The Tory ministers of the 80's should be put on trial for the Ridley plan.

[EvilScotsman]

That is becoming increasingly evident.

 

Most 'young lefty student' types tend to understand the world a little better once they've grown up, and leave socialism behind as an impossible dream.

 

Some keep grinding away at it - such a shame it can never work, and that they can't understand or accept the fact.

 

Capitalism requires constant growth.

 

In what way is that more realistic?

[Vague_Boy]

They got away with it because the were in a powerful position at the time, with a big Commons majority and public opinion boosted by clever rhetoric and the prevailing liberal/new right ideologies being branded about.

 

And the fact that the opposition was a shambles with unpopular policies like unilateral nuclear disarmament.

 

People didn't question things in the same way they do today. I suspect, as with the student riots of the previous week, that today people would start to object much sooner and be out on the street protesting.

 

That's clearly nonsense as anyone who remembers the 1960s and 1970s would tell you.

 

Student activism in the late 60s, the miners strike, the downfall of the Heath government, the rise of CND, the Winter of Discontent, the Greenham Common women, the miners strike (again), the Toxeth, Brixton, Chapeltown and Handsworth riots of 1981, the poll-tax riots of the late 80s, the downfall of Thatcher.

 

People were much more politicized in those days, not like the passive X-Factor watching cabbages they have become.

[upinwath]

The Ridley plan/report: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridley_Plan

 

The Thatcher governments intention was to destroy the unions, the mining industry and the community that depended on it.

 

How have they gotten away with this act of state aggression against its citizens?

 

Ridley the hero.

The man who started a chain of events that smashed the ultra left unions who were destroying the UK and trying to force a communist government on the country. They overthrew democratically elected governments in their attempts to do so.

Thank you Ridley and thank you Thatcher. Britain could have turned into a communist dictatorship just before the fall of the soviet union.

That would have left the country in a right old mess with 'brother No 1, Scargill' in charge.

 

Can you imagine what life would have been like under the rule of a cretin with a crappy wig?

[taxman]

Ridley the hero.

The man who started a chain of events that smashed the ultra left unions who were destroying the UK and trying to force a communist government on the country. They overthrew democratically elected governments in their attempts to do so.

Thank you Ridley and thank you Thatcher. Britain could have turned into a communist dictatorship just before the fall of the soviet union.

That would have left the country in a right old mess with 'brother No 1, Scargill' in charge.

 

Can you imagine what life would have been like under the rule of a cretin with a crappy wig?

 

Don't be so melodramatic. "Communist Government"....

 

Unfortunately Tories will always get away with plans to screw certain sections of society because, as this thread has shown, people are quite happy to go along with what Governments say and find scapegoating second nature...whether the people suffering are benefit claimants, single mums, immigrants or working people.

[Rupert_Baehr]

. .

[carosio]

Atleast everyone had a JOB!!!

Yes, and a comfortable one too if you were on the night shift down at British Leyland, you could (if the reports were true) get down and have a nice kip.

[Conrod]

Capitalism requires constant growth.

 

In what way is that more realistic?

Not necessarily, but the realism is reflected (quite obviously I would have hoped) by the relative success of capitalist economies.

 

It's those evil capitalist countries where people all have plenty of food, central heating, cars and holidays. DAMN THAT EVIL CAPITALISM.

[Guest sibon]

Not necessarily, but the realism is reflected (quite obviously I would have hoped) by the relative success of capitalist economies.

 

It's those evil capitalist countries where people all have plenty of food, central heating, cars and holidays. DAMN THAT EVIL CAPITALISM.

 

It is indeed a demonstrably better way of running an economy, than Communism.

 

That doesn't mean that it is the best way though. Go and ask the Irish, The Portuguese, The Spanish, The Greeks or George Osbourne if you don't believe me.

 

In some parts of the world, capitalism is almost as broken as communism. The interesting question is "What do we try next?"

[upinwath]

Don't be so melodramatic. "Communist Government"....

.

 

 

Come on. The wig wearing dafty was a fully paid up, card carrying member of the communist party for many a year before he joined the labour party.

(He followed his idiot dad into the commie party)

He only moved to the latter because he wanted power and the commies were so unpopular.

His attempt to set up a popular ultra jest/left alternative to the Labour party went pear shaped when he found out that only 2 and a half % of the population in left wing areas of the country were stupid enough to vote for him.

They rejected his daft version of a Marxist attempt to run the country.

 

The commie party of Great Britain call him 'brother'. I call him a wig wearing failed revolutionary.

[Tradescanthia]

Exactly. I just cannot understand the mentality of people who supported the unions and their mindless greed.

 

Have you got a brain ??? Does your mother know you dabblle on the internet ?? I hope you are NOT old enough to vote !!!