I think people were just celebrating the end of the war and the fact that they had survived.

What does Thatcher's death mean really?

Do you think there may be any fall out after her funeral? Given the squeeze on families up and down the country could divisions resurface and civil unrest ensue? I've a sneaky feeling this may occur and Mrs Thatcher's death could be the trigger.

I was interested to read today that the British people's wealth is now its highest ever. Perhaps one of the better legacies of Mrs Thatcher?

The question is do you believe in a society where the State serves the people or one where the individual serves the State?

Do you believe in a society based on fairness and justice - where the individual is able to enjoy the fruits of his labour and talent - or one based on envy and slavery - where the State exploits the individual by stealing the fruits of his labour (egged on by its supporters who are filled with envy and jealousy of those people more successful and thus want to "get the rich"icon_wink.gif through the threat of force in order to distribute it to its cronies?

Do you believe in a society governed by its elected representatives or by an unelected minority group led by a Stalinist megalomaniac?

Do you believe in a society whereby people think about their duties and how they can help others, or one where people think only of their rights and how they can take from others?

Do you believe in a society where the individual takes responsibility for helping his family, neighbours and fellow citizens or a walk-on-by society where people ignore those around them because it is the State's job to do something about it?

Do you believe in a society based on reaction rather than progress - a society that sticks with outdated, dying and massive loss-making industries because it is what we are used to, or one which moves forward with the times and consequences of the modern globalised world? Presumably if you prefer the former you would also have been amongst the many people in the 19th century who protested against the move from an agricultural to industrial society.

Do you believe in a world where totalitarian nations such as Argentina, Iraq and the Soviet Union are able to invade and impose their rule on their neighbours, or do you believe in a world where the peoples of the Falkland Islands, Eastern Europe and Kuwait are free to choose their own governments and ways of living?

Have you not noticed that we have not had to beg the IMF for a bailout since 1979? Or that bodies are buried now or that people work the full 5 days or that power cuts are a rarity? Or that even the "very poor" are able to afford TVs, cars, smart-phones, 3 meals a day, computer game consoles, holidays, clothes etc?

I believe in a world where the young are not resentful and envious of older people and one where the young individual uses their enegies, like their forefathers did, to build a better country for all rather than feeling hard done too like a latter day supporter of Scargill.

People always resort to Hitler when they can't think up a coherent argument.

Or when they want to make themselves look a complete t!t.

I think there will be very tight security around Thatcher's funeral.

Even the young?

Power cuts are coming though.

Of course I am resentful of middle-aged people destroying this economy and burdening the nation with ever-rising levels debt, the consequences of which the young will suffer for the rest of their lives, because of their addiction to welfare and living beyond their means. What is going on is inter-generation theft, it is quite rightful to be resentful. Given the indignation and outraged of the middle-aged when a small group of youngsters destroyed some shops and stole some TVs/trainers back in the riots a few years ago, I would say I have a perfect right to be resentful of the destruction of millions of jobs/futures and the large-scale theft of this country's finances. Would you not be resentful if a gang of thieves stole your house and all your belongings, and then your insurance company refused to pay out so you had to pick up the bill?

Not sure how that makes me envious though.

But you've accepted youself that you've been born into the UK at its wealthiest time in history. Surely, that says something to you?

For all their faults the baby boomers were born in the austerity of Post WW2 Britain with rationing, etc. From the bankrupt ashes of WW2 Britain their parents and them have built a country for your generation that is the richest it has ever been. Maybe if you encouraged your generation to "party" less and show a bit of responsibility and drive your generation could take us forward as far again over the next 60 odd years? Do I expect it? No - born too rich to have any desire or drive.

The dead are not buried immediately, as I pointed out on an earlier post.

The 3 day week and power cuts happened under a tory watch.

It may suprise you but most poeple had TVs in the 1970s and many did not need cars because we had a working and affordable public transport system. Most had 3 meals a day and many could afford holidays too. Smart phones and game consoles hadn't been invented

3 day week caused by the unions coming out on strike, not the tories and cars were also not required as people tended to live in closer communities with everyone living and working in the same area.

Indeed. But they are not just left to back up either.


That would be as a result of the miners' (many) strikes plus any other union who felt like sending along a flying picket or two.


Mostly black and white.


Cars were largely beyond the ability of most people to afford. That we couldn't afford cars meant that people continued to use the public transport system, which was heavily subsidised by the people who used the public transport system, having to pay for it twice over.


Mostly in the UK though.


Toasters had though.

Yes it is at its wealthiest, but wealth is no longer increasing and in the coming years it will decline. As I have told you the problems are so myriad and so deep that nothing can be done down. In 11 years of government, the most principled and determined prime minister of the 20th century was only able to reverse one aspect of British decline - the economy. She was unable to reverse any other aspect of national decline. Given that the problems facing Britain have grown exponentially since then, Labour have managed once more to ruin the national economy (but this time on a larger and more lasting scale than ever before), and every area of public life is riddled with corruption, selfishness and cowardice there is absolutely no amount of drive or action that remedy the situation.

Regarding post-war Britain, the Baby-Boomers rebuilt the economy on the fragile foundations of State spending, welfarism and American loans. It was the post-war Butskellite consensus that destroyed the traditional independence and innovative spirit of the British people, and it replaced with the principles of dependency, idleness and envy. The Baby-Boomers threw away the British empire and made us economically dependent of the US, and political satrap of Germany, so that we could establish a healthcare system that is the second worst in the developed world.

The establishment of the welfare state and nationalised economy in 1945, for noble reasons, which formed the basis of your great economic recovery sowed the seeds for the belief in cradle-to-grave State benefits, massive public spending and massive debt. We saw the consequences of the nationalisation of industry in the 70s, we are seeing the consequences of welfarism today. Great legacy the baby-boomers built and left - potentially the end of Western civilisation and certainly the end of the West has the leading power in the world. Congratulations on destroying hundreds of years of history in just a few decades.

Ken Loach has responded to your post and sums it up for me.

Didn't governments encourage welarism by encouraging and judging people incapacitated so they could pretend unemployment was lower than it was? Don't they now have high employers NI when they know it causes poverty through part-time working because they can say how many private sector jobs have been created and pretend unemployment is low?

My major issue with Thatcher's policies around labour issues was the dogged refusal to understand that the US model she so admired simply wouldn't work in the UK.

The 'on yer bike' attitude to labour mobility was based on the hugely flawed assumption that workers would move to wherever work was available. In the US that works to a degree unmatched anywhere in the world, with lots of large population centres, relatively cheap housing across the country, and a population that understands that if they don't work they will become very poor very quickly.

In the UK, mobility was always limited by vast cost differentials between north ond south, a benefits system that in some cases actively disincentivised moving to look for work, and the simple fact that such large-scale geographical movement was always going to prove impossible in a country as small as Britain (completely different issues from the industrial revolution before anybody raises that one).

The model was also flawed because - again following the US - it assumed that new industry would spring up to replace the manufacturing that was killed in the process of modernising the economy. Services were never going to replace manufacturing in the numbers required in the short-term, and never would in the single-industry towns and cities.

What we got instead of genuinely awful manufacturers dying and being replaced with a combination of services and better, non-unionised (and therefore competitive) manufacturing was significant areas of the country living in an economic wasteland, whilst others (notably the already relatively better-off south east) boomed on the back of weakened unions. In addition we had good manufacturers being killed along with the bad.

OTOH the unions had to be taken on and brought to some semblance of reality. No amount of left-wing red-tinted spectacles could deny that the country was in an absolute mess when Thatcher took over, and that the unions were helping to destroy industries very effectively without any political intervention being required. Thatcher recognised that, and was helped in no small part by the idiocy of 'leaders' like Scargill, whose own actions (refusing to hold an up-to-date ballot for strike action for example) played right into the Tories hands.

Thatcher's model was flawed, and she seemingly cared very little for the impact of her policies on people and communities, helping to create a far more selfish society as a whole. But OTOH it could be argued that without a certain dogmatic 'toughness' which brought the bad with the good, she'd never have been able to drag the country forward the way she did.

Thatcher will always be hugely divisive. Like all such leaders, I expect she could never quite understand why her own party kicked her out, or why she was detested by so many people across the country.

Think its an absolute disgrace that Mods not only allow this thread to continue, but actually take glee in someones death. But then again its not as if any of you actually have the balls or ability to do anything as huge as lead a country is it?

Lets hope you all get more sympathy in your demise!!!

Couldn't give a toss pal. I'll be dead

Oh what a beautiful morning...
Oh what a beautiful day...........

Another positive about the bonkers old bitch dying is that Susanna Reid looks fit as fook in black.

The good Lady died at The Ritz hotel. What a lovely way to go in such splendid surroundings. Very fitting. Looking forward to seeing reviews of her life and brilliant career on various TV channels over the coming weeks. It'll be like watching blockbuster movies. Be sure to tune in.

Luke 23-34
Forgive them Lord for they know not what they do.

Amen to that.

Alas, no resurrection. Only insurrection.