Why we hated Thatcher!

Why we hate Thatcher
By Don Beavissimo in Make “Ding dong the witch is dead” number 1 the week Thatcher dies. (Facebook)

WHY WE HATE THATCHER….

1. She supported the retention of capital punishment.
2. She destroyed the country’s manufacturing industry.
3. She voted against the relaxation of divorce laws.
4. She abolished free milk for schoolchildren (“Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher”).
5. She supported more freedom for business and banks. (and look how that turned out)
6. She gained support from the National Front in the 1979 election by pandering to the fears of immigration.
7. She gerrymandered local authorities by forcing through council house sales, at the same time preventing councils from spending the money they got for selling houses on building new houses (spending on social housing dropped by 67% in her premiership).
8. She was responsible for 3.6 million unemployed – the highest figure and the highest proportion of the workforce in history and three times the previous government. Massaging of the figures means that the figure was closer to 5 million.
9. She ignored intelligence about Argentinian preparations for the invasion of the Falkland Islands and scrapped the only Royal Navy presence in the islands.
10. The poll tax.
11. She presided over the closure of 150 coal mines; we are now crippled by the cost of energy, having to import expensive coal from abroad.
12. She compared her “fight” against the miners to the Falklands War.
13. She privatised state monopolies and created the corporate greed culture that we’ve been railing against for the last 5 years.
14. She introduced the gradual privatisation of the NHS.
15. She introduced financial deregulation in a way that turned city institutions into avaricious money pits.
16. She pioneered the unfailing adoration and unquestioning support of the USA.
17. She allowed the US to place nuclear missiles on UK soil, under US control.
18. Section 28.
19. She opposed anti-apartheid sanctions against South Africa and described Nelson Mandela as “that grubby little terrorist”.
20. She support the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and sent the SAS to train their soldiers.
21. She allowed the US to bomb Libya in 1986, against the wishes of more than 2/3 of the population.
22. She opposed the reunification of Germany.
23. She invented Quangos.
24. She increased VAT from 8% to 17.5%.
25. She had the lowest approval rating of any post-war Prime Minister.
26. Her post-PM job? Consultant to Philip Morris tobacco at $250,000 a year, plus $50,000 per speech.
27. The Al Yamamah contract.
28. She opposed the indictment of Chile’s General Pinochet.
29. Social unrest under her leadership was higher than at any time since the General Strike.
30. She presided over interest rates increasing to 15%.
31. BSE.
32. She presided over 2 million manufacturing job losses in the 79-81 recession.
33. She opposed the inclusion of Eire in the Northern Ireland peace process.
34. She supported sanctions-busting arms deals with South Africa.
35. Cecil Parkinson, Alan Clark, David Mellor, Jeffrey Archer, Jonathan Aitkin.
36. Crime rates doubled under Thatcher.
37. Black Wednesday – Britain withdraws from the ERM and the pound is devalued. Cost to Britain – £3.5 billion; profit for George Soros – £1 billion.
38. Poverty doubled while she opposed a minimum wage.
39. She privatised public services, claiming at the time it would increase public ownership. Most are now owned either by foreign governments (EDF) or major investment houses. The profits don’t now accrue to the taxpayer, but to foreign or institutional shareholders.
40. She cut 75% of funding to museums, galleries and other sources of education.
41. In the Thatcher years the top 10% of earners received almost 50% of the tax remissions.
42. 21.9% inflation.

Enough?