THE THATCHER

The Iron Lady movie is going the rounds just now, and Margaret Thatcher has, unfortunately, crept back into the public consciousness....just when I thought we'd all but forgotten the horror that was The Thatcher.

I cannot bring myself to attempt any kind of useful astro-profile on this woman. My prejudice against her is too far gone. I will, though, link to a piece by astrologer Joyce Hopewell. She makes an interesting comparison of the natal charts of Margaret Thatcher and Meryl Streep, who plays the former British Prime minister in the movie.

My only comment on Thatcher's natal chart: she was a total disgrace to Libra, and proof, if proof were needed, that you cannot judge a person by their Sun sign.

I lived thoughout Thatcher's reign in the north of England. She was the single British PM or politician that I hated outright. Many Brits share my feelings about her, many, for some uncanny reason, do not.

I read a long thread of comment about Thatcher on a British Ex-Pats forum the other day; it brought back to the surface much of the hatred I used to feel about the woman. I've copied four of the comments which explain, and resonate with my own feelings.

By "Jon77"

I always remember Frankie Boyles bit on Thatcher.
'give every person in Scotland a spade and they will dig a hole deep enough to deliver her to Satan personally'

No one else can divide the nation like Thatcher because Thatcher divided a nation.

To those living down in the home counties and London the North of England in the 1980's must have seemed like another country. I grew up in Middlesbrough in the 1980's and watched the male members of my family thrown out of their jobs in the factories and the resultant loss of pride and esteem and the decline in to depression. My Grandfather worked in a steel plant that was knocked down in the early 80's, this is the same place that Thatcher took her famous walk in the wilderness on Teesside in the mid 80's promising that new business would follow, that place is still a wilderness to this day.

It was hard to take watching all the money pour in and out of London in the 80's when so many were in such a desperate state in the North. The mines in the North East of England sustained whole communities still, everything revolved around the mine. I hear the arguments about coal extraction not being financially viable any longer, but the way the hearts were ripped out of these communities and the sense of devastation that was felt across the region.

Some from the South of England use the argument that these old industries in the North needed modernising and the region brining up to date as those industries couldn't last. I can actually see the reasoning behind that, but the way it was all dealt with still leaves a bitter taste to this very day in many places up North.

Some towns in the North still have the scars from Thatcher, holes left in the landscape where factories once stood providing employment have never been replaced to this day and if they have been replaced it is with a call centre, if they are still open these days.

From iamthecreaturefromuranus

I lived in East Manchester, never exactly a rich place, but at the time I left school in 1977 it was still a major manufacturing area of heavy industry.

My very first job was at Johnsons Wireworks. I lost it almost before I got started. Within 18 months Thatchers revolution swung into action and my chances of finding work seemed to vanish overnight.. so I joined the forces.

I was away from Manchester for a year or so and when I came back all the industry had gone. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. In the area I had had my job I was told 30,000 manufacturing jobs had been lost.... in seven months.

The area NEVER recovered. The land where all those factories stood remained derelict for a generation and was finally turned into the Commonwealth Games stadium in 2002.

Thatcher and her party, can rot in Hell.

From sheene

I lived in Leyland, Lancashire from 1973 - 1993 and watched the industries collapse. Forget British Leyland - in Leyland itself they made the trucks and buses, which were among the best in the world. Successive buyouts by Volvo and DAF ended a century old manufacturing base, along with the loss of thousands of highly skilled workers. Thatcher thought we didn't need dirty engineering and manufacturing, and replaced them by creating an illusion of wealth from service industries. Well done, very well done. Thatcher? I wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire.

There were many activists with 'different' agendas in the Unions in those times - not least of which was Jack Jones, leader of the T&GWU, who was outed as leaking secrets to the KGB in 2009. By the mid seventies, Jones was regarded as the most powerful political figure Britain, and gave Thatcher all the ammunition she needed to smash the Unions.

From scossie

I went to see 'The Iron Lady' yesterday. Good film... Excellent performance by Meryl Streep.

Could have made more though of what an evil uncaring bitch Thatcher was. Especially the fact that she gleefully assigned a whole generation of people to the scrapheap, (including my Dad) who had worked every day since the end of the Second World War to re-build the country, only to find that in their 50's, they were no longer required...

She killed my Dad, and I will hate and detest her for as long as I live...
In the engineering firm he worked for for over 20 years, my dad started as a tradesman and worked his way up to senior management. We were never particularly well off, but we did ok, and had a holiday every year etc. Life was good. Then Thatcher came along with her policies that decimated the engineering industry in Scotland in a matter of months. All of a sudden my dad found himself both unemployed and unemployable at the age of 53. I then had to watch a once proud family man descend into depression and heavy drinking because he felt he had no self worth, and then ultimately, and early grave...