Fin vs History - The National Union of Racist Burnt Toast | Margaret Thatcher & The Falklands (Part 5/6)

Episode Date: January 1, 2026

For too long, Britain’s communities had been indulging in a weird fetish for digging burnt toast out the ground whilst blacked up- so having defeated the Argies, Thatcher has a new target in her sights    The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened.   For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Truther and sign up to the Patreon  ⁠patreon.com/fintaylor CHAPTERS: 00:00 - This lady’s not for cumming   03:59 - What is coal?   09:39 - The Miners    12:43 - The Battle of Orgreave  15:56 - Scargill, Thatcher in blackface  20:28 - History of coal   23:43 - Paddy McGee    27:53 - Aftermath of the bomb   31:34 - Arming the Khmer Rouge   35:04 - Opening the bottle of Pinochet   37:10 - The Queen Vs Thatcher   41:16 - Apartheid  43:13 - The Big Bang    47:06 - 2008 Finance crisis  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to Finn versus history. I'm joined by Horatio Gould. That was Margaret Thatcher's come, noise. This is the... What was it, do you think? I'm going to fucking care. Shit. Sorry.

Sorry, Maggie. Say it to her face. Mommy's come noise. Oh, fuck, I'm getting to bust. This is... But I guess women don't bust, are they? No, they don't bust. Oh, I'm coming.

Oh, fuck you. If this is the first episode you've listened to, this is pretty much the speed. Yeah, well, don't go in the middle of any series. You have to remember every... You have to build on a long history of context. Every episode is someone's first. Yeah. This is part five of our Thashton's series.

it's the beginning of her second term we've taken five parts four parts to get to the second term 15 parts of the British Prime Minister to the Falklands count or are they their own? I don't know, I don't know anymore I don't know.

But we're, yeah, we're into it, we're deep into it, Thatcher's heard that she's won a second term and she goes, Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck! This lady's for turning! This lady's not for coming.

Oh, fuck! She thinks that's what she's... This lady is not for busting on. No one's busting on Thatcher. Dennis isn't busting on Thatcher. Well, Dennis has come noise. Let's equalize it. Fuck off.

He says fuck off. Oh, bloody hell, fuck off. BBC puffs and trots. You bloody fucking puff, you fucking trotsky. He's calling Thatcher a trotskyite puff for making him come. You trotsky guy, puff. How dare you? He's getting pegged by Thatcher saying, you're a puff.

You're a trot-scot. He's shout in it. He's power bot. Trots. Trots is such an underrated. Yeah, it's good. It's good old school. fucking trots.

Anyway, we are in 1983, and as you will have heard, if you've been listening to the series, Thatcher has been reborn from the Falklands War. Before that, Mommy was on her knees, not in a fun way. Not in a fun way. She was doing her best to clean up the mess that her 10 predecessors had left, but it was not going well. But the economy starts to turn around. Just before the Falklands War.

Just before the Falklands War. And then the Falklands War, she is like a rocket booster for her. support. She comes out of it thinking she can do no wrong. The Labour Party at this time, their manifesto has been called the longest suicide note in history. What kind of policies do they have in there? There's some very very radical ones for the

second main party. Scrapping nuclear weapons this is at the height of the Cold War. Appolishing the House of Lords, renationalize everything, withdraw from the European economic community. It's a lot. Pick one and make a big pitch for it, but you can't do them all at once. It's the same as Corbyn's one. Free broadband.

Well, the free broadband wasn't a bad idea. for pets. People slagged off the broadband but it was one of the better one. Everyone gets custard every day. That was a strange one. Again, why? I think it goes against like the health as well.

It would be more strain on the NHS. Liberate Nicaragua. Where even is that, Jeremy? Can we, should we do some things first? Yeah. Someone had a joke about Corbyn that you can imagine that his soap bar he uses right down to till it's a slither.

Do you know what I mean? My granite used to use that. You just know, he had one bar that he has, imperial leather. And it will go until it is like, a credit card that he's swiping under his arm. Yeah, absolutely. So Thatcher's second term begins in, is it, 1983?

Yeah, it begins in 1983. And this is so much happens in a second term. Yeah. I guess the, you know, all the images, the controversy. This is Prime Thatcher. This is Aggie. Thatcher's growlers fighting back. The main, as well, 1980, so much happens in 1984.

But let's crack into. to it. We're in part five. We've heard her come noise. In 1984 begins with the National Union of Miners strike. Yeah. So for context, again, we've done ten parts on this, but Britain had been

basically had its balls and advice by the unions since Clement Attlee. I mean, did Heath basically lose his position because of the... Yeah, the three-day week and the lights are going off. Yeah. And the miners are being led by by the Scargill.

who's just going to who took down Heath and I think he went to try and do the same with Thatcher. They're anarchists essentially, they're sort of

hardcore Marxists who want to just destroy the government. Or their union chiefs who their job is to look after the welfare of their members and that's their one job.

It's not their job to look after the welfare of the country. No. A job and that's kind of where the clash comes in. So coal is obviously

being unproductive at this point. Coal isn't that good. Why? Do you know anything like that? I really don't know. Are you any, big fuel heads in here.

I don't really understand how we get petrol from the ground. So the whole British Empire is built on coal. Yeah. And now we don't need it. So for our thick listeners, coal is a black combustible sedimentary rock. It's old wood, right? Hey?

Isn't that old wood? Oh God, that's charcoal. I don't, I don't fucking know. You can just, but it's charcoal. You just suck it in there. Is charcoal old wood? No. Yeah.

I think it is. Is it? It's like stupid squared. I was stupid than you were more stupid. What? Chalkal lighters. You just, was stupid on my stupidity.

That's all wood. It was like a bucaki of stupidity. Yeah. That's all right. It's going to be so painful. Some listeners, so painful. Look,

I'll be honest, I don't fucking know. You don't know either, but you know enough to know that we're both wrong. What's firelighters? I don't think firelighters are relevant

to Thatcher's second term. They're brilliant, though. She's trying to replace coal with firelighters, I think is what she's, she thinks that firelightses will be more productive than coal, maybe.

So are we the first country to de-industrialise. Well, we're one of the first to industrialise, so we're one of the first to de-industrialise. Right. So the NUN,

the National Union of Miners, are striking to prevent 20 coal mines from being closed because the government policy is we need to, this is a drain on the country's finance, we need to get rid of them,

but this would lose 20,000 jobs. And the coal mines, you know, every pit is the centre of someone's community. Yeah, it's not, even though it's a terrible job, it's not like terrible jobs now. No.

Like, if you're doing like, because zero's at hours contract at Sainsbury's. Yeah. That doesn't give you an identity. It should do. To me it does. To me it does. I judge you.

I think you're a fat woman called Pat, who's got nothing going on in their life. But a whole town was built around that, and it felt like you felt like you were being productive and you had a purpose. Yeah. You could provide you a family. You'd all go drink at the pub afterwards. The one pub.

Yeah. You'd all go in there and you'd spend your wages in the pub. And then your wife would get upset. But that was fine. Basically, post-stature, it's kind of ripped out working-class identity. The great- You can basically take, which is, I think, such a huge common because even if you're, even if you're building an unequal society, what was genius about the old way is that working-class people could still enjoy not having much because that you had camaraderie, camaraderie, community,

you kind of pride in your identity. Yeah. And it felt much more, I don't know, sustainable in a way. Whereas now it's like, I don't know, what jobs are working-class people doing now? well yeah delivery yeah yeah yeah i guess so which is great for us because i don't have to cook but i mean it's not that bad then yeah when you put it like that yeah but as in there's not like lots of camaraderie with deliveroo drivers

no it's so individual yeah isn't it um then all you don't see all their bags outside the pub yeah all the bikes tied up the great gordian knot at the heart of thatcher's policy is that the economics she espouses destroys the communities she stands for Is the strangest contrast with her character is that she is socially very conservative. Yeah. But this sort of unleashes economic and social liberalism in the way. Because the whole point of her methodism is that like communities will... She destroys tradition and she sees herself as a very traditional person.

So Peter Hitchens hates Thatcher. Well, he's the most conservative man in Britain. Yes. He's conservative for acts that were done in 1830. Yes. We went wrong in the Victorian age. Yeah. No, he actually says that we shouldn't have legalized divorce and he says that in the 60s.

So his main problem is Harold Wilson. first government and Hitchin says that Thatcher, no true conservative should like Thatcher because she tore the heart out of the country's communities. Well, she changed what being the conservative meant, I think. I think the idea of a conservative actually is someone who's basically just

very risk-averse and traditional but also could have like a code of ethics that's kind of built in principles. Paternalism. Yeah, and stuff like that. That idea of conservatives, McMillan conservatism, basically any of the between Thatcher and the war, that's all gone. I grew up thinking of conservatives as these sort of like, can I fuck it or eat it, sort of mad, like, money grabbing.

Yeah. Which is quite different to the history of British conservatism, I think. Yeah, yeah. But what's funny is that Hitchens is like, no, I'm a conservative and she's ruined it. And that's the same way that, like, you now have people going, oh, no, I'm, I didn't change, the left change. I'm, I'm considered myself left wing. I just think that, you know, we should still endorse philology. people nowadays

a lot of podcasters will say that they're still left wing and then say that the most insanely right wing thing that they believe in and it's just the left changed but Hitchens does that from the other side how does he do it from the other side he says I'm still right wing

he'll say that's just not a conservative the conservative left me okay I see I see yeah anyway so the events to put it succinctly there's a year long walkout of around 75% of the UK's 187000 minors

right and thousands of police officers are drafted to police the picket lines and that's a clever little fox that she is and she is a fucking fox fucking hell I'm going to fucking count

this lady's not for coming she had stockpiled fucking filthy bitch she had stockpiled I think it's either six months or a year's worth of coal should learn from how Heath got fucked yeah yeah she had stockpiled

so she basically she was prepared for the strikes she'd stockpiled six months worth of coal to keep Britain's power stations running. So she could just run the clock down. Yeah, choke them out. She merinoed them. She did marinoe them. She part the bus. Part of the bus. So the lesbians and the gays...

Now, you've done me there in the script, Phoebe. The lesbians and the gays, they support the minors. And they raise... I mean, you added the... As lesbians and the minors, you said the lesbians and the gays. Isn't it funny how the definite article could make it sounds much worse? It just feels more... The lesbians.

The lesbians. Yeah. It's the lesbians' fault. Yeah. Like, rather than saying blacks, saying the blacks, it sounds way worse. The Jews. Yeah. Yeah. Jews support the miners.

The Jews run the mind. Isn't it weird, isn't it? You just put the word the in and suddenly you sound like an absolute racist. Well, it really implies more eye contact when you're saying it. The lesbians. Yeah. You know, this is. It's less throw away.

If you want to talk about the minors, really need to talk about the lesbians and the gays. You know, they're the ones that are, of course they support the minors. Of course, I mean, lesbians, we love going down. They love a stinky pit. Yeah, it makes sense. Women set up soup kitchens and made food parcels and raised money. This is done in the film Pride. Yeah, woke nonsense.

Woke nonsense. But this kind of, the aginess begins, really, on the 5th of March, 1984, at Court and Wood Collier in South Yorkshire, where miners find out that the NCB want to speed up plans to close their pit. Now, there's a big debate about whether the government wanted to just close pits that were even still productive on an ideological basis, which papers were released recently shown they did. Yes, okay.

Wait, so they're just doing it just to destroy any power they... The miners thought that they were closing pits like willy-nilly, and the government at the time was saying, no, we're only closing pits because they're unproductive, but it turns out that they were planning to also close any pit. They just wanted to... Right, right, right. It's all that war.

They wanted to fast forward. Yeah. It's the opposite of Mao. They're in a state of war. It's the opposite of Mao's Great Leap Forward. It's the great shutdown. Just quickly. Just do it quickly.

Think of the Belgrano, right? Yeah. Just fucking sink it. Fuck it. Sink the piss. So on the 12th of March, the NUM declares a national strike, having not held a vote. In October of the 84, the High Court declares the strike illegal because it didn't hold a vote, which if Thatcher had said they had to. Now, in Nottinghamshire, most of the 30,000 miners there carry on working, which is why they get called scabs.

Yeah, cross the picket line. So on the 18th of June, 84, we get to the Battle of Augrey. These are all images that we've sort of grown up with or have been used in documentary films. Yeah, yeah. The images are pretty stark. The 80s, yeah, in the Britain, the kind of agginess. So 6,000 police officers with dogs and horses

face off against an equal number of picketers. This is in South Yorkshire. It erupts into violence. 95 picketers are arrested and charged with violent disorder. 100 minors are injured. One minor was hit so hard, the officer broke his trunch. And so it was like the officer got. There were victims on the officer side as well.

He had to get a new truncheon. He was charged with vandalism, that minor, breaking the truncheon. In 1991, 39 convicted minors were compensated $425,000 for assault by the police, wrongful arrest and wrongful prosecution. So 11,000 people were arrested. Because they fucking, thatcher's just arresting anyone at this point. Just fucking bang them up.

Yeah. Here we go. They had a black lives matter. I don't think they were doing that. Well, they're, they're blacked up. I mean, the miners were blacked up, Charlie. I think that's quite a large accusation to make. I think you're really,

they were going down the mine. And it happened to... They weren't doing blackface. It wasn't the only safe place to do blackface was underground. You know? It is. Well, it is.

Yeah, it is. It is actually. If you're trying to do blackface, it's like, if you have to do blackface. Perfect crime. It is a perfect crime, if you just can't live.

Look at that. He's been down in mind. Yes. Yeah. Now, obviously, in Holland, they still do that to this day. Yes. I love it over there.

Schwarzer Peter and all that. yes no the miners were not well we don't know actually we don't know some miners may have been attracted to the job because it gave them a free hit at blackface we don't know that these all love blackface look at them well you've also got

Morris dancers they love it they love black for Morris dancing there's a bit of blacking up bloody hell but this is kind of the yeah the images you get of this of the 80s is just it's riot police just charging yeah people in boot cut jeans

and mullets lots of megaphones it's not a good look and is there like a king miner yeah scargill who we'll get to

in a minute he's blacked up he's not blacked up huge big smile on your face imagining a guy with the fucking he's not like

a coal crown like totally blacked up so you think he's blackface and he's like a fruit basket he's like king of the dwarfs fruit basket on his head and he basically speaks like hey man

me name Marta Scargill and you think he's just fully blacked up and he eats coal he loves he eats coal right right so you think he's got loads of children but they're all little co-boys so you think arthur skaggle's like

the ultimate racist yeah and he loves but he's also a really good minor so you framed the whole minor strike as a race thing well it is if you look if you look at it right so you say like what atch was going on they're all blacked up I don't think they were so it's actually whites

yeah but it was just one the both white was one was blacked up yeah the whole 80s were a race right basically you're right anyway so the strike ends a pretty basically a year later and they go back to work, but there's just constant battles, constant pickets, police are just rugby tackling guys in double denim. Now, Arthur Scargill was president of the NUM, his wife, Anne, let's have a look at Anne Scargle. Let's see, Charlie, let's get let the dog see the rabbit,

get Anne Scargill's face up, would you? So he led the minor strike in 74, which, as we said, brought down Heath. Clearly images, Charlie. Oh, I reckon she was quite pretty back in the way. Yeah. She is. Look. Fair play. She looks like that lady who says, you horrid little canned. Oh, Marcia Williams? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. So, uh, Scargill claims there was a plan for more than 70 pit closures, which was proved

true in 2014 when old cabinet papers released. And Scargill worked with women against pit closures. That's an anti-lesbian pressure group. Wap. Wapsi. Wap. Yeah. Women against pit closures.

She changed herself to the railings at the Department of Trade and Industry. Hello. Yeah, that's the woman you marry Yeah, she's into some BDSM stuff Now Thatcher famously Refuses to make any concessions Right Because she, this is post-Falklands, Thatcher

She's pumped up Anything she thinks is right Yeah, fuck off Yeah Fuck off, here's some horses and dogs And then how do the miners lose? They're just ground down They run out of goodwill

Yeah They run out of money Yeah Because they all have They pay the unions So then the unions can pay them to not work, right? That's how the whole thing works. Eventually they ran out of money.

They were paying to be paid. Yeah. So, like, here's 30 quid for you. So your union membership basically is a price so that if you can strike to get better pay, you can still be paid for not working. Anyway, Thatcher does not make any concessions. The miners lose, which paves the way for more industries to be privatised. But the support the miners had during Heath and Callahan, that's faded now.

Well, it's been, it's been 20 years of Britain just dancing to the miners' chute. And I think it was... In retrospect, it did just in, like, the unions asked for too much so they got nothing. I think you can blame,

you blame Thatcher. Because Scargill was a Thatcher of the minds, though. That's what I mean. He was completely uncompromising. He was so extreme as well. Yeah. And also, it was inevitable,

because if you look at comparable European countries, deindustrialization was inevitable. Yeah. But it could have been done as such a more... Well, it could have faded out. It could have been done to keep the communities. Because what Scargill could have pushed for is some kind of,

reinvestment in the jobs, in the people. It's retraining. Now it's like a big sports direct factory. That's literally what it is. Yeah. You've gone from mining in Blackface to not being allowed a piss break making big mugs.

Yeah, it's true. But also the whole town, you know, all the towns, small towns, are completely ruined. That's why the high streets are now just fucking betting shops. I mean, you're going on tour on quite a few of them, right? I am going to, I'm going round all these places.

I'm seeing the towns. that Thatcher and Scargill decimated. Yeah. What is it? Do you think having a lunch as a minor, like having a sandwichy lunch as a minor is like the most like righteous lunch? I think so, genuinely.

Like out of your little box with your black hands just eat your little cheese sandwich. I do agree with this. I do think about this. I think certain kinds of work doesn't matter how good the lunches. I think it just feels incredibly righteous. You mean the photo of the men in New York on the girder?

Sort of, yeah. Any of those sort of. I just think certain lunches. Having like a little fruit shoot. Fruit chute down the mine. I don't think it was a fruit shoot. That's a kid's lunch. Yeah, they don't think fruits

were allowed down the mine. No, the fruits were supporting. Right. Sorry. The fruit shoots were supporting the miners. The blackface miners. It's intersectionality. This fucking,

this fucking miles said it's a bloody fruit shoot. Well, that would, yeah. We should place this, though. I realize we haven't placed this, and there'll be livid, our thick listeners. Right. This is 1984. Okay.

So this is, after the, This is after the book 1984 was written. Yes, because that was written in 1948. And it's before the Hand of God, Maradonna. Yes, 1986, right? 1986, which was a sort of, you know, a comment on the forklunds. It was, it was them trying to regain some dignity. It's also, yeah, I mean, disgrace themselves.

The absolute best goal in football history is... In the same match, right? Same match, yeah, it's crazy. Bloody hell. Look at this. Livid. Cheats. Yeah.

I mean, is your dad a big football fan? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, speaking to any man of this age, they cannot believe it. Still, still like. Even at a family gathering, if a Maradonna or Argentina comes up, my uncle would just be like,

fucking cheats. Yeah. So the miners had been striking with the slogan, close a pit, killer community. Yeah. It's only place to do,

so it's safe to do black faces underground. They hadn't mentioned. They hadn't mentioned that. We've made that up. 32 pit closures are announced in 1992 as Britain. towards using natural gas, and in 2015, the last deep coal mine in North Yorkshire, Kellingly, was closed. So the UK coal industry had a total workforce around 221,084, and less than 7,000 in March 2005.

And was the UK basically invented coal being used as a fuel source? Listen, I've taught... Is that not what the Industrial Revolution was? Given none of us know what coal is. Yeah. I don't know how... Who invented coal as using coal as a fuel source? History of coal. Let's do it now. Little, little side episode. History of coal.

They used it in ancient China. Right. Right. And also what, what is coal? And look, there's people who will be furious as to this. We're not claiming to be intelligent here. It's a good question. What the fuck is it? Can you eat it? I don't know. I don't know. It's pure carbon, right? It's a lump of carbon. Yeah. That you can release the energy inside. Definitely, if you eat it, you get cancer. But is it like having like the maddest burnt toast ever. I think I genuinely, I think you're right. and I don't know is it just really burnt toast

I was famously very very bad at science I think it's basically they're mining burnt toasts from the ground So you were bad at science I was bad at science So bad at science Did you have any skill of No no

Yeah we got We're with to be honest this is a terror On science stuff This podcast has no one There will never be Finn versus Science No because I've lost that fight already I'm never going to win Finn versus Science Science has got me over a barrel

They've got no one here knows Do you know anything about science? No. I mean, oh, fuck it. I genuinely think, I genuinely think that these people were blacked up races, mining burnt toast and underground. I think, I think that's what they were doing. And for some reason, Thatcher stopping that has made the country worse.

I think. I'm thinking of, like, coal-powered trains is what I'm thinking of. This is a three-way Mexican thick off. None of us. We're trying to like that who's the stupid. I don't know. Is it burnt-toe? I think so.

Coal is compressed plant matter there you go yeah it's it's vegan so your vegan's gonna eat it so I guess it's the life cycle of all organisms they go into the ground and they get crushed into a carbonated decomposed form of a millions of years

and you dig down and they come out as burnt toast did you know this dinosaurs are petrol oh yeah they are dinosaurs they go into the ground and then they eventually decompose into they get squashed so much they turn into black They turn to petrol.

Dinosaurs are petrol. I think dinosaurs are petrol. Fossil fuels, it's fossils of dinosaurs. It's ground Guinness. Split the D. Yeah, we've got to stop splitting the G. We've got to stop using Guinness and start using...

I don't fucking know. We're all blind here. We're blind, we really are. And this will be so... Fucking mustard gas in the trench. We're all holding on to each other. Greta Thunberg is listening going... Is she?

Is she listening? Let's get her on. Gere on, she'll know what's going on. She's a laugh. Right. So that's the mindless strike is all going on, right, in 84. Now, on the 12th of October, 1984... A lot happened.

84 is a crazy year, right? Margaret Thatcher, thank Mummy, just about escapes with her life. Yeah. So in September 1984, IRA bomb expert, Patrick McGee, that's not a slur, that is his actual name. What's his fucking name, Patrick McGee or something? Diddley, Dizzy, Dizzy, Paddy McGee.

McGee is a silly surname because it implies your jumping on a trampoline dressed as a lepricon Anyway, come see me on tour in Dublin and Cork and Belfast

Maggie Paddy McGee It's a funny just It has a lot of Maggie Like do you know what I mean He's a hot guy Look at that

What? Do you not think? Sort of Phoebe Do you don't think he's hot Don't you? No you've got a weird You got a weird thing You do have weird taste

You're like chewed up Old Scottish Women and IRA bombers I think he's a... And you love whiskey. I think it's all your taste in something sexual is how much it stinks of spent matches. He's not.

He's not. Do you not think? No, he looks like George Best's sort of Downs cousin. George Worst. It looks like George Worst. And on the left wing, George Worst. He's got Downs. Does he know the rules?

McGee is a silly surname. Would you not agree? Paddy. It's like being called like Brian. Yippee. The problem with being an IRA bomber called Paddy McGee is that it sounds like a slur Thatcher's made up for the IRA But that's his actual name

Right So he checks into room 629 of the Grand Hotel in Brighton And sets a bomb to go off 24 days, 6 hours and 24 minutes later It's like a first I didn't realize it was a month before So he's attached to like an egg timer right or something like that Something like that So Thatcher is going for the Conservative Party conference in Brighton They always do this stuff by the sea

I don't know why What name does he? He doesn't check in as Paddy McGee does he When he stays there He's like He's like fucking Checks in as like

John English or something Mr John English Yeah Mr Coffertry He checks in as the John Coventry He checks in as the HMS Coventry So Thatcher

In October A month later Is she rehearsing a conference speech In the toilet Maybe she's just been in the toilet Doing her powder Well the thing is She stays up so late

Yeah Working part of the reason she's alive because she was probably looking through files at 3 a.m. Was the bomb under her bed? No, it wasn't. She got moved to a different room so it was like, but it was

meant to explode and damage all rooms around so it could have hit some of them. The bomb explodes and it causes one of the hotel's chimney to slice through the building like a guillotine. Yeah. The chimney destroys Thatcher's bathroom suite which she had just exited two minutes. So if she'd had any less fiber that day.

She's dead. Right. But she's saved. She's saved. Luckily she was... Her Methodist diet. No funny business. She was not having a honking great shit at the time.

And that's why she's alive. God bless. The bomb seriously injured 31 and kills five. I mean, if she... I guess there's a whole book Killing Thatch, which I actually got halfway through. It was pretty good. We talked about... In the live on the patron with Vittoria, we did it.

We talked about that because he's obsessed with this. Because I guess the IRA, how close they were, is their crowning achievement. Yeah. And they were very close. Because if they did kill Thatcher, wow. Historically, what is that as a... What's JFK, isn't it? It must be.

Yeah. It's such a big deal. Yeah. So they would a whisk away from... I mean, the whole world... They were a tougher shit. We live in a very different country. Yeah.

If she'd been having any tougher of shit, then she'd be dead. Yeah. But luckily she had an assassinated prime minister. She had a constitution of iron. I don't think we have had an assassinate. assassinated prime minister. Yeah. Prescott got an egg on him.

Yeah. That's something. It's about it. Unless, is there someone earlier? Oh, Spencer Percival was shot in the House of Commons

lobby in 1812. Right. Okay. Fair enough. So we've had one assassination. But yeah, but five people do die. Muriel McLean,

who is wife of the president of the Scottish Conservatives, who was blown from her bed. Gene Chattock was decapitated. He was the wife for party chairman. Christ. And then the deputy chief whip dies and he just returned from

walking his dogs and this is the one him and his wife die the chief web and this is what Thatcher this is what kind of like crushes her in many ways she's like really good mates with right but it just it just hardens her resolve

of course and there's a very funny story of this the most British couple ever where one of the he's like a 70 year old guy I think he's just a hotel guest gets caught in the rubble yeah he's completely insane from the waist down and he's there for five hours and his wife's

fine and his wife keeps checking on him saying you're right he's like yep no he keeps pretending that he's fine yeah no no good never been better fine yeah literally cannot feel below his waist no no all good yeah fine don't worry about it yes no all good here i've been moved to a bigger room absolutely fine the view's great from here this is lovely yeah when the bomb went off margaret that just says to dennis i think that was an assassination attempt don't you um because she's clever smart she's smart charlotte holmes 20 minutes later they get into a car dennis said the IRA those bastards. Now the investigators were unsure as to how long the bomb had been there

six timers were then found that were set for 24 days McGee is tracked to Glasgow and is identified by a missing fingertip on the little finger of his right hand which is the sign of a bomb maker because you singe it so much? I guess or yeah or you just you don't... Or you've taken it off so you don't

leave marks. Now McGee is sentenced to eight life sentences for planting the bomb but was released in 1999 as part of the Good Friday Friday agreement. What is that? The Good Friday Agreement. I'll probably get into it, but it is a masterpiece of diplomacy, we have to say.

In a sentence. It's the peace agreement that stops the troubles. Okay. And to be honest, it seems to be in like a conflict where it seems no way out, it seems to be the only way you can really do it, which is make tough compromises. And that basically means anyone who did anything in the IRA is. Amnesty. In exchange for. Stop blowing us up.

Stop blowing it up. Everything stopped. Let's get on with it. So it was pretty amazing. And basically like, you know, if Israel or Palestine are ever going to sort it out. Well, that's why Blair's going to Gaza is because he's high on his own supply. Because he's like, I crack that one. I can crack you lot.

You both ate pork. Let's go on with it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I guess the Irish and the British actually have more in common probably than the Israelis and the Palestinians. Yeah. Because it's, we both like Guinness, you know. Butter.

Yeah. And they only just don't like pork. It's easy to get, you know. I mean, yeah. And maybe it feels like that they could do a hatred of pork. Falafel? They like falafel. Yeah.

Hummus? Hummus. Maybe. Yeah, get them around the table. It's a lot in common. Now, Thatcher, obviously, survives the blast. Yeah. But she comes out with the sooty face more harder than ever.

She gets down those minds. Yeah. Hello dear. I'm one of them, no. She was actually quite embarrassingly wearing black face doing Jamaican accents in the mirror. And then she manages to have the perfect alibi. If anything, she was like, it's the soot from the bomb. Luckily, they didn't.

McGee actually saved her career because she was about to be cancelled big time because she was doing impression of a miner which meant blacking up I'me ame a mini-margantatcher me going down the mine

to dig up some burnt toast that's what she was saying in the mirror so many levels of stupidity in this one yeah it's a fossil fuels of stupidity exactly it's like sediment

it's like it's because it could be coal this truth is going to be coal 3,000 years people will be driving with that Jamaican accent so in 1985 I didn't know this. Obviously, we've done a series on Paul Pot.

In 1985, Thatcher and Reagan start training the fucking Khmer Rouge. I didn't realize how naughty she was being abroad. I guess people weren't really keeping up to date with what she was doing abroad because she was making so many big decisions at home. This is not early 60s Kimmer Rouge.

No. Where we didn't know what they're up to. This is post-killing fields, 80s Kimmer Rouge. Yeah. When we know they're naughty as hell. A lot of things from the 80s don't date well and the Khmer Rouge is one of them. Yeah. Because by that point,

Pol Pot has told an entire city to fuck off. He's killed everyone with glasses. And the Vietnamese have ousted them. Yeah, he's done Pat Cummins with babies against fucking steamed him with babies against trees. He's been steaming in with babies against trees. Do you know, Joffar Archer bounces. Some people are saying, guys, I'm autistic.

At that point, no one knows what that is. That's not a defense yet. Basically, the only people who could survive the killing fields are people like Charlie who are so thick they pose a nose. threat to the state. Yeah. So obviously the American, Americans have only just stopped fighting the Vietnamese, and the Vietnamese have now overthrown the Cambodians.

So the US and the UK, my enemy's enemies, my friend, whatever, they fund the Khmer Rouge to fight the Vietnamese. Between 85 and 89, the SAS ran training camps for Khmer Rouge allies in Thailand. They created a sabotage battalion, 250 explosives and ambush experts, all people who had served during the Falklands. The SES teach them how to make explosives, booby traps and time delay devices. And then to allow the government to deny helping the Khmer Rouge,

the SAS trained soldiers loyal to Sianuk and the former PM. But this is what happens in the Cold War, is that alliances upon alliances, who's the real enemy, my second enemy is closer to me than my first enemy. Because Kimmer Rouge are communist, but they're less threatening communists than the Vietnamese communists. The communists who have won.

Yeah. So they're training the communists who have lost to beat the Communists of One. But also, as we learn in the Khmer Rouge series, you know, they're not communists. They're having a go. They don't understand French. They can't read. They also, it's similar to Brexit where it's like, you know, experts. Yeah.

Disregard experts. It's an ambiguous thing. It's emotional politics. Yeah, it is. It's like emotional eating. Yeah, I don't, I don't need to know what that is. I know I'm an expert and emotionally. People have been sending me a reel of Harvey Price using mince pies going, this is you.

I've not. I've not clicked on the real. I've not seen it. I think he's put out some new stuff. Now, the plot was meant to be done by the US and the UK. However, after the Iran-Contra affair, the UK continues trading the Khmer Rouge without the explicit US help

as part of a, quote, classical Thatcher-Ragan arrangement. Now, what's going on there? So we're doing this without the Americans, even though he weren't involved in Vietnam. Yeah, yeah. Because that's not even our, like, sphere of influence anymore. But we're mummy. Yeah.

we're influential at this point we've just cleaned up the South Atlantic for Christ's sake so it's one of the flirty kind of sex talk talk conversation between Thatcher and Reagan we should talk about that because they have a they have a and this is what where this has come out of right yeah it's just that they're saying progressively dirty

and dirtier things late at night over the phone Dennis is asleep yeah thatcher's 3 a.m she's calling her up and Reagan's just like man do you want to train my she's a fucking air ruse she's brilliant but she's so difficult you know he loves a challenging woman also there's the whole Pinnishay thing

I haven't cracked into the Pinnishay stuff but by all of accounts he's a pretty naughty fella let's open the bottle of Pinnishay yeah lovely now Thatcher in one of the many contradictions of a foreign policy

because the Chileans hate the Argentinians she becomes very good friends with another South American fascist dictator but just the right one which is general Pinnishay right and so

so she builds these kind of relationships with these sort of strong men leaders who kind of like pretty like blown away by her yeah really there's never met a woman like her basically no because she's got a bigger dick than they do yeah exactly yeah um and so pinnashay is an ally during the forklans yeah because he's sending up he's i think maybe he's sending intelligence but also using maybe using chilena h a office chelaine airstrips or something anyway who's electric he's electrocating poets as well yeah yeah yeah yeah he's got there's a lot right about him yes you know how you send like intelligence

Can you send dumb? Can you... Right. So send military intelligence? You mean can you send military stupidity? Yeah. In a way you can. I guess it'd be...

That's called disinformation. That's what Russia do. It's counterintelligence. Military dumb. Yeah, you're trying to make a population stupider. Well, it's worked on you. Charlie could have been sent by Russia. That would make sense.

To spread disinformation. Oh, China, yeah. You know how... That's the theory of that China, TikTok's making the American making the West stupider. Yeah. I mean, what are we doing? I mean, yeah, this is a big podcast.

The China's been placed in. about the Chinese. Anyway, the great thing about Thatcher is that even after the kind of the wool is lifted from the eyes of the world, then everyone fucking hates Pinochet and he gets arrested. Thatcher's like, fuck no,

he's a great guy. He's a malo. Yeah. So when he gets arrested in the UK, she campaigns for his return to Chile and to drop all charges. This is in like, long after she's left office. And not many people are on her side for this, right?

She's an outlier. Right. Everyone's like, I think Blair's in power by this point. And she's like, this is woke nonsense. that man is an ally he's a great man she stays friends with them for ages yeah they call each other all the time she's loyal she's mummy yeah now in 1986 elix emerge of as we mentioned

last time a thatcher's complicated relationship with the queen uh the queen it's hard to maintain female friendships it is hard you know yeah maintain group female friendships is tough so there's so much infighting and cittiness and bitchiness the queen thought thatcher's policies were, quote, uncaring, confrontational and socially divisive. Because the truth is, the queen is a true conservative in a more traditional sense of it. And Thatcher's sort of ripping that book up. Well, isn't McMillan the queen's favorite prime minister?

I think Wilson is actually. Wilson is personally, but I don't know politically. But again, this is the queen's coming off the back of her entire reign has been consensus politics. It's been trying to do the best thing for everyone. And Thatcher shatters that and says they're going to be winners and losers. Maternalism. Yeah.

You know. And Thatcher says, right, if you're not going to be a winner, That's your own fault for being thick. Yeah. So after the leaks, apparently, the queen personally calls Thatcher to apologize. Well. The queen was described as having a, quote, dry wit, whereas Thatcher was without a sense of humor. This is interesting.

She's said, and she was depicted in the Crown. There's like this scene in the Crown. Gillian, Gillian Anderson, the Crown. Yeah, which she goes. Thatcher, fucking hell. What are you doing to me? I'm trying to watch this with my wife. You've got Gillian Anderson with Thatcher's voice.

Yeah. It's like Pinnishay, electrocuting. Poets. Genuinely, it is. It's showing you pictures of Anderson's stature. Anderson is that. But there's a scene

of the crown where they go play parlor games in, what's the Scottish castle? Balmoral. Balmoral. She goes up there

like a lot of Prime ministers do to play parlor games and she basically has no crack whatsoever. All the silliness and fun she can't do it. But her politically sharp lines seem filled with a sense of humor,

I thought. It does sort of surprise me from what, from hearing a talk speeches. It does seem like she has a wit and how sharp she is in the commons. Yeah. So does surprise me that she's completely humorless by all accounts.

God. Ah, wuga. Yeah, but then she had speech rights, I guess, but you're right, and that she could put a sentence together so perfectly that you think she must have. She had speech rights, but she was quick off the dome as well. Yeah, yeah. Reflexes. But I think she, probably, well, she saw politics

as like a game she was good at and it was sport. Whereas when she's not in politics, not playing sport. So, yeah, apparently she wasn't a laugh. No, no, she doesn't seem like a laugh. No, to be fair. Quite severe woman. But mum's, you know, you know, do you find your own mum funny?

Yeah, sometimes. Do you find your mum funny? You know, in her own way, yeah. Yeah. Mom's funny, I think. Moms can be funny. Yeah, no, they can be funny. Are you, like, booing your mum?

Boring. Boring. What I'm saying is that, and I notice it's now my own children is that you have dads when kids want to play they gravitate towards the dad and when they want comfort

they gravitate towards the mum and there is that's not me being sexist there is science behind that you can fucking I don't know what coal is so I don't know what's going on there either right maybe it's all maybe it's all I saw my dad once a month

yeah so of course he put the only bit of parenting you had to do was for like one day on a weekend so you can make it as fun as possible well he had it was great with dad He had a loss of Indonesian women to have sex with it. He was busy.

I know I understand it now. Now you have your own Indonesian network of sex slaves. I get it now. I am my father's son. Now the Queen and Thatcher also disagree on foreign policy. The Queen was devoted to the Commonwealth. That's a big thing. Thatcher couldn't give a shit.

Right. Following the US invasion of Grenada or Grenada. Yeah, that's a weird one. Part of the Commonwealth, the Queen summons Thatcher to Buckingham Palace to voice a disagreement and makes Thatcher stand throughout the whole meeting. Now there's a big I'd love to see that that power off would be awesome to watch

the queen making Thatcher stand because there's such an interesting level of power there because obviously the Prime Minister has all the actual power but the Queen has all the symbolic power and the respect and the deference Now no matter what you think about Thatcher's economic policies she's incredibly divisive She's very much like Marmite

One of the biggest stains on her block card Is that she was Pretty much neutral on apartheid she was like it's not really our business to be getting involved and in a world where everyone was like

don't buy the oranges or whatever and don't you know don't tour to South Africa it turns out that Thatcher's She was right Hey

turns out she was right Yeah that's what you're about to say She was on the right side of history for once No she thought Nelson Mandela was a terrorist She should be banged up

She really doubles down Now I read something It might be an Andrew Marr that saying that Thatcher's problem with apartheid wasn't the racial thing it was the fact that you were not letting the free market rip

because you were saying some people can't you're disqualifying some people from the economy or you're making a two-tier economy that was her main problem with it it wasn't the morality of segregation

it was that the economy was being intervened in too much and intervened being like no black people should be involved in it yeah right yeah Margaret Thatcher's favourite food including a dish called mystery starter

which was a gelatinous and unappetizing mix of beef, consomme, cream cheese and curry powder. What? Mystery start. Are you joking? Scroll down. This is perhaps the most famous example. A layered starter with a base set of consummate.

Fucking hell. Christ. Cream cheese. I mean, the 80s are bad for food. Really bad. Really, really bad. Because they're experimenting as well. They think aspects like the future.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Thatcher presides over the establishment of Zimbabwe from Roed. but was against the international sanctions against apartheid Africa. She insisted in public that there should be no negotiations with the ANC terrorists because obviously she's been trying to be, she's been blown up by the IRA. She's very anti-terrorist. The big thing that she does do, which you still see in London today, is the Big Bang. Sure.

This is maybe the most lasting thing she does in many ways. Well, there's this and there's the cult. It's, this is why London is so much more. prosperous than the rest of the country, the southeast, basically. But this is fully the world we live in today. Yes, 100%. Do you want to explain it?

Because I don't really good with economics. I'm not very good with economics either, but basically... You did an economics degree, didn't you, Charlie? Yeah. From UCL. Big bang. So basically, when, like,

a hundred tomatoes in the economy and we've got a million pounds. If you print another million, that 100 tomatoes, each one is worth a bit less. And the big bang, is when we're just like, fuck it.

And then we just put, we just start again. I don't think it is that. I don't think it's that at all. Basically, what on us did you get? You got 2-1. You got 2-1.

From UCL in economics. Christ. I mean, our education system's on its needs, clearly. I mean, did you have to pay, yeah, to pay money? To what? To go to university.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's, they did weaken it when, because they were just like, well, we need the money. Yeah. We'll let them in. Did you not pay?

Tomatoes? 100 tomatoes, million pounds. What's that got to do with the Big Bang? It's important. Basically, the economy was controlled,

much more state controlled to make sure there's not like inequities. Yes. And they just took them all off so that you can grow as much you like,

but it kind of meant there was no controls for it to spiral out of control. They take all the handbrake and the red tape away. And it started all became imaginary a lot of it because it was numbers or numbers

and it just became sort of a lot of it seemed to come quite hypothetical. And that's when 2008 happens, right? When it's like you're sort of trading on things that don't really exist and everyone's getting richer and richer until. It's speculating on things.

Yeah. It's basically gamb- There's no rules. The finance becomes gambling, I think, basically. So it ends a separation between those who trade stocks and shares and those who advise investors. It allows foreign firms to own UK

brokers all 300 member firms of the stock exchange were British but by 1987 75 of those 300 were foreign owned and the volume of trade increases by billions of dollars in a week so this creates

the modern boom and bust sort of well what's weird about this is that this then creates so her whole thing about monetarism is that she's trying to control the money supply yeah and get rid of inflation but what this does is basically encourage everyone to spend on credit yeah which then made up is made up money which then

means that you're just people are still the money supply is not controlled because you've just introduced it as credit I think which then leads to the credit contract 2008 when that collapses and also she's destroyed the northern mining communities and all those traditional industries yeah but then now because it's all about finance it's just been centered in London so that inequality between London the rest of the country just zooms and like and that's why like basically a lot of the UK is like, UK is like fucking poorer than the poorest state in America,

but it's just London that's been thriving, really. Yeah. Because it's basically Singapore on the Thames. Yeah. And then the rest of the country is falling apart. And those communities growing up doing blackface underground. Yeah. Now we're like, we're not called blackfish anymore.

And they're like, well, what I'm meant to do for a while? Well, what's funny anymore then? What about traditional British culture? Yeah. We used to do this every day? What is it, child? So now they've closed the mind, is there just like loads of bread? is the my just full of bread

like underground bread just skip skip him talking in 2000 today the predatory lending and the deregulation thatcher starts leads to the financial collapse yeah but then it's a global financial crash

how influential was thatcher it's more that you're unprotected global economics you're not sheltered from right because the biggest shocks and also it like it isn't the same I guess Thatcher and Reagan simultaneously were building

the modern economic culture. Deregulation stripping back. So this is in line with Reagan doing the same thing in America.

You know, the Docklands, Canary Wharf, that all happens under Thatcher. Yeah. And so the reason that's all now

so soulless is that that was just marshland and then are you saying we should go back to when it was I'm saying

nostalgic for the marshland. Well, I used to live in mudshut. Yeah. When it was a mudshut. On the Isle of Dogs, not when it was

a mudshut. And it's a weird. place, that area of London. It's very artificial. Yeah, what's fascinating is that this happens a lot, and I live in Shoreditch, a lot of East London that's now got quite fancy, it still has the Dickensian

names of when it was literally a corpse dump outside. That's why it's like fucking Shoreditch, fucking Mile End, fucking Mudchoo Isle of Dogs. So I went to Muchoo. And these are quite like fancy places now. Mudchoo City Farm, I went there I must have been about 24, just

moved to London, and the night before I'd had what can only be described as the capital the worst hand job of all time okay hand busted my balls was so painful I had to go to sleep and then the next day I was being polite and I went to I went to the farm with this girl before she went to the um going the train with a rage on when it was just so painful right it was like hours and hours and hours of being edged by the gnarliest coldest boniest hands ever and then I had to go home and the most painful horrible wank ever had and it was not saturday it wasn't fun at all it was just it was

sort of like you know those videos where they get the pus out of cow hooves you haven't seen those ones or they're like

it might as well have been that it was horrible and that happened in Mutshoot I mean that's the view I was looking at

when I was in pain yeah it's a very weird part of the city because now yeah no it is weird part of the city

yeah but what's funny they've got all they've still got all the anti-aircraft defences from the blitz there so there's like

some by a massive howitzer is quite funny it's a funny anyway uh thatcher built there'll be a skyscraper in a place called pissclaff or something yeah yeah yeah it's yeah it's the equivalent of like the all the this all the most important jobs being in like i don't know fucking toilet toilet down yeah or poo castor anyway so it's literally shit dump is basically what that's cool big smelly shit where do you do you work in big smelly shit i do wow you're important. It's the most expensive per capita area.

You need a nice suit to work in a big smelly shit toilets, Phil. Anyway, Thatcher, by the end of her second term, she's, the amount of change that's happened to this country is, I've overwhelmed. Andrew Mark calls it the English Revolution, because in the space of four or five years, the economy has been entirely transformed. And to be fair to her, she enters the 1987 general election with the economy experiencing strong growth. Unemployment is falling. She had increased it. It's still not fallen below the level it was when she came in. Interesting. But inflation is getting down.

But her view of economics is there's always going to be quite a lot of unemployment. But inflation is more important. It's more important. Inflation's the bigger enemy because she's more thinking about consumers than workers. Shopping is more important than blacking up underground. Yeah. That's that just political. And to be fair, the boom of the 90s, that comes off to Major and with Blair, that's building off the back of this, right? Yeah. Yeah.

So in our next part, in our final part of this epic series on Thatcher and Falklands, we will deal with her final term and the betrayal of Mummy. And we'll list to a voice note of my dad, high as anything, defending Margaret Thatcher. We'll talk about why your dad loves Thatcher so much and why my parents hate him. Yeah. And we'll also deal... Hate him.

Hey him. Sorry. No, they don't make your dad And we will deal with Thatcher's robust response to the AIDS crisis And her opinion She was robust on AIDS She was robust on the causes of AIDS

We'll deal with Section 28 That's already on the Patreon Web for £3 a month You get instant access to series As they're ready And you get a bonus episodes This series We did a bonus episode on Thatcher's children

And we're also getting into a book That my wife found in her uncle's house and she was clearing it out which is I mean it's got some very fruity stuff on women brilliant very funny

that's on the Patreon already the next episode if not we'll see you next time for our conclusion to Thatcher goodbye oh I'm coming oh I've got a pass

Thank you.