Talk:Margaret Thatcher/Archive 1

message: " Later, as Minister of Education and Science under Edward Heath, she was forced to administer a cut in the Education budget. She decided that abolishing free milk in schools would be less harmful than other measures. "
That isn't NPOV either.  Suggest...
"Later, as Minister of Education and Science under Edward Heath, she implemented cuts in the Education budget. Thatcher decided to abolish free milk in schools reversing a previous public health measure."
Muppet 13:39, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improvement 

message: I am certain that this well known remark was not made to President Bush, senior. It happened in the build up to the Falklands War, not the Gulf War. The circumstances were that the US Secretary of State - Al Haig and his entourage were in 10 Downing Street discussing the pros and cons with Mrs. Thatcher. What I believe she actually said was - " This is no time to get wobbly, Al." And when returning by car to the US Embassy in London, one of his group remarked to Haig. "Do you realise that Mrs. Thatcher has given you a new name?" Asked to explain, he was told that he was now 'Wobbly Al'.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scottishbrian (talk • contribs) 08:17, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mrs Thatcher - "This is no time to get wobbly" 

message: The following line should be deleted or edited;
' Several of them had however rendered themselves politically vulnerable by committing public funds to causes seen as extreme.'
Criticism of criticism results in flip-flop tit-for-tat edits by those with opposing viewpoints. This information should be included in the first sentence regarding the councils, not as a response to the alternative viewpoint. A key giveaway is the double-use of 'however' in the same paragraph.
Also, its a partisan line - obviously the councils didn't see themselves as 'extreme,' or their policies as 'politically vulnerable' - only those opposing the council's policies hold this view. Given this section is all about describing a political confrontation and a potential partisan abuse of power, the tone needs to be much less one-eyed itself.
 Mdw0 (talk) 06:15, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abolition of councils 

message: In the songs section I reckon this is missing : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Maggie
I remember it being banned in the UK when it came out, but I can't find any evidence of this at the moment...
Anyway, that should defo make it there—Preceding unsigned comment added by Vbm11 (talk • contribs) 10:25, 8 October 2008
:That song's article has just been deleted for copyright infringement. Also, I'm not sure what exactly about the song you wanted to be put into the section.  If you would kindly write exactly what you would like inserted, then I can copy and paste it into the article if it's warranted.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 05:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  text {{tl|editsemiprotected}} Songs Section 

message: I moved the passage regarding Mrs. Thatcher's various honours from the Falkland Islanders (Margaret Thatcher Day, etc) out of foreign honours, and with the section on her British hoinours. Clearly honours for Mrs. Thatcher from the Falkland Islanders are not foreign, they are British. CMarshall (talk) 21:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legacy section 

message: Great work so far, but I see a few things missing.
*No mention of her relationship with the Queen. Sure She's only a limited monarch, and there's been much gossip on the subject, but they did have weekly meetings and it's a fairly important (though not essential) detail. See ,,,,.
*No mention of her initial opposition to German reunification - pretty important. See .
*No mention of Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock. Of course this is about Thatcher and not them, and about her life as a whole and not the '83 & '87 campaigns, but we should lay some slight emphasis on the dynamics between her and her chief political adversaries during that period. She was of course a great politician, but also fortunate that Labour was unelectable for much of that decade. For some flavour see ,,,,,. -- Biruitorul Talk 06:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I'll give them a try and see what you think. Thanks for the compliments and the suggestions! Best, Happyme22 (talk) 23:55, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've inserted something on each of your above points. --Happyme22 (talk) 00:38, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

text: Excellent - looks great! I'll let you know if I think up anything else, but I trust this can regain FA status in fairly short order. Biruitorul Talk 06:07, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That is the ultimate goal, and it will be much better than before! Best, Happyme22 (talk) 06:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

text: I agree with that removal. I am also reverting many other changes recently made to the page on the account of WP:RS and WP:NPOV. Happyme22 (talk) 07:00, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestions 

message: The article currently says "the proportion of shares held by individuals rather than institutions did not increase. By the mid 1980s, the number of individual stockholders had tripled". Either one of these statements is untrue, or they are true at different dates. It does need clarification. djnjwd (talk) 18:39, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know whether either statement is true, but they aren't contradictory.  For example, it could be that in 1980, 20% of British shares were owned by 1000 individuals, owning an average of 0.02% of the shares each, but by 1985, 20% of shares were owned by 3000 individuals, an average of 0.007% each.  That would be consistent with what the article claims about fast turnover of holdings. Clarification would help, if anyone knows the actual figures. TheAstonishingBadger (talk) 22:12, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shareholding 

message: she invented raspberry ripple icecream. she was pround of her chemistry, and felt it was an important part of her life leading to her political life.  this fact should be included. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 20:50, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the information. Do you have a citation to back it up? Happyme22 (talk) 22:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  raspberry ripple 

message: Just want to say i think you do good work here - I hate people like Tirailleur - that's the danger of Wikipedia - you have right-wingers like him trying to protect and whitewash the Thatcher and Reagan articles while left-wingers try to whitewash and protect the Lenin and Castro articles. Paul Austin (talk) 20:20, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you very much! Thatcher is such an interesting figure and I wanted to get to know more about her by undertaking the task of expanding and fixing up this article. I think it has gone quite well! Thanks for the compliment, Happyme22 (talk) 05:47, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:Happyme22|Happyme22]] 

message: "she delivered her speech as planned in defiance of the bombers, a gesture which won widespread approval across the political spectrum" is apparently sourced by "The Downing Street Years" pages 379 to 383. While these pages do deal with the bombing and Thatcher's activities after it, I can find no reference to "widespread approval across the political spectrum". The nearest it gets to any reaction to Thatcher's presence at the conference is a colossal ovation when Thatcher (and others) walked on to the platform the conference at 9:30am, and this was quite some time before her speech was delivered. I have amended the sentence, changing the "as planned" to avoid any possible misleading meanings as her speech was actually changed as a result of the bombing. O Fenian (talk) 18:17, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: What does this source say then, since the last one was totally bogus? O Fenian (talk) 02:49, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brighton bombing 

message: Personally, I would have said that she was re-elected, but maybe that's just me and all the other articles containing the word...or perhaps I am missing a point of policy on hyphen usage here? Eitherway, the article is protected so, um, if there is meant to be a hyphen there then someone with the appropriate user permissions may wish to add it (ctrl+F might help). Conjugate the verb to reelect --Tangent747 14:19, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reelected? 

message: There's nothing in the article on this but perhaps there should be. I think that the official line is that she was raised Methodist but became Anglican. Certainly she was married in a Methodist church, but since Denis had been divorced, it would have been difficult then for her to marry in the Church of England. However, although she latterly considered herself Anglican, according to Hugo Young in "One of Us", she was never comfirmed into the Church of England, and indeed despised the Anglican establishment for what she considered its "wet" views. Millbanks (talk) 19:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion 

message: Should read - 1915
:In the infobox, we put the date of marriage, not the date of birth. But thanks for your interest! --Happyme22 (talk) 01:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Denis Date of Birth Typo 

message: :Placing this here from User talk:Darvit Chandhurai#Margaret Thatcher photo
Image:Margaret Thatcher.png
Image:Margaret Thatcher Reagan funeral.jpg
Hi there, regarding a few recent edits you made to the Margaret Thatcher article over the main photo: You say that articles should show a recent photo of the subject as the main photo; may I ask you, then, why Nancy Reagan's photo is from 1981, Betty Ford's photo is from 1976, and Bill Clinton's photo is from 1993? They are all still living and more recent photos are available, but those are the official portraits of the subjects and therefore the best looking and most presentable. It does not necessarily matter about the age of the photograph (another example: Billy Graham).
The goal of main images is to introduce the subject of the article in a neat, professional way. The photo of Thatcher at Reagan's funeral in 2004 is an extremely cropped version of a high res pic; it shows her scowling and is not very professional. That said, it is not a bad photo and definitely belongs in the later life section, but it does not belong as the main pic.
I tried using that photo already a few months back, and, comparing it with photos of other prime ministers, I grew restless as there was not a good looking, professional, portrait-like image of Margaret Thatcher. I put in a request at the Graphics Lab (here) just to see what could be done with the best (and really only) available photos. That really didn't help much, so I contacted the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, and they provided me with a professional looking, upright image.
So that is the story. As was implied, I do not favor the change that you made. Based on the evidence above, it is incorrect to say that the most recent images of the subjects should be used. Please respond if you wish. My best, Happyme22 (talk) 17:48, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The photographs of Nancy Reagan, Betty Ford, and Bill Clinton should be updated as well. Photographs should show what people look like - not some artifical set up portrait that only ever looked like them once in a photographic studio. It should be reality - not obvious propaganda from the Margaret Thatcher Foundation. Scowling is what Thatcher usually did. She rarely smiled unless some photographer told her to. An even more recent and accurate photograph would be even better. --Darvit Chandhurai (talk) 18:04, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Artificial portrait? Propaganda? It sounds as if you don't know what you are talking about, my friend. The portrait is not fake, made up or anything like that. It is a good looking photograph of Margaret Thatcher, and here at this encyclopedia we are supposed to have good looking photographs of people. If doesn't matter where the photo comes from, who provided it or whatnot, as long as it is a free use photograph that it looks professional. "Scowling is what Thatcher usually did" -- I've assumed good faith earlier and my good faith in your actions is starting to quickly dwindle as it seems you have an alterior motive for advocating this photo over this one. The first one does not look professional, the second one does. I'm starting to feel that your personal beliefs regarding Thatcher are infringing on our ability to choose which photo to use. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you are incorrect, my friend, in saying that we should use the most up-to-date photos for everyone on Wikipedia. The reason why the pictures of Mrs. Reagan, Mrs. Ford, and Mr. Clinton have not changed is simply because those are the best looking, high resolution, well formatted photographs. And Please stop reverting me on the page. The burden is on the editor who replaces or changes material to show how it is pertinent you don't have a consensus to replace the image. Thanks. Happyme22 (talk) 19:46, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

text: I know perfectly well how Wikipedia works; I am an administrator. And I'm telling you that you need to establish a consensus to change the image. You have now been reverted twice by me and once by User:Galloglass -- that should tell you that there are objections to your edits. I don't care whether you have lived in Britain or not because that is irrelevant. Where the picture came from is irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant to this discussion is whether or not to use a well formatted, well presented, upright, high resolution, professionally done photograph or whether to use one cropped from a picture of Ronald Reagan's funeral. I have seen recent pictures of Thatcher... so what? She is still the same woman and deserves to be well represented on one of the most frequently visted sites on the Internet. As I have attempted to explain to you, the age of the image is irrelevant; the presentation is what we are looking for. Happyme22 (talk) 00:06, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

text: My friend, I recommend you read WP:CONSENSUS. While it is true that on Wikipedia, users are able to edit whatever they please, if one of those edits altered something on a page and is contested by another editor, the editor who made the change should, out of courtesy, take it to the talk page and explain why he/she believes their edit was beneficial. Then a consensus must be reached to make the change; if a concensus is not reached, the change should not be implemented. Consensus building is one of the core elements of editing Wikipedia. --Happyme22 (talk) 01:17, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

text: Let me update: Another editor has reverted you. So that's two by me, one by Galloglass, and one by User:O Fenian. And this is somewhat beside the point on the image, but why did you revert me here? That edit was completely in line with Template:Infobox_Person#Parameters, section on spouse. Care to explain yourself? --Happyme22 (talk) 00:12, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Main photo 

message: Substituted at 21:22, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment