It really is quite amazing the way people talk about her as if she was some kind of Nazi. However did she get elected so convincingly I wonder- must be all those vulgar Essex plasterers eh?
One example of something that may (whisper it) have been a good thing was in the 'Wapping wars' leading to the destruction of the almost comically obstructive and protective print unions, thereby allowing an explosion of independent publishing that was previously unthinkable. Discuss.
Hitler. A
Stalin. J
Tse-Tung. M
Thatcher. M.
Mugabe. R.
Hussein. S.
Pinochet. A.
Mandela N.
Il-sung K.
Tymoshenko Y. (We don't know about anything about the policies of the Prime Minister of the Ukraine but how bad can she be?)
lest propensity for fag-packet historical reappraisal is allowed to pardon lesser acts of destruction in the context of incalculable monstrousness of others.
how she organised riot police to come into my community and tear it up for nothing more than a political grudge. And no I'm not going to debate the rights and wrongs of the miners strike other than to interate the spite and glee of Thatcher and the Tories in attacking their own people.
Thatcher isn't as bad globally as the people on your list but I'm not going to get all post-modern and say she's wasn't any worse than shaky, the media has conviently short memory.
you joining in the fun of ranking evil so and so's. It's true about Joe but he gained some points for helping to sort Hitler out. He sort of played for both sides - a Dennis Law if you like.
what side stalin was on at the time. and i do think stalin and hitler and mao and others were evil. incarnate & absolute. imagine those millions dead and the many times millions who "survived" and had to cope with the loss.
mrs t simply wasnt evil - and should not be compared with those people. removing free school milk, closing unprofitable businesses and breaking an illegal strike or two is not on the same scale as genocide & we sound very western and soft when we comapre it. and i come from a mining family whose community was indeed ripped apart by thatcherite policy.
but as my gran put it - after losing her miner husband to work-related lung disease - nobody should have to do for a living what your grandad did.... Its an ill wind.
Thatcher is less 'evil' than Hitler, Mao, Stalin etc doesn't mean she's suddenly lovely and in need of rehabilitation.
I'm not one of those people who will smile when she dies, or throw a street party (death of old woman who has lost her marbles is neither newsworthy nor joyous), but neither am I going to suddenly forget the damage she did to a great many people and communities in this country, not because of some percieved greater good, but because she and the Tory party were smarting from the kicking the miners gave them in the 70s and wanted revenge.
One can argue that the strength of the unions needed to be broken to allow the UK to develop a competitive, service based economy; that's politics, and I can see two sides to that.
Destroying communities because of a petty grudge..? No.
It seemed not a devil's advocate or ironic inclusion but one likely to cause grave disquiet amongst those who had been affected by her pestilent humping of the UK in the 80s. WHERE|'S MY FREE MILK MAGGIE!!?
Nah, not even slightly. My mum's from a small mining town in South Wales and there's still huge unemployment since the killing of the mining and steel industries down there.
A quarter of a century and the things Maggie and her government did at that time still echo around the country.
I'm going to put on Elvis (C not P) Tramp The Dirt Down now I think.
Having been born in South Wales and now resident in S Yorkshire, I second that emotion. I was in the Big Pit Museum in the South Wales Valleys a few months ago. The mild mannered guy showing my group around underground was in his late 40s and had literally been turned into a museum piece by The Great Helmswoman. One mention of her name and he erupted into a splenetic stream of consciousness, that produced a lot of "hear hear" noises
In fact the things they did had quite a bit to do with why I left the UK in 1988, never to return.
But the killing of heavy industry that happened under Thatcher happened everywhere in the Eighties, from Bilbao to Baltimore. Do you really think Blair or Brown wouldn't have done the same thing had they been PM at the time? (When Thatcher came to power, the industry in the community I grew up in - a Northern mill town - had already been dismantled long before under Harold Wilson, but I saw no conga lines in the streets when he popped his clogs.)
I'm not defending Thatcher or her governments (although we'd do well to remember that she was re-elected twice by a higher percentage of the popular vote than any other incumbent PM in the 20th century). Nor am I calling anyone sexist or denying the very real anger that persists in mining and industrial communities. I'm just puzzled at the level of hatred she still isnpires - not intense dislike or disapproval, but pug-ugly, butt-neckid hatred - particularly, for some reason or other, among middle-class men.
But at the end of the day, when the final whistle blows, Brian, we're talking about one item on a silly filler list in an entertainment magazine; not the op-ed page of the New Statesman.
but I still buy each issue. Apparently I needn't rush out to get the current one. I know hate is a VERY negative emotion and shouldn't be encouraged but I bow to no one in my hatred of that woman. Sorry FraserM, but I AM one of those people who will be dancing in the street come that beautiful day. Sorry if I've offended anyone but you reap what you sow and she may be old and infirm now but there was a time when she knew EXACTLY what she was doing and for that I'm with Weller!
From The Guardian, March 18, 2008
When I mention his residual feelings about the long years of Thatcherism, however, out it all comes. "I think they were absolute fucking scum - especially Thatcher, who I think should be shot as a traitor to the people. I still think that, and nothing will ever change my opinion. We're still feeling the effects of what they did to the country now, and probably always will: the whole breakdown of communities, trade unions, the working class - the dismantling of lots of things."
It's too divisive, and it'll spoil things. Unless I was hallucinating (entirely possible, given the appallingly shite Microsoft product I'm fighting with here) someone with Godlike powers quickly pulled a politically biased posting from these pages yesterday. I was glad to see the posting vanish as rapidly as it did, as it has no place here, IMHO. There are plenty of places to vent off about politics.
I'm sure some will disagree, but personally I don't come in here every day to talk politics. I come in here to escape from bloody politics.
by your suggestion that politics should be removed from this blog, that I am at this very moment canceling my subscription only for me to re-subscribe next Thursday with the same credit card.
shows that everything is divisive - and strictly speaking, everything is politics. It is whoever stuck that picture of Maggie in the mag and called her 'cool' you should take issue with, not the people who are using the legitemate forum to discuss it. Clearly it narked a lot of readers. That is what this blog is for (in part).
Rage Against The Machine's version on Renegades is even better as they removed all the humour and add noise anger to the mix. When Dylan sings, "The national guard stand outside his room", it sounds like a funny, silly, whimsical lyric. Rage make it sound like the fascist capitalist is so hated he needs protection from "the people".
back to post-modern glibness, which is were we came in sadly. Curiously one thatchers legacies is to make open political debate seem like something to be avoided.
If we getting post-modern all songs are political making fun love money by Mel and Kim the best political songs that or Girls aloud last album.
And just to let the Guardianistas know that there is dissent within the fold - hindsight is 20:20 and many of her actions now look naive and/or cynical, but Thatcher and her (often loathsome) crew gave the UK a dose of medicine it didn't like but desperately needed. Don't give me all this nostalgic guff about mines & steelworks; I'm from 'down there' in Newport in Gwent & my local plant employed thousands of men who clocked in & then went home, featherbedded by an unsustainable publicly -funded industry, while Thatcher merely gave Scargill the opportunity to take the miners down with him in an act of suicidal vanity. It pains me to say it, having been firmly in the Costello camp at the time, but the country is a probably a little better for her having been around when she was. But don't listen to me; Paul Weller's proved himself to be such an insightful and articulate political commentator over the years, I must be wrong.
Chumbawamba - definitely deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Thatcher. Anarchic authors of the revolution who recorded for Thorn EMI...biggest sell-outs of the lot!
Don't agree. I'm interested to hear who you think the biggest sell outs are!
Please take her away !! She wreaked havock in a lot of lives including my Dad's. She has spawned the Tony Blairs of this world and now we have to read the pundits tell us its time for reappraisal etc., I'll pass, thank you very much!!!
Maybe Vulpes is right we come on here to escape that crap.
There aren't many, if any good political songs they're like most comedy once you have heard the joke, it's not funny anymore.
No 3 day weeks, no rationing of electricity, no bodies piling up becuase the gravediggers were on strike, no bully boy miner or docker unions. widespread (relative) prosperity.
mrs t may just have been the reason for that....
i'm not sure she warrants the level of bile from some of the posts above - and comparing what she did to hitler etc is puerile.
because she does come across as a charismatic brave challenging idosyncratic personality determined to plough her furrow & do what she believed to be right in a world that was set against her and against change. in short - she does appear quite "cool".
and i, for one, am half convinced.
mind you - i also apent two hours last night watching the 1979 election results come in, so am not necessarily best judge of "cool". it was rivetting.
Tony blairs excuse for things he's doen wrong seems to be he did what he thought was right and that's justfication. The sort of answer you wouldn't except from 6 year old.
"because she does come across as a charismatic brave challenging idosyncratic personality determined to plough her furrow & do what she believed to be right in a world that was set against her and against change"
but so was Hitler and the rest - they weren't right though were they!
over a thousand men, "shot in the back". I know it's not 6 million in concentration camps but many regard her as a monster and cannot laugh at her legacy and put her on the "cool" list. It is in bad taste.
isn't it? Everyone uses hitler as the benchmark of baddies, but it's not Hitler & all the good guys. There are other shades of grey of harm-causing, viloent, biggoted avcaricious slime to sift through and Maggie is amongst them, chewing husks with Pinochet and the Regan
she increased tax free allowances and reduced the basic tax rate - therefore everybody who was paying tax benefitted. i was working as a dustbinman when the first tax cut hit the pay packet. we all got paid in cash each week in those days & i remember our general astonishment & euphoria that we all had more money in our pockets. i dont think any of us believed taxes could actually come down! i could afford an extra 2 pints that week.
and the ridiculous state of the housing market is down to 10 years of cheap money which has now been brutally "corrected" or "crunched". poor old mrs t aint to blame.
you got there before I did. Also, if we cut taxes something that was paid for previously isn't. That is why prescriptions aren't free anymore...that is just a tip of a VERY big iceberg. Amongst others, Oliver James has dissected the trend the Holy Margaret produced very nicely in Afluenza
I said I wasn't going to do this but: that'll be the tanker drivers on strike then! and no body ever went unburied!
as for live the 70's being crap I seemd to play fottball all day long had fish fingers for my tea and somebody else paid the rent which was nice.
there is alist up there ^^^^ where people are ranking her level of evilness & on that list is mrs t & hitler & stalin. looks like a comparison to me.
i think the comparison is puerile & ill thought out.
and i think mrs t - like it or loathe it - is being culturally re-evaluated and certain "cool" characterics of hers are coming to the fore. if you havent i'd recommend you watch the programmes on the i-player because, in my opinion (rightly or wrongly) its happening.
a question mark is punctuation, not grammar. Grammar is the correct arrangements of participles of sentences and the parts of speech. For main course, you have begun a sentence with a conjunction once again. Is this ignorance? Don't write expert on your door until you can spell it.
The FAQ requests that you remain polite and don't question each other's spelling and grammar - besides, these arguments tend to go round and round without ever resolving to anyone's satisfaction. I'd appreciate it if you could adhere to the posting guidelines.
I don't have a problem with anyone's spelling and grammar. I would not dream of questioning ordinarily, I was just stung to retaliate by the petty nature of the nitpicking. I was as surprised as anyone to see this kind of behaviour and was admistering like for like.
We are not writing for the New Yorker magazine. We are blogging 1 handed, at work, with one eye on the door in case the boss comes in. It's pointless to carp over stuff like this. It's just nit-picking.
was to demonstrate that it is arbitary to have a view on evil as it is on cool. That's probably the point of the original article as well.
Puerile - that wasn't the intent - I was trying to make a deflatory point. Peurile would have been me expressing how attractive the Ukrainian totty was. But I didn't do that thank the lord.
Ill thought out - I had some criteria and made a reasoned decision on it so probably not
...and I stand by my decision. Peurile by definition means childish, and my rampant sexual desires for Eastern Bloc political crumpet are purely MANSIZE. Thanks for the dig, though. If in doubt, kick the cat.
That concatanation of images sounds like the apocolypse BUT you know a similar list from Thatcher's time seems as bad: The Poll tax riots, the battle of Orgreave, the sinking of Belgrano, Loadsofmoney greed-is-good businessman, beggers on the street - didn't see many of them around in the "deprived" seventies. Anyway, as people say most of what happened to the economy would have come to pass with or without her.
Her love of The Great Car Economy, her statements like; "there is no such thing as society," and "I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil," and her confrontational approach that trucked no debate, that's what I found distastful and that's what provoked the response by Morrisy, Elvis and Weller at the time. It has all helped to produce some of the nastiest facets of today's society.
becuase if jfk walked into the room in his prime, i'd wager most women would want to sleep with him & most men would want to hang with him...that's cool isnt it? and doesnt the mafia thing just add to it.
if that isnt cool - then who the hell is? particularly in the world of music.
Not so long back there was a thread about the rehabilitation of the uncool. I suggested that Maggie is the uncoolest of the lot. Ok, it was me. I'm to blame. I take full responsibility for this rumpus.
There are many many thousands of people in the UK sitting on many many thousands of pounds worth of equity in their homes thanks to Mrs Thatcher's monetarist policies.
I'm no apologist for her and never voted for her but some of the anti-Thatch bile above is pure Elton.
But then (sic) I'm not denying the thousands of people who really need social housing somewhere safe and affordable to live because I've sold off that particular bit of the family silver, either, am I?
An eyebrow
was raised.
Indeed.
It made me wonder how serious the other suggestions - many of whom I agreed with - were.
Still, there's nothing like throwing a curveball to create a bit of debate, eh?
Collins....NO...
Thatcher v Collins...
Two Tory icons together.
As Jackie Wright once said....
"Just say no!"
(yes, I'm aware of the Nancy Reagan irony here!)
The unsayable
It really is quite amazing the way people talk about her as if she was some kind of Nazi. However did she get elected so convincingly I wonder- must be all those vulgar Essex plasterers eh?
One example of something that may (whisper it) have been a good thing was in the 'Wapping wars' leading to the destruction of the almost comically obstructive and protective print unions, thereby allowing an explosion of independent publishing that was previously unthinkable. Discuss.
What are you lot talking about?
I try to keep up, I really do, but it's getting harder and harder.
Is she
on next month's cover?
Not unless she grows some stubble.
Not impossible at her age.
Coolest Uncool People
From this month's edition.
"They've languished in the Hall of Shame.....they've suffered enough!"
Shaky, maybe. Oldfield, go on then. Hucknall, fine. But Thatcher?Oh, I think not.
Agreed
There's irony, and there's licking Satan's Balls. Worrying. The woman had tea with Pinochet. Seriously. This made me choke on my sherbert dab.
Don't mind admitting
that I voted for her. 3 times.
And I'd do it again.
That's not a very fashionable view, is it?
I was wondering when someone would 'fess up.
Clearly somebody was voting for her all that time. And WORD readers are of the right age...
Why?
I'd honestly like to understand her appeal. It baffles me.
Why not?
Well, ok, I was wrong. I shouldn't have done it. She was so cruel and nasty and wicked and mean...
Instead, I should have voted for Neil Kinnock. He would have made such a good Prime Minister.
Michael Foot - there's another one. Britain would be a really nice place if we'd have let those two have a go at running it.
Now, where's my copy of The Mail On Sunday?
i think
i know
All it's good for
When I'm out of Izal medicated, I reach for...
sorry
double post
Bumfodder
The mail on sunday is right wing bumfodder
I don't *want* to cancel my subscription
but I have just gone to DefCon3.
Its wrong
Thatcher is not cool. Just no way. Ever. Nor is Hucknall but then we've been there on these pages before. The rest were sort of alright.
Contd...
...Page 94.
OK, put this lot in order of "evil" if those are your terms
Hitler. A
Stalin. J
Tse-Tung. M
Thatcher. M.
Mugabe. R.
Hussein. S.
Pinochet. A.
Mandela N.
Il-sung K.
Tymoshenko Y. (We don't know about anything about the policies of the Prime Minister of the Ukraine but how bad can she be?)
Horrible feeling of apprehension,
lest propensity for fag-packet historical reappraisal is allowed to pardon lesser acts of destruction in the context of incalculable monstrousness of others.
DefCon2.
I'm not going to forget
how she organised riot police to come into my community and tear it up for nothing more than a political grudge. And no I'm not going to debate the rights and wrongs of the miners strike other than to interate the spite and glee of Thatcher and the Tories in attacking their own people.
Thatcher isn't as bad globally as the people on your list but I'm not going to get all post-modern and say she's wasn't any worse than shaky, the media has conviently short memory.
Right lets have a go
Evil at the top.
Hitler. A
Il-sung K.
Stalin. J
Hussein. S.
Mugabe. R.
Pinochet. A.
Tse-Tung. M
Thatcher. M.
Mandela N.
Tymoshenko Y
Is that right?
Not sure
But it depends on your criteria, I guess. Glancing at my death-o-meter, I'd stick Mao and Uncle Joe at the top.
Thought about that
but concluded they had more people in scope so whilst it works on a volume level, I thought the others were more ruthless.
Just goes to show how subjective evil is though eh?
And I'm glad Gary Glitter wasn't on the list - that would have set the cat amongst the pigeons.
i'm sorry but that comment does shock me
how can stalin not be considered ruthless??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
he outbutchered hitler. he did it consistently over a longer period. it was planned. it was realpolitics.
is it cos he's a lefty that he cant be construed as ruthless??
more ruthless
not that he wasn't ruthless. But Hitler was evil beyond his initial power base which I felt was worse.
I did make the point that evil is subjective.
And in reality I was trying to deflate the point that degrees of evilness are more or less pointless.
Quite
And I don't really have a death-o-meter.
OR DO I?
"uncle joe" was pretty ruthless beyond his power base
you ask the poles or any of the other sovietised countries.
Good to see
you joining in the fun of ranking evil so and so's. It's true about Joe but he gained some points for helping to sort Hitler out. He sort of played for both sides - a Dennis Law if you like.
i dont think anybody who got "stalinised" cared
what side stalin was on at the time. and i do think stalin and hitler and mao and others were evil. incarnate & absolute. imagine those millions dead and the many times millions who "survived" and had to cope with the loss.
mrs t simply wasnt evil - and should not be compared with those people. removing free school milk, closing unprofitable businesses and breaking an illegal strike or two is not on the same scale as genocide & we sound very western and soft when we comapre it. and i come from a mining family whose community was indeed ripped apart by thatcherite policy.
but as my gran put it - after losing her miner husband to work-related lung disease - nobody should have to do for a living what your grandad did.... Its an ill wind.
Top 10 Dictators
Didn't woody Allen have something to say about this?
Hubba Hubba Tymoshenko Y
Sorry if this is a bit off colour but ... phwoar, I wouldn't mind ratifying HER treaty.
Yulia
She's my desktop background. Has been for some time.
Yulia...ocean child
I wouldn't mind being the background on HER desktop etc. etc. etc.
sorry
I don't play with loaded dice :-)
As I said above...
"Still, there's nothing like throwing a curveball to create a bit of debate, eh?" ;-)
Merely recognising
Thatcher is less 'evil' than Hitler, Mao, Stalin etc doesn't mean she's suddenly lovely and in need of rehabilitation.
I'm not one of those people who will smile when she dies, or throw a street party (death of old woman who has lost her marbles is neither newsworthy nor joyous), but neither am I going to suddenly forget the damage she did to a great many people and communities in this country, not because of some percieved greater good, but because she and the Tory party were smarting from the kicking the miners gave them in the 70s and wanted revenge.
One can argue that the strength of the unions needed to be broken to allow the UK to develop a competitive, service based economy; that's politics, and I can see two sides to that.
Destroying communities because of a petty grudge..? No.
Two words
One is the surname of the most revered political figure in the Western world. The other is "Tonypandy".
We all can have a bad day at the office.
I wasn't aware
Giles Brandryth had ever been...
Exactly what IS
the Dalai Llama's surname?
The Dali Lama's Surname
is Lama Ding-dong. He was an influential mamber of Shawaddywaddy
That's
more like it.
10/10
Wins the Friday p.m. tea-sprayed-into-the-keyboard award at a canter
Ram a Ford??
I think you'll find he was in the Edsels??
I thought
the Dalai Lama was a Tibetan newspaper...
Quite
It seemed not a devil's advocate or ironic inclusion but one likely to cause grave disquiet amongst those who had been affected by her pestilent humping of the UK in the 80s. WHERE|'S MY FREE MILK MAGGIE!!?
Apparently..
...she was a fashion icon, according to that revisionist BBC show the other night.
I dislike la vieille truite intensely, but. . .
I've never really understood the verging-on-Hindley-level hatred that she manages to provoke in so many middle-class men.
I can assure
there lots of women in my village who despise her and cronies just as much but thanks for calling me sexist.
"middle class"?
Nah, not even slightly. My mum's from a small mining town in South Wales and there's still huge unemployment since the killing of the mining and steel industries down there.
A quarter of a century and the things Maggie and her government did at that time still echo around the country.
I'm going to put on Elvis (C not P) Tramp The Dirt Down now I think.
Me Neither
From t'tnorth. It's not a class thing. The woman is a real ahte figure, not a funny eccentric like Hucknall.
Grantham, last time I looked
Was "pretty" north.
Long way from Guildford and Finchley any how and an even longer way from Hounslow, Harlesden, Plaistow and Brixton
Grantham
is pretty "definitely" in the East Midlands.
I should know - I live there.
Ditto
Having been born in South Wales and now resident in S Yorkshire, I second that emotion. I was in the Big Pit Museum in the South Wales Valleys a few months ago. The mild mannered guy showing my group around underground was in his late 40s and had literally been turned into a museum piece by The Great Helmswoman. One mention of her name and he erupted into a splenetic stream of consciousness, that produced a lot of "hear hear" noises
....where's my copy of Margaret on a Guillotine
No disagreement there
In fact the things they did had quite a bit to do with why I left the UK in 1988, never to return.
But the killing of heavy industry that happened under Thatcher happened everywhere in the Eighties, from Bilbao to Baltimore. Do you really think Blair or Brown wouldn't have done the same thing had they been PM at the time? (When Thatcher came to power, the industry in the community I grew up in - a Northern mill town - had already been dismantled long before under Harold Wilson, but I saw no conga lines in the streets when he popped his clogs.)
I'm not defending Thatcher or her governments (although we'd do well to remember that she was re-elected twice by a higher percentage of the popular vote than any other incumbent PM in the 20th century). Nor am I calling anyone sexist or denying the very real anger that persists in mining and industrial communities. I'm just puzzled at the level of hatred she still isnpires - not intense dislike or disapproval, but pug-ugly, butt-neckid hatred - particularly, for some reason or other, among middle-class men.
But at the end of the day, when the final whistle blows, Brian, we're talking about one item on a silly filler list in an entertainment magazine; not the op-ed page of the New Statesman.
Peace, hepcats, peace.
its her style
the reason its middle age men (and women actually) is this age group was most affected by her.
you are a wise man
archie V
My subscription has lapsed ...
but I still buy each issue. Apparently I needn't rush out to get the current one. I know hate is a VERY negative emotion and shouldn't be encouraged but I bow to no one in my hatred of that woman. Sorry FraserM, but I AM one of those people who will be dancing in the street come that beautiful day. Sorry if I've offended anyone but you reap what you sow and she may be old and infirm now but there was a time when she knew EXACTLY what she was doing and for that I'm with Weller!
From The Guardian, March 18, 2008
When I mention his residual feelings about the long years of Thatcherism, however, out it all comes. "I think they were absolute fucking scum - especially Thatcher, who I think should be shot as a traitor to the people. I still think that, and nothing will ever change my opinion. We're still feeling the effects of what they did to the country now, and probably always will: the whole breakdown of communities, trade unions, the working class - the dismantling of lots of things."
Mrs T
Well, she did give us Ghost Town..... and er, Red Wedge.
which
Red Wedge aside, is part of Mr "so called" Fitzpatrick's argument in the article.
I would like to respond with "Soul Deep" by the Council Collective. A well intentioned but absolutle shit of a record.
Personally, I'd prefer it if we kept politics out of here.
It's too divisive, and it'll spoil things. Unless I was hallucinating (entirely possible, given the appallingly shite Microsoft product I'm fighting with here) someone with Godlike powers quickly pulled a politically biased posting from these pages yesterday. I was glad to see the posting vanish as rapidly as it did, as it has no place here, IMHO. There are plenty of places to vent off about politics.
I'm sure some will disagree, but personally I don't come in here every day to talk politics. I come in here to escape from bloody politics.
it was an article
in the magazine.
I know. I read it .
I snorted derisively and turned the page.
I feel so offended
by your suggestion that politics should be removed from this blog, that I am at this very moment canceling my subscription only for me to re-subscribe next Thursday with the same credit card.
i posted the political article yesterday
and then thought better about it, so pulled it. not so much because it was political - more that it was boring....so there!
My point
entirely.
Surely the jazz strand
shows that everything is divisive - and strictly speaking, everything is politics. It is whoever stuck that picture of Maggie in the mag and called her 'cool' you should take issue with, not the people who are using the legitemate forum to discuss it. Clearly it narked a lot of readers. That is what this blog is for (in part).
I wasn't taking issue with anyone.
I was expressing my own opinion. Which, as you point out, is what this blog is for.
Quite right
a well-made political point
I find politics endlessly interesting
........but have no desire to discuss it here.
Ok
Best ever political songs?
All of Billy Bragg
followed by Redemption song by Bob Marley
Maggies Farm
Dylan. He knew she was shit before she was even shit.
Priceless
Nice One
Maggie's Farm
Rage Against The Machine's version on Renegades is even better as they removed all the humour and add noise anger to the mix. When Dylan sings, "The national guard stand outside his room", it sounds like a funny, silly, whimsical lyric. Rage make it sound like the fascist capitalist is so hated he needs protection from "the people".
Yes
Bullet in the head has to be the doozy
Won't Get Fooled Again
At least, not until the next election.
hurrah we've got
back to post-modern glibness, which is were we came in sadly. Curiously one thatchers legacies is to make open political debate seem like something to be avoided.
If we getting post-modern all songs are political making fun love money by Mel and Kim the best political songs that or Girls aloud last album.
They Dance Alone by Sting. Really.
And just to let the Guardianistas know that there is dissent within the fold - hindsight is 20:20 and many of her actions now look naive and/or cynical, but Thatcher and her (often loathsome) crew gave the UK a dose of medicine it didn't like but desperately needed. Don't give me all this nostalgic guff about mines & steelworks; I'm from 'down there' in Newport in Gwent & my local plant employed thousands of men who clocked in & then went home, featherbedded by an unsustainable publicly -funded industry, while Thatcher merely gave Scargill the opportunity to take the miners down with him in an act of suicidal vanity. It pains me to say it, having been firmly in the Costello camp at the time, but the country is a probably a little better for her having been around when she was. But don't listen to me; Paul Weller's proved himself to be such an insightful and articulate political commentator over the years, I must be wrong.
You...
are.
I am
I meant Fragile by Sting.
Mixing Pop and Politics he asks me what the use is!
Politics drives most of the artists we discuss on this forum. Next you'll be asking us to believe there's no such thing as society!!
Shipbuilding
A Change Is Gonna Come -Sam Cooke
If There's A Hell Below - Curtis Mayfield
Fight The Power - Public Enemy
What's Goin' On
by the lovely Marvin Gaye
Mouth Full of Shit
By Chumbawamba. Always dedicated to the politician of the day. Always fits.
Cough...splutter
Chumbawamba - definitely deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Thatcher. Anarchic authors of the revolution who recorded for Thorn EMI...biggest sell-outs of the lot!
Don't agree. I'm interested to hear who you think the biggest sell outs are!
Thatcher
Please take her away !! She wreaked havock in a lot of lives including my Dad's. She has spawned the Tony Blairs of this world and now we have to read the pundits tell us its time for reappraisal etc., I'll pass, thank you very much!!!
Maybe Vulpes is right we come on here to escape that crap.
There aren't many, if any good political songs they're like most comedy once you have heard the joke, it's not funny anymore.
The country was a lot better place in the 90's...
than it was in the 70's.
No 3 day weeks, no rationing of electricity, no bodies piling up becuase the gravediggers were on strike, no bully boy miner or docker unions. widespread (relative) prosperity.
mrs t may just have been the reason for that....
i'm not sure she warrants the level of bile from some of the posts above - and comparing what she did to hitler etc is puerile.
But she's def. not cool
which is where this all started.
but have you been watching the bbc4 season of programmes?
because she does come across as a charismatic brave challenging idosyncratic personality determined to plough her furrow & do what she believed to be right in a world that was set against her and against change. in short - she does appear quite "cool".
and i, for one, am half convinced.
mind you - i also apent two hours last night watching the 1979 election results come in, so am not necessarily best judge of "cool". it was rivetting.
tony blair problem
Tony blairs excuse for things he's doen wrong seems to be he did what he thought was right and that's justfication. The sort of answer you wouldn't except from 6 year old.
Not meaning to be flippant!
"because she does come across as a charismatic brave challenging idosyncratic personality determined to plough her furrow & do what she believed to be right in a world that was set against her and against change"
but so was Hitler and the rest - they weren't right though were they!
define
cool
Tell that to the Belgrano crew
over a thousand men, "shot in the back". I know it's not 6 million in concentration camps but many regard her as a monster and cannot laugh at her legacy and put her on the "cool" list. It is in bad taste.
But she's
no Hitler.
That's what I said
isn't it? Everyone uses hitler as the benchmark of baddies, but it's not Hitler & all the good guys. There are other shades of grey of harm-causing, viloent, biggoted avcaricious slime to sift through and Maggie is amongst them, chewing husks with Pinochet and the Regan
there are shades & subtleties in everything
should mrs t have let the falklands be invaded by argentina (bearing in mind what the junta were up to at that point)?
was it wrong to let people keep more of their hard earned money & have the chance of buying their own homes?
was she right to confront arthur scargill?
or was mrs thatcher a 100% terrible influenc on this country?
was it wrong to let people keep more of their hard earned money
She let SOME people keep more of their hard earned money - very rich people largely. others were left without a means to earn.
As to the selling of homes: the ridiculous state of the housing market is a direct consequence of her decision.
jim
those statements bear no relation to the truth.
she increased tax free allowances and reduced the basic tax rate - therefore everybody who was paying tax benefitted. i was working as a dustbinman when the first tax cut hit the pay packet. we all got paid in cash each week in those days & i remember our general astonishment & euphoria that we all had more money in our pockets. i dont think any of us believed taxes could actually come down! i could afford an extra 2 pints that week.
and the ridiculous state of the housing market is down to 10 years of cheap money which has now been brutally "corrected" or "crunched". poor old mrs t aint to blame.
who introduce laissez faire
economics? that encouraged borrowing ? that led to loss of building societies loss of regualtion of banks etc erm erm erm help here.
Chris
you got there before I did. Also, if we cut taxes something that was paid for previously isn't. That is why prescriptions aren't free anymore...that is just a tip of a VERY big iceberg. Amongst others, Oliver James has dissected the trend the Holy Margaret produced very nicely in Afluenza
damn
I said I wasn't going to do this but: that'll be the tanker drivers on strike then! and no body ever went unburied!
as for live the 70's being crap I seemd to play fottball all day long had fish fingers for my tea and somebody else paid the rent which was nice.
Nobody
compared what she did to Hitler & Co.
My wife and I were in Trafalgar Square on the day the mounted police charged the crowd. Where were you?
uuuh?
there is alist up there ^^^^ where people are ranking her level of evilness & on that list is mrs t & hitler & stalin. looks like a comparison to me.
i think the comparison is puerile & ill thought out.
and i think mrs t - like it or loathe it - is being culturally re-evaluated and certain "cool" characterics of hers are coming to the fore. if you havent i'd recommend you watch the programmes on the i-player because, in my opinion (rightly or wrongly) its happening.
Sigh. OK then, in Key Stage 2 terms:
You used the word "comparison" as if someone had said that her deeds were comparable with those of Hitler.
No one said that they were.
The point of the list was to put her at or near the bottom of a league table of horribleness.
And by the way, use some capital letters, please. And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
i am not sure what a key stage 2 is...
but i thought that was a pretty condescending response. not one of your best VV
This Kind of Lynne Trussiness
Opens you up to the red pen. Both of your last sentences begin with conjunctions, dear. Or is that 'ironic'
You forgot
the question mark at the end of your redundant question. And there's nothing wrong with good grammar. After all.
No, there isn't.
But these posts have prompted me to add another line to the FAQ.
Fair do's, but. . .
Can we have its corollary: a line reminding people that posting here isn't quite the same as hammering out text in a chat window?
posts w/ no caps/apostrophes and only v ltd punctuation etc etc are v hard to read LOLOL!!!!!
It's
already there.
For starters,
a question mark is punctuation, not grammar. Grammar is the correct arrangements of participles of sentences and the parts of speech. For main course, you have begun a sentence with a conjunction once again. Is this ignorance? Don't write expert on your door until you can spell it.
Gentlemen
The FAQ requests that you remain polite and don't question each other's spelling and grammar - besides, these arguments tend to go round and round without ever resolving to anyone's satisfaction. I'd appreciate it if you could adhere to the posting guidelines.
Thank you.
No problem.
I don't have a problem with anyone's spelling and grammar. I would not dream of questioning ordinarily, I was just stung to retaliate by the petty nature of the nitpicking. I was as surprised as anyone to see this kind of behaviour and was admistering like for like.
It shall cease -
No more.
Fin.
Tempting
It's SO tempting to point out the spelling mistake in your last post, Smurphy, but I won't for fear of offending the forces of the FAQ.
(For the avoidance of doubt, this post should be construed as being entirely ironic...!)
That's the point!
We are not writing for the New Yorker magazine. We are blogging 1 handed, at work, with one eye on the door in case the boss comes in. It's pointless to carp over stuff like this. It's just nit-picking.
We'll get our wrists slapped.
the point of the list
was to demonstrate that it is arbitary to have a view on evil as it is on cool. That's probably the point of the original article as well.
Puerile - that wasn't the intent - I was trying to make a deflatory point. Peurile would have been me expressing how attractive the Ukrainian totty was. But I didn't do that thank the lord.
Ill thought out - I had some criteria and made a reasoned decision on it so probably not
I did do that
...and I stand by my decision. Peurile by definition means childish, and my rampant sexual desires for Eastern Bloc political crumpet are purely MANSIZE. Thanks for the dig, though. If in doubt, kick the cat.
I thought it.
You posted it. No difference in my book. You were just quicker (add own carry on style punchline here).
I was
In Edinburgh.
Good
decision.
Not sure it was a better place in the 90s
That concatanation of images sounds like the apocolypse BUT you know a similar list from Thatcher's time seems as bad: The Poll tax riots, the battle of Orgreave, the sinking of Belgrano, Loadsofmoney greed-is-good businessman, beggers on the street - didn't see many of them around in the "deprived" seventies. Anyway, as people say most of what happened to the economy would have come to pass with or without her.
Her love of The Great Car Economy, her statements like; "there is no such thing as society," and "I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil," and her confrontational approach that trucked no debate, that's what I found distastful and that's what provoked the response by Morrisy, Elvis and Weller at the time. It has all helped to produce some of the nastiest facets of today's society.
Our political leaders cool, ever?
Maybe in other countries Vaclav Havel, Sarkosy - of course it's superficial. Choosing Thatcher - not a bright idea.
Not cool
Politicians aren't cool, and when they try to be they look desperate, viz:
1) Neil Kinnock and Red Wedge
2) Kenny Everett and Mrs T ("let's bomb Russia!")
3) Blair and Noel Gallagher
4) Harold W and the Beatles
Major and Heath knew they weren't cool and avoided this kind of nonsense for sailing and cricket (which is very, very cool actually)
some were/are...
winston churchill (read roy jenkins biography/john colville diaries) - winnie was as cool as a cucumber.
JFK
pitt the younger
tony benn & enoch powell in their symmetrically strange ways
nye bevin
dennis healey
portillo & abbott
the beast of bolsover
all "cool" in their own way.
I give you...
Healy (War hero) and Nye Bevin and raise you David Owen and Valery Giscard d'Estaing.
Winnie "as cool as a cucumber"
Yesh, but only a cucumber shwimming in brandy and champagne.....
The ultimate uncool politician moment
Who is that with Shakin' Stevens
is it David Frost?
It's Little Nicky Cave
It's Little Nicky Cave
Ha ha ha
If you look closely, you can see his bad seeds.
Crikey
these tribute acts get better and better
Elvis...
is the one on the right.
Your right
or my right? Which one is Shakey then?
God - Tony Blair, D:Ream and Oasis
Give me strength
Hmmm
JFK - MIxed up in Mafia
pitt the younger
tony benn - cool as ice - HERO
& enoch powell UNCOOL racist
nye bevin
dennis healey - silly billy
portillo & abbott MEET THE MUMMY
define cool
becuase if jfk walked into the room in his prime, i'd wager most women would want to sleep with him & most men would want to hang with him...that's cool isnt it? and doesnt the mafia thing just add to it.
if that isnt cool - then who the hell is? particularly in the world of music.
I agree
apart from almost ending the world in a nuclear showdown with Cuba, and ramping up the Vietnam War
I haven't read the Mag yet, so...
...please tell me why she is deemed to be cool. I can't think of one thing about her that was cool.
Not cool
Not so long back there was a thread about the rehabilitation of the uncool. I suggested that Maggie is the uncoolest of the lot. Ok, it was me. I'm to blame. I take full responsibility for this rumpus.
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/coolest-uncool-people
buy the magazine!
david hepworth told me to write that!!
As Mr Hepworth knows...
... because he writes me a lovely letter every month that comes with my subscription copy of the magazine, I'm a subscriber!
I said I hadn't read the magazine "yet" when I made my original comment. I have now.
I still don't think Thatcher was ever, or ever will be, cool.
Equity
There are many many thousands of people in the UK sitting on many many thousands of pounds worth of equity in their homes thanks to Mrs Thatcher's monetarist policies.
I'm no apologist for her and never voted for her but some of the anti-Thatch bile above is pure Elton.
is that Elton
then or now and presumably these same lucky house buyers will waat bailing out when all this equity disappears?
Would that include the many many thousands
who got their council houses, paid for out of our taxes, for a song?
Yep
You would have done the same, you surely can't deny it?
And it also includes the solid working people who now own houses who never thought they could have done.
I'm not denying that, no.
But then (sic) I'm not denying the thousands of people who really need social housing somewhere safe and affordable to live because I've sold off that particular bit of the family silver, either, am I?
Conjunction alert!
Conjunction alert! Conjunction alert! "Sic" means you have copied someone else, mistakes and all.