I'd be inclined to give post-Empire diplomats and intel analysts a little more credit than that. Honestly, the Iraq War policy was a damn timeshare presentation.
Wow... an uncited post of the PR person for a right wing blog sourcing so called "well-placed sources." Yup, sounds like something I'd believe.
She was a supporter of Apartheid, and called Mandela's ANC a typical terrorist organization. I'm all for not honoring Thatcher.
Amen. Honoring her is political theater from the far right. Let the 80's be the 80's -- both sides should just drop it already.
If her fiscal or regulatory policies allowed the UK to distinguish itself economically from mainland Europe and whatever trajectory the latter has been on for the last three decades, that's probably worth commending or at least noting. Not entirely because of the contemporary crisis; but because that independence: culturally, legally and spiritually, seems in line with the country's strongest and most effective leaders throughout history.
It's probably worth wondering why all the other people Mandela struggled alongside to end apartheid asked him not to visit her.
The world is a better place without racists in power. http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/04/thatcher-mourned-by-few-in-s-africa/
I don't understand why that term is thrown around so loosely. It really shows the low IQ of a lot of people.
Margaret Thatcher Freedom fighter Now especially, the world needs to hold fast to Margaret Thatcher’s principles Apr 13th 2013 |From the print edition ONLY a handful of peacetime politicians can claim to have changed the world. Margaret Thatcher was one. She transformed not just her own Conservative Party, but the whole of British politics. Her enthusiasm for privatisation launched a global revolution and her willingness to stand up to tyranny helped to bring an end to the Soviet Union. Winston Churchill won a war, but he never created an “-ism”. The essence of Thatcherism was to oppose the status quo and bet on freedom—odd, since as a prim, upwardly mobile striver, she was in some ways the embodiment of conservatism. She thought nations could become great only if individuals were set free. Unlike Churchill’s famous pudding, her struggles had a theme: the right of individuals to run their own lives, as free as possible from micromanagement by the state. In her early years in politics, economic liberalism was in retreat, the Soviet Union was extending its empire, and Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek were dismissed as academic eccentrics. In Britain the government hobnobbed with trade unions (“beer and sandwiches in Number 10”), handed out subsidies to failing nationalised industries and primed the pump through Keynesian demand management. To begin with the ambitious young politician went along with this consensus (see article). But the widespread notion that politics should be “the management of decline” made her blood boil. The ideas of Friedman and Hayek persuaded her that things could be different. Most of this radicalism was hidden from the British electorate that voted her into office in 1979, largely in frustration with Labour’s ineptitude. What followed was an economic revolution. She privatised state industries, refused to negotiate with the unions, abolished state controls, broke the striking miners and replaced Keynesianism with Friedman’s monetarism. The inflation rate fell from a high of 27% in 1975 to 2.4% in 1986. The number of working days lost to strikes fell from 29m in 1979 to 2m in 1986. The top rate of tax fell from 83% to 40%. Not for turning Her battles with the left—especially the miners—gave her a reputation as a blue-rinse Boadicea. But she was just as willing to clobber the right, sidelining old-fashioned Tory “wets” and unleashing her creed on conservative strongholds, notably by setting off the “big bang” in the City of London. Many of her pithiest put-downs were directed at her own side: “U-turn if you want to,” she told the Conservatives as unemployment passed 2m. “The lady’s not for turning.” She told George Bush senior: “This is no time to go wobbly!” Ronald Reagan was her soulmate but lacked her sharp elbows and hostility to deficits. She might not be for turning, but she knew how to compromise. She seized on Mikhail Gorbachev as a man she “could do business with” despite warnings from American hawks. She backed down from a battle with the miners in 1981, waiting until she had built up sufficient reserves of coal three years later. For all her talk about reforming the welfare state, the public sector consumed almost the same proportion of GDP when she left office as when she came to it. She was also often outrageously lucky: lucky that the striking miners were led by Arthur Scargill, a hardline Marxist; lucky that the British left fractured and insisted on choosing unelectable leaders; lucky that General Galtieri decided to invade the Falkland Islands when he did; lucky that she was a tough woman in a system dominated by patrician men (the wets never knew how to cope with her); lucky in the flow of North Sea oil; and above all lucky in her timing. The post-war consensus was ripe for destruction, and a host of new forces, from personal computers to private equity, aided her more rumbustious form of capitalism. The verdict of history Criticism of her comes in two forms. First, that she could have done more had she wielded her handbag more deftly. Hatred, it is true, sometimes blinded her. Infuriated by the antics of left-wing local councils, she ended up centralising power in Whitehall. Her hostility to Eurocrats undermined her campaign to stop the drift of power to Brussels. Her stridency, from her early days as “Thatcher the milk snatcher” to her defenestration by her own party, was divisive. Under her the Conservatives shrank from a national force to a party of the rich south (see Bagehot). Tony Blair won several elections by offering Thatcherism without the rough edges. The second criticism addresses the substance of Thatcherism. Her reforms, it is said, sowed the seeds of the recent economic crisis. Without Thatcherism, the big bang would not have happened. Financial services would not make up such a large slice of the British economy and the country would not now be struggling under the burden of individual debt caused by excessive borrowing and government debt caused by the need to bail out the banks. Some of this is true; but then without Thatcherism Britain’s economy would still be mired in state control, the commanding heights of its economy would be owned by the government and militant unions would be a power in the land. Because of the crisis, the pendulum is swinging dangerously away from the principles Mrs Thatcher espoused. In most of the rich world, the state’s share of the economy has stubbornly risen. Regulations—excessive as well as necessary—are tying up the private sector. Businesspeople are under scrutiny as they have not been for 30 years and bankers are everyone’s favourite bogeyman. And with the rise of China state control, not economic liberalism, is being hailed as a model for emerging markets. For a world in desperate need of growth, this is the wrong direction. Europe will never thrive until it frees up its markets. America will throttle its recovery unless it avoids overregulation. China will not sustain its success unless it starts to liberalise. This is a crucial time to hang on to Margaret Thatcher’s central perception: that for countries to flourish, people need to push back against the advance of the state. What the world needs now is more Thatcherism, not less. http://www.economist.com/news/leade...margaret-thatchers-principles-freedom-fighter
You dont need to fix anything but your bigoted ways here. *yawn* We have history of supporting tyrannical mid east rulers. Weak sauce. I dont look up to Mandela. But I do look down upon Thatcher for her support of racism. As for you calling someone classless... http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=7826046&postcount=9 Your response to a Carl Herrera's thread. Hypocrite, as always.
That's the amazing thing about Mandela. Even though Thatcher supported Apartheid and tried to keep it in power, calling Madela's group a typical terrorist organization. He was the bigger man, and was willing to meet with her, and was totally gracious. It almost shames her how gracious and forgiving Mandela was always seeking a more positive future.
Thatcher the racist. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/margaret-thatcher-accused-racist-views Australian foreign minister claims Margaret Thatcher held 'unabashedly racist' views Margaret Thatcher has been accused by the Australian foreign minister of having held "unabashedly racist" views after he revealed that the late former British prime minister had warned him of the challenge posed by immigration from Asia. Bob Carr, who served as premier of New South Wales between 1995 and 2005, said that Thatcher pleaded with him to ensure Sydney did not "end up like Fiji" where citizens of Indian heritage formed a majority until a coup in 1987. Carr, whose wife is of Malaysian origin, spoke of his surprise at Thatcher's remarks. The senator told the Lateline programme on ABC TV: "I recall one conversation I had with her in her retirement where she said something that was unabashedly racist, where she warned Australia – talking to me with Helena [his wife] standing not far away – against Asian immigration, saying that if we allowed too much of it we'd see the natives of the land, the European settlers, overtaken by migrants." Carr expressed astonishment when Thatcher drew an analogy with Fiji, where the Indo-Fijian community formed a majority of the population in 1970 when it achieved independence from Britain. The community, descendants of labourers who travelled to the former British colony to work on sugar plantations in the late 19th century, has fallen to just over 38% in the last two decades after a 1987 coup. In 2000 Mahendra Chaudhry, the first Indo-Fijian prime minister, was taken hostage in another coup. Carr said: "I was astonished. Helena fortunately was out of earshot. I remember one thing she [Thatcher] said as part of that conversation. She said: 'You will end up like Fiji. I like Sydney but you can't allow the [Asian] migrants … to take over otherwise you will end up like Fiji where the Indian migrants have taken over." The foreign minister added: "I was so astonished I don't think I could think of an appropriate reply. I think we moved on to other subjects pretty quickly." Carr, a Labor senator who was appointed foreign minister after the resignation of the former prime minister Kevin Rudd last year, made clear that he still respected Thatcher on the grounds that she challenged the centre-left to modernise. He said: "She produced a realignment of politics. She forced my side of politics, the social democrat parties, to think more deeply about the role and function of the state, of the public sector. [She] forced Labour parties around the world to consider whether government could remotely pretend to be the answer to many of the problems it was assumed it could be. I also think she was right in joining Reagan and denouncing the old Soviet Union as an evil dictatorship." Carr's remarks contrasted with warm praise for Thatcher from Julia Gillard, Australia's British-born and first woman prime minister. Speaking in Beijing, she said: "Her service as the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom was a history-making achievement. Her strength of conviction was recognised by her closest supporters and her strongest opponents."
I spoke the truth, as always. And Carl Herrera coming up with his standard response when he is owned - he keeps doing that in the GARM and other forums. It's a clear violation of Clutch's rules.
