Margaret Thatcher day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Black Comb]

Lots of government money shoved into those industrial estates in S Wales in the 80's.
Who wants their kids to work down the pit anyway?
(and yes, I'v been down one)

 

[Swarm]

Lots of government money shoved into those industrial estates in S Wales in the 80's.
Who wants their kids to work down the pit anyway?
(and yes, I'v been down one)

Yes, I regularly pass one particular estate that saw extensive expansion. A large percentage of the old units have seemingly been 'to let' ever since and oddly enough, many empty in the newer section.

Coal mining may not be the most attractive occupation but far more attractive than a part time job on minimum wage, which is about the norm around here.
Far more to mines than cutting coal too, I know a few very highly qualified ex electricians and fitters.
The knock on effect of the closure of this entire industry in this area has been incredible, we are still paying for it and we will continue to feel it for a long time.

 

[REDWOOD]

Lots of government money shoved into those industrial estates in S Wales in the 80's.
Who wants their kids to work down the pit anyway?
(and yes, I'v been down one)

Three things my mother didn't want for me
Cauliflower ears
working down the pits
head blown off in northern Ireland

 

[Briarfield]

We glory in labels, but they are never so simple.

Mrs T wasn't really a Tory but a Free Market Whig.

I could not see her supporting the Corn Laws for example.

Similarly that awful speech on society/individuals was in no way Tory.

Try http://www.politicalcompass.org/test to see where you left v right.

Prepare for a shock.


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[raathistle]

interesting questions. I came out as pretty Left Wing Libertarian (-4.62,-6.56) which feels about right. More interesting personally though was the chart of modern political leaders, and how empty that particular quadrant is, and how saturated the authoritarian right quadrant is. Probably explains why I feel so disenfranchised politically in the UK

 

[Briarfield]

interesting questions. I came out as pretty Left Wing Libertarian (-4.62,-6.56) which feels about right. More interesting personally though was the chart of modern political leaders, and how empty that particular quadrant is, and how saturated the authoritarian right quadrant is. Probably explains why I feel so disenfranchised politically in the UK

As a Daily Telegraph reading liberal leftie I think know how you feel.



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[mbc]

interesting questions. I came out as pretty Left Wing Libertarian (-4.62,-6.56) which feels about right. More interesting personally though was the chart of modern political leaders, and how empty that particular quadrant is, and how saturated the authoritarian right quadrant is. Probably explains why I feel so disenfranchised politically in the UK

To be fair, I think they'd end up in a different quadrant if allowed to fill in a questionnaire themselves.

 

[madasafish]

We - or at least I - have lived through a time of huge economic and social change.

When I started work, a computer was an industrial curiosity with punched card input , numerically controlled machine tools were rare, and manual payroll records were common. "Made in Japan" was a term of derision and "Made in China" was unheard of. British Leyland were the largest UK car manufacturer and a car was worn out by 40,000 miles. "North Sea Oil" was a phrase, production had barely started.

Since then, almost all repetitive jobs have been automated, a car contains computers 100 times more powerful than the first Moon Lander, much production has been outsourced to China or the Far East, BL no longer exists, "Made in Japan" is a badge of quality, cars last 150k miles + and the UK coal industry no longer exists - decimated by production costs, geology and the Clean Air Act.

To blame these changes on one politician seems to imply she was all powerful : the reality of course is the world has changed and the UK had to as well..

But UK politics has not: one man one vote every five years and then politicians do what they like...

I have written to my local MP twice in my life: once before the Iraq war. The Labour incumbent dismissed my concerns out of hand.

And once before the proposed Syrian intervention. The (successor) Tory incumbent dismissed my concerns out of hand.

As you may imagine, I was underwhelmed# at being proven correct before the event - with the Party Whip taking precedence over argument. I can see how WW1 began with such stupidity.

# a polite phrase.

 

[Apple]

I can see how WW1 began with such stupidity.


Not so MADASAFISH then... I mean not as MAD!
Doris's grandmother was a landgirl during the second great conflict, based on a farmstead near Tiverton in North Devon she was sent up on the moors with a lorry to collect pony carcases to feed to the American troops training somewhere on the sand dunes ( The Warren?) now well into her 90's, she said to me that as a girl they were not taught anything about The Great War, Her great and now great great grand children will possible be taught more!
Perhaps then, in the 1920,s the mad war was too close for comfort?
Is there any person alive now who was in that conflict...... most of the radio interviews I have listened to seem to be memories of children and grandchildren of those who lived through it.

 

[mbc]

'They' will hopefully never again hoodwink us into going over the top.
Part of my delight in Scotland even having this referendum is that I see it as a partial downfall of 'they'.

 

[Heather]

Well, I came out matching Mandela. Happy with that.

 

[Norton]

The question is how would things be if Maggie had never become interested in politics - would the miners still be on strike, would the Falklands belong to Argentinians etc etc - pretty grim I suppose.

 

[jd101k2000]

Would people with severe mental health still have asylums (rather than ending up in prison or homeless), would school children still get milk, would there be less inequality in pay, would pensions have kept pace with inflation, would we still have rates rather than council tax (via poll tax), would unemployment be lower?

 

[Stiffy]

Would people with severe mental health still have asylums (rather than ending up in prison or homeless), would school children still get milk, would there be less inequality in pay, would pensions have kept pace with inflation, would we still have rates rather than council tax (via poll tax), would unemployment be lower?

Would we still have social housing, would we still have an industrial base, would Sid have been told to xxxxoff and our utilities still be run for the benefit of the country, would we still be a manufacturing country instead of being service based and held to randsom by banks?
Yep she did a great job !
S

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[pargyle]

Well ... I wasn't going to comment on this thread but there really is some tripe being purveyed ... presumably by some people who have not been around long enough to remember some really BAD times before the Thatcher era started.

I'm pushing 64 and I lived through the post war years and I was brought up in a Yorkshire mining community. My Dad was a teacher (who had been in the army for the whole of WWII)... and in the 1960's he earned less than a lot of miners who not only enjoyed a very good (by comparison to many) wage they also got a huge free coal allowance which, in those days, basically meant they had no fuel bills ... in South Yorks, in the 1960's, winters seemed to be never ending and very cold so that 'perk' was worth a lot of money ... in warmer years miners used to sell their coal allowance to non miners ... another perk ! The miners were always at the top of the earnings league .. a position their leaders sought to maintain ..often to the annoyance of other union led industries. Despite their position in the wages league there were still frequent strikes and the nationalised coal industry had one of the lowest levels of production per man shift of any coal producing nation on the planet. Even the well equipped 'modern' mines never achieved their full potential because of archaic working practices and militant refusual to change.

Things had to change and the coal industry was symptomatic of the reluctance of some trades to accept that the world was becoming a smaller and very different place ... coupled with an arrogance and intransigence in some senior managers and equally opposite entrenched positions (but with the same attitude) from many trade union leaders, we were all set for a disaster on top of the 'natural' economic changes.

Considering the debt and devastation that we were left with after WWII - Germany - who caused the conflict - benefited from massive international investment and assistance with their rebuilding and were able to create modern industries - whilst the UK was left wallowing in pre-war technology, design and tooling and largely fending for ourselves with a massive National Debt and a loan from the USA and Canada which cost us over £10 billion in the ensuing years... in 1947 imagine what this sum was worth ... it was, like a credit card balance that you can't afford, never going to be paid off and was finally negotiated away in 2006 for £650 million ... after we had repaid far in excess of the original loan in interest. Britain was effectively bankrupt for much of the 1950's, 60's and 70's ....

We saw the demise of the British Car, Motorbike, Cycle, Textile, Steel, Shipbuilding and heavy engineering industries (and others !) mainly because of the cheap labour forces available in other parts of the world and their various Government's desire to encourage and subsidise growth.

Successive UK Governments struggled with inefficient, heavily subsidised, nationlised industries and private enterprise struggled with a whole raft of problems that included unrealistic wage demands, powerful trade unions who held Labour Governments in their pockets and sought to bring down Conservative governments with strikes and other industrial action. Inflation during the 1970's was rarely less than 10% and on one occasion, at least, was more than 20% ... Jim Callaghan's labour government (finally ousted in 1979) presided over some of the worst economic times the country had ever seen culminating in the 1978/79 Winter of Discontent where public sector strikes virtually brought the country to a standstill.

The proposal for a reduction in the number of collieries was actually formulated by a Labour government ... the original plan was for 20 of the least economic pits to be closed and this was opposed by Joe Gormley (Arthur Scargill's predecessor) and shelved. The Conservative government put the closures back on the agenda and Arthur Scargill (who Joe Gormley had held back because of his communist leanings but took over when Joe retired) took an executive decision to strike, an unballoted strike action ... a foolish move as a productivity deal, previously struck with the miners, had resulted in huge stocks of coal being held everywhere .. particularly in the power station yards. The union did not have the funds to support a protracted strike and as it was an unlawful strike miners could not claim any benefits. Pits that had not been marked for closure had to be closed as they were considered unsafe and not viable when the strike finally ended ... in a year the electricity generating industry had moved significantly away from coal fired stations and homes were more likely to be gas central heated than to be heated by solid fuel. The strike actually damaged the market place ... and if there was a villain in the piece then Arthur Scargill shares equal billing with anyone else you care to pillory.

To blame the whole situation on Margaret Thatcher is nonsense .. she had her faults and like many politicians failed to see that her time had come to an end but the reality was that she recognised what needed to happen and unlike the previous labour lot (who had plans in place but lacked the bottle to implement them) she had the balls to do something. Inflation was the elephant in the room and the side effect of reducing inflation was, inevitably, higher unemployment.

There are people commenting on here that need to read a bit more social history as they were clearly not around to witness the reality of history at first hand. The 'truth' may lie somewhere in the middle ground and I can accept that there were hidden agendas everywhere ... and empire builders both in and out of Government.

The recent (2014) releases of Cabinet papers show that there were lies told to the public by the Thatcher regime but if you look back to the disclosures from the previous labour governments they were equally disingenuous ... I am not certain that there is any such thing as a 'good government'.

Sadly, there was never going to be a bloodless end to this situation and we will never see a return to Britain as an economy based on the manufacture of low cost consumables and commodities ... the trick, which all the post war Governments seemed to have missed, was to change industry to specialist (high value),technology led production. The biggest steelworks in Sheffield now produces high grade, highly specialised, steel alloys and the growing technology of ceramics and metallurgy (which my father pioneered) is a huge growth area. It's just a pity that we didn't see more emphasis on change for the better from those (and I include the Union Leaders) short sighted individuals who could not countenance change.

The present level of unemployment in some areas was actually predictable ...without the desire to change and a continual harping back to 'the great days of british industry' and fear from foreign industrialists and investors that our labour force were militant and work shy (not true but an impression was there) there was and remains little hope for the generation who suffered from the demise in our industrial base.

The sad thing is that the next generation seem unable to change as well ... our existing employment situation is probably exacerbated by the lack of desire of some young (and slightly older !) people to do basic jobs and an influx of people from an ever expanding Europe that ARE prepared to do them .. not everyone can have a job that is well paid and one they really enjoy doing ... I don't !

So... little changes but little changes can make big changes in time - if the will is there.

Rant over ...

 

[Hivemaker.]

The sad thing is that the next generation seem unable to change as well ... our existing employment situation is probably exacerbated by the lack of desire of some young (and slightly older !) people to do basic jobs and an influx of people from an ever expanding Europe that ARE prepared to do them .. not everyone can have a job that is well paid and one they really enjoy doing ... I don't !

Too many chiefs and not enough red Indians.

 

[jd101k2000]

Well, Pargyle, I think you basically put the point that she was a political leader like any other. So she does not deserve her own day. There are others who I would prefer to see commemorated with their own day. E.g Churchill or Aneurin Bevan for a start.

 

[Hivemaker.]

There are others who I would prefer to see commemorated with their own day. E.g Churchill or Aneurin Bevan for a start.

Winston Churchill day, 9th April, USA.

 

[jd101k2000]

Well, there's a thing!

 

[REDWOOD]

Too many chiefs and not enough red Indians.

I'm with you on that, I am one of seventeen workers and we carry eleven administration and management staff and that's without all the office staff at HQ, way to heavy on top. It's a simple case of the more staff a manager has the more he gets paid, pure empire building