Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

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BlackBird
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by BlackBird »

Coyote wrote:
Rasko wrote:Britain is a democracy? She and her policies at that time were supported by the majority? Or not?
Depends how democratic you think the first-past-the-post system is.
Quite. For any who may not be familiar: FPP doesn't require a candidate have an absolute majority, so in the example on wikipedia, Tony Tan would be elected with just over 1/3rd of the vote, 2/3rds of the public did not vote for that person but they're elected nevertheless. Some FPP systems feature a run off vote between the top 2, in order to clarify. Still, not exactly the best functioning version of a democracy.

Another issue, to quote the article:
To a greater extent than many other electoral methods, the first-past-the-post system encourages tactical voting. Voters have an incentive to vote for one of the two candidates they predict are most likely to win, even if they would prefer another of the candidates to win, because a vote for any other candidate will likely be "wasted" and have no impact on the final result.
The position is sometimes summed up, in an extreme form, as "All votes for anyone other than the second place are votes for the winner", because by voting for other candidates, they have denied those votes to the second place candidate who could have won had they received them. Following the 2000 U.S. presidential election, some supporters of Democratic candidate Al Gore believed he lost the extremely close election to Republican George W. Bush because a portion of the electorate (2.7%) voted for Ralph Nader of the Green Party, and exit polls indicated that more of these voters would have preferred Gore (45%) to Bush (27%), with the rest not voting in Nader's absence.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-pas ... ost_voting
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

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Rasko
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by Rasko »

BlackBird wrote:
Coyote wrote:
Rasko wrote:Britain is a democracy? She and her policies at that time were supported by the majority? Or not?
Depends how democratic you think the first-past-the-post system is.
Quite. For any who may not be familiar: FPP doesn't require a candidate have an absolute majority, so in the example on wikipedia, Tony Tan would be elected with just over 1/3rd of the vote, 2/3rds of the public did not vote for that person but they're elected nevertheless. Some FPP systems feature a run off vote between the top 2, in order to clarify. Still, not exactly the best functioning version of a democracy.
I've always thought that to be a strange system. We have D'Hondt method here in Finland, many parties in parliament, coalition governments and currently the largest group has 22% of the seats after getting 20.4% of the popular vote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method

Anyways, some of the posts above seemed to blame only Mrs Thatcher for whatever happened, like voters have no responsibility...

United Kingdom general elections, Prime minister, Winning Party, Majority
1979 3 May 1979 Margaret Thatcher Conservative 43
1983 9 June 1983 Margaret Thatcher Conservative 144
1987 11 June 1987 Margaret Thatcher Conservative 102
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Sam Vara
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by Sam Vara »

Coyote wrote:
Rasko wrote:Britain is a democracy? She and her policies at that time were supported by the majority? Or not?
Depends how democratic you think the first-past-the-post system is.
Agreed. Worth noting that in each of the 3 general elections Thatcher won, she had a higher percentage of the popular vote than any of the other parties, as well as more seats accrued as a result of the vagaries of the electoral system. This in UK politics is deemed sufficient to provide a strong mandate - as indeed is the case with the Labour Party gaining sufficient seats and votes in 1945 to secure a mandate for their historic Welfare State reforms. She also maintained that relatively high share of the popular vote - it only dropped a couple of percentage points throughout her time in office. For the stats, see

http://www.politicsresources.net/area/u ... ntvote.htm

Thatcher certainly polarised opinion in the UK and abroad (and I was far from being a fan!) but she was a leader elected with a strong majority according to the UK constitution.
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

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And it's a system that we democratically voted to uphold, not that I am necessarily a fan of FPTP or Lady Thatcher.
"If beings knew, as I know, the results of giving & sharing, they would not eat without having given, nor would the stain of miserliness overcome their minds. Even if it were their last bite, their last mouthful, they would not eat without having shared."
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imagemarie
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

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"To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects".

Margaret Thatcher

:clap:
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tiltbillings
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by tiltbillings »

Sam Vara wrote:
Thatcher certainly polarised opinion in the UK and abroad (and I was far from being a fan!) but she was a leader elected with a strong majority according to the UK constitution.
One thing concervatives (cetrtainly in the USA) are very good at is getting people to vote against their best interest.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

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Sam Vara
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by Sam Vara »

tiltbillings wrote:
Sam Vara wrote:
Thatcher certainly polarised opinion in the UK and abroad (and I was far from being a fan!) but she was a leader elected with a strong majority according to the UK constitution.
One thing concervatives (cetrtainly in the USA) are very good at is getting people to vote against their best interest.
Yes, I'm aware of that viewpoint (ideology, false consciousness, Gramsci's dual consciousness, and the Frankfurt School, etc.) but it is notoriously very difficult to convincingly demonstrate what a person's or a group's interests are, when they are not actually expressed by them.

Besides, my point was not that Thatcher's administrations were in anyone's interests, but that they were as mandated and legitimate as many other post-war examples (Callaghan's, one of Wilson's, and John Major's for sure, and certainly the current coalition...)
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tiltbillings
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by tiltbillings »

my point was not that Thatcher's administrations were in anyone's interests, but that they were as mandated and legitimate as many other post-war examples
And so was the election of George W. Bush, but the sequelae has been in no one's best interest except the wealthy. Thatcher was lucky to have had the North Sea oil revenues to buffer the impact of her horrible reign of conservative ugliness, but England is paying the price now. Alas.
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>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Nyana
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by Nyana »

tiltbillings wrote:One thing concervatives (cetrtainly in the USA) are very good at is getting people to vote against their best interest.
It seems to me that the current crop of American conservative teabaggers are far to the right of Thatcher on a whole number of issues (e.g. taxes, health care, social security, etc.).
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BlackBird
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by BlackBird »

tiltbillings wrote:
Sam Vara wrote:
Thatcher certainly polarised opinion in the UK and abroad (and I was far from being a fan!) but she was a leader elected with a strong majority according to the UK constitution.
One thing concervatives (cetrtainly in the USA) are very good at is getting people to vote against their best interest.
An argument that I am at pains to repeat to any self proclaimed conservative from the middle classes/working classes that I encounter. More often than not though they're quite blind to the exploitation, filled to the brim with the supplied party lines and as such quite unwilling to view my arguments with anything other than scorn.
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

Path Press - Ñāṇavīra Thera Dhamma Page - Ajahn Nyanamoli's Dhamma talks
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Sam Vara
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by Sam Vara »

tiltbillings wrote:
my point was not that Thatcher's administrations were in anyone's interests, but that they were as mandated and legitimate as many other post-war examples
And so was the election of George W. Bush, but the sequelae has been in no one's best interest except the wealthy. Thatcher was lucky to have had the North Sea oil revenues to buffer the impact of her horrible reign of conservative ugliness, but England is paying the price now. Alas.
Alas, indeed. The world doesn't obey my rules, either.
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piotr
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by piotr »

Hi,

I liked her.
Bhagavaṃmūlakā no, bhante, dhammā...
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by Coyote »

piotr wrote:Hi,

I liked her.
May I ask why? Was it her policies or her as an individual, or something else?

Metta
"If beings knew, as I know, the results of giving & sharing, they would not eat without having given, nor would the stain of miserliness overcome their minds. Even if it were their last bite, their last mouthful, they would not eat without having shared."
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Mr Man
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by Mr Man »

piotr wrote:Hi,

I liked her.
I guess you didn't have a relative on the belgrano or a relative who worked as a miner. What did you like about her? That she stopped free milk for school kids or that she destroyed local government and sold of the council housing stock. Or that she started the privatisation of essential services?
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Re: Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Post by andrewuk »

Krugman Takes on Thatcher's Legacy as Debate Rages
Published: Tuesday, 9 Apr 2013 | 6:52 AM ET
By: Kiran Moodley, special to CNBC.com

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, scourge of monetary hawks and austerity-believers alike, has entered the tense debate on Margaret Thatcher's legacy and already drawn the ire of HSBC's chief economist.

In his latest "Conscience of a Liberal" blog post, Krugman admitted Thatcher turned the economy around, but argued that any benefits that emerged from her transformations occurred long after her period in office.
"If anyone tells you that Thatcher saved the British economy," Krugman wrote, "you should ask why the results of that salvation took so very long to materialize."

Krugman also made a snide attack on the rise of London's financial sector and the "rise of fancy finance," something brought on by Thatcher's 1980s deregulation.

Krugman's view was instantly challenged by HSBC's chief economist Stephen King, who tweeted, "Totally bizarre blog by @NYTimeskrugman on Thatcherism....no mention whatsoever of inflation." (Read More: Margaret Thatcher's Greatest Moments)

King also took on Jonathan Portes, the director of the U.K.'s National Institute of Economic and Social Research, for only focusing on the rise of out-of-work benefit claimants during Thatcher's 11 years in power.

According to King, Thatcher's overriding impact on the U.K. economy was to bring down inflation, which he said was the major macro-economic problem of the late 1970s.

It isn't the first time that Krugman has waded into controversy across the Atlantic. He's been previously criticized for his opinions the Austrian and Latvian economies.

While Thatcher's death has led to an outpouring of sympathy from all sides of the international political spectrum, a glance at Britain's front pages shows the scale of divisiveness over Thatcher's legacy at home.

Headlines have varied from: "The woman who saved Britain" to "The woman who tore Britain apart."

Krugman does, however, give Thatcher some credit which will please her supporters.

"There is no question that Britain did turn around," Krugman wrote. "In the 1970s it was a country with huge economic problems; today, despite the failure of austerity policies, it's in a much stronger position."

Even opponents of Thatcher admit some change was needed. Tony Travers of the London School of Economics told CNBC that, "if you talk privately to many Labour politicians, they will admit Thatcher changed the economy in ways that although they didn't do it, in the end, they accept would have had to have happened."

Economic Legacy: Speed of Change

Many criticize the speed with which Thatcher brought these changes to the U.K. economy, and stress that despite the common belief that the Iron Lady "rolled back the state," the size of government did in fact expand during her tenure.

Portes, who also came under fire from King, said the current debate about Britain's huge benefits network has much to do with the devastation Thatcher brought to British communities.

(Read More: Kudlow: Margaret Thatcher, Freedom and Free Markets)

"When she came to power in 1979 there were two million on out-of-work benefits," Portes argued. "By the mid-1990s there were six million; four million extra people on out-of-work benefits. The problems we're dealing with today, we're talking about dealing with the legacy of Thatcher."

Travers agreed with Portes, arguing that her changes left some parts of the U.K. that are still under-performing today. For Travers and Portes, the speed of Britain's economic transformation, that left little help for ex-miners to find new, gainful unemployment, was a devastating political decision on her part.

But Peter Toogood of Old Broad Street Research said Thatcher, "got blamed for things that were going to happen either that decade, or the following decade, or the one after. The inevitability of what went on in our industrializing sector was there to see. Yes, the French still have an industrial sector but it's in decline."

"Those industries were going to die."

Tim Knox of the Center for Policy Studies, a think-tank co-founded by Margaret Thatcher and her policy-guru Keith Joseph, said that in Thatcher's legacy was squandered by the New Labour government of Tony Blair.

"People talk about Blair being the heir to Thatcher," he said. "Well, he was a very weak heir if that is the case. Don't forget that he inherited a golden economic legacy in 1997, mainly because of the reforms of the Thatcher period, a golden legacy that was effectively squandered within eight years." (Read More: Did Thatcher's Reforms Pave Way for Euro Zone?)

As economists bicker over Thatcher's impact, Satyajit Das, the author of "Traders, Guns & Money," offered a fittingly balanced conclusion on Thatcher.

"Well, I think there are certain people in financial markets in England who should thank her very deeply from the bottoms of their hearts today," Das told CNBC, "because without her I suspect the big bang which deregulated the English financial system wouldn't have occurred."

However, Das said the financial crisis of 2008 made that legacy highly dubious – which along with her social impact on Britain, made it difficult for us today to find an accurate way to evaluate Thatcher.

"I think I'll leave it to historians in a couple of hundred years to say whether it was all for the good or all for the bad. But I agree with sentiment that she was her own woman and she certainly divided opinion."
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