Was Thatcher really that iconic back then, or are we just romanticizing her now?

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Kapika96@reddit

Romanticising? One of the most hated figures in British history. Not sure romanticising is the right word...

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I’m not British, so I’m looking at this from an outsider’s perspective. Apart from Churchill, & her there aren’t really any UK leaders that often come up in European history. Why is she so hated? is it because of the privatization, or is there more to it?

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SquidsAlien@reddit

Not many of our leaders have brought us to two avoidable wars, but she did (I know she was kicked out shortly before the gulf war). She shat on much of the country and lied her way onwards. How did she get unemployment down? She didn't, it was around 4-5 million but she simply changed the rules for measuring the stats to make herself look good. She boasted about creating a record number of new small businesses, but even more went bust. We still have the IR35 nightmare as a hangover of her times. She privatised industries that never should have been - we are still suffering from the consequences of that major fuck up. (Massive water pollution due to profits being more important than service or integrity.) She treated being in power as her goal, not making the country better. Ding Dong, the witch is dead!

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Kapika96@reddit

Privatisation, yes, but more that she was very anti-union. Particularly the coal miners union. She effectively ended that industry in the UK and ruined the economy for a bunch of areas. Some of the former coal mining areas are still among the poorest areas in the UK today. Generally high unemployment and social unrest in large parts of the country too. Some rich people probably like her, but the average working class person hates her. I wasn't even alive when she was in power but heard a lot of negative stuff from my grandparents. As far as I know the only UK politician who's death made ″ding dong the witch is dead″ surge up the music charts too.

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MissKLO@reddit

I’ve never really understood why, although she’s very vilified in our history, for a lot of reasons, but mostly because of her treatment of the working classes and what she did to the unions, as a nation there’s still so much anti union sentiment. She did such a cracking job of demonising unions that we still carry that idea now although outwardly we still seem to despise everything she stood for

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Bug_Parking@reddit

She's undoubtedly iconic. The extent to which she's hated depends upon persons political viewpoints- those that oppose market liberalisation and so forth will generally be heavily against. Also one of eight PM's to have won three elections (and 2 in the 20th century). If you look at that list- Walpole, Pitt the Younger, Gladstone, Blair, it's made up of heavy hitters. Then throw in the first ever female PM and it's fair to it was a landmark PM.

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CoffeeIgnoramus@reddit

She made life for the "working class" much more difficult, from allowing the selling off council housing, to some of the highest unemployment we've seen (about 30% unemployed). She reduced trade unions' powers, essentially silencing the working class's rights at work. Mines shut, making unemployment in the north worse. This also meant people were striking a lot more to avoid their jobs and rights being threatened...

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LittleSadRufus@reddit

Her treatment of the working class, her hugely violent clashes with the miners as she shut down their industry, her destruction of British manufacturing, the selling off of key national assets but without creating any sort of sovereign wealth fund with the profits (same with our oil and gas, we seemed to get nothing to show for it), the impossible unpopular poll tax... She was raw, libertarian capitalism after many years of much more gentle post-war socialism and if you weren't rich already it often sucked.

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Ok_Peanut6081@reddit

She is the reason none of our public services work, as she started selling them off If you mean "do we overplay her influence" then no, we dont

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speedings@reddit (OP)

Was it better before?

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Ok_Peanut6081@reddit

It was good just after the war when everyone e was pulling together, but capitalist interests convinced people that system redundancy was "waste" leading to anger at costs, causing the government to drop wages and working conditions to cut costs, which led to strikes, which the Tories blamed on the poor workers who just wanted a fair deal and properly run services, and used that as an excuse to sell off the services under the guise of efficiency. For context, redundancy means having like power plants that are kept running, and having staff that are paid, even though the plants are not being actually used to generate electricity JUST IN CASE they were needed, it meant have spare busses and drivers, being maintained and paid, JUST IN CASE someone was ill/a bus broke down. So capitalists bought them businesses, cut the redundancy from the system, so that it exists on the edge of falling constantly, while all sabi GS made from efficient are hoovered up ten fold by shareholders So we get less, less reliably, for more money, which goes into the pockets of (usually) foreign investors. Ironically, Germany itself invests in our public transport system, and uses tie profits to fund it's OWN public transport, making fairs cheaper for it's citizens. Thanks Thatcher! Remember for every time our water electricity or transport costs go up with the actual reason is simply because the government allowed them to as none of them are in danger of collapsing and all of the make obscene pprofits

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Opening-Abrocoma4210@reddit

She was never idolised in my house but was always an enormous figure looming over everything. Take from that what you will

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ComprehensiveAd8815@reddit

Idolised by weak Tory men with mummy issues, despised by The North and Scotland. She was a middle class snob who failed to see that inequality was the direct cause of people like her.

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ApplicationCreepy987@reddit

Romanticizing? Never seen any of that except a certain demographic. Iconic is s differing matter, like her or not her reign was significant.

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Relative-Tea3944@reddit

Who romanticises her?

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amboandy@reddit

Hey don't kink shame me

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speedings@reddit (OP)

😏😉😜

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Tutis3@reddit

She was horrible and damaged the country badly, destroying and splitting communities deliberately.

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darS234@reddit

Has/was she ever romanticised?

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TherealPreacherJ@reddit

Only by Tories.

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Kittygrizzle1@reddit

She was a cow. Everyone in the north loathed her

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Own-Lecture251@reddit

Nah she really was. Whether you agree with her policies or not, she was a huge figure at home and abroad. She got on very well with the then US president Reagan so that elevated her international status since we still had a cold war. Plus the Falklands.

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Shawn_The_Sheep777@reddit

She was evil, heartless and cruel. She was a major figure in the 1980s, you can’t dispute that, but that’s about it.

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Klossomfawn@reddit

I've never seen anyone, in real life or reddit romanticise her.

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OllyDee@reddit

She was publicly vilified, lampooned, and satirised for the entirety of her stint as PM. Very quotable, and very polarising. You could call her an icon of a sort, even at the time.

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Was Thatcher really that iconic back then, or are we just romanticizing her now?

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27 Comments

Kapika96@reddit

speedings@reddit (OP)

SquidsAlien@reddit

Kapika96@reddit

MissKLO@reddit

Bug_Parking@reddit

CoffeeIgnoramus@reddit

LittleSadRufus@reddit

AskUK-ModTeam@reddit

Ok_Peanut6081@reddit

speedings@reddit (OP)

Ok_Peanut6081@reddit

Opening-Abrocoma4210@reddit

ComprehensiveAd8815@reddit

ApplicationCreepy987@reddit

Relative-Tea3944@reddit

amboandy@reddit

speedings@reddit (OP)

Tutis3@reddit

darS234@reddit

TherealPreacherJ@reddit

Kittygrizzle1@reddit

Own-Lecture251@reddit

Shawn_The_Sheep777@reddit

Klossomfawn@reddit

OllyDee@reddit

AutoModerator@reddit