If you put aside all political bias, could you please redpill me on Margaret Thatcher? The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Don't want a /pol/ discussion just the what she has done and set into place in the past.
>>1360892
She's a woman so she fucking sucks
>>1360892
>She was a politician
>OP does not want to discuss politics
Well I heard the Queen can do a great impression of her.
>>1360922
srsly
she was basically a reagan puppet, and firmly established the idea that the UK was US vassal.
Her goals were completed with Brexit. Which actually is kind of a good thing. Speeding up the dismantling of the British Empire will only be good for the world.
>>1360922
No what I meant, was lets not turn it into some /pol/ Germany vs Colored people, like almost every political discussion turns into nowadays.
>what were her key policies and aftermaths of said policies?
>any controversies?
>any funfacts that the average person doesn't know?
inb4 google. most websites either praise her as an apostle of God or as Satan's ass tickler. I just want facts of what shes done
>>1360917
Margaret Thatcher was a woman with the brain of a man.
>>1360892
She smashed the trade unions, which had been strangling British industry for years, but on the other hand she also sold off the nations assets to venture capitalists who RIP AND TEAR'd their way thru the economic foundations of Northern Britain, dooming Britain to it's current miserable existence reliant on the banking industries in London to keep it afloat. So very much a mixed bag, the unions definitely needed smashing but her other "reforms" did as much damage as the unions could have done.
>>1360978
She inherited the mess left by the socialists of the 60s and 70s, which was basically a situation where the Union leaders had more power than the prime minister. Britain had to borrow money from the IMF, the most of London wasa Victorian Slum, industry was not generating a profit, etc. We were poor as shit.
Since we had already borrowed far too much money, a Keynsian approach to the problem would not be possible so Austerity measures were the only solution.
>redpill me
>>>/pol/
The socialist meme failed to solve the oil crisis and unions in older heavy industry were striking leading to the winter of discontent. The conservative party needed to get away from its old school aristocratic image. They needed to capture votes from women and minorities and aspirational boomers trying to start their careers in the midst of an economic crisis.
Margaret Thatcher's father was a John Stuart Mill fan, a 19th century liberal and also an early feminist, from an early age she was basically raised to be le capitalist lady and this perfect storm arose at the peak of her political career.
>>1360922
Kek
she had some ok reforms - particularly weakening the unions was a good idea
but generally went too far and was generally far too callous, a lot of the issues of post-industrial britain that we have today (poor, disillusioned northern towns mainly) might not be there if they had stopped industry/mining more gradually and provided more support to said communities to retrain workers etc
unemployment was a huge issue for quite some time, and they didnt even keep inflation down particularly well, so that's a black mark
plus the incessant desire to privatise pretty much everything she could, without necessarily getting a good price or doing things with - once again - any real care
austerity generally doesn't work, but cutting some of the very high tax bands was probably good, and aiding the financial centres has brought a lot of money into the country (though again had other consequences in making london an unwieldy behemoth of a city)
how she ever thought a poll tax trialed in scotland would be a good idea is beyond me
>>1361118
More support for the north with respect to retraining was the main thing she lacked.
So long as you have an adequately expansionary monetary policy to prop up aggregate demand Austerity isn't that bad ( although if you remove funding from education/infrastructure it's a bad idea ).
Privatisation isn't necessarily bad (or good for that matter ) it's how you do it that matters. Case in point - Russia as had they given each person so many shares like in some other ex soviet countries they would have avoided the oligarchy they have today, but such is life when you concentrate power in the hands of a few, they don't want to give it up and botch the transition to a marker economy.
>>1361118
The idea that she sold everything off without thought is a meme. She was famously very nervous about the idea of selling lots of stuff when push came to shove and often needed the full support of her cabinet before doing it. Even then there were many things that she believed she could never privatise, for example the railways (later privatised by Major) and the NHS (something that Blair would spend most of his career trying to sell off by stealth). Even with what she did sell off I think we should remember how vastly the performances improved, BT, for example was infamously bad, most people relied on phone boxes, BT would only come to fit phones when they felt like they could be bothered, they were notoriously lacking in effort, after privatisation the service vastly improved, the amount of people with home phones rose dramatically.
When the UK inevitably dissolves, she will be seen as the beginning of the end.
>>1360892
She was typical female politician = put short term profit over long term plans.
>>1360918
>Replying seriously
You newfags are infinitely worse than what you try to criticize.
the death of english heavy industry and car production was already happening.
the socialist fuckwads did nothing but strike during the 70s.
UK entered into the Common Market(EU) in the 70s.
All Thatcher did was push the suicidal man off the bridge.
>>1360892
She started many of the problems now bemoaned by the Leave campaign.
>>1360917
>mfw
>>1360931
>Her goals were completed with Brexit
More like the opposite. She killed british manufacture and made Britain entirely codependent on the EU.
>i know best and only what i say is right
>argentina is a worthy opponent of the bongistani empire
>muh inflation
>anything remotely socialist is bad
>society don't real *tips fedora*
>reagan is our nigga
A masterful politician who easily won three elections.
Probably Britain's best post war prime minister.
The most fascinating thing for me is how resoundingly Thatcher has been rejected by feminists.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAqJTumYakE&t=3m36s
>>1361002
>National leader has less power than a group of people
>Bad
Oh shit that's right, this is about England. They're used to the whole Monarchy thing.
>>1362241
manufacture was killing it self. They entered the EU common market well before Thatcher.
>>1361225
yeah i wasn't saying privatisation is necessarily a bad idea, i wouldn't renationalise bt, british gas and many other things - but the rate at which she did these things was always going to cause a lot of problems
austerity has never really been a good idea if your economy in an economic downturn (not 100% of course, certain situations do call for it), although i agree monetary policy is often a much more important factor
>>1361336
there weren't really 'many' things she thought she couldn't privatise and some of those were simply for having some political awareness that she would be crucified if she even tried(such as the nhs), the rate of reform and privatisation was very quick
BT is the poster boy of a good effect of privatisation, the others are a much more grey area, but again really the criticism is the rate and the upheaval, gradual and more considered change is almost always a better course to take - though something that often does not happen with the nature of our democracy and election cycles
blair didnt really sell off the nhs, if anything it's an example were some more gradual privatisation has shown to be fine, plus it would hardly be a disaster if we eventually went to a german style system - blair's mistake was the pfi nonsense
>>1362806
they view individualism as a competing ideology
>>1360917
IMO Thatcher was prob the only woman leader in modern world who actually had some idea about what she was doing. She wasn't nicknamed "iron lady" for nothing.
>>1365400
Merkel?
Theresa May soon.
>>1365331
Individualism means that they can no longer blame others for all of those own problems.
Modern feminists ( I.e not the good ones like Mary Wollenstone craft and the suffragettes) seem to dislike powerful women as those women show how the modern feminists could have succeded in life and that it isn't stacked ( completely ) against them.
>>1365416
>Merkel?
No. She accidentally the whole continent.
>>1365331
>>1365433
>liberalism
>individualism
>>1365400
the scariest politicians are those who don't have doubt and are entirely set on one ideology, it's not a good thing generally
>>1365433
feminists disliked thatcher because she didn't do anything to improve women's rights and largely didn't want to work with other women
she seemed pretty happy with her role of being the only woman in the room and said things like 'a woman loses her power when she wears trousers'
Purely in regards to Northern Ireland, she contributed to the escalation of the conflict for at least another decade. Believing in nothing but a complete military victory over the complex socio-political issues there, she couldn't understand why she was so hated not only by the Catholics, The Irish Government but the Northern Irish Office of her government that was constantly trying to temper her unilateral decisions. Her intransigence in regards to the hunger strikes brought about a reigvigorated Republican movement not seen since Bloody Sunday. Her handling of the Anglo-Irish agreement paved the way for the future peace process but she nearly bungled it herself by single handedly ostrasising all sides of the negociation, her prime focus for the agreement for not even for political settlement but increased security cooperation along the border from the Irish republic to tackle the IRA. She remained embittered towards the end and the only words she ever uttered to Mandelson was upon Blairs victory; "don't trust the Irish, they're all liars". Even towards her death she couldn't understand why other people just wouldn't do what she wanted all the time
>>1365439
>Implying that wasn't part of her plan
4th Reich 4 (E)U
>>1365534
Part of me agrees with her but the pragmatic part of me disagrees.
>>1365571
No. Last couple of years she's been in some weird unstable and impredictable limbo between calm denialism and complete mental breakdown. She doesn't have any idea what the fuck is going on and how should she try to fix it.
>>1361118
>weakening the unions was a good idea
Because a lot of people making a decent living is bad but a tiny parasitical minority making fuck loads of profits for doing essentially nothing, is good...
>>1365654
She dun fucked my ira up
>>1365691
Note that union membership in the U.S. peaked in the mid-1970s.
>>1365784
You mean when there were race riots and when violent crime was at its highest recorded level in U.S. history? A real paradise there m8.
>>1365654
>tiny parasitical minority making fuck loads of profits for doing essentially nothing
Take it easy on the anti-semitic canards there, Adolf.
>>1365784
Yeah, post war kinda reset the economy and there was a huge surge of prosperity in the US. Then everything stagnated.
>>1365844
Don't try argue with socialist uniontards. They can't see things through any other lens than "muh class conflict"
>>1360892
stole me milk
