Talk:Margaret Thatcher/Archive 3

message: Having just read this article I can see why people are editing what has been previously written, this can only be described as a view of the Thatcher government through "rose tinted spectacles". Having lived through her years of power, from the age of 12 to 23, I can understand the anger of other people, who you are claiming have been "vandalising the text". 
I think you need to revise the text to show a more balanced point of view on this political figure, or continue to suffer constant attacks from those with left wing views, regardless to how deluded the pro-Thatcher lobby think they are. To continue to revert and protect the current text, will only provoke further attacks from the trolls.
:: So we should include the deluded views of the marxist vermin and trade unionists who believed that the country was doing just fine with a 3-day work week and collapsing economy prior to Thatcher rescuing the nation?
:::So we should try to maintain the Wikipedia standards and promote a fair and balanced article regardless of political stance or general bitterness or trolls. 
:::(Now referring to the first writer): It is hard to really change an article when one tries to use facts. I actually think the article strives to be fair and properly referenced (and I'm about as left-wing as it gets without becoming indoctrinated). I have contributed to the article because there was an opportunity to improve the article. That's what it is all about. This is a biography of a person which is supposed to be as NPoV as we can get. You can change this article if you can  add or change it appropriately with clear referencing when necessary.
:::The introduction says, "Undoubtedly one of the most significant British politicians in recent political history, she has tended to attract both strong support and strong opposition." I don't think you can argue with that. She has been significant from both respects.
:::Early life and education - seems just factual
:::1950 - 1970 Politcial career - again straight forward facts. She comes over very positively as well to my point of view.
:::Heath's Govt - some unflattering comments about her. 
:::Leader of the Opposition looks fairly factual.
:::79-83 as PM - still see only general facts. 
:::I could continue but it will be the same again. Nothing says that Maggie is wonderful nor that she is despicable. Regardless of your PoV I think that if you want facts this is a pretty good article. I do believe that there are things missing from the article which may be included in future or that I would like to see included particularly on the miner's strike and armaments but they could only be added when strong (essentially irrefutable) evidence is refernced. However, someone who knew little about Thatcher would get a hint of both sides of her lovers and detractoes and could start to form their own opinions based on this. 
:::The article defacers tend to either 1) Not understand the purpose of an encyclopedia or 2) Like to produce some witty vandalism (and some of it has been wonderfully tongue in cheek and well done)! (Not that i want to encourage them at all.)
:::Candy 22:49, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  An observation on your article on Margaret Thatcher 

message: user:195.92.198.72 who also appears to be user:195.92.198.74 and user:195.92.198.75 (and  they might like to get themselves a login, and sign their comments with 4 tildes, thus: ~~~~) has reverted this page 5 times in the past 24 hours...
If they have substantive information to add to the article, perhaps they might discuss it here first, rather than just reverting to an extreamly POV version? Iainscott 17:34, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  re: anon 

message: The article currently contradicts itself. Way back in 2002 I added the bit about her being dubbed the Iron Lady by the Russians. Someone has expanded that slightly and stated that the appellation originated with the Soviet Defence Ministry newspaper Red Star, but someone else had put in the first paragraph that it originated with Radio Moscow. Clearly this inconsistency within the article needs to be resolved. Mintguy (T) 17:56, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I added the reference to 'Red Star' after getting the information from newspapers at the time of Thatcher's original "guns before butter" speech. However it's not a full contradiction as it was 'Red Star' which coined the phrase, and Radio Moscow which publicised it. Dbiv 12:31, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Contradiction

message: (William M. Connolley 08:34, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apologies for Topological_Geometrodynamics 

message: What's all this about "terms"? British PMs don't have them and never have. Proteus (Talk) 16:31, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe its just me, but I find that the only two occurrences of the word term in this article are not in reference to the official term of office.  Maybe this has been corrected since you made the post.  →Iñgōlemo←(talk) 05:59, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Terms

message: In the 'Third Term' section the article states:
"Introducing the charge one year early led to accusations that Scotland was a 'testing ground' for the tax. Although untrue (Thatcher believed the policy would be popular and the Scots would benefit from it a year earlier) this led to a sharp decline in the popularity of the Conservative party in Scotland."
This is conjecture at best. There were accusations at the time that implementing the policy in Scotland was testing the water, however this is isn't necessarily untrue. The article should stick to the facts and not speculate on Thatchers intentions.
:One thing is without doubt: Thatcher thought Poll Tax was a good thing that would be much more popular than the existing rates. Nor is the statement speculation - she discusses the Poll Tax and the intentions behind it in some detail in her autobiography, so stating her intentions is not speculation. She gives a number of reasons why Scotland went first. In particular she noted that Scotland was well overdue a rates review (which would have been unpopular too). Unfortunately my copy is at my parents' house, but I think from memory that she is explicit in stating that Scotland wasn't seen as a testing ground (though almost every Scot thought otherwise!). Perhaps someone with a copy more to hand could check the point. jguk 19:02, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Phrase it 'In her autobiography, Thatcher says her intentions were....' Then the reader is put on notice. jguk 07:12, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poll Tax 

message: This article seems too positive to me making her out to have been a good leader where she was quite the opposite. I'm not saying it should be against her but it should be more neutral and not so in her favour. Josquius
:I claim responsibility for writing most of it, and I'll be in serious trouble if anyone finds out I've written a positive article about Maggie! Perhaps you could identify examples? Dbiv 03:19, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I can say that I found the article to be pretty darn well balanced.  I didn't see any editorialising, or subjective adjectives when none should be included.  I can imagine that some of the economic difficulties under her Prime Ministership aren't very well covered, but I don't think that that's a major problem.  Overall, this is a good article.  (And I am very much an anti-capitalist anti-authoritarian sort of chap myself, so you can't accuse me of pro-Thatcher bias!)  Iñgōlemo(talk) 07:17, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to even it out a bit lets add the word bitch a few times. 24.80.61.180 08:59, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

text: The impression that Baroness Thatcher is (or was) held in general low regard throughout the UK is a misleading one; she won three General Elections in a row, after all - so while she never had a majority of the popular vote, she was certainly the most popular political leader of her time. She is certainly held in high esteem, reverence even, in some quarters. Even left-wing political commentators (not all of them by any means, but some) acknowledge that she was a great leader, even if they fail to understand that her policies were necessary and successful. Jamesgibbon 23:34, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Positive 

message: Seems to me that the first paragraph under Post-political career needs a tweak.  It implies that Denis Thatcher received his baronetcy after Maggie was created Baroness Thatcher.  Should be made clear that it was the other way round (I think) that Maggie was then Lady Thatcher, and is Baroness Thatcher because she now has that title in her own right. (Yes, I know she can also be referred to as 'The Lady Thatcher', but a Baronet's wife would not be correctly referred to as 'Baroness'.)  Quill 23:33, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed to be in accodance with the Denis Thatcher article. Ddye 02:59, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Baroness 

message: This article at 33KB is overweight and needs to be split in 2. Please put your proposals for how to do so here. Hopefully there will be a consensus by Sunday, so that I can then split the article. I am putting a note to this affect at the top of the articcle so readers can participate in the debate. Squiquifox 21:50, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is not overweight and does not need splitting. Enforcing a split would disrupt a good article. Dbiv 22:06, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Half of the last four featured articles were longer than 32 KB (Economy of the Republic of Ireland 36 KB, Albert Einstein 44 KB). Nobody split them. Curious, huh? Those who must use a deficient Web browser (it's not like there aren't better alternatives for the Mac) and have not figured out how to edit one section of an article at a time may want to focus on the many articles that are smaller than 32 KB. The requirement for a split of a 33 KB article is simply not there, and I tend to agree with Dbiv that it would disrupt the article. Rl 21:34, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed article split

message: While I'm not familiar enough with British traditions to change Dbiv's edit, Forms of adress in the United Kingdom is one among several other pages that says that 'The Rt. Hon.' is proper for Baroness, and that the PC post-nominal is used by peers precisely because they are already entitled to 'The Rt. Hon.' due to their peerage rank. Ddye 04:02, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Although I'm sure there are individual peers who break convention, PC is generally only used when The Rt. Hon. is difficult to use before the name. Only one should be used. Timrollpickering 10:24, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Right Honorable

message: I've tried to rectify a couple of aspects of the intro that seemed to lack accurate statement of the issue or to clarify the nature and scale of her impact.  I haven't done much but I think it did need a few changes, could someone take a look and check it out?  Thanks FT2 09:10, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
: Looks good to me, though I've made a (very minor) change to your changes. Good work.
: James F. (talk) 13:32, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Intro

message: I once heard Thatcher was very friendly with Pinochet, the right-wing, brutal dictator of Chile, and that she tried to protect him from going on trial. If this really is true, then I believe it should be mentioned somewhere.
:See under the section Post political career. Iain 09:39, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Friendship with Pinochet 

message: What on earth are sentences like "again, draw your own conclusions...was she talking to Nancy at old Ron's funeral? I think not!", "Evil witch" or "and f***** everyone in the ass" doing in a supposedly neutral article?  Especially if the talk page marks it as "one of the best articles that the Wikipedia community has produced"...
:'s called vandalism - being an encyclopedia that any one can edit, such things happen, but are generally dealt with rapidly. See the edit history  for the extent of it. :) --zippedmartin 06:45, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Excessive profanities? 

message: I just wanted to say this article is excellent. Kudos to the editors!--JiFish 21:35, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wow 

message: I recently added a list of full titles to the Early Life section, and it was deleted with a comment of "yuck." To avoid that happening again, would anyone mind if I put a full list of titles in the "Titles and honours" section? I'm going to put it in there, and if anyone wants, they can delete it and give me a comment in here. Matjlav 18:48, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: For a start, it's not her legal name ("Her Ladyship" certainly isn't part of her legal name, and the territorial designation isn't either]]. Also, apart from the peerage format, it's just the full version of all the post-nominals already listed at the beginning of the article. If people want to know how peers' names are given in legal documents, they can read the Peerage series. Listing the full titles in every article on a peer is just silly, and a complete waste of space. Proteus (Talk) 22:01, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Listing of full titles 

message: Lady Thatcher is currently called "Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher." The listing of her surname, and being called Baroness Thatcher at the same time, seems a little bit redundant to me. I looked it up, and the London Gazette refers to her as "Margaret Hilda, Baroness THATCHER".  It's my understanding that if a life peer's surname is the same as the name of the barony, then "<givenname(s)>, Baron/ess <barony/surname>" is all that's necessary. Does anyone think otherwise?
*Oops, forgot to sign. Matjlav 19:51, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's her legal name, certainly, but then the legal name of all peers is "<Honorific> <First Names>, <Rank> (of) <Title>)". It is, however, encyclopaedic practice to include the surname, otherwise we'd have to start the article on Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk "Edward William, Duke of Norfolk", which is hardly helpful. Proteus (Talk) 21:52, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title in the beginning of the article 

message: I reverted and added a temporary vandalism protection to the page until administrators can decide what to do.
This vandal was using three different IP addresses and vandalized the page 10 times.
User:Ted-m
:Ten times isn't that much, and each vandalism attempt was reverted within three minutes each time.  I don't think page protection is warranted in this case.  JYolkowski // talk 01:14, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Massive Vandalism