Thatcher snatches win from Cameron in vote on century's worst PM

Historical writers deliver poll verdict that the notorious scourge of ‘society’ did more damage to Britain than the recently departed bringer of Brexit

Margaret Thatcher has narrowly beaten David Cameron to be named the worst prime minister of the past 100 years by historical writers.
The Historical Writers’ Association surveyed its membership on their views of the 19 prime ministers who have led the UK since 1916, in advance both of this year’s Harrogate History festival later this week, and Theresa May’s 100th day in office on 22 October. Thatcher, who died in 2013, came in first with 24% of the vote, followed by Cameron (22%) and Neville Chamberlain (17%).
Authors singled out Thatcher’s attitude to society as a chief problem with her premiership. “She destroyed too many good things in society, and created too many bad ones, then left a social and moral vacuum in which the selfishly rich and unimaginatively fortunate could too easily destroy still more of what they don’t need and can’t see that everyone else does need,” said the writer Emma Darwin.

“Thatcher made the idea of society, in the sense of a community that cares for all its members and accepts the premise that people need support and should not be stigmatised for it, an anathema,” wrote historical novelist Catherine Hokin in her response. “It is easy to demonise politicians and resort to ad hominem rather than policy attacks, but Thatcher encouraged the worst behaviour across all aspects of society and we are still reaping her poisoned harvest.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/18/margaret-thatcher-snatches-win-from-david-cameron-in-vote-on-centurys-worst-pm?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other


Now ain't that the truth!

Good job she defended the Falkland Islanders.

ONLY THE WORST BY DELUDED LABOUR VOTERS 1

Nope Nicko - historians.

She was disgusting, selfish and everything she did was to promote herself and put down ordinary people.   The fact that some people seem to get pleasure in being put down and like grovelling does not negate what a revolting person she was.

That's your opinion Sass, millions disagreed with you, that's why she won elections.

My worst fear here is bleeding Corvine.

I had a dream a bit back that Corvine was shot


with a cucumba.

nicko wrote:That's your opinion Sass,   millions disagreed with you, that's why she won elections.

Oh I do realise Nicko, that there are far too many people in this country who are masochistic and who who would rather vote for a politican actively working against them, than have the balls to stand up for their fellow men.   Either that, or they are incredibly stupid and didn't even realise that her policies were totally against their best interests.

Labour govts have always been the worst... so labour prime ministers must also be the worst...


Blair, brown must be up there...

I disagreed with Blair on Iraq and didn't like the man at all, but ordinary people had their lives made a lot better under him until the Banks went to bitss because of dodgy practises and downright criminal behaviour.   Amazing how Iceland has locked the bastards up.


1. Longest period of sustained low inflation since the 60s.
2. Low mortgage rates.
3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage and raised it to £5.52.
4. Over 14,000 more police in England and Wales.
5. Cut overall crime by 32 per cent.
6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools.
7. Young people achieving some of the best ever results at 14, 16, and 18.
8. Funding for every pupil in England has doubled.
9. Employment is at its highest level ever.
10. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest countries.
11. 85,000 more nurses.
12. 32,000 more doctors.
13. Brought back matrons to hospital wards.
14. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament.
15. Devolved power to the Welsh Assembly.
16. Dads now get paternity leave of 2 weeks for the first time.
17. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice.
18. Gift aid was worth £828 million to charities last year.
19. Restored city-wide government to London.
20. Record number of students in higher education.
21. Child benefit up 26 per cent since 1997.
22. Delivered 2,200 Sure Start Children’s Centres.
23. Introduced the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
24. £200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & up to £300 for over-80s.
25. On course to exceed our Kyoto target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
26. Restored devolved government to Northern Ireland.
27. Over 36,000 more teachers in England and 274,000 more support staff and teaching assistants.
28. All full time workers now have a right to 24 days paid holiday.
29. A million pensioners lifted out of poverty.
30. 600,000 children lifted out of relative poverty.
31. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents.
32. Scrapped Section 28 and introduced Civil Partnerships.
33. Brought over 1 million social homes up to standard.
34. Inpatient waiting lists down by over half a million since 1997.
35. Banned fox hunting.
36. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since before the industrial revolution.
37. Free TV licences for over-75s.
38. Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals.
39. Free breast cancer screening for all women aged between 50-70.
40. Free off peak local bus travel for over-60s.
41. New Deal – helped over 1.8 million people into work.
42. Over 3 million child trust funds have been started.
43. Free eye test for over 60s.
44. More than doubled the number of apprenticeships.
45. Free entry to national museums and galleries.
46. Overseas aid budget more than doubled.
47. Heart disease deaths down by 150,000 and cancer deaths down by 50,000.
48. Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent.
49. Free nursery places for every three and four-year-olds.
50. Free fruit for most four to six-year-olds at school.

---

Sassy obviously has her rose tinted glasses on again...

We will have to agree to disagree on Mrs Thatcher Sass.

THATCHER virtually destroyed Britain's manufacturing sector;  as well as closing down much of your mining sector...

While increasing the levels of poverty and homelessness..

Unfortunately for you lot, the workers in the British primary and secondary industries were outnumbered by those bludging Conservative voters, all too willing to screw over their fellow countrymen, and accelerate your society's "race to the bottom".

Even stranger again, is how many Brit's today still claim Thatcher  as the greatest PM in living memory, while in total denial over how much the Thatcherisms/Reaganomics "Trickle Down Effect" policies actually damaged western economies during the 1980's and on through the '90s..    

You know all about our country don't you?

nicko wrote:You know all about our country don't you?

Did you think it was a secret?

Original Quill wrote:

nicko wrote:You know all about our country don't you?

Did you think it was a secret?

I was just gonna say that.

Thatcher was horrid. She didn't care about people at all.

I think most politicians are vile and self serving narcissists

As far has i'm concerned she stopped the Unions destroying the Country,.
witch they were well on the way to doing with strike after strike and their "flying pickets"

She covered up for peadophiles - appalling woman.

Miffs2 wrote:I think most politicians are vile and self serving narcissists

True, a lot seem to end up that way....but am I stupid to still believe that many have their heart in the right place, in the first instance?

nicko wrote:We will have to agree to disagree on Mrs Thatcher Sass.

We will indeed Nicko.   When we have the review of what happened at Orgreave it will come out that she told the police to use as much force as possible against a legitimate demonstration http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37612367



And those strikes?   That was working people standing up for themselves and fighting for their rights instead of cowering in a corner being stamped on.

Winter of discontent...

Major wrote:Good job she defended the Falkland Islanders.

You are joking. The incompetence of her government caused the death of hundreds of British servicemen. She failed to bolster the defences of the Islands. She withdrew the only naval presence we had in the South Atlantic. She withdrew British citizenship from the Islanders. She was cutting the Navy by a third. On the morning of the invasion redundancy notices were being handed out to the workers in the naval dockyards only for them to be recalled by lunchtime. It was the brave soldiers, airmen and sailors who defended and took back the islands, not her.

That's the truth and she should have resigned on that very morning

Yep, amazing how that truth got distorted and spun.

sassy wrote:Yep, amazing how that truth got distorted and spun.

While Thatcher was jumping about in Downing Street shouting 'what can we do, what can we do' Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Leach, stormed in and told her he would raise a task force and he did. It was a tremendous effort by the military and the dockyard workers who prepared the fleet pulling out ships that had been mothballed and destined to be scrapped. They all worked round the clock performing miracles.

If the Argies had waited just one more year the Islands would have been lost on the back of incompetence and Tory cuts.

nicko wrote:
You know all about our country don't you?

WE "colonials" do get lectured a lot on here,  about the supposed 'superiority' of your little island over there on the other side of the world,  by you and a handful of your fellow countrymen,  nicko...

And not forgetting that the former 'British Empire' did have a pivotal role to play in the formation of modern-day America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand..    

eddie wrote:

Miffs2 wrote:I think most politicians are vile and self serving narcissists

True, a lot seem to end up that way....but am I stupid to still believe that many have their heart in the right place, in the first instance?

But why stop there?  Donald 'the outsider' Trump prides himself in being a non-politician businessman, and he is the worst self serving narcissist we've ever seen (ie, in politics).  Wouldn't it be safe to say that businessmen are worse self serving narcissists even than politicians?

[quote="nicko"]That's your opinion Sass,   millions disagreed with you, that's why she won elections.[/quote
Millions also sent her record "The witch is dead" to the top of the hit parade.]

Ziz wrote:She covered up for peadophiles - appalling woman.

Well precisely.
And why do people speak as if the only people who criticised and hated her, were a bunch of  lefties??  
That is oversimplified nonsense - she upset many different categories of people.


- She  infuriated paedo victims
- She infuriated one particular police officer, who had to resign for celebrating her death -see below
- She infuriated this dignified conservative prime minister MacMillan - see below
Were all these people 'lefties'?


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/met-police-sergeant-jeremy-scott-resigns-over-offensive-messages-about-thatcher-death-8570179.html

Personally I did not condone or praise those who celebrated her passing 3 years ago.

But for the record, if she lived in the US deep south or some other  cultures, living to the ripe old age that she did,  would have been a cause for celebrating and real dancing anyway.  That's the irony lol.

Jules wrote:

Ziz wrote:She covered up for peadophiles - appalling woman.

Well precisely.
And why do people speak as if the only people who criticised and hated her, were a bunch of  lefties??  
That is oversimplified nonsense -  she upset many different categories of people.


- She  infuriated paedo victims
- She infuriated one particular police officer, who had to resign for celebrating her death -see below
- She infuriated this dignified conservative prime minister MacMillan - see below
Were all these people 'lefties'?


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/met-police-sergeant-jeremy-scott-resigns-over-offensive-messages-about-thatcher-death-8570179.html

As for the Falklands:

‘The night sky over Portsmouth was lit up with the flashes from the welding’

With redundancy notices in their pockets, Portsmouth dockyard workers rallied in the nation’s hour of need. Morale among the workers had slumped to an all-time low amid sweeping defence cuts being imposed by the Tory government in 1982.

When they turned up to work on Thursday April 2, the dockies knew 3,000 of them would be out of a job by the end of the year. Just days before, the first 180 workers had been given notice that they were surplus to requirements. But everything changed the moment Argentinian forces hoisted their flag on the little-known Falkland Islands 8,000 miles away. Within 24 hours, ministers who had been telling loyal staff they were no longer needed were demanding they pull out all the stops to get the Royal Navy ready for war. As the redundancy notices were withdrawn, the dockies responded with the kind of spirit that has served the nation well for centuries. A Herculean effort saw stripped down warships go from being prepared for sale to sailing in a task force to fight the invaders on April 5. In the days and weeks that followed, ships requisitioned from the merchant fleet were turned into fighting units with mini-guns, armour plating and even helicopter landing pads welded in place. ‘I remember being at work the whole weekend preparing for the task force to sail on the Monday morning,’ recalls Mick Huitson, who worked as an MoD electrical fitter. He says: ‘The whole place was swarming with people. ‘Portsmouth was absolutely grid-locked with delivery lorries stretching from Unicorn Gate to out of the city. They were delivering everything from food and drinks to missiles. ‘I had never seen anything like it.’ Mick, 58, who still works at the dockyard for BAE Systems, adds: ‘People were very focused on the job of getting the task force out to sea – but there was also a feeling that if we did it we could save the dockyard.’ Mick was in the yard services supporting the dockside cranes and dock pumps. He says: ‘It was a very short timescale to get the fleet out. It was absolute chaos with so many modifications being done at once. ‘The night sky over Portsmouth was lit up with the flashes from the welding. It was staggering.’ Work raced ahead. Jobs which would normally take weeks were completed in just a few days. But it all didn’t feel quite real at first, says Mick, of Cosham. ‘We didn’t really know whether we were going to go to war or not. But then I remember driving home up the M275 northbound and I saw six Sea Harrier jets coming towards me flying south. I was on the elevated bit of the motorway fly-over and they came right over my car very close. It was at that point I thought “this is the real thing”. It was a very poignant moment.’ Bob Powell, 65, of Fratton, was an infrastructure maintenance fitter on cranes and pumps at the dockyard. He says: ‘I had my notice given to me on the Sunday and then suddenly we were being asked to work every hour God sends. It was a hectic time. Money went out the window – everybody who could work was asked to work as many hours as possible. ‘I still had my redundancy notice in my pocket, but I just kept working.’ The dockies would continue grafting around the clock, says Bob, who retired last year. He adds: ‘I would work night shifts from 7.30pm to 8am and then sometimes a day shift as well for 12 and a half hours. ‘You could even work a bit extra on top of that if you could still stand up.’ He recalls the dockyard coming to a rare standstill when the aircraft carriers HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible led the task force out of Portsmouth on April 5. He says: ‘It was a really good feeling. There was a purpose to it. I had started in the naval base in 1962 and it was the first time we had done the job we were paid to do, which is get a fleet to sea in an emergency.’ One thing is for sure – the navy could not have mounted such a rapid response to the Falklands crisis without the efforts of the dockies who put aside their industrial grievances for the greater good. Overnight, the naval base had literally become a military operation with everyone working flat out to achieve a common goal. No fewer than 25 ships, including car ferries and cargo vessels, were modified in Portsmouth for the Falklands mission. As soon as one ship left her berth, another would move. One job saw the heavy plate shop work an 84-hour shift to fit helicopter landing pads to the Norland Nordic ferry. The navy knew it was forever in debt to the dockies. As she left Portsmouth, the Hermes sent a signal to the yard thanking workers for their ‘magnificent support’. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary supply ship, RFA Stromness, which had been stripped back for sale in early 1982, was put back to sea within days. The ship’s crew sent back a message that defined exactly what the dockies in Portsmouth had achieved. It read simply: ‘The dockyard is a worker of miracles.’ THIRTY YEARS ON History has a habit of repeating itself. In November 1981, defence secretary John Nott ordered deep cuts to the Royal Navy and Portsmouth dockyard was to be run-down with the loss of 3,000 workers. In a white paper entitled The Way Forward, he moved to reduce the amount of dockyard labour and told the House of Commons there was a strain on the defence budget. The yard became a tempestuous place as unions raged at the cuts being inflicted by the Conservative government. In spring 1982, the navy was on the verge of losing its available aircraft carriers. HMS Hermes was due to be decommissioned in the summer, but she was hastily put back to sea as the Falklands flagship when war broke out with Argentina. On February 25, 1982, the navy had decided to sell HMS Invincible to the Australian government for £175m. The sale was cancelled after Invincible’s crucial role in re-taking the Falkland Islands. As Britain marks 30 years since the conflict in the South Atlantic, the navy is experiencing a 10-year gap without any aircraft carriers, due to the 2010 defence cuts brought about by the Conservative-led Coalition government. Meanwhile, 1,300 workers at BAE Systems in Portsmouth are fearing for their jobs as the company conducts an internal review of its UK shipbuilding operations. The defence giant says it is ‘engaging’ with the unions on its review – but has refused to rule out speculation that it is looking to move all of its shipbuilding up to Scotland.

Read more at: http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/lifestyle/real-life/the-night-sky-over-portsmouth-was-lit-up-with-the-flashes-from-the-welding-1-3694816



I believe it was moved to Scotland.

Absolutely vile woman.

Jules wrote:

Ziz wrote:She covered up for peadophiles - appalling woman.

Well precisely.

- She  infuriated paedo victims

According to some, including Professor Bernard Crick, her father may have been something of a kiddie fiddler. Perhaps that's a contributing factor to why Thatcher was "blind" to beasts like Saville?

Jules wrote:

Ziz wrote:She covered up for peadophiles - appalling woman.

Well precisely.
And why do people speak as if the only people who criticised and hated her, were a bunch of  lefties??  
That is oversimplified nonsense -  she upset many different categories of people.


- She  infuriated paedo victims
- She infuriated one particular police officer, who had to resign for celebrating her death -see below
- She infuriated this dignified conservative prime minister MacMillan - see below
Were all these people 'lefties'?


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/met-police-sergeant-jeremy-scott-resigns-over-offensive-messages-about-thatcher-death-8570179.html

What that police officer said was disgraceful.

Ziz wrote:

Jules wrote:

Well precisely.

- She  infuriated paedo victims

According to some, including Professor Bernard Crick, her father may have been something of a kiddie fiddler. Perhaps that's a contributing factor to why Thatcher was "blind" to beasts like Saville?

I bet you wouldn't have said that if he was alive. What a disgusting comment.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Ziz wrote:

According to some, including Professor Bernard Crick, her father may have been something of a kiddie fiddler. Perhaps that's a contributing factor to why Thatcher was "blind" to beasts like Saville?

I bet you wouldn't have said that if he was alive. What a disgusting comment.

You are confused, I'm not Professor Crick.

Ziz wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

I bet you wouldn't have said that if he was alive. What a disgusting comment.

You are confused, I'm not Professor Crick.

What a cop out. That's what I would expect from a mealy-mouthed troll like you.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Ziz wrote:

You are confused, I'm not Professor Crick.

What a cop out. That's what I would expect from a mealy-mouthed troll like you.

Not a cop out at all - whilst it is true that I have met Mrs T, I did not know her father. The people of Grantham did though, one such being Prof Crick who said that he "was a notorious toucher-up".

sassy wrote:

Jules wrote:

Ziz wrote:She covered up for peadophiles - appalling woman.

Well precisely.
And why do people speak as if the only people who criticised and hated her, were a bunch of  lefties??  
That is oversimplified nonsense -  she upset many different categories of people.


- She  infuriated paedo victims
- She infuriated one particular police officer, who had to resign for celebrating her death -see below
- She infuriated this dignified conservative prime minister MacMillan - see below
Were all these people 'lefties'?


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/met-police-sergeant-jeremy-scott-resigns-over-offensive-messages-about-thatcher-death-8570179.html

As for the Falklands:

‘The night sky over Portsmouth was lit up with the flashes from the welding’

With redundancy notices in their pockets, Portsmouth dockyard workers rallied in the nation’s hour of need. Morale among the workers had slumped to an all-time low amid sweeping defence cuts being imposed by the Tory government in 1982.

When they turned up to work on Thursday April 2, the dockies knew 3,000 of them would be out of a job by the end of the year. Just days before, the first 180 workers had been given notice that they were surplus to requirements. But everything changed the moment Argentinian forces hoisted their flag on the little-known Falkland Islands 8,000 miles away. Within 24 hours, ministers who had been telling loyal staff they were no longer needed were demanding they pull out all the stops to get the Royal Navy ready for war. As the redundancy notices were withdrawn, the dockies responded with the kind of spirit that has served the nation well for centuries. A Herculean effort saw stripped down warships go from being prepared for sale to sailing in a task force to fight the invaders on April 5. In the days and weeks that followed, ships requisitioned from the merchant fleet were turned into fighting units with mini-guns, armour plating and even helicopter landing pads welded in place. ‘I remember being at work the whole weekend preparing for the task force to sail on the Monday morning,’ recalls Mick Huitson, who worked as an MoD electrical fitter. He says: ‘The whole place was swarming with people. ‘Portsmouth was absolutely grid-locked with delivery lorries stretching from Unicorn Gate to out of the city. They were delivering everything from food and drinks to missiles. ‘I had never seen anything like it.’ Mick, 58, who still works at the dockyard for BAE Systems, adds: ‘People were very focused on the job of getting the task force out to sea – but there was also a feeling that if we did it we could save the dockyard.’ Mick was in the yard services supporting the dockside cranes and dock pumps. He says: ‘It was a very short timescale to get the fleet out. It was absolute chaos with so many modifications being done at once. ‘The night sky over Portsmouth was lit up with the flashes from the welding. It was staggering.’ Work raced ahead. Jobs which would normally take weeks were completed in just a few days. But it all didn’t feel quite real at first, says Mick, of Cosham. ‘We didn’t really know whether we were going to go to war or not. But then I remember driving home up the M275 northbound and I saw six Sea Harrier jets coming towards me flying south. I was on the elevated bit of the motorway fly-over and they came right over my car very close. It was at that point I thought “this is the real thing”. It was a very poignant moment.’ Bob Powell, 65, of Fratton, was an infrastructure maintenance fitter on cranes and pumps at the dockyard. He says: ‘I had my notice given to me on the Sunday and then suddenly we were being asked to work every hour God sends. It was a hectic time. Money went out the window – everybody who could work was asked to work as many hours as possible. ‘I still had my redundancy notice in my pocket, but I just kept working.’ The dockies would continue grafting around the clock, says Bob, who retired last year. He adds: ‘I would work night shifts from 7.30pm to 8am and then sometimes a day shift as well for 12 and a half hours. ‘You could even work a bit extra on top of that if you could still stand up.’ He recalls the dockyard coming to a rare standstill when the aircraft carriers HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible led the task force out of Portsmouth on April 5. He says: ‘It was a really good feeling. There was a purpose to it. I had started in the naval base in 1962 and it was the first time we had done the job we were paid to do, which is get a fleet to sea in an emergency.’ One thing is for sure – the navy could not have mounted such a rapid response to the Falklands crisis without the efforts of the dockies who put aside their industrial grievances for the greater good. Overnight, the naval base had literally become a military operation with everyone working flat out to achieve a common goal. No fewer than 25 ships, including car ferries and cargo vessels, were modified in Portsmouth for the Falklands mission. As soon as one ship left her berth, another would move. One job saw the heavy plate shop work an 84-hour shift to fit helicopter landing pads to the Norland Nordic ferry. The navy knew it was forever in debt to the dockies. As she left Portsmouth, the Hermes sent a signal to the yard thanking workers for their ‘magnificent support’. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary supply ship, RFA Stromness, which had been stripped back for sale in early 1982, was put back to sea within days. The ship’s crew sent back a message that defined exactly what the dockies in Portsmouth had achieved. It read simply: ‘The dockyard is a worker of miracles.’ THIRTY YEARS ON History has a habit of repeating itself. In November 1981, defence secretary John Nott ordered deep cuts to the Royal Navy and Portsmouth dockyard was to be run-down with the loss of 3,000 workers. In a white paper entitled The Way Forward, he moved to reduce the amount of dockyard labour and told the House of Commons there was a strain on the defence budget. The yard became a tempestuous place as unions raged at the cuts being inflicted by the Conservative government. In spring 1982, the navy was on the verge of losing its available aircraft carriers. HMS Hermes was due to be decommissioned in the summer, but she was hastily put back to sea as the Falklands flagship when war broke out with Argentina. On February 25, 1982, the navy had decided to sell HMS Invincible to the Australian government for £175m. The sale was cancelled after Invincible’s crucial role in re-taking the Falkland Islands. As Britain marks 30 years since the conflict in the South Atlantic, the navy is experiencing a 10-year gap without any aircraft carriers, due to the 2010 defence cuts brought about by the Conservative-led Coalition government. Meanwhile, 1,300 workers at BAE Systems in Portsmouth are fearing for their jobs as the company conducts an internal review of its UK shipbuilding operations. The defence giant says it is ‘engaging’ with the unions on its review – but has refused to rule out speculation that it is looking to move all of its shipbuilding up to Scotland.

Read more at: http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/lifestyle/real-life/the-night-sky-over-portsmouth-was-lit-up-with-the-flashes-from-the-welding-1-3694816



I believe it was moved to Scotland.

Absolutely vile woman.

That's how it was and thank heaven's for those that put their shoulder's to the wheel. And to think that Thatcher had the bloddy cheek to arrange for photo opportunities of her riding around on top of a British tank to boost her ratings.



Her policies on the defence of the country and the Falkland's led to the death of over 300 British servicemen who had to go there and retake the islands. She should have resigned on that very morining.

         

THATCHER, Ronnie Raygun;  John Howard, Tony Abbott;  Rumsfeld, Cheney;  Cameron and co. ..

Different times, different countries;  but all   "cut from the same cloth."

Soulless big-business-owned hard-hearted "money men",  they all hated workers and small business operators, and only ever worked towards making their rich corporate and financier masters ever more wealthier..