A question for non British people
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I think she was Reagan's favorite world ruler.
And I heard she killed the coal mines and wasn't being too productive towards industry, but she was prime minister 3 times, so I'm guessing she didn't do too badly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premiership_of_Margaret_Thatcher
And I heard she killed the coal mines and wasn't being too productive towards industry, but she was prime minister 3 times, so I'm guessing she didn't do too badly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premiership_of_Margaret_Thatcher
English: I highly respect her for getting into power in a sexist government and sticking to her policies. This does not mean I have to agree with or like her policies. And, yes, I come from a northern family.
I'm also amused at the amount of non-Brits saying they like her because she was anti-Socialist. But that's largely because I'm always amused at how Socialism is painted as the boogeyman of politics. (Not a Socialist, myself, I should point out...)
I'm also amused at the amount of non-Brits saying they like her because she was anti-Socialist. But that's largely because I'm always amused at how Socialism is painted as the boogeyman of politics. (Not a Socialist, myself, I should point out...)
I did it in Politics not too long ago, but if I'm honest I found it a bit dull so I'm blanking xD Better to ask someone else.arragonder said:
I don't think the coal mines were profitable at the time, but the way she went about it wasn't exactly the best way (non-profitable industry vs 1000s being made redundant and on benefits), and she went out of the way to make the unions her nemesis, and nearly destroyed them.
I'm from New Zealand, so I always kind of assumed everyone had heard of her, but aside from awful teeth I never really knew much about her. She was Prime Minister. She did a bunch of stuff a lot of people didn't like. But really I couldn't name any specifics here.
Resultantly I don't have much of an opinion on her, either.
Resultantly I don't have much of an opinion on her, either.
I liked her. I didn't like what she did, but given the situation is was a case of "lesser of two evils". I wish we had somebody like her now, with the balls to stand up and do the unpopular (but totally necessary) things! But that ain't gonna happen. Our current crop of politicians are a bunch of mewling popularists.
I am British and I happen to think your wrong, the falklands war could not have been avoided without surrendering the falklands which not only do I not support because of the whole its our tertitory stuff but the people there wanted to be British and asked us to come help, what else could we do?
Also as the to loss of our industrial might, we'd already lost it, we were to expensive and too poor quality to compete with other nations, Thatcher managed to lead us through a difficult situation into a stronger more productive economy.
Although she shouldn't have privatised stuff...
Also as the to loss of our industrial might, we'd already lost it, we were to expensive and too poor quality to compete with other nations, Thatcher managed to lead us through a difficult situation into a stronger more productive economy.
Although she shouldn't have privatised stuff...
Elections are really messy.C95J said:
I wondered the same thing about John Howard in Australia, but then I noticed that mathematically, it is possible to win an election with only 25% of people actually voting for you...
England uses 'first past the post' voting, which works out in a way that is very prone to political fiddling.
It's advantage is it makes for a majority government (usually. We had so many pissed off voters in the last election voting for a 3rd party that we now have a coalition for the first time in about 40 years.
No single party was large enough to win outright, but the Liberal Democrats suprised everyone by forming a coalition with the conservatives. If it weren't for that, labour actually got the most votes.)
Getting the prime minister out of office directly is very unlikely, since they usually hold what's considered a 'safe' seat (which is to say, they represent a region that votes for a particular party almost all the time)
Most elections depend entirely on marginal seats, and 'first past the post' voting is particularly good at throwing out people's votes.
The winner is simply whoever has the most votes.
If an area has 10 candidates, and one has 30% of the votes, it doesn't matter that 70% of everyone else voted against this person (eg; Most of the population voted for someone other than the person that won), as long as the remaining votes were spread between the other candidates in such a way that no one else got more votes.
To be honest, it is disturbingly easy to 'win' an election when, after actually looking at the votes of everyone involved, most of the voters were against you.
A 'majority' government isn't one supported by a 'majority' of people, just one with more direct, coherent support than it's rivals.
Democracy starts to look like a farce when you look closely at it.
Any PM who refers to the soldiers of our country as "My boy's" has earned my reespect. she personally congratulated the SAS soldiers who took part in the embassy siege and when a Prison riot started, guess who she sent to stop it? The SAS. She got things done. She got them done quick and she chose them because they worked.
from a political view i can't say, but from getting work done...she was a legend.
from a political view i can't say, but from getting work done...she was a legend.
I think Frank Turner summed it up pretty well....
We're all wondering how we ended up so scared;
We spent ten long years teaching our kids not to care
And that "there's no such thing as society" anyway,
And all the rich folks act surprised
When all sense of community dies,
But you just closed your eyes to the other side
Of all the things that she did.
Thatcher fucked the kids.
And it seems a little bit rich to me,
The way the rich only ever talk of charity
In times like the seventies, the broken down economy
Meant even the upper tier was needing some help.
But as soon as things look brighter,
Yeah the grin gets wider and the grip gets tighter,
And for every teenage tracksuit mugger
There's a guy in a suit who wouldn't lift a finger for anybody else.
You've got a generation raised on the welfare state,
Enjoyed all its benefits and did just great,
But as soon as they were settled as the richest of the rich,
They kicked away the ladder, told the rest of us that life's a *****.
And it's no surprise that all the fuck-ups
Didn't show up until the kids had grown up.
But when no one ever smiles or ever helps a stranger,
Is it any fucking wonder our society's in danger of collapse?
So all the kids are bastards,
But don't blame them, yeah, they learn by example.
Blame the folks who sold the future for the highest bid:
That's right, Thatcher fucked the kids.
We're all wondering how we ended up so scared;
We spent ten long years teaching our kids not to care
And that "there's no such thing as society" anyway,
And all the rich folks act surprised
When all sense of community dies,
But you just closed your eyes to the other side
Of all the things that she did.
Thatcher fucked the kids.
And it seems a little bit rich to me,
The way the rich only ever talk of charity
In times like the seventies, the broken down economy
Meant even the upper tier was needing some help.
But as soon as things look brighter,
Yeah the grin gets wider and the grip gets tighter,
And for every teenage tracksuit mugger
There's a guy in a suit who wouldn't lift a finger for anybody else.
You've got a generation raised on the welfare state,
Enjoyed all its benefits and did just great,
But as soon as they were settled as the richest of the rich,
They kicked away the ladder, told the rest of us that life's a *****.
And it's no surprise that all the fuck-ups
Didn't show up until the kids had grown up.
But when no one ever smiles or ever helps a stranger,
Is it any fucking wonder our society's in danger of collapse?
So all the kids are bastards,
But don't blame them, yeah, they learn by example.
Blame the folks who sold the future for the highest bid:
That's right, Thatcher fucked the kids.
Swedish. I don't know much more than what OP described:
Harsh politician (I believe she responded to some riots by sending in police cavalry to disperse the crowd), disliked by the people, sent troops to fight a useless war.
Harsh politician (I believe she responded to some riots by sending in police cavalry to disperse the crowd), disliked by the people, sent troops to fight a useless war.
Ok she has something of a reputation, but this woman helped to pull Britain back onto the playing field by making the hard decisions that made her notorious.
I'm not saying that all her decisions were right, but when that woman said she was going to do something, she did it and no one would make her compromise her standards unlike the pansy arse pathetic excuses we have for a government today.
Those men lie and steal from the tax payers and fall back on nearly al the promises they make unlike Thatcher who did exactly what she said she was going to do, and if that makes her the Iron Lady then all the more respect to her.
And as for the FALKLANDS War:
That could not have been avoided what with the fact that the Argentinian Army Invaded and occupied British held land.
Those islands belonged to the British empire and although we no longer control 50% of the world like we used to, those islands are still a part of the British Commonwealth.
And when they tried to take them by force, we replied with our army (No one bother to send me messages about how their family had fought out there because so did mine and I fully understand that war).
If anyone wants to tak about a useless war then you should start with Tony Blair and the needless war he threw our army into just because America had a thirst for more oil....I mean wanted to destroy clearly visible weapons of mass destruction........BTW someone give me an update when we actually find those things.
This is not some rant from me against The USA or anyone else, this is just me pointing out that in my opinion, Margaret Thatcher was perhaps the best Prime Minister our country has ever had.
I'm not saying that all her decisions were right, but when that woman said she was going to do something, she did it and no one would make her compromise her standards unlike the pansy arse pathetic excuses we have for a government today.
Those men lie and steal from the tax payers and fall back on nearly al the promises they make unlike Thatcher who did exactly what she said she was going to do, and if that makes her the Iron Lady then all the more respect to her.
And as for the FALKLANDS War:
That could not have been avoided what with the fact that the Argentinian Army Invaded and occupied British held land.
Those islands belonged to the British empire and although we no longer control 50% of the world like we used to, those islands are still a part of the British Commonwealth.
And when they tried to take them by force, we replied with our army (No one bother to send me messages about how their family had fought out there because so did mine and I fully understand that war).
If anyone wants to tak about a useless war then you should start with Tony Blair and the needless war he threw our army into just because America had a thirst for more oil....I mean wanted to destroy clearly visible weapons of mass destruction........BTW someone give me an update when we actually find those things.
This is not some rant from me against The USA or anyone else, this is just me pointing out that in my opinion, Margaret Thatcher was perhaps the best Prime Minister our country has ever had.
Death on Trapezoids said:
You heard that from Frankie Boyle the Scottish comedian who said that in a few of his Gigs and on the TV show "Mock the Week".
Brit here, and I'm inclined to agree with this.Dimitriov said:
Specifically regarding the Falklands, what else was to be done? Argentina invaded our territory and we responded. I can't seem to think of, even in retrospect, a better course of action than that.
I'm British, but she was before my time so I don't have that strong an opinion. From what I know she did what needed to be done and was in general good for the country, but started to go a bit mad towards the end - kind of like how Labour did recently.
Actually, the Tories got the most votes - 10,703,754 to Labour's 8,609,527, which is 306 seats to 258. That was one of the main reasons why the Lib Dems formed a coalition with them. I get where you're coming from with the rest of your post, but I don't really see a better option - a proportional representation system would probably remove the local MP point of access. My main problem with it is that because of the way the boundaries are arranged, it is biased towards one of the parties - the Tories need about 7% more votes than Labour do to get a majority, which doesn't seem right.CrystalShadow said:
Sorry. Factual mistake on my part... I think, although it doesn't necessarily undermine my point.GrindBass said:
But boundary fiddling is one of the biggest flaws in the first past the post system. IF you draw up electoral boundaries a certain way, you can pretty much ensure some people can't be elected at all, even if they have a massive and obvious majority.
There's some excellent hypothetical examples that show up how bad it can get when the electoral boundaries are messed with.
Proportional representation is usually argued against on the grounds of forcing a lot of awkward coalitions, and ineffectual government because nobody has enough power to force any issue.
The mathematics involved show there's no such thing as a 'fair' voting system, unfortunately. Thus, whatever system you choose to use will be influenced by the goals of whoever chose it.