The 'Iron Lady' has passed away. ( Archived) (132)

Dictators do have a tendency to defend and support each other.

And line the pockets of their families. ( from the profits of arms deals )

"MARK THATCHER made millions of pounds from Britain's huge Al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia, signed in 1985 by his mother, Margaret Thatcher, when prime minister, it is alleged today."



Was it a one off ? Yeh, right !!

"The total commission for middlemen on the deal, it says, was a remarkable pounds 240m."

Thatcher got £12m ..... so where did the other £228m go, how many middlemen can there be ... ?

The arms industry in England is second only to the US. It is a real earner, people will buy their arms somewhere, why not from us, and if people get commission for pulling off a big deal this is normal business practice. The Pinochet regime was no worse than any other around in SA at the time, and justice was not impeded, he came to the UK for medical treatment and was treated the same as any other visiting head of state.

MT handling of the Irish question was superb.

No previous British Prime Minister has had an ism named after them. You cannot imagine Churchillism, Macmillanism, or Attleeism, and if such an ism had been conjured up, it would surely not have been about economics.
It is true that people do now speak of “Blairism”, but this seems to be more about a political style rather than anything of substance, and whatever it is, it certainly isn’t about economics.
By contrast, although it was more a set of loosely related ideas than a coherent economic philosophy, “Thatcherism” was both substantial and essentially about political economy.
Although the ism is attached to one person’s name, in both concept and implementation it bore the imprint of many other people.
The main high intellectual influences, coming via Keith Joseph, were from Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman. Among politicians, Enoch Powell also left his mark. The practical ideas – and the implementation – were heavily influenced by several key ministers, especially Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson, Norman Tebbit and Cecil Parkinson. But to forge Thatcherism, these different elements were given the indelible stamp of Baroness Thatcher’s own irrepressible personality.

As to why Baroness Thatcher should be the first PM to lend her name to an ism you have to look to both the person and the times.
Those who knew her well would not describe her as an intellectual, but Baroness Thatcher was ideological by nature. She understood the importance of ideas and she saw the connections between ideas and practical consequences. Moreover, she knew where she stood – and she relished telling others where she stood too.
But her political personality might not have developed fully in this way, and would certainly not have had such an impact on British politics, if it had not been for the circumstances of the time. When she first burst onto the stage it was a time for isms.
Domestically, the 1970s had been a period of crisis. At various points, not just the economy but the whole system of democratic government in Britain seemed at the point of collapse.
At the beginning of the Labour Government in the 1960s, Harold Wilson talked about the white heat of the technological revolution but Jim Callaghan’s government of the late 1970s went out – and Thatcherism was moulded – in the grey cold of the Winter of Discontent.
Baroness Thatcher would have seen her ideological enemy then as “socialism”, which had brought the country low: excessive levels of government spending and taxation, lax financial discipline and excessive power for the trade unions.
Internationally, the enemy was communism, as the Cold War still raged and the Soviet Union seemed extremely threatening. Thatcherism, like its transatlantic offshoot, Reaganism, was cast in opposition to these prevailing isms of the day.
So what was Thatcherism about?
Much of it was just the traditional liberal economic agenda, developed in the 19th century – free markets, free trade, competition, a small state, requiring only low levels of taxation, and financial probity.
In the early stages, this concern for financial probity was allied to crude monetarism, that is to say, belief that controlling the money supply would automatically give you low inflation, but this was not integral to the philosophy and by the mid 1980s it was effectively abandoned.
Saying that this was just a retread of old 19th century liberalism doesn’t convey how radical these ideas were at the time, after decades in which markets were held under suspicion and even in a supposedly capitalist country like the UK, the state’s role in the economy was overwhelming.
The terms left and right are often inadequate to describe the relations of political and economic ideas.

unprecedented ( in the UK )


Street parties mostly in the ex-industial north of England and in Scotland.

OK, I'm going to sound perhaps stupidly idealistic here but shouldn't world peace be the directive of our world leaders ? Rather than constantly perpetuating the arms race ? OK, it's great for the national economy and personal kickbacks of course, but it can't morally be the right direction, surely.

We saw our UK leader Cameron race over to Egypt with arms dealers in tow and £ £ £ in his eyes immediately after the recent Arab Spring unrest and many will say, well if we don't do it someone else will.

Sad isn't it, but that's reality for you .... war is too big an industry to ignore.

Only someone not living in Ireland at that time and who hasn't a clue about Ireland of that time would think that.

Are you sure you posting are in the correct thread Ali ?