- https://slendertroll.tumblr.com/post/66114152363 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Town_(Specials_song)
"Naivete can also be detected in my supposition that it would take something as melodramatic as a near-miss nuclear conflict to nudge England toward fascism. Although in fairness to myself and David, there were no better or more accurate predictions of our country’s future available in comic form at that time. The simple fact that much of the historical background of the story proceeds from a predicted Conservative defeat in the 1982 General Election should tell you how reliable we were in our role as Cassandras. It’s 1988 now. Margaret Thatcher is entering her third term of office and talking confidently of an unbroken Conservative leadership well into the next century. My youngest daughter is seven and the tabloid press are circulating the idea of concentration camps for persons with AIDS. The new riot police wear black visors, as do their horses, and their vans have rotating video cameras mounted on top. The government has expressed a desire to eradicate homosexuality, even as an abstract concept, and one can only speculate as to which minority will be the next legislated against. I’m thinking of taking my family and getting out of this country soon, sometime over the next couple of years. It’s cold and it’s mean-spirited and I don’t like it here anymore."
Yet Thatcher is basically remembered as the devil.
I can't fathom the complete cognitive dissonance of people who believe these two things at once.
Reduction of UK public debt by Thatcher (visible in the second half of the eighties):
https://ercouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ercchart171...
Increase of US public debt throughout the eighties by Reagan:
https://zfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/US-National-De...
The 70s were crap because of high inflation and fuel costs. Winter of discontent etc.
The 80s were crap because Thatcher basically dismantled the working class.
Is it dissonance about Germans complaining about interwar issues and complaining about the leader they ended up with?
She is adored in some of London and all the Home Counties where her polices led to increased wealth and life outcomes.
In the rest of the country, she is the person who destroyed communities and the fabric of what it was to be British for many.
This is not cognitive dissonance. It's different experiences by different people.
Given this is a thread about HRH Queen Elizabeth II, it's worth noting that she herself and her family were no real fans of how Thatcher conducted herself in relation to some of her policies that were _actively hostile_ to many working class communities.
When the Royal family quietly whisper that they think someone is a snob, well... that's saying something, eh?
Some people who were working class may have done well, but the working class as it was basically ceased to be.
