what, no 'fifteen years since thatcher resigned' thread?

[LLETSA]

I ordered a bottle of champagne in the pub and these lads working on the buildings bought the next two. Manchester SWP were giiving away a glass of cheap bubbly for every paper sold in the town centre. Mind you we also went out on the piss all night just to watch the Tories lose the election.

Although LLettsa does seem a trifle unnessessarily down about it, I do take the point that he seems to be making about whether it she went because of the 'riot' or because of an inner part coup. You can add to that that there was obviously far more to the poll tax resistance than the kick off with the Police on the national demo.

I agree that the poll tax campaign was her ultimate downfall, if only because it turned powerful colleagues against her.

I was as pleased as most other I knew-lefties and non-lefties. I couldn't help but get the feeling, though, that, as far as the left was concerned, it was 'any excuse for a party', which seemed absolutely pathetic when it was completely obvious that nothing substantial would change.

All this, we should remember, was when the labour movement here, and in most of the western world, had been losing every major battle over the past decade and more, the welfare state was being increasingly undermined, and the only attempt to set up an alternative to capitalism had collapsed to widespread jubilation among the populations of the nations concerned, dragging Marxism in all its forms with it. And with no sign of an end to any of it.

 

[nino_savatte]

When Thatch finally resigned I felt elated for about 30 seconds, then I realised the Tories were still in power and my elation evaporated.

I'm surprised a couple of the usual suspects haven't turned up to tell us all what a wonderful woman she was.

 

[Streathamite]

give it time....

 

[LLETSA]

aren't you soooooo special.

And aren't you a typical clutch-at-any-straw leftie?

And to think that the likes of you have had fifteen years to get real.

 

[belboid]

And aren't you a typical clutch-at-any-straw leftie?

And to think that the likes of you have had fifteen years to get real.

just goes to show how the likes of you have failed so fucking miserably then despite your oh so superior knowledge.

 

[Gentleman Taff]

I fell asleep in front of the telly last night, and when I woke up it was a Newsnight profile of Thatcher. "Fuckin get in," I thought to myself, "she's dead." Imagine my disappointment......

Yeh but did you hear the last words of the voice over? Something along the lines of 'I don't think she's had a happy day since she ceased to be PM'....... nice to know

 

[LLETSA]

just goes to show how the likes of you have failed so fucking miserably then despite your oh so superior knowledge.

What does? And who are 'the likes of me'?

 

[belboid]

dear me, such a big brain, yet unable to understand basic english.

try reading the posts, might help.

 

[charlie mowbray]

He's the Mekon maybe? Hence as a Martian his understanding of basic English is poor.

 

[hibee]

I was still at school at the time, but I was old enough to cheer with everyone else.

Still, LLETSA is right - the fact we're celebrating her fifteen-year-old departure (an event which served only to strengthen her legacy) as though it was in some way a victory shows how much the left has to clutch at straws.

 

[mk12]

hibee: why don't you think you're a part of "the left"?

 

[hibee]

never said I wasn't. But I'm also realistic: unfortunately the dazzling brilliance of my own position isn't enough on its own to steer the rest of the left as a whole away from its befuddlement

 

[belboid]

He's the Mekon maybe? Hence as a Martian his understanding of basic English is poor.

I was still at school at the time, but I was old enough to cheer with everyone else.

Still, LLETSA is right - the fact we're celebrating her fifteen-year-old departure (an event which served only to strengthen her legacy) as though it was in some way a victory shows how much the left has to clutch at straws.

no it doesn't - her going was a victory for us. We had got rid of her by the strength of opposition to the Poll Tax. Is it depressing that that's the last 'victory' we have had? Of course it bloody is. it was still a most joyous day tho.

And as for strengthening her legacy? Did it buggerry, it made her look like a joke at the end. "I will go on and on." Oh no you won't!

 

[hibee]

And as for strengthening her legacy? Did it buggerry, it made her look like a joke at the end. "I will go on and on." Oh no you won't!

Are you really being serious? Read the paper recently?

 

[belboid]

Are you really being serious? Read the paper recently?

Which one?

I have read several papers, quite frequently. She's a fucking joke.

If you mean very significant aspects of Thatcherism are still 'strong', then thats a very different thing. But it's still not a thing that was enhanced by her being unceremoniously dumped.

 

[hibee]

I couldn't give too fucks whether people remember her spitting image puppet or not. The point is her legacy, which I was referring to, in terms of her political values, is stronger than it has ever been. And removing her from office and replacing her first with that nice Mr Major then that nice Mr Blair only helped that.

 

[belboid]

are you serious? you think her remaining in office in spite of the Poll Tax would have weakened the chances of thatcherism remaining as a 'creed'?* makes no sense to me, and sounds like a post facto bit of fatalism.

Anyway, I must be off, tis a matter of life and death, and I'm sure this thread will still be here tomorrow.


*and lets not forget how many aspects of that creed are actually rejected now, in theory at least - her anti-europeanism is not the order of the day, nor her wholesale me-me-me brutal selfish individualism. And we shouldn't accredit her with the creation of neo-lioberalism, she wasn't even its first implementer in the UK.

 

[Pilgrim]

Her departure was great, but not as great as her laughable attempt to stay as a relevent Tory heavyweight.

I remember when she came down to Plymouth at the same time as the sequel to the film 'The Mummy' was showing.

She came out on stage and started her speech with something to the effect that rumours of her political demise were exagerrated, and then went on to say, on camera, "The Mummy returns..."

I saw this, and had a glorious mental image of the Tory spin doctors putting their fists in their mouths while thinking: "Jesus H Christ! She did NOT fucking say that! Shit, she did..."

And this at a time when the Tories seemed so desperate to put her era behind them.

 

[hibee]

are you serious? you think her remaining in office in spite of the Poll Tax would have weakened the chances of thatcherism remaining as a 'creed'?* makes no sense to me, and sounds like a post facto bit of fatalism.

Anyway, I must be off, tis a matter of life and death, and I'm sure this thread will still be here tomorrow.


*and lets not forget how many aspects of that creed are actually rejected now, in theory at least - her anti-europeanism is not the order of the day, nor her wholesale me-me-me brutal selfish individualism. And we shouldn't accredit her with the creation of neo-lioberalism, she wasn't even its first implementer in the UK.

You might have a point if the Britain of today was less, not more, run on neo-liberal lines, if workers movements were stronger, not weaker, than when she left office. (I never said she was the creator of British neo-liberalism, but she clearly was more successfull at implementing it and popularising it than her predecessors).

I really do not understand how people can live in such a dream world.

 

[Chuck Wilson]

are you serious? you think her remaining in office in spite of the Poll Tax would have weakened the chances of thatcherism remaining as a 'creed'?* makes no sense to me, and sounds like a post facto bit of fatalism.

Anyway, I must be off, tis a matter of life and death, and I'm sure this thread will still be here tomorrow.


*and lets not forget how many aspects of that creed are actually rejected now, in theory at least - her anti-europeanism is not the order of the day, nor her wholesale me-me-me brutal selfish individualism. And we shouldn't accredit her with the creation of neo-lioberalism, she wasn't even its first implementer in the UK.

Which fucking planet are you on?

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Where's my milk bitch!

 

[LLETSA]

I saw this, and had a glorious mental image of the Tory spin doctors putting their fists in their mouths while thinking: "Jesus H Christ! She did NOT fucking say that! Shit, she did..."

And this at a time when the Tories seemed so desperate to put her era behind them.

Only cosmetically. Both New labour and the Tories, under whicever leader they end up with, will continue to operate within the agenda set by Thatcher. The current government has aready allowed the rule of capital into areas that Thatcher could only dream about.

 

[LLETSA]

The myth and the myth makers

He's the Mekon maybe? Hence as a Martian his understanding of basic English is poor.

Being the central figure in the movement whose finest hour was the pivotal moment in the 'anti-Thatcher revolution,' you clearly have to be deferred to, Chazzer.

 

[LLETSA]

no it doesn't - her going was a victory for us. We had got rid of her by the strength of opposition to the Poll Tax.

Do you still dine out on this nonsense? The fact is that, while the anti-poll tax campaign sealed Thatcher's fate, it was only because her own cabinet decided that a change of leader was needed that she had to resign. Had they decided to ride it out she would have remained PM, even if the poll tax had to be scrapped.

As it is her removal as leader didn't matter at all in the long run.

 

[charlie mowbray]

Being the central figure in the movement whose finest hour was the pivotal moment in the 'anti-Thatcher revolution,' you clearly have to be deferred to, Chazzer.

What are you on about???

 

[butchersapron]

"...it was only because her own cabinet decided that a change of leader was needed that she had to resign."

And what forced them to this conclusion?

 

[LLETSA]

dear me, such a big brain, yet unable to understand basic english.

try reading the posts, might help.

What, so stating that I realised at the time that Thatcher's resignation wasn't going to make any difference means that I think I've got 'such a big brain', does it?

I'd say that the failure of much of the left to acknowledge this, even if many of its activists must have known it, says everything about what the left had become.

As I said: clutching at straws.

 

[LLETSA]

"...it was only because her own cabinet decided that a change of leader was needed that she had to resign."

And what forced them to this conclusion?

As I've said, the strength of feeling against the poll tax. But i've also said that they could have scrapped the tax and kept her as leader had they considered this tactically correct. There were plenty of Tory higher-ups who wanted to do precisely this.

 

[butchersapron]

As I've said, the strength of feeling against the poll tax. But i've also said that they could have scrapped the tax and kept her as leader had they considered this tactically correct. There were plenty of Tory higher-ups who wanted to do precisely this.

Yep, i don't think anyone's seeking to paint this as victory in the final battle, but that fact that she represented so much that so many of us had been fighting against, and crucially lost, made it important in personal terms. I don't think anyone thinks that it was a turning point.

 

[poster342002]

oh fuck off you miserable get!

if you can't recognise the joyous jubilance of that day, then you are and were far more removed from the working-class than any trot (bar the sparts, obviously) ever was.

What was there to celebrate? Most people I knew were saying things like "Oh, fuck! Now they (the tories) will regain their popularity and get back in again!". Guess what happened - despite all the trot predictions to the contrary at the time?