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A controversial thread title, I know. But a necessary one, at this juncture in our history. It has achieved the status of received wisdom in this country that our Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990), now Baronness Thatcher for the forseeable future, was either an evil genius who ushered in an era of increasing economic and financial oligarchy and exploitation (the opinion of the left) or was just awesome in all ways (the opinion of the right). There are those in the middle who believe that what she did was necessary, however hard it may have been on those affected, due to the perceived disproportionate political power of the trades unions at the time, and the increasing manufacturing competition from overseas which appeared to render large sectors of British industry, particularly mining and heavy industry (ship building, steel works, etc.) uneconomical and inefficient.
I have found a Third Way. Here is another explanation for the economic, social, and foreign policies we all witnessed or experienced in the eighties. Thatcher was thick as a brick. So was everyone who believed in and supported her. All of them. Without exception. Sure, she helped to invent a way to keep ice cream soft when she was a research chemist - but at that point, I contend, her usefulness ceased.
Everything that Thatcher did while in office had the exact opposite effect to that which she had intended. Other than destroying the working class by breaking the unions and the industries, she achieved fuck all, in fact she achieved less than fuck all - she excelled in achieving absolutely everything that nobody wanted.
Start at the start. Thatcher said she wanted to reduce unemployment and inflation. But in the first two years of her administration Scotland lost a fifth of it's workforce to the dole queue (we don't just hate her for nothing, btw). Did she reduce dependence on benefits? No. My grandad used to vote Tory in the Thatcher years because it was the only government that ever increased his dole above inflation. Somehow, though, this rise in unemployment was meant to drive down inflation. As the Governor of the Bank of England Eddie George said in much more recent times: "Unemployment in the north is a price worth paying to curb inflation in the south." Fair enough, I suppose.
Yet inflation went up, in both the north and the south, and would continue to rise throughout her reign, as would unemployment, reaching a historic (admitted) peak of over three million by the time she left office. Nicely done.
Unemployment, eh? In order to massage the numbers of people they were throwing out of work, the Thatcher government decided it would be a good idea to classify healthy people as disabled or incapacitated. That way the unemployment figures wouldn't look quite as scary. This was done, and we see the results now - a brand new generation of Tories are engaged in virulently attacking the produce of the last generation of Tories' policies, which they worship, while blaming it all on Labour.
Then she wanted to show the IRA how tough she was. She was lucky that the IRA hunger strikes, led by Bobby Sands, began around this time, giving her an opportunity to display resolve to the British public. The IRA hunger strikes were aimed at securing recognition as political prisoners, simply by being allowed to wear civillian clothing while in jail. Thatcher had good (global) strategic reasons to deny IRA members a recognised status as political prisoners (even though they had been allowed this status before). Amnesty International would've been all over it. Plus, they were actually criminals, by law, under the rules of the time, so it should all have been quite a simple....
But no.... Even this she managed to fuck up. She neither showed iron resolve, nor capitulated to their demands. She hemmed and hawwed. She said they could starve if they chose to in public, while entering into negotiations through MI6 in private. Due to her public stance, Bobby Sands was elected as an MP in absentia to the Westminster Parliament - a massive legitimazing moment in the IRA's campaign of the time, in fact in it's entire history. Then when the civillian clothes were finally delivered to the prisons Thatcher ensured they would not actually be handed out to the prisoners for them to wear - which was the worst of both worlds. Not a bait and switch so much as a bait and taunt.
Ten men starved to death in continued protest, IRA recruitment spiked massively as a result, the Brighton Hotel was bombed 3 years later nearly killing Thatcher herself, and shortly after that point the British government was forced to enter into constant back-channel talks with the IRA where it had to concede everything that wasn't already nailed down. Genius.
The miner's strike - okay, she suceeded in breaking the working class, and that was her aim, but I mean c'mon. Did she have any real concept of what she was dealing with? Did any of them? Here's one of her chief economic advisers at the time, Alan Budd.
Did they think it was called the Chicago School for a laugh?
Anyway, there are many more examples of Thatcher's backfiring policy decisions (not the least of them being the current Scottish independence debate - as the old SNP hand Jim Sillars says: "If we're ever building statues to the people who brought about Scottish independence, Margaret Thatcher will have to be among them") but I am tired.
Anyways, I think there may be a perception among some people here that I hate Thatcher simply because I am Scottish and she is a Tory, and I have looked no further than that. This is not the case. I have read her biography by Jon Sergeant, and Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain, and a decent proportion of Thatcher's own private papers released under the thiry years rule, including her decision to put army intelligence agents into the CND and her tacit support for the Economic League (which still exists today under different guises).
My research has led me to the conclusion that she was not in fact Britain's greatest post-war Prime Minister, but was, and is, as thick as a big massive shite taken by an angry horse into a barrel of treacle. In winter.
With that said, Mr. Chairman, I ask that this motion be passed.
You'll be welcome. The one thing we've never had a surplus of is people. Good use will be made of you all! 
shudder to think. 
