Why do scotland hate margaret thatcher

Eureka Street has become the mouthpiece of narrow minded hate mongers and nothing to do with Jesuit principles. Thatcher was not adored by all the English! I was in England during the dying days of her premiership, and well remember even my Tory cousins were sick to death of "that bloody woman". People just got plain sick of her. Thatcher's first words to Gorbachev: "I hate communism. What a woman.

I misunderstood you Double H. Things like evidence of market failure linked to the Government, huge increases in unemployment or inflation undermining our economic foundations, the structural problems still coming from the Global Financial Crisis in most other developed economies, you know, something of that ilk.

Instead all I got was a grab bag of political points straight out of the Coalition handbook. Hard to see where the claim of incompetence comes from but you seem to be confusing minority government with economic mismanagement.

They do have a problem with communications but the underlying structural fundamentals of the Australian economy are still quite sound. Your account of the Belgrano sinking is very telling - do you get all your information from the Socialist Worker magazine? As a Methodist and someone who has always lived in Southern England, in adulthood, I share many of the sentiments but none of the vitriol of the article.

I profoundly disliked the woman and thought her domestic policies were hugely damaging. But we give her supporters and allies further fuel if we give her too much profile by responding in an unchristian way. Brett, clarification first: why would you want me to cite structural weaknesses allegedly coming from the GFC as caused by the Gillard government? That makes no sense, so I may have misread you here. OK: I cited,instead, eg, Fair Work Australia and its pronounced anti-business bias - which has given rise to labour market rigidities which hurt workers by discouraging labour hire and even deterring investment from Australia.

And, so what if the Coalition and Blind Freddie agrees? Only an ad hominem-dependent, evidence-challenged leftist would find that a sufficient reason for rejecting such a proposition, as they so often do.

Thatcher believed that breaking coercive union power over was essential to improving the structure of the UK's economy. She did that, magnificently, as proven thus: in the clamour of visceral invective against her, can you hear a vast majority in the UK hankering now for a return to the union-dominated system under Callaghan's Labour that she obliterated? I can't. Game, set and match, Mrs Thatcher. Goodonya Uncle Pat.

Always the source of good sense. I see nothing of small-minded malice in Duncan Maclaren's article, and fail to see how a passionate defence of the poor is in any sense unChristian. You may well have misread me HH. The Government will probably lose the election for reasons related to infighting and lost public confidence, despite having a sound economy and generally effective policies excluding their treatment of refugees.

It will not be for the reason given in your statement. Someone wrote on the weekend that Hawke and Keating achieved much the same result in Australia as Thatcher in the UK, without anything like the divisions, grief and anger she caused.

An accurate assessment and a reminder that extreme policies are usually unnecessary. Communications problem there - seems like federal Labor is not the only cripple in that department, if that is indeed the root of their difficulties. So the evil, hate-worthy Mrs Thatcher's fundamental goals were fine. She just went about them in the wrong way! Can you say a bit more about that? Politik - Look at earth from outer space. Everyone must find a place. Give me time and give me space.

Give me real; don't give me fake. Give me strength; reserve control. Give me heart and give me soul. Give me time; give us a kiss. Tell me your own politik. And open up your eyes. Open up your eyes. Give me one, 'cause one is best. In confusion, confidence. Give me peace of mind and trust. Don't forget the rest of us. Wounds that heal and cracks that fix. Tell me all your politik. But give me love over, love over, love over this, a And give me love over, love over, love over this.

Pedantic or mischievous Double H? I asked for evidence of these alleged structural weaknesses. You gave four examples, none of which indicates structural weakness and which were pretty much opinions rather than facts. I gave some examples of the sort of things that would undermine our economic performance if the economy was structurally weak, which in fact it is not.

That Australia suffered much less from the GFC than comparable countries is a pointer to our economic strength. The point was that your statement was an exaggeration to be kind about it, unsupported by evidence. Are we clear now? HH, Hawke and Keating had an agenda to reform the Australian economy away from the largely protected model they inherited.

It was a diverse program across all economic sectors. Space does not allow detail but on the point you raised, Hawke and Keating brought unions and management into the process through the Accord and reached agreements on trade-offs to avoid inflationary wage increases. There would have been an economic case for closing some industries but there was very little planning for the longer term economic transition that Australia went through with nothing like the pain she created.

Evil and hate-worthy are your words; I said she caused division, grief and anger. So no, she did not go about it the right way when you compare the results to Australia. Hands up all of you nice minded critics who actually lived in Scotland or any other part of the UK during her time.

I was never aware of any christian example shown by her. She did get the heave from the Tory Party as she became unelectable. Mrs Thatcher will be remembered by many, perhaps, in a similar way to those people abused and abandoned by the Church. May she rest in peace.

Thank God. I believe her real Vocation was as a Bus Conductor. She was forever telling us where to 'Get Off'. Brett, you seem to be reading from a leftist comic book about Margaret Thatcher. She never wanted to smash the unions per se - she just wanted to end the coercive hold on the economy they had managed to acquire over previous decades.

There's no way they would have given this up without a fight. Hence she did what she had to do, and was successful, to the lasting benefit of the UK economy. A sign of this is that when UK Labour was next in power, it didn't seek to return the unions to their pre-Thatcher status, as it could so easily have done.

So she was vindicated. Good for them. She had the guts to. They didn't. But of course, for fear of union backlashes, neither will Gillard do anything about it, even as its absurdity becomes more manifest by the day. Leftist comic book HH?

Cute, but take the logs out of your own eyes before disparaging the views of others. Seriously, read a bit more about the Iron Lady. Smashing union power was what it was all about from the start. For Thatcher it was ideological as much as economic. She was of no mind to negotiate but wanted a conflict where she could force home her advantages.

Did she succeed? Were changes needed? Obviously yes. Was hers the only way to do it? Did the end results vindicate her actions against the misery she inflicted on northern England and Scotland?

I doubt it. Your comment that she had the guts to end massive public subsidies of industry is another exaggeration. John Major did more in that area than Thatcher. Context is important when looking back 25 years. Which is something you're studiously avoiding in your assessment of Mrs Thatcher. And I note you've failed to respond to my point that no UK government since Thatcher's has sought to restore union power to anything like the level it was when she assumed the premiership.

If what she did was so horrendous, why is that? They are indeed the vital stuff of our communities. But unlike you, it seems, I oppose the right of unions or anyone, if it comes to that to bully people of another persuasion not to work for employers when they choose to, to the point of smashing their cars, equipment, etc. Which point of view is what Thatcher was defending. Kudos to her. And you misunderstand my point about the Button Plan.

A refreshing move, it was objectively-speaking a limp-wristed step in the right direction - a grudging acknowledgement of the free market. But under Thatcher, there would have been no taxpayer-underwritten car industry in Australia from the 80's. Which would have benefited millions of hapless taxpayers in the decades up to now. Cf, the hopelessly uneconomic state coal industry in Britain until Thatcher. Bullying is wrong in all areas, whether it be the workplace, unions or governments imposing their ideology on the community.

This is not a case of the end justifying the means, which seems to be your main argument in her support. Her approach was extreme, even in the context of her times and little thought was given to the longer term consequences for the people her policies hurt the most. But I suppose when you express ultra dry right-wing economic views nothing moderate is going to please.

Brett, you're naively unaware that the taxpayer is always the first sucker to be bullied for the sake of other politically convenient causes. If union coercion wasn't the hallmark of the system Thatcher inherited, I don't know what was - from the then sclerotic massively taxpayer-subsidised coal industry to the ludicrous Luddite objections to computers in publishing in Wapping.

Thatcher showed the way by punching these balloons, and helping the taxpayer. I note, BTW, that northerners, on the day of her funeral, were bitterly complaining - with some justification - that there's tons of coal underground of their poor villages that could be mined at a handsome profit.

Someone who REALLY cared for those miners might advocate that they be allowed to form companies and mine that coal they insist is, "but for Thatcher" so they say , there for the taking. Now, what, do you suppose, is stopping them from doing so?

Step up, Brett and your ilk, for the mining communities for whom you claim to weep. You keep avoiding the point Double H. Thatcher had no intention of taking any other path. She wanted a fight, she had the fight and she won the fight. No argument there. There was very little longer term planning about what to do afterwards. Her constituency was elsewhere.

She had responsibilities and she was found wanting. Brett, the end of the sclerotic, taxpayer-underwritten coalmines in Britain was a Really Bad Thing for the subsidised miners, but a good thing for the British taxpayer.

In contrast to Mrs Thatcher, Arthur Scargill and the Labour Party didn't give a fig for the British taxpayer or non-union workers for that matter. So which is worse: Margaret Thatcher "not caring" for those miners, in that she merely refused to continue subsidizing their living with money ripped from other people - including poor people - yet not preventing their gaining jobs in more profitable sectors; or Scargill and Labour, propping up their vested political and union power bases at the expense of workers and entrepreneurs all over the UK?

Like I said - who seriously wants to undo Thatcher's abolition of the national coal industry? Yet who but Thatcher would have taken that step? The suggestion that she "wanted a fight" is in your head only. Had Scargill, etc, agreed to repealing all laws repealing the coercive "rights" of unions, Thatcher would have agreed without any further ado. Proof of this is that, having ended those state-created coercive union rights, and in her prime of power, Mrs Thatcher didn't go on picking fights with the unions.

Like all true free marketeers, she was never opposed to voluntary trade unions as such. On the contrary. The facts are Thatcher never had any intention of doing things any other way.

Far from tempering her fire, she continued the anti-union rhetoric almost to the end of her term. The easing did not come until John Major, often the forgotten man, was PM.

Her Government showed scant interest in the longer term impact of its policies on the people most affected by them. It was all about the end result justifying the means of getting there, which is a very dry economic argument that ignores the impact of the means. Brett, I'll call your bluff. I've asserted that Mrs Thatcher's crusade all along was against coercive union power - the kind that, eg, allows unions to harangue and forcibly prevent so-called "scabs" from entering a work site.

And she rightly IMO continued that campaign to the end of her premiership. That opposition doesn't disprove my thesis. What you have to show is that, as a matter of historical record, Margaret Thatcher opposed voluntary unionism per se.

Go ahead: evidence, please. We're waiting. And despite your hosannas to a warmer, gentler approach than Thatcher's To the extent that subsequent regimes departed from Thatcher's policy, they've not exactly proved successful.

For example: Guess what? We just love forking out for union-featherbedded jobs. Care to share? To say that I loathed Margaret Thatcher is an understatement. I dont think anyone outside the UK really understands the misery wrought upon those not included amongst the Tory elite. Geoffrey Howe had resigned as deputy prime minister, frustrated at the way he was being treated by an increasingly strident PM as they rowed over Europe.

She won the first vote in a leadership challenge - but not by enough. On Thursday 28 November , Margaret Thatcher approached the microphone stand. There were tears in the eyes of the Iron Lady and that famous low-pitched voice croaked with emotion. Commentators at the time said she'd been badly advised to use it.

The then prime minister and her advisers knew how unpopular she was. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who was her Scottish secretary from , famously said in one interview about the Scottish view of Thatcher: "She was a woman, she was an English woman and she was a bossy English woman and they could probably put up with one of these but three simultaneously was a bit too much. Whatever Lady Thatcher was, she certainly made an impact and continues to do so. The arguments about her time in Number Ten are well-rehearsed.

Her industrial policy was, of course, severely criticised. The government's economic policy didn't bring inflation under control - unemployment rocketed. She clashed with the miners and became a hate figure in working class communities, not just in Scotland but across the UK. The introduction of the "poll tax" in Scotland was supposedly well-intentioned to avoid a disastrous revaluation of domestic rates - but Conservatives paid the price.

James Mitchell, professor of public policy at Edinburgh University's Academy of Government, said: "The perception was, and is, that Margaret Thatcher was anti-Scottish. Speaking to Scottish journalists as he visited the Moray East windfarm, the prime minister said the mass closure of pits had an environmental benefit.

Recent analysis found that the impact of the closures is still being felt in many communities, with coalfield towns and villages among the most disadvantaged areas of the country.

The contracts that have been signed, should not be just be ripped up. But we need to transition as fast as we reasonably can. This is an opportunity to generate high-wage, high-skilled jobs that have the additional pleasure and motivation for people that by doing them, they're doing something to save the planet.

We've transitioned away from coal in my lifetime. We're now down to less than 2 per cent, 1 per cent I think of our energy comes from coal.

The Conservative government's colliery closure programme in the mids led to a year-long miners' strike which ended in March