Why did most people not like margaret thatcher?

Question

My mum has no idea =[ x

Answer 1

She over saw policies that lead to 1/5th of Britain's industrial base put out of business. Her incompetence was only ever matched by the labour Governments before and after her.

Answer 2

Just a minor point, she kept power by continually changing the boundaries of political wards, and did not get the majority of the votes, in fact she got less than Labour but because the UK has a first past the post system, she still won.

It's something all governments do, but it doesn't make it right.

For a serious answer to this question, ask a minor who was beaten for picketing to save the industry, and jobs, or a protestor who was beaten at the Poll tax demo (the rioting was caused by the police charging demonstrators)or one of the many students led into debt by the abolition of student grants.

Also this was the time when the UK saw the highest number of riots eg Toxteth, Bristol, Handsworth, Brixton.

I could go on, but most of the salient points have already been made.

Answer 3

She was an evil, ignorant, arrogant, self opinionated bully, who not only tried to terrorise the country but managed to terrorise her own party.

She destroyed industry and turned the UK into what she herself called "A Service Nation". She thought that the country could survive on tourism but forgot that there is life beyond London and the Houses of Parliament, that didn't matter as she viewed the rest of us as peasants.  

As a result of her actions kids leaving school could no longer take up an apprenticeship as all the industries that offered them had been closed, chased out of the country never to return, this is why there has been a skills shortage over the last few years.

Unemployment was over 5 million and that did not count the people that were told to claim sickness benefits as this kept the visible dole figures artificially low. Labour were given the chance to attempt to turn this country around and make it great again. They failed without giving it a serious go. Too many labour MP's fell for Thatcher's lunatic policies and tried to utilise them only to drive the country further into the mire. Until we get politicians that can think for themselves and get away from Thatcher brainwashing, Britain will never be Great again. The 'leaders' since her have admitted that they respect Thatcherism, if they had said that prior to the election that got the Tories out, they would never have got in. Labour and New Labour are simply Thatchersism under a different guise, she will be proud of them. She will rot in h**l for the pain and suffering that she created and for the number of suicides that she was directly responsible for.

Yes the Americans thought she was great but that was because she was destroying us instead of them.

Answer 4

Pity that, about your Mum having no idea.

                                                 Let me try and throw a bit of light on the situation then, if I may?

                                                   The USA , majority, really liked Maggie. For obvious reasons, free enterprise , capitalism etc etc .

                                                     OK, I didn't, in fact I hated her and   all she stood for!

                                                          One thing that sticks in my mind is one of her sayings:- "If the people don't have pennies in their purses, they cant buy sweeties"!    I hate that woman, always have, always will.

Answer 5

she suppressed the rights of the working class of this country and made the rich richer

Answer 6

Because, the demented cow ruined many aspects of British life.  

Society values where torn apart by her.

Communities were ripped to shreds by her.

The poilce were forced to use brutality to break the miners.  (Watch Billy Elliot for a depiction of it).

Poll tax

The Falklands.  Not kicking the Argies out, but not stopping them from invading in the first place.

Schools that were literally falling to bits.  (She ruined my education for example, or rather, tried to.)

Giving money to the rich and ignoring the poor.

Interest rates of 15%

Unemployment over 3,000,000

Starting the 'change' in the NHS which prevents those working in it from treating patients and spends money on the internal market instead.

Do you want me to continue?

If you want to look at Thatchers legacy, visit any of the mining communities she destroyed without rebuilding.

Answer 7

she was a woman who took away thousands of working men's jobs.

Answer 8

Because she tackled political problems that other parties were frightened to tackle!

Answer 9

Because she made tough decisions. She is beloved by many in the US including me.

Answer 10

What "most people"?  She lasted as PM for over a decade, you know...

Answer 11

I don't know of anyone who doesn't adore this woman, I am a fan, and so is the college in the town where I live.  We recently had a statue placed on campus dedicated to her.

She is a woman of great stature and morality.

~

Answer 12

Thatcher and Reagan were partners like Dubya and Blair. She supported the dictator and genocide Pinochet.

Answer 13

cos she was a dictator

Answer 14

The majority of people voting in the UK at the time must have liked her, as she was winning the elections. But with hindsight, there were several very bad policies so now she has lost some popularity.

Letting people buy their council houses has at least partly contributed to the problems we are now having with the housing market. The poll tax caused the largest riots in the UK for years. Even worse than this, she was known as Thatcher the Milk Snatcher for taking away free milk for school kids! And of course the small issue of the miners..

I do think a lot of people who say they don't like her are not actually old enough to remember what it was like in the 1980s. She did some good some bad, like most PMs.  

Answer 15

Yes, until you asked, I had forgotten it all too. That's how different parties get into power again, I guess. We all forget how bad it was last time, lol.



Anyway, while Mrs Thatcher was great at encouraging those who already had a stake in society to gain more (and I admired her for wanting people to get on), unfortunately she became progressively cruel in both policy and tongue toward the poor.

She and her party, in my humble opinion, got more and more arrogant as the years went by. I can remember the repeated news bulletins with sound bites from their speeches, villanising the unemployed, as if they were responsible for every penny tax payers had to dish out. This resulted in a lot of animosity toward the unemployed at that time. I worked in places where the talk about them was nothing short of hate speech.

It was not a pleasant time to live in if you were unable to find work. There was huge unemployment (under her "reign" there were massive redundancies in the manufacturing sector, and in mining, etc.)  It seemed like practically every other week you would sit down to watch the news and hear about another factory closure. Local hospitals were also closed to "centralise" them. My town still doesn't have a hospital since it was closed.



But worse, the Conservatives at that time, simply brushed it all off like so much fluff that needed to be removed from your best suit.

People who lost their jobs through her policies were told get on their bikes and go look for work.

Desperate miners were crushed both in what she did to try to stamp out the unions, and in what she did to stamp out their protest marches. She sent policemen on horseback in among them.  

Old people who complained of not being able to heat their homes on the money they got, were told to knit themselves scarves and hats!

One particular Conservative, I remember, was reported as having casually stepped over one of the accumulating homeless on the streets on his way out of the opera or some such place of entertainment, and having complained about his being there.

In the end almost everyone began to see how bad it had gotten.

Mrs Thatcher's main folly, I think, was that she believed everyone could be as tough and capable as she was. She was unable to comprehend that not everyone was.

Having said that, I wish her no ill, and I am very sorry to hear she now has dementia. My mother has it too, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

Answer 16

she was the best prime minister we ever had.

she dealt firmly with the unions that were trying to rule the country. she restored this country to greatness. we could seriously use her now to sort out the mess that this incompetent useless labour government  has landed us in.

and you are wrong about most people disliking her. she had enough voters to keep her in office for ten years.  including me.

Answer 17

Because most people are incapable of realising what good she did for this country. She has, I believe, a most undeserved bad reputation. You must consider that during her premiership, Britain was the "sick man of Europe", what with ludicrous inflation, high unemployment and very little economic growth. The prosperity seen in the last decade or so (ironically the New Labour era) is the direct result of her hard-line and no-nonsense approach. She broke the overbearing and crippling power of the trade unions, allowed the privatisation of various industry sectors thus allowing for much greater efficiency, competition and lower prices for the consumer. She is the reason why Britain has one of the highest rate of home ownership (which, granted, has its downsides too) and why we all enjoy such a high standard of living.

So, in answer to your question: Ignorance. And plus, she was in power for over a decade, so she obviously must have had support at the time.

Answer 18

Selling off council houses so young couples today can't get a place to live (private rents too expensive and mortgages out of the reach of all but the highest paid)

Closing down the pits resulting in the complete degeneration of former mining areas such as the one I live in

Crushing the Unions which robbed the working man of a voice.  Striking miners beaten by her police gestapo when they tried to exercise their rights to protest.

Encouraging greed and consumerism - turning our society into a shallow selfish one where people only care about consumer goods, and money - creating many of the problems in societal breakdown which we have today

Destroying Britain's manfuacting industries, costing thousands of jobs, resulting in a recession and condemning us to a society where there are few opportunities to make a living in any sort of trade or for kids leaving school to take up an apprenticeship - we're now a "service industry" ie a nation of poorly paid shop assistants and call centre operators.   We have to import our tradesmen from Poland because our own kids haven't had the opportunity to train up and are condemned to a life in a callcentre on £6 per hour, or worse, on the dole . . .

5 million unemployed

Just a few reasons

Oh and as for her having "dementia" - she had it 30 years ago.

The Yanks love her because of her aggressive, capitalist policies but thats the Yanks.  I mean, they elected GWB for God's sake!!!  The average Brit suffered greatly under her misrule.

200 years ago she would have been beheaded as a traitor.  Shame the Royals don't have that power these days.   I've heard HM the Queen hates her, no doubt because Thatcher thought SHE was the Queen and wrecked unspeakable harm on the British people.  Good riddance.

Answer 19

She slimmed down industry and thousands lost jobs I got made redundant 6 consecutive time directly thanks to her

She stopped free school milk

She is arragant

She wants a state funeral (undeservedly)

She used the royal 'we' when she was a grandmother

She is a bully

The queen gord bless her hates her guts

Her gloating after the falklands made me feel sick