# BritDopers: In hindsight, what do you think of Thatcher's legacy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 9, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281 "2007-03-09T17:54:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/21 "2007-03-10T11:04:38Z")
I was at Uni from 1976 - 1979 studying Politics and Economics. The UK was an utter mess. In my view the Conservatives had three strands, Industry, the City and ‘the County’ The County is a bit hard to pin down, so I’ll leave it to other UK Dopers to attempt to describe it. The City is finance. Probably influenced by her husband, she had this strange idea that wealth was created by shuffling bits of paper. In my view she totally shafted Industry (manufacturing) and created a climate where people were proud of closing plants - while before then they were ashamed. We had massive unemployment which did eventually choke off wage inflation and did break the power of the Trades Unions, although it is likely that technology would have done that anyway. Interestingly she took on the legal profession, who had a nice little monopoly. The Falklands was probably an Intelligence screw up, while I would have willingly handed the islands over to Argentina if they had asked politely, not to have reacted to armed aggression would have made the UK look pretty feeble. Personally I reckon the USA was watching with interest to see whether the senile old lion still had any teeth. Pinochet provided quite a lot of quiet assistance, it is difficult to pin down how much, but it is easy to see that we owed him a debt regardless of what he and his supporters had got up to. The Poll Tax was a major mistake, and it is one that is being repeated right now. Thatch correctly realized that local Councils were (and still are) virtually unanswerable to their electorate, and thought that making the bulk of the electorate bear the burden of local taxation would make the electorate force the Councils to toe the line. Of course this was and still is, misguided, the vast majority of Council revenue comes from central government, and their knee jerk reaction is to increase local taxes and blame it on central government. While I disliked many of Thatch’s policies, I do not like to think about what would have happened to the UK if she had not been elected. She could have done a lot better, but the alternative was not pleasant. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/22 "2007-03-10T15:06:05Z")
[QUOTE=FRDE] Pinochet provided quite a lot of quiet assistance, it is difficult to pin down how much, but it is easy to see that we owed him a debt regardless of what he and his supporters had got up to. [/QUOTE] Huh? ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/23 "2007-03-10T19:11:42Z")
[QUOTE=Cryptoderk] I’ve never really understood the left’s obsession with Pinochet either… [/QUOTE] Pinochet led a coup d’état deposing the democratically-elected Socialist President Salvador Allende… Pinochet implemented a series of security operations, with support from the United States and other South American military governments, in which around 3,000 suspected or known dissidents and leftists were killed, and (according to the Valech Report) around 30,000 more were tortured… At the time of his death in 2006, around 300 criminal charges in Chile were still pending against Pinochet for human rights abuses and embezzlement during his rule… > **[Augusto Pinochet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinochet)** > > Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte\[a\] (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean army officer and military dictator who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. He led the military junta that overthrew President Salvador Allende in 1973 and established his dictatorship. He was proclaimed President of Chile by the junta in 1974 and served until 1990, when he stepped down to pave the way for democratic elections. Throughout his presidency, thousands of political opponents were tortured or execute See, we ‘on the left’ like a Democratic Government. We don’t like military dictators who are mass murderers and torturers. You support such people, do you? :rolleyes: [QUOTE=Cryptoderk] Pinochet provided quite a lot of quiet assistance, it is difficult to pin down how much, but it is easy to see that we owed him a debt regardless of what he and his supporters had got up to. [/quote] Perhaps you’d like to congratulate Hitler on sorting out the German economy ‘regardless of what he and his supporters had got up to’? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/24 "2007-03-11T02:11:00Z")
I sometimes think that British Dopers lose control of their faculties when it comes to discussing Margaret Thatcher. For example, from the otherwise sane **glee** > [@glee](#): > > Most of the country are waiting for her to die so we can dance on her grave. Thatcher was merely the figurehead of a general rejection of statism/collectivism/socialism, which were seen to have led to Britain’s post-1945 economic decline. If she hadn’t happened, somebody else would have. It would just have taken five or ten more years than it did, and we would probably still be catching up to Germany and France, rather than being better off than both of them, as we are now. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/25 "2007-03-11T02:29:44Z")
[QUOTE=Usram] Thatcher was merely the figurehead of a general rejection of statism/collectivism/socialism, which were seen to have led to Britain’s post-1945 economic decline. If she hadn’t happened, somebody else would have. It would just have taken five or ten more years than it did, and we would probably still be catching up to Germany and France, rather than being better off than both of them, as we are now. [/QUOTE] I reckon the Conservatives did not know exactly what they had selected when they chose her - my understanding is that she was a bit of an accident. I would also be wary of stating that we are better off than France and Germany, our GDP is grossly inflated by an overvalued pound and a quick trip to France or Germany would leave most UK residents thinking that they are doing very nicely. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/26 "2007-03-11T02:50:47Z")
The pound wouldn’t be valued higher than the Euro if our economy wasn’t considered a better bet than that of France or Germany. Market values of currencies don’t lie. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/27 "2007-03-11T03:29:36Z")
[QUOTE=Usram] The pound wouldn’t be valued higher than the Euro if our economy wasn’t considered a better bet than that of France or Germany. Market values of currencies don’t lie. [/QUOTE] Don’t bet on it. There is an underlying ‘commodity’ exchange rate, but that can be swamped by capital flows and by speculation. I would be surprized if we do not see a dramatic fall in the £ in the next 12 months. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/28 "2007-03-11T19:07:28Z")
[QUOTE=Usram] The pound wouldn’t be valued higher than the Euro if our economy wasn’t considered a better bet than that of France or Germany. Market values of currencies don’t lie. [/QUOTE] Eh? For all of history to date, a pound has been worth more than a U.S. dollar. That does not mean the pound has always been a stronger currency. After all, the yen is pretty strong. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/29 "2007-03-11T19:09:08Z")
[QUOTE=Usram] Thatcher was merely the figurehead of a general rejection of statism/collectivism/socialism, which were seen to have led to Britain’s post-1945 economic decline. [/QUOTE] “Were seen to” – but, in hindsight, did they? ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/30 "2007-03-11T19:13:51Z")
> [@](#): > > Most of the country are waiting for her to die so we can dance on her grave. Presumably these are a different set of people than those that voted her in three times, then? ---
**Author:** ![BunnyTVS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BunnyTVS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BunnyTVS)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/31 "2007-03-11T19:58:31Z")
[QUOTE=Dominic Mulligan] Presumably these are a different set of people than those that voted her in three times, then? [/QUOTE] Tecnically yes. You’ve got to remember that less than half of votes cast in [almost every general election since 1885](http://www.election.demon.co.uk/geresults.html), were for the overall winning party. Also those who did vote for a certain party, may still not support their respective candidate for PM. For those of you outside the UK, in a general election you are actually voting for your local Member of Parliament (MP). The Prime Minister is the leader of whichever party has MPs’ bums on more than half of the total seats in the House of Commons (646 total seats as of 2005). So really in a gerneral election you have to weigh up 3 main factors before you vote. 1. Which one of the three party leaders will do the best job as PM 2. Which party will do the best job of running the country 3. Which of the local candidates will do the best job representing his constituents in Parliament. 4. Why bother voting, they’re all a bunch of deceitfull bastiches. [83 results](http://www.election.demon.co.uk/ge1983.html) [87 results](http://www.election.demon.co.uk/ge1987.html) [92 results](http://www.election.demon.co.uk/ge1992.html) ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2007, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/32 "2007-03-12T09:56:05Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I dunno. What has Blair done to bloat the civil service, run up debt or scuttle the economy? (We don’t hear much about that kind of thing over here, only about what he’s going to do WRT the Iraq War.) [/QUOTE] Bear in mind that some people live in a Dystopian Parallel Britain and due to sunspot activity lines sometimes get crossed. [And as for the econony](http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/facts/index27.aspx) > [@](#): > > Overall size > > The UK economy is the world’s fifth largest. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was almost US$2.2 trillion in 2005 (equivalent to around £1.16 trillion sterling at November 2006 prices). Only the economies of the US, Japan, Germany and China are larger [1]. > > The UK’s people are the world’s twelfth richest. The World Bank estimated the mean annual income for a British subject as US$37,600 (or £19,840 sterling at November 2006 prices) in 2006. The Channel Islands, which were listed separately by the World Bank, were ranked 14th richest and Eire tenth [2]. > > The UK was worth £6 trillion in July 2006. Housing represents over £3.5 trillion of these assets [3]. > Growth > > GDP in the UK grew by 2.3 per cent between 2000 and 2004. This is slightly above the average annual growth of the economy since 1945 of around 2.2 per cent. The service sector has shown the greatest growth in recent times [4]. > > Annual inflation between 2005/2006 was 1.9 per cent and was an average of 2.6 percent for the period 2001/2002 until 2005/2006. Total inflation from 2001/2002 until 200/2006 was 11.2 per cent. Looked at another way, £100 in 2001/2002 would be worth the equivalent of £111 in 2005/2006 [5]. > > Share prices of major companies dropped by 28 per cent over the period January 2000 to December 2005. The FTSE 100 index, which measures the share price of 100 of the largest and strongest-performing UK companies, dropped from 6,662.9 at the close on 4 January 2000 to 4,820.1 at the close on 30 December 2004 [6]. > Comparative performance > > The UK economy is one of the strongest in Europe. The average quarterly GDP growth for the UK is higher than the average for the European Union and for members of the ‘Eurozone’ over the period from 2000 to 2005 [7]. > > Sterling has performed relatively well against major currencies in recent years. As shown in Figure 1, Pound Sterling buys more Japanese Yen and the US Dollar in 2005 compared to 2000, but has grown weaker against the Euro [8]. (Currency values are based on the average of daily telegraphic transfer rates in London.) National deficit remains under the 3% European agreement and national debt, which the Daily Mail (a great paper for incontinent dog owners and border-line hysterics over a range of issues from Evil Immigrants to Pyramid-building aliens ) claims is 3 times higher, seems perfectly manageable. For civil service numbers - well it depends on what you count. All those extra doctors and nurses, police and security people? The country needs public administration and employees and unless you are an idealogue or a Daily Mail reader they are not intrinsically bad and the govt is slashing traditional big C big S civil service numbers following an efficiency review. I dislike this government for a host of reasons but they’ve done a pretty good job on the economy while trying to mend the social fabric Margeret ‘there’s no such thing as society’ Thatcher ripped apart. The UK today is living with the consequences of the barbaric and callous way she went about ‘reforming’ the economy through mass unemployment and the effective abandonment of entire regions. People might like to remeber what the country was like in the eighties, how Labour’s 1997 election victory was greeted along the lines of VE Day and why it has taken so long for the tories to regain their credibility before making out the UK is some sort of economic hell. ---
**Author:** ![Cryptoderk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cryptoderk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cryptoderk)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2007, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/33 "2007-03-12T14:21:35Z")
I didn’t say that second thing you quoted. I’m not trying to say Pinochet was a great guy, I’m just saying I don’t understand why he’s brought up so much more than the many other tin pot dictators of the time. My understanding is also that most of the death and torture (which are inexcusable and I supported his prosecution for crimes against humanity) were in the first stages of his revolution. (As an aside, Allende wasn’t democratically elected in a meaningful sense) ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2007, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/34 "2007-03-12T15:06:34Z")
[QUOTE=Cryptoderk] I didn’t say that second thing you quoted. I’m not trying to say Pinochet was a great guy, I’m just saying I don’t understand why he’s brought up so much more than the many other tin pot dictators of the time. My understanding is also that most of the death and torture (which are inexcusable and I supported his prosecution for crimes against humanity) were in the first stages of his revolution. (As an aside, Allende wasn’t democratically elected in a meaningful sense) [/QUOTE] He won the 1970 election in the democratic sense on a plurality of 36.2% and was chosen to be President by congress following normal precedent, despite US Track 1 trickery. And by ‘revolution’ you meant to say military coup d’etat. ---
**Author:** ![Cryptoderk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cryptoderk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cryptoderk)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2007, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/35 "2007-03-12T16:23:05Z")
Well yeah, and 43% voted in 1988 to keep Pinochet on… I’m not saying that his win was against the rules, I’m just saying that it wasn’t meaningfully democratic. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2007, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/36 "2007-03-12T23:23:25Z")
> [@Usram](#): > > Thatcher was merely the figurehead of a general rejection of statism … I misread that as Satanism. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2007, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/37 "2007-03-13T00:59:57Z")
[QUOTE=Peter Morris] I misread that as Satanism. [/QUOTE] Was Thatcher for that or against it? ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2007, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/38 "2007-03-13T01:44:45Z")
Well, if hatred of Thatcher = “general rejection of Satanism” … work it out ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2007, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/39 "2007-03-13T14:26:33Z")
[QUOTE=Usram] I sometimes think that British Dopers lose control of their faculties when it comes to discussing Margaret Thatcher. For example, from the otherwise sane **glee** Thatcher was merely the figurehead of a general rejection of statism/collectivism/socialism, which were seen to have led to Britain’s post-1945 economic decline. If she hadn’t happened, somebody else would have. It would just have taken five or ten more years than it did, and we would probably still be catching up to Germany and France, rather than being better off than both of them, as we are now. [/QUOTE] What a fine mixture of compliment and insult! 🙂 Thatcher was not just a figurehead of change. Tony Blair changed the Labour party dramatically and won lots of elections. But he will be remembered for Iraq. Take a look at Szlater’s excellent post early on in the thread. Thatcher was involved in corruption, economic stupidity, dividing society (unions, gays), unecessary war and shielding mass murderers. Her legacy caused her party to lose power for decades. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2007, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281/40 "2007-03-13T14:32:22Z")
[QUOTE=Dominic Mulligan] Presumably these are a different set of people than those that voted her in three times, then? [/QUOTE] Firstly, as BunnyTVS showed, Thatcher was elected not only by a minority of those who voted, but was not at all popular considering how many of the electorate didn’t even vote. Next she was dropped by her own party, who considered her a future disaster. Her economic policies were rapidly discarded and she is never mentioned by the current Conservative leadership. I got the line about people dancing on her grave from a TV comedian. The remark stopped the show because people were laughing so much. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-in-hindsight-what-do-you-think-of-thatchers-legacy/395281.md?page=3)