Margaret Thatcher was the greatest British PM ever.

[Blind Guardian the 2nd]

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May I remind you that you called him the enemy of human progress, which seems unfair to a guy who spoke out against the death penalty as well as someone who voted to decriminalise homosexuality. He was actually quite liberal in some respects compared to many of his Conservative colleagues of the day.

The main gripe I assume is about that speech, which if you actually ever read it, the most offensive lines are him quoting his worried constituents and arguing that as their representative he could not simply ignore what they were telling him.

Do you know the saying "two wrongs don't make a right"? The truth that he wasn't a queer-basher or death-fancier doesn't mean he wasn't someone willing to manipulate ethnic tensions for his own benefit. That makes him an enemy of human progress.

Oh yes, that poor woman who didn't have enough white people around her for her to feel comfortable anymore so she wrote to her MP. She was so blighted.

I'll respond to your other racist post later. Because generally the only people I find saying ethnic mingling causes social malaise are people who think brown people are smelly.

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Blind Guardian the 2nd

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May I remind you that you called him the enemy of human progress, which seems unfair to a guy who spoke out against the death penalty as well as someone who voted to decriminalise homosexuality. He was actually quite liberal in some respects compared to many of his Conservative colleagues of the day.

The main gripe I assume is about that speech, which if you actually ever read it, the most offensive lines are him quoting his worried constituents and arguing that as their representative he could not simply ignore what they were telling him.

Do you know the saying "two wrongs don't make a right"? The truth that he wasn't a queer-basher or death-fancier doesn't mean he wasn't someone willing to manipulate ethnic tensions for his own benefit. That makes him an enemy of human progress.

Oh yes, that poor woman who didn't have enough white people around her for her to feel comfortable anymore so she wrote to her MP. She was so blighted.

I'll respond to your other racist post later. Because generally the only people I find saying ethnic mingling causes social malaise are people who think brown people are smelly.

You misunderstand. There is no wrong to be righted, I wasnt trying to mitigate or excuse what he said (indeed I approve of it) , I was just pointing out the folly of critiscising the man based on one speech.

This is about England being changed in a way that people were not asked about and did not want. Except for you and yours I suppose. This is about two different visions of England and your willingness to ignore and repress others to establish yours. Or just accuse your opponents of racism and move on.

[Camera Stellata]

Horace Burtons Ghost

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Blind Guardian the 2nd

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iSyte

This offers no discussion, but for what it's worth I'll think that you'll find that Thatcher is one of the most hated Prime Ministers this country has ever seen.

More accuarately she was polarising and divisive. She stood for three general elections in a row and won all of them so clearly not hated in every quarter.

Two of those elections were one thanks to the nationalist whip that was the Falklands War.

If you're a Tory and want to win a majority you shouldn't be afraid to bang the nationalist drum. It's something that connects the party with working class voters and where neither Labour nor the Liberals can compete.

Quote:

Thatcher was brilliant for throwing free s**t into the hands of already wealthy individuals and dismantling public services for the common person, so don't give me this ******** as if you know what the hell ever went on in Thatcher's UK.

Let us not forget what she did by allowing tennants to become home owners by letting them buy their old council houses or by encouraging the public to buy shares in the newly prvatised industries like British Telecom. Those will have paid off handsomly by the way. She was clearly interested in transforming society, cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit, not just pandering to the haves at the expense of the have nots.

Personally I'm not a great Thatcherite, but Britain was a total basket case before she came to power and Britian does, on the face of it, appear to have been a lot healthier at the end of her tenure than it was at the beginning.

It is not just at the end of her tenure that matters, since her legacy is not contained in a vacuum. But I would disagree that the way Thatcher ran her country was the only way.

Her way of cultivating the entrepreneurial spirit has wound up counter productive where there is clear evidence of the divide between the haves and the have-nots. We can see logically events like recent events like the riots and the occupy movement, and most would dismiss any argument they propose, based on who they are, and the socio-economic background they reside in. Because underlying all this, you must be stupid, because you are poor. If you were smart, you would be like me, earning a tonne of cash. Sure, I lost some of it in the financial crisis, but I lose a lot more in the taxes I pay in paying you the dole.

People stop being 'us', and some become 'them'. And we don't like them for a variety of reasons and will disagree with anything they may say of substance.

The people who cause the s**t, like the GFC, are never the ones that seem to lose. Always seem to win. They can absorb the higher cost of living and the cuts to services because they have the money to spend, and so the argument will always be unequal, and everyone still keeps the money they have after all the namecalling.

And before you know it, we have a society that is worse off for a majority of people, than an improvement, considering all the technological/scientific advances of the past 3 decades. I would have thought the world would be better off, more peaceful, since it is the message politicians have said for time immemorial. And yet one can clearly see none of the things have really worked out they way they promised.

What Margaret did for women though, was indeed something to be commended, and proof gender has nothing to do with it, suffice to say, the movie suggests she wanted to be more like her father than her mother. But I am sure mother in those days knew her place, and to let father do the talking. Father knows best. Though Margaret's father wasn't the business man Steve Jobs was, but he did his best under the circumstances.

It isn't just about an honest day's work, in fact, an honest day doesn't always have to factor into things. Just making the money. To buy the things poor people can't.

It's clear that Thatchers restructuring of the encomony had some victims but the questions has to be whether Britain carrying on as it was, without those reforms, could have benefited people any better.

I didn't hear any political arguments from the rioters, all I heard was the manic laughter, glass breaking and fires raging. Whilst we might examine the political causes of their actions and their existance, and to what extent the Thatcher governemnt is culpable for that, I think it's absurd to paint a political agenda on these underclass animals and their actions. They were just "on the rob".

The occupy movement seem like a knee jerk reaction to the media witch hunt on the bankers. Their attitude typifies one of the worst things about British poltiics, that obssession with punishing the rich. You saw it with the 45p tax rate. Even if you argue that we will get more revenue through 45p than 50p, they still want fifty, because that'll make those bastards in the top one percent squirm!

Now who's talking about "us and them"?

I think the rich should pull their weight, but taxes levelled on the rich should be optimised not maximised, to get the best yield and create a friendly enviroment for the well off to come and do business here.

[Horace Burtons Ghost]

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Horace Burtons Ghost

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Blind Guardian the 2nd

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More accuarately she was polarising and divisive. She stood for three general elections in a row and won all of them so clearly not hated in every quarter.

Two of those elections were one thanks to the nationalist whip that was the Falklands War.

If you're a Tory and want to win a majority you shouldn't be afraid to bang the nationalist drum. It's something that connects the party with working class voters and where neither Labour nor the Liberals can compete.

Quote:

Thatcher was brilliant for throwing free s**t into the hands of already wealthy individuals and dismantling public services for the common person, so don't give me this ******** as if you know what the hell ever went on in Thatcher's UK.

Let us not forget what she did by allowing tennants to become home owners by letting them buy their old council houses or by encouraging the public to buy shares in the newly prvatised industries like British Telecom. Those will have paid off handsomly by the way. She was clearly interested in transforming society, cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit, not just pandering to the haves at the expense of the have nots.

Personally I'm not a great Thatcherite, but Britain was a total basket case before she came to power and Britian does, on the face of it, appear to have been a lot healthier at the end of her tenure than it was at the beginning.

It is not just at the end of her tenure that matters, since her legacy is not contained in a vacuum. But I would disagree that the way Thatcher ran her country was the only way.

Her way of cultivating the entrepreneurial spirit has wound up counter productive where there is clear evidence of the divide between the haves and the have-nots. We can see logically events like recent events like the riots and the occupy movement, and most would dismiss any argument they propose, based on who they are, and the socio-economic background they reside in. Because underlying all this, you must be stupid, because you are poor. If you were smart, you would be like me, earning a tonne of cash. Sure, I lost some of it in the financial crisis, but I lose a lot more in the taxes I pay in paying you the dole.

People stop being 'us', and some become 'them'. And we don't like them for a variety of reasons and will disagree with anything they may say of substance.

The people who cause the s**t, like the GFC, are never the ones that seem to lose. Always seem to win. They can absorb the higher cost of living and the cuts to services because they have the money to spend, and so the argument will always be unequal, and everyone still keeps the money they have after all the namecalling.

And before you know it, we have a society that is worse off for a majority of people, than an improvement, considering all the technological/scientific advances of the past 3 decades. I would have thought the world would be better off, more peaceful, since it is the message politicians have said for time immemorial. And yet one can clearly see none of the things have really worked out they way they promised.

What Margaret did for women though, was indeed something to be commended, and proof gender has nothing to do with it, suffice to say, the movie suggests she wanted to be more like her father than her mother. But I am sure mother in those days knew her place, and to let father do the talking. Father knows best. Though Margaret's father wasn't the business man Steve Jobs was, but he did his best under the circumstances.

It isn't just about an honest day's work, in fact, an honest day doesn't always have to factor into things. Just making the money. To buy the things poor people can't.

It's clear that Thatchers restructuring of the encomony had some victims but the questions has to be whether Britain carrying on as it was, without those reforms, could have benefited people any better.

I didn't hear any political arguments from the rioters, all I heard was the manic laughter, glass breaking and fires raging. Whilst we might examine the political causes of their actions and their existance, and to what extent the Thatcher governemnt is culpable for that, I think it's absurd to paint a political agenda on these underclass animals and their actions. They were just "on the rob".

The occupy movement seem like a knee jerk reaction to the media witch hunt on the bankers. Their attitude typifies one of the worst things about British poltiics, that obssession with punishing the rich. You saw it with the 45p tax rate. Even if you argue that we will get more revenue through 45p than 50p, they still want fifty, because will ,make those bastards in the top one percent squirm!

Now who's talking about "us and them"?

I think the rich should pull their weight, but taxes levelled on the rich should be optimised not maximised, to get the best yield and create a friendly enviroment for the well off to come and do business here.

Thatcher's restructuring had a lot of victims, and I have no way of imagining what things may have been liked had things carried on the way they had been. I bet noone in the Thatcher years knew basically all manufacturing moved off shore and that China have all the money. Which have it's own consequences. Fault does not lay entirely on one side, both are misrepresented, and the dialogue of possible solutions get lost in the 'silly' part of the debate.

The turn of phrase 'that obsession with punishing the rich' is one I do hear bandied about. Such a statement essentially negates any opposing argument since all they seek is punishment. I believe the rich believe they do pull their weight, and make a very valid argument, to those also with money, that they do. And the others agree. People who agree with each other. How sweet.

Occupy Wall St, although I thought a great idea, turned as usual into something else, again diverting from the real argument, that being an investigation into the prevention of damage from another GFC. All I see in the news, from my neck of the woods, are Conservative MP's having to resign for some pretty stupid things. Again shifting focus away from proper debate in how to move society forward.

[Old Blue Collar Joe]

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Horace Burtons Ghost

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Blind Guardian the 2nd

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More accuarately she was polarising and divisive. She stood for three general elections in a row and won all of them so clearly not hated in every quarter.

Two of those elections were one thanks to the nationalist whip that was the Falklands War.

If you're a Tory and want to win a majority you shouldn't be afraid to bang the nationalist drum. It's something that connects the party with working class voters and where neither Labour nor the Liberals can compete.

Quote:

Thatcher was brilliant for throwing free s**t into the hands of already wealthy individuals and dismantling public services for the common person, so don't give me this ******** as if you know what the hell ever went on in Thatcher's UK.

Let us not forget what she did by allowing tennants to become home owners by letting them buy their old council houses or by encouraging the public to buy shares in the newly prvatised industries like British Telecom. Those will have paid off handsomly by the way. She was clearly interested in transforming society, cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit, not just pandering to the haves at the expense of the have nots.

Personally I'm not a great Thatcherite, but Britain was a total basket case before she came to power and Britian does, on the face of it, appear to have been a lot healthier at the end of her tenure than it was at the beginning.

It is not just at the end of her tenure that matters, since her legacy is not contained in a vacuum. But I would disagree that the way Thatcher ran her country was the only way.

Her way of cultivating the entrepreneurial spirit has wound up counter productive where there is clear evidence of the divide between the haves and the have-nots. We can see logically events like recent events like the riots and the occupy movement, and most would dismiss any argument they propose, based on who they are, and the socio-economic background they reside in. Because underlying all this, you must be stupid, because you are poor. If you were smart, you would be like me, earning a tonne of cash. Sure, I lost some of it in the financial crisis, but I lose a lot more in the taxes I pay in paying you the dole.

People stop being 'us', and some become 'them'. And we don't like them for a variety of reasons and will disagree with anything they may say of substance.

The people who cause the s**t, like the GFC, are never the ones that seem to lose. Always seem to win. They can absorb the higher cost of living and the cuts to services because they have the money to spend, and so the argument will always be unequal, and everyone still keeps the money they have after all the namecalling.

And before you know it, we have a society that is worse off for a majority of people, than an improvement, considering all the technological/scientific advances of the past 3 decades. I would have thought the world would be better off, more peaceful, since it is the message politicians have said for time immemorial. And yet one can clearly see none of the things have really worked out they way they promised.

What Margaret did for women though, was indeed something to be commended, and proof gender has nothing to do with it, suffice to say, the movie suggests she wanted to be more like her father than her mother. But I am sure mother in those days knew her place, and to let father do the talking. Father knows best. Though Margaret's father wasn't the business man Steve Jobs was, but he did his best under the circumstances.

It isn't just about an honest day's work, in fact, an honest day doesn't always have to factor into things. Just making the money. To buy the things poor people can't.

It's clear that Thatchers restructuring of the encomony had some victims but the questions has to be whether Britain carrying on as it was, without those reforms, could have benefited people any better.

I didn't hear any political arguments from the rioters, all I heard was the manic laughter, glass breaking and fires raging. Whilst we might examine the political causes of their actions and their existance, and to what extent the Thatcher governemnt is culpable for that, I think it's absurd to paint a political agenda on these underclass animals and their actions. They were just "on the rob".

The occupy movement seem like a knee jerk reaction to the media witch hunt on the bankers. Their attitude typifies one of the worst things about British poltiics, that obssession with punishing the rich. You saw it with the 45p tax rate. Even if you argue that we will get more revenue through 45p than 50p, they still want fifty, because will ,make those bastards in the top one percent squirm!

Now who's talking about "us and them"?

I think the rich should pull their weight, but taxes levelled on the rich should be optimised not maximised, to get the best yield and create a friendly enviroment for the well off to come and do business here.

You're wasting your pixels and time. The hatred of Thatcher and Reagan is known. The left absolutely despises them.
To this day, the left will blatantly ignore France, which took the road that the Anti-Thatcherites' wanted to take, yet...they are now facing a mass exodus of their rich, including surrendering their citizenship, due to proposed taxes.
This idea that there is no limit to how much the governments can fund/pay for something is absolutely hilarious, but at the same time, Franklin said it right when he said that 'when people learn they can vote themselves other peoples money, that is the death of the republic/democracy', to paraphrase.
Now that they've learned that? Yeah. Lots of countries are ******** by those that think they have some inherent 'right' to what someone else has, and they'll use 'need' to one point, and then 'compassion'.
But for some strange reason, the ******** that want to take away never try to use responsibility of those that want.

[marshmallowcreampie]

Old Blue Collar Joe

Vicious Thrasher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49cYeA55Y_8&feature=g-vrec

Intelligent and strong-willed. We need more politicians like her. Don't you agree?

You have to remember people no longer vote for what or who is best for the country. They vote for whoever promises them the most free s**t. So, although MT was a great PM, she wouldn't get elected today, because she wasn't a fan of the candyass attitude, and that is what dominates now.

Yeah, people always vote based on who will benefit themselves and ONLY themselves. They don't give a s**t about the good of the entire country.

[Camera Stellata]

Horace Burtons Ghost

Thatcher's restructuring had a lot of victims, and I have no way of imagining what things may have been liked had things carried on the way they had been. I bet noone in the Thatcher years knew basically all manufacturing moved off shore and that China have all the money. Which have it's own consequences. Fault does not lay entirely on one side, both are misrepresented, and the dialogue of possible solutions get lost in the 'silly' part of the debate.

The turn of phrase 'that obsession with punishing the rich' is one I do hear bandied about. Such a statement essentially negates any opposing argument since all they seek is punishment. I believe the rich believe they do pull their weight, and make a very valid argument, to those also with money, that they do. And the others agree. People who agree with each other. How sweet.

Occupy Wall St, although I thought a great idea, turned as usual into something else, again diverting from the real argument, that being an investigation into the prevention of damage from another GFC. All I see in the news, from my neck of the woods, are Conservative MP's having to resign for some pretty stupid things. Again shifting focus away from proper debate in how to move society forward.

The three main parties are broadly in agreement on what needs to be done in terms of dealing with the deficit, but Labour desperately try to make out that they woud have done things differently but without saying what that would entail. Most politicians have an oppurtunistic streak in them but Labour really take the biscuit, they're so bare faced about it. They always go back to this tired old mantra too about the Tories cutting to quickly and that they would have done things differently, but there's never any detail, just that they would have cut slower and less deeply. It really just boils down to "we would have done the same thing, but we need create some room for political point scooring so we'll say the Tories are executing it all wrong without saying what we would have done".

I genuinely think we woud be in much the same place economically whoever had won. I hope otherwise, but in some ways I fear that the economy is out of the hands of politicians anyway and more dependant on external factors they can't do much to control.

[Old Blue Collar Joe]

marshmallowcreampie

Old Blue Collar Joe

Vicious Thrasher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49cYeA55Y_8&feature=g-vrec

Intelligent and strong-willed. We need more politicians like her. Don't you agree?

You have to remember people no longer vote for what or who is best for the country. They vote for whoever promises them the most free s**t. So, although MT was a great PM, she wouldn't get elected today, because she wasn't a fan of the candyass attitude, and that is what dominates now.

Yeah, people always vote based on who will benefit themselves and ONLY themselves. They don't give a s**t about the good of the entire country.

Put it this way. France is always hailed as a bastion of 'progressive thought and policy'. So much so, they are now considering a 75% tax on all income over 1 million euro's a year. The funny part, since their annual spending is rapidly approaching the GDP?
The majority of those with the money that he socialist government wants? They're shopping for new digs in London, New York, Singapore and other locales with better taxes, as well as determining whether they need to not only move but to renounce their citizenship.
So, to fix their fiscal woes, they're going to drive the money out of the country. That'll fix it!!

[Horace Burtons Ghost]

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Horace Burtons Ghost

Thatcher's restructuring had a lot of victims, and I have no way of imagining what things may have been liked had things carried on the way they had been. I bet noone in the Thatcher years knew basically all manufacturing moved off shore and that China have all the money. Which have it's own consequences. Fault does not lay entirely on one side, both are misrepresented, and the dialogue of possible solutions get lost in the 'silly' part of the debate.

The turn of phrase 'that obsession with punishing the rich' is one I do hear bandied about. Such a statement essentially negates any opposing argument since all they seek is punishment. I believe the rich believe they do pull their weight, and make a very valid argument, to those also with money, that they do. And the others agree. People who agree with each other. How sweet.

Occupy Wall St, although I thought a great idea, turned as usual into something else, again diverting from the real argument, that being an investigation into the prevention of damage from another GFC. All I see in the news, from my neck of the woods, are Conservative MP's having to resign for some pretty stupid things. Again shifting focus away from proper debate in how to move society forward.

The three main parties are broadly in agreement on what needs to be done in terms of dealing with the deficit, but Labour desperately try to make out that they woud have done things differently but without saying what that would entail. Most politicians have an oppurtunistic streak in them but Labour really take the biscuit, they're so bare faced about it. They always go back to this tired old mantra too about the Tories cutting to quickly and that they would have done things differently, but there's never any detail, just that they would have cut slower and less deeply. It really just boils down to "we would have done the same thing, but we need create some room for political point scooring so we'll say the Tories are executing it all wrong without saying what we would have done".

I genuinely think we woud be in much the same place economically whoever had won. I hope otherwise, but in some ways I fear that the economy is out of the hands of politicians anyway and more dependant on external factors they can't do much to control.

If you are making the argument that the three major parties are all the same.........

They possibly are, and each individual will vote according to which Party will serve them best. But they are all the same, doing the same thing right? So, if the majority of punters are the not-so-rich, why vote for the Party the very-rich love? It is done all the time, and it all revolves around who the punters think will manage the money a whole lot better.

If Western Civilization was built on trade and the accumulation of wealth, then money is a more reliable God than others running about. So, In God We Trust. We trust money. The more the better.

So, the people we feel can do better with our money, the better. We think of the Left as doling out the money to the 'lazy', or mispending it by putting schools where the schools are needed most as an example. Or a decent healthcare system that can provide for all, at no cost.

And the argument will always centre around everyone paying their fair share. Are the 'Lazy' paying their fair share? I certainly don't have time in my day to pay the bills AND protest with a witty placard in front of the Stock Exchange, so why should I give them money?

And look at Socialism. From the examples already shown, it brought the people down to a level, rather than raising everyone up. And told the bullshit that everything was ok.

If something is doing ok, on either side, to have to bullshit to the public that everything is.

It is a big gamble to invest taxpayer money into pockets of society which are degenerating. The reason why they are there is moot (by US definition), and the main focus should be how to get them out of it. Not whether they deserve it. But it is a gamble, since beliefs as you well know, are engrained within us, and all the prejudices that it entails.

Do they deserve help, when I had to work for mine? It has nothing to do with paying your fair share, it is an individualistic society we chose to live in, and one difficult to change.

I admit, I am of person who considers s**t from a left point of view, but when I recently heard a former Prime Minister of my country, Sir Robert Menzies, once said (back when he was a politician during the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the whenever), that 'he would rather see every Australian starve than to default on a debt we have with Britain. o.O

that bloke became Australia's longest serving PM, and I ask myself why, since he held such a low opinion of the people he had power over. A Conservative through and through, and admired by the second longest PM, John Howard. Who held I believe, had a similar opinion of the Australian public. Yet they kept voting him in again and again.

And all because he drummed into us all that having the economy running at a profit is good. If everyone believes that to be true, at whatever cost that may have, both socially and economically.

You can't have it both ways, and I believe we are possibly looking at it entirely from the wrong perspective. I can't tell.

[Camera Stellata]

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If you are making the argument that the three major parties are all the same.........

They possibly are, and each individual will vote according to which Party will serve them best. But they are all the same, doing the same thing right? So, if the majority of punters are the not-so-rich, why vote for the Party the very-rich love? It is done all the time, and it all revolves around who the punters think will manage the money a whole lot better.

If Western Civilization was built on trade and the accumulation of wealth, then money is a more reliable God than others running about. So, In God We Trust. We trust money. The more the better.

So, the people we feel can do better with our money, the better. We think of the Left as doling out the money to the 'lazy', or mispending it by putting schools where the schools are needed most as an example. Or a decent healthcare system that can provide for all, at no cost.

And the argument will always centre around everyone paying their fair share. Are the 'Lazy' paying their fair share? I certainly don't have time in my day to pay the bills AND protest with a witty placard in front of the Stock Exchange, so why should I give them money?

And look at Socialism. From the examples already shown, it brought the people down to a level, rather than raising everyone up. And told the bullshit that everything was ok.

If something is doing ok, on either side, to have to bullshit to the public that everything is.

It is a big gamble to invest taxpayer money into pockets of society which are degenerating. The reason why they are there is moot (by US definition), and the main focus should be how to get them out of it. Not whether they deserve it. But it is a gamble, since beliefs as you well know, are engrained within us, and all the prejudices that it entails.

Do they deserve help, when I had to work for mine? It has nothing to do with paying your fair share, it is an individualistic society we chose to live in, and one difficult to change.

I admit, I am of person who considers s**t from a left point of view, but when I recently heard a former Prime Minister of my country, Sir Robert Menzies, once said (back when he was a politician during the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the whenever), that 'he would rather see every Australian starve than to default on a debt we have with Britain. o.O

that bloke became Australia's longest serving PM, and I ask myself why, since he held such a low opinion of the people he had power over. A Conservative through and through, and admired by the second longest PM, John Howard. Who held I believe, had a similar opinion of the Australian public. Yet they kept voting him in again and again.

And all because he drummed into us all that having the economy running at a profit is good. If everyone believes that to be true, at whatever cost that may have, both socially and economically.

You can't have it both ways, and I believe we are possibly looking at it entirely from the wrong perspective. I can't tell.

My point was meant to just be about the similarities of party policy on dealing with the the deficit, but to be fair the the front benches of all parties tend to sing from the same neo-liberal hymn sheet on a range of issues. The back benchers of either party both have more divergent and deeply held opinions than their leaders though so it may be unfair to bemoan the whole party system. There are some conviciton politicians, they just tend to be kept away from the front benches.

It may sound odd that I vote under the circumstances, but I'm a Tory because of what the Tories stand for in principle rather than what they are in practice. For instance I'm a nationalist and I'm keen on things like retributive justice, immigration, competitive markets and leaving or renogiating our positon in the EU.

Onto Australia; things are a lot different now but historically I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) Australians of a certain heritage will have regarded the interests of Australia as inseperable from the interests of Britain and loyalty to Australia as inseperarable from loyalty to Britain. I would suggest then that Mr Menzies was speaking out of loyalty to the mother country more than adherence to any principle about not defaulting on debts.