Portillo on Thatcher: The Lady's Not for Spurning - 2/10

Former cabinet minister Michael Portillo assesses the legacy and continued influence of Margaret Thatcher on the Conservative Party.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• margaret
• thatcher
• michael
• portillo
• politics
• government
• conservative
• party
• legacy
• europe
• britain
• documentary

[lakelachrymose]

I love Margaret Thatcher and if loving Margaret Thatcher is wrong, I dont't want to be right!!!

[Kallytom]

What bugs me most about the thatcher situation is that ypu have people on the right saying she was the greatest PM ever and the others on the left who said she screwed the country up. Overall i think she was one of the better leaders who steered out of the 70's nightmare!!

[WorldNews92]

@lakelachrymose If you don't want to be right, then you're the opposite of Thatcher, surely?

[chapmasi]

Thatcher, biggest balls of any PM in history. I just hope Cameron can follow her lead and get rid of lazy idle socialist Britain that has crept in....

[garfrain]

@Kallytom exactly, those on the left need to face up to economic reality, those on the right.......are probably right

[charlesfisher757]

@dfjpr I accept that poverty has existed and still exists in the UK but to claim that poverty under Thatcher was the highest in Western world is a totally fascicle assertion. Furthermore, I have never said that making cuts will be easy, but there is a shed load of bureaucracy that exists in the public sector that needs to be cut back upon - laying off people is NEVER easy and is of course painful.

[dfjpr]

@charlesfisher757 Why do you need a source from him? If you dont believe that there is poverty you can just look up the statistics for yourself without his help. "hugely increased public spending underthe misguided principle that spending more money betters public services" - again, if this is the case, then we will be able to make all the cuts without impacting on those public services and there will be no "pain", so noone will complain.

[charlesfisher757]

@ToaJoe We have a national debt of £4.8 trillion (including pension liabilities) and the bank bailout cost around£850bn. If the previous government had run a budget surplus and not a colossal deficit than we would undoubtedly be in a far more beneficial situation to the one we are in today. Unfortunately Labour had other ideas.

[ToaJoe]

@charlesfisher757 Not 'far far' smaller, just a little bit smaller. We currently have a lower debt than Germany, France, Japan, the USA, and Italy.

[charlesfisher757]

@ToaJoe The deficit due to the banking crisis could not have been avoided but it could have been far far smaller if the 1997-2010 government had had balanced budgets and not run a deficit.

[charlesfisher757]

@dfjpr If you actually bothered to read the comment you are citing from, I said that CookieCrumblz's SOURCE about poverty under labour and thatcher was non-existant. I think no one can argue that the previous Labour administration hugely increased public spending under the misguided principle that spending more money betters public services. I think the coalition does have a very difficult job indeed as it is much harder to reign in public spending than to spend more money as Labour did.

[dfjpr]

@charlesfisher757 "poverty... is simply non-existant" - oh dear, it appears sir that you lead a sheltered life. "Labour attempt to solve problems by throwing money" - if this were true, cutting spending would be an incredibly easy ask, you just cut all spending that isnt providing value. So why would Mr Cameron and Osbourne be speaking of "difficult decisions"? According to you then, the Cons have an easy job, lets see how they handle that easy job, easily avoiding damaging public services.