Kathy Gyngell reports Lady Thatcher's view of feminism

"When it was suggested they were going to have a Minister for Women, I said 'Oh really', are they going to have a minister for men? ….. If you are sure of your talents and abilities you don't expect to be treated differently at work because you are a woman. Most able women I know – women who climb to the top, whether it be in broadcasting, whether it be in business, whether it be as a woman editor – got there through merit and that is their strength, their ability. Don't try to give the impression we need special treatment. We don't."

Lady Thatcher talking sense on feminism and special treatment for women.

More here https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/kathy-gyngell-womans-hour-ties-knots-acknowledge-great-mrs-t/

Jeremy Clarkson on the BBC and Lady Thatcher’s funeral

"Hymns … than a beardy man in a frock gave a broadcast for the Labour Party" – Jeremy Clarkson in today's Sun. I can't find it online but it's worth paying 40p for the paper just to read it …
"I was abroad when Baroness Thatcher died. But the BBC's impartial website kept me abreast of the mood back in Britain.
They told me that people were pouring out of their homes to rejoice at the news. There were street parties and spontaneous outpouring of joy.
…
I only met Mrs Thatcher once and all she could talk about was the hopeless left-wing bias of the BBC.
…
On the morning of the event, I checked the BBC website for updates and the news was grim. They were talking about massive protests … They were even advertising a Facebook page to help those who wanted to go along and throw some fruit …
…
Nothing was thrown. Apart from a few flowers. And if anybody jeered they were drowned out by the applause. Looks like the BBC got it spectacularly wrong."

Replace Trident with HILDA

'Obviously this new, smart, fearsome combined all-British defence system would be a Highly Independent, Lethal Defence Arsenal – HILDA. She would go on and on defending Britain for the rest of the century…'

Guido has the details http://order-order.com/2013/04/18/trident-costs-a-bomb/

The Bishop of London's Lesson at Lady Thatcher's funeral

Very nicely delivered with stories of Lady Thatcher's humanity that showed a side of her that the left and the left's leaders (such as the BBC) would prefer we did not know. I also liked the Tolpuddle martyrs hiustory lesson, something for the BBC to remember, not that they will.

I think it's clear why The Rt Revd & Rt Hon Richard Chartres DD KCVOhas not become Archbishop of Canterbury!

Thatcher destroyed mining in the UK?

http://twitter.com/BBCPropaganda/status/322465736805199872/photo/1

Margaret Thatcher don't wanna jump - YouTube

Lady Thatcher has principles.

Margaret Thatcher: Public anger at BBC bias: Viewers hit out at lengthy coverage of poll tax and miners' strike | Mail Online

One excerpt from this Daily Mail piece struck me http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2306564/Margaret-Thatcher-Public-anger-BBC-bias-Viewers-hit-lengthy-coverage-poll-tax-miners-strike.html

'One of Thatcher's arch critics – former Labour MP Tony Benn – was one of the first invited to speak on BBC 5 Live and BBC World Service and was given free rein to criticise Lady Thatcher.
He said: 'Margaret Thatcher taught us the meaning of class war, we have paid a very heavy price for it.

'She used the power she had to make war on the miners and the trade union movement . . . and it was a very divisive period as Prime Minister, but you have to recognise that was what she believed and that meant she was not just fooling and she did in a sense open up the meaning of the phrase 'class war" as she used her power to make war on trade unions and the majority of the population.''

Didn't the Labour government that Tony Benn was a part of close more coal mines than Mrs Thatcher's government?

Once again I notice the difference between left and right

I inhabit a pretty civilised personal world but as ever I note that even here, the left and right deal with differences of opinion differently. In several meetings today I felt that some people wanted to talk about Lady Thatcher's death but felt inhibited because whilst they were obviously pro-Thatcher, they weren't sure about me. I am not how most of you imagine me to be, most people would assume that I am on the left, maybe the far left . 

I have noted previously how lefty types feel free to insult politicians on the right and how people on the right will just listen and accept their insulter's right to free speech. Whereas people on the right, being generally more polite, usually feel inhibited from expressing anti-lefty opinions in case they get verbally (or even physically) attacked by the usually less tolerant lefty.

Lots of generalisations in that piece but that, albeit anecdotally, is what I have discovered over recent years. Even amongst my friends, the lefty types will happily discuss politics and insult Conservative politicians and policies, whilst us right of centre types just have to keep quiet. It's trendy to be a lefty but not to be right of centre.

It's official, Thatcher was good for the UK

The Time Margaret Thatcher Met One of India's 'God Men' - The Daily Beast

A truly odd story...

'Kapil Komireddi sends the amazing story of the day Margaret Thatcher, not yet prime minister, met one of India's leading "God men," as the Indians amusingly call them. The story comes from the memoirs of K. Natwar Singh, a high-ranking Indian diplomat.

Chandraswamy did not disappoint Mrs Thatcher. He prophesied that she would be Prime Minister for nine, eleven or thirteen years. Mrs Thatcher, no doubt believed that she would be Prime Minister one day. Nine, eleven, thirteen years was a bit much. Mrs Thatcher put one final question. When would she become a Prime Minister? Chandraswamy announced — in three or four years. He was proved right. She was PM for eleven years.'

More here http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/09/the-time-margaret-thatcher-met-one-of-india-s-god-men.html

Some more Thatcherisms

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” 

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” 

“If you just set out to be liked, you will be prepared to compromise on anything at anytime, and would achieve nothing. ” 

“Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.” “I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”

“Consensus: “The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?”

“It used to be about trying to do something. Now it's about trying to be someone.” 

“Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.” 

“No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.” 

“Of course it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.” 

“Socialists are happy until they run out of other people's money.”

"Thatcher in Poland"

Would any other British political leader have been as resolute?

Coal mine closures

If I hear one more ex-miner celebrating the death of Lady Thatcher I might just scream. The BBC have given airtime to numerous such people, people who just realise one key fact.

There were more pit closures under Harold Wilson's Labour government than under Lady Thatcher's Conservative government: 406 pits closed in the 1960s (with 315,000 job losses), only 146 closed in the 1980s (with 173,000 jobs losses).

I wonder why the BBC never point that out? Would it spoil their carefully constructed narrative?

Thatcher was evil, she said that 'there was no such thing as society'

Thatcher was evil, she said that 'there was no such thing as society' I am sick of hearing lefty fools spouting that line.

Because no she didn't, what she actually said was this:

“I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand 'I have a problem, it is the government's job to cope with it!' or 'I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!'; 'I am homeless, the government must house me!' and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society?

"There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families, and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.

"It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations.”

As true today as it was then.

Actually Lady Thatcher did also word the same sentiments thus:

“I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.” 

Wise words indeed from Mrs Thatcher

"The state has no source of money other than the money people earn themselves..."

"There is no such thong as public money, there is just tax-payers money"

"Prosperity won't come by inventing more and nmore lavish public expenditure programs"

"You don't grow richer by ordering another chequebook from the bank"


Watching this short video should be compulsory for all politicians, once or twice a day...

I didn't agree with everything Lady Thatcher did BUT bearing in mind the state of the nation in 1979 there really was no alternative, she was a necessary, sometimes unpleasant, medicine for the Country. At the end of her tenure as Prime Minister the country was no longer the sick man of Europe and was considerable better off. Without her governance I wonder how the UK would have looked in 1990.

Baroness Thatcher has died

Baroness Thatcher one of the great British Prime Ministers has died and I am waiting for the British left to rise to the occasion. Before long the nasty face of the British left will be much in evidence. In the meantime I am going to monitor the BBC. At the moment their lead article runs thus:

'Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher has died at 87 following a stroke, her spokesman has said. Lord Bell said: "It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning." Baroness Thatcher was Conservative prime minister from 1979 to 1990. She was the first woman to hold the post. Her family is expected to make a further statement later. Baroness Thatcher, born Margaret Roberts, became the Conservative MP for Finchley, north London in 1959, retiring from the Commons in 1992. Having been education secretary, she successfully challenged former prime minister Edward Heath for her party's leadership in 1975. She won general elections in 1979, 1983 and 1987. Baroness Thatcher's government privatised several state-owned industries. She was also in power when the UK went to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1982.'

Such small accomplishments: privatised several state-owned industries and was in power when the UK went to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. How about rescued the UK economy from the despair of the Wilson/Callaghan Labour governments? How about turned the UK from 'the sick man of Europe' into one of the world's leading powers? How about went to the defence of the Falklands despite the opposition of the Labour party?

I suppose that a news organisation that the BBC's Jane Garvey recalled celebrated the 1997 Labour victory:

“I do remember… the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles. I’ll always remember that”

is unlikely to stay neutral on the death of the hated 'Thatch'


UPDATE:I see that the BBC's Political Editor, Nick Robinson, has stooped this low:

tweets: The dominant figure of post-war British politics is dead. Love her or loathe her, Margaret Thatcher shaped this country as few others did.

Evan Davis has tweeted this pearler:

I see Ken Livingstone has been unable to show any grace today, I suppose breaking the habits of a lifetime would be hard. Sky News quote him thus:

'Ex-London mayor Ken Livingstone tells Sky News Baroness Thatcher's policies were "fundamentally wrong". "She created today's housing crisis, she produced the banking crisis, she created the benefits crisis. It was her government that started putting people on incapacity benefits rather than register them as unemployed because the Britain she inherited was broadly at full employment," he says.

Full employment? Unemployment began to rise from the 4% level in early 1975 and by the time of the 1979 general election was at nearly 6%. The inefficiencies hidden by this employment level took some time to iron out.

Here's another of the BBC's favourites, 'comedian' Mark Steel

What a terrible shame – that it wasn’t 87 years earlier
— Mark Steel (@mrmarksteel) April 8, 2013

John O'Farrell was sorry that the Brighton bomb didn't kill Margaret Thatcher. Was his disappointment eased by the injuries incurred by my wife? – Telegraph Blogs

Norman Tebbit poses a good question, one that Ed Miliband will surely fail to address.

 'John O'Farrell was sorry that the Brighton bomb didn't kill Margaret Thatcher. Was his disappointment eased by the injuries incurred by my wife?'

So come on Ed Miliband where do you stand on prospective Labour MPs being on record stating that they previously wished Lady Thatcher dead?

Does this photo give us a clue?

Thatcher's the best! New poll names ex-Tory leader as greatest prime minister - The Commentator

'The poll asked members of the British public: "In your opinion, is David Cameron a better or worse Prime Minister than —?" and named each of the prime ministers since Harold Wilson.

Embarrassingly, though not unpredictably, the last Labour leader, Gordon Brown, scored -17 points, coming last behind John Major and James Callaghan.'

The Commentator has the details.

Happy Birthday Lady Thatcher

Lady Thatcher is 87 today, happy birthday...


That should upset a few of the foaming at the mouth lefties that occasionally infest this site.


Odd company she keeps:

 

Is David Cameron the second Ted Heath? If so, who is the second Margaret Thatcher and does that make Ed Miliband or Ed Balls the second Harold Wilson?

“you have to go through Heath to get to Thatcher” is apparently a saying in circulation in Westminster, in other words a tinkering Conservative Prime Minister has to have a go, and fail, before the Conservative Party reaches for radicalism. In the early 1970s Ted Heath spoke about the changes needed to save Britain but was unable to implement them when Prime Minister. It took Margaret Thatcher to rescue the country from its long post war decline under both labour and wet Conservative governments. David Cameron has long been compared to Ted Heath and he hates it, he apparently believes that Lady Thatcher was cautious at first, biding her time before implementing radical policies. I believe that we have less time now than we did in 1979/80, the debt will destroy us if radical solutions are not found.

If David Cameron is the second Ted Heath then who is the second Margaret Thatcher? I can see nobody with the balls to do the necessary job. As for which of the two Eds is Harold Wilson, it's probably Ed Balls: nasty and paranoid.

Thanks to Fraser Nelson in The Telegraph for finding the opening quotation and inspiring this piece.