her vegetables.

 

[Foxbat]

Personally I think the country would have been much better off without her. But it did make for some cracking episodes of Spitting Image with Maggie and her vegetables.

How very true. I'd forgotten all about Spitting Image

 

[thaddeus6th]

Marvin, worth recalling she won three elections. I don't buy that everyone who wasn't rich loathed her.

Reminds me of Blair, who is now widely reviled. At the time, he won two landslides and a third very solid victory. [Difference being Thatcher also has supporters now, whereas I'm not sure Blair does].

 

[The Ace]

Marvin, worth recalling she won three elections. I don't buy that everyone who wasn't rich loathed her.

Reminds me of Blair, who is now widely reviled. At the time, he won two landslides and a third very solid victory. [Difference being Thatcher also has supporters now, whereas I'm not sure Blair does].

Not in Scotland, she didn't.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Tried finding figures on seats for Scotland in those elections, but couldn't (well, not fairly quickly). Anyway, she won a clear majority in the UK and I believe she always had double figures of Scottish MPs.

In 2005 Michael Howard won more English votes than Labour, but we still had a majority for the latter of about 60, with a Scottish PM and Scottish Chancellor. That's how democracy works. Your side doesn't always get to win, and if it doesn't that does not make the result illegitimate. In the same way, the referendum result [assuming no foul play] will be valid and should be respected by all sides.