I always detested Thatcher

[Borchester]

It would not surprise me.

If it were down to me I might be willing to appoint him ambassador to Outer Mongolia for life, as long as he stays there for the duration. I might even throw in a taxpayer funded yurt with a couple of yaks to milk.

To be honest Steve, I think he is after the big one. After all, he is only 68 which these days is nothing. And the current Labour party leadership is nothing compared to the hardcases he faced in 1994. The only thing that puzzles me is the knighthood. It really is one of those gifts you get along with the Teasmade and the Dunroaming sign at your retirement party. With anyone else it would suggest that they were winding down, but you never can tell with Tony.

[srb7677]

Do you think cromwell , that blair is getting himself positioned to be a government minister in the chance that starmers new labour getinto power in two years time?

Heard a few suggesting this.

It would not surprise me.

If it were down to me I might be willing to appoint him ambassador to Outer Mongolia for life, as long as he stays there for the duration. I might even throw in a taxpayer funded yurt with a couple of yaks to milk.

[Good old]

It's not been forgotten.

Not at all glad it ever happened, and even more saddened to think the scars it put on people still trouble them either mentally or physically . 

[cromwell]

I go a head on Thatcher. I don't think either was all bad. It's never black and white. But at home , she created situations in the north in particular that broke communities , with unemployment , causing deprivation that has only been forgotten it would seem in recent times .

It's not been forgotten.

[Borchester]

i remember watching out of our flat window as sheriff officers and polis were getting bricked and spat on . Humour free zone is a bit of an understatement borkie .

So probably not the sort of place where my mate John the bailiff (crippled with arthritis due to a Korean bullet in his left leg) and me (a coward) would feel comfortable

[Thomas]

But in Scotland they go a bit potty. Pounding requires court orders and Sheriffs and once you start that sort foolishness you hit a humour free zone. And the result was grown men in frocks running around Trafalgar Square and making Mrs T look bad.

i remember watching out of our flat window as sheriff officers and polis were getting bricked and spat on . Humour free zone is a bit of an understatement borkie .

[Borchester]

You personally might have agreed with it , but clearly the vast majority didnt. Clearly she tried replacing a hated regressive tax by one that was even worse.

I was a child at the time of thatcher , but if i recall the poll tax , it meant two people in a mansion paying substantially less than 6 people in  council flat. Im not sure how that was deemed to be fairer  , and personally in my lifetime , the best proposal i have seen was salmonds local income tax proposal that was shouted down by both labour and tory at the time during the snp minority government days.

Clearly though toots , the vast majority didnt like it , and it brought her down in the end. Scotland was the guniea pig and testing ground , and i well remember the sheriff officers coming to "pound" neighbours flats at the time for non payment.

We all used to go out team handed , children as well , helping move non essential household goods from one flat into another to stop the stuff being taken away , as well as being out giving the polis and sheriff officers severe grief .

I think even today most of the poll tax has never been recovered in western scotland , probably across much of the uk it was that despised. Thatcher was and is hated in scotland , and when i was a wee boy , i remember her governing scotland through her governor generals like younger and rifkind. To be fair to thatcher though , and what little i will concede blair isnt far behind her in terms of hatred.

Thatcher was a divisive figure , and bad for scotland , but she wasnt as bad as the labour party rumourmongers made her. Funnily enough , i think my auld man at the time and his best mate in govan were probably the only two conservative voters i knew in glesga.

Thatcher and her governor generals treated scotland badly in her time in power , while the feeble fifty labour mps sat by the wayside and did nothing to help us. I still maintain to this day , looking back , and knowing what i know now , the labour party have done far far more damage to scotland over the last 80 years or so than thatcher and her party ever did .

That was the ultimate Thatcher moment. My belief was that she had seen off the unions, fettled the Argies, told the EU to go fly a kite and was thus at a loose end

So she settled on the rates.

No one liked the rates which were badly in need of if not reform, at least updating. But it was a pretty minor matter. And it should never have been launched in Scotland. Excellent folk the Scots, but north of the border they tend to be a bit more legalistic. Down south you tap on the door and tell the lady of the house that you are about to levy distraint upon her furniture. She bursts into tears, you feel like a total dick and the bailiff says that, not wishing to hurt the lass' feeling, but that her stuff isn't worth sod all anyway. So you sneak off back to the office where you discover that the lass has made a complaint against you and the manager thinks that you are a prat for letting matters get that far. So the case is put on the back burner and six months later is knocked on the head as being not worth further pursuit.

But in Scotland they go a bit potty. Pounding requires court orders and Sheriffs and once you start that sort foolishness you hit a humour free zone. And the result was grown men in frocks running around Trafalgar Square and making Mrs T look bad.

I think Boris is having the same problem as Maggie. He has gotten us out of the EU, told the EU and French to bugger off and now all he has left is this flu, which will get him more kicks than ha'pence. He really needs a decent problem to get his teeth into but sadly, there don't appear to be any on the horizon

[Thomas]

Let us not get panicky Tommy. I dare say that there is a small band of determined and brain damaged men and women fighting to put Sir Keir into Number 10, but there is an even bigger bunch of activists fighting to keep him in opposition, even if they don't realise it. Right now Starmer is picking up support from David Lammy, Dawn Butler, Angela Rayner and a lot of the other politically walking dead and they only have to appear on the telly and 99% of the electorate think, oh dear, and vote for Boris.

I know borkie. Long time to go yet .

The polls dont seem to match his performances when it comes to voting do they though? Cant remember what english constituency it was , by someone posted on another forum that starmers labours vote was half that of gordon browns in 2010 .

As i was saying , the hype behind the man , and how he is being desperately pushed in some quarters as the "safe pair of hands" doesnt match facts on the ground. Interesting to see how he performs as leader when it comes to the big day.

[Borchester]

There appears to be a concentrated effort by the establishment and their pet media to get keir starmer into government in two years time. Very similar to the constant demonisation of trump in america , rightly or wrongly , till they ended up with the limp wristed biden and harris. Has the democrats made life better for the average yank?

Starmer will be the same here. I think the rehashed new labour under stamrer is the establishments final punt to take the uk back into the EU and stave off scot indy.

Boris johnson is a clown , and so are his government , but he did one thing and that was back the people over brexit in 2019. If starmer gets in to power , we all know whats going to happen.

More of the same of what we have had these last forty years , with a few tiny tweaks excepting EU membership , which will be a large constitutional change . It will be justifed by them telling us we voted in the pro european starmer  , and thats democracy.

We can't say we werent warned , and we can't say the labour parties contempt for the average voter isnt justified if that happens.

Let us not get panicky Tommy. I dare say that there is a small band of determined and brain damaged men and women fighting to put Sir Keir into Number 10, but there is an even bigger bunch of activists fighting to keep him in opposition, even if they don't realise it. Right now Starmer is picking up support from David Lammy, Dawn Butler, Angela Rayner and a lot of the other politically walking dead and they only have to appear on the telly and 99% of the electorate think, oh dear, and vote for Boris.

[Thomas]

and even her poll tax I agreed with as it taxed people not buildings.

You personally might have agreed with it , but clearly the vast majority didnt. Clearly she tried replacing a hated regressive tax by one that was even worse.

I was a child at the time of thatcher , but if i recall the poll tax , it meant two people in a mansion paying substantially less than 6 people in  council flat. Im not sure how that was deemed to be fairer  , and personally in my lifetime , the best proposal i have seen was salmonds local income tax proposal that was shouted down by both labour and tory at the time during the snp minority government days.

Clearly though toots , the vast majority didnt like it , and it brought her down in the end. Scotland was the guniea pig and testing ground , and i well remember the sheriff officers coming to "pound" neighbours flats at the time for non payment.

We all used to go out team handed , children as well , helping move non essential household goods from one flat into another to stop the stuff being taken away , as well as being out giving the polis and sheriff officers severe grief .

I think even today most of the poll tax has never been recovered in western scotland , probably across much of the uk it was that despised. Thatcher was and is hated in scotland , and when i was a wee boy , i remember her governing scotland through her governor generals like younger and rifkind. To be fair to thatcher though , and what little i will concede blair isnt far behind her in terms of hatred.

Thatcher was a divisive figure , and bad for scotland , but she wasnt as bad as the labour party rumourmongers made her. Funnily enough , i think my auld man at the time and his best mate in govan were probably the only two conservative voters i knew in glesga.

Thatcher and her governor generals treated scotland badly in her time in power , while the feeble fifty labour mps sat by the wayside and did nothing to help us. I still maintain to this day , looking back , and knowing what i know now , the labour party have done far far more damage to scotland over the last 80 years or so than thatcher and her party ever did .

[Thomas]

About six posts back, Thomas mentioned Blair's biggest legacy. Political disconnection. Whether through hatred or despair, numbers bothering to vote fell like a stone. Never more so than at the European elections.

I went to observe the European election count in 2009 and was aghast at what I witnessed.

Polling boxes were brought in from polling stations at the end of election night, the Thursday. They were then unsealed, opened and the contents given to tellers who counted the number of votes "face down" to "verify" the number of votes were those declared by the officials present at each polling station.

These ballot papers, rolled up into bundles of 1000 with rubber bands wee then placed in clear plastic boxes which were fitted with lids that had no seal whatsoever, which were bundled off to sit "somewhere" for the whole of Friday, Saturday and Sunday, before being brought out on Sunday to be counted "in unison with the union's others" at 10pm local time Sunday night.

The opportunity for election fraud the unsealed boxes provides seemed obvious and blatant.

I went back on the Sunday.

The boxes were already in the hall when I arrived at 9:30. The ballots were out on tables in front of the counters.

The result (on a 17% ? 19%? turn out) was known by 10:35.

I was in the pub by 10:58 in time to have a pint before they called time.

It was these levels of turnout that Labour depended upon.

The Welsh assembly referendum was a good example. After the BREXIT vote May addressed the assembly and was booed. But that turned to rank hatred when she reacted by pointing out the truth, which was that while Wee Jimmie Crankies twin north of the border demanded the referendum be blocked because more Scots voted to remain than leave, the Welsh Labour and Cottage Burner English Haters demanded it be ignored IN SPITE Of a majority to leave, AND the margin by which the assembly itself existed was not 52 to 48 on 80% of turnout, but 50.2 to 49.8 on 30% of turnout.

But labour never was one for democracy, and those who cheer while cottages are burned and reservoirs bombed for their cause should have been hung, not elected, in the first place

I thanked your post john , cause while i dont agree with everything you have written in it , you have it spot on regarding low turnout and labour.

[Good old]

Well despite all that and by a head I chose Bliar.

Why did I detest her? she damaged some communities and people beyond repair.

I go a head on Thatcher. I don't think either was all bad. It's never black and white. But at home , she created situations in the north in particular that broke communities , with unemployment , causing deprivation that has only been forgotten it would seem in recent times .

[Borchester]

I'm sorry you feel that way. It appears you seem to think singing a woman's praises is great, but pointing out her faults is misogyny. I've never behaved "superior" to anyone, but it looks as if this conversation is going nowhere so I'll shut up.

So you should. You may be right, but any woman can out talk any man and as a married man, you should know these things.

Thatcher thought that the country was spending itself into the poor house and, according to the economics of her time, she was probably right. I suspect that a lot of the opposition agreed with her, but dared not say so. In practice public spending increased during her reign, although neither she nor the left were inclined to admit it.

These days we live in a world awash with money and could probably afford to have the collies dig coal out of one pit and dump it into another. But things were seen differently back then.

[T00ts]

I'm sorry you feel that way. It appears you seem to think singing a woman's praises is great, but pointing out her faults is misogyny. I've never behaved "superior" to anyone, but it looks as if this conversation is going nowhere so I'll shut up.

That's a shame. I am not a feminist per se, value men very much and agree that in many instances the pendulum has swung too far however, I don't see that supporting a female PM is necessarily feminist either. I countered that just as you viewed my comments as feminist I felt yours were 'a touch misogynistic' but I put it down to Mars and Venus. A case of unintentional consequences. I am sorry if it upset you.  

[DeppityDawg]

I wasn't upset. I don't agree at all. The country was in a real mess when she won the election and simply because she was a woman and more than that a grocer's daughter she met opposition both inside and outside of Westminster. It was no easy ride and I felt sure then and now that she was made to play hard ball much more than she might have done. There were many out there who thought that she would give in hence her punch line of not being for turning.
As far as feminism wanting it both ways that is typical of men who feel that they have lost out on their superiority. Feminism is about no-one being superior, we are equal and complementary. The fact that some women have now taken it to the extreme is sadly inevitable but the worst thing is when men are unable to take any teasing on the subject and lose a sense of humour. They forget that it isn't that long since women were considered men's property and worse than that, that they didn't even have a soul.

I'm sorry you feel that way. It appears you seem to think singing a woman's praises is great, but pointing out her faults is misogyny. I've never behaved "superior" to anyone, but it looks as if this conversation is going nowhere so I'll shut up.