C’mon:

“An analysis of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s speech patterns suggests he may have had early Alzheimer’s disease in office.

“A University of Southampton expert examined Wilson’s changing use of language while at the dispatch box.

“The findings point to a possible decline in his mental function during his final months in office.

“Researcher Dr Peter Garrard suggests this may have contributed to Wilson’s decision to resign in April 1976.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7720200.stm

The deleterious impact of Thatcherism represents the root cause of every single major social problem currently facing this country, from the entrenched pockets of unemployment and social deprivation to the failures of the education health systems.

Jesus, spit and make the sign to avert the evil eye why don’t you? This sort of reductionist simplictic pseudo-analysis really should be left in the JCR.

I yield to no man in my contempt for Margaret Thatcher, but I wouldn’t wish Alzeimer’s on even her. The display of her illness, albeit fictionalised, is merely voyeurism and will cause distress to her family – I’ve no love for them either, but they are her children and grandchildren.

What, other than prurience, would be the purpose of this film?

There are many things that can be done; that does not mean they should.

#2

Haha, I see Tim J complains about reductionism, and yet ignores the paragraph that follows the one he quoted. In case you missed it, it’s the one that begins with “She is not solely to blame…”

But seriously, I think all the OTT Thatcher-hate on the left is a bit of an embarassment. I really hope there are no big street parties when Thatcher dies, as are advertised on several facebook groups. This is the sort of juvenile shit that needs to be left in the JCR – not serious debate about the economic and social legacy of the Thatcher years.

the entrenched pockets of unemployment and social deprivation

Take a look at the worst twenty parliamentary constituencies for child poverty and you will find that they include places like Bethnal Green & Bow, Birmingham Sparkbrook, Manchester Central, Poplar & Canning Town etc.

What nearly all these constituencies have in common is very high levels of unemployment among immigrants who had not even arrived in this country when Margaret Thatcher was PM.

The other thing they have in common is that they were already identified as places where the poor lived years before Thatcher.

List here:
http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/why-end-child-poverty/poverty-in-your-area

@3

If what we read is true then it’s not really voyeuristic; just an artistic/cinematic device of using Thatch now (present day, obv ill) looking back at her past wistfully. Plenty of films depict the real-life illness of famous folk, I don’t see why Maggie should be exempt.

Still not entirely sure of the veracity of the Torygraph story though. The Indie piece on the same makes no mention of dementia etc and says it will be set around the time of the Falklands war.

@4

Come to my corner of the north-west sometime and I’ll show you a thousand reasons why people will be celebrating. Whether you like it or not, Maggie is very widely despised by the working class, and street parties would be a counterbalance to the hand-wringing, hypocritical state funeral [be more fitting to contract out the funeral to a private provider, surely] that she’ll no doubt receive.

The deleterious impact of Thatcherism represents the root cause of every single major social problem currently facing this country, from the entrenched pockets of unemployment and social deprivation to the failures of the education health systems.

I don’t particularly like to find myself writing a defense of Thatcherism, but do you really think that if she’d never come to power and we’d had either more 1970s style Labour, or some other variety of “not-Thatcherism”, we’d have no long-run unemployment etc. and a super education system? That strikes me as crazy talk.

#7

You don’t have to explain to me that Thatcher is hated, or why she is hated. I’m fully with you on that. But still, there’s something really wrong about celebrating the death of one old woman.

I tried to summon up an atom worth of sympathy but it’s just not possible.

I shall be at one of those street parties Mr S. Pill.

I worked in a local authority nursing home full of people with dementia under Thatcher’s watch. I wish she could be placed in that nursing home and could realise the full horror of it.

Yes indeed – Thatcher was clearly responsible for conditions in that nursing home.
Drag her in.

Christ on a bike.

I’m one of those childish lefties who’ll be at the street party, laugh at the state funeral and piss on her grave.

FFS, not supporting street parties at the death of an old woman has nothing to do with sympathy for Thatcherism. It’s to do with having a political and human understanding that runs a bit deeper than the Young Ones. “Yeh, we’re really militant, we hate Thatcher, man!” None of us like the conditions people with dementia have to suffer – perhaps some of us can do something a bit more constructive than hold a street party because someone has died. Or you think that people are really going to discover an interest in socialist idea’s because of a piss-up in the park the day after Thatcher dies?

I do cringe a little when I hear all the talk about street parties etc. I would’ve supported a street party when she resigned had there been any round my way. Ditto street parties if and when a really radical socialist party ever won… (sorry dreaming again).

At Tolpuddle yesterday, saw a few t-shirts saying ‘hurry up and die, we want to party’ with a picture of herself. Don’t like it really. I’m quite capable of partying without the death of a despised (by some) ex-prime minister and I think most people are. I find it in poor taste. (I remember the ‘ditch the bitch’ days and found that extremely misogynist.)

But that’s just me. You go and party if you like.

Not to say I wouldn’t give a little cheer, mind.

Yurrzem!

‘I’m one of those childish lefties who’ll be at the street party, laugh at the state funeral and piss on her grave.’

FFS! The woeful stupidity of the contributors to the Raul Moat’s Facebook tribute page will be absolutely nothing to compare with the stuff that bitter posters on Liberal Conspiracy will be saying when Margaret Thatcher dies.

Maggie left office almost 20 years ago and still some of you lot are acting out the role of the perennial loser by chewing over your hatred of her. Get a life and look closer in the mirror before starting the blame game.

Kojak is right – it’s not just being obsessed with fighting the battles of 20-30 years ago, it’s an obsession with moaning about the battles we lost 20-30 years ago. If you hate the Tories so much, get out there and actually organise stuff, don’t use somebodies death as an excuse for a piss up.

Just for instance, in my area there is a broad-based anti-cuts campaign. At this stage it’s not too clear what will be axed, but there is a worry that it could be some dementia homes in the area. You really think we should be reaching out to the families of those who are suffering from dementia by organising a party to celebrate the death of an old woman with dementia? You really think we would win public opinion over with this sort of stunt?

I cannot see any value in portraying the sad demise of anyone with such a disease unless it has artistic or social value. I may not have liked Thatcher, but I’d rather see a drama about her in her prime than in sad decline. As for parties when she dies? She was a right wing politician, she wasn’t Franco or Hitler.

‘I worked in a local authority nursing home full of people with dementia under Thatcher’s watch. I wish she could be placed in that nursing home and could realise the full horror of it.’

Except if she could ‘realise the full horror of it’ she wouldn’t need to be in there.

Thatcher made the word ‘cunt’ acceptable in left-wing circles.

Friend of Pinochet?

were local authority Nursing Homes much better under Callaghan?

[You can argue that the quality was improving, at Thatcher caused the rate of improvement to fall. But perhaps earwicga you would go as far as the claim things got worse?]

Anyone arguing against the film from an artistic perspective is wasting their time, many films are based on the fall of a great character with an illness, they are a great success because people want to see those events re-created, however dark they may be.

Also, people with moral concerns are also on weak ground, so many pieces of art are about morally complex subject matter, that is the joy of art. It can be about anything, even deeply personal matters.

So arguing whether it is right or wrong is a real waste of time, whether you’d go and see it or not is up for debate but bickering over matters of opinion is dull.

I, for one, will have a good knees up on Thatcher’s death. Not because she has a different political outlook on life, but because she is responsible for inflicting so much misery and sewn so much destruction onto so many people. Of all the ways this woman could have suffered, then this is one of the more fitting. I really do take some solace from the fact that she may end her life as a burnt out shell of a woman, smeared in her own waste and unable to do anything for herself.

To put this into some kind perspective, most of the Tories of her generation can die in the same manner for all I care, but there are a few that I have some affection for, despite being tainted by Thatcherism. When the time comes for John Major, I hope he goes with as much dignity as possible. Norman Fowler too, I suspect would have me shed a tear for and perhaps even Malcolm Rifkind would be a sad loss. Despite all their faults, I felt (rightly or wrongly) there was a level of humanity in those eyes. I could not detect (again, rightly or wrongly) that level of fanaticism that you could feel from the more hardliner elements of the Tory Party at that time. These people, may have been Tories, but they did not have that relish that the truly evil have.

I think that, if a film about Margaret Thatcher’s final years is going to be made, they should at least wait until a few years after she dies, as with the film about Iris Murdoch. Also, I was only eight when she resigned, so I don’t have a clear memory of the Thatcher government like some do. Therefore, I feel I would just be jumping on the bandwagon if I either wept or cheered. But I may derive some entertainment from other reactions to it, and no doubt the reactions to those reactions.

Also, I suddenly remembered that at least one person has danced on Reagan’s grave, which is quite a big site with plenty of room for dancing, or so I understand. It suggests to me that, no matter how much hand-wringing there is about it, someone will try. In fact, some people might try entirely because of the hand-wringing.

I really do take some solace from the fact that she may end her life as a burnt out shell of a woman, smeared in her own waste and unable to do anything for herself.

Each to their own and all that, but that really does mark you down as a rather squalid little person.

earwicga @ 10

On Margaret Thatcher’s watch spending on the NHS increased by 31.8%. Total government spending increased by 12.9%.

I can only guess what excuses your council gave for the conditions in the home you worked in, but the real reason had nothing to do with Thatcher.

Its notable how the Toryban fundamentalists can’t let us have a laugh at the expense of their blessed holy Thatchness.

Twats.

‘I worked in a local authority nursing home full of people with dementia under Thatcher’s watch. I wish she could be placed in that nursing home and could realise the full horror of it.’

But surely after 13 years of a Labour Government who totally repudiate the evil wicked Thatcher, local authority nursing homes are well funded and wonderful, if not perfect. If not, why no street parties for Blair’s death – or indeed for Brown’s or John Major’s?

Tim J @ 25

Each to their own and all that, but that really does mark you down as a rather squalid little person.

I consider it a badge of honour that the Right feel it necessary to hurl pointless insults, but to be fair, I can make no apology for feeling nothing but loathing for the woman who was directly responsible for leaving millions of my fellow Countrymen in poverty.

The fact that appears to upset her most adoring disciples is a very large cherry on top of the whole pie. These were the same people who openly cheered as decent people went to the wall as unemployment went through three million, as whole communities were rent asunder as the diseases of poverty like rickets, TB etc return after forty years.

Millions of people thrown onto the scrapheap with a cheery ‘if it is not hurting, it is not working’ all done without an ounce of empathy or sympathy and now someone is about to make a film depicting her as virtual cabbage? Yet we are supposed to feel ‘sorry’ of this cold heartless, soulless woman? Perhaps if she had shown some compassion for those with mental health issues who were left wandering about our seaside towns during the day? Or the hundreds of thousands of people lives she blighted and ruined the marriages she killed, the early graves she filled and the vandalism she committed on whole towns and villages, there would be some coming back.

Oh goody….………We are going to get lots of Right wing political correctness.

Lots of ranting by so called libertarians demanding that it be banned. Questions will be asked in the House by red faced , pompous , so called small govt Conservatives who will ask the Prime Minister…… ” does my right honourable friend agree with me that no cinema or broadcasting outlet should show this movie?”

All the ‘it’s political correctness gone mad’ brigade will demand action by……… er, oh yes government. Priceless.

Why not leave it to the free market? Make the film and if people want to see Thatcher as a shambling wreckage, then the film will make a profit?

Bet a few Iraquis will celebrate when Bliar and McRuin die or suffer too so fair play really.

@ 8 “I don’t particularly like to find myself writing a defense of Thatcherism, but do you really think that if she’d never come to power and we’d had either more 1970s style Labour, or some other variety of “not-Thatcherism”, we’d have no long-run unemployment etc. and a super education system? That strikes me as crazy talk”.

Exactly – the left seem to assume that things could only get better (ahem) had thatcher not been in office, as if a continuation of 3 day weeks, state subsidies for failing industries, endless strikes, a massive IMF overdraft, and almost weekly currency devaluations could ever be sustainable. Most lefties who harbour this fantasy were not even born in the 1970s, whereas I can remember going on holidays as a kid where there were restrictions on how many £s you could take out of the country – that is how skint we were.
The other hypocrasy is that lefties will argue that gloabalisation and de-industrialisation (both of which gained traction in the 1980s and would have done whoever was in charge) which were the root causes of “social problems” are directly attributable to thatcherism. Worse than that, when the argument suits they will argue that they (globalisation and de-industrilisation) are de facto good things that represents modernity and progress.

Matt Munro, that last paragraph in comment 32 was a real “This is central to my point” moment.

Just letting you know.

@22:

Try Simon Jenkins: Thatcher and Sons (Penguin 2006)

Thatcher’s only interest in life seemed to be power and money. After she was ousted by her own people, she did nothing except go around the world making money for her weird foundations. I am not aware of her doing any charity work. (unless you call propping up her idiot son) She never has showed the remotest interest in sport or the arts, or anything as far as I can see, apart from power and money for moneys sake.

Very odd person

The lie of Thatcher and her bullshit apologists here was that There Is No Alternative – it’s no surprise that we see exactly the same arguments now coming from the ConDem front bench.
The legacy of Thatcher’s government was record unemployment, record inflation, the decimation of industry in the north, ill-thought out policies like right to buy and the poll tax, the destruction of the unions, as well as the selling off of key assets. She condemned Nelson Mandela as a “negro terrorist” at the same time sucking up to Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan.
Maggie only won in 1983 because of the Falklands war and a jingoistic tabloid press. She spoke of the “enemy within”: ironically I can think of no other PM who screwed the country so royally and with such hideous consequences.

“Maggie only won in 1983 because of the Falklands war and a jingoistic tabloid press.”

Yes, and of course one of the great ironies of that war was that one of the first things she did in 1979 was to pull the one warship we had down in the Atlantic which sent a message to the Argentineans that we were not that serious. It was almost as if it was set up deliberately.

Also, I think Andrew Neil’s claim that when she was leader of the opposition in the 1970s she did not understand the point of the sell off of council houses and it had to be explained to her . When it was first put to her she said “ but what will it do for our people.” It had to be explained that it was just a wheeze to get people to vote for her.

When Harold Wilson was suffering from Alzheimer’s (only it wasn’t called Alzheimers back then, it was called ‘senile dementia’) it was met with a lot of snickering by the right wing press. ‘Look, Harold’s losing his marbles….’

He even presented a chat show called ‘Friday Night, Saturday Morning’ (with Harry Secombe one of guests) where it was clear he was not well and his memory was going. (The producer later revealed they did a dress rehearsal and when it finished Wilson thought he had done the show and was ready to leave).

His appearance on the show was met with some sympathy but also with a lot of joking by right wingers. It’s since been revealed Wilson knew his once forencic memory was going as early as 1972 and planned his 1976 retirement then.

The recent death was of Michael Foot was met by Richard Littlejohn, Kelvin MacKenzie and Norman Tebbit, amongst others, with barely concealed gloating and attacks on Foot.

We don’t need any lessons from the right on how to react to the death of a politician.

BTW I don’t Thatcher will get a state funeral, she was too divisive a figure for that (she never had the support of the majority of the electorate). The counter-demonstrations at any state funeral would turn it into a circus.

@38 Mr S. Pill

She also won it because some former right wing Labour Party members thought it more important to fight the Labour left than Thatcher.

Try Brian Walden reminiscing about Mrs Thacher. Here he recalls her early admiration of John Major:

“I had a personal experience of how strange her judgement could be. In 1987 I interviewed her in Downing Street for the ‘Sunday Times’ and she said in answer to my question about her eventual retirement that she intended to go “on and on.” After the interview she asked me to stay and have a drink. Then she asked if she could tell me in confidence who she thought her successor should be. I agreed, and she said ‘John Major.’ I was speechless with surprise. This was before Major had been Foreign Secretary or Chancellor of the Exchequer, both jobs she later gave him. I think he was Chief Secretary at the time and wasn’t anybody’s front runner for Tory leader – except hers. She confided that he was ‘one of us’ and I was even more shaken. Major wasn’t a Thatcherite, quite the opposite. Later on after she’d helped him to become leader and Prime Minister the relationship between them became poisonous. How she can have possibly supported that Major, who later pronounced her ‘mad’ and ‘loopy’ and wanted her, as he put it, ‘isolated and destroyed,’ shared her views is beyond my understanding.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_westminster_hour/3701928.stm

@39

True. The SDP/Liberal alliance split the anti-Tory vote like no time before or since if my history is correct.

@40

Ever the pragmatist, as most Tories are, she probably realised that the grey man had a better chance of victory than another outlandish type like herself. I guess that’s what New Labour were attempting with the rebranding of The Project: power at any cost (in their case, principles…)

Labour during the 1980s was unelectable.

Labour’s manifesto for the 1983 election would have committed an incoming Labour government to unilateral nuclear disarmament, negotiating withdrawal from the European Common Market and taking the commanding heights of the economy into public ownership. As Gerald Kaufman wittily observed after the election, it was the longest suicide note in history.

Tony Blair was first elected to Parliament at that election,

Maggie only won in 1983 because of the Falklands war and a jingoistic tabloid press

… and she only won in 1987 because……?

And her successor only won in 92 because……?

The Conservatives won four elections on the trot, three with and one without Thatcher. Must have done something right.

@44: “And her successor only won in 92 because……?”

Because of the Labour Party rally in Sheffield:

“So what did cost Labour the 1992 election? Worcester has no doubt that it was the Sheffield rally, just eight days before polling day. On the eve of the rally, three polls came out, showing a seven-point lead, a six-point lead and a four-point lead for Labour. That day, Labour peaked.”
http://www.newstatesman.com/199812110020

To get a taste of why that rally generated such an adverse reaction, try this BBC video clip:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/vote2001/in_depth/election_battles/1992qt_sheffield.stm

@5 Flowerpower: “Take a look at the worst twenty parliamentary constituencies for child poverty and you will find that they include places like Bethnal Green & Bow, Birmingham Sparkbrook, Manchester Central, Poplar & Canning Town etc.

What nearly all these constituencies have in common is very high levels of unemployment among immigrants who had not even arrived in this country when Margaret Thatcher was PM.”

The nature of immigration is that migrants settle in areas where it is cheap to rent housing because they have low earnings. As they become wealthier, they move away and leave a home in which a new migrant settles. One of the examples is Bethnal Green & Bow where migrant settlement has followed that pattern for 150 years.

You need to look at communities where there is social disorder today that did not exist 30 years ago. Small mining towns would be a case. Formerly there was little drug dependency or welfare dependency, and there was an expectation that your lifestyle and achievements would exceed those of your parents. You were on the dole while you waited for a job.

A similar thing has happened in cities but social failure in one district is statistically masked by success in another. My local newspaper records antisocial behaviour in some areas on a daily basis but, a ten minute walk away, I don’t experience it personally. Outside heavy drinking hours our city centres are heavily policed and our suburbs are quiet, so for most city dwellers social disorder is something that happens somewhere else. If you live “somewhere else” eventually you work out that current social disorder started in the early 1980s.

This video clip on YouTube of Labour’s Rally in Sheffield in 1992 may be easier to access:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TOgB3Smvro

@43

Pfft. The longest suicide note my arse, clearly he’s never read the collected works of Sylvia Plath. But anyway: it’s pointless hypothesising what might have been I’m just saying, Thatcher was no where near as popular as it’s made out to be in the very early 80s, the war helped her a lot. To deny that is plain daft. Labour’s socialist programme still attracted 8,000,000 votes and the SDP/Libs got another 8million too.

@44

The left was in disarray. It’s not so much what the Cons did right as what Lab did wrong post ’83.

@47

And yes, I was going to mention Sheffield ’92 – a clear example of why New Lab were so keen on media management I reckon!

(Anyone wanting to read the aforementioned “suicide note” should click here)

@ Bob B 40 an 43

1. Thatcher was incredibly unpopular in her early days, with Labour leading her in the polls with those policies. What saved her bacon was the “Falklands Factor” and the Labour – SDP split.

(It has been noted that New Labour’s bailout of the banks went beyond anything Labour proposed in 1983. Withdrawal from the EU is now a right wing cause and it is quite possible Trident won’t be replaced).

2. It was The Observer’s William Keegan who first tipped John Major was one to watch in 1988, when hardly anybody had heard of him. The Thatcherites blue eyed boy at the time was the deeply unpleasant John Moore. But he proved a disaster as a minister and is now virtually forgotten.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Moore,_Baron_Moore_of_Lower_Marsh

@ 44. Flowerpower.

‘And her successor only won in 92 because……?

Because of the Sheffield Rally not the myth of ‘John Smith’s Tax Bombshell’. Labour nearly won in 1992.

But:

“So what did cost Labour the 1992 election? Worcester has no doubt that it was the Sheffield rally, just eight days before polling day. On the eve of the rally, three polls came out, showing a seven-point lead, a six-point lead and a four-point lead for Labour. That day, Labour peaked.

If the cause of the election defeat had been Smith’s tax pledge, which was given near the start of the campaign, then the polls would have had to be spectacularly and consistently wrong throughout the campaign, in a way that they have never been, before or since.

http://www.newstatesman.com/199812110020

Oops beaten to the Sheffield rally by Bob B.

@43:

As Brian Walden makes very clear in that transcript @40, Mrs T was deeply unpopular in the early 1980s.

Talking to a Labour politician in a bar in Labour heartlands shortly before the election in June 1983, I was asked what I thought the outcome would be. To the surprise of the Labour pol, I said a Conservative majority of 70.

Mrs T won with a majority of 140.

@45 I reckon the tories granny farmed a few marginals in 92 to help swing it their way.

Sheffield didn’t help, it played right into the tabloids’ agenda.

Oh and regarding Kaufman’s post-facto wisdom, its worthless.

@41 Mr S. Pill: “The SDP/Liberal alliance split the anti-Tory vote like no time before or since if my history is correct.”

The formation of the SDP was a symptom of the breakdown of the Labour party, not a cause. Many social democrats or liberal socialists remained in Labour, but they wouldn’t have achieved much internal reform without the kick up the backside that the breakaway provided. Post 1997, of course, many of the early reforms and cross party agreements were wasted.

@52

I recall reading the report in the FT of the Labour Party post mortem on the 1983 election. Dennis Skinner was quoted saying it had been a mistake.

Though not a fan of Gordon Brown, don’t the Tories who frequent here oft point toward GBs mental health with often quite delight. Doesn’t Guido do so on a greater basis? Hypocritical, no?

Though Thatcher is one of the most vile people ever in UK history – I would only ask that at each and every street party that may or may not take place, each child be given free milk – have the banners all sponsored along the route of her “State” funeral so that business can pay for the fucking thing.

Get plenty of DVDs in ‘cos the day she clogs it; it will be on TV all day long.

I really cannot wait to celebrate thatcher finally losing her last remaining hit points.

Will Rhodes @ 57

To be fair to Thatcher, she did put on record that she did not want her funeral to be a sad affair, but rather a celebration.

Well, I think she has got that right!!!!!!

You’ve got to wonder who on earth is gonna go watch the film?

@57 – ‘one of the most vile people ever in UK history’ – err…bit of hyperbole dontcha think? – not sure what criteria you’re using there. Number of dead people, number of pointless wars, acts of imperial aggression, err…I think British histroy could throw up quite a few people who are significantly more vile. Sure, I can well understand why people hate her but, you know, that’s what politicians are there for but a bit of perspective may help a bit.

@21 Daniel Hoffman-Gill: “Anyone arguing against the film from an artistic perspective is wasting their time, many films are based on the fall of a great character with an illness, they are a great success because people want to see those events re-created, however dark they may be.”

Margaret Thatcher is still alive. Most of the papers that describe her governance are private. Perhaps it is a little too close in time for such a perspective?

In the last couple of years, we have had some great cinema about the Third Reich. With a few exceptions, those who are portrayed were dead, and historians have much more data. The historical facts are what are “accepted” and writers fill in the gaps accordingly. Time and the revelation of facts made the drama work.

More recently there was a dramatisation of the life of Mary Whitehouse. A few years after her death, the directors no doubt felt more liberated in her depiction than if the production had been post mortem.

It’s really very flattering for Thatcher to be portrayed by Meryl Streep, one of the best actresses of her generation and a beauty as well. Presumably her Alzheimers won’t be treated like in Iris, where Judi Dench was ga-ga for half the film.

Thatcher has had Patricia Hodge, Andrea Riseborough and Lindsay Duncan portraying her, all good actresses and all beautiful. Lindsay Duncan played her in Margaret, about her fall, which made her look much better than the gang of Tory conspirators and back-stabbers surrounding her. Andrea Riseborough played her in The Long Walk to Finchley as a forceful young woman horribly patronised and thwarted by the male establishment when she was looking for her first seat. Patricia Hodge played her as a doughty, resolute leader during the Falklands War. Those three dramatisations showed her as someone to be respected.

So I’d bet she’s going to come out of this film as rather a sympathetic figure. The film will concentrate on her toughness and also her affection for Denis. I doubt there will be much about her economic policies.

Does it matter that she is still alive?
There have been films made about The Queen, Tony Blair, Bob Dylan and Michael Alig to name just four very different, very controversial and very much alive individuals.

@57 Will Rhodes: “…I would only ask that at each and every street party that may or may not take place, each child be given free milk…”

Authentic children’s free milk, please. A gill of full fat pasteurised (no semi skimmed nonsense) that was loaded into an unrefrigerated lorry, deposited in a half shaded vestibule next to the boys’ bogs and allowed to fester for four and a half hours before break time. Break time was 15 minutes; try sucking a quarter of a pint of yogurt through a straw in that interval and find a few minutes to kick a ball around.

For me, Thatcher’s abolition of repugnant free “milk” was liberating.

“It’s really very flattering for Thatcher to be portrayed by Meryl Streep, one of the best actresses of her generation and a beauty as well”

Good point well made.

“So I’d bet she’s going to come out of this film as rather a sympathetic figure. The film will concentrate on her toughness and also her affection for Denis. I doubt there will be much about her economic policies.”

Agree there. It’s a bit like Oliver Stone’s W: I was expecting a nasty little piss-take flick, and instead I got something that rightly criticised the man but also painted him as a complex and generally competent human being.

I don’t have italics down pat yet, evidently. I suspect a forward slash is needed somewhere. Let’s try:

italics no longer italics.

Simon Jenkins: Thatcher and Sons (Penguin 2006) is hugely critical but it is discerning and extremely well documented.

IMO too much of the post hoc assessment of Thatcher is visceral and pays no regard to the mess the economy was in by the end of the 1970s. Britain was widely perceived then as the sick economy of Europe. Inflation had been running at 25% a year, British Steel was being subsidised at the rate of £1 million a day, and productivity had been been declining on trend through the decade in several then key industrial sectors – steel, coal mining, the motor industry.

Things couldn’t have continued that way without collapse. The 1981 budget was punishing, arguably too much so with its intention of squeezing inflationary expectations out of the system but we are apt to overlook the effects of the appreciation of the Pound as it became a Petro-currency because of North Sea Oil and the world oil price hikes in 1973 and in 1979.

I’ve no personal vested interest in defending Mrs T’s reputation but less demonising and more dispassionate objectivity in assessing what happened in her premiership is appropriate to avoid distorting history.

“During Margaret Thatcher’s premiership public spending grew in real terms by an average of 1.1% a year, while during John Major’s premiership it grew by an average of 2.4% a year.”
http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/05ebn2.pdf

@63 Mr S. Pill: “Does it matter that she is still alive?”

Yes:
1. Living people can sue for defamation. Portrayal of them will be under those terms. The dramas mentioned may have been controversial but lesser than if the subject was dead.

2. All bio drama depends on co-operation from family and friends. Interviewees are more open about people who have been dead for a couple of years.

“Living people can sue for defamation. Portrayal of them will be under those terms. The dramas mentioned may have been controversial but lesser than if the subject was dead.”

Although the wonderfully stupid series Rome was sued by some people who thought they were the scions of Lucius Vorenus and were upset that he was portrayed as a bit of a wife-murdering loser.

@68 Charlieman

1) Yeah, I meant to put a caveat in about libel obviously being a restriction.

2) Agreed, but it shouldn’t stop people from making films about living people. As far as I’m aware none of the protaganists of those films I mentioned had direct involvement in their making (with the exception perhaps of the Dylan one, although he’s infamously reclusive). As I pointed out before it’s far from clear that this film will portray Thatcher in the way the Torygraph claims.

“As I pointed out before it’s far from clear that this film will portray Thatcher in the way the Torygraph claims.”

There’s a bit of the ‘protesting too much’ about the opposition to this film, no?

@71

Yeah, it’s cos the media is run by eeeeeevul liberals and Marxists out to assassinate the legacy of the Iron Lady, of course!

“Yeah, it’s cos the media is run by eeeeeevul liberals and Marxists out to assassinate the legacy of the Iron Lady, of course!”

Yup. You can see them sitting around saying “They’re going to make her look nasty!” (Check the skillz).

Someone else says “Well, why wouldn’t they make her look nice?”

“Well *splutter* it’s because they won’t mention her caring work for the… no, that’s not it… because they’ll ignore her kind actions toward… no, that’s not it either… it’s because they’re ungrateful peasants who should be ashamed to call themselves British! Impertinence, sir, damned impertinence *shakes walrus moustache and straightens blazer in disgust*”

Stereotyping is ok if it’s me doing it.

There is a noticeable feature of British politics to personalise issues instead of analysing which policies were at fault and why.

The result is a pervasive belief that changing the leader or the government will (somehow) solve whatever issues were regarded as troubling. It’s an intellectually lazy way of proceeding but it is a deeply embedded habit.

Political parties are inclined to instigate policy reviews as a means of escaping from awkward situations. The reviews are headed by a “sound”, level-headed chap – it’s usually a chap. That means everyone else can stop thinking about the issues until the review materialises. Naturally, everyone is expected to accept the conclusions of the review once it appears.

If political party A disagrees fundamentally with political party B, logically, both parties can’t be correct.

But both can be wrong.

@71 Chaise Guevara: “There’s a bit of the ‘protesting too much’ about the opposition to this film, no?”

Not really. There are a couple of questions round about the hypothetical Thatcher film. How do you make a film about a controversial politician without putting yourself in a legal pickle? Perhaps you publish and face the consequences. Perhaps you pre-announce the production to generate some publicity; then wait until the subject is dead and tell the story in the fashion that you desired.

“Not really. There are a couple of questions round about the hypothetical Thatcher film. How do you make a film about a controversial politician without putting yourself in a legal pickle? Perhaps you publish and face the consequences. Perhaps you pre-announce the production to generate some publicity; then wait until the subject is dead and tell the story in the fashion that you desired.”

Interesting point, that. But I’d still say there are people who are assuming the film will make her look nasty because, in their hearts, they know it would be difficult to make an honest film that made her look nice, or even neutral. It’d be a bit like doing a biopic on Blair and glossing over Iraq (a bit, mind).

@ 60

@57 – ‘one of the most vile people ever in UK history’ – err…bit of hyperbole dontcha think? – not sure what criteria you’re using there. Number of dead people, number of pointless wars, acts of imperial aggression, err…I think British histroy could throw up quite a few people who are significantly more vile. Sure, I can well understand why people hate her but, you know, that’s what politicians are there for but a bit of perspective may help a bit.

No hyperbole – I do believe her to be in the top 5% of vile. She cared not who was on the scrapheap, she cared not for those who died because of her policies – I could go on. She decimated so many lives of my fellow Britons, her countrymen/women, too – yet did not care that she did it.

That is vile of the highest order.

I always thought there was something mildly fascist about her and her beliefs. The “is he one of us” stuff was rather creepy. And Alan Clark admitted before he died that he was a fascist.

“That is vile of the highest order.”

I think you should, in fairness, adjust it to “the vilest anyone has been who has also unfortunately been given the powers and privileges that enable her to amplify her vileness over the whole fucking country”. I can’t see how anyone could object to that.

Try:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Kznmrc3o4

“Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent , industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous, and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph.”
George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-four, Part II, chapter 9.

@79 – Edward Longshanks? Oliver Cromwell, Richard 3rd etc etc

How about “the vilest democratic leader Britain has seen since the franchise”?

@Sally

Actually, when accused of being a fascist by the Guardian, he replied via letter “I am not a fascist. Fascists are shopkeepers. I am a Nazi.”

Make of that what you will…

Some random useless jottings of my tuppenceworth on this momentous news!

I seem to remember someone wrote on a wall in Merseyside during the Falklands War “YOU CRIED FOR MARK, MAGGIE!” when she couldn’t be bothered with those who died at Goose Green, HMS Ardent, HMS Antelope et al. But was eager to push the Queen out of the way at the Victory Parade later that Year!

Judging by the responses to Raoul Moat’s activities and the apparent sympathy for his motives, (if not his actions), I would gladly sign up for any Facebook Page that did not express Sympathy for her death or refuses outright the demand by the Current Bun/Daily Heilwe all make the Journey to Grantham to prostrate ourselves hysterically weeping at her Casket. Not even the massed ranks of Mcliar, Littlecock etc can close down (and boast how it was only they that did it of course!) EVERY Facebook page on the subject. I’d even have it printed on a T-Shirt if they tried to shame me through their squalid little comics!

I do not wish her to die but when she finally croaks, I’ll be saving my sympathy for people like the miners or the printer for example, who fell down the traps set by her and her acolytes to strike and destroy vital industries to prove a Party Political Point.

“Ding, Dong the Witch Is Dead!” will never seem more apropriate!

“@79 – Edward Longshanks? Oliver Cromwell, Richard 3rd etc etc”

I hear Richard 3rd was misrepresented, and I confess I haven’t heard of Ed Longshanks. But you’re right with Cromwell.

However, I’m talking within the confines of modern Britain. Before we had democracy it wasn’t the same country.

” And Alan Clark admitted before he died that he was a fascist.”

Whatever else, Alan Clark thought that Churchill made a big mistake in not reaching a peace settlement with Nazi Germany during May and June 1940.

Churchill on becoming PM had discovered that the Foreign Office had kept open diplomatic channels through Sweden to the Nazi government in Germany. With the approval of Labour members of his war cabinet, Churchill ordered the channels to closed. The Battle of Britain ensued in the summer of 1940 through to September that year. The outcome was that the German high-command abandoned the planned invasion of Britain and planned for the invasion of the Soviet Union in the spring of 1941. In fact, the spring was late coming that year and the invasion didn’t start until 22 June.

By the end of WW2 in August 1945, between 40 and 50 million people had been killed. The question is how much of that could have been avoided by an early peace settlement and, importantly, on what terms?

Hitler didn’t want war with Britain. His stratgeic war aims were to gain territory in eastern Euorpe – lebensraum – and enslave the populations of conquered territories. How much of that could have been achieved but for the possibility of an invasion of France by forces based in Britain? America didn’t become involved until Germany declared war on America on 11 December 1941.

@85

Richard the Third was fitted up by Henry Tudor.

http://www.richardiii.net/

Thatcher is responsible for what Thatcher did.

“How about “the vilest democratic leader Britain has seen since the franchise”?”

Hmm… I think that sounds about right.

Churchill did some fucking awful things, but that was before he was prime minister, and he did some good too. If we’re counting the bad things and not subtracting the good then its probably pretty close, and Chamberlain. On net though Thatchers probably worst (although she did invent mr whippy ice cream). Hmm…. difficult call.

@85 – i genuinely don’t know if she was vile or evil but if it’s just death count then Blair, McMillan and Brown score higher in straight corrolateral murder but I guess you could go for increased numbers for Thatcher in propping up tyrannical regiemes and stuff. I guess all PMs murder by default really – yough gig.

@Bob B

Bear in mind the majority of losses were Soviet soldiers; if Britain had made peace with Nazi Germany the war in eastern Europe would’ve still continued with similar outcomes. Also it’s true Hitler didn’t want war with Britain, he wanted us to join the Germans against the Soviets (at first at least – his opinion must have changed because when Hess when nuts and flew to Scotland Hitler secretly ordered him (Hess) to be shot if he returned, showing little appetite for peace).

” i genuinely don’t know if she was vile or evil but if it’s just death count then Blair, McMillan and Brown score higher in straight corrolateral murder but I guess you could go for increased numbers for Thatcher in propping up tyrannical regiemes and stuff. I guess all PMs murder by default really – yough gig.”

Good point, and you’re almost certainly right. I sometimes feel uncomfortable when we call to have a world leader brought up in court, because it’s probably impossible to be a world leader and not have blood on your hands in one way or another.

I think you lot are protesting too much, beacuse you all know that without thatcher, his tonyness and the nu labour project would never have happened.

@84: “, I’ll be saving my sympathy for people like the miners or the printer for example, who fell down the traps set by her and her acolytes to strike and destroy vital industries to prove a Party Political Point.”

See this piece taken from The Economist of May 27, 1978 (p.21-23) on the Ridley Report to the Conservative Party on policy for the party in government on the future of the nationalised industries:
http://www.co-opnet.coop/viewtopic.php?t=367&highlight=ridley+report

The Conservatives were not elected to government until May 1979. Since the Ridley plan was in the public domain and the NUM was advised by two economics professors, why did the NUM fall for it?

Btw the Thatcher government spent billions of taxpayers’ money supporting the nationalised coal board. The mining strike 1984/5 amounted to a demand that the government spend even more. From the spring of 1985 to the following spring, the world oil price about halved.

“I think you lot are protesting too much, beacuse you all know that without thatcher, his tonyness and the nu labour project would never have happened.”

Not protesting that. Admit it. Hate it. But never voted Labour, so clean on that count (less so on others).

Also appear to be talking like Rorschach.

@ 36 “The legacy of Thatcher’s government was record unemployment, record inflation, the decimation of industry in the north, ill-thought out policies like right to buy and the poll tax, the destruction of the unions, as well as the selling off of key assets”.

One way of looking at it. The other is;

Supply side reform, competitive business environment, low taxes, service economy, increased enrepreneurship, genuine meritocracy, small government, personal responsibility, law and order.

As to the oft repeated decimation of industry in “the north” (why is the north always a special case ?) – UK industry shrunk more under blair than under thatcher.
And “the selling of key assets” – Gordo putting the gold reserve on ebay ?

“Bear in mind the majority of losses were Soviet soldiers”

True – although that partly or mainly reflected the battle tactics used by the Soviet Red Army. Men were regarded as an entirely expendable resource to be thrown into battle regardless of casualties. Soviet war casualties may have been as high as 20 million by the end of the war. For comparison, Britain and Commonwealth casualties were about 390,000.

@95

(why is the north always a special case ?)

Cos I live there/here! And most of my family are from Lancashire…

@96

Quite so – Stalin’s horrors were overlooked as he had a huge amount of cannon fodder to throw at the Germans. Course, after the war and the carve-up of Europe we all needed a new enemy soooo… then (just to rush forward 50-odd years) when the cold war ended we had to look to our erstwhile comrades in the mujahaden for an enemy. And so history continues as a tragedy and a farce…

32. Matt Munro

‘ Exactly – the left seem to assume that things could only get better (ahem) had thatcher not been in office… almost weekly currency devaluations…’

You do realise that sterling reached its all time lowest ever level vis-a-vis the USD under err Mrs Thatcher in 1985? Thought not.

@ 97 – Fair enough I was getting at the fact that de-industrilisation also affected Wales, Scotland, the Midlands and pretty much everywhere except the beautiful south (east) in fact.

98 No I didn’t but the record could be broken yet. I do remember the “green pound” though and hyper inflation……………

On north v south, this from pre-crisis times tends to get overlooked:

“A Sheffield suburb has been named as the wealthiest place in England outside London and the south east. A survey by Barclays has found that nearly 8% of people in the Sheffield Hallam constituency earn more than £60,000 a year. This puts it in 17th place in the top 20 of most affluent places ahead of traditionally wealthy areas such as Twickenham and Windsor. The only other district outside the south east in the top 20 is the Tatton constituency in Cheshire.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2191223.stm

“The richest people in England live in the north, not the south-east, once house prices are taken into account, a study has calculated. The study, from Barclays Private Clients, looked at people’s wealth in England and Wales after the cost of living – including house prices – were taken out. It found that eight of the 10 wealthiest places were in northern English counties.

“Tatton in Cheshire, home to David and Victoria Beckham, as well as ex-Tory MP Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine, topped the league.

“The study found the actual average wage in Tatton was £29,303.
But that was worth a “real” average income of £41,506 once the cost of living was taken into account, it said.

“Hallam in Sheffield came a close second with an average ‘real’ income of £41,289.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3025321.stm

“As in previous years, the analysis shows that it is only the wider South East (Greater London, the South East and the Eastern Region) that made a positive net contribution to the UK public finances in 2006-07, with the Northern regions, the Midlands and the South West joining Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland as a net drain on the Exchequer.”
http://www.oef.com/Free/pdfs/ukmpubfinfeat(jul).pdf

@101

Yeah, that’s because the house price market is bloody insane. I can rent a two bedroomed house where I live for £300 per month, I’d be lucky to get a flat per week for that money in London.
Quality of life though..? Granted, not as easy to measure… and the minimum wage is the minimum wage wherever you live.

Re Bob B at @92

I agree on your point Re: The Ridley Report as Outlined in 1978 – That was what I was referring to, although I didn’t mention It. What I was trying in my inept way to point out was like that famous Soldier who wrote THE ART OF WAR, Thatcher, Ridley, Murdoch and their Little Sir Echos chose the ground on which to fight on and waited obligingly for Scargill, The NUM, SOGAT 82 et al. to fall into it. Not very pleasant, but poltically clever.

Re: Alan Clark MP

He definitely had Nazi sympathies. His admiration for Hitler’s “brilliant” strategic vision is on record. He kept a photograph of Hitler in a safe and would bring it out on occasions for inspiration.

He referred to Hitler as ‘Wolf’ a pet name only used by Hitler’s closet confidantes. Sometimes when faced with a problem he would ask himself “what would Wolf have done?”.

When Clark’s diary editor inquired into what Clark was like at Eton Marcus Kimball, who knew Clark both as a conttemporary at school and a fellow Tory MP said: “He was very unpopular at Eton because he was a Nazi; no question about it. He supported the Nazi party.”

Clark’s diary entry for 8 December 1981 records he has lunch with Telegraph journalist Frank Johnson:

“Yes, I told him, I was a Nazi, I really believed it to be the ideal system, and that it was a disaster for the Anglo-Saxon races and for the world that it was extinguished Oh yes, I told him, I was completely committed to the whole philosophy. The blood and the violence was [sic] the essential ingredient of its strength, the heroic tradition of cruelty every bit as powerful and a thousand times more ancient than the Judean-Christian ethic [Frank had taken] refuge in the convention that Alan-doesn’t-really-mean-it. He-only-says-it-to-shock, etc”.

When the late Alan Watkins reviewed Clark’s diaries he contacted Johnson (a friend) about this entry. Johnson said he had had lunch with Clark on that date but he was clear Clark had said nothing of the sort.

Watkins wrote: “Clark may well genuinely have held these disgusting views [but]….He made up later what he wished he had said to Mr Johnson”

Wtakins concluded: “I hazarded that the explanation of much of his conduct was that he was not quite right in the head – was slightly off his trolley.”

@102

There’s a challenging question as to quite why London has become the attraction that it is.

At the beginning of the 19th century, London’s population at about 1 million made in not only the largest urban centre in Britain by far but the largest in the world at the time. In fact, London’s population peaked in 1939 and then went into a continuous decline until the late 1980s, when Mrs T was PM, and since then it has been growing.

Housing costs reflect the balance between demand and supply. The latest forward view on house prices is hardly optimistic:

“Property prices will not recover for another decade and should be viewed as ‘risky assets’, according to PricewaterhouseCooper’s Economic Outlook report.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/houseprices/7886145/UK-house-prices-not-set-to-recover-for-another-ten-years-says-PWC.html

“Leading accountant Deloitte has warned that UK house prices will fall by a third by the end of 2010. In a report released today it says: ‘We now expect UK house prices to fall by about a third by the end of 2010 with severe adverse effects on household spending and investment.’”
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgages-and-homes/house-prices/article.html?in_article_id=448236&in_page_id=57#ixzz0tYly30BP

Even so, by the latest news in July on house prices:

“The survey showed sharpening regional disparities with Scotland and London reporting the fastest price rises. Northern Ireland and the West Midlands reported the biggest price falls.”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE66B6Y920100712

Alan Clarke’s identification with the Nazis was funny-peculiar IMO.

It certainly wasn’t remotely consistent with the increasingly popular notions of Free Market Capitalism, deregulation and Euroscepticism among Conservatives but then Thatcher’s governments had more of a proactivist industrial policy than New Labour – billions of taxpayers’ money were sunk in the Rover Group before its privatisation in 1988 and Rolls Royce aeroengines was turned around and sold off to eventually become a world leader in making jet engines for civil and militry aircraft.

On the Nazis, there evidently wasn’t any convergence between the views of Alan Clark and Nicholas Ridley, whom Mrs T regarded as her mentor on markets and privatisations of nationalised industries:

“On 14 July 1990 [Nicholas Ridley] was forced to resign as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry after an interview published in The Spectator. He had described the proposed Economic and Monetary Union as ‘a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe’ and said that giving up sovereignty to Europe was as bad as giving it up to Adolf Hitler.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler

Recall that Nigel Lawson, as Chancellor, had been lining up the Pound to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) and then John Major, as his successor, had put the Pound into the ERM in October 1990 although Mrs T was plainly uncomfortable about this on the advice of Alan Walters, her personal economic adviser.

95
The legacy of Thatcher, in the north, did indeed lead to a massive increase in the service industries (one of the lowest paid jobs). Getting rid of the tax-payer subsidized coal-mining industry (although many mines made a good profit), were replaced by the retail industry (another low paid sector)
Of course these lower paid industries allowed for an increase in competition, oh, just a minute, the majority of people who work in those industries are subsidized by tax credits.
And if your geography isn’t up to scratch, it was mainly the north that relied on heavy industry, it’s demise brought about the demise of many other industries – lack of spending power tends to have that effect.
Health products and services also boomed post-Thatcher (service industry) this led to a large increase in mental health budgets in those areas, but that was subsidized by the sell-off of the taxpaper’s silver, no problem there then.
I have no particular enmity with the old dear, and I’m sure that if the film makes a profit, from her perspective at least, the world will be well.

The world oil price about halved between spring 1985 and a year later as the power of OPEC to control oil supply waned. The significance is that the price paid for coal for electricity generation – the largest source of demand for coal – depended on oil prices and sensibly so.

It doesn’t make good sense to point to the shift to service jobs without: (a) comparing similar trends in other west European countries; (b) the growth of high paid service jobs in business and financial services – note how Leeds successfully attracted flourishing legal and financial services; (c) Thatcher’s government was very successful at attracting inward investment by manufacturing companies – hence Nissan (Sunderland), Honda (Swindon) and Toyota (Derby) came to make cars and engines here, and Sony and Panasonic came to make TV sets in Wales while Scotland developed Silicon Glen. By the early 1990s, Britain was the largest manufacturer of TV sets in Europe. Evidently, foreign companies regarded the business ethos in Britain during the 1980s as very congenial – in stark contrast to the 1970s.

108
I was answering MM’s post, and with respect, your post does not say anything about either content. I am not going to enter into a debate with you in regard to that matter, we’ve been there before and, it appears, neither one of us has changed our opinions. We will just have to agree to disagree. All that I will say is, that government subsidies, in one form or another,
need to be taken into account when discussing both national and international competition.

@102 – it’s pure madness. My best buddy from university went to London after we finished in the Florence of the North – errr.. Hull!! and got hitched a couple of years later and bought a shithole in Croydon (1 double bedroomed, ground floor flat, tiny, bad shape, had a garden & well, habitable and all that) for more than I paid for a massive 2 bed house in sunny Hudds. Scroll on 10 years, they’ve flogged it for over £280k?!?!?!?! I reckon he paid about £100k at the time. They’ve now just bought a lovely 3 bedder in Buxton with all the stuff you’d want and have cash to spare. It’s mental. London’s a toilet too in that I think people get murdered in Croydon once a week (kept my eye on it as a bit worried). Hmm. If I lived in the South East i’d feel like someone was yanking my chain especially as my mortgage has plummeted to almost ridiculous figure of about £350 per month!

110 – Agree, London was hip in the 80s and cool in the 90s. In the 00s it looks like any other European city but with more overcrowding, more dirt and more crime. 90% of it’s a complete dump, and the other 10% is full of rich lefties. On the rare occasions that I have to go there, I don’t linger. Beats the hell out of me why anyone wants to live there, let alone pay way over the odds to do so.

@ 107 – Is it really the legacy of Thatcher though ? My argument is that the de-insdustriliastion which hollowed out the economy would have happened whoever was running the country and did happen, all over Europe, at the same time.
I think Thatcher made it worse with her poorly disguised contempt for the working class, and by modern standards a lack of empathy.
If *how* something is done matters to you, then I can see why you would hate thatcher. To me it doesn’t, bad news is bad news, it doesn’t change through being delivered by some oleggenious tosser of a nouvea riche champagne sociliast in a designer suit who smiles at you whilst telling you, life as you have known it is over but his intentions are good, he is creating a fairer society and he is guided by a “moral code”

On a side note, as many people here have disparaged the UK’s care of its elders, the Economist has just released a very interesting survey which actually places the UK at the top when it comes to care for the elderly, Australia was second, the US third, followed by Denmark and Italy.

“Beats the hell out of me why anyone wants to live there, let alone pay way over the odds to do so.”

Try this video clip on London from BBC Newsnight:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7368326.stm

Amazingly it says that 40% of Londoners were born abroad. What it doesn’t report is that London and South East resident taxpayers are bankrolling the rest of the country:

“As in previous years, the analysis shows that it is only the wider South East (Greater London, the South East and the Eastern Region) that made a positive net contribution to the UK public finances in 2006-07, with the Northern regions, the Midlands and the South West joining Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland as a net drain on the Exchequer.”
http://www.oef.com/Free/pdfs/ukmpubfinfeat(jul).pdf

I wonder why London schools do so well in the league table for England?

London shines in schools league table:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8456708.stm

And don’t forget Bob that it’s ace living here: world class arts, amazing shops and fantastic people, mostly the best in their field and having come from a one horse town, the multi-cultural aspect is most appealing.

@ 114 I haven’t got any stats to hand but don’t londoners get more £ of public spent on them, per head, than the rest of the country ?

Also the “London is bankrolling the country” argument is bollocks, London sucks the resources out of the rest of the country (people, money, jobs, assets) and then gives some of them back.

115 – it’s not ideal with a toddler, but as a place to live as a youngish adult there’s nowhere better – and I’m a bumpkin at heart.

@ 115 Nah, compared to how it was 20 years ago, London is decidedly average now compared to other European cities. People who think it rocks have generally never lived anywhere else.

Twat Munro:

Wow, your sweeping generalisation and failure of confusing your myopic opinion with fact is breathtaking.

London remains, much to the chagrin of its detractors, one of the world’s greatest cities and remains a destination for all, whether from within the UK or not.

This may upset you but truth cannot spare everyone’s feelings.

“the multi-cultural aspect is most appealing.”

If I wasn’t on a diet for healthcare reasons, I could choose to eat in a different ethnic restaurant in London every night of the week or even a month, for that matter. It amazes me how they all manage to keep going at the menu prices many charge but most keep pretty busy – what I can’t fathom is the high price of pizzas.

Walking around many parts of London – or just passing through the checkouts of your regular superstore – is like being on a foreign vacation. The number of different world languages encountered on public transport – which I depend on for travel nowadaya – is truly astonishing.

As for me, I come from Lambeth Walk territory from before WW2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oimHJCURbo

I checked my memory on an online database: in June 1944, a V1 flying bomb dropped down at one end of the road where I was living in London then and, in January 1945, a V2 ballistic rocket landed at the other.

A couple of summers ago I went to look out the church where I was Christened so long ago. Opposite was a large Afghan convenience store. I doubt that was there at the time.

Indeed Bob, I live in a Greek area in North London and the kebabs are the finest and cheapest in London Town. Never mind the bakeries but go a few hundred yards and I can dabble in some genuine and fine Jamaican cuisine.

Lush.

“People who think [London] rocks have generally never lived anywhere else”

I’ve lived with family and worked in several other regions in Britain. One of the really surprising features of the part of London where I live, is the wide variety of flourishing wild life – foxes, squirrels and unusual birds such as magpies, jays, blue tits, and parrots as well as birds that sing in the night.

I’ve never seen anything like it elsewhere. Another feature is that I can walk (with some difficulty nowadays) to two local maintained boys schools which regularly score better average A-level results than Eton. With the ethnic restaurants, that mix is difficult to beat. No wonder London’s population keeps growing.

I get really calustrophobic around people which kind of diminishes London as a destination – unless I had shed loads of wedge. I dunno – horses for courses really. But on travelling to Croydon from Kings Cross which takes about half an hour, there’s hardly any green spaces at all and living as i do 10 minutes walk from a national park, I think i’d go a bit Bertie. Mind you, can’t stand Leeds or Manchester either (useful to work in but zero incentive to move there). Completely acknowledge that London’s ancillary benefits are pretty awesome though.

@ 122 You can get all that anywhere.

@ 119 “London remains, much to the chagrin of its detractors, one of the world’s greatest cities and remains a destination for all, whether from within the UK or not”.

According to the people that live there mainly, each to his own and all that

Perhaps I didn’t make my broader point very well. 20 years ago London was different to the rest of the country. You could get pizzas delivered, drink proper coffee or imported beer in pavement cafes, buy the latest fashions, see modern art etc. Since then, the rest of the country has caught up, and the only way you can now tell you are in London is by looking at the public transport

The other point I would make is that when people eulogise about “London”, they are generally talking about quite a small part of it – central and NW. For the rest (south London particularly is the asshole of the UK) the disadvantages – crime, overcrowding, agression, expense, outweigh the advangates.

Daniel – the Economist survey was of care for the *dying* – hospices, etc., – not for the elderly.

London is of course both great and terrible, like NYC.

It helps if you live right in the middle and can walk everywhere.

“But on travelling to Croydon from Kings Cross which takes about half an hour, there’s hardly any green spaces at all and living as i do 10 minutes walk from a national park,”

Huge parks like Selsdon Park and the Downs or Epsom are easy to get to from Croydon town centre.

Besides, try comparing the journey by Bullet Train from Tokyo, the capital of Japan, to Osaka, the second largest city. It’s pretty much urban all the way and Tokyo, like London, is another great place for restaurants.

Croydon’s origins as a market place go back to medieval times. I came across an ancient rhyme:

Sutton for mutton
Carshalton for beef
Croydon for a pretty girl
Mitcham for a thief

That rhyme is easy to understand in the context of local geography and histories. Down the road from where I live is a bricked up cave which contained evidence of human habitation going back at least to the middle stone age. Some years back, they were digging out the foundations of a substantial Roman villa a couple of miles away. Local place names, as in the rhyme, are Saxon – seven Saxon kings were crowned about five miles away. The local parish church is part Norman. The ruins of Henry VIII’s fabulous Nonsuch Palace remain in Nonsuch Park:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonsuch_Palace

“A popular story is that when Raleigh was beheaded by James I in 1618, Elizabeth [his wife] claimed his embalmed head and kept it in a bag for the rest of her life”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beddington

Dick the Prick:

Honestly, there are plenty of parks but maybe I’m lucky in that I’ve got two community gardens near me that are gorgeous and that I help out on when I can. You just need to seek them out but yes, it is pretty busy here, lots of peeps knocking about.

Twat Munro:

“You can get all that anywhere.”

No, that’s not true, if it were then London would not be such a popular destination for people all over the world, again, just because you don’t like it stop trying to foist your opinion as fact.

And it is well known that large cities and London is pretty epic in its size, attract people because other gifted people are there. I work in the creative industries, with regards to the city of choice for my profession it has to be London and London alone with only LA being of equal opportunity.

London is the hub of many important industries in the UK, thus you can rub shoulders with other innovative people, there are more of them here and thus you can expand your business networks.

Seriously, the rest of the UK is not like London, the nearest is Manchester but even that cannot compete with the density of innovators in various fields.

“The other point I would make is that when people eulogise about “London”, they are generally talking about quite a small part of it – central and NW. For the rest (south London particularly is the asshole of the UK) the disadvantages – crime, overcrowding, agression, expense, outweigh the advangates.

I love that first up you push your narrow opinion as fact and then, having retreated from that, you tell us (that actually live in London) what we actually mean when we say London. Sorry but you’re full of shit.

I mean seriously, how can you presume to know? For the record I love South as much as North, I’ve lived all over, each bit has its benefits and pitfalls but its tapestry is richer than any other city in the UK I’ve lived or worked in and that is pretty much all over.

So to be clear, when I say London I mean from “Mile End to Ealing and Brixton to Bounds Green” and much more.

As Disraeli wrote in his novel Tancred (1846): London is the modern Babylon.

@ 128 “I work in the creative industries” “And it is well known that large cities and London is pretty epic in its size, attract people because other gifted people are there.”

The idea that anyone in the media is “gifted” is laughable. Most people doing media at uni did so because they screwed up their A levels and/or they were too thick to do anything else. You contribute nothing that lasts and most people in the media with decent jobs got there through nepotism, every single person I know who works in the media got there because of who they (or often their parents) know rather than talent.

I have lived in London in the past, and I visit it (and many other European and UK cities) on business fairly regularly, so don’t expect me to be impressed by a load of bullshit about “talented innovative” people, the ones I meet are in the city and their “innovation” almost brough the country to its knees

Twat Munro:

“The idea that anyone in the media is “gifted” is laughable.”

Again, by all means expose your prejudiced and narrow minded opinions here, that’s your right but never ever think they are fact.

Creative industries is a wide term, it is not exclusively to do with “media” as you call it, which is also a very broad term you’re using disparagingly and insultingly. Creative industries encompasses the arts also.

Again, your awful ,crass generalisations about people doing media at uni is reflective only of your opinion, nothing more, nothing less.

“You contribute nothing that lasts and most people in the media with decent jobs got there through nepotism, every single person I know who works in the media got there because of who they (or often their parents) know rather than talent.”

I’m sensing not only a healthy dose of jealousy here and ignorance but also bitterness. Again, even a twat like you must grasp that your speak only of personal prejudice, not facts.

It no doubt angers you that your opinion is not matched by fact and that London continues to be a hub for thousands of talented people, attracts talent and as with all great cities, is full of innovation, talent and ideas but leave that anger away from this thread about Thatcher.

How an earth did it get onto this anyway?

@ 128 – Another thing – has it occured to you that your perception of London is shaped more by your socio-economic status than anything to do with the city itself ? Would a single parent on benefits living in a brixton tower block see it as a cosmopolitain playground, rich with networking opportunities ? I think not.

Twat Munro@132:

Oh dear, you not only presume that your opinion is fact, you also presume to know me and my personal circumstances.

Never assume anything when you know so little, as eager as you to justify your simple-minded stance on London, in your overreach you make horrible errors.

I will not go into details but I came to London unemployed and spent a fair share of time on benefits and in council housing, I came to make a living and I did.

The difference in London with your scenario is that change is possible there, if the fictional person you speak of was trapped in any other UK city, their struggle would be even harder but in London, opportunity is there because talented people are there.

Now take your tedious and ill thought out prejudice elsewhere.

Also, I never said that London is perfect, I have lived and worked in some of the most deprived and poverty stricken wards in London, much work needs to be done but those places exist elsewhere and they are equally as hopeless places.

And I repeat, how did this thread end up in London bashing/celebration?

“And I repeat, how did this thread end up in London bashing/celebration?”

I’m at least partly to blame. In discussing Mrs T’s time as PM, I observed that London’s population had peaked in 1939 and had thereafter gone into continuing decline until the late 1980s when it started to grow again and that it has gone on growing since:
http://www.cch.kcl.ac.uk/legacy/teaching/av1000/numerical/problems/london/london-pop-table.html

There’s an interesting issue as to why this happened. At least part of the explanation is the Thatcher government’s removal in 1979 of UK exchange controls over capital transactions for the Pound and then the so-called Big Bang in 1986 which refers to:

“the sudden deregulation of financial markets, . coined to describe measures, including abolition of fixed commission charges and of the distinction between stockjobbers and stockbrokers on the London Stock Exchange and change from open-outcry to electronic, screen-based trading, enacted by the UK government in 1986.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_(financial_markets)

Some have suggested that the roots of the recent financial crisis can be traced back to the Big Bang. But without the Big Bang, London would not have become a leading gobal financial centre which generated buoyant tax revenues that New Labour used to finance its splurge on boosting public services.

This is what The Economist was writing about the London capital market on 1 February 2007, before the financial crisis broke:

“The City of London is globalisation in action. It is, first of all, thoroughly international, handling more of the world’s deals in over-the-counter derivatives, global foreign equities, eurobonds and foreign exchange than any other financial centre (see chart 3). Second, its firms specialise in innovative, high-value-added products. Third, the City is living proof that clusters work in the way that economists claim. Capital can move like mercury. The main reason why international finance has made London its home is that everyone is there, making it easier to do complicated deals and to trade quickly in large quantities. The City offers a cluster of talent—financial whizz-kids, lawyers and due-diligence accountants—that is second to none, and self-renewing. It helps that English is a near-universal second language and that London’s time zone makes it possible to trade in a (long) working day with both Asia and America. Regulation is mainly deft but not lax, and the taxman takes a hospitable view of foreigners’ personal earnings.” [Pay barrier]
http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8582323

It’s not widely appreciated that London became the leading global foreign exchange market:

“The worldwide volume of foreign exchange trading is enormous, and it has ballooned in recent years. In April 1989 the average total value of foreign exchange trading was close to $600 billion per day, of which $184 billion were traded in London, $115 billion in New York, and $111 billion in Tokyo. Fifteen years later, in April 2004, the daily global value of foreign exchange trading had jumped to around $1.9 trillion, of which $753 billion were traded daily in London, $461 billion in New York, and $199 billion in Tokyo.”
Krugman and Obstfeld: International Economics (2006) p.311

@135 Daniel Hoffmann-Gill: “And I repeat, how did this thread end up in London bashing/celebration?”

Many comments ago, comparisons were made between the effects of Thatcherism on different parts of the UK. As you said, London is quite different from the rest of England, let alone the UK, and Thatcherism had a different impact there. Some people in London got richer in the 1980s; in other parts of England, everyone (including the rich) got poorer. Perhaps household income or property values increased, but quality of life was lower.

Thatcherism started off saying that the economy was in such a mess that tough measures were required. That statement is/was true, but it is also fair to say that the Labour government of 1979 had already changed its programme. Thatcherism quickly became an example of the moral corruption of power. Thatcher used power to kick the people that her government disliked and declined to assist bystanders in pain. Even when it made economic sense to provide a handout, Thatcher spurned the idea. Petty vindictiveness. As Bob B will no doubt interject, government spending as percentage of GDP increased under Thatcher; much of that money was wasted on people who did not need to be unemployed.

So it is pertinent to reflect on Thatcherism with regard to our coalition government. Comparisons of circumstances are apposite. The last budgets of New Labour demanded that cuts will be made in the future, and the coalition suggests that they are 25% bigger. The actual percentage is irrelevant so long as it is plausible. Cuts have to be made.

Words from the coalition thus far suggest that they do not intend to repeat Thatcherism. As a liberal who is not a member of the Liberal Democrats and who is only partisan to liberalism, I’ll give them a bit of space. But the signs are not good.

Labour’s opposition is pretty tribal. Labour do not like cut X which would be necessary according to their own spending predictions and fail to suggest an alternative. Yawn. Within the coalition, there are already signs of incoherence. Ken Clarke rightly says that it is daft to send so many people to prison but a colleague announces that legal aid funds will be cut. So the cost of justice will increase (owing to longer case hearings in the absence of an informed lawyer) and a few people will get banged up unnecessarily. Unforeseen incidental consequences.

The concern for the coalition is whether cuts are seen as “fair” or “vindictive”. Or “stupid”.

@137: “Some people in London got richer in the 1980s; in other parts of England, everyone (including the rich) got poorer.”

That assessment is not supported by the quotes @101 above – Sheffield Hallam is the constituency of Nick Clegg.

By the latest EU rankings, Inner London is no longer the richest city in Europe:
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24919

“London has four out of England’s eight most deprived local authorities, according to official statistics.”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE63B1VN20100412

@133 “The difference in London with your scenario is that change is possible there, if the fictional person you speak of was trapped in any other UK city, their struggle would be even harder but in London, opportunity is there because talented people are there.”

It gets worse, now change is only possible in London, and only because it’s full of talented people. There are obviously more opportunities, simply by being large that is going to be true, the centralist tendencies of the last government and the growth of financial services amplified that, but there are also a lot of people who are poor/disadvantaged in London and who will never make their fortune like some like some latter day dick whittington. My personal experience of contemporary London is that large numbers of people outside the fashionable central post codes are scared to go out at night because of crime and violence. To me that is not a price worth paying for being able to eat a different cusine every night of the week.

I work in the creative industries, with regards to the city of choice for my profession it has to be London and London alone with only LA being of equal opportunity.

@ Daniel

I seem to recall that your work in the creative industries is, by your own admission, heavily subsidised by the taxpayer.

Whilst your posts here are testimony to your undoubted “creativity” I trust the new government will be reviewing the affordability of such subsidies.

Charlieman and Bob:

Cheers for explaining that, clear now ta!

Twat Munro:

I live and have lived in these alleged postcodes, you don’t, I do, you’re opinion is a prejudiced and inaccurate one. Seriously, knock all the bluster on the head, you’re wasting your time.

pagar:

I seem to recall that your work in the creative industries is, by your own admission, heavily subsidised by the taxpayer.

Not true or accurate, some of it is, most of it is not.

Your weak and envious digs are reflective of your obsession with me, which still burns long and hard even though I hardly frequent here.

Poor man.

I like the London Eye

As do I, a fine ride/vantage point!

What an arsehole.

Say that to me face you wee bitch.

@ 145 Gladly

When next you’re in London (if you can bear to bring yourself to this place you hate so much, albeit irrationally, incoherently and totally unable to actually rebut the points put to you) drop me an email via my blogger profile.