The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Thatcher the way they like it > Comments

Thatcher the way they like it : Comments

By Neil Clark, published 4/5/2005

Neil Clark argues the political landscape in the UK is a different place to thirty years ago, thanks to Lady Margaret Thatcher.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. All
When Margaret Thatcher came to power the income tax on investment income (what was called unearned income) approached 90%. And her predecessors were confused about why the economy was stagnant.

The world needs more Thatchers. People willing to challenge the status quo paradigm. She was not perfect but she was bold
Posted by Terje, Thursday, 5 May 2005 5:52:22 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Appreciate the response Kris. I come from the opposite end of the spectrum, I'm afraid, in that I have absolutely no faith in statistics of any kind. That is not to say I don't believe the numbers themselves, just the conclusions that are drawn from them.

For example, when I hear "more pupils are achieving C Grade GCSE Maths", I automatically wonder whether the pass mark for the grade has been reduced, as opposed to the pupils becoming smarter. Then I read stuff like this that reinforces my prejudice.

"David Kent, who oversaw the grading of 400,000 pupils’ papers this summer, disclosed that he was forced to lower the pass mark to avoid failing too many candidates. He said that if he had not dropped the pass mark by about eight percentage points, tens of thousands of students would not have got the A to C grades they required to go on to take A-levels." (Sunday Times September 14th 2003)

I appreciate that you "like to think [you're] sharp enough to work within that", but how exactly do you go about it? It is anecdotal, not statistical, so how do you factor it into your conclusions?
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 5 May 2005 7:29:58 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Agree Terje.Margaret saved the UK.I still hear comments from her ex-public servants like,"She caused a lot of social dislocation."
The UK was a basket case, rapidly headed for third world status,and Margaret reversed the trend.Those in social dislocation were headed for starvation and still the socialists lived in denial,clinging to their failed cherished ideals.They will never admit the wrongs or the lies,and our human weakness and stupidity will see them rise to the fore once again.
Posted by Arjay, Thursday, 5 May 2005 9:56:59 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Pericles, that sort of information has to be acknowledged, and the implications considered, no doubt.

However, I feel that the pressures with regard to pass marks at all levels is felt all over, rather than a specific problem in the UK. Personal experience tells me this is the case in Australia.

I know why people are cynicical as to governments of any persuasion, and share it myself on occassion. But in this regard, to equate Labour with Thatcher is to do a disservice to the terrible outcomes for many that Thatcherite politics delivered and the attempts made to mollify those outcomes since.

I have no issue with questioning whether Labour has done enough/been too cautious etc, but feel the equation Blair = Thatcher is just plain wrong.
Posted by Kris McCracken, Friday, 6 May 2005 6:55:11 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Kris, it is a little difficult to work out whether you are deliberately misunderstanding the points I am trying to make, or whether I'm just not explaining myself clearly.

By homing in on the one example I gave (exam pass marks), you avoid the wider question, which is that statistics without a full context are meaningless. Worse than meaningless, in fact, because they are co-opted into a specific argument that pursues a specific agenda.

Heisenberg nailed it with his uncertainty principle, which (among other things) illustrated that the act of measuring something caused that something to change. This is most definitely the case with statistics. Since no-one actually counts stuff for no reason, they will by definition have an a priori agenda. Once these "statistics" are let loose in the world they become used indiscriminately, and without any further reference to the source or to the reason that the numbers were gathered in the first place.

My question was genuine. Since I have never been academic, I am interested to discover how someone like you, preparing a PhD thesis, copes with these issues. Or would I have to analyse the footnotes myself to discover the agenda of your sources?

As for Thatcher, I'd be interested to hear what you perceive to be "the terrible outcomes for many that Thatcherite politics delivered", and your understanding of how Blair has addressed these.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 6 May 2005 2:49:44 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
My reading of the original article is that Thatcher changed the face of politics in the UK and that, as a result, Blair's Labour Party is now positioned in a "centre" that would have been unrecognisable as such 30 years ago. This seems to me to be quite a reasonable thing to say.

The confusing bit is that Neil Clark suggests that this is a bad thing.
Posted by Ian, Monday, 9 May 2005 1:03:51 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy