Baroness Thatcher

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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby Govangirl » Thu Oct 21, 2010 10:30 am

First, you clearly haven't read my previous posts on here over the years about Thatcher and I am well aware of the destruction she has wreaked. I do not need a history lesson on her or her policies. However, sorry but you need a Geography lesson! You stated that the South was 'a land of plenty' when you obviously have no idea of the economic picture in the South East (like many Scots you define it as being London).
I live in Kent. There are huge economic divisions in this county. Based on the Govt.'s Indices of Deprivation, it is the 2nd most deprived County Council area in England (East Sussex is the most deprived). This confirms the belief that Kent is one of the ‘poorer’ areas within the South East.
I live in Margate. It has also been confirmed that it is the most deprived area in the whole of Kent and is placed by the Govt. in the top 2% deprived in England. Nationally, it is in the top 10% and it has the highest proportion of children aged under 16 who live in income deprived families (equivalent to 77%). I have worked with SureStart and know at first hand the misery this deep deprivation can cause.
The area of Thanet faces significant social, environmental and economic issues arising in the main from substantial job losses in the 1970s and 80s from tourism, coal mining, agriculture and shipping. Local unemployment is still twice the regional average, is rising and recently in the British Index of Deprivation, the Govt. stated it was comparable with well known Northern cities such as Bradford.
The rise of Margate as a popular seaside resort then its subsequent decline follows a similar pattern to other seaside resorts in the UK. The cycle of decline and associated deprivation in seaside towns was identified as different from that suffered by older industrial towns and cities by the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit (in January 2005). The case study used in that report to illustrate the problems of seaside towns was Margate. The description used to identify seaside deprivation was:

"Following the collapse of English seaside tourism, Sandytown in Beachville, Thanet has seen its redundant hotels turned into hostels for the homeless, cheap bedsits or care homes. The concentration of vulnerable and transient residents, including refugees and asylum seekers, elderly people and children in care has severely strained public services and led to tensions between longstanding residents and the new population."

I could give you many more facts about health, unemployment and social exclusion of this 'land of plenty' Mr Plod. Please don't believe this tired old myth that the South East is bountiful. Thatcher is hated here as much as anywhere else in the country. We had mines here too remember!
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby EMDEE » Thu Oct 21, 2010 4:31 pm

Setting politics apart, is it not a bit distasteful for so many people to be taking pleasure in the fact that an elderly woman is ill in hospital, and eagerly hoping for her demise in the anticipation of a celebration? :?

One doesn't have to agree with her politics to find this distasteful.
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby Mr Plod » Thu Oct 21, 2010 5:18 pm

Emdee, I don't think we're being distasteful. No one is taking pleasure in her death. I just dislike her intensely as an individual irrespective of her politics. I personally don't think she deserves a state funeral. I'm saying good riddance to bad news. She was a very intolerant woman who encouraged exclusion and division along class lines and still does.

And on those points you made I stand corrected GG, well put and true. However when you compare one area of the "Southeast" with another area of the "Southeast" are you missing my point? The wealth I spoke of was in stark contrast to the "wealth" up here.

I could pretty much guarantee that if you compared the "poorest area of the southeast of england" with a geographically similar "poorest" area in the Scottish Central Belt you would not be comparing like with like. There are other factors to be considered GG.If you are out of work in Kent you can find work in London and it's surrounding buroughs and commute by rail. Hundreds of thousands do so daily.

Lets wait and see how both areas fare in the big cuts. My money is on Scotland and the North East of England taking a disproportionate blow given the higher dependency on public sector employment ( Thanks Baroness )and smaller private sector opportunities.

Imagine where we would be now if labour had forced the banks to seperate their retail and investment arms and reined in the fat cats and hit them with punitive taxes on their bonuses. Or they had used the massive national surplus of the nineties to create jobs through building the estimated 400,000 affordable family homes that were, and still are needed to house people in the south of england. Or used it to build a better bigger and more accessible rail network, or better schools or sports facilities. Or a water pipeline from the Scottish Highlands to the drought stricken south?

But here's something for us all to ponder, wherever we are suffering, southeast north or whatever. The tories have indicated that 4 billion pounds will have to be slashed from Scotlands local authority budget allocation this year. Only last week in the Independent The Financial Services watchdog published figures stating that this year workers in the financial services sector were set to rake in 7 BILLION POUNDS in bonus payments. 7BILLION!. We should tax those repulsive bonuses at 99p in the pound and put it into building programs for affordable social housing and keep taxing them until they stop this abhorrent practice. It is disgusting that the very people who caused our parlous investment and savings situation are still acting as if it's business as usual.

And as I said before good riddance to bad news.
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby Isa » Thu Oct 21, 2010 5:52 pm

Mr Plod wrote:And as I said before good riddance to bad news.


I don't think she should have a State funeral and would certainly have no regrets at her passing. I thought she was a miserable Prime Minister and can understand the hatred some have of her.

When I saw Policemen on British streets coshing miners because of her and the sheep (MP's) who were afraid to go against her policies I thought that Britain was as near to a dictatorship than it had ever been.

I hope she is in hell a year before heaven knows she is dead.
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby gizmo » Thu Oct 21, 2010 7:36 pm

Got to agree with Emdee. Distasteful covers it. I would never vote Tory but still think more of her than Blair.
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby bill » Fri Oct 22, 2010 1:45 pm

Of course it is distasteful at the very least,a case of base instincts coming to the fore.
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby bill » Fri Oct 22, 2010 2:11 pm

One of the most poignant posts in the whole of the forum was posted by Martin on this thread...........


Martin wrote:God bless you Mrs. T. If she hadn't closed down all those asylums I'd probably be locked up in one !!!!



It is near on a year since Martin last posted ,I sincerely hope he is well.
I know my Summer'll never come
I know I'll cry until my dying day has come
Let the Winter roll along
I've got nothing left but song
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby Govangirl » Fri Oct 22, 2010 6:51 pm

Govangirl wrote:I'm all for giving her respect when she goes but from only those who respected her. A state funeral to me would be abhorrent. They certainly would need to have the troops out in order to quell the masses of people who had misery heaped upon them under her leadership.

I suggest having her funeral in one of the once thriving communities that she changed into a wasteland of deprivation and then burying her in one of the many abandoned coal mines for which she was responsible. Totally fitting.



This was what I wrote on the first page of this thread over 2 years ago. I was not advocating a celebration Emdee and I can see no benefit in her popping her clogs now. I will feel sad on her day of demise - sad for all the lives she destroyed, the communities she decimated, the industries she killed and the society she changed for the worse. You might think it's distasteful but you cannot blame those that cannot forgive the unforgivable.
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby ionnsaigh » Sat Oct 23, 2010 2:29 pm

Mr Plod wrote:Worked in maryhill for over 16 years as a cop, know every nook and cranny in the palce, have family there and so does my wife. Don't recall there being any slums anywhere in Maryhill in the Poll tax era. Come to think of it, as someone Glasgow born and bred I recall all the slums came down in the sixties. I lived in one as a child from 1960 till 1965 and it was pulled down in th early 70's to make way for a new comprehensive.


It very much depends on how one interprets the term slum. Maryhill is a big place - it has some of the finest yellow sandstone buildings in Scotland, and has a fairly large middle class. The natural geography of the area, the river Kelvin and Forth and Clyde canal blend into ( what appears a million trees ) We have gentle rolling hills, aqueducts that cross Maryhill road, Queens Cross Church ( Mackintosh ) Try watching the jags play on the slopes of Firhill, the views of the city are breathtaking ( if not the play ) We have ducks, swans, fish, foxes, deer - bird-life abounds. We have boats, walkers and cyclists, all enjoying the canal - it's magnificent canal basin and the locks, can be enjoyed from the top of the Botany.

The Botany

You know Sixteen years is a long time to work in an area, I'm impressed that you know every nook and cranny, I've lived hear for over Thirty Years, and I'm still finding things out. Anyway... did you ever venture on foot into the Botany ?

Is MR Plod un-PC.?
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby Mr Plod » Tue Oct 26, 2010 9:29 pm

You know Sixteen years is a long time to work in an area, I'm impressed that you know every nook and cranny, I've lived hear for over Thirty Years, and I'm still finding things out. Anyway... did you ever venture on foot into the Botany ?

Is MR Plod un-PC.?[/quote]

Well for a start it's not called "The Botany" . I've never heard a single resident of maryhill call it "The Botany". In fact It's called "The butney". My wife's uncle kept barges in "The Butney". He called it "The Butney".

The "Butney" is a reference to the fact that convicts from Maryhill Prison were loaded onto barges in the canal barge berths at the top of Maryhill Road and transported the 15 miles by canal to Bowling harbour, where they were transferred onto ships bound for "Botany Bay" Australia. Over the years the Glasgow dialect altered the pronunciation of "Botany" to it's present form, "The Butney". If you went into a Maryhill pub and asked for directions to "The Botany" they would probably not have a clue what you were on about and would as like as not query whether you meant the Botanic Gardens perhaps.

You could'nt have spent much time exploring your own environment. Any police officer who does not familiarise himself with his immediate surroundings and the denizens in the environment in which he works (called a "beat") is simply not an effective nor productive officer. When you pound a beat you explore every nook and cranny because you can bet your bottom dollar that thats where you'll find the neds. My mother- in - law is 75 years old and Maryhill born and bred and even she does not have the geographical knowledge that I acquired in the course of my duties. Oh and she calls it "The Butney" as well.
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby Mr Plod » Tue Oct 26, 2010 9:36 pm

Oops Ionnach I also forgot to mention that thats the bit of canal, as you know, appears from time to time in that hilarious show "Still game". Also, and I don't know if you've done it but a walk from there to Bowling is a wee bit safer now as they did up all the paths and re-opened the locks and is bouncing with wildlife both human and animal lol..

Hahahaha also re the slums. Basically a slum in the general sense, had no indoor sanitation, if you were lucky you sahred a lavvy with everyone else on your landing or really unlucky with everyone else in the close hahahahaha. I have vague memories of sitting on a wooden lavvy seat staring at the "IZAL" lavvy paper and dreading it's inevitable use. It wiz murder polis that IZAL lavvy paper.
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby ionnsaigh » Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:55 am

I gave it it's correct name simply because many people outside Glasgow, wouldn't perhaps know the subtle changes that the Glaswegian dialect demands, of the English language - much the same as you ( and I ) write Maryhill - when it's pronounced Maryhull. Yes the history of the Butney and Maryhill are rich social tapestries, woven by events long gone - yet persist - through local knowledge of the area. My Fathers family have lived Maryhill since the early 1900's ( Harrington Street ) beside the former Soldiers Home, now a trendy nightclub :wink: Just opposite that grubby McDonald's. Incidentally we have a brand spanking new Tesco Extra opening at the end of this week - architecturally it's a monstrosity, it has little in keeping with the mainly sandstone heritage of the area. That particular sight is apparently a huge platform built on stilts - as the site is owned by the former nationalised British Rail. It appears they own the land, and that an old railway line, lies buried beneath the Church of Tesco. I remember as a boy going over there ( looking for bullets ) as it was used by the army as a firing range - due to the proximity of the Wyndford Barracks - home to the Highland Light Infantry.
Two wee stories... During the war German Prisoners of War were imprisoned here, some locals would chip over fags for them every day - I'm a wee bit skeptical however - when you consider the amount of deaths in the bombings of Kilmun Street.
Going back even further to the times when the Red Clydesiders ( Mclean Gallagher Maxton ) agitated and imprisoned fighting for a fairer society. The morning that ( was it Churchill ? ) sent in the tanks and troops to quell, what was in fact workers rebellion. The Authorities fearing that the newly enlisted Glasgow recruits in Maryhill Barracks - would take sides with their people - and join the rebellion - duly locked the barrack doors.... ( Scoundrels )
God I could go on forever - We used toilet paper in school, or any public local convenience, other than that it was neatly cut up pieces of the Daily Record held by an auld nail in the waw.
Hey it must hif bin great tae be a polis in them days - awe them fag breaks.... :D
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby ionnsaigh » Wed Oct 27, 2010 11:05 am

Oops Mr Plod, I almost forgot slums - how remiss of me.

The definition you use is valid ( up to a point ) however it fails to address other aspects like damp uninhabitable properties. Taking to it's extreme - If Buckingham Palace had no indoor toilets then it too could be classed as a slum - mind you it's present occupiers are white trash... :oops:
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby ionnsaigh » Wed Oct 27, 2010 11:52 am

The last two posts appear slightly off the subject matter of Maggie, however it is well worth mentioning ... that the good lady her self... directly affected Maryhill, and her people during her time in charge gulp ... Campbeltown as well granted. Anyway back to the Snatcher Thatcher... Maggie Maggie Maggie.
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Re: Baroness Thatcher

Postby bill » Wed Oct 27, 2010 8:06 pm

below is an extract taken from the full article

http://www.sofiaecho.com/2010/10/27/982 ... tcher-dies


Wed, Oct 27 2010 13:31 CET by Gabriel Hershman................

" The Daily Mail tells us of the existence of a website which asks how visitors will celebrate the death of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

According to the Newspaper, the site, entitled is Thatcher dead yet?, "gives a simple progress report on the deteriorating health of the 85-year-old. Guests are currently told 'NOT YET' in large capital letters. A smaller message underneath adds: 'Can't be long though... she's still in hospital.'"

When she resigned I was one of those people who walked to Downing Street. As a centre-left 23 year old, I believed that Thatcher's departure was a pretty good event. Now, I'm not so sure. And the kind of gratuitously offensive, venal hatred described on the sicko website above only makes me more suspicious than ever of the motives of the Left.


Above all, what turned people like me away from the Left was the kind of personal, vitriolic animus that stems from people such as the creator of the anti-Thatcher website. Evidently, the Left's supposed belief in the "international brotherhood of man" does not extend to compassion for an aged, democratically elected former prime minister.

What lies behind such incredible hatred? Those waiting to crack open champagne the moment they hear a former prime minister dies must be really sad and twisted individuals. They will probably have achieved nothing worthwhile of note in their lives. They almost certainly have no constructive ideas on how to make the world a better place. They must exist only in a state of destructive, festering hostility to authority, success, aspiration and self-reliance.

There's a scene in Jean-Paul Sartre's wonderful play Les Mains Sales (Dirty Hands) when Hoederer, a socialist leader ready to compromise on his beliefs, confronts Hugo, a radical young anarchist intellectual. "You don't want to improve the world, you want to blow it up," Hoederer tells him.

No doubt, that's the case for those waiting to celebrate when Thatcher finally succumbs. "
I know my Summer'll never come
I know I'll cry until my dying day has come
Let the Winter roll along
I've got nothing left but song
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