Maggie Thatcher and Ronnie Reagan

acotrel said:
When the 'ten pond Poms' came to Australia in the 50s, they were known as 'Whinging Poms' and many became union reps. If you come to Australia, it might be a step backwards to your future. My friend is a Ex-pat Pom - he loves it here, even though he told me he is communist. He just recognises our politicians are a dumb as dog-shit and gets on with life. Sadly he is currently dying from cancer. I think a major difference between the UK and Australia is the Poms are much better educated and much more politically aware. We are much more apathetic and we don't like feeling inferior.
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Sister in law lives in emu plains and loves it after 30 odd years. She met a 10 pound pom who comes from her home county of Kent. Brother in law is a full blown Aussie now with the straight talking wit i expect. First meeting I asked the question , fancy a beer. Answer was ... King too right mate. I wish we were a bit more like that, instead of being pussies. Too worried we may upset someone.
 
I was crazy over Audrey Hepburn back in the day , by any chance did you get this young lady’s phone number or e-mail ?
 
johnm said:
I


Know Im going to regret this but on this one Im going to partially agree with Acotrol.

I lived in Scotland in the early 80s and saw Thatchers UK first hand. She stayed in power by using first past the post voting to keep just enough seats while destroying the lives of others and much of British industry at the same time. Yes the unions where also comitting finacial suicide and the British class system was doing its best to divide and confuse as well.

Much of the north of England Scotland and Wales have still never recovered and many have decended into a blame culture ever since. Anti imigration and anti London - easy prey for the fast talking blame Europe politicians like Johnson. These were the people who voted for Brexit.

Strangely enough I also lived in Romania in 2014 to 17. If you talk with many Brits they see Romania and similar countries as destroying their way of life. Now Romania has its own issues and in my opinion the best thing that could happen there is everyone over the age of 40 should stay home and let the young ones run the place, but I tell you the young Romanians I worked with have got way more drive and way more get up and go than 90% of those people I have met from the north of England. Honestly rather than your problem they are your solution if you want to get things going.

I worked with a young woman who is now doing her PhD in geophysics in Durham university. And she also looks like a young Audrey Hepburn !!!! Why on earth would the UK not want people like her working in their economy.

Thatcher, the unions and the English class system have almost destroyed British industry. If you want a change and to boot things into life then you need Europe. Especially eastern europe with growing markets and economies.
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I don't disagree with most of this, as I also blame her for the Falklands war, and having won she went for yet another general election and won another 5 years in parliament, she was a very strewed lady. How she got away with it, I'll never know.
 
Craig said:
I was crazy over Audrey Hepburn back in the day , by any chance did you get this young lady’s phone number or e-mail ?
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Best I can suggest is you polish up your physics and maths and go hang out around Durham University. Being in your 20s might help to ;-)

She was a stunner and one day she even got the famous pixie haircut. But she didnt actually know who Audrey Hepburn was until I commented. She was in my team and I was very polite and managerial
 
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Bernhard said:
I don't disagree with most of this, as I also blame her for the Falklands war, and having won she went for yet another general election and won another 5 years in parliament, she was a very strewed lady. How she got away with it, I'll never know.
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Surely it was Argentina that caused the Falklands war, you know, by invading ...?!

I don’t know how you do things Bernhard, but if someone punches me in the face I’ll punch the f*cker back as fast and hard as I can! The time for diplomacy has passed when troops land on your beaches. What should she have done in your book ??

Did she use it to her advantage...? Absolutely...! But she didn’t start it.

I’m not defending Thatcher per se here guys, but I do find it interesting what she gets blamed for. Much of what John wrote, for example, is very fair argument.

But blame her for Brexit and your entire argument goes out of the window in my book !

As does any argument blaming her for defending her own country against armed aggression.
 
If Thatcher's neoliberalism has been the cause of general dissatisfaction then she is probably responsible for Brexit. I don't know the issues which have caused Brexit to be popular to the extent that people would vote for it. In Australia, a basic issue is the undermining of our sovereignty which involves Investor State Dispute Provisions which most of us do not even know exist.
If ISDPs are in our free trade agreement with China, we do not know about it because the contents of the agreements are secret. We have an issue with water in the Murray-Darling Basin. Apparently the Chinese have control of a lot of it on Cubby Station where it is being used to grow cotton instead of food. While further downstream every farmer is in trouble due to the price of water.
ISDPs are used to promote neoliberalism which originated mainly through the actions of Thatcher and Reagan. They undermine sovereignty through the investor state's right to sue in an offshore court, to overcome local laws. In Australia there is a scandal about water which involves politicians. Cubby Station never gets a mention in the media these days.

https://bdtruth.com.au/main/news/article/6936-Free-trade-could--impact-water.html
 
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In most western countries, the voters get told what to think by Rupert Murdoch. So there are lots of things they never find out about. Neoliberalism is one of them. What you see is not necessarily what you get. The effects of neoliberalism are similar in many countries. The first to go are the unions. In Australia, we now have zero wages growth, even though interest rates have been reduced to almost zero. The GFC was a failure of neoliberalism, but nobody blames the GFC on that. We have decided that the GFC did not even happen. Wealth is just not trickling down. These days in Australia, it is 'hold still while we do it to you'.
 
Fast Eddie said:
Surely it was Argentina that caused the Falklands war, you know, by invading ...?!

I don’t know how you do things Bernhard, but if someone punches me in the face I’ll punch the f*cker back as fast and hard as I can! The time for diplomacy has passed when troops land on your beaches. What should she have done in your book ??

Did she use it to her advantage...? Absolutely...! But she didn’t start it.

I’m not defending Thatcher per se here guys, but I do find it interesting what she gets blamed for. Much of what John wrote, for example, is very fair argument.

But blame her for Brexit and your entire argument goes out of the window in my book !

As does any argument blaming her for defending her own country against armed aggression.
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Bless you Eddie in not understanding the reason WHY the Falklands war came about, so if you bear with me I'll try to explain the logic. The Troy government that Thatcher was in charge of went down the path of making government cut backs and one of the things that the Thacher government did was to remove the Governor of the Falklands-despite people telling her it was a political mistake. This was like a red rag to the military junta who were ruling Argentina at the time unfortunately the resultant outcome proved to be correct so, whereas the UK were only paying for a Governor before the war , they are now paying millions of pounds EVERY year for a RAF squadron and there is no end in sight . If you kindly do more research on the Falklands about this time you will , l am sure come to the same conclusion.
 
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When Julia Gillard was Prime Minister of Australia, she refused to sign-off on any free trade agreement which contained Investor State Dispute Provisions because they have the potential to undermine sovereignty when local laws are over-ruled by a foreign court. The contents of free trade agreements are usually secret, so very few people know the trade-offs. Recent free trade agreements between China and Australia were signed by Tony Abbott.

https://ibb.co/hy8Q2xC
 
Bernhard said:
Bless you Eddie in not understanding the reason WHY the Falklands war came about, so if you bear with me I'll try to explain the logic. The Troy government that Thatcher was in charge of went down the path of making government cut backs and one of the things that the Thacher government did was to remove the Governor of the Falklands-despite people telling her it was a political mistake. This was like a red rag to the military junta who were ruling Argentina at the time unfortunately the resultant outcome proved to be correct so, whereas the UK were only paying for a Governor before the war , they are now paying millions of pounds EVERY year for a RAF squadron and there is no end in sight . If you kindly do more research on the Falklands about this time you will , l am sure come to the same conclusion.
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Wow. Must have been a tough Governor if he was single handedly able to repel a military invasion...

Seriously though, once again, I’m inclined to agree with the notion that the Thatcher government made an error there, and even that that error was part of a complex causes and effect chain that led to the invasion. But to blame the invasion on that only... and to blame that error on Thatcher only, just serves to prove my point.
 
And Exchequer John Major, not Thatcher, enabled George Soros to break the Bank of England when he and other crony Tories pegged the Pound
 
And who sold off our gold reserves on the cheap ? Oh yeh, Gordon Brown ! Best chancellor we ever had according to bodge it Blair ! People have short memories. Nothing left, was the note left for the new chancellor when the coalition took over. Still not got a lot after years of cuts. Spend it before they do, and then borrow like crazy, shuffle off with a big debt, so sue me !!
 
The main thing is always to make the best out of a bad deal. Brexit is probably an opportunity rather than a threat.
 
Fast Eddie said:
Wow. Must have been a tough Governor if he was single handedly able to repel a military invasion....
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Once again you show your lack of political and diplomatic understanding of the whole situation, it was not about power, it was about face. The one you curtly mentioned in P26, where I quote, “I don’t know how you do things Bernhard, but if someone punches me in the face I’ll punch the f*cker back as fast and hard as I can!” if you had invariably made a very rude and insulting remark beforehand, the whole situation takes on a whole new meaning!

Argentina had a long running dispute with the UK over the Maldives, and as GB had just about had a war with every other country in the world, under Thatcher we didn’t want to leave Argentina out now did we?

I am not in any way condoning the military Junta of Argentina invading the Falklands - I’m just saying . . . . .


As it was a Civil servant No. 1 said to Thatcher, it’s OK to remove the Governor whereas Civil servant said don’t the Argies will invade you know what happened next … and in the great British tradition Civil servant 1 gets promoted whereas Civil servant no. 2 doesn’t!

The war saved Thatcher’s political skin when she won, but she would have sunk without trace if she had lost!


Argentina and the Maldives

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands_sovereignty_dispute


Did Margaret Thatcher inadvertently cause The Falklands/Malvinas War?

https://www.quora.com/Did-Margaret-Thatcher-inadvertently-cause-The-Falklands-Malvinas-War
 
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Thanks Bernhard, there is genuinely some interesting reading there.

I do however fail to see the proof in any of those articles that supports your assertion. In fact, they seem to me to explain that it was the rise of key figures in the Junta, and their own political ambitions / aims that was the prime cause.

The best support of your argument that I can see is “Admiral Jorge Anaya was the main architect and supporter of a military solution... calculating that the United Kingdom would never respond militarily”. I can see how one might argue that the UKs stance of removing the governor might fuel these calculations. But I think it’s a HUGE stretch to say that was the cause.

The third link is interesting for different reasons, comparing the Falkland to Hong Kong! HK was a very specific case, the British were ceded a ‘lease’ for HK in the Treaty of Nanking as a result of the opium wars. Although other commentators in that link also say it was the Junta trying to use the Falklands as a diversion to their poor internal affairs of the time. And one who even says that Thatcher inherited the mess in the Falklands caused by her Labour predecessors.

Therefore, as I said earlier, the build up to the conflict was long and complex, and the details of it all are way beyond me. However, personally I do not share your view that Thatcher caused the Falklands conflict. I believe Thatcher was ‘damned if she did / damned if she didn’t’ act strongly over the matter. In my opinion, she acted in the best possible way given the circumstances of the time. And I think that that is a position we’ll simply have to agree to disagree on.
 
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A 'just war' is usually a fight for democracy. Were the Argies being democratic when they invaded the Falklands ? I was most impressed when the Brits got the Vulcan down there. If you have got a problem - don't stuff around ? War is shit, but sometimes it is necessary. I am not a politician, but If I had been Thatcher, I would have done similar. Nobody likes being threatened - in my every day life , if I cop a threat, I respond immediately. To delay is dangerous.
One thing really hate are sabre-rattling politicians. If you are going to fight, don't bullshit - just do it.
 
Perspective is also important when considering a “just war”
The USA, UK, NATO were happy to support a just war in Afghanistan- supplying weapons, intelligence and personnel to the mujahadeen in their war against the USSR. They were less inclined to consider it a just war when the same fighters used the same weapons against those Who had supplied them - now rebranded as Al Queda
 
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