Boris Johnson......the next PM?
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Re: Boris Johnson......the next PM?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/propertymarket/10473290/Boris-Johnson-launches-plans-for-1bn-London-house-building-scheme.html
The tousled hair malena is his modus operendi, a fertile Brain lies beneath it.
The tousled hair malena is his modus operendi, a fertile Brain lies beneath it.
Panda- Platinum Poster
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He thinks that wearing and Einstein lookalike wig will turn him into a genius??Panda wrote:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/propertymarket/10473290/Boris-Johnson-launches-plans-for-1bn-London-house-building-scheme.html
The tousled hair malena is his modus operendi, a fertile Brain lies beneath it.
malena stool- Platinum Poster
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You may mock malena .......just wait and see, Boris will make a better PM than any of the last 3 or 4 , not only has he a razor sharp mind, he cares.....that's the difference.malena stool wrote:He thinks that wearing and Einstein lookalike wig will turn him into a genius??Panda wrote:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/propertymarket/10473290/Boris-Johnson-launches-plans-for-1bn-London-house-building-scheme.html
The tousled hair malena is his modus operendi, a fertile Brain lies beneath it.
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I hope to be proven wrong Panda, but there hasn't been a Prime Minister of any party that has given a flying fig for the people of this country since Atllee except perhaps Wilson or Callaghan, all three were men who knew the real world the voters lived in. Unlike the smooth talking narcissists of all political parties which strut around in the commons nowadays.Panda wrote:You may mock malena .......just wait and see, Boris will make a better PM than any of the last 3 or 4 , not only has he a razor sharp mind, he cares.....that's the difference.malena stool wrote:He thinks that wearing and Einstein lookalike wig will turn him into a genius??Panda wrote:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/propertymarket/10473290/Boris-Johnson-launches-plans-for-1bn-London-house-building-scheme.html
The tousled hair malena is his modus operendi, a fertile Brain lies beneath it.
Many of those who sit in the commons have no historic ties to this country, many have English as only their second language...
malena stool- Platinum Poster
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Wilson!!!!!!!! You mean " this will not affect the pound in your pocket" Wilson
Sorry Malena
Sorry Malena
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Re: Boris Johnson......the next PM?
If Tessa Jowell was Conservative I think she would have stepped down so Boris could put himself up for election, but she is Labour. Anyway, the way the Government is at the moment I think Boris will not want to challenge for leadership, he knows the Conservativess will not have a clear majority even if they win the next Election and is young enough to bide his time.
Boris wanted the third runway to be in Central London to avoid more noise around Heathrow , but the Planning Dep. turned it down "because it would affect the wildlife"....that's more important.?????
We shall see.
Boris wanted the third runway to be in Central London to avoid more noise around Heathrow , but the Planning Dep. turned it down "because it would affect the wildlife"....that's more important.?????
We shall see.
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Yes, that's the one fuzeta... but he and his administrations did in the main keep prices down, we all had jobs, and he kept Britain out of the Vietnam conflict.fuzeta wrote:Wilson!!!!!!!! You mean " this will not affect the pound in your pocket" Wilson
Sorry Malena
malena stool- Platinum Poster
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Yes I know Malena but I don't think it was so much down to him as to the good old days when these things were the norm.malena stool wrote:Yes, that's the one fuzeta... but he and his administrations did in the main keep prices down, we all had jobs, and he kept Britain out of the Vietnam conflict.fuzeta wrote:Wilson!!!!!!!! You mean " this will not affect the pound in your pocket" Wilson
Sorry Malena
Anyway " As I said at the Brighton conference"
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fuzeta wrote:Yes I know Malena but I don't think it was so much down to him as to the good old days when these things were the norm.malena stool wrote:Yes, that's the one fuzeta... but he and his administrations did in the main keep prices down, we all had jobs, and he kept Britain out of the Vietnam conflict.fuzeta wrote:Wilson!!!!!!!! You mean " this will not affect the pound in your pocket" Wilson
Sorry Malena
Anyway " As I said at the Brighton conference"
Much better by far than the likes of Home, Heath and Thatcher, but I'm probably well and truly biased being a dyed in the wool, spit and sawdust, shave in cold water and broken brick for a pillow Labour man... Not Blair and Brown's New Labour I hasten to add, they're no different to the Tories, liars one and all ....
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malena stool wrote:fuzeta wrote:Yes I know Malena but I don't think it was so much down to him as to the good old days when these things were the norm.malena stool wrote:Yes, that's the one fuzeta... but he and his administrations did in the main keep prices down, we all had jobs, and he kept Britain out of the Vietnam conflict.fuzeta wrote:Wilson!!!!!!!! You mean " this will not affect the pound in your pocket" Wilson
Sorry Malena
Anyway " As I said at the Brighton conference"
Much better by far than the likes of Home, Heath and Thatcher, but I'm probably well and truly biased being a dyed in the wool, spit and sawdust, shave in cold water and broken brick for a pillow Labour man... Not Blair and Brown's New Labour I hasten to add, they're no different to the Tories, liars one and all ....
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Re: Boris Johnson......the next PM?
Boris Johnson: some people are too stupid to get on in life
Natural differences between human beings will always mean that some will succeed and others will fail, the Mayor of London says in a speech
Economic equality will never be possible because some people are simply too stupid to get ahead, Boris Johnson has said.
Boris Johnson suggested that the gap between rich and poor has now grown too wide and more must be done to ensure that talented people from less wealthy backgrounds can “rise to the top” Photo: GEOFF PUGH FOR THE TELEGRAPH
By Peter Dominiczak, and James Kirkup
11:53PM GMT 27 Nov 2013
Economic equality will never be possible because some people are too stupid to get ahead, Boris Johnson said on Wednesday night.
Natural differences between human beings will always mean that some will succeed and others will fail, the Mayor of London said in a speech.
Despite calling for more to be done to help talented people from poor backgrounds to advance — including state-funded places at private schools — Mr Johnson said some people would always find it easier to get ahead than others. “Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests, it is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16 per cent of our species have an IQ below 85, while about 2 per cent have an IQ above 130,” he said.
Addressing the Centre for Policy Studies in London, Mr Johnson suggested that economic inequality was useful because it encouraged people to work harder.
He said: “I don’t believe that economic equality is possible; indeed, some measure of inequality is essential for the spirit of envy and keeping up with the Joneses and so on that it is a valuable spur to economic activity.”
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He added that free markets involved competition between “human beings who are far from equal in raw ability”.
Mr Johnson also repeated warnings against persecuting the rich, saying that wealth and success should be celebrated. He also recounted how after making that argument in a recent Telegraph column, he said he was subject to “frenzied and hate-filled” criticism.
None the less, he suggested that the gap between rich and poor had grown too wide and more must be done to ensure that talented people from less wealthy backgrounds can “rise to the top”.
Poor children should get state-funded places at private schools — a scheme abolished by Labour in 1997 — and competition between pupils should be restored, he said. His call for academic selection once again put him at odds with David Cameron, who has rejected Tory calls for the return of grammar schools.
Mr Johnson is the latest senior Tory to express fears that social mobility has declined. Sir John Major warned recently that public life had become dominated by the privately-educated and the wealthy middle classes. In his lecture devoted to the memory of Margaret Thatcher, Mr Johnson said: “I worry that there are too many cornflakes who aren’t being given a good enough chance to rustle and hustle their way to the top.
"We gave the packet a good shake in the 1960s, and Mrs Thatcher gave it another good shake in the 1980s with the sale of the council houses. Since then there has been a lot of evidence of a decline in social mobility.”
He also said it was time to end the “madness” of the immigration system
Panda- Platinum Poster
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Re: Boris Johnson......the next PM?
Morning Panda,
I wonder which group Boris sees himself as being a member of? Has he put his public school education to any real use? Has he invented anything? Could he earn a living with his hands? No, neither of these, his only work experience from reading the classics at Eton and Oxford was as editor of The Spectator, a weekly magazine for continuing the education and indoctrination of the Tory faithful.
Well, at least he never became involved in the Hacking scandals...
I wonder which group Boris sees himself as being a member of? Has he put his public school education to any real use? Has he invented anything? Could he earn a living with his hands? No, neither of these, his only work experience from reading the classics at Eton and Oxford was as editor of The Spectator, a weekly magazine for continuing the education and indoctrination of the Tory faithful.
Well, at least he never became involved in the Hacking scandals...
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Re: Boris Johnson......the next PM?
Morning malena.....my, you and Lioned have really got it in for him.malena stool wrote:Morning Panda,
I wonder which group Boris sees himself as being a member of? Has he put his public school education to any real use? Has he invented anything? Could he earn a living with his hands? No, neither of these, his only work experience from reading the classics at Eton and Oxford was as editor of The Spectator, a weekly magazine for continuing the education and indoctrination of the Tory faithful.
Well, at least he never became involved in the Hacking scandals...
I think I have lost my bet because Boris will wait for the 2019 Election. However, Cameron is more than likely going to be ousted by backbenchers before the Election , if this happens there are a few Conservative MP's willing to give up their seats . Boris's greatest asset is that people LIKE HIM , and his heart is in the right place. Beyond the Buffoonery he is very intelligent , you don't get to be President of the Students for nothing. He has been a good Mayor and did his bit to make the Games a brilliant success.
Union for nothing.
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Boris is clever enough to know where he is well off.He gets to travel the World as London Mayor and God knows why some people adore him and he feeds off that.
He would rather be Mayor of the best City in the World than a 'hopeful' pm candidate.
Cameron is under no pressure to step down as PM before the next election and if you think there are mp's prepared to step down and forfeit their expenses band wagon for Boris then you are wrong.
Next election is 2015 and next London Mayor comes up in 2016 so anything can happen but Boris would rather be the Mayor than an also ran mp.
How good a job do you think Boris is going to do running this country when he cant even be arsed to get the immigrants off the streets in Hyde Park Corner.
Do you think Boris will address the issues of immigration when he is courting their votes.
So apart from killing cyclists what has Boris done for London today ?
He would rather be Mayor of the best City in the World than a 'hopeful' pm candidate.
Cameron is under no pressure to step down as PM before the next election and if you think there are mp's prepared to step down and forfeit their expenses band wagon for Boris then you are wrong.
Next election is 2015 and next London Mayor comes up in 2016 so anything can happen but Boris would rather be the Mayor than an also ran mp.
How good a job do you think Boris is going to do running this country when he cant even be arsed to get the immigrants off the streets in Hyde Park Corner.
Do you think Boris will address the issues of immigration when he is courting their votes.
So apart from killing cyclists what has Boris done for London today ?
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Re: Boris Johnson......the next PM?
As it happens Lioned . 2 backbench MPs were ready to step down a few months ago so that Boris could contest their seats, he declined because he is not at all sure that the Conservatives will win the next Election. Tessa Jowell is standing down at the next Election and has said she wants to stand for Mayor of London, apparently her input into the Games was substantial.
Look what happened to Margaret Thatcher , she was ousted by her own Party !!!! Cameron has not got the support of the backbenchers and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was forced out, he made a bad mistake deferring any action on the EU , until after the Election.
Look what happened to Margaret Thatcher , she was ousted by her own Party !!!! Cameron has not got the support of the backbenchers and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was forced out, he made a bad mistake deferring any action on the EU , until after the Election.
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Boris Johnson's speech at the Margaret Thatcher lecture in full
Addressing the Centre for Policy Studies in London in a speech titled What Would Maggie do Today? Mr Johnson suggested that economic inequality was useful because it encouraged people to work harder. Read his speech in full here:
Addressing the Centre for Policy Studies in London in a speech titled What Would Maggie do Today? Mr Johnson suggested that economic inequality was useful because it encouraged people to work harder. Read his speech in full here:
London Mayor Boris Johnson Photo: Reuters
10:38AM GMT 28 Nov 2013
"The amazing thing about the funeral of Baroness Thatcher was the size of the crowds, and the next amazing thing was that they were so relatively well behaved. The BBC had done its best to foment an uprising.
With habitual good taste, they played Ding Dong the witch is dead on taxpayer-public radio. Asked to find some commentators to give an instant reaction to the death of Britain’s greatest post-war prime minister – an event that was not exactly unforeseen –they reached instinctively for Gerry Adams and Ken Livingstone, two of her bitterest foes – if you exclude the Tory wets, that is.
As her cortege wound its way from St Brides to St Paul’s there were a few people so stupid that they heckled the mortal remains of an 87 year old woman. A few turned their backs. Some wore twerpish Guy Fawkes masks or carried signs saying“Boo”. But the mass of humanity was on her side, and when the dissenters erupted they were swiftly drowned by cries of shhh or calculated volleys of applause.
I know all this partly from media accounts and partly because I walked through the crowds and I saw how various her mourners were. There were some tweedy types and some suited thrusters, and people who would generally not look out of place at a Tory party conference.
But there were also people from all over London, immigrants of every race and colour – people that the BBC might not have marked down, perhaps, as natural Thatcherites – and yet who had come to pay their respects to a woman who spoke to them and spoke for them as no other politician has done.
Addressing the Centre for Policy Studies in London in a speech titled What Would Maggie do Today? Mr Johnson suggested that economic inequality was useful because it encouraged people to work harder. Read his speech in full here:
Addressing the Centre for Policy Studies in London in a speech titled What Would Maggie do Today? Mr Johnson suggested that economic inequality was useful because it encouraged people to work harder. Read his speech in full here:
London Mayor Boris Johnson Photo: Reuters
10:38AM GMT 28 Nov 2013
"The amazing thing about the funeral of Baroness Thatcher was the size of the crowds, and the next amazing thing was that they were so relatively well behaved. The BBC had done its best to foment an uprising.
With habitual good taste, they played Ding Dong the witch is dead on taxpayer-public radio. Asked to find some commentators to give an instant reaction to the death of Britain’s greatest post-war prime minister – an event that was not exactly unforeseen –they reached instinctively for Gerry Adams and Ken Livingstone, two of her bitterest foes – if you exclude the Tory wets, that is.
As her cortege wound its way from St Brides to St Paul’s there were a few people so stupid that they heckled the mortal remains of an 87 year old woman. A few turned their backs. Some wore twerpish Guy Fawkes masks or carried signs saying“Boo”. But the mass of humanity was on her side, and when the dissenters erupted they were swiftly drowned by cries of shhh or calculated volleys of applause.
I know all this partly from media accounts and partly because I walked through the crowds and I saw how various her mourners were. There were some tweedy types and some suited thrusters, and people who would generally not look out of place at a Tory party conference.
But there were also people from all over London, immigrants of every race and colour – people that the BBC might not have marked down, perhaps, as natural Thatcherites – and yet who had come to pay their respects to a woman who spoke to them and spoke for them as no other politician has done.
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I'm sorry Panda, but at the risk of being labelled a hater I didn't see her as Britain's greatest post war PM. I saw her as the woman who destroyed our coal industry and all the industries which supported and relied on mining for work. I also saw her as the woman who used our once respected and great police force as a strike breaking tool, paying the officers huge overtime payments to travel from area to area and beat and brutalise on camera, the very people whose taxes paid the officer's wages. I also saw her as the woman who sowed the seeds of the destruction of our Health Service and the woman who recalled Royal Naval patrol vessels from around the Falklands without sending replacement patrol ships, allowing the Argentine invasion. The life of every serviceman and every ship lost, whether British or Agentine should be laid at her door.Panda wrote:Boris Johnson's speech at the Margaret Thatcher lecture in full
Addressing the Centre for Policy Studies in London in a speech titled What Would Maggie do Today? Mr Johnson suggested that economic inequality was useful because it encouraged people to work harder. Read his speech in full here:
Addressing the Centre for Policy Studies in London in a speech titled What Would Maggie do Today? Mr Johnson suggested that economic inequality was useful because it encouraged people to work harder. Read his speech in full here:
London Mayor Boris Johnson Photo: Reuters
10:38AM GMT 28 Nov 2013
"The amazing thing about the funeral of Baroness Thatcher was the size of the crowds, and the next amazing thing was that they were so relatively well behaved. The BBC had done its best to foment an uprising.
With habitual good taste, they played Ding Dong the witch is dead on taxpayer-public radio. Asked to find some commentators to give an instant reaction to the death of Britain’s greatest post-war prime minister – an event that was not exactly unforeseen –they reached instinctively for Gerry Adams and Ken Livingstone, two of her bitterest foes – if you exclude the Tory wets, that is.
As her cortege wound its way from St Brides to St Paul’s there were a few people so stupid that they heckled the mortal remains of an 87 year old woman. A few turned their backs. Some wore twerpish Guy Fawkes masks or carried signs saying“Boo”. But the mass of humanity was on her side, and when the dissenters erupted they were swiftly drowned by cries of shhh or calculated volleys of applause.
I know all this partly from media accounts and partly because I walked through the crowds and I saw how various her mourners were. There were some tweedy types and some suited thrusters, and people who would generally not look out of place at a Tory party conference.
But there were also people from all over London, immigrants of every race and colour – people that the BBC might not have marked down, perhaps, as natural Thatcherites – and yet who had come to pay their respects to a woman who spoke to them and spoke for them as no other politician has done
malena stool- Platinum Poster
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The Coal industry was on it's way out because of the smoke and dreadful health problems of the Miners. I can remember Train Stations dense with smoke , can't you?
Don't blame her for everything malena , she was actually in tears as she watched the war ships leave the Harbour for the Falkllands, to this day the Falklands are still a problem.Margaret Thatcher was instrumental in getting Britain a fair deal in the EU. As PM she didn't even take all her allowances and her Government was far more efficient , it's gone downhill ever since.
Don't blame her for everything malena , she was actually in tears as she watched the war ships leave the Harbour for the Falkllands, to this day the Falklands are still a problem.Margaret Thatcher was instrumental in getting Britain a fair deal in the EU. As PM she didn't even take all her allowances and her Government was far more efficient , it's gone downhill ever since.
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Yes I can Panda, and parts of Germany, America, much of China and India and countless other countries are still thick with smoke, exhaust fumes and God knows what other pollutants. Their governments not adhering to or totally ignoring clean air policies but they are controlling their respective fuel and heating prices and not milking their populations, while allowing oil and gas companies set up from public utilities, stolen by politicians such as Thatcher, to make vast indecent profits year after year while the poor and the elderly die in ever increasing numbers from hypothermia..Panda wrote:The Coal industry was on it's way out because of the smoke and dreadful health problems of the Miners. I can remember Train Stations dense with smoke , can't you?
Don't blame her for everything malena , she was actually in tears as she watched the war ships leave the Harbour for the Falkllands, to this day the Falklands are still a problem.Margaret Thatcher was instrumental in getting Britain a fair deal in the EU. As PM she didn't even take all her allowances and her Government was far more efficient , it's gone downhill ever since.
So she should have wept as our servicemen leave port, she (and her administration) had let the whole thing happen.
She may well have done some good during her tenure in No.10, but her negative effect on this nation far outweighs the positive.
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Thatcher was a disaster and a criminal.Just look at the Arms deals she set up for that dopey looking son of hers,making that half wit a multi mlillionaire with out any effort whatsoever.See her friendship with saville who had many a Chrismas dinner with her.
She inflicted abject misery on millions of people systematically destroying our manufacturing industries to deal with the Unions.
She is by far the worst prime minister we have ever had and that even beats bliar and brown.
If ever anyone deserved to burn in hell she would be at the front of the queue.
She inflicted abject misery on millions of people systematically destroying our manufacturing industries to deal with the Unions.
She is by far the worst prime minister we have ever had and that even beats bliar and brown.
If ever anyone deserved to burn in hell she would be at the front of the queue.
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Re: Boris Johnson......the next PM?
@ malena and Lioned.......you highjacked this thread to vent your spleen about Maggie Thatcher , don't reply to this post , let's get back to the topic
Margaret Thatcher’s Greatest Achievements
Posted on Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013 at 11:20 am.
About Jonathan Lea
Jonathan is a specialist corporate and commercial lawyer who has worked at both large international City firms and smaller outfits. He now practices as a self-employed solicitor, whilst also getting involved in other areas of business, including acting as a UK representative for overseas companies, organising events and advising on PR and media strategies. You can follow him on Twitter @jonathanlea
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Margaret Thatcher’s funeral and all the media interest has released my inner Tory Boy, even though I once won the mock election at school with our ‘New Communist’ party (on the eve of New Labour’s victory in 1997). Although I may not agree with every policy her government implemented, this post will mostly ignore the criticisms of Thatcherism and instead focus on her undoubted achievements, many of which are inter-related. Anyway, while people try to attribute such things as unemployment and the decline of the coal mining industry as legacies of Thatcher’s government, my view is that these were inevitable and could have been far worse without her reforms. Indeed, by the end of the Thatcher era there was less unemployment than under Labour in 1979, while the previous Labour government closed far more mines than she ever did and it was their relationship with the Trade Unions and general self-interested economic incompetence that ruined British industries in the first place.
When Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street in May 1979, she took control of a country that was in a permanent state of decline, while the Winter of Discontent, the previous coal mining strikes, the three-day week, rolling blackouts, rubbish piling up in the streets and even the dead being left unburied had clearly illustrated that the unions were in control of the country and that Britain was a shadow of its former self, viewed with pity by the rest of the world.
Margaret Thatcher had a particularly consistent and clear political philosophy with a deep conviction that the country had been run the wrong way. This combined with her supreme self-confidence and tenacity meant she was willing to make unpopular decisions, take risks and do the things she thought were necessary to enable people to be free and create wealth and thus change the fortunes of the nation. In effect she did not want government to continue to try to run (or rather crush) Britain, but let the British people have a go again.
The Falklands War
In essence, the successful campaign was a virtuous war fought against an aggressor in order to defend Britain’s interests and support a people’s right to determine how they are governed. It was Britain’s first military victory since 1945 and made Britain feel proud, strong and assertive again. The relatively swift victory and the steadfast nerve Thatcher had displayed in acting so decisively captured the world’s attention and turned her into a respected stateswoman on the international stage.
Right to Buy Scheme
Through the right-to-buy scheme Margaret Thatcher gave some of the poorest and previously disenfranchised people in society a way to buy their own homes. Council tenants who had never even thought of owning their own homes were free to become homeowners, thus letting aspirational, hard-working people improve their security and increase their wealth by owning property and having more of a stake in society.
Supply Side Reforms and Entrepreneurship
Thatcher’s government eventually smashed the grip the public sector and government held over the country and created a far better environment for entrepreneurial people to thrive. When she became prime minister in 1979, the top tax rate was a pernicious 98%; the bottom rate was 65%. However much or little you earned, you were paying most of your money in taxes, making any business activity or desire to be self-sufficient very difficult. When Margaret Thatcher left office in 1990, the top tax rate was down to 40% and the bottom tax rate was 25%. By cutting taxes and regulation people could keep and spend more of their own money, businesses thrived and the British economy was revitalised.
The Thatcher years saw the establishment of hundreds of thousands of small businesses that in modern Britain form the backbone of our economy. The previously entrenched class system was weakened, more people moved into the ‘middle class’ and the previously impossible concepts of upward mobility and ‘bettering yourself’ became common. At the end of her time in government there was far more respect and reward for hard work, enterprise and risk.
Foreign Investment
Margaret Thatcher recognised the need to harness the power of the global market rather than try to hold it back and her policies changed the business environment sufficiently to make Britain a favoured destination for foreign investment in Europe. Privatisation, in particular, helped open up the economy and provided many opportunities for foreign investors. Taxes were lower, strikes were down, productivity and GDP growth were much improved and foreign investors were now queuing to get in as opposed to fleeing and avoiding the country as they had previously done. This trend was symbolised by Nissan’s groundbreaking investment in the North East of England and statistically FDI inflows tripled to $30.5 billion in 1990 from $10.1 billion in 1980, according to UNCTAD.
She also got the government to partner with the delivery strengths of the private sector to implement key infrastructure investment projects. Canary Wharf, one of the country’s first enterprise zones, was one such project that through tax concessions, incentives, and reduced regulations attracted high levels of private sector investment. Over 100,000 people now work at Canary Wharf which has helped to regenerate a large part of East London and attracted a lot of foreign business and investment to the UK.
Big Bang, in 1986, was essentially about deregulating the Stock Exchange and was so called because the reforms were expected to dramatically increase market activity. It enabled 100 per cent outside ownership of member firms, so that London could operate on a modern, properly capitalised basis as an international financial centre. The plan was to reprise the City’s golden age, when London was the world’s greatest financial centre, disbursing capital and credit around the globe, before the guns of August 1914 changed everything. The plan came to fruition, neither Frankfurt or Paris mounted a credible challenge to London as the top European financial centre and by the new century, London was ahead of both New York and Tokyo in global terms, with the City becoming a real cash cow for successive British governments.
Defeat of the Trade Unions
When Thatcher first came to power she knew that her primary target would be the organised labour movements which had wrecked the economy and made the country ungovernable, in particular the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), up to 1m strong, led by Arthur Scargill.
The NUM’s strike tactics were getting more militant, but previous Labour and Conservative governments had only made the problem worse by cowing to their demands. A showdown was inevitable, although Thatcher had to bide her time until when the NUM went on strike in the winter of 1984-85, ostensibly about pay and conditions, but they really intended them to lead to mass discontent turning to violent regime change.
Mrs Thatcher successfully faced down and outlasted the miners, arguing that it was a battle for the right of management to manage over the arbitrary use of union power, in the process reforming union procedures to allow the democratic method of secret ballots, banning secondary picketing and lessening the possibility of coercion.
The number of strikes went way down and her victory effectively ended the union problem for good. By defeating the strikes Margaret Thatcher sent a message loud and clear that striking won’t work anymore and for the British economy it was the most important thing she ever did. The unions try to claim that Thatcher destroyed manufacturing in Britain, however British factories increased output by 7.5 per cent during her premiership (according to the Office for National Statistics).
Privatisations and Share Ownership
The economy was further transformed with the series of privatisations that took place in the 1980s. Thatcher swept away previous state monopolies and transformed daily life in a way we now take for granted. Suddenly, people had cheaper and more efficient power supplies and businesses could drastically cut costs.
She privatised industries through selling shares to the public so that millions of Britons became the first in their family to own stock in a company. Previous loss-making companies such as British Airways and Rolls Royce soon became profitable allowing the public to receive income and capital from their shareholdings and meaning these companies also now paid taxes on their profits rather than the taxpayer having to pay to keep them afloat.
Mrs Thatcher’s privatisation revolution spread around the world. The post-communist countries embraced it and by 1996 Russia had privatised some 18,000 industrial enterprises. India dismantled the Licence Raj (a legacy of British Fabianism) and unleashed a cavalcade of successful companies. Across Latin America governments embraced market liberalisation. Whether they managed well or badly, all of them looked to the British example.
The End of the Cold War
Mrs Thatcher’s biggest legacy has to do with the spread of freedom, the defeat of totalitarianism in its most vicious form in the Soviet Union and the revival of a liberal economic tradition that had gone into retreat after 1945. Many things caused the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, but the clarity of Mrs Thatcher’s beliefs and the influence she gained on the world stage was a vital factor.
She was the first British politician since Winston Churchill to be taken seriously by the leaders of all the major powers. She was a heroine to opposition politicians in eastern Europe, mobbed wherever she went behind the Iron Curtain and lauded as a herald of freedom. She formed a triumvirate with Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II to engineer the downfall of Soviet communism.
Mrs Thatcher became Prime Minister before Reagan was elected President and her liberal economic example made it possible for Reagan to then become President. Thatcher was a staunch Cold War warrior and Reagan often looked to her for guidance and leadership in how to deal with the Cold War. However, it was her diplomacy and friendship with Gorbachev combined with her influence over President Reagan that meant talks were started to end the Cold War. Therefore, not only did she save Britain from becoming a third-world satellite state of the Soviet Union, together with Reagan she hastened the end of the Soviet Empire without starting any actual wars and helped to promote new thinking in the Kremlin.
Conclusion
Thatcher inherited a legacy of socialist state planning and crippling taxation, both of which hugely reduced Britain’s international competitiveness. The political class had also been in thrall to union power and the country faced constant threats of paralysing industrial action. Britain was mired in defeatism, fatalism and negativity with the IMF loan under the Callaghan administration making Britain an international laughing stock.
Margaret Thatcher won the argument for a new kind of Britain and despite having to make unpopular decisions she was victorious in three elections, shifting the centre of gravity of British politics dramatically to the right in the process. So much so that the New Labourites of the 1990s concluded that they could only rescue the Labour Party from ruin by adopting the central tenets of Thatcherism with Tony Blair declaring that “the presumption should be that economic activity is best left to the private sector”.
Her policies aimed at reducing the size of the state, cutting tax and empowering the individual, combined with deregulation, privatisation and much needed reductions in union power, created the conditions for the booming enterprise economy of the 1980s. The fact that capitalism and democracy are today seen as the best and only viable forms of political economy (I think the term ‘social democracy’ is ultimately a bit of an oxymoron) is largely because Margaret Thatcher fought her battles, won the arguments and became an inspiration for other countries around the world.
- See more at: http://www.jonathanlea.net/2013/margaret-thatchers-greatest-achievements/#sthash.Cw2S5CDm.dpuf
Margaret Thatcher’s Greatest Achievements
Posted on Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013 at 11:20 am.
About Jonathan Lea
Jonathan is a specialist corporate and commercial lawyer who has worked at both large international City firms and smaller outfits. He now practices as a self-employed solicitor, whilst also getting involved in other areas of business, including acting as a UK representative for overseas companies, organising events and advising on PR and media strategies. You can follow him on Twitter @jonathanlea
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Margaret Thatcher’s funeral and all the media interest has released my inner Tory Boy, even though I once won the mock election at school with our ‘New Communist’ party (on the eve of New Labour’s victory in 1997). Although I may not agree with every policy her government implemented, this post will mostly ignore the criticisms of Thatcherism and instead focus on her undoubted achievements, many of which are inter-related. Anyway, while people try to attribute such things as unemployment and the decline of the coal mining industry as legacies of Thatcher’s government, my view is that these were inevitable and could have been far worse without her reforms. Indeed, by the end of the Thatcher era there was less unemployment than under Labour in 1979, while the previous Labour government closed far more mines than she ever did and it was their relationship with the Trade Unions and general self-interested economic incompetence that ruined British industries in the first place.
When Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street in May 1979, she took control of a country that was in a permanent state of decline, while the Winter of Discontent, the previous coal mining strikes, the three-day week, rolling blackouts, rubbish piling up in the streets and even the dead being left unburied had clearly illustrated that the unions were in control of the country and that Britain was a shadow of its former self, viewed with pity by the rest of the world.
Margaret Thatcher had a particularly consistent and clear political philosophy with a deep conviction that the country had been run the wrong way. This combined with her supreme self-confidence and tenacity meant she was willing to make unpopular decisions, take risks and do the things she thought were necessary to enable people to be free and create wealth and thus change the fortunes of the nation. In effect she did not want government to continue to try to run (or rather crush) Britain, but let the British people have a go again.
The Falklands War
In essence, the successful campaign was a virtuous war fought against an aggressor in order to defend Britain’s interests and support a people’s right to determine how they are governed. It was Britain’s first military victory since 1945 and made Britain feel proud, strong and assertive again. The relatively swift victory and the steadfast nerve Thatcher had displayed in acting so decisively captured the world’s attention and turned her into a respected stateswoman on the international stage.
Right to Buy Scheme
Through the right-to-buy scheme Margaret Thatcher gave some of the poorest and previously disenfranchised people in society a way to buy their own homes. Council tenants who had never even thought of owning their own homes were free to become homeowners, thus letting aspirational, hard-working people improve their security and increase their wealth by owning property and having more of a stake in society.
Supply Side Reforms and Entrepreneurship
Thatcher’s government eventually smashed the grip the public sector and government held over the country and created a far better environment for entrepreneurial people to thrive. When she became prime minister in 1979, the top tax rate was a pernicious 98%; the bottom rate was 65%. However much or little you earned, you were paying most of your money in taxes, making any business activity or desire to be self-sufficient very difficult. When Margaret Thatcher left office in 1990, the top tax rate was down to 40% and the bottom tax rate was 25%. By cutting taxes and regulation people could keep and spend more of their own money, businesses thrived and the British economy was revitalised.
The Thatcher years saw the establishment of hundreds of thousands of small businesses that in modern Britain form the backbone of our economy. The previously entrenched class system was weakened, more people moved into the ‘middle class’ and the previously impossible concepts of upward mobility and ‘bettering yourself’ became common. At the end of her time in government there was far more respect and reward for hard work, enterprise and risk.
Foreign Investment
Margaret Thatcher recognised the need to harness the power of the global market rather than try to hold it back and her policies changed the business environment sufficiently to make Britain a favoured destination for foreign investment in Europe. Privatisation, in particular, helped open up the economy and provided many opportunities for foreign investors. Taxes were lower, strikes were down, productivity and GDP growth were much improved and foreign investors were now queuing to get in as opposed to fleeing and avoiding the country as they had previously done. This trend was symbolised by Nissan’s groundbreaking investment in the North East of England and statistically FDI inflows tripled to $30.5 billion in 1990 from $10.1 billion in 1980, according to UNCTAD.
She also got the government to partner with the delivery strengths of the private sector to implement key infrastructure investment projects. Canary Wharf, one of the country’s first enterprise zones, was one such project that through tax concessions, incentives, and reduced regulations attracted high levels of private sector investment. Over 100,000 people now work at Canary Wharf which has helped to regenerate a large part of East London and attracted a lot of foreign business and investment to the UK.
Big Bang, in 1986, was essentially about deregulating the Stock Exchange and was so called because the reforms were expected to dramatically increase market activity. It enabled 100 per cent outside ownership of member firms, so that London could operate on a modern, properly capitalised basis as an international financial centre. The plan was to reprise the City’s golden age, when London was the world’s greatest financial centre, disbursing capital and credit around the globe, before the guns of August 1914 changed everything. The plan came to fruition, neither Frankfurt or Paris mounted a credible challenge to London as the top European financial centre and by the new century, London was ahead of both New York and Tokyo in global terms, with the City becoming a real cash cow for successive British governments.
Defeat of the Trade Unions
When Thatcher first came to power she knew that her primary target would be the organised labour movements which had wrecked the economy and made the country ungovernable, in particular the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), up to 1m strong, led by Arthur Scargill.
The NUM’s strike tactics were getting more militant, but previous Labour and Conservative governments had only made the problem worse by cowing to their demands. A showdown was inevitable, although Thatcher had to bide her time until when the NUM went on strike in the winter of 1984-85, ostensibly about pay and conditions, but they really intended them to lead to mass discontent turning to violent regime change.
Mrs Thatcher successfully faced down and outlasted the miners, arguing that it was a battle for the right of management to manage over the arbitrary use of union power, in the process reforming union procedures to allow the democratic method of secret ballots, banning secondary picketing and lessening the possibility of coercion.
The number of strikes went way down and her victory effectively ended the union problem for good. By defeating the strikes Margaret Thatcher sent a message loud and clear that striking won’t work anymore and for the British economy it was the most important thing she ever did. The unions try to claim that Thatcher destroyed manufacturing in Britain, however British factories increased output by 7.5 per cent during her premiership (according to the Office for National Statistics).
Privatisations and Share Ownership
The economy was further transformed with the series of privatisations that took place in the 1980s. Thatcher swept away previous state monopolies and transformed daily life in a way we now take for granted. Suddenly, people had cheaper and more efficient power supplies and businesses could drastically cut costs.
She privatised industries through selling shares to the public so that millions of Britons became the first in their family to own stock in a company. Previous loss-making companies such as British Airways and Rolls Royce soon became profitable allowing the public to receive income and capital from their shareholdings and meaning these companies also now paid taxes on their profits rather than the taxpayer having to pay to keep them afloat.
Mrs Thatcher’s privatisation revolution spread around the world. The post-communist countries embraced it and by 1996 Russia had privatised some 18,000 industrial enterprises. India dismantled the Licence Raj (a legacy of British Fabianism) and unleashed a cavalcade of successful companies. Across Latin America governments embraced market liberalisation. Whether they managed well or badly, all of them looked to the British example.
The End of the Cold War
Mrs Thatcher’s biggest legacy has to do with the spread of freedom, the defeat of totalitarianism in its most vicious form in the Soviet Union and the revival of a liberal economic tradition that had gone into retreat after 1945. Many things caused the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, but the clarity of Mrs Thatcher’s beliefs and the influence she gained on the world stage was a vital factor.
She was the first British politician since Winston Churchill to be taken seriously by the leaders of all the major powers. She was a heroine to opposition politicians in eastern Europe, mobbed wherever she went behind the Iron Curtain and lauded as a herald of freedom. She formed a triumvirate with Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II to engineer the downfall of Soviet communism.
Mrs Thatcher became Prime Minister before Reagan was elected President and her liberal economic example made it possible for Reagan to then become President. Thatcher was a staunch Cold War warrior and Reagan often looked to her for guidance and leadership in how to deal with the Cold War. However, it was her diplomacy and friendship with Gorbachev combined with her influence over President Reagan that meant talks were started to end the Cold War. Therefore, not only did she save Britain from becoming a third-world satellite state of the Soviet Union, together with Reagan she hastened the end of the Soviet Empire without starting any actual wars and helped to promote new thinking in the Kremlin.
Conclusion
Thatcher inherited a legacy of socialist state planning and crippling taxation, both of which hugely reduced Britain’s international competitiveness. The political class had also been in thrall to union power and the country faced constant threats of paralysing industrial action. Britain was mired in defeatism, fatalism and negativity with the IMF loan under the Callaghan administration making Britain an international laughing stock.
Margaret Thatcher won the argument for a new kind of Britain and despite having to make unpopular decisions she was victorious in three elections, shifting the centre of gravity of British politics dramatically to the right in the process. So much so that the New Labourites of the 1990s concluded that they could only rescue the Labour Party from ruin by adopting the central tenets of Thatcherism with Tony Blair declaring that “the presumption should be that economic activity is best left to the private sector”.
Her policies aimed at reducing the size of the state, cutting tax and empowering the individual, combined with deregulation, privatisation and much needed reductions in union power, created the conditions for the booming enterprise economy of the 1980s. The fact that capitalism and democracy are today seen as the best and only viable forms of political economy (I think the term ‘social democracy’ is ultimately a bit of an oxymoron) is largely because Margaret Thatcher fought her battles, won the arguments and became an inspiration for other countries around the world.
- See more at: http://www.jonathanlea.net/2013/margaret-thatchers-greatest-achievements/#sthash.Cw2S5CDm.dpuf
Panda- Platinum Poster
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Number of posts : 30555
Age : 67
Location : Wales
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Re: Boris Johnson......the next PM?
The main topic, Panda is Boris, and reading this item by Johnathan Lea raises more questions than answers about Boris and how he would perform were he to ever become PM.
There are always at least two sides, to every story. Please read the article this link takes you to, it identifies many of the points I remember of that time.
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/04/08/12-months-shook-britain-story-strike.
There are always at least two sides, to every story. Please read the article this link takes you to, it identifies many of the points I remember of that time.
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/04/08/12-months-shook-britain-story-strike.
malena stool- Platinum Poster
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Re: Boris Johnson......the next PM?
Malena, I really don't want to read anything about Margaret Thatcher on this thread, start a new thread about her if you want, then let anyone who wants to comment use that.malena stool wrote:The main topic, Panda is Boris, and reading this item by Johnathan Lea raises more questions than answers about Boris and how he would perform were he to ever become PM.
There are always at least two sides, to every story. Please read the article this link takes you to, it identifies many of the points I remember of that time.
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/04/08/12-months-shook-britain-story-strike.
Panda- Platinum Poster
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Number of posts : 30555
Age : 67
Location : Wales
Warning :
Registration date : 2010-03-27
Re: Boris Johnson......the next PM?
Panda, you introduced Thatcher on the thread, see your comment on Thu 28 Nov - 20:39Panda wrote:Malena, I really don't want to read anything about Margaret Thatcher on this thread, start a new thread about her if you want, then let anyone who wants to comment use that.malena stool wrote:The main topic, Panda is Boris, and reading this item by Johnathan Lea raises more questions than answers about Boris and how he would perform were he to ever become PM.
There are always at least two sides, to every story. Please read the article this link takes you to, it identifies many of the points I remember of that time.
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/04/08/12-months-shook-britain-story-strike.
malena stool- Platinum Poster
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Number of posts : 13924
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Registration date : 2009-10-04
Re: Boris Johnson......the next PM?
I introduced Boris Johnson giving a Speech about the City of London. It is fine to differ , but IMO you and Lioned were OTT. Anyway , subject closed . If you want to start a thread about Margaret Thatcher and see what other Members think of her, feel free.malena stool wrote:Panda, you introduced Thatcher on the thread, see your comment on Thu 28 Nov - 20:39Panda wrote:Malena, I really don't want to read anything about Margaret Thatcher on this thread, start a new thread about her if you want, then let anyone who wants to comment use that.malena stool wrote:The main topic, Panda is Boris, and reading this item by Johnathan Lea raises more questions than answers about Boris and how he would perform were he to ever become PM.
There are always at least two sides, to every story. Please read the article this link takes you to, it identifies many of the points I remember of that time.
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/04/08/12-months-shook-britain-story-strike.
Panda- Platinum Poster
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Number of posts : 30555
Age : 67
Location : Wales
Warning :
Registration date : 2010-03-27
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