Dawlish Discussion

Churchill wrote a superb personal history of the second world war.  I can't compete with that but over the next seven days leading up to her funeral I shall post a view of her history/legacy.  Here's part 1 - the gathering storm.  It's obviously a personal view so please feel free to add comments and balance if that's possible.  If you can do it in verse that would be great!

The Iron Lady

The Gathering Storm

Love her or hate her,
there’s been nobody greater
than Margaret Thatcher,
seventies milk snatcher,
at dividing a nation,
cleaving the rift,
channelling the drift,
creating division
in public opinion.

Milestones to Disaster

Be-skirted, assertive, she flirted
with dispersing our industrial heart
which she crushed with impunity
and shattered communities.
And before we had realised …..
Coal-mining was gone.
Steel-making was gone.
Ship-building was gone.
Disappeared or privatised,
as were our utilities.
Water gone.
Gas gone,
and electricity.
Railways were gone
and council houses too.
North sea oil resources mortgaged to the hilt
as she built her private world
to fit her economic view.
Core assets of our nation
swept away in a tsunami
of privatisation.

Lots of words but I'll tell you this,

You're no poet, historian or economist. 

Any more poems Neil? I do so enjoy reading them.

@HuwMatthews2  Ooops.  LOL! 

Someone once wrote that the pen is mightier than the sword.

As the haiku says ......

"Let truth not wither
in the desert of abuse;
refuge of the blind"

Words.  I hope you enjoy part 3 of the Thatcher legend today.

The Hinge of Fate

The Iron Lady was not for turning.
“Let’s burn coal, let’s forge steel, let’s build ships.”
These weren’t words to cross her lips.
“No, no, no.”
Every vestige of our infrastructure had to go.
And whilst she smashed our industry,
compassion withered in society.
Her “I” became “We”,
a self-assuming royalty.
She bred a culture
of “Me”, “Me”, “Me”
where the loadsamoney vultures
got fat on the scraps
enjoying five courses
and licking the pickings
from the bones
of our country’s resources.

Neil - a thought. Why don't you do an anthology of poems along the lines of the ones above and get them published. Feel sure there would be lots of people in this country who would appreciate the sentiments you express and who knows, it might even climb up the best seller list.    

@Lynne  Thanks for your kind words and for reminding me as well of "Glasnost", a phrase I'd forgotten.  Will use it!

The Twilight War

The lady was not for turning.
Like her or loathe her,
you wonder what drove her.
She was strong,
with conviction,
a predilection
for aggression.
She was learning
what she could do
and she was absolutely sure.
Her confidence was her protection.
So she made war,
because conquering made Britain great
and won her elections.

@HuwMatthews2  Sorry, forgot to ask.  You obviously know about poetry so who's your favourite poet, or maybe favourite work?

@neilh - another word you might think of using is hubris.

Look! You asked for people to "Feel free to add comments and balance...If you can do it in verse that would be great". You can't really feel aggrieved when they do so just because they disagree with what you say!!!!  

@HuwMatthews2  Not aggrieved at all.    Just wondering who your favourite poet is.

The Tide of Victory

So she took on the unions.
Pitch battles were fought
in the streets, at the gates, at the pits.
She taught them a lesson they’d never forget.
She challenged, prevailed and she won.
 

With Reagan, they’d have you believe,
she won the cold war,
the old war of attrition.
Forget about Gorbachev,
Glasnost, Perestroika.
Don’t worry if history was right.
She was our Boudicca
defeating the communist might,
beating the red guard of Russia.
 

And then …..
            the Falklands debacle
which she tackled head-on.
“Up yours Galtieri!”
was the cry of the day
and that was exactly her way.
A task-force was sent.
The maths were done
 and lives were spent.
Hundreds, thousands lives were gone.
But she won
and the Malvinas rocks were ours again.
 

To win at all costs was her way.

yeah we get it neilh, you didn't like her but you like to write poetry, how about something nice on another subject to show us what an all rounder you are at writing

It wouldn't be so bad if neilh was factually correct, but that would be too much to hope for.  And his use of the word Malvinas shows exactly where his sympathies lie.

I didnt bother reading it ..was bound to be an anti poem.

Fast thinking people.. are finding it really difficult to be nice these days.

@DJ yes I do like writing poetry and sorry but there's another two verses to come to complete the history of the Thatcher Years.  Not sure what you mean by nice (everyone has a different view of what that would be) but see below.

@burneside - which bits are factually incorrect?  I use the name Falklands and the name Malvinas, for when the Argentines occupied it, so I don't know how you can deduce anything about my sympathies from that factual statement.  The people I would honour are those who died.  My sympathies lie with those who survived, disabled/ mutilated/ scarred in whatever way and with the families of all who died (both British and Argentine) in this senseless conflict.

@DJ, wondering - Nice?  War is never nice.  James Ashworth was killed recently in Afghanistan and received the VC posthumously.  I would honour his courage.  Is that "nice" or not, I don't know; but I've put up another posting about James Ashworth VC - you decide if that's nice.

@neilh

What do you mean by "hundreds, thousands were gone"?  

@ neith.. Nothing to stop you from putting a poem about anything 'nice' ...how about something positive in your life and why you are happy to wake up in the morning?

@burneside = people died, both British and Argentinian, during the conflict and after the conflict and many were injured, some seriously and some scarred for life.  That's a fact isn't it?  (Note:  I think the official figure of deaths during the conflict is over 900.  In one single attack on the Galahad and Tristram there were also over 150 British troops injured or burned.  And of course there the lives of all the families who were affected as well)

@wondering  You're right.  It's been a long, dark, cold, damp winter.  Depressing isn't it.  I'm hoping the sun will start shining after Wednesday and brighten up our days!  Let's hope Spring at last will have arrived.  Then time for something nice perhaps!   Time for a Gays Creamery ice-cream, the full monty with flake and its overdose of clotted cream  mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!  That would be nice.

mmmmmm now you've got the idea!!... a cream tea please..

I hope someone different DIES then we can talk about something else.

@neilh

So thousands didn't die then?  Your anti-Thatcher poem is factually incorrect.  

During the illegal occupation the islands were still known as the Falklands, they have never been known as the Malvinas in this country, another part of your poem which is incorrect.

@burneside no, thousands didn't die in the conflict itself but thousands of lives were "gone" in one way or another.  Fact.  I don't think I said that we called the islands the Malvinas.  When the Argentine invaded they proclaimed their right over the Malvinas, so the verse represents the balance of claims.  When the Argentinians surrendered we then had recovered the "Malvinas" as the Argentinians knew them back again as the Falklands, as we knew them.  Fact.  Verse is not journalistic prose where everything is spelt out in black and white.

@wondering  Cream tea good too.  More heaps of cholesterol with strawberry jam, preferably on a balmy summer's day with the sound of leather on willow in the background.

Give it a rest will you.  NORTH KOREA WILL NUKE THE LOT OF US SOON.

 See what we have to say then.

will never happen as there will be nothing to gain, we will all be wiped out including them

The Iron lady cast in bronze, like Gormley’s on the beach, her resting place amongst the sand, the tide within her reach. Maggie lived in number ten, a very posh abode, whilst wreaking havoc all around, a very lonely road. The miners lost their dignity, as workers who made steel, the factories closed as yuppies rose, to get a better deal. The Tory clamp embittered us, poor Yozzer Hughes was lost, while Thatcher robbed our fix of milk, our health was put at cost. The ninety six who lost their lives, to win an FA cup, were banished to a sea of lies, a Tory cover up. Arthur Scargill had a go, but Maggie broke his back, Whilst Degsy boy defied her rule, his councillors got the sack. Kinnock offered nothing more, he tried to bust a gut, when all else failed he walked the plank, to give us Michael Foot. The police were like Militia men, their truncheons their best friend, ruling with an iron rod, when would this anger end? With riots all across the lan...d, in Toxteth Liverpool, the people fought to end her reign, of shutting down my school. In amongst the shattered dreams, the broken glass and bricks, were people’s lives that mattered not, to these old Tory pricks. Heseltine the only one, to offer us some pride, the Albert Dock the centre piece, for us on Merseyside. But bob-a-jobs were all we had, my Kickers were on tick, my shirts I bought from C&A, my Farah pants were sick. The streets were strewn with heroin, the youth they would escape, to have a toot or just inject, they crushed us like a grape. The 14 bus would be awash, with users burning foil, their lonely lives a puff of smoke, as we would all recoil. In horror that society, had turned to deadly drugs, while yuppies sipped the pink Champagne, the rest of us were mugs. She fought a war on foreign soil, to guarantee a win, a master stroke to fool the land, delighting in her sin. This is Maggie’s legacy, the truth is in this poem, but Tony Blair was just as bad, for taking Labour home. Not to basics but to rule, against the party’s will, he turned the reds into the blues, and gave us overkill. The Iron Lady cast in stone, her ashes blow away, the cobwebs of a legacy, now I have had my say!

Not mine copied and pasted from another page

THATS ALL YOU DO IS COPY STUFF. +It will happen & will ALL BE IN THE SHIT.

@Brazilnut  where did that come from?!

@neilh

I seem to remember that during the conflict the only people in this country who referred to the Falklands as Malvinas were left wingers, who sided with Argentina.

In a predictably insane but still unsettling development, North Korea has declared its interest in showering the US mainland with missiles. The bluster comes on the heels of an American stealth bomber show of force, and is largely just posturing.

But if it came down to it, could they follow through? Could a North Korean nuke hit the United States?

It's Got the Range...

You probably already know that North Korea has a long history of firing long-range missiles into the air, with mixed success. The country first showed off its aeronautical prowess—as much as a secretive authoritarian regime can—in 1998 with a Taepodong-1 rocket. Neither the rocket nor its satellite payload reached orbit. The country's second attempt in 2006 ended 40 seconds after liftoff when the Taepodong-2 rocket exploded. For its third attempt in 2009, North Korean engineers created a more advanced version of the Taepodong-2, known as the Unha-2 ("Galaxie-2"), but its third-stage engine failed to ignite and the entire assembly crashed into the Pacific Ocean. And in April of last year, North Korea's latest rocket iteration, the Unha-3, also "failed to reach orbit".

In early December, though, North Korea's Unha-3 launch found moderate success. Which is a little terrifying, given its presumed specs and capabilities. While they can't be independently verified, we do know that it too is a three-stage rocket, based on the Unha-2 design, measuring about 105 feet tall and eight feet in diameter. Its primary stage engine carries 80,000 kg of fuel, its second stage carries an additional 7,000 kg, and its final stage shot a 220-pound weather satellite, the Kwangmyongsong-3, into polar orbit. A satellite which quickly, hilariously, and dangerously spun out of control.

The penultimate verse!

Triumph and Tragedy

Heady with the bloody scent of victory,
blinded by its vanity,
unmindful of humanity,
she opened up her Eastern front,
confronting now the people,
the target of her next attack.
Her poll-tax exocet was launched,
warhead fully armed.
The people blanched,
rebelled, fought back.
She had the country up in arms.
The rioting could not be staunched.
She’d taken that one step too far.
The knives were out,
the glint of foreign steel behind her back,
the long knives of a cabinet attack,
an internecine rout.

Final verse .....

Alone

The rot had set.
Her sun had set.
And she now met her own demise.
The lady hadn’t turned,
she’d burned and fizzled out.
Like her or loathe her,
you wonder what drove her.
Love her or hate her,
there’s been nobody greater
than Margaret Thatcher,
well-practised milk-snatcher,
at dividing the nation.

OIP

Here's the updated version of "The Hinge of Fate", incorporating more about the Thatcher monetarist policy:

The Hinge of Fate

The Iron Lady was not for turning.
“Let’s burn coal, let’s forge steel,let’s build ships.”
These weren’t words to cross her lips.
“No, no, no.”
Every vestige of our infrastructure had to go.
And whilst she smashed our industry,
compassion withered in society.
Her “I” became “We”,
a self-assuming royalty.
She bred a culture
of “Me”, “Me”, “Me”
where the loadsamoney vultures
got fat on the scraps, enjoying five courses
and licking the pickings
from the bones of our country’s resources.
Remember the fat cats who thrived in the city,
raking it in whilst negative equity
brought desolation.
Galloping inflation hammered the nation.
Interest rates of eighteen percent
nonsensically sent our mortgages flying.
People were trying to cope with the debt
but the banking gnomes had no regrets
and people lost their homes.
 

Have to give you credit for the effort that has gone into your vent.

Well done - In the true style of McGonagall.

Ah, McGonagall, an unsurpassed poet of his time!  Is he your favourite?