A question for non British people

[Zizzousa]

FAIL.

 

[Zizzousa]

***** was friends with Pinochet. As in super evil Chilean dictator.

Oh and apart from that, yeah, basically destroyed my home county, managed to render both of my parents unemployed within the same three month period, etc, as well as did awesome things like repeatedly using Scotland as guinea pig for risky policies (poll tax being the most memorable) because, well, let's face it, the people up there just aren't important like the English ones are because there's only 5 million of them.

I get what she was trying to do, but if there's a hell, I swear to God she's going there. It's going to be weird when she dies though...are we meant to mourn someone everyone hated?

Solidarity I may not be Scottish but I am welsh and we have been under the sasanack boot for 800 years. I mean at least you've got a politically separate parliament, we've only got an assembly.

I find the scottish, welsh, irish and any other nationalists quite comical. Do you really think Britain as a whole will be a powerful nation in say 100 years? Not if it stays as it is, and if Scotland and/or Wales gain independence they are going to slide quite far in a lot shorter time than that.

I'm not a nationalist either, but arrogance like yours sometimes makes me want to be. It would be really, really nice if the English would stop looking down on Scotland - to whom do you think all that oil revenue really belongs? - and recognise that we're virtually the same. The only reason the SNP are so powerful these days is because a lot of Scottish people just find English views and arrogance offensive. I'm into economics, though, so I'd rather we all stayed together.

And, yes, we're just after a bit of respect. We have our parliament and assemblies because when you add together all of the potential votes in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland the total is less than the total number of potential votes in England. The Tories didn't make an effort in any of the home countries because they didn't have to/it would have been pointless - hence why Scotland came up bright red while England turned slowly blue. The Tories will never again win an election in either Wales or Scotland because she fucked both countries over so royally (the evidence is everywhere you look, and our parents and teachers tell us just who was responsible - Thatcher) and yet we have to live under a Tory government; that fact alone has been a massive help to the SNP and Plaid Cymru, who are finding more and more votes from those who are not happy with having to live with Thatcherite Cameron in Downing St.

OT: Watched a little of the news this morning, about Osborne and Cameron supposedly reigning in the banks while the Independent broke the story that over 50% of their financial donations came from the City of London. The song remains the same...

 

[Lord Kloo]

She did good mostly, the war in the Falklands was carried out well and for a good cause unlike some people's wars (looking at you Blair (Iraq)) and also stopped propping up failing industries, stopped those dastardly unions that had too much power over policy..

True the working class was worse off but hey its the working class, its always going to be worse off, the day they have good lives is the day they move into the middle class..

 

[BadassCyborg]

This woman is evil incarnate.

 

[Master Kuja]

Brit, but she was before my time, though from what I know of her she was a cold hearted *****.
However, the one thing I will give her credit for is the Falklands War, it wasn't a pointless war at all and people who say that piss me the fuck off.

We were defending a colony of people who willingly wanted to declare themselves British and did not want to be under Argentinian rule, that is not pointless.

Aside from that, fuck her, she's the definition of evil.

 

[Zizzousa]

She did good mostly, the war in the Falklands was carried out well and for a good cause unlike some people's wars (looking at you Blair (Iraq)) and also stopped propping up failing industries, stopped those dastardly unions that had too much power over policy..

True the working class was worse off but hey its the working class, its always going to be worse off, the day they have good lives is the day they move into the middle class..

Srsly? It would take me all day to explain why the Falklands was an easier campaign than Iraq. And as for the wisdom of going in the first place, stop to consider exactly what the Bush administration must have been threatening Blair with to make him agree. The 'missing dimension' was in full swing.

The working class can't move into the middle class if they don't have jobs. Thatcher made being a working class person significantly more unpleasant than it had to be.

 

[beniki]

Recently, shooting began on a film about Margaret Thatcher starring Meryl Streep as the 'Iron Lady' (if you're interested, Iron Lady is the name of the film). Since Thatcher is now knocking on deaths door I'm guessing that the film is going to be more of a homage than a insult, but Thatcher was truly a woman without humanity or goodness, killing every ounce of community and industry in Britain and sending men out to a war which (in my opinion) could of been avoided.

So here's the question to all you non Brits, if you had heard of Thatcher before now, what was your opinion on her?

EDIT: If you are British express your anger for the ***** having a film made about her

Oh and a lot of people are talking about their reasoning for hating Thatcher, here's mine I was born 4 years after she left office, my family on my fathers side were both coal miners and industrial workers. When I go up North to see them it feels like something's been lost, it's just painful to see.

I would argue that she broke the back of the worker's unions that were crippling Britain. And yes, it's true that I'm technically Middle class and from the South, but my father came from a Welsh coal mine family, and my mother was the daughter of a travelling salesman from the Midlands. We're a jumped up lower class family, and probably wouldn't be in the position we are now if Baroness Thatcher easing up the financial sector regulation.

Not that it wasn't tragic that so many mines went under, and that a lot of people went through some hard times. You have to admit though, the North is looking a good deal better these days, and no kid has to face the certainty of his future disappearing down the mine shafts.

And you have to give her some respect as the first female Prime Minister. And the fact she has bigger balls than any man alive.

 

[dex-dex]

being part of the commonwealth, I have heard of her and was she not the first female prime minster?
but usually she is just in stand up jokes whenever I hear about her.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Way to spot a Thatcher supporter: "Well, Blair/Brown did this wrong". Yeah, I grew up with her blaming Labour and the Unions, as she released the mentally ill onto the streets and crushed the spirit of the community.

I've heard down in London that she did some good things. I've heard Boris has done some good things down there as well.

Don't see much of it up here...100 miles away. Further North, it just gets worse. Or further West.

 

[jigilojoe]

(I <3 Simon Darby and Griffin)

I have few things I hate, facists are one. They have nothing to do with British politics and a lot to do with keeping our age old tradition of xenophobia alive, thankfully the BNP have now gone bankrupt, that's right, they couldn't keep a party of 40 racists going, if they were in charge of the country we'd long be fallen to dust.

I think you need to research the British National Party a hell of a lot before you say that they have anything to do with British politics. They're evil.

 

[Karilas]

thatcher, thatcher. that is very familiar sounding name. was she in a pink floyd song at any point? i dont even know.

No, she played Bob Geldof in "The Wall," but she was never actually in Pink Floyd.

EDIT -

Sorry, thought I was being funny, turns out I need to learn to read.

I can imagine the Floyd giving the ol' battleaxe a mention, certainly the right era, and they did like to pick up on the depressing aspects of life.

 

[aenimau5]

I'm a too young to have been alive when she was in power but i still consider her evil because #1 she was a tory and #2 I can't say the word thatcher in my house without something being dropped/thrown/shouted.

 

[Samwise137]

USA. I've certainly heard of her but I honestly have never stopped long enough to formulate an opinion.

 

[Mahha]

She had to make hard decisions and she made them. She deserves some credit - at least she did somethings right. Unlike Tony boy.

Not a brit but living in Scotland.

 

[Blaster395]

To sum up how politics works here, I have developed two simple stages which it endlessly loops through.

1. One party invests massive amounts of money in welfare and other free stuff, but bankrupts the country. Everyone ends up happy, but the country is bankrupt
2. People vote for a different party
3. That party takes away everyone's free stuff, so everyone is pissed, but they do get the country out of being bankrupt.
4. Everyone votes for the first party again.


Anyway, it is not necessarily Margret Thatchers that caused manufacturing and industry in the UK to die. Industry and Manufacturing dying is something that happens to EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY IN THE WORLD once their economy advances past a certain point. Economies go through 3 phases

1. Agriculture, everyone lives in rural areas and farms their own food
2. Industrial Revolution, less people live in rural areas and these people produce goods in factories
3. Information Revolution, less people work in industry and agriculture, and most people work in commercial jobs like running shops, or working in an office.

Note that this system does not happen because Production in Agriculture and Industry drops, its just that Agriculture and Industry become so efficient (For example, combine harvesters, or automated factories) that people just are not needed for those jobs any more.
In the UK industrial and agricultural production is still rising, although the number of people employed in them is falling.


tl;dr Industrial jobs in the UK would of fallen no matter who was in charge.

 

[Daveman]

Thatcher did do a lot of things that affected the north of England in particular very badly but ultimately I think I have to concede that she was kind of right, we couldn't have gone on the way we were then.

Basically she was a fucking Tory, what did you expect?

I must concede though that as a former Lib Dem supporter, at least you got what you expected. Not like what we got. Makes me glad I didn't vote though else I would have looked a right tool and I'd probably have to go and protest, which I didn't because I think the Lib Dems were being stupidly unrealistic (which is why I didn't vote).

Also, Falklands... I think they're happy to still be British. In fairness we should be blaming Argentina WAY more than Thatcher but I suppose what with Maradona's Hand of God there's only so much hate we direct at them.

Also I'd like to quote Billy Connelly on this. "Women always say, if women ruled the world there'd be no more wars... WRONG!!!"

 

[lAljax]

Brasil here, and for people who think she was the devil, trust me when i tell you, sometimes you've got to do hard things...

In the 90's someone a lot like tatcher got in charge, he took care of business, his name will be forever associated with some of the most unpopular choices to this date... But when the oposition won, they didn't change a thing... It was awfull, but it was necessary, that is the true mark of a great politician.

On the other hand, Argentina (just across the border), never had someone to do the same, they suffered amazing economic problems, and still do, just because they are unwilling to do what they need to, for the sake of winning the next election.

I don't know about you, but we have a saying that goes something like "You may lose your rings, but be thankfull you still have your fingers"

 

[Major_Tom]

She is generally liked here in Croatia because they say she "supported" us during the war (breakup of Yugoslavia), but I think that's bullshit and I don't like her very much.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

American here, and I have a great deal of respect for Thatcher - her role in the decisions that made the OP personally hate her stands out as a particular example of why I found her tenure as your prime minister so commendable; the OP's complaints read like union party lines, but smashing up what was essentially a British OPEC (just for coal and not oil) and opening the region up to foreign direct investment was a very long-view move that has since paid off significantly, not that you'd ever hear that side of the story from the union folks. That it took starting a war simply to serve as a distraction so that goal could be accomplished should stand as a testament to just how hard those necessary policy changes were to implement - Thatcher did what was needed and not what was politically expedient, and your country is much better off now than it would have been had business been allowed to continue as usual.

Ergo why I find Thatcher so admirable - she had the guts to make some extremely hard choices, where others would have capitulated or wavered.