If Maggie Thatcher "Destroyed Britain" why did she win 3 elections in a row?

Question

I'm from a working class back ground, my dad hates Thatcher with a passion. Almost all people I know who were around in the 1980's hate her, yet she won 3 elections in a row?

Answer 1

Thatcher destroyed communities, in fact she herself declared that there was no such thing as society. She declared that socialism was dead when she won a second and third term in office. Her ministers said that unemployment was a price worth paying to keep inflation in check. She tricked hundreds of thousands into buying their council houses with the idea that those working class people who took out mortgages would never dare to strike for fear of losing their homes. Once people were trapped in the mortgage market she promptly put up interest rates to 17% making it very difficult for people to keep up the mortgage repayments. Add to that a house price crash which left thousands with negative equity and people were unable to sell their homes for the amount they paid for them. Many ended up homeless or in bed and breakfast hovels. Some still live that way today.



Thatcher became a dictator who wanted everything her own way. Anyone whjo got in her way or disagreed with her was either demoted or sacked. She began to think she was more important than the Queen by declaring "We are a grandmother" when her first grandchild was born. She saw herself as indestructible and irreplaceable. That is until she forced the dreaded Poll Tax on everyone and that was the beginning of her downfall. As she left Downing Street for the last time, she was the only one with tears in her eyes. Crocodile tears no doubt, as the rest of the country wept tears of joy.



Thatcher did not destroy Britain. She caused an earthquake that rocked the countries foundations. In the process , just as in any earthquake, it caused severe damage to certain parts of the country. Some however went unscathed and those people are the ones who profited from her reign of terror.



Actually, reading the question again makes me think of something similar. If Tony Blair destroyed Britain, why did he get elected 3 times in a row? Was it his neo-Thatcherite policies that did it or was it The Sun?

Answer 2

She didn't destroy Britain. Nearly so but didn't quite make it. After her John Major reigned in the Tory party and the country with his back to basics where family was the most important policy. That is why we saw all the Tory politicians and most others start to cheat on wives and children which finished the job she started in breaking up families and communities. After the Thatcher first election win you will find in the statics that voter participation took a nose dive and voter apathy set in. It is because many people who used to vote realised it was a useless exercise just as it is today. No political party represents the electorate unless you are one of their high flying cronies or paymasters. The average person in the UK is not represented at all by any of our politicians or political party's. They only represent themselves and their select few mainly bankers and large corporations. This is evidenced by the fact that when any of those fail through imcompetence, politicians, bankers, large corporations execs etc. they apply the debts they accru to the taxpayer and then tell us it is the workshy or poor who has caused the recession/depression. They cut our pay and our livelihoods while they continue as they always do to live an extravagant lifestyle.



I wonder sometimes if people are actually afraid of what they will find if they actually look too hard at these people who supposedly lead our nation and represent it. I do know it is why a lot of people just don't vote. Most people live in a state of depression or stress and that is solely down to what our politicians foist on us with their lies, broken promises, fake manifestos and greed. None of them appear to be of a savoury character and their morality seems to leave a lot to be desired by any right minded thinking individual.



My point is that it just wasn't Maggie Thatcher but all our politicians over the last 4 or 5 decades. It is actually quite hard to choose one over the other as they all seem to be exactly the same no matter the political party. How to do something about it is the real question. I can't tell you as I'd get reported and removed from YA. Just keep in mind that there is only one society in this country and the average man/woman doesn't belong to it. The evidence is there in the open for all to see but the flock just doesn't want to see it or are a part of the problem themselves.

Answer 3

For once I part agree with Rikstir - not the bit about Thatcher being great but about the fact Labour were unelectable.



When the tories took power in 1979 the nation politically moved right. Labour's response to that was to move further to the left alienating themselves from the majority of the public, the unions had too much power and their response to everything was tax and spend. The SDP broke away from the labour party (many of that party would now be considered New Labour) and the party moved even further to the left of the political spectrum.



In many peoples mind Thatcher did destroy Britain, however at the time she was the less of two evils, I support the labour party but it didn't start moving to a centre left party until after 1987 when Neil Kinnock started the modernisation. By that time Thatcher had won her 3 elections. It was a close call in 1992 and many people were surprised that the labour didn't win that election. By the time the 1997 general election came around Tony Blair had modernised labour, dropped clause 4, removed the stranglehold of the election and won a landslide majority.

Answer 4

Many people, like Hal, have mentioned why she won three elections, but she could well have been ousted before the end of her first term if it wasn't for the Falklands War. It is a well documented fact that the Falkland War could have been avoided, but Thatcher went into it because her poll rating was very low. There's nothing like winning a war to galvanise support for the government.

Answer 5

Let me ask you Sean, do you love your dentist?



S/He has a job to do, a not particularly nice one, that at the time seems harsh, painful and cruel, but in the long term, it will do you some good. Yes, you will squirm in your chair, and yes, you will remember the drillings, the fillings and the awful rinse, but you won't remember him/her doing things to prevent your teeth from falling out



When Thatcher was elected, the UK was a complete and total, utter mess (quite literally) - someone has to make the nasty decisions, the coal mines were heavily subsidised by the government, they were making a collossal loss, and they had to close! Only a woolly minded coward would avoid tough decisions like these and, instead, would rather borrow and try and please everyone and get UK plc into even more debt.



Oh, and to those complaining about the housing stock diminishing, Right to Buy was a well intentioned scheme which allowed working class people to be able to purchase their own home, it was the ultimate aspiration at the time, now, in 13 years, what exactly did the alleged party for the working classes to to help continue this aspiration when Britain was supposed to be booming? Sweet FA!



Yes, Thatcher was not perfect, but compared to the other options available, there was no contest. To the Labour voters (some of who clearly appear to be educated under them, judging by the apalling grammar) there's only one place where the blame lies for the rise of Thatcherism, and that is the self-loathing Labour party!

Answer 6

Firstly Wales,Scotland and Northern Ireland don't really matter in UK elections so people from those places would have hated her for a while but needed england to change their votes first that is why we have devolution.



Number of Seats

England 533

Scotland 59

Wales 40

Northern Ireland 18

= 650



Scotland+Wales+Northern Ireland = 117

England=533/117=4.55555



This means if all of Scotland,Wales and Northern Ireland voted on way and England voted another way they would be beaten more than 4:1.

Answer 7

Because the opposition was divided. Look at the voting statistics for the period. Thatcher was never elected by a majority of voters.



Winning a Parliamentary majority of seats is not the same as winning the votes of a majority of the electorate.



That is one reason why many people believe that the electoral system is flawed and should be reformed.

Answer 8

It was down to the Tory media and lies and anti-union, anti-worker hatred blasted at the English majority in an unending tsunami of lies and hatred. It was believed by enough English voters, who tend to be a sandwich or two short of a picnic, to give her a majority thanks to a divided opposition (divisions which the said Tory media also encouraged.)



Interestingly, this propaganda offensive failed utterly in Scotland and Wales - not least, in my view, because in both countries, there has long been a proper respect for education which is lacking in England. In fact, Tory representation in Parliament actually ceased to exist, at one point, in Scotland.



So, if you hate Thatcher, you should hate the foreign extremist Rupert Murdoch and the suburban Himmlers of the Mail group even more.

Answer 9

It depends on you prespective whether she destroyed Britain or not. She irrevocably change Britain and perhaps destroyed a way of life that many in Britain loved. Britain was a basket case economy before her though and after a lot better economically, if not socially.



She made harsh decisions regardless of the human consequences, for example the coal mines that were making a loss she closed. As she saw it, if it cost more money to dig up the coal than you can sell it for then it needs to be closed down. Towns and villages relied upon the mine for employment. With this removed, there was nothing left but unemployment and the young people moving elsewhere, thereby creating mass unemployment and destroying communities.



On other side of the argument she revolutionised Britain's service economy, made Britain one of the world's richest countries and created an evnironment that fostered entrepreneurship.

Answer 10

She freed us from the grip of militant trade unions and gave people hope. You still read posts on here from people complaining about "the rich": what Maggie Thatcher did was give everyone, whatever background they came from, the opportunity to become rich. Surely that is what most people aspire to, and we have some great examples of people from very humble backgrounds becoming successful and thus rich: Alan Sugar and Bernard Matthews spring to mind.



Of course, you could be a Bob Crow and earn over £100k a year for bringing disruption to the ordinary working people of London on a regular basis, but where is the dignity in that? Far better to start a company, give a lot of people a job and the opportunity to earn a living and support their family instead of living on benefits.



Maggie Thatcher gave everyone in this country hope after Labour almost destroyed the UK economy, as, of course, they have done on EVERY occasion they have held power. It is laughable to hear anyone on here saying that the current recession is down to her - it is quite firmly the responsibility of Gordon Brown who deregulated the banks, promised no "boom and bust" and then presided over - guess what? - boom and bust.



The Labour Party are, and always have been, a joke, and the sooner another party comes along to replace them on the left of British politics the better everyone in the country will be. They are the party of envy and state control.

Answer 11

She won because the main opposition at the time (The Labour Party) was riddled with ultra left wingers, led by a person many people didn't trust, during a time when the UK was enjoying a period of economic stability and growth.



The first election she won because she had just won the Falklands, then after that it came down to her or Neil Kinnock and the 'loony left' the results were always going to go her way.



labour never came close to power during this time and it took the arrival of John Smith who started dragging labour away from the extreme left and into the middle ground, a process completed by Tony B Liar who then went and won in a landslide, (because he had got rid of the highly vocal left wing elements) making voting labour more palatable and acceptable to the largest voting areas (i.e the wealthier sections of the working class (tradesmen, office workers etc) who live in the suburbs and new towns and the lower middle class across the country)

Answer 12

The definition of happiness is "being content with one's self." It doesn't count how a great way up the ladder-of-existence we've climbed, somewhat its how we taken care of others as we make the puzzling climb to the wonderful.

Answer 13

It is a natural process when a country leans too much to the left there is a push to the right, normall lasts about 2-3 elections for the voter to realise. Look at the last election labour had nothing more to give in the way of benefits, even they knew the labour voters ran out of patients with them. We will go to the right for another couple of years and labour will get in again after 2-3 more elections

Answer 14

1

Answer 15

Well here is one example why she won. When she was first elected and introduced her knew Free Market policies, the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies sent Britain into massive unemployment she was at her lowest in polls and was not expected to be re-elected. But she said war was needed, the Falklands War, easily won, so a society still reeling from shock tend to focus on the immediate problems at hand re-elected her. She used the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters whatever is most convenient, in that case the Falklands war -- to achieve control. It's a common conservative tactic.

Answer 16

Because she had all the posh southerners voting for her in their droves.





We're having a party when Thatcher dies!

We're having a party when Thatcher dies!

We're having a party when Thatcher dies!

We're having a party when Thatcher dies!

Answer 17

Maggie Thatcher as Prime Minister oversaw Britain's economy change from an industrial to a Service economy. The governments policies de-nationalised the industries that employed trade unionists militant enough to disrupt output and dictate terms to previous governments. Maggie personified the new spirit of entrepreneurial Britain where change could happen without red-tape interfering and watering down determination . People aspired to own their own homes and now 60% own their own homes. Many first time share-purchasers did well from their enterprise and society changed much much faster than thought possible. Maggie rid the country of the Block-vote trade union barons, who were the horrific influence behind the "winter of discontent", when dead bodies were left outside cemetries and Firefighters watched people die in fires. Maggie destroyed Communism, not Britain.

Answer 18

A lot of people were bought off with North Sea oil money. House prices went up. Council houses were sold off. Public utilities were sold off. We're paying the price for it now though.



She used the old divide and conquer tactic. Moreover, the Labour opposition were not up to scratch at that time.



The Falkland war and the Royal wedding?!?!



I wouldn't be surprised if much of the election was rigged. I know for an absolute FACT that elections have been rigged in the US ever since Bush got in and maybe since Reagan.

Answer 19

Because she encouraged greed and people were stupid enough to vote for her party because they thought they would all prosper. Their children and grandchildren are paying the price now as our manufacturing industry was destroyed and a lot of social housing was sold off, leaving nothing for future generations.

Answer 20

Sounds like those "elections" she "won" were stolen, deducing from what you say.

Answer 21

Good question! ......That should tell you something ....about the dumb society we have in England

Answer 22

They must hate her because she gave in to the Poll-tax rioters and now we are lumbered with the Council-tax instead.

Answer 23

Because she's pretty I guess.



whoaaaa your abs are like The Situation's

Answer 24

voters are stupid. they voted John Major in straight away afterwards as well, so there's a clue.

Answer 25

Because sadly with everyones right to vote...it means that utter morons can vote.