Margaret Thatcher enters 10 Downing Street

The Iron Lady entered there - and changed everything! Go mags!! :D

Dragonlee, I didn't list Denmark on that list, it has no relevance. Fact is just about every nation on the earth has a free market economy, or close to it. What I am saying is, you can have a free market economy and still be socialist as I have proven. Also another issue I saw in your argument is "African nations get billions in aid from rich capitalist countries" Much of the aid is used to buy contracts to resources and trade. Example is the Australian Wheat Board, who gave kickbacks to Iraq.

Democratic Socialist nations are generally the ones who have the highest GDP per capita. Sweden, Norway, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United Kingdom and Iceland to name a few. With that, they also have the highest living and development standards. So before you rant about free market economies, consider many of them are socialist economies composing of a welfare state.

They have free market economies. They follow capitalism. 70% of Denmkark;s economy is privately owned.

The government is not responsible for people getting rich. It is the individual's choices that make them rich. By the same logic, the government is not responsible for people becoming poor. It is the individual's choices that make them poor. My dad's best friend is very ill, and he cannot work in a conventional job. He has never claimed any benefits in his life. He set up a business to support himself. If people like him can support themselves, fit and able bodied people have no excuse.

Unemployment reached near 4 million under thatcher, and was 700,000 before. On the one hand, inflation was reduced, but arguably it could have been done with much less pain. In seeking to meet spurious money supply targets they caused an unprecedented level of unemployment. This unemployment caused not only personal loss but widespread social problems. The mass unemployment, associated with inner cities, was very closely responsible for the riots which sparked across Britain in 1981.

Inflation is always painful to reduce. Inflation was rocketing because of Arthur Scargill and the miners going on strike every few months for pay rises. They received a rise, then went on strike again. If Britain had not flirted with socialism in the 70's, Lady Thatcher's job would have been much easier. Her legacy is secure. In 1979, Britain was deemed the ''Sick Man of Europe.'' When she left, Britain had the 4th strongest economy in the world.

To make my last point... Kenneth Clarke and John Major left Gordon Brown a very strong economy with the largest budget surplus in the West, inflation at 1.6%, interest rates at 6.5%. Gordon Brown has ruined all of that. The present economic problems in Britain are partially a result of artificially low interest rates, creating a wave of cheap credit. Gordon Brown let the economy grow on a tidal wave of bad debt linked to a mortgage. He is the worst Chancellor of modern times.

Yeah, brown is a prick who has betrayed the ideals of labour.

He folowed the principes of Labour, hence the destruction caused.