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UK before Tatcher was a depressed society with stagflation, rising crimes, crumbling infrastructure; that couldn't even clean its own streets. It was a society

UK before Tatcher was a depressed society with stagflation, rising crimes, crumbling infrastructure; that couldn't even clean its own streets. It was a society completely hamstrung by old unions that would happily collapse the economy in face of global competition, as long as their jobs gave the same pay - nominally. Thatcher won two landslide re-elections for a reason.

noizejoy 4y ago
> Thatcher won two landslide re-elections for a reason. Arguably the reason was the war, not domestic policy [0] [0] https://history.com/news/margaret-thatcher-falklands-war https://history.com/news/margaret-thatcher-falklands-war
- smcl 4y ago
  You're downvoted but I don't think you're wrong. In general it seems to be the case that if you're waging a war and you're not getting completely crushed the electorate (or at least the "undecided" voters") tends to rally around whoever happens to be in charge. And indeed I think it's fairly safe to say that most agree that Thatcher benefitted electorally from a strong response to the invasion. I should add that as a Scot I'm definitely not a fan of hers (you just grow up there knowing "Thatcher Bad") but I'm not quite at "put a stake through her heart and garlic round her neck"[0] :) [0] - https://twitter.com/halaljew/status/1294414600566382598 https://twitter.com/halaljew/status/1294414600566382598
  - raspberry1337 4y ago
    Gulf war didn't save Senior Bush from the bad-economy, neither did the Iraq War help Tony Blair's popularity. It's a lot more complex than war-helps-current-leader, at least outside the US. It depends on the war and the context.
    - smcl 4y ago
      Fair point, these are actually great counterexamples
      - lostlogin 4y ago
        They are. That war was also unusual in that it was an attack on a country far away that wasn’t a threat to the US or UK, and there was little to be gained. It was a strange time.
- gadders 4y ago
  I think that was the reason for one of them, certainly. But then she and our armed forces did a tremendous job in reclaiming the Falklands from a fascist dictatorship.
- raspberry1337 4y ago
  Nothing in that article indicates that the war overshadowed her domestic policy, both contributed to her success.
dijit 4y ago
Honestly, I'm not an economist, even worse I was not a fully functioning and critical thinking adult before the Thatcher era, you could well be right but I find it really hard to believe. For example the UK has also had subsequent Conservative victories for the last 12 years or so but every single argument made in 2010 about their approach has been proven true. To the detriment of every person in the UK. So it doesn't necessarily follow in my eyes that an election win means that what you're doing is the right thing, only that you are popular and you can convince people you will do something to help them.
- simonh 4y ago
  I can't argue with you on the recent Conservative track record, they're a pale shadow of the party they once were. The only thing that's saved them is that Labour under Corbyn was plainly, obviously such an utter catastrophe in the making the Cons couldn't help looking good. There certainly was an aspect of that back in the 80s. In the early years Labour was lead by Michael Foot, basically a likeable version of Corbyn but just as unelectable. But then, the Labour Party back then was properly Marxist and had actually pushed forward a programme of nationalisation and unionisation that worked out about as well as you'd expect. The most egregious example of waste was the coal industry, hence the strikes. The tax payer was subsidizing coal to the tune of £1.3 billion a year which was real money back then, just under 1% of total national GDP, not including the increased costs to power and steel industries that were prevented from using cheaper alternatives. When the mining union leader Arthur Scargill appeared before a Parliamentary committee and was asked at what level of loss it was acceptable to close a pit he answered “As far as I can see, the loss is without limits.” That's what we were dealing with. That's just coal, but swathes of industry had been nationalised and was a horrible rotting carcass of waste and losses dragging the country down. Reforming that lot was incredibly painful but it had to be done. Maggie is generally portrayed as being incredibly unpopular, and the way she was lampooned by a generation of up coming British comics was cruel though frankly hilarious, but she won resounding election victory after victory. The economy she built transformed the country into the modern nation it is today. Notably when Blair and Brown brought in a Labour government in 1997 they changed essentially nothing substantive because her reforms palpably worked. All the proposed changes reverting Britain towards a statist socialist economic agenda were quietly shelved and never talked about agin until Corbyn came along. Since then Conservatism on both sides of the pond has suffered an appalling moral and intellectual collapse. The conservative and republican parties are mocking parodies of their former selves. Back in the 80s there were serious, major economic and social problems that desperately needed fixing and economic liberalism had the answers. Nowadays that's just not even vaguely controversial, instead the focus of the right has shifted towards damaging reactionary dog whistle issues like culture wars and blind nationalism. That tendency has always been there, but now it's all they have.
blitzar 4y ago
UK in 2023 is a depressed society with stagflation, rising crimes, crumbling infrastructure
- raspberry1337 4y ago
  It is, and neither more neo-liberalism nor socialism is the answer.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    So that’s how flag waving nationalism and Brexit came to be tried.
    - raspberry1337 4y ago
      It's not over yet, we're yet to see the how the opposite of mass immigration multiculturalism affects a european nation too. Jusging by Sweden and Germany who has applied it the most, it is and ending that goes "no more please"
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
andrepd 4y ago
> UK before Tatcher was a depressed society with stagflation Hardly a problem local to Britain, and hardly something Thatcher solved. It was a crisis that also passed in countries that did not elect viciously anti-state, anti-working class governments. > crumbling infrastructure; that couldn't even clean its own streets Bit of an exaggeration, and I'm not sure how Maggie "Minimal State" Thatcher has supposedly helped with that. > Thatcher won two landslide re-elections for a reason If it weren't for the Falklands she would have been a one term president.

noizejoy 4y ago

> Thatcher won two landslide re-elections for a reason. Arguably the reason was the war, not domestic policy [0] [0] https://history.com/news/margaret-thatcher-falklands-war https://history.com/news/margaret-thatcher-falklands-war

smcl 4y ago
You're downvoted but I don't think you're wrong. In general it seems to be the case that if you're waging a war and you're not getting completely crushed the electorate (or at least the "undecided" voters") tends to rally around whoever happens to be in charge. And indeed I think it's fairly safe to say that most agree that Thatcher benefitted electorally from a strong response to the invasion. I should add that as a Scot I'm definitely not a fan of hers (you just grow up there knowing "Thatcher Bad") but I'm not quite at "put a stake through her heart and garlic round her neck"[0] :) [0] - https://twitter.com/halaljew/status/1294414600566382598 https://twitter.com/halaljew/status/1294414600566382598
- raspberry1337 4y ago
  Gulf war didn't save Senior Bush from the bad-economy, neither did the Iraq War help Tony Blair's popularity. It's a lot more complex than war-helps-current-leader, at least outside the US. It depends on the war and the context.
  - smcl 4y ago
    Fair point, these are actually great counterexamples
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      They are. That war was also unusual in that it was an attack on a country far away that wasn’t a threat to the US or UK, and there was little to be gained. It was a strange time.
gadders 4y ago
I think that was the reason for one of them, certainly. But then she and our armed forces did a tremendous job in reclaiming the Falklands from a fascist dictatorship.
raspberry1337 4y ago
Nothing in that article indicates that the war overshadowed her domestic policy, both contributed to her success.

dijit 4y ago

Honestly, I'm not an economist, even worse I was not a fully functioning and critical thinking adult before the Thatcher era, you could well be right but I find it really hard to believe. For example the UK has also had subsequent Conservative victories for the last 12 years or so but every single argument made in 2010 about their approach has been proven true. To the detriment of every person in the UK. So it doesn't necessarily follow in my eyes that an election win means that what you're doing is the right thing, only that you are popular and you can convince people you will do something to help them.

simonh 4y ago
I can't argue with you on the recent Conservative track record, they're a pale shadow of the party they once were. The only thing that's saved them is that Labour under Corbyn was plainly, obviously such an utter catastrophe in the making the Cons couldn't help looking good. There certainly was an aspect of that back in the 80s. In the early years Labour was lead by Michael Foot, basically a likeable version of Corbyn but just as unelectable. But then, the Labour Party back then was properly Marxist and had actually pushed forward a programme of nationalisation and unionisation that worked out about as well as you'd expect. The most egregious example of waste was the coal industry, hence the strikes. The tax payer was subsidizing coal to the tune of £1.3 billion a year which was real money back then, just under 1% of total national GDP, not including the increased costs to power and steel industries that were prevented from using cheaper alternatives. When the mining union leader Arthur Scargill appeared before a Parliamentary committee and was asked at what level of loss it was acceptable to close a pit he answered “As far as I can see, the loss is without limits.” That's what we were dealing with. That's just coal, but swathes of industry had been nationalised and was a horrible rotting carcass of waste and losses dragging the country down. Reforming that lot was incredibly painful but it had to be done. Maggie is generally portrayed as being incredibly unpopular, and the way she was lampooned by a generation of up coming British comics was cruel though frankly hilarious, but she won resounding election victory after victory. The economy she built transformed the country into the modern nation it is today. Notably when Blair and Brown brought in a Labour government in 1997 they changed essentially nothing substantive because her reforms palpably worked. All the proposed changes reverting Britain towards a statist socialist economic agenda were quietly shelved and never talked about agin until Corbyn came along. Since then Conservatism on both sides of the pond has suffered an appalling moral and intellectual collapse. The conservative and republican parties are mocking parodies of their former selves. Back in the 80s there were serious, major economic and social problems that desperately needed fixing and economic liberalism had the answers. Nowadays that's just not even vaguely controversial, instead the focus of the right has shifted towards damaging reactionary dog whistle issues like culture wars and blind nationalism. That tendency has always been there, but now it's all they have.

blitzar 4y ago

UK in 2023 is a depressed society with stagflation, rising crimes, crumbling infrastructure

raspberry1337 4y ago
It is, and neither more neo-liberalism nor socialism is the answer.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  So that’s how flag waving nationalism and Brexit came to be tried.
  - raspberry1337 4y ago
    It's not over yet, we're yet to see the how the opposite of mass immigration multiculturalism affects a european nation too. Jusging by Sweden and Germany who has applied it the most, it is and ending that goes "no more please"

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

andrepd 4y ago

> UK before Tatcher was a depressed society with stagflation Hardly a problem local to Britain, and hardly something Thatcher solved. It was a crisis that also passed in countries that did not elect viciously anti-state, anti-working class governments. > crumbling infrastructure; that couldn't even clean its own streets Bit of an exaggeration, and I'm not sure how Maggie "Minimal State" Thatcher has supposedly helped with that. > Thatcher won two landslide re-elections for a reason If it weren't for the Falklands she would have been a one term president.