The Student Room Group

Why do people hate Margaret Thatcher so much?

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Bismarck
Which is odd given that Labour is continuing most of her policies.


In fact TB's first major politcal battle was getting the labour party to abandon its stance on nationalisation.

However, the labour government has put in a lot of investment into former mining communities that were effectively "strangled" during the eighties and early nineties.
Reply 21
spacedonkey
The gap between rich and poor widened greatly in the 80s, so that belief is grounded in fact.


Does the equality gap matter if poor peoples real incomes are still rising?
KizD
Does the equality gap matter if poor peoples real incomes are still rising?


Of course it does, the cost of living in the UK has risen very sharply, especially the cost of housing.
Reply 23
She seemed to have little understanding of basic human behaviour....her pursuit of monetarism forced roughly 3 million into unemployment through closures brought about by high interest rates. I think the figure is something like 25% of british manufacture was destroyed by 1982*.
The subsequent "Get on your bike" attitude launched by Norman Tebbit's 1981 outburst** seemed massively naive, dismissing the importance of community, and the costs and difficulty involved with migrating across the country to find work.

(*Source: Mastering Modern British History by Norman Lowe Section 33.1-2
** Quote "I grew up in the 1930s with an unemployed father. He did not riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he went on looking until he found it. " - Norman Tebbit in the aftermath of urban riots largely attributed to unemployment in Brixton and Handsworth.)
Reply 24
ChemistBoy
Of course it does, the cost of living in the UK has risen very sharply, especially the cost of housing.


Real incomes
Reply 25
ChemistBoy
In fact TB's first major politcal battle was getting the labour party to abandon its stance on nationalisation.

However, the labour government has put in a lot of investment into former mining communities that were effectively "strangled" during the eighties and early nineties.


Which is less a reversal of course than putting a bandaid on a missing limb hoping that the person it belongs to dies before they notice the sham.
Reply 26
ChemistBoy
I agree that the UK needed to move away from heavy industry in the 80's but the way the the Thatcher administration handled it was a complete disgrace.
Who would have handled it better? No, wait, who would have handled it at all?
KizD
Real incomes


Sorry didn't read that. Since 1997 there has been a drop in poverty levels so that is why people's real incomes are rising. The equality gap always matters though.
JonD
"How come there was a steady rise in poverty through-out thatcher's regime?" Because places of work can't usually be closed without their staff losing their jobs.


And absolutely no effort was made to tackle this issue throughout thatcher's regime. I do not consider it acceptable to thrust millions of people into poverty for a politcal ideal.


"I agree that the UK needed to move away from heavy industry in the 80's but the way the the Thatcher administration handled it was a complete disgrace" Who would have handled it better? No, wait, who would have handled it at all?


Well it's difficult to say looking at thatcher's contemporaries. However closing pits that were profitable to make a politcal point was totally unneccessary and damage whole communities that remained isolated from support until the Labour government of 1997 over a decade. A gradual scale-down would have been more appropriate and better for the UK in the long-term, but thatcher had to respond to Scargill's provarocation instead of putting the country's interests first.
For telling the miners that the world, much less the government, doesn't owe them a living for digging holes with no coal in them.
DanGrover
For telling the miners that the world, much less the government, doesn't owe them a living for digging holes with no coal in them.


Oh no, there was plenty of coal in the holes.
Reply 31
ChemistBoy
Well it's difficult to say looking at thatcher's contemporaries. However closing pits that were profitable to make a politcal point was totally unneccessary and damage whole communities that remained isolated from support until the Labour government of 1997 over a decade. A gradual scale-down would have been more appropriate and better for the UK in the long-term, but thatcher had to respond to Scargill's provarocation instead of putting the country's interests first.

Nobody else would have done it.
Which profitable pits were closed?
Could the country have afforded a "gradual scale-down"?
ChemistBoy
Oh no, there was plenty of coal in the holes.


Not really reason enough to spend more money getting that coal than to get it from cheaper sources, though.
JonD

Which profitable pits were closed?


Many, most notably the large pits in Nottinghamshire which were very profitable and had little to do with the 1984 strike at its outset.


Could the country have afforded a "gradual scale-down"?


Yes I believe it could have.
Reply 34
ChemistBoy
Many, most notably the large pits in Nottinghamshire which were very profitable and had little to do with the 1984 strike at its outset.

How do you know they were profitable?
JonD
How do you know they were profitable?


I have to rely on the academic work by Peter Bain at Strathclyde and some personal accounts.
Reply 36
ChemistBoy
I have to rely on the academic work by Peter Bain at Strathclyde and some personal accounts.

When was this academic work done? A government cannot act based on knowledge unavailable at the time.
JonD
When was this academic work done? A government cannot act based on knowledge unavailable at the time.


I'm quite sure the government knew about the profitability of its coal mines individually (or at least had access to that information) - not suprisingly it is quite hard to get hold of, Dr Bain obviously has tried very hard to get the information from that time and I trust him on that. My other sources (a former manager of Gedling Pit amongst them) assure me that the large pits in the area were turning profits at the time of the miners strike, hence why Notts miners were so reluctant to go out on strike. It's pure luck that I know someone who was in a management position at a pit and many former miners, or else I wouldn't really know what was going on, being from Lancashire and all.
Reply 38
ChemistBoy
I'm quite sure the government knew about the profitability of its coal mines individually (or at least had access to that information) - not suprisingly it is quite hard to get hold of, Dr Bain obviously has tried very hard to get the information from that time and I trust him on that. My other sources (a former manager of Gedling Pit amongst them) assure me that the large pits in the area were turning profits at the time of the miners strike, hence why Notts miners were so reluctant to go out on strike. It's pure luck that I know someone who was in a management position at a pit and many former miners, or else I wouldn't really know what was going on, being from Lancashire and all.

So why do you think they were closed then?
JonD
So why do you think they were closed then?


To make a political point - which is where the government crossed the line.

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