Fair enough sorry Anne

Ramble as you have been quite strongly critical of Mrs T can you give me some alternatvies to all the policies you despised and what you would have done when the country was in a real need of a overhall and modernisation that would show all the arguments you criticsed Helen for as flawed?

Off topic posts have been moved here

http://www.dogsey.com/showthread.php?t=90243

Something else I just remembered too. Wasn't she instrumental in ending Apartheid (sp?) and freeing Nelson Mandella (sp?) and I have just found something on this:

Quote:
Philip Johnston, writing in the Daily Telegraph, recalls attending a summit meeting of British Commonwealth leaders years ago to discuss imposing sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa. Lady Thatcher, who was working behind the scenes to pressure the government to dismantle apartheid and free Nelson Mandela as a token of good faith, was alone among the 49 assembled heads of state to oppose sanctions. She said sanctions would only make the lives of ordinary South Africans -- particularly black South Africans -- more miserable. At the concluding press conference, a reporter (likely a television correspondent) asked the inevitable question of what it "felt like" to be the only leader to oppose the sanctions that all right-thinking folks approved. She replied simply: "I feel sorry for the 48." Unquote

How class is that answer!!!

So there's another one to add to my evergrowing list A!

I would also like to answer you from miles back, where you said I was one of the lucky ones to be in a position to own my own house. Well, in actual fact, I considered myself at the time to be one of the unlucky ones, because I didn't rent a council house, in which case I had to work hard and save for a deposit to purchase said house that I owned back then. I had to pay 3 times the amount that a council tenant could have purchased theirs for, so lucky? I don't think so! So, people who were fortunate enough, and clever enough to have bought their council house back in the Thatcher reign eventually ended up in the same position as me,whereas I had to fight harder to get where I was with my bigger mortgage hanging over my head. I then sold that same house (my first) only 2 years later making quite a hefty old profit, AGAIN, because I had worked evenings and week-ends with my current fiance (aka Dave!)to improve it to make even more money on it. I then pushed the boat out and strapped us up with a humungous mortgage, double to what we had previously, and quite a big scarey one in those days too, and the very next day of signing the contract guess what happened???? I was made redundant by my parents having sold their business where I had been working for the past 4 years Quite a shock to the old system when I was only 32, but I didn't have a union to go and cry to, I just worked for my parents who didn't have a union, and I could have sat back, cried in my tea or whatever you cry in and lost the lot, BUT, I thought about it, turned it into a Rest Home for old peops, got all my regs, filled it up with 8 old people ran it MYSELF 24/7 for 18 months and sold it on for a hefty old profit! In 1987 I was walking around with £100K in my pocket, mortgage all paid off, because I just got on with it!!! That's called entrepeneurism, just what Maggie had in mind for most of us! I said earlier, yes you need a lot of luck in life, but also a lot of b*lls, and I have both, just like she did during the first part of her term in office!

And I never hurt a soul, I never walked all over anybody, nor did I make anyone out of work, it was all there for the taking, thanks to Margaret Thatcher years. I was one of the "have nots" but I made it my ambition in life to be one of the "haves" just like a lot of others did because she helped us to do that, they were throwing money at us by 1990, I remember I went to the bank to start up yet another venture I had in mind, and again, I had NO money except what was all tied up in our house. I presented him with my ideas and what I wanted to buy, he let me have the money, then I wanted a new Range Rover to go with the business, coz I had to have a big 4x4 to make a real good go of it, and as he sat at his desk writing down all the figures trying to work out exactly how much I owed him by then, his words to me were "oh, just go and buy it, and we'll worry about it afterwards" and that was a bank manager talking!!!! He didn't know me from Adam, he'd only lent me the other money a matter of weeks earlier too!! You have to be forthcoming if you want a slice of the action, and again I say to you, the fact that a woman PM like Mrs T was that type of person gave me all the more reason to do it!

I don't think anybody who didn't live through the bad times in the 70's would have realised what opportunities had become available when Mrs. T put her whole house when she came into office. Ok it took some time, the debts were humungous, I think I read somewhere that our reserves had fallen to that of Nigeria's (yes! that's fact!) and she had to take drastic action, and as you know, drastic times calls for drastic action, it had to be. She didn't kill anybody off did she in the process, everyone was given equal opportunity to pick themselves up and get on with it. Again, survival of the fittest, and NO, I didn't have assets at the time, only a great big mortgage over my head which nobody else was going to pay apart from ourselves!

I am not going there, last time I got into a debate re: Nelson Mandela(on another forum) I got racist

Ok Stormey, better do this then

Mrs Thatcher opposed sanctions because of money....the loss of British money and Bristish trade.
I've heard it all now......Margaret Thatcher helping to end apartheid... sorry H. No. So no.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...es-413569.html

No? You'd better take that one up with Peter Hitchens who wrote an article in The Mail on Sunday then, where he quotes the following:

But once it was clear that the Soviet menace was gone, and the West was no longer afraid of handing one of the world's most important countries to Moscow control, Mrs Thatcher played a significant part in the release of Mandela and the peaceful handover of power. I say this as someone who has no special admiration for Lady Thatcher and no links with the Tory Party. It just happens to be true.

Mind you, we're not supposed to believe anything we read in the papers are we, but I should imagine they'd be had up for printing blatent lies like that though somehow?

The daily mail and mail on sunday are well known conservative papers as are there readers. So any artical in them need to be taken with a pinch of salt. JMO

My memory of the whole anti apartheid moevement strangely doesn't have Mrs T in it, spearheading the campaign.....it does have her doing something else though...