By Richard Murphy Posted on APRIL 9 2013
I see no reason to celebrate the life of Margaret Thatcher. I offer sympathy to her family, of course, but we have to remember what Margaret Thatcher did for this country.
In one of her first moves on coming to office she delivered capital market liberalisation.
What that meant was that money was allowed to roam free around the world.
The tax haven boom began as a direct result. The assault of capital on democracy followed.
The shift of taxation from capital to labour became inevitable. The current crisis on corporate responsibility and tax is the direct consequence.
Then she delivered the ‘Big Bang’ in financial services in London, removing regulation, allowing integration, encouraging financialisation and putting growth at all costs without consideration of prudence at the heart of banking.
The 2008 banking crisis was the direct consequence.
The failures of HBOS, Lloyds, RBS, Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley can all be laid at her door.
And culturally she gave us greed. The ethical corruption of Barclays and so many other companies could not have happened without Thatcher.
In the process she showed indifference to unemployment and a contempt for people who worked for a living.
Unions may have needed reform; they never needed the Thatcher prescription. And we paid the price for her spite in the collapse of manufacturing as she squandered oil revenues on increasing the number claiming social security benefits from 2 million to 6 million. That was the price of her social engineering; the lack of engineering in our economy is another legacy. And she blighted large parts of the country in the process, delivering the now familiar bias to the South East.
In the pursuit of power, reward and control for a few at the price of the many Thatcher split Britain. She ruled for the 1%. For 99% her rule was a disaster.
Which means that one day, with the long lens of history, it may well be seen to have been so for the 1% too. But just not yet.
Thatcher’s Britain: it’s hard not to see the roots of the 2008 crash in the unshackling of the City two decades earlier Posted on April 9, 2013
It.
I curse the wretched evil
That makes me feel this way
That forces me to think of it
With every passing day.
It makes me hate and wait and wait
To hear it’s dying breath
For that I’m sure it must endure
A slow and painful death.
It’s loathed in Buenos Aires
Likewise in Crossmaglen
Despised in every closed down pit
From Kent to Bilsten Glen
It deprived men of their livelihood
It stripped them of their pride
It took their coal and gave them dole
Their dignity denied.
It tore apart communities
It devastated lives
It made enemies of neighbours
And left husbands without wives
It disregarded consequence
It killed both young and old
It privatised our heat and light
And left us dark and cold.
It undermined democracy
Sold council homes for votes
It hid the truth on Hillsborough
As history denotes
It robbed the poor to pay the rich
With unjust, unfair taxation
The price of which is being paid
By another generation
It murdered Argentine conscripts
In the South Atlantic seas
Outside it’s own exclusion zone
It let them drown or freeze
It delegated evil
From it’s Whitehall ivory tower
It kept Mandela in prison
And Pinochet in power.
It wreaked it’s trail of terror
‘cross Ulsters rolling hills
It ran the Loyalist death squads
It sanctioned shoot to kill
It took three ‘out’ without a shout
In cold blood upon the Rock
And let ten Irish martyrs die
Of hunger in the Blocks.
But when it’s day of judgement comes
As all things come to pass
We’ll shed no tears nor mourn it’s loss
Among the working class
Instead we’ll meet on every street
In every town and city
And tramp it down into the ground
Without remorse or pity.
© Pakie Baker 8th April 2013.
no great surprise here in the Daily Heil according to them we should all be in ‘a nation mourns’mode with the passing of the woman who ‘saved this country’ the great messiah which we should all honour and be gratefule for the poverty and destitution and suffering she brought us..and anyone who doesnt do that are ‘typical’ of the whiny feckless idle spongers or as the Heil like to put it…’the left’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2306165/Margaret-Thatcher-death-parties-The-Lefts-sick-celebration-Brixtons-streets.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
I am Glad that the Evil Margaret Thatcher is Dead
The Evilstablishment may Worship Her but I Despise Her
Margaret Thatcher’s Gormless Regime Scrapped the Link between Pensions and
Earnings
As Isaiah Chapter 5 Verse 20 of the Bible Says
” Woe to you that call Evil Good, and Good Evil: that put Darkness for Light, and Light for Darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and Sweet for Bitter.
Thatcher is Thankfully Gone but the Evils of Thatcherism Wrecking of Public
Services Selfishness Greed and Oppression of the Poor and Vulnerable Need to
be Swept Away
The Spirit of Revolution will Help in this
Out of all the bad she coursed she also dun a lot of good for this country so as much as some will hate her for what she did she will be remembered for the good and the Ian fist approach she showed towards those that stood against her.
Less can be said about David Cameron and his cabinet who are rapping the poor and less well off and giving to the fat cat greedy rich Thatcher believed in modernization Cameron believes in destroying the very foundations of this country.
Oh Barry, I was going to ask you to name just one thing that she did was good but I refrained because it could be an opportunity for you to spout even more drivel – see, I can be compassionate even when admonishing someone for being somewhat foolhardy ….
@barry i tried to think of what ‘she coursed she dun a lot of good for this country’ then gave up after 5 minutes..
Eight million quid of taxpayers money to bury the tyrant who made our world a worse place to live,you gotta be joking!
Either strap her to a trident missile and send her as an early christmas present to north korea, or let the miners bury her. They have plenty of big holes standing idle….
She had been staying at the ritz since christmas and the daughter flew back from the millionaires playground of Kloisters, dream on………..
She gave us absolutely *uck all. Why should we stump up the money?
Hitler had a few jerrycans of petrol…..
Personally I think we should give thanks for Margaret Thatcher. She enabled Britain to get back on its feet after years of incompetence from the unions and Labour administrations. Sadly much of her work was destroyed by the events of 1997-2010, and it only now that a little bit of common sense is being reintroduced into our finances
@roger jenkins you are very unwell, you need therapy to deal with these sad delusions..