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Thatcher Dead


trophyshy
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I find all these references to continuing the fight all rather sad. Can't people like him just face up to the fact that the fight is over. This has been the case for, well, at least a decade, surely? There's nobody out there who is in any position to do anything about over-turning Thatcherism. Dennis Skinner being a rude wanker in the Commons once a year is about as good as it gets. Which reminds me, it's hard to know what's worse, the people who are rejoicing at the death of Thatcher long after her role in politics became remotely relevant, or the things the Labour MPs did to her in the Commons when she really was doing it, things which those same lefty cunts class as various serious 'hate' crimes when ordinary people do it today. Hypocrisy lives in the left, it runs right through their petty, hateful, selfish beings.

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Top Ten Ways Margaret Thatcher’s Policies Made our World more Unequal

 

The late Margaret Thatcher had an enormous impact on Britain and the world, but her legacy has been a more unequal, less prosperous Britain and world. She championed the wealthy and threw the national income to them; she systematically undermined the poor and middle classes. She championed neo-militarism and refusal to compromise in world affairs, undermining diplomacy.

 

1. In some part because of Margaret Thatcher’s policies, the share of British income of the top 1% had increased from 7.1% in 1970 to 14.3% in 2005. That is, the wealthiest 620,000 Britons take home twice as much of the national income every year as they did before Thatcher. The share of the working and middle classes plummeted in the same period.

 

2. In 2008, the top .1 percent, 62,000 Britons, received 5 percent of the country’s income, constituting a new aristocracy of wealth and privilege.

 

3. Half of the increase in income inequality at the top has gone to professionals in financial services, even though moving money around isn’t all that helpful to the economy compared to actually making something of value, and even though the financial sector was enabled by deregulation to engage in vast fraud and unsound investment practices, destroying the world’s economies in 2008. It was Thatcherite deregulation that laid the basis for this rise of the finance oligarchs. People celebrating that she kept the British pound and declined to enter the Eurozone, thus saving Britain from the current continental malaise ignore that the adoption of Thatcher-like policies on the continent is what produced that malaise!

 

4. At the same time, tax rates on the wealthy have plummeted, which means that the government cannot mitigate the consequences of the inequality, and has been forced to cut services for the poor and middle classes.

 

5. Current British government plans, following in the Thatcherite neoliberal direction, “would . . . lead to public sector job cuts of 710,000, more child poverty and a hike in university fees.”

 

6. In 1980 14% of the UK was in poverty. Today some 33% suffer multiple forms of financial insecurity.

 

“Over 30 million people (almost half the population) are suffering some degree of financial insecurity;

Almost 18 million people cannot afford adequate housing conditions;

Roughly 14 million cannot afford one or more essential household goods;

Almost 12 million people are too poor to engage in common social activities considered necessary by the majority of the population;

About 5.5 million adults go without essential clothing;

Around 4 million children and adults are not properly fed by today’s standards…

Around 1.5 million children live in households that cannot afford to heat their home.”

7. In 1980, five percent of households could not afford to heat the living areas of their homes. Last winter, 29 percent had to turn the heating down or heat only one or two rooms. Thatcherism has literally made them cold!

 

8. By selling off the one-third British government stake in BP, the oil giant, Thatcher’s privatization policies made the company unaccountable to any public and allowed it to pursue naked profit-seeking and disregard of the environment. The Gulf oil spill would have looked different and perhaps had a different outcome if the company had still been in part publicly owned. As it is, it is complaining about paying reparations to Gulf residents whose livelihoods it ruined! And, public ownership would have made it more open to pursuing green energy (as the governments of the UK and Scotland increasingly are) instead of doubling down on deadly hydrocarbons.

 

9. Thatcher’s absolute refusal to negotiate or compromise over the Northern Ireland issue undoubtedly worsened and prolonged that conflict. Only when she was out of office did George Mitchell demonstrate that a settlement was possible, in the mid-1990s.

 

10. Thatcher denied that there was any Palestine and her refusal to accept the Palestine Liberation Organization as a negotiating partner (at the time it represented almost all Palestinians) helped derail any peace process, allowing the Israelis to go ahead with the colonization of the Occupied Territories and the expropriation of Palestinian property.

 

http://www.juancole....s-policies.html

Those figures regarding current poverty levels are damning and shameful.

 

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No, nor her role in ending the Cold War and liberating millions, or giving millions the chance to own property etc etc bla bla bla.

 

Have fun but this copy and pasting is just becoming soooo obvious !

 

fyp

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Once again, let's all remind ourselves that Thatcher never said that there was no such thing as society. She also never said that the market could replace the state. I;ve never even heard of her contrasting efficiency and equity, so God knows what that's about. Thatcher's Britain had many examples of welfare economics, if the intent is to use that label for things the government spends money for long term societal benefits but short term financial losses. And Ken Livingston is a man who couldn't even beat Boris Johnson in an election, he is hardly in a position to comment on the achievements of someone like Thatcher. The very idea that he could even be a minister is laughable, let alone a head of a government. Boris Johnson has acheived more as Mayor of London to change real (ie working class) Londoners lives than Red Ken ever managed while he was the leader of a glorified council.

You didnt answer the question about the relationship between Credit Default Swaps and socialism. :lol: To illuminate us on how socialism caused the financial crisis :lol: You must have 6 dicks never mind bells to be that brazen with the truth.

 

Thatcher was an ideologue, convinced of the supremacy of the market model and every economic policy she stood behind (mainly the thinking of people like Patrick Minford) placed the desirability of market efficiency ahead of social equity. All public policy is framed like this, it is rare that a politician would be explicit about trade-offs between them but that doesnt change Thatcher's economics.

 

Thatcher had a 'welfare policy' not a 'welfare economics'. Welfare economics is how you evaluate a welfare policy; who gains, who loses, by how much? None of her policies produced long term social benefits for short term financial loss imo but i'm willing to listen to any examples you might have?

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Well, I followed the Northern Ireland one, and it's hilarious...

 

Odd to think that she let Sands & co die rather than give them prisoner of war status.....now western governments insist that terrorist suspects must be classified as the enemy in a war that allows them to be imprisoned without charge indefinitely.

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I'd be surprised if Kelvin Mckenzie/6bells hasn't posted on here before. Anyway, he's achieved his aim of acting the knob.

 

Going back a few months, but who was that serving army officer that quit for fear of being outed? Can't even remember his user name but his patter was very much like this, quite the wanker. Wouldn't surprise me if it's the same person.

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