Proof Tony is a Tory?

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by milo

thats a little silly, if you wanted to listen to music you'd only listen to classical etc

Classical music has about as much variety of style as the difference between rap and progressive jazz, and a wide variety of them do involve actual, understandable, lyrics; Mozart's operas were written in his native tongue, for example.

Anyway, if we're talking about lyrics a mention of Len (don't call me len you little prick) Cohen is essential.

[Phang]

she is wearing rags and feathers from salvation army counters

[Nadval]

Thatcher had less to do with changes than people like to think. Her economic policy after having been elected in '79 represented little new - there was increased rhetoric in favour of privatisation, deregulation, trade union reform etc but very little actually changed. Since Denis Healey was bailed out by the IMF, its influence in the treasury and upon government policy increased and there was a noticeable conversion to supply side economics.

Privatisation was started by Labour - plans to privatise BP oil were started under labour and was the only thing Thatcher completed in her first term. Labour had a conducted reports into health and education reform which made several proposals that appeared on the 1988 Education Act, but more importantly sparked off the national debate into what reforms would be appropriate. It is also clear that, by 1979, Labour had began cut backs and 'modernisation' to the civil service and was turning on the issue of trade union reform. Even trade union reform was fairly moderate in Thatcher's first term, at least in comparison to what was implied by the language that was used at the time.

The only economic legacy Thatcher can truly claim for herself is the adoption of Monetarism in/after 1983, something that turned out to be a complete failure. By 1985/6 policy began to resemble the previous supply side attempts and monetarism had clearly been abandoned.

Thatcher is responsible for reducing income tax and increasing indirect tax and, as a result, poorer people ended up spending a higher proportion of their income on tax. Aggregate taxation in fact needed to be increased in Thatcher's first reforms due to inflationary pressures - but they covered that up with the big shift to indirect taxation. Then one has to consider that she sold a vast number of council houses in Britain, and abolished benefits for 16/17 yr olds not living at home - ever wondered why there are so many young homeless people now? (I only say that as according to people I know from older generations when they were younger homeless people were predominantly old). The council house situation, one could argue, has at least exacerbated the issue of resentment towards asylum seekers, not to mention the boom in house prices and many young people's subsequent inability to get on the housing ladder - and to make matters worse, she dressed it up as if she was doing the poor a favour by letting them buy their property. She reduced regulations on credit ceilings and mortgages, and we now see public debt spiralling out of control.

The structural changes that Thatcher presided over can be seen in a number of other countries, and the change tends to date back to 1979, although not to a shift towards conservative government - some had social democratic parties in power throughout the period, e.g. Australia (or New Zealand, I forget). If one considers the international trends at the time, including influence from the Reagan administration, the decline of the Soviet Union and reforms taking place elsewhere, it would be difficult to credit all structural adjustments to Thatcher's sheer will and determination. It's not even like she did them well; I personally believe the trade union reforms went too far and the government got caught up in a privatisation frenzy after the success of one or two denationalised industries like BT, completely messing up the way the railways function. I also think the health reforms were at best ineffective, but more likely to be damaging in the long run. The economic prosperity we have been experiencing might be due to her reforms, but I personally doubt it will last indefinately (as rediculous as that sounds, some people actualy think it). I think a lot more has rested on the credit boom than people think and that once something sends a shockwave through the economy, such as a sudden rise in oil prices or a pension crisis or whatever, then the supposed golden age ushered in by Tory policies will seem slightly tainted.

I personally am unwilling to praise a politician who quite clearly got so much wrong in the face of so much opposition, simply on the basis that she practically entrenched some completely flawed notion that a free market is the answer to all of life's problems. The only perceivable upside of having a state funeral for Thatcher is to see how much further Blair could possibly go to piss off his back-benchers. The idea that she is in any way any sort of national hero is rediculous.

[Ste]

I thought you had decided that Thatcher wasn't 'that bad' or something?

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Deepflow

I think when most people talk about the good Thatcher did (apart from right wing maniacs, naturally) they are referring to the economy and how it changed from the terrible weakness of the 70s to the decent strength it gained during her reign and has enjoyed since.

Err, you do realise that the economy was consistently shit under Thatcher's tenure, don't you? The economy only started to stabalise with low unemployment and interest rates around the mid-90's when Clarke was Chancellor.

I don't have my figures now, but IIRC unemployment was higher when she left office than when she entered, and inflation was more or less the same.

The idea that the economy was prosperous under Thatcher is probably one of the greatest urban myths of the age.

Originally Posted by Phang

(and Churchill's politics were, Jews aside (yes, I know it's a pretty ****ing big aside), about as bad as Hitler's. The only difference was that he was OUR demagogue.)

You're a nutter and you don't know what you're talking about.

[Nadval]

Originally Posted by Ste

I thought you had decided that Thatcher wasn't 'that bad' or something?

In comparison to how I saw her before I did all the research, what I wrote above is 'not that bad'. I think it's unfortunate for her that she gets blamed for some of the ramifications of trying to sort out a backwards economy and that she by no means had an easy job to do. But I also think she did the job pretty badly, and that she just replaced the old inefficient economy with a new inefficient and backwards economy (it should be recognised that there were times when Keynesian policies were seen as the saviour of the British economy ) - ideologically I think she was an idiot, in terms of strength of character and grit determination she was pretty impressive - quite like Hitler in that respect .

If she had conducted her reforms with much greater social compassion then I believe history would look more kindly upon her, but her view that 'there is no such thing as society' and the return to the 'Victorian values' (her words) of deserving and undeserving poor completely denies any attempt to see her as having any divine foresight or even social understanding - she understood everything from a petty bourgeois perspective (having been a grocers daughter).

What I find interesting is that those that lived through the 80's, especially families, tend to see Thatcher as the epitome of what's wrong with the world. Those who remember only the last 10 years of economic prosperity see her as nothing less than the person who saved Britain from its great demise in the 20th century. Neither can claim objectivity and it is in any case impossible to analyse the totality of her reforms in a historical context for a good few years to come.

As I said above, I find it difficult to be optimistic about it - not just because of my suspicion that idiotic right wing politicians have always got most things wrong, but because the specific reforms she presided over didn't seem particularly thought through. The fact that she openly didn't care about what effects they would have on the poorer sections of society, and that she actually (at least in public) advocated the completely flawed 'trickle down effect' as a way of raising living standards for the poor is, for me, reason enough to dismiss her as a politician working in the interest of Britain (I'm talking about the country and people when I say Britain - not, as many seem to mean, the economy as measured in capitalist/free market terms). I mean I feel like I've listed enough reasons why Thatcher wasn't all she's now cracked up to have been, and I haven't even mentioned the poll tax, the huge centralisation of power to central government and the loss of local government autonomy, the deterioration of relations in Ireland, the rise of nationalism in Scotland/Wales due to Thatcherite policies (e.g. using the Scots as guinea pigs for the poll tax a year before it was introduced in England), the support of western nuclear proliferation, the pro-nuclear policies in general, the attack on professionals and the decline in income for those working in higher education and the public sector in general (for which students today are now paying the price), the support of American expansionist policies/destabilisation techniques in the middle east etc etc. I could write an essay on it, in fact I almost already have.

[Yahwe]

Originally Posted by Nadval

I also think she did the job pretty badly, and that she just replaced the old inefficient economy with a new inefficient and backwards economy

it is a curious (and perhaps you would say a 'random') phenomina the economic stability which we have endured for nearly two decades ...

[Nadval]

Originally Posted by Yahwe

it is a curious (and perhaps you would say a 'random') phenomina the economic stability which we have endured for nearly two decades ...

86-96 wasn't a particularly prosperous decade. Especially not for those that remember the boom and bust, high interest rates, negative equity and all that crap with the ERM, which Thatcher entered us into (although she was forced to). In fact the Conservatives' handling of the economy, among other things, was so bad that only now are they beginning to claw back the poll ratings to pre-Black Wednesday levels - they were no longer seen as the economically competent party.

As for the economic stability and/or growth, it can again be seen internationally: growth rate in the eurozone between '96 and '05 averaged at 2%, and in the UK 2.7% (OECD figures). The 'prudent' management by Brown and perhaps his reluctance to join the euro and consign control over interest rates to the ECB has possibly allowed the UK to sustain faster growth and greater stability than some other european nations. Personally I don't think it would be suitable to accredit international trends to the policies of Margaret Thatcher.

Besides, just because GDP is increasing doesn't necessarily mean living standards are, nor does it mean the economy is on a long-term stable footing. I'm pretty sure the Americans were quite confident in their economy in the mid-1920s.

[Yahwe]

Originally Posted by Nadval

86-96 wasn't a particularly prosperous decade. Especially not for those that remember the boom and bust, high interest rates, negative equity and all that crap with the ERM, which Thatcher entered us into (although she was forced to). In fact the Conservatives' handling of the economy, among other things, was so bad that only now are they beginning to claw back the poll ratings to pre-Black Wednesday levels - they were no longer seen as the economically competent party.

As for the economic stability and/or growth, it can again be seen internationally: growth rate in the eurozone between '96 and '05 averaged at 2%, and in the UK 2.7% (OECD figures). The 'prudent' management by Brown and perhaps his reluctance to join the euro and consign control over interest rates to the ECB has possibly allowed the UK to sustain faster growth and greater stability than some other european nations. Personally I don't think it would be suitable to accredit international trends to the policies of Margaret Thatcher.

Besides, just because GDP is increasing doesn't necessarily mean living standards are, nor does it mean the economy is on a long-term stable footing. I'm pretty sure the Americans were quite confident in their economy in the mid-1920s.

I actually have no political bias myself. though it is clear that you do.

I see little value in such things. "what is done is done" in regards success "and can not be now amended" in regards failures.

I would raise an eyebrow to someone who suggested that pre-thatcher britain is preferable to what we have now. I would internally sigh at anyone who tried to claim that the government from 1979 to 1997 played no part in what we enjoy.

I do find 'the iron chancellor'(s) PR rather amusing. He has, after all, abrogated all forms of economic responsibility.

I value none. Ascribe to no 'team'. no 'colour'. no 'party'.

It makes it much easier to avoid looking like a fool (i find)

[Nadval]

Don't get me wrong I think Labour have been pretty shit as well, I believe that the economic system we have in place is inadequate in the long term and there is are a number of inherant contradictions. The economy before Thatcher was 'worse', as it was just another less refined version of a flawed system. The trouble is people see rising GDP as 'good' and a slow in growth as 'bad', which completely diverts attention away from the important issues such as upcoming problems (in both the short term and the long term). Under the current system too much onus is placed on making sure living/business conditions are more favourable for the highest earners, rather than considering how more people can be brought out of poverty and how general living/social conditions can be improved, or what can be learnt from the statistics showing higher crime rates in the more impoverished areas.

I will say, however, that at least the Conservatives came out and pretty much stated "we don't give a shit about the poor, the ones that stay poor are lazy undeserving scum". Labour kind of introduce a bunch of half-arsed policies to tackle relative poverty, whilst at the same time knowingly and intentionally presiding over reforms and an economy that is notorious for concentrating wealth into the hands of the rich. It's almost like they've accepted the social problems that come with wealth inequality, and accepted that inequality will remain under this economic system, but decided to pull in both directions anyway, championing poverty and allowing the rich to get even richer, even faster.

I am biased only in the sense that I hope that one day we'll have a decent politician in government. One with both the balls to challenge opposition AND a decent level of social understanding and compassion, with a will to help improve lives - we've tended to have one or the other. Unfortunately under the current system we'll have to wait atleast until a decent party arrives, but probably not until it's so late to actualy do anything about a pending crisis that people have elected someone with a brain in a last ditch attempt to save humanity, or a similarly frustrating scenario anyway. It's difficult to be optimistic about British politics.

[Dace]

Originally Posted by Ninja_spammer

I'm a Tory

[Yahwe]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

It is not correct to say that anyone who is opposed to Thatcher's Britain was for pre-Thatcher Britain.

Originally Posted by yahwe

I would raise an eyebrow to someone who suggested that pre-thatcher britain is preferable to what we have now. I would internally sigh at anyone who tried to claim that the government from 1979 to 1997 played no part in what we enjoy

thanks for the added vitriol but you didn't read what i said