Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
...as our best post-war Prime Minister.
MPs, of all Parties, were asked to rank post-war Prime Ministers out of 10 across a range of characteristics and Mrs T beat them all.
No problems guessing who they thought was the worse post-war PM - Gordon Brown who, quite frankly, would deserve the same bottom ranking of all the Prime Ministers and Chancellors the UK has ever had.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/01/02/Margaret-Thatcher-is-still-Number-1-as-former-PM-tops-poll-of-British-MPsGuest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
What value do we all give to our MP`s opinions?
Guest 1033- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 509
Hahaha. MPs were asked to vote and answer questions, and you actually believe their answers ?
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,895
Yes and no depending which particular question they were answering, their party colours and who was looking over their shoulders at the time.
Honesty coming 4th was no surprise, I think we all know politicians regardless of rank or party are brilliant liars even if only by evading or avoiding the truth when asked a question.
MPs were also asked to select the three most important characteristics they felt a prime minister should display. Decisiveness was ranked top (77%), while principle came in second (68%), intelligence third (49%), and honesty fourth (32%). Prime Minister Thatcher embodied the traits thought to be most desirable, leading to her topping the poll.
MPs also thought a leader must be energetic (19%), collegiate (14%), compassionate (10%), creative (10%), ruthless (8%), tolerant (5%), friendly (2%), and cautious (1%).
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
bearing in mind that decisiveness was seen as the most important quality the result is hardly surprising.
i don't remember attlee but thatcher and blair have been far and away the most unyielding leaders in my memory.
Guest 1033- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 509
Qualifications for an MP:
Must be a good liar
Private education to gain qualifications as intelligence is not then needed
You must stick to your principles. Line your own and your mates pockets as quickly as possible.
Decide how you will mess up the country during your term in government, making sure that you are not swayed from your principles.
They appear to have been telling the truth, at least as I see it.
Thick, lying thieving corrupt ****ers.
Bob Whysman
- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 1,938
Seems rather a lot of qualifications to expect them to have Barrie N.
Surely the Court of Human rights should have a ruling on this as your list probably preludes most of our immigrant saviours having a seat in the British Parliament. This can't be an acceptable interpretation of what the EU rules intended?:
Do nothing and nothing happens.
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
Lets look at it from everyones point of view rather than those that are seen as the most corrupt the country has seen.
I go along with Howard
Blair and Maggie will be the most remembered both for negative reasons
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
She got the sack ,,says it all
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Cabinet papers reveal 'secret coal pits closure plan'
Newly released cabinet papers from 1984 reveal mineworkers' union leader Arthur Scargill may have been right to claim there was a "secret hit-list" of more than 70 pits marked for closure.
The government and National Coal Board said at the time they wanted to close 20. But the documents reveal a plan to shut 75 mines over three years.
A key adviser to then-PM Margaret Thatcher denies any cover-up claims.
The miners' strike began in March 1984 and did not end until the next year.
Other papers from 1984 reveal warnings of violence outside the Libyan embassy, in which WPC Yvonne Fletcher was killed.
One of the warnings was passed on by the British ambassador in Tripoli, Oliver Miles, who was sceptical about what he was told by Libyan government officials.
And the previously confidential files released on Friday by the National Archives also show the effect of the Brighton bomb on Mrs Thatcher's thinking about Ireland.
line break
'Secret' meeting at No 10
Document marked "Not to be photocopied or circulated outside the private office" recording a meeting attended by seven people, including the prime minister, chancellor, energy secretary and employment secretary, at No 10 about pit closures
A document in the secret files includes an instruction that details of the meeting should not be made public
The year-long miners' strike, which started in March 1984, was characterised by often violent confrontations between police and massed picketing miners.
Continue reading the main story
Long-shot wait for miners' cash
At one stage during the miners' strike the government hoped it might catch red-handed someone from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) trying to smuggle a suitcase full of banknotes into Britain.
The union's assets had been seized after the NUM refused to pay fines. But the government thought miners might get financial support from Moscow or eastern Europe, and was trying to prevent the funds getting through.
Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong wrote: "If a representative of the NUM could be detected entering this country with a suitcase full of banknotes, it might be possible for him to be stopped and searched at customs."
"Those concerned" (by which he presumably meant Special Branch and MI5) were "exercising vigilance" and on the look-out for anyone from the union going abroad "for the purpose of collecting consignments of notes".
This was, he admitted, something of a long shot, "but is the best we can do".
But one of the documents in the archives suggests that there was an agreement in government to shut 75 pits by the following year, and cut 64,000 jobs - but that no list of which should be closed should be issued.
Nick Jones, who covered the strike for BBC radio as its industrial correspondent and later wrote a book about the dispute, said a document in the files dating from September 1983 was of particular significance.
The document, marked "Not to be photocopied or circulated outside the private office", records a meeting attended by just seven people, including the prime minister, chancellor, energy secretary and employment secretary, at No 10.
The meeting was told the National Coal Board's pit closure programme had "gone better this year than planned: there had been one pit closed every three weeks" and the workforce had shrunk by 10%.
The new chairman of the board, Ian MacGregor, now meant to go further.
"Mr MacGregor had it in mind over the three years 1983-85 that a further 75 pits would be closed... There should be no closure list, but a pit-by-pit procedure.
"The manpower at the end of that time in the industry would be down to 138,000 from its current level of 202,000."
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
Of course this latest story on the miners dispute with the NCB never in doubt, has just had it confirmed that the tory govt at the time
covered up info, slowed down talks with the union,
and lied.
Although the tactics of the N.U,.M. was questionable,
scargill was slagged off when he said more than 70 pits were to close
now its clear that he was right all along
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
I would like to poll how many people would let their mother die in a slum hotel, as opposed to in their own care (albeit in another country!)
N.B. my mum had "Tea at the Ritz" last year and loved it! ...but as the place claims to have made no profit for 8 years, it must be a slum...surely?
The NHS runs at a deficit too, so I'm sure that 'it' would have been equally capable of looking after this national treasure?
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
# 13 ...DT1 .....GETS MY VOTE.....
Guest 667- Registered: 6 Apr 2008
- Posts: 919
Did I not hear on the news last night that her and her cabinet were party to and condoned lies about the 75 pits to close during the miners strike and how she allowed the person who murdered Yvonne Fletcher to return to Libya along with all the others from their Embassy.
Yet still they think she was a great leader but are happy to run other Leaders down. Hypocrites that lot of them.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
The greatest PM since the war Harry - she always did what she needed to and did what she said she was going to do. The miners, I have said before, were the architects of their own destiny and the crazed business destroying unions had to be beaten.
The attacks on her from the left and those on here are a testimony to her greatness and her achievements. The bankrupt philosophy of socialism had to be destroyed and its acolytes will never forgive her for that,. It seems the idiots who still subscribe to socialism like Milliminor have not yet learned their lesson and will need to be put in their place again.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
i thought that the pit hitlist was common knowledge soon after the strike was broken so surprised so much is being made of it in the latest release of cabinet papers.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
the proof of the pudding howard,its now in print black and white.
Guest 1033- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 509
The attacks on her from....those on here are a testimony to her greatness.
What a load of codswallop.
Next you'll be saying how wonderful Adolf Hitler must have been because so many hate him.
Ein Volk
Ein Reich
Ein Fuhrer
seig
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
she certainly attracted divided opinions, i never hear anyone say something like "well she was alright i suppose",it was either adoration or hatred.