XPost: uk.politics.misc, uk.politics.electoral, alt.politics.british   
   XPost: uk.politics.parliament, uk.media   
   From: banana@REMOVE_THIS.borve.demon.co.uk   
      
   In article , Peter Watson   
    writes   
      
   >In message , banana   
   > writes   
   >>The presentational strategy with regard to the New Labour leadership has   
   >>been the opposite of what it was for the Tories under John Major.   
   >>   
   >>Whereas it was de rigueur for the chattering classes to talk about   
   >>'Portillo and the leadership', it is now seen as unacceptable to   
   >>speculate on who the next Labour leader might be.   
   >>   
   >>They've presented Blair - who is probably held in greater CONTEMPT than   
   >>any other prime minister since Chamberlain, although it's true that he's   
   >>not as HATED as Thatcher was -   
      
   >He is - far more.  I know a hundred people who would shoot him on sight   
   >and have a family member in her sixties who would like to give him the   
   >death of 1000 cuts and drop him in a weak solution of sulphuric acid to   
   >finish him off.   
   >   
   >All Maggie had was a collection of Trots who wanted her gone.   
      
   The overall point is debatable but that last assertion is certainly   
   mistaken.   
      
   Thatcher was hated by millions of people, including most people who   
   worked in traditional industries, their families, millions of younger   
   unemployed people, etc. etc. etc., most of whom had never met a   
   Trotskyist. The mid-1980s were, after all, the time when conditions in   
   the UK were given such a huge almighty shove around the U-bend of the   
   toilet, and millions of people knew exactly what was happening.   
      
   I lost count of the number of elderly people who told me in the 1980s   
   that they just hoped they lived to see Thatcher out of office and   
   hopefully dead.   
      
   If she dies in the near future there will be at least a few street   
   parties.   
      
   It is worth remembering that what brought her down was popular   
   resistance to the poll tax, and in particular the central London   
   anti-poll-tax riot of 31 March 1990 (the day before the tax came into   
   force in England and Wales). Rulers don't want 'governments' to look   
   weak.   
      
   --   
   banana     "The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you   
               give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy-bear to   
               Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the   
               rest of your frigid life." (Mick Travis, 'If...', 1968)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)