Bob Crow dies at the age of 52

Thatcher destroyed entire communities, Bob Crow made some Londoners late for work. The two are completely incomparable.

Thatcher put entire communities out of work, something that happened under previous Prime Ministers and will happen in the future too. But of course any negative aspects of her tenure are for some reason treated so much more harshley by the left, simply because it was Lady Thatcher. Everything wrong with the country now will be blamed on her, regardless of the fact that it made sense then and the problems actually evolved later and were neglected by later governments.
Regardless, Bob Crow did more than simply make some Londoners late for work. He robbed London of billions of pounds and held the capital to hostage for his own gain. Furthermore his own reaction to Thatcher's death can not be taken out of the equation. It showed his true nature and character as a contemptable human being. Your post also shows your own bias and prejudices. I imagine if someone was singlehandedly costing small Northern communities hundreds of millions, if not billions (ie. Lady Thatcher) you'd be up in arms.

Unemployment skyrocketed under Thatcher, as did poverty. She created an underclass and destroyed entire communities, many of which are still in ruin today.

The fact that you are grossly misrepresenting the cost of the tube strikes and that you think they are comparable to what Thatcher did to communities in the north proves your own bias and prejudices.

Yes, I know, as a result of her monetarist policy to bring inflation under control, which had previously been rampant. Unemployment did fall rapidly soon after, which is oft ignored. If losing your job complete destroys your life beyond repair, well frankly that's pathetic. Only 'relative poverty' increased under Thatcher, simply because the rich got richer faster than the poor got richer. From how much the left bleat on about that it sounds as though they'd rather have the poor get poorer so long as the rich lose even more relative wealth, which would bring down relative poverty. An 'underclass' is a funny term to use for the entire generation of working class houseowners and shareholders she created.

In what way am I 'grossly misrepresenting' the cost of the tube strikes? They cost anywhere up to £50 million a day to the London economy, which Bob Crow couldn't give two flying ****s about. I've never once compared what Bob Crow did to Lady Thatcher; Bob Crow isn't fit to touch Lady Thatcher's feet, my argument was that criticisms against Crow are not of an ideological nature, but rather because he was such a knob, reference his constant strikes on flimsly grounds, plus the fact that he showed the Thatcher family no respect in the wake of her death is in itself an understandable justification to respond in kind.

Unemployment was about twice as high when she left office and when she entered.

When you lose your job and you can't get another one because your entire town is out of work because the towns major employer has been closed down, it kind of does destroy your life. Your attitude precisely mirrors Thatchers, and that's why she is hated. She had no respect for these people so they show her none back.

The underclass is not the term for the working class who became home owners under her, it's the term for the people who became unemployed under her and who's rents skyrocketed because of Thatchers housing bubble.

You are grossly misrepresenting them by grossly misrepresenting them. You did compare Bob Crow to maggie, and it clearly is an ideological criticism, as evidenced by everything you say. Maggie deserves no respect, no one is obligated to show her any if they don't choose to.

I like it how you get to a tricky question and just decide that it is not relevant.

Lots of people earn large wages and occupy council houses. It is just that it many cases, these houses have been purchased from the council at discounted prices.

Say if Crow did not by his own council house, but moved a few streets away into another former council house - would this be acceptable? Or is it wrong for him to have purchased any council house full stop?

If the answer to the last question is yes, then is it your opinion that rich people ought to be excluded from purchasing certain properties? What would the threshold be?

My ex CEO, who earns a similar wage to what Crow did, lives in a little cottage in Kent. It used to belong to the council. Is she selfish?

It is patently clear that your criticism of Crow on this point is without foundation.

This is nothing like the Thatcher malarky, a complete different ball game if you ask me. How anybody can compare the two is beyond me.

Unemployment was about twice as high when she left office and when she entered.

No it wasn't; it was 7.4% when she left, compared with 5.6% when she came to office.

Hated by a vocal minority, approved by the vast majority. The opinions of the stubborn few trouble me little. Previous Labour administrations closed down far more mines and sacked far more miners than Lady Thatcher did btw, and this too affected entire towns and communities, yet little is made of that, because as I said before the left have turned Thatcher into a scapegoat for everything.

There was no significant housing bubble under Thatcher; that came about as the result of Labour sitting idly by and doing diddly squat in later decades. Under Thatcher there was a surplus of council housing; it made sense to sell them to help balance the books. The fact that later governments failed to build any significant public housing is not her fault in the slightest. Under Thatcher wages skyrocketed and taxes were lowered for all quartiles, that's a fact. There was no 'underclass'.

Again, in what way have I misrepresented them? Did Bob Crow's strikes not cost the London economy some £50 million a day? Are not tube drivers well paid, pulling in over £40k a year?

I never once compared Bob Crow to Thatcher, I said that Bob Crow's criticisms are not purely ideological in nature. I myself have already explained why I thought Crow was a knob, and it had nothing to do with his socialist political leaning. I defended Thatcher's record as a side note, irrelevant of that. Pure strawman fallacies on your part- re-read my posts, there all here on this thread.
Whether you show Thatcher any respect is up to you and frankly not something I care about, but then you shouldn't cry foul when Crow is shown none either.

Not so. Unemployment was at 3.6% in 1973, rose to 12% in 1984 and then fell by almost half to 1990. Higher than when she came in but much more private sector dominated. The Major and Blair governments of course then oversaw falling unemployment to 2004.

Not so how? Unemployment was higher when she left office than when she left it, and her premiership was characterised by high levels of unemployment. It was also regionalised unemployment, leaving entire communities devastated.

Your specific claim was that unemployment was double what it was when she rose to power, that is the bit i was disputing. Yes, but we're 30 years on from that and there's nothing stopping them from moving to growth areas.

About double I said. The main point was that thatchers premiership was scarred with high levels of unemployment. So your solution to having areas that lack opportunities is for everyone to move away?

Okay, it wasn't quite as bad as I said it was. 7.4% is actually a remarkably good unemployment rate for maggie, it was closer to 10% for almost her entire premiership and hit 12%.

Hated by a significant majority, approved of by another significant majority.

The opinions (or lives) of the stubborn few (also known as the poor) didn't trouble thatcher either, that's why she is still hated. Labour did not sack more miners than thatcher, mining jobs were lost under Labour yes, but jobs were lost at less than half the rate they were under thatcher.

She closed down profitable mines because she wanted to smash the unions and she didn't care about the thousands of people she was condemning to misery.

The housing bubble was caused by the right to buy. Thatcher let people buy their council homes and disallowed the councils from building new ones. You might like to palm of everything bad she did on to something else because you think butter couldn't melt, well it can. There was and still is an underclass, you have severe selective blindness if you've convinced yourself otherwise.

They did not cost London billions and billions.

Yes you did, buy comparing the effect Bob Crow had on London to the effect thatcher had on the north, which is an absolutely hilariously naive comparison. I don't care if you show Bob Crow no respect, I object to it being justified because of thatcher, because that's a retarded comparison.

Yes. If i'd grown up in say Grantham, I dam well would not be there now. Contrary to popular perception there are plenty of places outside London with jobs albeit heavily concentrated in cities.

The price for sorting out the mess that was the British economy and bringing down rampant inflation, unfortunately.

I take it you don't understand what a majority is?
Anyway here are some opinion poll results
Greatest post war PM- 28% (1st place, including 28% in the North and 20% in Scotland)
Overall good PM- 50% vs 33% bad, (including 49% and 30% good rating in the North and Scotland)
Interesting when asked what her greatest failings were, 37% said the decline in manufacturing, which is statistically false according to the ONS. Manufacturing increased by 7.5% under Thatcher, compared with a 5% decline under New Labour.

Labour did sack more miners, far far more. The rate was higher under Thatcher yes, in the same manner that 5 from a 10 is a higher percentage than 40 from a 100. Furthermore due to increased efficiency the loss of output was less under Thatcher than the eleven years prior (33% vs 45%)

And yet in 1984 the Energy Secretary Peter Walker offered a package to the miners that offered any miner at a pit slated for closure a job at another mine or voluntary redundancy, plus a £800 million investment into the coal mining industry. Definately sounds like she only wanted to smash the unions and didn't give a toss.
Scargill rejected the package. Thatcher's fault aswell I suppose!

She disallowed no such thing. Furthermore she left office in 1990. The fact that for the next twenty years three successive administrations failed to build enough council housing is their fault and their fault alone, not Thatchers. Your logic is flawed beyond belief.
And yet again you fail to elaborate on this apparent 'underclass' she created, beyond attempting to tug my emotional heartstrings.

I never said they did. I said they cost hundreds of millions, if not billions.

Quote me where I ever said such a thing. I bet you can't.

Regardless, Bob Crow did more than simply make some Londoners late for work. He robbed London of billions of pounds and held the capital to hostage for his own gain. Furthermore his own reaction to Thatcher's death can not be taken out of the equation. It showed his true nature and character as a contemptable human being. Your post also shows your own bias and prejudices. I imagine if someone was singlehandedly costing small Northern communities hundreds of millions, if not billions (ie. Lady Thatcher) you'd be up in arms.

Again, for starters, my assertion is that Thatcher had a positive effect on the north (and opinion polls show a plurality of northerners agree with me. The north consists of more than just coal mines. Who do you think got all the Japanese car giants to open up plants in the north? It wasn't Labour that's for sure). My defence of Thatcher is a different topic. My justification for criticism of Bob Crow is that he was a militant knob who striked without provacation and caused untold financial damage to the London economy, and he was a detestable human being with hypocritical and deplorable attitudes. Lady Thatcher is completely irrelevant to that, and I only keep defending her because you keep slagging her off.

The type of people who tend to vote in political polls don't tend to be the type of people who still hold thatcher in contempt. Where I am from, she is disliked far more than she is liked.

As a percentage of GDP, manufacturing declines massively under thatcher, that is undeniable.

I don't think many people would disagree with you that the mining industry needed reform, that's why Wilson closed many coal mines. He closed many coal mines that were deeply unprofitable or that were fast running out of coal, to limit the impact of job loss he subsidised early retirement improved severance packages, and the jobs market was better. Thatcher had a mass fire sale and cared nothing about the damage that it would cause. That is why she is hated. Who sacked more miners also depends on which years and governments you compare, if you take the century as a whole, the conservatives sacked far more.

Perhaps Scargill didn't believe the government as he knew that they were planning on closing 4 times the number of mines that they were admitting to? Of course the only source we have for this wonderful package is Walker himself, it must have been quite some plan though if he could offer ensure no compulsory redundancies while planning to close 80 pits.

She certainly did disallow such a thing. She gave the councils have the money from the sales but told them that it had to be used to pay off debt and not to build new houses. I have supported none of the governments that followed thatcher, and it's ironic of you to call my logic flawed beyond belief when you are asserting that an administration bears no responsibility for any harm it caused because another administration followed it. This underclass are the generation of jobless, skill-less and hopeless people, it's interesting to see that the right explicitly refuse to acknowledge they even exist until they want to blame them for all of societies problems.

I think you have proven yourself time and time again in this thread that you are completely oblivious to the problems of the north, so your assertion is meaningless. Thatcher is completely irrelevant to the topic you're right, and everyone, with the exception of the right wingers who are trying to use thatcher to justify gloating about Bob Crows death, recognise that.

There's obvious bias though.

My personally opinion is that celebrating anybody's death is wrong be it Scargill (who damaged more lives than Thatcher) or Thatcher. I consider those who did celebrate her death to be nasty, immature people (especially so for students alive today who were not directly affected by any of her actions).

Oh here we go, the old 'I don't like this poll so it's not credible' argument. Where I am from, she is liked far more than she is disliked. See how easy a game that is to play? Ever considered where you're from isn't an accurate representation of the entire country? There are 63 million spread out over some 94,000 square miles.

A criticism that holds as little credibility as the one about 'relative' poverty. Manufacturing has declined as a percentage of GDP in all major economies. It's called post-industrialisation. Services offer a far greater total economic potential. Manufacturing still grew in absolute nominal terms however, compared with a decline under New Labour. Why no hate for them?

So in other words, Thatcher and Wilson pretty wanted the exact same things, but you just hate Thatcher, because. Thatcher offered generous terms, Scargill rejected it. He wanted to bring down the government via industrial action. How is that Thatcher's fault? Of right, just because! Whether you want to be sceptical of such a thing is up to you, but sounds like the old 'ignore anything that doesn't fit into my own view' malarky.
And no, btw, considering almost 400,000 miners lost work under Harold Wilson alone, I'd wager no, the Tories didn't sack more than Labour.

Your logic is faulty; a problem isn't a problem until it arises. Government's have no binding powers on later administrations. She didn't force, not was it reasonable to forsee, the complete ineptitude and inaction of later governments. In the 1980's selling off a large surplus of council housing to pay down debts was a good thing to do.
The vast majority of jobless, skill-less and hopless people, the people who I imagine you are refering to, most of them weren't even frickin' alive during Thatcher's tenure. I can imagine you in fifty years time still blaming high youth unemployment, hell everything wrong with the country, on Thatcher.

I'm not oblivious to the problems to the north, I merely don't exaggerate them beyond belief and refuse to accept that Thatcher bashers are in a minority. And again, I can not reiterate this enough, people gloat about Bob Crows death because he was a militant knob who called strike after strike and was a hypocritical contemptable human being. But just ignore that point and simply parrot the same nonsense as before, whatever.

A sad loss. One of the last great British lefties.

Such a shame to hear about the passing of Bob Crow. He was a fantastic trade union leader and served his members well. He will be missed!