Heartland

lazarus corporation wrote:Tory Louise Mensch plays it for political points. Loses. Badly.

I don't see what "the Left" is doing now as any different from "the Right" smearing all benefit claimants as Mick Phillpots recently.
Whatever her politics (and no-one has ever yet told me what profitable industry she destroyed and how), she was someone's mother, grandmother, friend. It's just being scummy and classless.

God you're such a stuck up COCK!

and part of my reason for splitting from HL, I'd tell you to get bent but you're already doubled up

you know, i always thought i'd be dancing. but my first reaction was anger, and tears. i'm still angry.

Your razor-sharp dissection of my opinion leaves me crushed and broken.
Then again, you always were a twit as memory serves.

take it to PMs, go on, I'm in the mood

Why on earth would I wish any kind of private communication with you? The same man who, as I recall, thought Amy Winehouse's death was funny?

Oh, and baby is welcome to this forum, if he wants it.

you're good, very good, just not as good as you think you are

but who is "baby", baby?

I must admit, I found the whole Cher thing amusing on twitter
One hash tag #nowthatchersdead caused mass panic among Cher fans

She's dead - on a personal level (if you were related to her), it's sad. On a non-related level, it's a bit of a non-event - it's not like her death will repair the things she broke, or break the things she fixed, or stop the things that are going wrong from going wrong. Argentina will not suddenly rule the Falklands, the pits won't reopen, privatised industry won't be back in public hands (you think she ever regretted selling-off north sea oil?).
We're happy to have outlasted her (a very human emotion), but the damage was already done. Maybe the hate we feel for her is displacement, that we the electorate let her get away with it, on a promise of home-ownership and lower taxes. She gave us what we asked for, but never what we needed. And in the end it was her own ministers who put the boot in, not us.
Maybe what we should have done is leave her to moulder when she left office, to deprive her of the oxygen of publicity. But our fascination with her wouldn't even let us do that, we kept dragging her out of the chamber of horrors, as if to remind ourselves that she existed, to reignite whatever passions we had for her. For some she was a beacon, for others she was a personification of all of the ills of capitalism.

But whatever she was she stopped being a long time ago. A shame, perhaps, that we couldn't gather this much emotion when it came to actually doing something about her when she was in office. We got the government we voted for - the shame's on us.

James Blast wrote:you're good, very good, just not as good as you think you are

but who is "baby", baby?

Oh do shut up with the melodrama. It's an online forum about an 80's band, not a duel to the death. You can think me a stuck up cock, and I can think you a borderline sociopath.
Have your playpen back, for all it matters to me. Now, pick teddy up from the corner, and dust it off.

how come you only ever show on political threads?
you allas go against the grain too (I'm all for discussion n'at but you've pretty much laid your wares out from day 1 and your sticking there). Meringue?

put up any decent bootlegs/articles/interviews about an "80s band"?

Gosh I'm dead sorry I wasn't up to a PM from you, I'll go away and try harder.

@ Bastard I notice you haven't resided in the UK for some time, but I'm sure you did feel a 'nip' from the final whip of the Balrog's tail [citation needed from fiendy] - Her legacy is debt beyond the powers of imagination, and the population on the hook for it. Gideon is just finishing the job - by doubling the debt since taking power.

used to be a lot of fun in here, anyone know where a CURVE forum lies?

Quiff Boy wrote:anyone for a street party?

The time for celebrating was when she lost office in 1990 and then in 1997 when the Tories were finally voted out. And many of us did celebrate, on both occasions. Since she left office, she has been mercifully quiet, and had clearly been unwell for many years. Her death is not the moment for settling old scores.

how do we then?

James Blast wrote:how do we then?

At the ballot box if you believe in democracy.

Oh I do, look at posts passim where I urged the Heartland to just get out there and VOTE!

there was nothing but apathy

a disgrace that people fought (and died) for apathy, it irks me greatly

18th September 2014 is Scotland's chance to get rid of the Tories for ever, some say.

the next general election is 2 years away. i think people would like to mark her passing a little before that

James Blast wrote: used to be a lot of fun in here

Still can be

Well I thought she was a s**t back then and her being dead isn''t really going to change my opinion.

But what has really got to really impress you about her is that she can still yank a few chains - being dead not withstanding

James Blast wrote:how come you only ever show on political threads?
you allas go against the grain too (I'm all for discussion n'at but you've pretty much laid your wares out from day 1 and your sticking there). Meringue?

put up any decent bootlegs/articles/interviews about an "80s band"?

Gosh I'm dead sorry I wasn't up to a PM from you, I'll go away and try harder.

I suppose if I disagree with you, and prove you wrong it's "going against the grain"? You've a good line in impassioned rage, but that's about it.
And just how constructive would any private conversation be between you and I, do you think? Neither thinks much of the other. Which I doubt makes either of us cry bitter tears.
I've made you the offer. If this forum is as important to you as you seem to be implying, they can delete me from here, and you can come back to it. I can assure you it won't wound me too deep.

DeWinter wrote:

James Blast wrote:how come you only ever show on political threads?
you allas go against the grain too (I'm all for discussion n'at but you've pretty much laid your wares out from day 1 and your sticking there). Meringue?

put up any decent bootlegs/articles/interviews about an "80s band"?

Gosh I'm dead sorry I wasn't up to a PM from you, I'll go away and try harder.

I suppose if I disagree with you, and prove you wrong it's "going against the grain"? You've a good line in impassioned rage, but that's about it.
And just how constructive would any private conversation be between you and I, do you think? Neither thinks much of the other. Which I doubt makes either of us cry bitter tears.
I've made you the offer. If this forum is as important to you as you seem to be implying, they can delete me from here, and you can come back to it. I can assure you it won't wound me too deep.

Play nice guys

Disagreement is fine, high handedness is not.

I offered to take it off forum because the good peeps here need not put up with our petty squabbles

Dig!?

PS, ta for this bit - " a good line in impassioned rage" I'd love to find one for you but... but, well..

I'd agree with you Blasty-poo that there was a momentary nip when I heard that she was gone. I remember where I was when I heard that she'd been booted in 1990, and I naively believed that things would change after her departure. Yes, she helped put the population in hock, ran down heavy industry, sold off national assets, and turned Britain into an offshore European manufacturing facility for every company that was prepared to line the tory party coffers.
Then again, she also effectively neutered the unions and stopped them holding the country to ransom every time they were unhappy. Don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of trades unions and believe that the working man needs to have a say in the way his company is run. But unions in Britain never seemed to cotton on to the idea that their members' interests were best served when they were working, rather than on strike. Consensus was never high on their agenda, and everyone paid the price for it - ultimately the unions bear as much responsibility for the destruction of Britain's industrial base as Thatcher does.
Thatcher was a reaction to the Labour party's inability to hold unions accountable, and the pendulum swung from one extreme to the other. Once it got moving there was no stopping it - it was hang-on and try to get rich, or fall off and drop through the safety net. The tories saw that we were weak and wanted levis and raybans, cheap glitz, jam today and tomorrow, and they dazzled us with their baubles. Who cared that they sold off everything that belonged to us for a fast buck? There were 18-year olds in the City making more money in a year than their parents saw in a lifetime, Golf GTis and black 501s, Duran Duran, Siouxsie, Adam Ant - who could blame us for being dazzled after the years of austerity and disco?
She never did anything we didn't let her do, or in our hearts want her to. Can we really, hand on heart, say that we'd have voted for higher taxes? Less fun? Less freedom? More responsibility? Really? Maybe if we'd seen the price tag of what we wanted then we would have - but at 2 minutes to midnight who cares about the cost? It's not as if we were ever going to have to pay the tab.

And I'm all for fighting for apathy - not sure if I can be bothered dying for it, though

My cat's stole my Thatcher Death Cork from my chamagne bottle.
At least he can celebrate too

I don't think that the formal funeral procession is appropriate for Thatcher, after all Heath, Wilson and McMillan all had small scale funerals more appropriate for what is effectively public service.
As for the immediate political legacy, the Tories will probably get a temporary poll boost as attention turns away from tax and welfare reform. However, just before the next UK election all the documents relating to the Miners' Strike will come into the public domain under the 30 year rule which will help to remind people why they didn't feel able to trust the Tories again.