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The Cocktrumpet of the Day Award goes to...

Mark Thomas - yet another attention-seeking Left-wing comedian who manages to be not at all funny. I have never understood why Left-wingers hate Thatcher as viscerally as they do, so it's safe to say that this one really pissed me off. I quote from his own website:

"To launch the Huddersfield Policy campaign, that Margaret Thatcher should pay for her own funeral, I have designed a postcard to protest the prospect of a state funeral for Margaret Thatcher. The person with most say on a state funeral is Elizabeth Windsor (sometimes known as the Queen), thus the cards should be sent to her, seeking to influence her decision making in advance of Margaret Thatcher's demise."

Where do I send the postcard that tells Mark Thomas to sod off and die? Twat.

Over to you...
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I :heart: Mark Thomas
  • JsTJsT Posts: 18,268 Skive's The Limit
    Why is it called the Huddersfield Policy?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    He is also wrong - a state funeral would be the decision of the Government of the day who would advise the Queen. Frankly its unlikely Thatcher would get a state funeral which have previously only been given to two PM's and one of them it wasn't for being PM, but beating Boney at Waterloo.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I can see Thatcher getting a state funeral, plans are already in place AFAIK, and lets not forget all the bollocks that came about when Diana (a commoner common tart) died. NuLab will give one so that the precedent's set for when Blair pops his clogs (and that's a day that can't come soon enough).

    Mark Thomas is very funny and also about 85% of what comes out of his mouth is true and right. If you think protesting about Nestle formula milk and the Church of England investing in BAe makes someone a twat, then count me in.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Where do I send the postcard that tells Mark Thomas to sod off and die? Twat.

    Don't know, but don't worry; the above statement suggests that if we gave Mark Thomas the award today, you would again reclaim your title tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Don't know, but don't worry; the above statement suggests that if we gave Mark Thomas the award today, you would again reclaim your title tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that...

    :lol::lol::lol: :thumb:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Awww, i thought i had my own thread :(
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    lol
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    Mark Thomas - yet another attention-seeking Left-wing comedian who manages to be not at all funny. I have never understood why Left-wingers hate Thatcher as viscerally as they do, so it's safe to say that this one really pissed me off. I quote from his own website:

    "To launch the Huddersfield Policy campaign, that Margaret Thatcher should pay for her own funeral, I have designed a postcard to protest the prospect of a state funeral for Margaret Thatcher. The person with most say on a state funeral is Elizabeth Windsor (sometimes known as the Queen), thus the cards should be sent to her, seeking to influence her decision making in advance of Margaret Thatcher's demise."

    Where do I send the postcard that tells Mark Thomas to sod off and die? Twat.

    Over to you...

    So you want Thatcher to have a state funeral then?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Watching an old Q.I. tonight and someone remarked 'Doesn't "Lady Thatcher" sound like some kind of intimate, feminine hair removal system ?' :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    RubberSkin wrote: »
    Watching an old Q.I. tonight and someone remarked 'Doesn't "Lady Thatcher" sound like some kind of intimate, feminine hair removal system ?' :)

    :lol:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    MrG wrote: »
    So you want Thatcher to have a state funeral then?
    Yes. Even if it means that the one-eyed Scottish idiot eventually gets one as well.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Mark Thomas is fantastic. Talk of her death always makes me wonder who is actually going to mourn her.

    As Frankie Boyle said: "State funeral? Only if she's buried alive."
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    briggi wrote: »
    Mark Thomas is fantastic. Talk of her death always makes me wonder who is actually going to mourn her.

    As Frankie Boyle said: "State funeral? Only if she's buried alive."

    Perhaps her family, friends, supporters.

    It always amuses me (in a scary way) how easily the veneer of civilisation can be stripped away, with people praying for the death of a democratically elected politician, especially one who conquered inflation and union practices which did so much damage to the weak and defenceless in society.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    Yes. Even if it means that the one-eyed Scottish idiot eventually gets one as well.

    She hardly deserves a State Funeral - Churchill got one for standing up to Nazism, standing up to Scargill and the Argentinian Junta may be admirable, but it's hardly in the same league... Even Wellington, the other ex-PM to have one, didn't get it for his wholly forgetable political tenure, but for one day in 1815 when he took a stand against Bonepartist despotism
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I bet there's a bit petition to put a statue of her permanently on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square.

    I don't like the woman but even if I did I would not think a State Funeral would be right... the point of them is that they are meant to be reserved for Statespeople who have made great achievements of critical significance during their lifetime. If Thatcher gets a State funeral I don't see a reason to denying it to every other PM. Does Blair deserve one? does Major?

    People are prone to hysteria and to following the lead of the media. That doesn't mean that the decision taken would be the right one. Had there been a referendum when Jade Goody died, I wouldn't have been surprised if people had voted to give her a State funeral...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Princess Diana, a woman who's sole claim to fame was being an annoying Sloane Ranger who fucked anything that moved, got one. Thatcher is about 1000% more admirable than she ever was.

    But no, I don't think she should get one.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    especially one who conquered inflation and union practices which did so much damage to the weak and defenceless in society

    Change that to 'helped control inflation temporarily' I'd agree, and yes Union practices at the time needed to be challenged but through reform.

    She also condemned large swathes of the population to the kind of social breakdown through mass unemployment that we are still paying for today.

    But of course - 'there is no such thing as society...'
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Change that to 'helped control inflation temporarily' I'd agree, and yes Union practices at the time needed to be challenged but through reform.

    She also condemned large swathes of the population to the kind of social breakdown through mass unemployment that we are still paying for today.

    But of course - 'there is no such thing as society...'

    would it be possible for someone, sometime to put that quote in its proper context
    I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yes, and in context it is still highly dismissive and shifts all blame onto the individual, because it ignores macroeconomic factors that were totally outside of people's control, simplifies the great and complex wealth of different types of social exclusion to a criminal degree, and then a priori places the blame on everyone else.

    Individual agency is important yes, but the statement, in context, is the best example of going way too far down the road of emphasising agency: it also runs counter to the vast majority socio-economic understandings of human societies and their outcomes.

    The rise of community cohesion and social capital as significant approaches to understanding deprivation and social exclusion in the UK are perhaps the best testament to why this ultra-emphasis on the individual is faulty.

    Also, put that quote in a wider context - people were doing this way before Thatcher - her economic reforms destroyed large scale communities, and then she had the audacity to stand up in parliament and say 'don't come crying to us, it's your fault for not looking after yourselves'.

    It didn't wash then and it doesn't now, in context or out of it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    would it be possible for someone, sometime to put that quote in its proper context

    Well said that (flash) man.

    That quote has always struck me as somewhat of an aberration. A rare event of a politician telling it like it is. She dared to bring up that heretical old relic of personal responsibility.

    It is often the case that politicians are purveyors of tit sucking. Of course that is in the interest of the politician to do so.

    Modus operanti : Offer the schmuck an alleged essential service (without any disclosure that the schmuck is going to pay for it perhaps twice, three times over). The sales pitch will no doubt also appeal to the vanity of the schmuck by stating that any problem the schmuck has is not the fault of the schmuck (see Martin Bashir's post for more details)

    BTW Martin Bashir, are you thinking of standing as a MP ? That post suggests you possess the sales technique. If you are, I have confidence in your success. The world is awash with schmucks who will purse those lips at the first sight of any teat you have to offer.

    "macroeconomic factors" indeed. Gordon Brown would be proud.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    would it be possible for someone, sometime to put that quote in its proper context
    I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation
    Well I have to say it still sounds to me every bit as nauseating and unacceptable as before.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    Well I have to say it still sounds to me every bit as nauseating and unacceptable as before.

    That speaks volumes.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    Well I have to say it still sounds to me every bit as nauseating and unacceptable as before.

    You don't like the bit about helping neighbours? Or personal responsibility? Or is it the idea that we have obligations as well as rights?

    To be honest fair do's if you dislike it, but it is a much different statement compared to an out of context 'there's no such thing as society'
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Of course personal responsibility is a good thing. But one of the oldest tricks of the right has been to window dress greed and selfishness as 'personal responsibility'.

    Such comments attempt to imply who those who find themselves in difficulty do so because of their own laziness or incompetence. This is as patronising as is untrue and malicious. Oh, no doubt there are a few bad apples- but there are a minority. By banging on about personal responsibility when discussing the welfare state, Thatcher and her followers attempt to justiy starving public services and welfare by implying those who are in need of help are to blame for their predicament, and can get out of it by working harder. Of course it is nothing more than greedy people not wanting to part with any of their substantial wealth to help others.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    Of course personal responsibility is a good thing. But one of the oldest tricks of the right has been to window dress greed and selfishness as 'personal responsibility'..

    And one of the oldest tricks of the left has been to characterise Thatcher's govt as greedy and selfish..
    Such comments attempt to imply who those who find themselves in difficulty do so because of their own laziness or incompetence. This is as patronising as is untrue and malicious. Oh, no doubt there are a few bad apples- but there are a minority. By banging on about personal responsibility when discussing the welfare state, Thatcher and her followers attempt to justiy starving public services and welfare by implying those who are in need of help are to blame for their predicament, and can get out of it by working harder. Of course it is nothing more than greedy people not wanting to part with any of their substantial wealth to help others

    Given the amount Thatcher pumped into the coalfields and inner city regeneration its hard to characterise it in the way you're suggesting. Public spending was around 40% or so of GDP (down from mid-40's) so the Thatcher revolution was nowhere near as radical in public spending as either her friends or enemies tend to believe. She was after all a democratic politicians who had to work within the narrow parameters of both public and Parliamentary opinion.

    What she may have done was move funding between areas - ceasing to prop up the declining industries and trying to encourage people into profitable (and much nicer) ones. She didn't wholly suceed, part of that was the fault of Government and part of it was the fault of councils who were more concerned with trying to score political points about dead industries than caring about getting people into living ones.

    However, where she was radical was about changing Britain's image of itself. For thirty years the British state had been about managing decline; she took the view that decline could be reversed and Britain shouldn't slowly move into gentile poverty, but actually look at getting better. That's much better for people in the long term (if nothing else it allows the NHS to be funded).
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Modus operanti : Offer the schmuck an alleged essential service (without any disclosure that the schmuck is going to pay for it perhaps twice, three times over). The sales pitch will no doubt also appeal to the vanity of the schmuck by stating that any problem the schmuck has is not the fault of the schmuck (see Martin Bashir's post for more details)

    BTW Martin Bashir, are you thinking of standing as a MP ? That post suggests you possess the sales technique. If you are, I have confidence in your success. The world is awash with schmucks who will purse those lips at the first sight of any teat you have to offer.

    "macroeconomic factors" indeed. Gordon Brown would be proud.

    Lol fair enough - clearly we're not going to get any reasoned discussion out of you today.
    Flashman

    Given the amount Thatcher pumped into the coalfields and inner city regeneration its hard to characterise it in the way you're suggesting. Public spending was around 40% or so of GDP (down from mid-40's) so the Thatcher revolution was nowhere near as radical in public spending as either her friends or enemies tend to believe. She was after all a democratic politicians who had to work within the narrow parameters of both public and Parliamentary opinion.

    What she may have done was move funding between areas - ceasing to prop up the declining industries and trying to encourage people into profitable (and much nicer) ones. She didn't wholly suceed, part of that was the fault of Government and part of it was the fault of councils who were more concerned with trying to score political points about dead industries than caring about getting people into living ones.

    However, where she was radical was about changing Britain's image of itself. For thirty years the British state had been about managing decline; she took the view that decline could be reversed and Britain shouldn't slowly move into gentile poverty, but actually look at getting better. That's much better for people in the long term (if nothing else it allows the NHS to be funded).

    Re: 2nd para - the point that I cannot get past about the whole Thatcher period, as I understand it, is that she allowed these industries to die but appeared not a bit concerned for the societies they underpinned. There just wasn't enough concern, in her language or the politics of the 'enemy within' for her in any way to be seen to be acting in the interests of a great many people who suffered from her economic reforms. The 'I am gloating' and triumphalism that accompanied her handling of the situation was terrible, and we ended up with a legacy of mass unemployment whose intergenerational ripples are still being felt.

    Re: 3rd para - the NHS was in a terrible state after Thatcher and into the Major years. Also in an attempt to avoid 'gentile poverty' we have large areas of the country now where that poverty is decidedly ungentile. I'm not saying that everything she did was wrong, what I am saying is that the way she went at it, with ideological and bullish hammer and tongs, caused deep social problems, rooted in economic dislocation, that are still being felt today and can be demonstrated if you examine social change over time in the effected areas.

    Her comment about society, in the context that you outlined, is emblematic of this, in my view.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Lol fair enough - clearly we're not going to get any reasoned discussion out of you today..

    What do you mean today? ;)


    Re: 2nd para - the point that I cannot get past about the whole Thatcher period, as I understand it, is that she allowed these industries to die but appeared not a bit concerned for the societies they underpinned. There just wasn't enough concern, in her language or the politics of the 'enemy within' for her in any way to be seen to be acting in the interests of a great many people who suffered from her economic reforms. The 'I am gloating' and triumphalism that accompanied her handling of the situation was terrible, and we ended up with a legacy of mass unemployment whose intergenerational ripples are still being felt.

    To be honest I think that's inaccurate reading. The 'enemy within' weren't these communities, but the Unions (such as NUM) who seemed more concerned with overthrowing the democratically elected Govt. She pumped millions into local communities to try to encourage new business - ok I accept it didn't work, partly as too much was concentrated on physical rather than mixed-use regen and partly due to too many local authorities who as I said were more concerned trying to fight battles of the past than paving the way to the future. It should also be noted that many of these communities were in mass-decline before Thatcher arrived. We romanticise the poverty of the 60s and 70s way too much...
    Re: 3rd para - the NHS was in a terrible state after Thatcher and into the Major years..

    It was also in a terrible state after the Wilson/Callaghan years and will be in a terrible state after the Brown/Blair years. But then I've always found it pretty damn good. Off course we have a problem with the NHS (and to be fair every other Health System) which is the better it is the worse it becomes as people who would otherwise have died live longer and pick up new ailments, new technology can solve illness which would have been incurable before.

    Also in an attempt to avoid 'gentile poverty' we have large areas of the country now where that poverty is decidedly ungentile. I'm not saying that everything she did was wrong, what I am saying is that the way she went at it, with ideological and bullish hammer and tongs, caused deep social problems, rooted in economic dislocation, that are still being felt today and can be demonstrated if you examine social change over time in the effected areas

    I think you need to go back before 1979 to examine the social and economic change. The Thames Gateway for example had been declining quickly since the 60s as a result of demographic and economic change. As had Tees Valley, as the chemical industry failed to keep up with foreign competitors. Arguably Liverpool had been in decline since the start of the 20th century and definetely was by the mid-50's. Indian Independence killed the cotton trade in Lancashire.

    I'd also argue that despite the rhetoric the changes Thatcher made were relatively few. There was still massive state spending, still free unions (arguaby freerer for their members), there was probably an increase in spending on regeneration. At no point since 1945 have we not been a mixed economy, with some changes around the relative margins.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yes, and in context it is still highly dismissive and shifts all blame onto the individual, because it ignores macroeconomic factors that were totally outside of people's control, simplifies the great and complex wealth of different types of social exclusion to a criminal degree, and then a priori places the blame on everyone else.
    Can someone translate this into English for me, please?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yes, and in context it is still highly dismissive and shifts all blame onto the individual, because it ignores macroeconomic factors that were totally outside of people's control, simplifies the great and complex wealth of different types of social exclusion to a criminal degree, and then a priori places the blame on everyone else.
    Can someone translate this into English for me, please?

    OK when I say 'macroeconomic' what I'm talking about is a high level of restructuring of the economy from industrial production to service and particularly financial services. These are 'macro' because the occur across populations, areas and even nations. In contrast a micro economic change might be a local cornershop shutting down (which could occur due to macroeconomic factors, such as the arrival of a large chain supermarket as part of a wider policy of supermarket building, across the country, by a multinational).

    In this case the decision to make large-scale pit closures with predictable consequences for employment, which in turn has had the direct effect of creating social exclusion, which in many areas has persisted for generations. My point here is that the government failed in their duty to the working population, to provide a stable transition. She didn't - she set it up as an ideological battle with no attempt at conciliatory politics.

    When I say 'complex social exclusions' what I mean is that if you look at common forms of social exclusion (sometimes known as social problems) eg: involvement in criminality, dependent drug use, long term benefit claimancy etc. you see that while you see patterns across different areas, when you look in more detail at the history of a particular area you find that the causes and histories are subtly but significantly different.

    Thatcher's statement effectively denies this, and is not tenable when considered against the vast body of social scientific material on the subject. When I say that she 'a priori' blames (apologies for this usage, sometimes these things slip out) people what I am saying is that the statement is so sweeping that even if there is a serious point here about personal responsibility it is drowned out by the blustering rhetoric and dismissiveness. It doesn't even look at the evidence in particular cases, it just makes statements based on ideology - thats why it was called 'Thatcher-ism'.
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