Maggie

If you want to get a good left Vs right debate going all you have to do is invoke Maggie and you're off and running.

Neil Harding has ascribed all our current ills to her in this post and has started off a bit of a ding dong in the comments section. It appears that the only thing he hasn't put down to Maggie are the bubonic plague and fire of London. No doubt he'll get round to fixing that soon.

Meanwhile Prodicus has a post here on why the left hate her: its because of her popularity.

It is true that the left hate her but I don't think its just because of popularity (mind you Blair was popular and they hated him as well). The root cause of that popularity was because she gave people what they wanted. Now to the left this is the worst crime any politician can commit because, as we all know, the people can't be trusted to know what is good for them; the only people who know what is good for the people is the left.

What made Maggie's crime even worse is that she was, by and large, right. Her restructuring has been left a lone and led, directly to the one of the longest periods of growth for some time. Yes I know it was painful for some and whilst that is to be regretted it be set beside the fact they we would have all been been a dammed sight worse if she hadn't set about the changes.

Of course the left dress it all up as helping the poor, sick and dispossessed, which are worthy causes, but what they really want is to control every aspect of our lives. They can't bear the thought that people can be successful without the state's help so they tax us in to submission and supplication. Meanwhile those taxes are squandered and instead of helping those they claim to be helping go to fund a bureaucratic and controlling state machine. And their response when it fails, as it inevitable does - its all Maggie's fault and we need to raise taxes even higher and implement even more controls on people.