Thatcher’s good old days were not so golden for everyone

From: Terry Marston, Lincoln.

YOUR correspondent Coun Paul Andrews concluded recently that “the Thatcher days were not the ‘good old days”.

Had he examined other of her acts of government, he would have reached the same conclusions. A great proponent of market forces she was lauded for her iron will.

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However, now that we have the benefit of a long term view of the consequences, her record loses its lustre.

The issues beleaguering Britain today are rooted in decisions made by her governments.

The chaos of the housing market is a direct consequence of her policy of “right to buy” which frittered away a stock of affordable council houses.

Add to this the demutualisation of building societies and the promotion, by the new-style lenders, of “buy to let” mortgages and we have an unnecessary new layer of landlords bent on maximum profit from their tenants.

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Outcomes are an acute shortage of affordable houses to rent – some London councils are now having to rent their “own” council houses to house families.

A third of 3,600 managers surveyed by Shelter say they will have difficulty keeping up mortgage or rent payments; half a million are in negative equity.

Was this her vision of a property-owning democracy?

From: Charles Lawson, Halifax Road, Brighouse.

JUST a few points in reply to Derek Brooks’ and Hugh Rogers’ letters (The Yorkshire Post, March 4).

The Tories not Labour had the record number of unemployed even after 28 fiddles to the figures.

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Mr Brooks seems to think the richest one percent of the population are entrepreneurs.

A large portion of the one percent are highly paid employees who do not risk a single pound of their own money and they walk away with a large payout for failure.

Labour increased the national debt due to the failure of the private sector banks, four of which paid their unqualified (in banking) chief executives millions. Who appointed these failures?

He says these people could walk away from Britain. That would be just like the taxes that the privatised businesses used to pay to the tax man that are now sent abroad to avoid paying tax here.

Does Mr Brooks have a figure for the billions of pounds lost in taxation since these companies were sold off?