Interesting Links for 04-07-2024
Jul. 4th, 2024 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewducker- 1. Google Search Ranks AI Spam Above Original Reporting in News Results
- (tags:google ai spam OhForFucksSake search )
- 2. On The Worst Five Prime Ministers in the History of Britain
- (tags:UK politics conservatives epicfail )
- 3. Edinburgh's Princes Street set for new 347-bedroom Ruby Hotel as part of major £100m development
- (tags:edinburgh hotel )
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No Thatcher? #2
Date: 2024-07-04 03:12 pm (UTC)Re: No Thatcher? #2
Date: 2024-07-04 03:13 pm (UTC)Re: No Thatcher? #2
Date: 2024-07-04 03:59 pm (UTC)Thatcher, in my view, is a long, long way from being the worst Prime Minister that Britain has had and I speak as a lifelong socialist whose mother used to teach my brothers and I how to chant "Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! Out! Out! Out! from our pushchairs.
Thatcher had a pretty clear vision for the future of Britain and set about delivering on it with energy and competence and leadership.
I disagree with a lot of Thatcher's point of view. However, not all of it. She had correctly, in my view, identified that the UK suffered from a long-term economic malaise and needed to improve per capita GDP. She was effective and competent. The British state ran well during her premiership, she was able to turn problem analysis in to policy and policy in to action - she got things done. Her leadership during the Falklands Conflict was exemplary and in the finest traditions of British war leadership.
Fundamentally I think she and her advisors badly badly under estimated how long and how painful it would be to re-build industries in the geographical areas her policies impacted. I think she thought it would take a few years for those areas to transition and rebuild and it looks like it is going to take a few generations.
Parts of the UK were worse off after her premiership but some parts were improved. She intentionally changed the country and did so for what she considered the national good and in a way that she could and did articulate as being for the overall long term good of the nation.
Re: No Thatcher? #2
Date: 2024-07-09 06:10 am (UTC)Re: No Thatcher? #2
Date: 2024-07-09 12:33 pm (UTC)Chamberlain was doing *exactly* what the country needed him to do, play for time whilst we a) re-armed and b) got our head round the fact that Hitler was going to start a war with us whether we wanted one or nor. He took the fall whilst we collectively bluffed out a weak hand in the late 1930's. When it did become apparent - to the British public at large, not to Chamberlain, - he declared war on Germany after they invaded Poland.
Worth noting that only two Prime Ministers have been hosted on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, Chamberlain and Churchill and Churchill was a pallbearer at his funeral and said in private "Whatever shall I do without poor Neville? I was relying on him to look after the Home Front for me."
Eden I know less about.
Re: No Thatcher? #2
Date: 2024-07-09 02:15 pm (UTC)Thank you, that’s super interesting. I’ve heard a number of versions of this and not known which to believe.
Re: No Thatcher? #2
Date: 2024-07-10 11:21 am (UTC)Personally, I think it is rather noble to do the right thing knowing you are going to be condemned for it by an ignorant, nay hypocritical, public after your death.
Re: No Thatcher? #2
Date: 2024-07-10 11:27 am (UTC)Re: No Thatcher? #2
Date: 2024-07-12 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-05 06:09 am (UTC)Liz Truss just got defeated in her own seat.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-05 07:31 am (UTC)