This is that newspaper’s tribute to Margaret Thatcher:

“The prime minister’s most momentous act was perhaps the ‘Big Bang’ with which she liberalized Britain’s strictly regulated financial sector. The move triggered the massive boom of the City of London and made a lasting impact on Britain’s economy. Freed from all their chains, traders and bankers gave the entire economy fresh momentum: Between 1993 and 2006, the British economy grew by 2.8 percent on average per year while unemployment fell from nine to four percent.”

“But since then, the world has learned the extremely painful lesson that absolute faith in self control and the self-healing power of free markets was a mistake. The Big Bang was followed by the Big Bust. Thatcher’s laissez faire dogma was the intellectual basis for the wild growth of the financial sector that ended up leading to a major crisis.”

“Now Britain is paying the price for the one-sided faith of its politicians in the service sector. Today Prime Minister David Cameron and his Finance Minister George Osborne are enviously looking at the industrial core of the German economy. The structural change after the financial crisis has hit Britain hard and its economy has been on the brink of recession for many quarters. With his rigorous austerity policy, Osborne is trying to repeat the Thatcherite economic miracle. But this time the people don’t regard scaling back the government as liberation. They know that the entire country has to tighten its belt after the excesses of the boom era. The recipes of the Iron Lady have lost their effectiveness once and for all.”

I have not presented this argument to ridicule Margaret Thatcher. My intention is to point out that Cameron and Osborne are woefully trapped in her economic ideology that has passed its sell-buy date.

Of course she was not perfect and made mistakes, the poll tax being one of them, as well as her insensitive but correct handling of the Miners Strike in 1984.. Who knows what would have happened if she hadn’t stood up to Argentina, Iraq, the IRA and don’t forget the Iranian Embassay in 1980. All successful operations IMO.

The purpose of this post is to give anyone the chance to air their views.

I didn’t seek to offer an opinion but thought it best to let any readers share their experiences of Mrs Thatcher’s term of office. You are entitled to your opinion, which you have expressed. Likewise others are entitled to theirs, that is called freedom of speech. There is no arrogance. I think arrogance would be to fail to recognise that Thatcher’s term of office polarised the nation as it caused many people distress and hardship. A snall number of people did well for a short period but most of those were in and around London. I won’t repeat the comments already made as they are facts. We both grew up during Thatchers era and I’m glad that some people prospered. However, large sections of the population were driven into poverty and despair. She twice drove the country to 3 million plus unemployment and towns like Blackburn stagnated. All facts. The economy was in a mess when she left office. A war about a small group of islands 6000 miles away does not make up for the destruction of British society.

They prospered due to hard work and the chance that Mrs Thatcher provided people with small businesses. Not only are you disrespectful to her, you are disrespectful to the people who voted for her in the way that you dismiss them as part of the ‘greed culture’ or the ‘rich minority’.

SHAME ON YOU

I agree with other comments that we can sympathise with her family and friends at their loss.

However to many of we will remember her by the legacy she left:-

How she brought misery to the lives of millions
How she destroyed whole communities
How she divided the nation.
How three million people unemployed was a price worth paying.
How she decimated basic industries
Privatised the railways and buses.
Sold off our basic utillities.
Introduced the dreaded Poll Tax.
Sold off Council Housing and failed to replace
Cheated children out of their school milk.
Left schools to crumble
The list goes on

Its ironic that the woman who said there was no such thing as society now gets society to pay for her funeral.

and her legacy lives on in Cameron and Co

Maggie the former Prime Minister is another thing altogether. What has caused me to make my comments is the rose-tinted-spectacled comments from the current Tory government and from people who don’t seem to have lived through the 80s and 90s under the tories. She was not the best thing since Winston Churchill and she did not put the Great back into Great Britain. She was not a role model for women and showed little caring in any of her actions.

Maggie divided the nation into 2 distinct parts. A minority who did well under her regime made ‘loads o’ money’ and embraced the greed culture and the lack of caring for others that her government promoted. A majority who suffered to one degree or another through mass unemployment, the break up of communities, the housing crisis she caused and who were victims of blood-sucking greed culture that the minority subjected the rest of us to.

I remember the cuts in funding that the public sector faced – stand still cash limits for years while inflation raged betweekn 10 and 15%. Hospitals and schools were neglected to fund wars like the Falklands, that could be avoided by diplomacy but Maggie needed to win the next election so she dragged our armed forces to the South Atlantic to kill or be killed.

Maggie’s legacy is here with us today in the shape of Cameron, Osborne and the tory led coalition government. Maggie spent 11 years desimating the country while her followers are doing it in a fraction of the time – while holding her up as some sort of guru.

Let’s be honest about Margaret Thatcher and remember the hateful damage she did to our country and not wallow in the false tributes from a minority of her rich followers.

my council tax here is £998 band F i would love an explanation as to how the same band in blackburn is over £2000. The truth is we are all guilty of inefficient spending..your revenue and capital exp for 2012/13 and investment clearly show that lessons have not been learnt 17% in council tax subsidies!!!! Ibby come on even you can’t defend such a waste

Being a BwDBC employee for the past 10 years and a union representative for 6 of those, I have seen the direct impact these devastating and quite spiteful cuts have had on not only fellow employees but local residents.
I believe that the current Government have very little concern for the 99% of us that have to live on the edge of the sword because they are so out of touch. The quicker we can replace this unfair and damn right callous coalition the better.
I therefore commend your above piece and wish for you to continue to point out the unjust nature of the “Big Society” misconception with concise measurement.

Good luck

Paul