Margaret Thatcher

But if you post on a thread, surely you want an answer?

Is Greatnan the Whipping Boy of the Week? Certainly looks like it. Whose turn is it next week?

Are names drawn out of a hat, or is it strictly in alphabetical order?

It's getting boring, try someone else. No-one has got at me for at least a month. Should I worry that I am too bland and try making a few controversial assertions ?

Nanban if you really believe the only bad aspects of Thatcher were her appearance and her voice you lived in a different country from me. Her legacy certainly lives on in the character of the society she shaped. None of it very good from where I'm looking. Bored now.

St Greatnan ???

Well put Nanban .

Greatnan - perhaps you should appreciate the good things instead of constantly banging on about the bad. What motivates all your angst? Mrs T had two 'bad' aspects - her appearance and her voice. What she did was all good - lasting legacy - we still benefit financially from her negotiations with the EU. We are no longer held to ransom by unionists and strikes with their 'do this or else' strategies. Many thousands of people improved their lot in life by being able to buy their council houses rather than being trapped into paying rent for all their life. The Falkland Islanders live the lives they choose rather than being most likely thrown out of their homeland by an aggressive country.

To name just a few.

Feel free, jingle, several other people have!

But I don't think people have been writing about me as if I were a saint.

"Perhaps they were not aware of them"

Or got bored and moved on.

Message deleted by Gransnet for breaking our Talk Guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

It is significant that none of the people who were singing her praises last week have commented on her undoubtedly unpleasant traits.Perhaps they were not aware of them, but now they can read them in her own words.

Well, I'd quite like the fans of the woman and her policies to tell me just how things would be different if she was in power now. If they think things would be better they must have an idea of how differently the country would be being run.

Quote Tegan: What would she do then?

You really expect petrapan to work out, and list here, the policies Maggie would put in place today?!

You lot are so funny!

So she would have disciplined her mates in the banking business, Petrapan? I think not.

You obviously have not read my link, Petrapan. She achieved almost nothing of lasting value, but she did encourage the 'greed is good' philosophy. She was homophobic, snobbish and racist - would you like to see those attitudes promoted again?

What would she do then?

If Margaret Thatcher was around now, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in, she would show the namby pamby politicians how to do it.

Good Greatnan - there's something there for everyone!

Much of the legislation passed under Thatcher's premiership has been rescinded, but here is a good resume of her legacy from all points of view.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/08/what-did-margaret-thatcher-do-britain

Nellie difficulty in reading large blocks of text is a feature of some kinds of dyslexia. I realised this when I was coaching my GD for her GCSE English exam. Her dyslexia was not recognised at high school, but she got a great deal of help at 6th Form College and even more at Manchester Metropolitan University where dyslexia is recognised as a disability.

Sorry - off the subject of Thatcher. Perhaps everything - pro and con - has been said.

Has anyone had to correct exam papers written without punctuation or line spacing - it is a nightmare. I used to tell my students that if they made marking their paper as easy as possible it would put the marker in a good mood!

Elegran Oh no please dont say that! Carry on just as your are. It really makes a difference to me.

I realise now, that at work I often re formated other persons computer generated reports by increasing line spaceing and re paragraphed them etc, just so I could read them more easily. I never changed text, I hasten to add.
This has come as some sort of revelation! Until Elegran did that huge long piece I hadn't quite realised how bad this was for me.

Would 'trawling ' be better than 'trolling' in this context?

I am intrigued by Merlot's remark 'it is funny how quickly the left wing gloves come off'. Is anybody who posts anything less than a glowing tribute to Thatcher bound to be left wing? Does this have to be a left wing/right wing discussion?

I have been aware of the dangers of using unfamiliar words extracted at random from the dictionary or thesaurus ever since a foreign friend wrote a thank you letter after I had helped with a problem. She must have looked up pay back because she wrote, "I do not know how I shall ever take the revenge".

Nellie I probably over-paragraph stuff too, in some people's opinion.

I hesitate to make any more comments and annoy those who think it is pedantic and nitpicking, but it is much easier to get the meaning of a post if it is broken up into manageable chunks. It does not have to be all multi-syllable words and perfect spelling and punctuation to be readable,but spacing it out does help.

I remember a while ago (about six months? maybe more) someone suddenly appeared on a thread with very strong opinions, who posted a message about as long as my unpunctuated and rambling example. She clearly felt very strongly, but the post was wasted.

Some of it was straight from Wikipedia, but cut out in the middle of a sentence and dropped in at random. It was as though he/she had had a mind packed full of unconnected thoughts, and had used a thesaurus and Google to find posh words that seemed to convey them - except that nothing was quite right and the meaning was all mixed up. It would have been better to use words that came naturally.

When asked to make it clearer, he/she flew into a rage and said more or less that we were all too stupid to understand these higher thoughts.