Or - She saved a country from economic collapse and restored the UK to a position of being one of the world's most powerful voices.
The UK was as Greece is today in 1979. Hell there were three months of strikes by miners employed by the government in an unsustainable, unprofitable industry BEFORE she even took office.
And people still bitch that their kids didn't get free milk at school for lunch.
She didn't save the economy for the long term. She sold the family silver, squandered the resulting cash on tax cuts at the top, and left the same or worse structural problems in place.
Same thing is happening in Louisiana currently. Bobby Jindal is an extremely intelligent man, but he has sold his soul to the Republican Party because he wants to be president. He is selling everything that isn't nailed down to the floor in an effort to balance budgets, has been hellbent on destroying the state pension system, has turned down federal money which would help to fund social programs, and is now trying to implement a ridiculously regressive taxation system.
Who said anything about Democrats? It'd be nice if he simply didn't govern like a complete imbecile. He's raided the state's emergency funds and sold off state assets in order to prove that he can balance a budget, and has in effect put the state in a worse position than it was under the previous administration, and THAT'S saying something.
You do your argument a disservice in saying he sold his soul to the Republicans. I think it's more likely that his goal is using his "extreme intelligence" for the things he wants to do, and it just so happens the Republicans decided to fund his "startup" (so to speak).
> She is essentially the reason the UK still uses Pound sterling and not the Euro.
How so? She was out before Maastricht was signed. Germany wasn't even unified when she was around.
She lost her job because frankly she presided over 3 terms in which she completely lost her mind part-way through the second and into the third and had to be removed by her own party who saw the writing on the wall. We don't have a term limit in the UK (and perhaps we should), but I still remember the "We have become a grandmother" moment which may sound trivial but was a shining example of how mental she became towards the end.
I would say if anything the thing leading to her being stabbed in the back was the way the poll tax was handled. The conservatives knew that if pushed through it gave Labour a credible chance of re-election, and that her reactions to it rendered her completely uncontrollable. They needed someone that senior tories could manage, which is why we had John Major (who for my money was one of the best PM's we had in a long time).
Tony Blair was another 3-termer who lost it completely, again elected not because he was the best candidate but simply because the opposition weren't credible.
I completely agree with a two term limit, would be a great thing to have here although somehow someone would find a way around it.
She's certainly a big part of the reason for that. I think it's quite sad that the criticisms of Southern European countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, by Northern European countries about the state of their economics and politics were seen as nothing but xenophobia. Now that Germany is forced to bail them all out I think some of those critiques seem prescient. Of course no-one will ever know if the added weight of the UK in the currency block would have strengthened the whole project, but right now it's looking like it's on the verge of collapse. Not sure Britain will steer clear of any fallout though.
That being said she lost her job for a lot more than that. Poll tax was a much bigger social issue at the time. Her rough style had left her isolated in her own party and then she mishandled the challenges to her leadership at a crucial moment. The EU element was merely the trigger, the gun was already long in place.
She didn't sell coal mines. Her administration did however sell off as much oil as possible as fast as possible which cratered the market for oil so low it helped bankrupt the USSR at our expense. Now the UK is a net importer of oil ten times as expensive. Just one example of short term policies that allowed tax cuts to make us feel good while screwing the UK in the long term.
This is an overly simplistic understanding of modern global trade that is unfortunately common with many on the left of the spectrum.
No country is an island - the idea that you should produce everything, even when it makes little to no economic sense, is a product of a bygone era. Countries become richer overall by focusing on that which they are most efficient. For a country like the UK, that's knowledge and finance.
That's an overly simplistic understanding of the energy industry and upcoming resource crunches that is unfortunately common with people who have never worked in the energy industry. Knowledge and finance doesn't replace the UK's need for energy which costs ten times what we sold off our reserves for in the 1980s. On Hacker News of all places you must be aware of that key idiom "you cannee change the laws of Physics, Jim".
You realize you are talking about coal mines here correct?
If anything, Thatcher's move to get the government out of the coal business was prophetic in many more ways than she could have realized. The market for UK coal was non-existent: the resource was already dead to natural gas and oil.
The modernization strategies of Thatcher in the UK, Reagan in the US and even Mulroney in Canada were painful, but necessary requirements of countries that were trying to stay ahead of the curve.
No, I'm not talking about coal mines at all. I'm talking about oil. Read the thread. You mentioned coal mines, you keep referencing coal mines, incorrectly assuming that is what I was referring to in my comment, which I then clarified as being about oil. Your comment about mines though was wrong anyway. She didn't sell off coal mines. You're just wrong about that. She just shut them down, for a whole bunch of reasons. You appear so eager to argue the thread that you're not actually reading what's been said.
The UK's oil facilities are profitable. Ergo those jobs are secure.
The fact that the UK is a net importer of oil is irrelevant, given that this has more to do with high consumption than it does the industry itself.
One way or another the UK is going to pay for it's energy. The difference between the coal mines that Thatcher ditched and oil is that with the coal the UK was paying for that as well.
You're seriously going to have to cite your sources (objective, peer-reviewed only, please) instead of relying on anecdotal data presumably from your experience working in the sector.
Sources for what? What's the controversial point in dispute, I'm unclear?
Oil prices? The current oil price and the oil price during the time of peak oil production of the North Sea fields is publicly available and googleable as are flow rates and production stats.
..or the fact that the West used oil prices as a weapon against the Soviets? Again a much-written about topic that you can do your own research on quite easily.
TheOilDrum.com has a lot of good links to info. What is the point that you deem controversial and in need of sourcing?
Edit: Oh wait, I see the point that you need a source for, that was Scottie in Star Trek.
Second Edit: Now, if this isn't just a rhetorical point of yours and if you are seriously interested in the oil industry and trends regarding North Sea production, and the problems the UK is facing because it flipped from 4th largest exporter in the world to net importer a few years back, I'm happy to chat about it and do the leg work to find you some interesting reads on that, but this post probably isn't the place for it (though I'll be blogging from richarddjordan.com as soon as I get by github pages set up, and you can always ask me there). It's a fascinating topic, and one that often takes people by surprise when they learn some of the rather concerning details.
You do realize the UK shifted to oil and gas right? While these are more expensive to consumers - or rather, not subsidized through taxes to the same extent - the country actually makes a net profit from this industry.
The UK has most definitely not shifted away from a dependency on coal - ~30% of electricity generated in the UK is from coal (a lot less than it used to be, but no way is that going down to zero any time soon).
Slight tangent, but it's not unsurprising that Brits, especially older Brits, might hold this view btw (that everything should be produced at home if possible). Prior to the world wars, the UK imported many things from the empire; during the war (particularly WWI), and with the closure of the seaways, there was a massive food problem because home industry was so far behind the modern times as to be useless. This has lesson has somewhat echoed down the years.
Isolationism is a fool's game, even for countries like the United States, let alone tiny Great Britain.
I doubt very highly that the UK could even physically grow the food it requires, let alone maintain all other industries a modern country needs to not only function, but expand.
As an American, I don't think I can possibly understand the mentality of late 70's/early 80's Britain.
Is there a large percentage of the population in Britain that views WHAT she did as wrong or is it HOW she did it? I can understand the HOW, but why would people think that handouts aren't first hand-ins? Do people really believe there is a such thing as FREE milk?
When I hear about the mining strikes causing 3 day work weeks for the entire country, my thought is the same as any other sane individual: You, sir, are cancelled.
Britain was bankrupt after the Second World War (and in hock to the US for billions of dollars as well). As part of the attempt to rebuild the country a consensus was formed that the British state would step in and help people - hence the NHS, hence free school milk (as rickets was a very common disease). The unions had too much power for much of that time, but British industry also had terrible management practices so I would put both "sides" as bad as each other.
But while Thatcher shook things up and modernised many parts of the economy, she did it in an extremely divisive and many would say callous way - by devastating communities (especially in the north of England), destroying British manufacturing and putting unemployment up to 3 million (with millions more on disability, to make the jobless figures look better).
And these are legacies that still live on today - where I grew up there are still houses with barbed wire between neighbours who have lived there for years - as a result of the miner's strike. The north is still significantly poorer than the south, with much higher unemployment. The current government has just pushed through an extremely painful reform of disability allowance that appears to be punishing the genuinely disabled as much as the "skivers". And in Scotland she is so despised that you can't even say her name in public after shutting down much of the country's industry and taking North Sea oil revenue down south.
For the most part, nowadays, the question isn't whether the reforms were needed, but whether they had to be done so painfully and whether the benefits of those reforms were shared fairly. There is definitely a north-south divide within the country on that.
(American here - I have a basic grasp of the events, but I don't know the entire picture)
Was there a less painful way to do it? From what I've read, Britain was in some really serious trouble. I wouldn't say that they were at Greece's level of stagnation and financial trouble, but they were definitely hurting. People were going to get hurt regardless of what policy was implemented, and I think it was better to get it all done in one harsh, nasty blow than to slowly cut away the problems and create decades of uncertainty.
I honestly don't know about the economics of it. But threatening to leave a whole city (Liverpool) to rot was typical - and the fact that she is still sung about at football matches over 20 years after she was forced out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x...) shows how deep the scars run.
Some people think she was involved in a class war - I don't, I think she honestly believed in social mobility (unlike the current government which is rule by the rich for the rich). But she did devastate huge parts of the country and just regarded it as a fact, not even something to be regretted.
You should have a look at Liverpool now. It's doing really well for itself. We have a vibrant startup and technology scene, and the city center has been drastically transformed since 2008 when it was Capital Of Culture. I can honestly see it becoming the San Francisco of the UK.
| Do people really believe there is a such thing as FREE milk?
No. The milk was good systems thinking. In the post-war period it was cheaper to provide milk to help reduce the incidence of childhood malnutrition than pay for the resulting health problems.
People were happy to pay for it because it was cheaper than not paying for it. The miracle of the post-war government was that they managed to explain this to people. Perhaps wartime had trained people to believe in top-down authority and expect a decent outcome.
By the 1970s wealth and diets had improved and malnutrition was a smaller problem. Only children of the poorest and poorest educated had the problem. Thus it didn't make financial sense any more and the government cut it. But this really did hurt the poorest, most vulnerable people in the country. Political nightmare.
A similar argument applies for the mining and other industries. It was worth running unprofitable mines for a while since the cost to society of thousands of unemployed men would be too high. At some point this would change, as the employment opportunities widened with new technology. But holy hell this was a difficult period in British history.
Opinion is polarized: either Thatcher did a hard job with firmness and saved Britain, or she put economics (some say incorrect economics) over compassion and screwed the poorest to the benefit of rich and upper-middle class. Both of these things _could_ be true at the same time.
It's hard to explain now how passionately hated Thatcher was in popular culture back then. Imagine if the George Bush hating of the 2000's magnified until people rioted in the street and burned their own downtown area in their fury.
The UK was as Greece is today in 1979. Hell there were three months of strikes by miners employed by the government in an unsustainable, unprofitable industry BEFORE she even took office.
And people still bitch that their kids didn't get free milk at school for lunch.