John Coopey

Schadenfreude

by John Coopey

Thursday 11th April 2013 1:04 am

The first time I ever voted in a General Election was in 1970.

The day Margaret Thatcher came to power I was campaigning for the Labour Party at a polling station near Barnsley.

Seventeen years later I was made redundant from the coal industry.

I have no love for Margaret Thatcher.

Beyond this, though, I have no wish to dance on her grave. I’ll sit this one out, if you don’t mind. My contentment in life is not predicated on schadenfreude.

I have never voted Conservative and I expect that I never will – unless I am nudged in that direction by the ignorant barm-pots on the left with whom I am ashamed to keep company.

◄ There's Allus a Reason "Why Not"

"Here's My Tits - My Arse's Behind" ►

Comments

Tommy Carroll

Thu 18th Apr 2013 23:57

Clement Attlee(1945-51) v Margaret Thatcher(1979-90)

For them that scratch-their-heads the following Labour V Thatcher achievements:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/541606_318034121656280_499493534_n.jpg

Chris Co

Sat 13th Apr 2013 00:55

I have not danced on her grave.

Though; If she thought about coming back, I'd park on it in my car.

Ok bad joke aside. We can hammer the policies and the legacy without remotely getting personal.

Here are two words people;

Augusto Pinochet.

Thatcher was a personal friend of the Military Junta leader. He visited the Thatchers each year, bringing Margaret as he did both chocolates and flowers. Of him she said he defended and represented democracy.

The connection and that last statement makes me physically sick;

For those that are not fully aware of the Pinochet regime - below I include the overwhelming evidence against him.

People need to read some of what went on here - bare in mind this was a close personal friend of Thatcher. It was Thatcher who helped Pinochet escape Spain's attempted extradition on human rights charges.

Don't skip the link below - read some of the extracts of what happened to people - read some of the suffering and then think on. She had dinner with him each year and were personal friends - what on earth does that say for her!!! ?

http://www.usip.org/files/resources/collections/truth_commissions/Chile90-Report/Chile90-Report.pdf

Another two words;

Pol Pot.

His Khmer Rouge - she supported it at one juncture. She was also against the Vietnamese invasion of the country that liberated millions from from being treated as cattle and saved maybe hundreds of thousands from their impending death. Pol Pot's regime having murdered a third of the entire Cambodian population.

Yet Thatcher is supposed to be a great stalwart and defender of democracy? Pleeease!

Another three words

Hillsborough cover-up.

I have read Sir Bernard Ingham's letter to a Liverpool fan. You can as well.

http://www.anorak.co.uk/353664/sports/margaret-thatcher-and-hillsborough-her-press-secretary-bernard-inghams-letter-to-a-disgusted-liverpool-fan.html/

Thatcher knew about the Police cover-up. She knew about that which is euphemistically referred to as 'police mistakes'. And her and her government deliberately conspired against the dead in order to deny natural justice.

Another two words;

Poll tax. Nuff said.

Socially she was disastrous.

Trickle down economics has proven to be an economic fallacy. Market reforms were needed and to some significant degree she got that right - but not at the speed and severity they were imposed which in effect resulted in a self created recession.

Industries that could have been put into managed decline- via funds from privatizations and north sea oil could have eased many people and communities into re-training. Instead entire communities perished, people spent lives sliding into hidden unemployment via incapacity benefit etc. The cure killed many of the patients! I don't think it does any good to talk of a cure if you were one of the people, the communities that ended up dead or of a wasted life.

She sought confrontation - she divided the country. It needn't have been that way.

The unions were at fault too, greatly. At least some of them were. But confrontation to the degree she employed only polarized them further, put people into trenches, made people more dogmatic. It guaranteed a mess - especially when any fool could see how dogmatic the likes of Scargill was.

People do forget all that unions won for the common man. People forget too easily and have replaced all the good with one image. An image from the 1970s of bins not being emptied, or of power cuts, or the shortened working week. But every common man and woman working to this day owe the unions a debt of gratitude. That debt is enormous and not up for debate (objective reality and a fact). We should not lose sight of that, just because of some militant idiots in the 70s and 80s.

Right now Thatcherism is alive and well, even if she is not.

Look at Michael Gove, look at what is happening to the teachers and see how they have been subjugated and limited. See how their ability to teach has and continues to be hampered. A lot of that goes back to Thatcher and the unions being broken.

It wasn't good for the unions to have been broken. Too much power was one thing and yes it needed to be limited.

But what we have been left with? The unions having no real power and the idea that the unions are that 70s/80s image in the mind of the public...that has really hurt the balance of power in industrial relations. It has placed too much power in the hands of government and big business. And the results are far from good. This in no small part is thanks to Margaret Thatcher.

Was she evil - no. She didn't need to be. She was a leader of conviction who didn't listen to others including her own cabinet.

When Thatcher got it wrong - she got it disastrously wrong.

No dance - no need. But really John? The idea, especially in these times, that one could vote conservative?

That would be far worse than any dance...

Harry O'Neill

Fri 12th Apr 2013 21:11

Laura,
Of course I could always agree to disagree with you most agreeably :)

You were not to know that I spent thirty five of my forty years in industry as a union official (shop steward, secretary, national executive member)

What I mean by `big softies` is that the great majority of British trade unions - apart from those industries I mentioned - were the most un-militant bunch you could imagine. They had been softened (bribed if you like) by a velvet glove treatment in the full employment years after the war.

The miners were faced (after many of the pits had been already closed) by the virtual shut down of the rest of the industry, and in that situation the Angel of Peace himself would have gone on strike.

The pits were closing due to cheap competition from abroad - as were the factories

A national ballot on strike action wasn`t held and the strike was not universal. Because of this the country was torn between sympathy for the miners and the fear that a small section was undemocratically holding a legally elected government to ransom. (The miners had already brought down Heath`s government in 1974.)

The myth that Thatcher destroyed all those jobs is like the present myth that Brown and the Labour party (on their own) brought about the world-wide credit crunch (some power, eh!) The undeveloped world is coming into it`s own and and we have to change. It looked like the City of London and finance might do it but you see what`s happened lately.

(The idea that Britain (apart from the E.E.C. could become a major trading nation again on its own is (in my opinion)ludicrous.

Thatcher`s victory in the Falklands war was very popular in almost the whole country. I can understand why so many, in those `sick-man-of-Europe` days were so elated, but, to me, a fight over a wind-swept sheep farm in the South Atlantic was a long way from our glory days in 1939.

To me, the worst result of Thatcher was to start that tacit transfer of the unemployed on to social security and benefits which has continued to create the shameful underclass which exists in Britain today...How reforms (which were started under Labour) will turn out I don`t know - but almost anything would be better than what we have now. What is needed is a viable earning system which allows the poorest to exercise their self-respect. I can`t see it happening until the earnings of the lower jobs are brought nearer to those of the `untouchable` middle class.

Thatcher herself gloried in confrontation so it`s not surpring that so many people wish to `confront` her memory.

Graham,
As someone who (only once) had to persuade a large number of those reluctantly vociferous `sheep` to stop work....it can`t be done by wasters.

And I can tell you, there`s nothing so soul-renewing as a good, justified, whole-hearted, successful strike (no matter how much trouble you had getting them there)

Tommy Carroll

Fri 12th Apr 2013 20:37

Liverpool fans chanting When Maggie Thatcher Dies v Sunderland
http://youtu.be/37Cmzvt549Y

Liverpool fans pre-match away at Wigan 2013 Thatcher song
http://youtu.be/NtwavcblPzo

I hope she became aware of her dying
I hope she became aware of her senility
I hope she died in pain
I hope she died in fear

John Coopey

Fri 12th Apr 2013 20:33

Anyway....

.....that's what I think.

Isobel

Fri 12th Apr 2013 19:01

I seem to remember a big scandal about helicopters - was it Westland - I think Heseltine resigned over it. The failure to support or subsidise the last English producer of them.

I'd agree that we had no chance of competing with the East in low level manufacturing. I just find it sad that we can invent such great things but not reap the benefits of manufacturing them.

Isobel

Fri 12th Apr 2013 18:56

I disagreed most strongly with the selling off of council houses - and ironically that seems to be the one thing that most people praise her for.

Yes, it did allow some people to own their own homes, who might not otherwise - but those houses weren't replaced and sold at knock down prices. National assets were pissed away - leaving us with one big housing mess. Social housing was supposed to be for those in need, not those who could afford to buy.

I lived in the South at the beginning of it all. I can remember work colleagues (who were already comfortable) buying their parents' council houses as investments - the markets were guaranteed to go up there - it was such easy money.

I could never understand the fact that subsequent governments continued the policy. Clearly ALL politicians will do anything to get the popular vote.

The price of housing in the South is so exorbitant now I believe the policy is to rehouse asylum seekers and those who can't afford the bedroom tax, in poorer Northern towns - like that's going to do the North/South divide any good.... I'm surprised they haven't yet found a way to saw through the Earth's core and set us adrift into the North Atlantic.

I'd never heard about that sickness policy but it does figure.

Rant over :)

Graham Sherwood

Fri 12th Apr 2013 17:56

My dad always said to me "never let anyone tell you when you can work or not". He was in a trade union and hated every minute of it. He hated being one of the sheep being bullied into action for very little else by gobby wasters who had taken control and did little work themselves.

Another thing he always said was "no matter who's in power boy, you'll always have to work".

Laura Taylor

Fri 12th Apr 2013 16:11

Harry - the unions - how far back are you counting there? And are you counting all of them? Could you be more specific? And what about all of the rights we now enjoy because of them? What about the blacklists which have existed for as long as the unions have? About the people who fought long and hard, and suffered terribly from that fight?

She was never popular with anyone I know over the Falklands, and indeed, at the time there was a feeling that she was doing it to curry favour with her fellow blues, and the 'common people'. Like I say, I knew no one who agreed with her decision/s in that war. She was particularly vile over the 'rejoice in the news' of killing men who were actually sailing AWAY. What about that?

I'm sorry but where are you getting this info from? The cut in manufacturing was 'not her fault'? Speechless over that particular one.

Sick lists is it? Poverty is what I call it, pure and simple. Having the legs kicked from under you to suit a particular political principle.

I have a lot of time for you Harry - and hope that we can just agree to disagree, but this fans my flames like you wouldn't believe.

Harry O'Neill

Fri 12th Apr 2013 15:51

`Thatcherism`
1...The Falklands:...It is forgotten that it was her `budget cut`decision to cut Britains Naval force in the South Atlantic (at a time when there were clear indications from Argentina of warlike intentions) That tempted them to think that we would not respond. it was a crass (`Kitchen economics`) move.

2...The Trade Unions...The British trade unions were - with the exception of a minority of extreme activists - a crowd of big softies who had had their ambitions puffed up by previous governments... Of course (when their jobs were threatened in a wholesale manner) the rank and file were swayed by the militants...who else?It should never be forgotten that it was the emerging industrial might of the previously poor countries that really `defeated` the miners - not Maggie Thatcher.

3 Wealth...The reduction of maufacturing jobs from 6`8 million then to 2`5 million now was not her fault. But many of those jobs were lower -skilled jobs. North sea oil and the financial Big Bang provided enough money to increase the public sector enormously and train folk for the slimmed-down electronic-style and service jobs that were created. These, and the transfer of the (increasingly valuable) housing assets from councils to the tenants meant that we became progressively richer.

4...The `underclass`...A sizeable proportion of the un-skilled workers would have gone on to the unemployment register (at a time when that register was politically important for electoral reasons) Therefore it was tacitly agreed at the top that admission on to the government benefits `Sick lists` would be made easy to keep them off the register ( I had personal experience of this) This, and the help that had to be given to the lower-paid jobs in the form of housing aid etc; was what has created the under-class and widened the gap between the classes in society. These people had no alternative but to make the best of the situation they found themselves in, and - like the rogue-bankers - a minority took unfair advantage of it.

5...BLAME...All fiddlers, banker-fiddler or sick pay fiddler exist. It is the job of the government to ensure that the law prevents them from existing. In this respect, Thatcher`s goverment and -to a lesser degree - subsequent governments not only didn`t prevent them existing - but positively encouraged them.

6...Her Personality...Due to her enormous popularity after the Falklands war, the Tory leaders - (to win elections) were willing to be hand-bagged into abandoning the concensus and adapted her strident and confrontational style of politics...I think it has led to a moral decline in Britain.

7...the funeral...I think - in the long run - that the royal non-political head of Britain will regret attending the funeral of such a politically devisive politician.

She was not the evil witch the left are trying to make her out to be...but neither was she the shining saint that the right thinks she was.

Laura Taylor

Fri 12th Apr 2013 10:31

John - was that a serious statement, regarding the voting for Tory?

John Coopey

Thu 11th Apr 2013 18:43

I remain ashamed.

M.C. Newberry

Thu 11th Apr 2013 17:28

Overreach and you run the risk of falling.
The unions that were causing so much nationwide
concern were allowing themselves to be led into
delusions of power that had gone against the
mindset of the country. Anyone of mature years
will recall the feeling of "enough" that was
sweeping the country. Choose your leaders
carefully - and applies to unions as well as
the rest of us.

Laura Taylor

Thu 11th Apr 2013 16:32

She allowed the deregulation of banking practices that had up to that point been regulated for very good reasons - to prevent the kind of mess that they ended up in. There is a direct correlation between that deregulation and the financial collapse.

She did away with manufacturing. What are they calling for now? What do we desperately need now? Manufacturing industries.

The unions worked for so long, at such great expense to the people involved - to give everyone, including you MCN, employment rights that you would not have had otherwise. Your weekends? Sick pay? Reasonable working hours? Holidays? Employment contracts? Unions got you them. And she destroyed them pretty much. We are going backwards, and it is only going to get worse.

M.C. Newberry

Thu 11th Apr 2013 16:12

Looking back - with the exception of the NHS...which in recent times was allowed to become a home for those employed in it rather than the patients..I am scratching my head to recall what any Labour government actually did for the country in total in my lifetime. I am becoming numbed by the vitriol instead of reasoned argument when it comes to the country as a WHOLE and the status it maintains in today's hugely competitive world. The people of this country achieved great things by moving OUT of their comfort zones, and the world we know today reflects that nerve and grit. Our old industries were facing something they couldn't hope to match - eager emerging lands with resources and manpower to spare at rock-bottom rates. It was a case of adapt or die. There had to be another way and our present global economic rating, up there with the best, is proof of what had to be done. Foreign investment comes from trusting potential profit and the UK continues to offer that assurance. Long may it continue for the country as a WHOLE. You have to have something others want to buy or invest in - no more, no less. Letting rubbish fill our streets or the dead go unburied were signs of a country on the slide to self-destruction. Whatever the perceived downside of her time in office, Thatcher wasn't having any of that. For that alone, I will remember and say "Thanks, Maggie"!

Laura Taylor

Thu 11th Apr 2013 14:37

Why even say it then? I'll wait and see what John says about that. I'm pretty taken aback by it, have to say.

You know, there were plenty of right wingers hooting with glee over the death of Hugo Chavez, so it's a bit rich for them to come it with the 'don't speak ill of the dead' line now.

I'm not blaming the 'world's ills' on one person, just the things that were a direct result of that one person, and I'm confident I can speak for many of the people you are referencing there. And everything in my poem was indeed a direct result of Thatcher's policies. My dad was in full-time work after he left the Navy until she got in, then every single job during those years resulted in redundancy - last in, first out. Same with my mother. As an unskilled manual labourer, my dad was top of the shit-heap. My brother was meant to be going down the mines, like every lad round here - that didn't happen, and he didn't work until he was 27. 27!

The free dinner queue was soul-destroyingly humiliating, as was the lack of decent uniform, and the rest of the things that signal a family living in poverty. I'm not disputing that it didn't already exist, but the fact is that I was in it as direct result of her.

She WAS complicit in the Hillsborough cover up - the list of her crimes is so long it's unreal.

I couldn't put everything in my poem - there's PLENTY I left out.

Isobel

Thu 11th Apr 2013 14:06

I don't think John really means that he will side with the conservatives - just that he doesn't like the blood fest that's going on at the moment.

I think the left represents itself better when it explains exactly what's gone wrong in a logical, dispassionate way - though I can see how that might not be easy for some.

I don't think you can blame all the world's ills on one person - often it's a combination of things. I had a poor upbringing too - we were pretty destitute - largely down to bad luck and circumstance.

To reference your poem Laura, I know what it feels like to be the kid on free school dinners - in fact I don't cos I refused to have them, preferring to walk 2 miles home and back every day. The system they used for differentiating in our school was a the colour of your ticket. That system went on right through the labour governments as well as the conservative. I suspect it was down to the crassness of the school administration systems back then.

I agree with many of the negative points made about Margaret Thatcher - her government must have been complicit with the Hillsborough atrocity. Like John though, I just don't dance on graves.

Laura Taylor

Thu 11th Apr 2013 12:29

You can actually be nudged to vote Tory by the reactions of others, who may well have sound reasons and history to feel the way they do?!

She absolutely LOVED burning and drowning men btw - as their ship sailed in the opposite direction, basically shooting them in the back, and then rejoiced. Rejoice in the news - ring any bells?

Wow. Just...wow.

That's a startling confession right there John. That such an important and lasting decision to side with the people running this country into the ground can be made on such a flimsy and reactionary premise.

<Deleted User> (4172)

Thu 11th Apr 2013 11:28

Thatcher and her cronies derived not just pleasure, but huge profit from the misfortune of others. Like your use of the word though, you dropped it in on Facebook a few times. I expect you cried when they hung Saddam Hussein and shot Bin Laden, still i'm sure your place in heaven is assured. Best wishes!

Margaret Holbrook

Thu 11th Apr 2013 10:02

I think you've hit the nail right on the head.

If you wish to post a comment you must login.

Please consider supporting us

Donations from our supporters are essential to keep Write Out Loud going

Bringing poetry to people

Click here to donate now