Margaret Thatcher

MT was insufferable in many ways and undoubtedly divisive; many contributors to this thread seem to think she was also a disaster for the country. Yet she won three general elections with majorities of 43, 144 and 102, all with a turnout of more than 70%. Do the Gransnetters in question think the electorate got it massively wrong three times? Or do they not believe in democracy?

I thnk the dockers were out on strike in 1974 in sympathy with the miners as you couldn't get sugar for live nor money. I was pregnant that year with dd2 and remember my mother gift wrapping 2lb of sugar for my birthday! I stopped taking sugar then and have never gone back to it.

I had my first baby in 1972 so was in the same boat as those saying how dreadful the 3 day week and 74 strike were. I don't remember it as a difficult time, honestly

I was raised by Telegraph-reading Tories and never questioned any of it until Margaret Thatcher came to power. Visiting London in 1989 I saw homeless youngsters begging for the first time and underwent a Road to Demascus conversion. I grew a social conscience overnight. Things are infinitely worse now with Cameron's war on the poor.

No grumppa, at first she came across as a breath of fresh air after a period of dire Labour governments, industrial strife, social chaos and bumbling old Ted Heath. This early appeal palled when her real agenda of privatisation, greed and selfishness was revealed and it was only the Falklands that saved her, together with the poor performance at the polls of Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock, and of course, the detested Poll Tax. In the end she was reviled and revered in equal quantity and that legacy has outlived her. It is a tragedy that Tony Blair's early promise vanished in a fog of war, spin and greed. Cameron and his mates are typical Thatcherite clones, and the prospect of George Osborne or Theresa May as possible future Tory leadership candidates can only be described as a powerful national emetic.

Are the two Eds our only hope then, papaoscar? They're not very convincing at the moment, although I expect they'll get the default votes.

Can they be any worse, Ana, than the present incumbents? But I agree, they'll have to smarten up their act substantially.

'But it wouldn't have been Arthur Scargill that you wanted to kill.'

No, you are right, that was later on! I wasn't too keen on him in the 80s though. Nothing to do with his policies, just - ugly man, annoying voice, always on tv and synonymous with darkness and cold!

I often wonder how Ann Widdecomb would have been as PM.

No, that was in the 1980's - I think my normally mild and gentle mother certainly made her feelings known about Scargill.

Ann Widdecombe [ hmm]

Am I too old to emigrate if the two Eds get in?

Ann Widdecombe was my form prefect in the 1st year!
I like her because she says what needs to be said much of the time and surely can't be worse than the erbs lining up at the moment.
Met Cameron once, very forgettable speech, I spent most of it wondering if he's had Botox........and it was sickening amusing watching all the people fawning over him afterwards. Inside of 10 Downing Street was worth seeing though!

Ann Widdecombe was my MP for years when I lived in Kent, and she was excellent. I can't say I agreed with everything she did, but she was lovely in person. I had always been a floating voter, mainly to annoy my father, but my best friend was chairman of the ladies' conservative association and used to bully persuade me forcefully to help out at various functions, so I got to meet her and also Gillian Shepherd (another very nice lady) quite a few times.

She came to my son's school a couple of years ago to give a talk, and I was astonished to find that she still remembered me. Now that's a real gift. I can't remember faces from last week, let alone last Century.

I mentioned all this purely because I remember being so happy when Margaret Thatcher first got in, because she was a woman. I was on the receiving end of so much sexism and financial discrimination at work, I thought she would go a long way to helping with it. I don't know if she had any impact on it at all, with hindsight she seemed to believe that it was everyone for themselves and we should all fight our own corner and I suspect that applied to the risk of women losing their jobs if they slapped their boss's face if he pinched their behind. Or told them repeatedly how wonderful all that long golden hair would look against a pillow...

Perhaps Anne Widdecombe has mellowed with the passing of time and has lightened up a bit after her stint on Strictly. However, I'm glad she was never prime minister.

She joined the Catholic Church in protest at the ordination of women, she has opposed gay marriage and abortion, she said that pregnant women prisoners should be shackled on their way to the labour ward, she has championed private healthcare insurance, she is always complaining about "militant secularism", etc. etc. Hardly a progressive voice.

They all tend to mellow and show their sweeter side once they leave politics and need a career in the media; except Thatcher who [as I've said before] made her money by selling cigarettes and Bliar who is well on his way to being the richest man in the universe in whichever way possible.

As I said - I didn't agree with all of her ideas and I agreed with none of the ones that you have mentioned! However I did always feel that she could have been made to see reason eventually. I shall never know.

And surely she was a trail-blazer - the first, and only so far, female British Prime Minister.

Whereas Hilary Mantel is just a female author - one of thousands. She may have won a prize or two but quite honestly she has to keep saying controversial things to keep herself in the media spotlight.

How come we find ourselves talking about MT at this festive season?

As an antidote?

Rosequartz, have you read Hilary Mantel's recent books? She is a superlatively skilled writer, surely Btitain's gteatest living author.
Margaret Thatcher's gender was irrelevant, she had no interest in feminism or women.

I'd agree with you apricot re Hilary Mantel's being if not our greatest living author, certainly in contention. I can't wait for the BBC dramatisation of Wolf Hall!

Of course rose hasn't read the books otherwise she'd be aware of the enormous amount of research and scholarship that went into them. The post was amazingly crass and ill informed

When I saw the dreadful chaos on the railways recently and all those people waiting on station platforms and in the open for trains that did not arrive, and not a sign of a government minister taking charge of the shambles, I thought what a scathing condemnation of Thatcher's values. Take away what the plebs already own and sell it back to them, make lots of money in the process for your mates, then walk away giving yourself a hearty pat on the back. Where was the Prime Minister or the Minister responsible for transport during the recent troubles? Sat on their big fat salaries doing nothing, as usual. Its not their fault, of course, its all been privatised. Remember that come the next election. Thank you Margaret!

Well said papapscar. Where was the government minister responsible for transport? Why weren't buses being put on for these people? Why were people left floundering with no support or information? Will the rail companies compensate for loss of earnings etc.?

The interesting thing about MT in particular, but all the people who now become political leaders is the way that we are "sold" their personality at the time. So MT was the voice for change who would make everything better, not the destructive, devisive, uncaring,elitist she was actually. Tony Blair was the great healer, not the self-promoting Machiavellian we now know. And now we have Cameron, pretending to be a man-of-the-people when he's really just a posh rich kid. We could stop voting for personality and actually look at their politics, but of course we don't. So one of the most dedicated socialists like Gordon Brown we reject because he can't smile properly for the camera. If we should look at anything from the Thatcher era we should look at how she was sold to the voters and learn our lesson.

I was reading this morning about Thatcher and Northern Ireland, because new papers have been released under the 30 year rule. Apparently she wanted to redraw the border so that Catholics in Northern Ireland would not be given too much land, because "they owed no allegiance to London but took the government's money."
Who does that remind you of?