Questions on the ailing Margaret Thatcher

[Truth_Seeker]

*Originally posted by casdave *
**I wish you would aknowledge that the prime cause of the UK’s economic woes was not the unions at all, it was the sudden price hikes in oil that did the real damage.
The first was in 1973 and oil prices rose by 130%, which led to inflation, higher interest rates, and in turn higher wage claims.

**
I need acknowledge no such thing. Oil price shocks put stress on the UK economy and revealed the rigidity, nay, the rigor mortis of its labour market. This made it difficult or impossible for many segments to adapt to the new economic reality. Take the car industry, for example. Oil prices double so some of the inputs to car making are more expensive, thereby making it more expensive to produce cars. Car price goes up. People aren’t buying as many cars because the car price just went up and because petrol prices have doubled. Car manufacturer can’t cut costs since it can’t lay-off any workers (as per your own example!) Car price goes up again. Translation: rigidity in the labour market was a key component in the 25+% inflation the UK enjoyed during parts of the 70s.

** . . .our industry was badly under-invested in high technology production methods . . .

**
Care to guess why? Could it be, perhaps, that the key advantage of “high technology production methods” is that they allow better products to be produced with less labour input, i.e. fewer workers?

**The miners brought down two democratically elected governments, and they had to be broken, no question and it is the one thing that MT should be credited with, and it is a worthy achievement too.

**
Well, this was my original point. I’m glad you agree. My secondary point was simply that, while controversail and polarizing, she simply wasn’t universally loathed. I would have thought that this would have been obvious from the string of election victories the Conservatives put together, despite the fact that a vocal minority firmly believe that she was the demon prime minister from hell, roaming the countryside seeking whom she might devour.

**If she had stated in 1979 in her election manifesto that she was going to create unemployment levels as high as those during the great deprssion of the '30’s, that manufacturing was going to be left to die, that the railways were going to be shattered and that these would lead to such hatred of her and the English parliament that it could lead to Wales and Scotland demanding their own parliaments(ie the breakup of the Union) do you seriously think she would have even remained leader,let alone be elected as prime minister ?

**
I guess so, since she was. She was re-elected in 1983 and 1987 and the Conservatives were returned to power whilst advocating her same general policies in 1992.

**MT fans always use the argument that things would have been so much worse, but when one looks at our competitors did you see their economies implode ?

**
First, I’m not an “MT fan,” as you put it. Nor am I a rabid, hate-filled MT detractor like Tony Parsons. Are you suggesting that the economic situation in, for example, Germany was equivalent to that in the UK in 1979? Are you suggesting that the German trade unions were anywhere near as militant?

**Nope, thought not, there is none and there can never be definative proof of what would have occurred without MT.

** This is just weird. Yes, you’re quite right. Suppose, instead of breaking the unions, the government just caved in and gave them whatever they asked for. Massive pay rises, iron-clad guarantees against lay offs, increased public spending, artificial price caps to control inflation, etc., etc… How can we possibly say what would have happened under those conditions? It would all be just wild speculation! casdave, there’s an old saying, “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong . . . but that’s the way to bet.” We have a pretty good idea what would have happend if the unions had won.

**It’s a fun game this, we might have still have had coal, steel, shipbuilding, car-making, industries, the nation might enjoy the profits of the electricity, telecoms, gas industries which used to make a healthy return to government finance, now it all goes to investors all over the world.

**
Yes! And buggy whip manufacturers and gas-light factories, too! You have yet to expalin why it’s such a good thing for an advanced economy to maintain dirty industries that it’s not competitive at. As for the idea that all these companies would be gushing money into the public fisk, well, that’s some pretty wild speculation, right there. The majority of government-run companies anywhere are inefficient and usually a drain on ratepayers in terms of high prices, bad service and direct transfers of public money to keep them afloat.

**Instead we have terrible public services, we have privatised companies raising their prices beyond the rate of inflation, we have call centres, we have leisure parks on the sites of former industries, we have the highest fuel, gas and electricity prices around, we have higher interest rates than all our major competitors. **

We have lower unemployment. We have a more flexible, dynamic economy. We have lower inflation. We have a budget surplus. Good heavens, man! Would you really change places with Italy if you could?

[december]

*Originally posted by glee *
**It’s simple - Thatcher was widely detested at the time she was Prime Minister. These stories simply reflect that. **

Originally posted by jjimm
**This would make sense if the majority of the media had a liberal tilt during the Thatcher era…

That someone wrote a hate-filled piece in an anti-Thatcher tabloid is, I think, a reflection of the opinions of the readership, rather than a factor that influenced the electorate in any way.
**

Regarding jjimm’s first comment, what I actually had in mind was that unfair press coverage since Thatcher left office contributed to her current reputation. After all, younger people don’t remember her actual performance; all they know is what they read about it.

I think of the British as being well-mannered – more so than Americans. Certainly I’ve been treated with great politeness when I’ve been in the UK.

Here in the US, one doesn’t say mean things about those who die. And one hesitates to say mean things about those who retire, especially when retirement is due to ill-health. The cited screeds go far beyond anything I’ve ever seen in this country. Richard Nixon didn’t get articles this mean.

You both consider these quotes to be reflections of public opinion, rather than the media affecting public opinion. I think it would be difficult to top those articles and letters for mean-spiritedness.

A challenge for the two of you:

Please write a letter or a newspaper article that you think* would** tend to turn public opinion against Mrs. T.*

[casdave]

German trade unions were anywhere near as militant?

Actually the German(and the French) trade unions are notoriously militant, and this has raised labour costs in their industry.They have much better pensions that we have, more holidays, a shorter working week(and this is limited by law these days) better provision for work breaks such as child raising, in fact the only competitive edge we had in the UK was that we had worse pay and conditions in these and every other facet of employment contracts.

…and yet, despite all these added costs whose economy has done the best over the last 30 years ?

To get around this the Germans have invested in more automated production plant and this makes them more productive.

The counter to this will be that current German levels of unemployement are higher than ours, but that is to ignore that fact that they are completely rebuilding the entire economy of the former East Germany whose industry was 40 or 50 years behind the rest of the world and most of their unemployment is in that part of the country.

We could quite easily have reduced our manning levels in UK industry, all we had to do was simply not replace retiring workers,

Why should we make things when our competitors can do the same cheaper ?
Well our competitors, despite similar costs do it cheaper than we do because their workers are more productive.

It boils down to balance of payments deficits, if you have to import everything you end up with higher interest rates to finance it, and guess what, our interest rates are higher than everyone elses.

Besides if other nations can make a profit out of such goods then it seems a condemnation of British industry from the highest levels to the lowest that we cannot do the same.

I cannot imagine you are saying that Britons are intrinsically less productive than other workers in other nations, you only need look at the Nissan car plant near Sunderland to realise that is not the case.
They work in a factory specifically designed for modern car production, the British car industry was grossly under-invested, and when you consider that British car prices have been the highest in Europe by as much as 50% you would think that there was enough profit to justify the investment.

Foreign companies of all types have come over to the UK, using their own management and modern plant and made money, I personally have worked in British factories where the majority of machine tools are in excess of 50 years old, and in the case of Woodhead Springs, much of that plant was 150 years old !(yes really, absolutely incredible but true)

The classic example of poor leadership in British industry is that of the motorcycle industry, at one time we made more machines than the rest of the world put together, but we didn’t invest in design, we just rehashed existing ones, we didn’t find out what the consumer wanted, we didn’t improve our quality, reliability or reduce prices, we just kept on using the same old clapped out production machinery.

Investment means looking at the longer term in industry and when that industry was making good money throught the '60’s the bosses did not see the need to reinvest some of it, they thought they were in an unassailable position, we all know how it turned out.

You could say the same for much of engineering, our management was simply not up to it, they were not up to dealing with their workforce, who then took and kept on taking.

To just blame the unions is to look at just one aspect of British industry in isolation, oh its neat and easy, but I say that it is simplistic, the unions evolved in a certain way and were part of the problem, but the Germans have had union members who are represented on the highest levels of their companies, German management saw the need to include their staff at all levels in decisionmaking.

Contrast that with the way UK industry still operates, it is still a ‘them and us’ situation and it need imaginative management to understand that every person working in a company has to feel that their contribution is important and how that can be made.

Now if you were to say that along with busting the unions that MT ennervated UK management then that would have been a great achievment, but that is not what happened, the unions were broken but we had the same idiots running the companies.

What has happened is that foreign owned companies have come into the UK, seen our lower labour costs and moved in, but they use their modern mangement methods, UK bosses still have not learned how to include all their staff, there is still a divide(I don’t want to use the term class war but there is some sort of barrier there)

Those foreign owned companies then make their profits and take most of it home with them, but at least it employs UK workers.

Here in the US, one doesn’t say mean things about those who die. And one hesitates to say mean things about those who retire, especially when retirement is due to ill-health.

Surely that is the best time.

MT kicked the British workforce when it was down, now its her turn, I hope that she doesn’t die quickly, slowly and painfully will do well enough.(to quote one of her senior officials “unemployment is a price well worth paying”)

I hope she lives long enough to see her talentless son go bankrupt, since his only ability in life was to make money from having a direct line to MT.

[december]

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by casdave *Surely that is the best time. [When the person being vilified has been forced to retire from public life due to ill-health.]
/QUOTE]Right. Then the person can’t respond or defend herself.:wally

[jjimm]

Originally posted by december
I think of the British as being well-mannered – more so than Americans <snip> Here in the US, one doesn’t say mean things about those who die.

We may have the manners, but we’re really rude. We can be really mean about dead people (or the undead, in the case of Mrs. T).

[glee]

*Originally posted by december *
You both consider these quotes to be reflections of public opinion, rather than the media affecting public opinion. I think it would be difficult to top those articles and letters for mean-spiritedness.

And those sentences are connected how?
Yes, there is a lot of bitterness about Thatcher (not media-inspired).
As a separate point, perhaps it is unfair to censure people when they retire (or die).
But you claimed earlier ‘The impression that she’s widely loathed comes from media bias, as usual.’
Well the truth is that she was (and is) so loathed that people here in the UK will forgo their usual politeness to criticise her - even now, years after she was Prime Minister.

[december]

*Originally posted by glee *
**
Well the truth is that she was (and is) so loathed that people here in the UK will forgo their usual politeness to criticise her - even now, years after she was Prime Minister. **

You have virtually defined media bias out of existence. I found two media sources that printed incredibly mean pieces about MT. No poster has accepted the challenge of writing something even meaner. I think it’s safe fo assume that over the years there have been many other equally mean media reports on Mrs. T.

You respond that all these media reports are not bias; they simply reflect the beliefs of the general populace. That’s conceivable, but you have merely asserted it.

So, the ball is now in your court, to prove that the average Brit feels as negative toward MT as my two media cites. Otherwise, I will continue to believe that the media played a role in tarring her reputation.

[Truth_Seeker]

C’mon casdave, at this point you’re just whinging. German trade unions are about as militant as the RAC. In any event, your basic premise just doesn’t wash. You know perfectly well that German trade unions – and German workers, for that matter – have a completely different approach than do UK unions. You say so yourself.

** To just blame the unions is to look at just one aspect of British industry in isolation, oh its neat and easy, but I say that it is simplistic, the unions evolved in a certain way and were part of the problem, but the Germans have had union members who are represented on the highest levels of their companies, German management saw the need to include their staff at all levels in decisionmaking.

Contrast that with the way UK industry still operates, it is still a ‘them and us’ situation and it need imaginative management to understand that every person working in a company has to feel that their contribution is important and how that can be made.

**
I suppose you’d like to blame this all on Thatcher and the Conservatives, despite the fact that, in the 15 years prior to 1979, Labour ran the government for 11 years.

In point of fact, Labour and the unions managed to make a complete pig’s breakfast of the UK economy in the years leading up to 1979. Your basic complaint seems to boil down to “But Thatcher should have been nicer. She wasn’t sensitive and caring!” No, perhaps she wasn’t. But this is like complaining about the colour scheme for the life boats on the Titanic. Why don’t you direct a little of your anger at the muddle-headed clowns who screwed everything up in the first place?

Many people do hate Thatcher, no question about it. But you really can’t go by volume and vociferousness. Yes, people like Tony Parsons hate Thatcher with an abiding, all-consuming passion that usually suggests the need for therapy. This, however, is the bitterness of defeat, not the judgement of history.

[casdave]

No poster has accepted the challenge of writing something even meaner.

This poster has made a point of holding back, this is GD, not the pit.

I was thinking of making a very long post but it would be just a list of dislikes and would soon turn the readers eyes all glassy and staring, no point really.

The media have been very mild, it was her slavish little lapdog for many a year.

[glee]

*Originally posted by december *
I found two media sources that printed incredibly mean pieces about MT. No poster has accepted the challenge of writing something even meaner. I think it’s safe fo assume that over the years there have been many other equally mean media reports on Mrs. T.

Again your lack of logic shows up.
Why is there a connection between your two press clippings and what British posters type on the American SDMB in Great Debates?
Anyway, as casdave wrote, this is not the Pit.

You can assume all you want about media reports. Why not do some research on reports, particularly in the following newspapers: Telegraph, Sun, Mail, Express.
You will find unstinting praise and support for Thatcher.

*Originally posted by december *
So, the ball is now in your court, to prove that the average Brit feels as negative toward MT as my two media cites. Otherwise, I will continue to believe that the media played a role in tarring her reputation.

One of your cites was a collection of critical letters from readers! Do you think the editor is making them up?! A letter to the editor is public opinion, not media bias.

Decades after Thatcher left power, Brits are writing to newspapers to complain about her. Doesn’t that prove how many people feel?

[december]

*Originally posted by glee *
**You can assume all you want about media reports. Why not do some research on reports, particularly in the following newspapers: Telegraph, Sun, Mail, Express.
You will find unstinting praise and support for Thatcher.

I will take your word for this.

One of your cites was a collection of critical letters from readers! Do you think the editor is making them up?! A letter to the editor is public opinion, not media bias.

Decades after Thatcher left power, Brits are writing to newspapers to complain about her. Doesn’t that prove how many people feel?

Good point, glee.

The article I quoted pointed out that the bias (if any) was the newspapers decision to publish these letters at this particular time. It would be nice to know whether these were representative of a large number of critical letters or whether these were chosen because they were the most criticial.

BTW it seems that, as Mark Twain once said, rumors of her death have been exaggerated. She was pretty chipper at a book signing, where she said, “I’m fighting fit!” http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_1909000/1909151.stm