Thatcher’s legacy of 
class division

MALCOLM Nicholson may speak highly of Margaret Thatcher and Iain Duncan Smith (Yorkshire Post, April 8) but they were both sacked as leaders of the Conservative Party.

This two nation Government is mounting a class war which it hopes to win with divide and rule policies. This Government doesn’t just believe that those claiming benefits are idle, it also believes that those in work are idle.

Millions of people in this country are worried sick about loss of earnings, affording food and paying heating bills. Many small businesses are struggling. The Government is looking at freezing or cutting the national minimum wage.

While they seek to encourage cheap labour and heap misery on millions of people, Champagne corks are popping for the 13,000 millionaires who have been handed a £100,000 tax cut by this class-biased Government.

From: Nigel Boddy, Fife Road, Darlington.

MARGARET Thatcher, it has been suggested by David Cameron, should have a statue on the spare plinth at Trafalgar Square.

There is already one of her indoors at Westminster. We don’t need another. If a statue of Thatcher is placed in Trafalgar Square, it would frequently be vandalised.

I think an attractive statue to Diana, Princess of Wales would be much better and is long overdue.

I am no fan of Margaret Thatcher and I think she shut large parts of British manufacturing in state ownership. We pay now for those mistakes. Mistakes Margaret Thatcher made were just trends following on from other Prime Ministers. Jim Callaghan couldn’t run those nationalised industries at a profit. He wanted to cancel the navy ship which supported the Falklands.

When the Thatcher Tory government carried out Mr Callaghan’s proposal, the Falklands were invaded by Argentina. Selling council houses was an idea from the earlier Heath government. Heath sold off Cross Channel Ferries and British Rail Hotels, acts which were the beginning of privatisation. Jim Callaghan shut plenty of coal mines too.

My own view is Thatcher would be best remembered by an offer of a peerage for her daughter Carol. Mr Cameron should leave it to Carol Thatcher to decide if she even wants a life peerage or to be made a Countess.

From: Malcolm Naylor, Otley.

THE Yorkshire Post’s Editorial comment on the death of Margaret Thatcher abandons 
any attempt to conceal its political bias.

It declared “Thatcher made Britain Great Again”. This travesty of the truth exposes where this paper’s loyalties lie and nudges readers in that direction.

An alternative and more truthful headline for its Editorial comment would be “Thatcher brought this country to its knees”.

Thatcher, the Queen of capitalism, is the architect of all the financial and social troubles this country now suffers.

Now we have the insult of having to foot a bill of £10m for her funeral to celebrate this destruction of social cohesion and democracy. In this the Establishment may have overstepped the mark and civil disobedience may result.

New generations who did not live through the Thatcher era are being misled.

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield

LET me make it clear that no-one has more sympathy with the miners and their families who suffered so much through the miners’ strike in ‘84, but to blame it totally on Margaret Thatcher is not totally fair either.

There were many many miners who wanted to go to work, as there were many that did so.

The NUM president Arthur Scargill should also shoulder a portion of the blame. I met miners during that dreadful time and could not help but admire them.

The close cohorts of Arthur Scargill, according to some striking miners, made threats to anyone not fully in agreement with the strike.

Whatever anyone says, that cannot be democratic as was claimed.

From: Lester May, Reachview Close, Camden London.

THE Iron Lady thought a fly-past at her funeral a waste of money. Yet, despite the Chancellor’s seeking further cuts in Whitehall spending, four RAF Typhoon aircraft, and supporting 
tankers, have flown 7,000 miles 
to Malaysia and given an air display.

This might make sense were the RAF trying to sell some of its fleet of one hundred £126m Typhoon jets, or some of the sixty yet to be delivered.

Air marshals should listen to Lady T’s message and cancel RAF air displays.

Disbanding the Red Arrows, now training in Cyprus, and the other five RAF display teams, would save over £10m a year.

From: George Appleby, Leighton Croft, Clifton, York.

POLITICS hasn’t changed 
since Margaret Thatcher’s day – two parties representing tiny groups of people at the top and bottom of life in Britain, as it 
was then.

We desperately need a proper centre ground party which people can really feel they belong to.

From: Paul Morley, Ribblesdale Estate, Long Preston, Skipton.

WHEN the next elderly Labour grandee dies, will there be celebration parties, demonstrations, denunciations and assaults on the police as exhibited by the Leftist hordes of this country on the death of Margaret Thatcher? I think not, but then again that’s the difference between decent hardworking people and hateful scum.

From: G Ellison, Hawthorn Avenue, Dronfield, Derbyshire.

THERE is no sympathy for the demise of Margaret Thatcher from me and from normal thinking people in this country. She wrecked this country from top to bottom.