Niall Ferguson: Europe a Mess, Thatcher Was Right 

Although I don't agree with her destruction of the trade unions and the shameless desintigration of the industrial sector in the North, Scotland and Wales I still fail to see what Tony Blair and Gordon Brown achieved that was any benefit to the Middle/working class. The pensions scandal is unforgivable, as is the savings flat lining and obviously the handing over of powers to Brussels and immigration. The Labour voters make me laugh when they claim that their party led us into an age of unprecedented economic hedonism. What they really did was abandon all morals and bankrupt the country. A new form of politics is required, let's shake off the legacy of Thatcherism and New Labour. We can do things better than both failed systems in the future.

@@chrisnettleship4331 Actually industry fell apart because it was inefficient, run by unions, poor quality and outdated products in fact it was a dead duck. The whole industrial sector needed 100's of billions of investment and new working practices and Thatcher delivered. The UK was known as the sick man of Europe and nobody would invest here. Thatchers reforms saw that change and become the place TO INVEST. What she did was incredible and against a political consensus that the UK was f***ed and managed decline and integration into the EEC was the only path forward

@@FightFairLoseEasy UK joined what was the EEC in 1973 under Ted Heath's stewardship. Harold Wilson put it to the referendum two years later and Margaret Thatcher as opposition leader became a pro-Europe advocate. She did however emphasize the fact that UK was paying far too much into EEC when she became PM and after 11 years her stance on Europe had changed radically. She never wanted us in the ERM which John Major disastrously signed us up for and saw Sterling ejected in 1993. As for industry, you're correct on some points. The unions were increasingly dominated by Hardline barons calling for strikes at a moment's notice and above inflation pay rises. But look where we are now without these unions. Zero hour contracts, less than living wage and useless pension schemes. I still say both Thatcherism and Blairism are evils in their own right.

@@chrisnettleship4331 Crap. Do you know anything aboput zero hour contracts at all. 1) Most people on them PREFER them for various reasons 2) It gives people a PAID PATH into work and work experience 3) In retailing it gives the flexibility for businesses to open at the times people now insist on since the Labour party fucked closing times up. The unions are nothing but political vehicled for Marxist ffs. The leader of UNISON is a dyed in the wool Marxist for instance they are NOTHING to do with workers rights they are all to do with funding the labour party and pushing a socialist agenda. Dont tell me Im wrong I was a union activist so I know what they are really about

@@FightFairLoseEasy You are obviously very opinionated which is the problem with today's society, sometimes people ride roughshod over others' opinions. I doubt many on zero hour contracts are happy, I know a few of them who would love s full time job. You can't say that either Labour or the Tories have helped the working class much over the last 30 years. Right to buy was a complete con-trick. Many are now seeing their assets stripped to pay for care in old age. You believe what you like, I think our system is rotten. These politicians aren't worth snot. They lie and just look out for their own interests. The only way we have a chance is to completely rewire the political system and that would take nothing short of a revolution.

No it was a shithole but all the assets had been sold off for temporary cash which all ended up back in rich Tories pockets.

Why was is a shithole in the 1970s? Stagflation?

@Ru22eLL Brown, genius that he was, announced to the world that he was going to sell Britain's gold reserves. The market, anticipating a glut of gold, promptly fell. So Brown sold the gold into a depressed global market so ensuring we got the worst possible price for it! At least the Brinks Matt robbers ended up doing time (mostly)!

Thatcher did the necessary job of freeing the economy from the shackles of state control, the preceding governments had the responsibility to monitor it and regulate where appropriate.

I nicknamed him Mugabe Brown, as he was doing the same job to Britain as Mugabe did to Rhodesia.

Enoch's seal of approval, I'm sure Niall would be delighted.

not as good as Douglas Murray

If brilliant means racist halfwit then he's brilliant.

@ Married to a Somali intellectual. How does that work, pal?

@Ross Rain You're an uneducated illiterate dunce you wouldn't know intelligence if it was fucking you up the shitter.

@Well, it seems that your description of an uneducated illiterate dunce applies to you, you prick. You said about Niall Ferguson above, "If brilliant means racist halfwit then he's brilliant." .... but when somebody responded to you with, "Married to a Somali intellectual. How does that work, pal?" ... you have nothing to say on the matter ... now that shows you as a halfwit along with having the rest of your description of an uneducated dunce etc. applying to yourself. Twat!

She was a cunt.

@ Ignorant twat.

@ + Sean O'Nilbrains.....you possess a very uninformed, obtuse opinion. Slow clap for you 'old chap.

@ look at you

@@johndub3866 I know far more than you, chimp.

That's because the Tory media choose to gloss over Attlee because he was Labour. No PM since WW2 did more for ordinary people

@@petergreen2552 They are all the same party politics needs exterminating and to be replaced by independents born in the areas they are chosen to serve no more parachutes full off strangers people need to look local and independent someone who actually cares about the area they represent not one who leaves the moment they are replaced

You mean "New Labour: aka Tory Blair whose mentor was Margaret Thatcher, after all, that's why she boasted in an interview that he would carry on her policies when he was elected in 1997.

@@insanityrulestheday Any detail on that claim at all? Please go on to which of Thatcher's policies Blair actually followed and accomplished.

Yeah, Pinochets best mate. A brutal unelected dictator with no love for human rights.

@@petergreen2552 Which was installed by Kissinger and his cronies. Got nothing to do with Thatcher, why even bring it up?

@@feonor26 Because she vociferously defended him till her dying breath, despite his contempt fot democracy and appalling human rights record.

The Tax payers BTW were the people like me who paid the Tory Poll and Council tax, which was a tax levied on the individual, as opposed to the original and more just tax, the rates which had been traditionally paid by the householder only. The poll and Council Tax was a discriminatory taxation against people like myself who were born into poorer households and forced into Conservative youth slave training schemes straight from school in the early 1980s, working a 40 hour week job for £35.00 a week(approximately 88 pence an hour). Thanks to Thatcher the Snatcher, I was forced by the corrupt Tory state as a woman out working without any children straight from school (so no extra top up child benefits or working tax credits) to pay annually for the past 30 years Poll and Council taxes starting at £55.00 a month, then £65.00 a month and eventually £90.00 a month. The fairer tax, the rates had been paid by the householder only, who had traditionally been the husband in the household, but thanks to Thatcher I along with other members of my family who were living at home with their parents and working for minimum wage only, had to pay this taxation. As the Tory mafia sent two delegates out to my parents household while I was at work and told my mother to advise me that I had to pay this corrupt and unfair tax, so that instead of one payment by the householder, it was also payable by his wife and any working adults still living at home. It was a discriminatory tax against the working class poor households who lived as a traditional family, only the single parent Freeloaders who had social workers to secure council houses for them and welfare benefits, naturally didn't have to pay this tax, for their work was keeping the labour ward of the maternity hospital busy, not the labour of the workplace. After all, that's why I paid most of my meagre earnings on high poll and council taxes for the right to have no family life, while thanks to Thatcher the Milk Snatcher, the single parents who have never worked or paid any taxes got their right to a family life, as well as being subsidised by the taxation of people like myself. That's real social equality for you, instead of "from each according to his ability to each according to his need", Thatcher's maxim was "from each according to his NEED to each according to his GREED"!!! After all, the money I was working a 40 hour week for was my NEED, and thanks to Thatcher's unfair poll and council taxation I was robbed of my earnings and never got my right to have children of my own who would be able to help me in later life as I had helped my parents. Thatcher was nothing more than an EVIL Collective CUNT. After ALL, it's a CRIME, that after years and years and years, of hard toil and paying Taxes, I've not got a DIME, in the land of the SWINE. Only a CUNT Society robs a woman of her right to have a family life and children of her own because she is forced out to work full-time straight from school for minimum wage only and doing the work needed to maintain the stability of a Society and then have the audacity to rob her in high Taxation of what little money she is earning, after all, that should have been my savings for later in life, because thanks to the Cunt Collective I don't have any children who can work and assist me in my later years. Thanks to the GREEDY Mother Fuckers known as the CONSERVATIVES.

@@insanityrulestheday What a loada bilge

She won three elections as a direct result of the working class shifting their vote to her

@@FightFairLoseEasy As William Blake rightfully states, "A TRUTH that's told with bad intent, BEATS all the LIES YOU can INVENT"!

@@insanityrulestheday and? So what? I didnt invent any lies its a FACT that between 15-20% of the working class vote shifted to vote Thatcher. The COUNTRY as a WHOLE from the poorest up was better off after 10years of THATCHER AND THAT IS ANOTHER FACT!

Paul Gibbons I think we both already know the answer to that question!

@@thomasm1964 Yes, indeed you both do I'm sure. We need OUT!

😂😂 Almost choked on my coffee. The funniest comment so far, mate.

Peacetime? She was the most unpopular prime Minister ever till the Falklands War.

She would have been swinging that handbag around in Brussels like an Olympic hammer thrower

May had no clue about the art of negotiation

Trojan horse warfare. Enemies always infiltrate and occupy. It was the only way her enemies could take her down. They chose sabotage her from within her own party. Happens everywhere. Happens in the U.S. for sure. One world government is ultimately the end of the world. The ultimate world implosion.

Time will tell.

It was Brown that removed the safety net from the banking sector, and sold off our gold stores at a stupid price. Also manufacturing shurnk far more under Labour after 1997 than it did under the previous Conservative government, a myth that's conveniently ignored by the Left. The rise of China and others as huge manufacturing powers based on super cheap labour meant that the UK could never be the world's top manufacturer again. Having said that we're still something like the 8th largest manufacturer in the world today, despite all that.

yep, Germany has to be the manufacturing super power in Europe, the EU was set up for that. Federal Europe was set out by Wahlter Funk.

ref. manufacturing decline, she is pilloried for overseeing alot of that decline but she's an easy target, take a longer view & its obvious that with labour laws in the west starting to fill volumes with legislation that is was much easier to export the jobs & then import the goods. Also not to be forgotten is the clear out of many middle management tiers from that time to now, some say it was loading more work onto less staff, others that it was vital dead wood clearance in the face of streamlined international comp

No they don't at all, wtf are you smoking? Bother have growing economies and some of the best employment rates in years.

She left the economy in a mess.

Are you mad? she began the rot. That damn tunnel is her legacy, she paved the way for every Tom, Dick and Haroo to come over here illegally, on the backs of wagons. She also set the foundations for virtually all our industries to be swallowed up by globalist firms.. and then there was the selling off of social homes, which created the rental squeeze on low-wage families. Thatcher sold Britain down the river cheap, everything was for sale and now we own nowt. May is another mentally ill nutter, it's amazing how strikes are synonymous with the Tories, they're taking working class people for granted, just like New Labour did, don't be surprised if UKIP take enough votes in 2019/2020 to mean the Tories can't win a majority, you reap what you sow and this bent government is failing the working class.

i lived through the winter of discontent the three day week candles etc that was'nt Mrs Thatcher fault it was the greedy unions and bad management the country was on its knees Mrs Thatcher and her goverment tackled it head on and created a new economy The Labour party have yet again bankrupted the country and left the conservatives to clean up the mess and with Mrs Mays leadership im confident for the future

i agree with your comments up to the last sentence. What do you base your confidence in Teresa May on? Her time as Home Secretary was both long & ineffectual. Sorry but I see her as a committee member rather than the leader of a Country.

Richard of ORPINGTON she took office in a backdoor coup to keep out Boris the comedian, not out of any competence. There's been a dearth in capable leaders since Blair & the UK is losing it's damn fool mind listening to Corbyn's Pied Piperism when he's winning votes from dupes born after Callaghan who don't know he's sprinkling fairy tale rainbows w/horseshit.

idiot

Wrong. "we don't make cars....the Germans do." Yes we do. "don't mine coal - the French do." No they don't. "She alone was the person who they were petrified of." No they weren't, the Act of the political union of the EU was signed in 1986.

Unions were the downfall of industry in this country. I know because I worked in the 1970's in engineering

Christine Holloway 😖aye aye aye aye aye. You be mighty wrong.

Nope. He pronounces his name as if it it were 'neil'. This spelling and pronunciation combination is common in Scotland.

NO you are wrong . It's an IRISH name . I should know as I am Irish and It's MY name . Niall is a male given name of Irish origin, thought to mean "champion" (derived from the Old Irish word niadh meaning warrior or champion)

It doesnt matter if its common in Scotland . It's an IRISH name. And I know how to pronounce my own name. It's a common name in Ireland because its an Irish name . Just because a few people in scotland are called it does not mean its scottish/ Look up the origions and correct pronunciation of it and you will find its and Irish name pronounced nile. A dynasty of Irish kings was founded by Niall of the Nine Hostages.

Niall T Neal in the UK is spelled as Niall.

pfà contractor no it's not

The spook you could start off been indifferent start to hate her and with time end up wishing for her back but still knowing wrong on many things

+Karl Roberts You need to put an emoticon for irony at the end . Absolutely right I did not want to pay for it

Thatcher saw industrial communities as "the enemy within". There has been a study published by Sheffield Hallam University in 2016 showing that areas with the highest amount of welfare claimants still are those that were rapidly deindustrialised 20 years ago. Nevermind that this country's power stations are still dependent on coal, or that we need steel for HS2 -- the government would rather import those things from China and Russia. Thatcher was an economic disaster for those outside of the city, and destroyed jobs for political reasons, offering nothing in return and we are reaping the rewards with brexit etc.

Allan Jones Niall is one of those Brits who tells us how good someone is yet chooses not to live in that country.our country is in a mess because thatcher sold everything off and now we have brexit the back lash.housing is a mess and NHS is a mess due to under funding

John White Agreed, Brexit and Trump are reactions to the neoliberalism supported by the right and the liberal elite. Labour will be decimated by UKIP

Thatcher was "the ENEMY within" and a traitor to Britain and the hard working British people. Only a traitor would deliberately destroy the industrial infrastructure of their country which had once enabled Britain to have a power of autonomy and be self-sufficent, and leave them dependent on imports from rival nations resources.

@@johnwhite6346 That's because he's obviously a patronising Hypocrite.

She was before my time but when you talk about the manufacturing industries the decline in those sector across great swathes of the developed western world (including the U.K., U.S.A and my own country - Australia) seems to suggest the cause/s are greater than one politician. Might I proffer the proliferation of cheap, third-world labour as the primary driver?

@John Henshaw lol you are blind if im blibkerd thacher the kids milk snatcher sacked over 80.000 coal miners just to inport coal. closed the steel works 40 00 workers sacked soild the north sea oil to the yanks closed our fishing industry wake up fool . Case of me and my banker freinds are fine f the working man destroy his family im blinkerd bhahahahahabhahaha a laugh and spit in your face fool

John Darson Your comment is a Very inaccurate and manipulative reconstruction of reality.

Politics is devilish.