I'm a bit too young to have experienced the Thatcher years with a political conscience, so I've often wondered...
Considering how reviled in this country Thatcherism is now, how was she able to win 3 general elections? And then be followed on by another conservative government for a total of 18 years?
Interested to hear from lifers who were there. Don't want this turn into a conservative-bashing exercise.
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Some very good things with her, some very bad, depending on who you were, where you were from etc.
From what I can gather, there seems to be just as many working classes who like her as there are those who hate her (& my god some people do hate her with a passion!)
Like you, bit too young to fully understand the extent of what she did, I gathered though that she made some tough decisions that were right for the country in the long term, but were very painful in the short term.
Shouldn't that comment be in the cows thread!!
She did some great things and she did some poor things....but always saw them through to the bitter end with single minded belief that she was in the right.
I realise my comments are somewhat over simplification but for all that, if nothing else, as a politician anyway, she's to be admired.
Sure she's slagged off by low-rent left-wing comics. But that just saves them having to dream up something actually amusing. Blimey, I remember when Ben Elton was popular!
F*** me was I alive during that time...you make it sound like the worst times ever in The UK....I remember only great times...whether that was down to her or not is debatable but I certainly had a good time and prospered well.
Many prospered and I am glad you did well. Lots suffered badly.
Funny how Scotland never voted blue but had to put up with a conservative government for years and it wasn't a problem for the politicians or us English. Now it's us and the politicians effected by the system all of a sudden it's wrong and needs to be changed!
Could I have done that as a 17/18/19/20/21 year old back in the 80's? I honestly don't know how much the government has affected my life.
Yes, she appeared to crush that, tories sold it off etc. Just wondering though, could the UK actually stay efficient as the world developed?
Compare the technology and efficiency to other places in the world, would the markets not have started to destroy the UK manufacturing industry anyway?
And isn't that Thatcherism in a nutshell?
I started Grammar school in 1995, messed Uni up a bit though, god knows how you managed to get a house, must've got in there just at the right time. I've been steady since 1997, not sure I have prospered greatly.
In the 80's I would've been flying, but the recession in the early 90's could've really killed it as the construction industry suffered a lot worse then than it has now.
No one I knew suffered that's for sure, how about you, ...yes the miners did(and some in spin off industries surrounding that) but that simply was an industry that had to largely go to the wall, they were so heavily subsidised and technology had moved on, times change but thank god she broke the strangulation of trade uninon fundamentalism....the country was stiffled by them, I lived through those horrendous times and they were so out of touch as to be behind the Iron Curtain. Which quite frankly is where many of them wished the nation was.
It's digging stuff out of the ground...
Britain is still the 5th largest manufacturer in the world despite all the guff you hear about Thatcher destroyed our manufacturing industry blah, blah, blah...
That is how it is done.
I believe she made people believe that renting property was beneath them. Many people were proud to own and proud of their council houses. People got a flat and then with age and family, progressed to a house. Now the very notion of not being able to afford to buy a house is seen as a bad, bad thing. How many of our us, or our parents/grand parents lived in Council accomodation and now we cry foul that we can not afford to get on the housing ladder and have to stay with parents or god forbid rent somewhere affordable.
Interesting. Explain.
Thousands of 'spongers' were hounded off the dole to get a taste of what for many of them had become a four letter word....
WORK...!!!
She took on and completely defeated the unions with one handbag behind her back thus neutering the Labour party as a viable opposition...
Would that be the 3,000,000 unemployed you are talking about? Most on the dole because of her policies mentioned by other posters.