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As a Yank, I hope one of you Brits could explain the reaction to Margaret Thatcher's death.

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments...tcher_has_died/

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society...d-2013040865066

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society...d-2013040865062

I know The DailyMash is a comedy site like America's The Onion, but some of the comments on Reddit make it seem close to the truth.

/OK, I've found this explanation among the posts (sounds a lot like what happened in America about the same time):

[–]maxbase 1 point 9 minutes ago*

Let me outline why people hate her, but also why she did some good as well:

You must first understand the British working class and their lifestyle, their professions and their sense of pride, and also that at the time she was in power. Britain was a strong country that had thrived on industry for the last few hundred years

Basically, she shut all the unprofitable coal mines, and privatised a large number of profitable ones, this resulted in job losses in the millions. Where historically there was a proud working class in the industry, there were now millions of jobless men who were now supposed to get office jobs or... something.

Understandably they protested at this harsh and severe chop to the lifeblood and pride of the English working class. As with most protests, there is a compromise, often one leaning toward the higher power. This wasn't the case. Even though over a million people were out of work and on the streets protesting, she didn't give an inch, after a year with no work, the miners conceded defeat and returned to their families, hungry and jobless.

If you've heard of the word "chav" you will know what they are. Thatcher effectively created the chav. Now proud working communities which once mined coal and smelted iron, were reduced to nothing. Young children who weren't academically gifted now had nothing to do and were left to hang around on the streets, take drugs (watch the Vice documentary on the Welsh Teen Heroin Epidemic) and work in supermarkets for the rest of their lives or occasionally get a rare and sought after apprenticeship.

This gave rise to another phenomenon. The vast increase in number of University applicants and polytechnic universities. Now all these kids that weren't doing so good in school now had no option but to achieve some form of mild academic success. There was no industry for them to go into so logically they had to set their sights on an office job or some form of administrative work.

So now many kids who would have been a miner or a steel worker 50 years ago is now studying business at the Southampton Solent University because they have no other real option in life unless they want minimum wage for the foreseeable future.

Thatcher destroyed an important asset to Britain and more importantly to the British working class, which she had a strong disdain for, as is noted in many of her speeches.

However. Whilst she did all this bad, and cost the country billions. The privatisation made back a lot of money too. The GDP increased by around 20% and Britain was richer for it, but it was offset by the Falklands War and so many people out of work, and the enormous half century long repercussions of her rash and unflinching decisions.

Some worship her for not giving in to the working class and increasing our countries coffers.

Some despise her for crushing so many working families, not providing any sort of transition from working in the mines and not providing any support at all to the millions she put out of work, whilst so clearly caring not about people that could barely afford to survive.

I would probably lean more to the latter.

A typical reaction post:

[–]Slothmasterrace 4 points 11 minutes ago

I live in Scotland, and this could be the biggest celebration/party in Scottish history, I hope she died an extremely terrible death I for one will be partying tonight, famous song in Scotland and Northern middle England for years "We're having a party when Thatcher dies" Party time YEEEHAAAAAAAAAAA! Hope you rot Maggie ya evil crow!

agri grew up in the civilized north, and if anything those articles dont really begin to show how hated she is up there, with varying degrees of justification - for instance, she really doesnt get enough criticism for what happened at and in the aftermath of hillsborough, though she gets far too much criticism for what happened to british manufacturing which was a basket case long before she became prime minister. the war against the num is a bit more complex.

also the changes that she brought in also led to politicians who were much less able (major) or actually evil (blair) going far beyond what she would have probably done and the uk has got much worse as a result.

perhaps the best example agri can think of this is university tuition, which under thatcher remained - for most people - free and which also came with a very small grant for living expenses (which it was actually possible to live and socialise on, as long as you didnt have more than one meal a day). this system worked wonderfully well because it allowed clever but poor children (agri) to go to university and mix / sleep with the rich and stupid, and then go on to get a decent job and pay back many times the initial cost in improved taxes. the government also retained control over the university sector, keeping control of spending, meaning that only the able got the grants (because there were limited spaces), which ensured that you had to work hard to get your money, which meant that you worked hard for your degree. this ended up meaning that degrees were worth something to employers at the end of the day, because there werent that many graduates.

what happened after she was dumped off was that her immediate successor (major) cut the grant by 30% and replaced it with a loan. agri drank most of this extra money and spent three years afterwards paying it off. blair then came in and got rid of the grant, increased the amount you could be loaned, started allowing universities to set the level of tuition fees and made students pay them. this now means that, if agri were 18 again he would now be looking at a minimum of £27,000 to do his degree just in fees, and would as a result not be going to university. the condition of many graduates - huge debts etc - also means that they are far more vulnerable to employers than agri was, which is my so many of them are doing unpaid "internships" for months or years at a time in the vain hope that they are going to be offered a job.

of course taxes havent gone down to compensate for this, and university management are now paid a fortune.

QUOTE Ah don't hate the English. They're just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We can't even pick a decent, vibrant healthy society to be colonised by.[/quote]

Agri - this blows my mind how those events are parallel to what happened in America. Reagan was great friends with Margaret Thatcher. His presidency marked the real point that we started losing manufacturing jobs over here (we started hemorrhaging them with the decline of the auto industry in to 70's). Reaganomics began the big increase in national debt which is through the roof today. It also marked the beginning of big increases in University fees and loans for them going up in interest rates.
After Reagan we had 4 years of Bush #1 and later 8 years of Bush #2.

It's like it was all pre planned at some Bilderburg group meeting or something.

The only thing different is that when Reagan died most Yanks were "Meh", where as this looks like it could become a national celebration.

Americans need to be more radical about their crappy politicians.

,

Yesterday was a sad day for soft scoop ice cream enthusiasts everywhere.

raumvogel wrote:QUOTE (raumvogel @ Apr 8 2013, 10:42 PM) Agri - this blows my mind how those events are parallel to what happened in America. Reagan was great friends with Margaret Thatcher. His presidency marked the real point that we started losing manufacturing jobs over here (we started hemorrhaging them with the decline of the auto industry in to 70's). Reaganomics began the big increase in national debt which is through the roof today. It also marked the beginning of big increases in University fees and loans for them going up in interest rates.
After Reagan we had 4 years of Bush #1 and later 8 years of Bush #2.

It's like it was all pre planned at some Bilderburg group meeting or something.

The only thing different is that when Reagan died most Yanks were "Meh", where as this looks like it could become a national celebration.

Americans need to be more radical about their crappy politicians.

actually raum my point was that thatcher did not mess to such an extent with support for higher education, it was her successors - who had ran out of sensible things to reform (hence the idiotic and actually deadly privatization of British Rail, which agri was going to originally use as an example but it might have led him to be suspected as a trainspotter) - who did that, but who used her as an example to be cited to get their way.

Growing up in the 80s, it seemed like a nasty time to me.


She presided over some of the highest levels of unemployment in my lifetime.
It's clear she presided over (and some say initiated) one of the most socially disordered times in our countries history too (in part as a result of the unemployment).

I was too young to properly understand, but there always seemed to be prison riots, street riots.

Arguably herliberalisation of the Banking sector played a part in our current crisis.

There's also an argument that Thatcher, seriously damaged her own party's future as an electoral force, the total lack of traction in the north (especially Scotland) is pretty much a direct result of her government's policies.
Major would have lost in 1992 if Labour hadn't been such a shower of @#(!e for the previous 10 years. The Tory party haven't won an election outright since.

I'm not arguing we should dance on her grave or anything, but the people who are arguing she should be practically deified or deserves a state funeral are out of their $#@!ing tree, when she's hated by swathes of the UK.

I'm already fed up of the wall to wall coverage too.