[quote]bluebrasil wrote:
[quote]FarmerBrett wrote:
Hey bb,
I’m not really sure how I feel about it to be honest. I was 10 when she came to power and 21 when she left and I wasn’t particularly interested in politics during that time, but I do remember when I saw all the miners strike coverage on the news that I came down firmly on the side of the police and government. Even then I could see that the trade unions were holding the country to ransom and forcing the miners who just wanted to work and support their families from working by intimidation.
It was clear to my 15 year old mind who the goodies and baddies were, especially after that innocent taxi driver was killed. I don’t know how I’d view it these days, a lot older and slightly wiser, probably take more of a middle ground, I’m getting softer as I age.
Living as I do now in a Welsh EX-mining village obviously no-one around here is going to shed any tears for her, but as I’ve said to friends whose fathers, uncles, grandfathers lost their jobs during that time, that due to foreign competition it was only a matter of time before the coal mining industry went the same way as the shipbuilding, car and steel industries. Add to that all the global warming, co2 emissions, green energy target bollocks we have today and the coal mining industry was always doomed, it might have had another 10 years at best I reckon before it became unprofitable and slowly fizzled out.
yup
I must agree with you that celebrating someone’s death is crass regardless of how you felt about them. Have you also noticed how the majority of people celebrating her death are too young to have lived under her rule anyway?, strange that. My niece lives in the Easton area of Bristol where they had the clashes with police over it, but they also happened to clash with the police over the plans for a new Tesco!! so it’s not so much a measure of public opinion or a well developed social conscience so much as the love of a good riot. A bunch of workshy layabouts, the lot of 'em.
yup
What I liked about her…
how she handled the Falklands,
the way she refused to negotiate with terrorists,
how she, Reagan and Gorbachev ended the Cold War,
the way she stuck to her guns and actually seemed to have policies and a vision (basically leadership),
that she achieved it all without a priveleged upbringing and
that she was married for 52 years.
yup
I wasn’t so keen on…
the privatisation of energy companies and public transport (boy are we paying for that right now),
the principle behind the right to buy your council house policy and
her part in making ice cream all whippy and airy like.
As for Scottish independence, I say “go for it” if that’s what the people want, but don’t expect to still be able to vote on matters that effect England. If we don’t have a say in your parliament you can’t have a say in ours. Fair’s fair.
As you know I have lots of militant Scottish in-laws (the Bannockburn brigade) and surprisingly they aren’t too keen on the idea.[/quote]
totally agree except that I grew up in a mining town so had to keep my opinions to myself
ah yes, I had forgotten about him- concrete block from a flyover
yup, agree with the rest plus never liked the “milk snatcher” thing
ah, the West Lothian Question- good old Tam
no-one here really wants independence, and the ones that do havent a clue how much it would cost us. better to keep sponging of the rest of the UK/being part of a bigger better entity [/quote]
I think it’s a case of the rest of the UK sponging off of London. I read something the other day that said if you divide the GDP of the UK by the population and call that figure 100%, then people in London earn 320% of their share of the GDP and the people in the Welsh valleys here earn less than 70. It went on to say that people here are poorer, relatively, when compared to the average (I don’t know how they worked it out) than peasants in Bulgaria, Romania and the Czech Republic or something like that.
