Thatcher - WHAT DID SHE DO THAT WAS SO BAD??

Question

Hi. Before you answer I'm labour, so I'm not an annoying troll trying to wind you up.

I'm only 15, so I dont know much about politics... but what did Thatcher do in her term in a nutshell? What were the main things, and WHY do people hate her for them? I just want to know more about her.

Thanks a lot ppl - not too much jargon please!!!

Answer 1

Poll Tax.
15% inflation.
4 million unemployed.
Record home repossessions.
Decimation of heavy industry.
Sale of nationalised industries.

Millions of people suffered under her leadership from being unemployed to being thrown out of their homes by the mortgage companies. People did not know from week to the next whether they would have a job or not. Nationalised Industries like British Steel were sold off to foreign companies who then closed them down to allow them to bring in cheaper goods from their factories abroad.

She was also the driving force behind the modern culture of ME,ME,ME. In other words - put oneself first, second and last to the detriment of all others.

Answer 2

She dismantled the Public Sector and social infrastructure of the country piece by piece and no longer were young people trained to replace those who were coming up to retirement.
She summed up her policy in one simple sentence: there is no such thing as society.
The important point to remember is that from 1945 until 1979 every government regardless of their colour had observed a con census policy to leave the public sector and social infrastructure intact.
What is left of our industry is in foreign hands and a lot of our service sector is in American ownership e.g. Mc Donald's,
K F C, Burger King, Asda and far too many to mention here.
Is it then any wonder that there is truth in the saying: when America sneezes Britain catches a cold.
During the last week this has affected the financial sector with Northern Rock being the casualty.
Her party had 18 years continuous government and the policy was followed ruthlessly by John Major and also by Tony Blair which has resulted in millions of people still out of work.
The worst crime of all is to bring thousands of people into the country for cheap labour having misled them into thinking they would be on a high wage.
What will happen next is any ones guess, but history has an uncanny way of repeating itself.
Take a look at Wikipedia: British and German history from 1914 to to 1945.

Answer 3

She was bad because she made labour look awful. Basically Maggie made all public services private and got rid of unions. I.e. private sector beliefs, you work, you get your money, we will look after you but if don't get on with it take a hike. Maggie stopped the unions who were to powerful at the time. Basically a union reprsented THE PEOPLE so to speak in an industry & because the unions had so much power they could stop the infrastructure of the country (lighting, railroads etc.) She took that power back by making Laws to break them up. Why she is hated so much is because people blame her for killing UK industry. But it was dieing anyway & she got out before it was killed off so in reality she made g8 economic decisions 4 the UK & pushed us into a services / quartrative economy which 4 the UK is a natural progression as we have no raw materials & lost the Empire. Also she held onto power too long. Politics is as much a wheel as anything in this life. Whereby at the end of her office people got fed up with her & needed more a social approach. Hence because Maggie held on fighting the resentment and hatred grew before the inevitablle loss of office.

Answer 4

Not too much jargon?
As you likely already know , the main political groups are just two, Labour and Maggie's bunch!
Maggie's bunch, the conservatives , are supported by the 'employers' of the country, their aim is to make as much profit as they can from the countries workers.
The countries workers, most of them , and the trade union movement support the Labour party who are meant to represent us workers.
What did she do that was so bad?
She only did what the Conservative party was set up to do, destroy the workers representation, and in the process lost thousands of working class folk the means of making a living.
I would dearly love to give you loads more 'jargon' to prove my case!
I cant resist one more bit, the conservative party have always been against this minimum wage, if they could employ us all for peanuts, they would, the employers are not in buisness to find us work, they are there to make as much profit as they possibly can!

Answer 5

In my view PM Margaret Thatcher is one of the very best Prime ministers this country has ever had! . She stands head and shoulder above any of those who have been prime minister since!.

Most people will remember the Falklands war in which PM Thatcher sent troops to fight off and win back those lonely isle so far away!.

Other people will remember her for the way in which when education minister she took away the right to free school milk for every child.

Others will remember her for a really contentious issue called the pole tax. that single issue really did cause massive political unrest and malcontent for ordinary tax payers.

Also during the PM Thatchers time at 10 downing street, the country underwent a cede change in how business was carried out in particular the big bang changes to the London stock exchange which made London the leading financial capitol of the world due to the new deregulation and also the ideology "thatcherisum" which really meant crudely that Public institutions once run and owned by the government were sold off. for massive amounts of money "BT"-" British Gas" - "British Aero Space" and many more to become privately owned !.

Finally the one thing that she and her government did was to bash the unions, in particular the mining union led by Arthur scargill who's intransigence caused massive disruption to the country. Margaret Thatcher government did away with selfish union bargaining rights closed mines and put thousands of men on the scrap heap there were riots in which several men died and the police came close to loosing control.. (do a search on miners strike and read about the trouble that its caused).

One last thing to look up would be the day the IRA tried to kill PM Thatcher, by blowing up an hotel in Brighton where the conservative party conference was taking place. She was shaken by the explosion, others were killed and maimed..

Finally after years of party unrest PM Thatcher was deposed as prime minister and replaced by Jon major who led the country into the first gulf war.

Answer 6

She deliberately used unemployment to control inflation and to weaken the trades unions, oblivious to the social cost of leaving millions of families without a breadwinner.

She deliberately left British soil undefended in the Falklands to precipitate an invasion from a struggling military regime (Argentina), allowing her to regain electoral popularity by mounting a task force to regain the islands, and resulting in the slaughter of 750 Argentinian and 250 British servicemen.

She was willing to play cold war politics with a US President suffering from dementia, putting the whole world within sight of nuclear war.

She funded tax cuts by selling profitable state run industries, many of which eventually ended up foreign owned; and her cronies surprisingly found well paid jobs on the boards of such industries as gas, electricity, rail, water.

Enough?

Answer 7

How about sold off all our council houses, destroyed the power of the working man to stand up for his rights through Unions, destroyed our Heavy Industries (Steel, Coal etc) and destroyed whole communities in the process and made life a hell of a lot worse for the working man whilst lining the pockets of the rich.

We are still paying for her actions in 2007.

Answer 8

Well for starters she sold off our assets and nationalised industries to her cronies. She destroyed the mining industry and ruined whole communities. Boom and bust economics meant that the rich got very rich while there were 4 million unemployed. She crawled further up Reagan's a*se than Blair did up Bush's. The Falklands was an avoidable war but she knew that conflict would help her win the next election.
She was a stalwart friend of Pinochet - the murdering maniac. She complicitly supported apartheid in South Africa and called Nelson Mandela "that terrorist" ...
Need I go on? It is depressing me. Someone else take over .....

Answer 9

Ask the mining (former that is) familys of uk, which she distroyed not to mention the Millions of people who became unemployed as a result of her dictorial rule, dont forget it was her own party that had to get rid of her at the finish up,she was power drunk and going a bit mad. Theres a hundred other reasons why this person was and still is dispised by millions of brittons and others.

Answer 10

destruction of the social fabric in Britain has left scars across the country;

We are still suffering from the fund starvation she imposed upon public services;

And as for those who say she was a representative of the best qualities of Britain, well, all I can say is I hope others don't assume she embodies Britain. Her friendship and dealings with men like General Pinochet, and other of the world's less savoury leaders, in the name of free enterprise, is a blight and a shame on our nation.

This before we deal with the upbringing her son obviously received and the values she instilled in him!

All told I think she was without a doubt the worst prime minister this country has ever had, and a horrible person to boot

Hopefully the people of Britain have learned enough never to allow her like near a position of power ever again.
from the sun newspaper