Happy Margaret Thatcher Day ...

[dilli-theclaw]

Originally Posted by papa smurf

do you have any proof of this or is just another wild story from your infinite repertoire of made up facts ?

MMMmmm sounds like the Daily Mail.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

This lot have put in place policies that have led to people with heart conditions being sent back to work and dying, suicides with the worry and people with cancer being told to look for work- disgusting.

Should probably point out that, that statement is a load of balls .There is nothing wrong with working while having cancer or heart problems .My wife has a work colleague with cancer and my transport manager has bowel cancer .Both work from choice not need

Yup, she started the me, me, me greedy society that we still have today

You need to elaborate on this statement .

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by dilligaf1701

MMMmmm sounds like the Daily Mail.

i love the daily mail - facts are never a consideration when stirring up the masses

[dilli-theclaw]

Originally Posted by papa smurf

i love the daily mail - facts are never a consideration when stirring up the masses

See I used to hate it - but when I approach it with the knowledge that it's mostly horse crap it's an interesting read.

Like a few posters on here - although of course I can't say which ones as it's a secret

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by dilligaf1701

See I used to hate it - but when I approach it with the knowledge that it's mostly horse crap it's an interesting read.

Like a few posters on here - although of course I can't say which ones as it's a secret

Liberal application of deep heat to your tender areas at the next LAN party will release that secret.

Originally Posted by gba93

Not forgetting. of course, that it was her stance on "there is no such thing as society" which gave us the excesses and lack of responsibilty in the eighties which has led to the shower we have now and in that I include many current politicans, certain News Corp individuals and many of our esteemed "bankers"

Actually, what she said (in an interview with Woman's Own magazine) was

I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!� or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!� “I am homeless, the Government must house me!� and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation and it is, I think, one of the tragedies in which many of the benefits we give, which were meant to reassure people that if they were sick or ill there was a safety net and there was help, that many of the benefits which were meant to help people who were unfortunate—“It is all right. We joined together and we have these insurance schemes to look after it�. That was the objective, but somehow there are some people who have been manipulating the system and so some of those help and benefits that were meant to say to people: “All right, if you cannot get a job, you shall have a basic standard of living!� but when people come and say: “But what is the point of working? I can get as much on the dole!� You say: “Look� It is not from the dole. It is your neighbour who is supplying it and if you can earn your own living then really you have a duty to do it and you will feel very much better!�

There is also something else I should say to them: “If that does not give you a basic standard, you know, there are ways in which we top up the standard. You can get your housing benefit.�

But it went too far. If children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate. And the worst things we have in life, in my view, are where children who are a great privilege and a trust—they are the fundamental great trust, but they do not ask to come into the world, we bring them into the world, they are a miracle, there is nothing like the miracle of life—we have these little innocents and the worst crime in life is when those children, who would naturally have the right to look to their parents for help, for comfort, not only just for the food and shelter but for the time, for the understanding, turn round and not only is that help not forthcoming, but they get either neglect or worse than that, cruelty.

How do you set about teaching a child religion at school, God is like a father, and she thinks “like someone who has been cruel to them?� It is those children you cannot ... you just have to try to say they can only learn from school or we as their neighbour have to try in some way to compensate. This is why my foremost charity has always been the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, because over a century ago when it was started, it was hoped that the need for it would dwindle to nothing and over a hundred years later the need for it is greater, because we now realise that the great problems in life are not those of housing and food and standard of living. When we have got all of those, when we have got reasonable housing when you compare us with other countries, when you have got a reasonable standard of living and you have got no-one who is hungry or need be hungry, when you have got an education system that teaches everyone—not as good as we would wish—you are left with what? You are left with the problems of human nature, and a child who has not had what we and many of your readers would regard as their birthright—a good home—it is those that we have to get out and help, and you know, it is not only a question of money as everyone will tell you; not your background in society. It is a question of human nature and for those children it is difficult to say: “You are responsible for your behaviour!� because they just have not had a chance and so I think that is one of the biggest problems and I think it is the greatest sin.

Context is important, imho.

[gba93]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Actually, what she said (in an interview with Woman's Own magazine) was Context is important, imho.

It may be but that is not how the majority of people interpreted her words and she did nothing to discourage the "mis-intepretation" or its consequences

You appear to be stating it is not what she said that matters, but what people think she said....

And actually, contrary to what you state, she issued a clarification in the Times the following June.

[+Appendix: statement issued to Sunday Times, published 10 July 1988:]

All too often the ills of this country are passed off as those of society. Similarly, when action is required, society is called upon to act. But society as such does not exist except as a concept. Society is made up of people. It is people who have duties and beliefs and resolve. It is people who get thing, s done. [ Margaret Thatcher] She prefers to think in terms of the acts of individuals and families as the real sinews of society rather than of society as an abstract concept. Her approach to society reflects her fundamental belief in personal responsibility and choice. To leave things to ‘society’ is to run away from the real decisions, practical responsibility and effective action.”

[gba93]

Originally Posted by Hugh

You appear to be stating it is not what she said that matters, but what people think she said....

She was a politician - she knew what sound bites would be taken from her speech so she could get her real message across but still sound reasonable and sincere

Originally Posted by gba93

It may be but that is not how the majority of people interpreted her words and she did nothing to discourage the "mis-intepretation" or its consequences

Then those people are idiots .If a person is not capable of listening to what is said or reading what is written then that is their fault not the person who said it .You substituted what she really said for what you think she should have said based on your dislike for her

---------- Post added at 13:55 ---------- Previous post was at 13:53 ----------

Originally Posted by gba93

She was a politician - she knew what sound bites would be taken from her speech so she could get her real message across but still sound reasonable and sincere

or maybe she credited the general public with some intelligence ,enough to read properly ,obviously that was a big mistake

[dilli-theclaw]

Originally Posted by Sirius

Liberal application of deep heat to your tender areas at the next LAN party will release that secret.

That sounds like fun so I'm not sure it'd work :-)

Originally Posted by gba93

She was a politician - she knew what sound bites would be taken from her speech so she could get her real message across but still sound reasonable and sincere

There are none so blind as those that refuse to see. Or those that choose to believe the smears of the Left rather than the stated, clarified and endlessly-repeated truth from the author and her trusted spokespeople.

The whole 'destruction of society' line suited, in fact still suits, the Labour party because Thatcher's belief in the power of individuals acting together is at complete odds with the Left's belief that ultimately, only the State is capable of effecting change in society.

While Tony Blair was presenting himself as the natural heir of Margaret Thatcher, behind him Gordon Brown as chancellor quietly reconfigured the entire relationship between citizen and State, mostly by bribing the middle classes with free money, creating a whole client class who have arranged their family life and budget around State provision. Child Tax credit paid to families earning well over the national average? Trust funds paid out to babies born in every family from the super rich down to the super poor? And a seething, selfish sense of entitlement that permits well-off yummy mummies to complain about the withdrawal of child benefit on the basis that it's their right, plain and simple, without any moral compunction to engage with the arguments about affordability.

That is what happens when a government conspires to make people rely on 'society' to take care of them, and that is what Margaret Thatcher spoke out against.

Originally Posted by Chris

There are none so blind as those that refuse to see. Or those that choose to believe the smears of the Left rather than the stated, clarified and endlessly-repeated truth from the author and her trusted spokespeople.

The whole 'destruction of society' line suited, in fact still suits, the Labour party because Thatcher's belief in the power of individuals acting together is at complete odds with the Left's belief that ultimately, only the State is capable of effecting change in society.

While Tony Blair was presenting himself as the natural heir of Margaret Thatcher, behind him Gordon Brown as chancellor quietly reconfigured the entire relationship between citizen and State, mostly by bribing the middle classes with free money, creating a whole client class who have arranged their family life and budget around State provision. Child Tax credit paid to families earning well over the national average? Trust funds paid out to babies born in every family from the super rich down to the super poor? And a seething, selfish sense of entitlement that permits well-off yummy mummies to complain about the withdrawal of child benefit on the basis that it's their right, plain and simple, without any moral compunction to engage with the arguments about affordability.

That is what happens when a government conspires to make people rely on 'society' to take care of them, and that is what Margaret Thatcher spoke out against.

[gba93]

Originally Posted by Chris

There are none so blind as those that refuse to see. Or those that choose to believe the smears of the Left rather than the stated, clarified and endlessly-repeated truth from the author and her trusted spokespeople.

I'm not left (blind or otherwise) nor do I unquestionly believe what anybody (especially a politician) tells me is right. I only have to look at the excesses of the eighties, and what they led to, to show me the reality of those policies but as it appears we are never going to agree please carry on believing the stated, clarified and endlessly-repeated "truth" from the author and her trusted (??) spokespeople.

Originally Posted by gba93

I'm not left (blind or otherwise) nor do I unquestionly believe what anybody (especially a politician) tells me is right. I only have to look at the excesses of the eighties, and what they led to, to show me the reality of those policies but as it appears we are never going to agree please carry on believing the stated, clarified and endlessly-repeated "truth" from the author and her trusted (??) spokespeople.

What excesses ? i remember the 80's and all i remember is this country being dragged kicking and screaming from a backward, ill run ,union led socialist eutopia into a progressive and prosperous nation by a leader who actually believed unfailingly in her policies and stuck to them .If any one of the muppets in charge now had even an ounce of her character they would get my vote