Margaret Thatcher Thread - Read the first post before posting

[mort]

Posts containing uncommented links removed.

[Jim Hardie]

:hihi::hihi: Tim, nice, but dim............or a bit like Boris Johnson.

 

Boris, dim? I wish I were a few lumens behind him.

[Obelix]

Are you implying that because you did then everyone could?

 

Could you be a professional footballer or a brain surgeon or have written A Brief History of Time?

 

People managed that, why didn't you?

 

Perhaps because not all people are the same and not every playing field is level.

 

No, perhaps, and Yes are the answers.

 

The playing field however that I was given was perhaps a little sloped, but there were no barriers to those prepared to work. I've just done a little totting up of the people in my class - those that were prepared to graft have all come out reasonably well - some better than others admittedly but they've all helped down good steady jobs from being a sheephand in NSW, a linesman for YEG and later NEDL, a research geneticist, a GP, one sadly died in a car crash, and a research chemist. Only one of them had any sort of privilege, apart from that of being born an Briton and that was the GP.

 

The rest decided they fall on self pity and bemoan how nasty Maggie was. They are as far as I can tell still doing that and have got nowhere.

 

---------- Post added 11-04-2013 at 23:26 ----------

 

Google Sir Keith Joseph and his 'class' speech.

 

So that's a no then.

[SpikeMac]

The rest decided they fall on self pity and bemoan how nasty Maggie was. They are as far as I can tell still doing that and have got nowhere.

 

.

 

It is possible to appreciate how vicious her policies were, especially to Northern England, and still get on with your life.

 

That's the path I chose. (I've just turned QT off in disgust, as I cannot stand the revisionist nonsense that is being broadcast).

[Obelix]

As a crude example, chemotherapy is a vicious drug, but that doesn't make it any the less necessary or ultimately beneficial.

 

As I said way back up the thread, the industries that failed would have failed regardless. If they were so brilliant, why didn't the succeeding Govt try and bring them back when they could? The workforce was still there and still able to do those jobs... the sad fact was that the industries in question were deeply deeply uncompetitive and were sucking down the rest of the country with them - the sick man of Europe.

[SpikeMac]

As a crude example, chemotherapy is a vicious drug, but that doesn't make it any the less necessary or ultimately beneficial.

 

As I said way back up the thread, the industries that failed would have failed regardless. If they were so brilliant, why didn't the succeeding Govt try and bring them back when they could? The workforce was still there and still able to do those jobs... the sad fact was that the industries in question were deeply deeply uncompetitive and were sucking down the rest of the country with them - the sick man of Europe.

 

I'm not so sure.

 

There were plenty of viable coal mines, for example. There probably still are if you do the calculations in a particular way.

 

I do think that the steel/ coal industry decimation was politically motivated. Ken Clarke came close to admitting as much on QT. The car industry was a clear basket case.

 

I saw a lot of the destruction at close quarters, I still go back to some of the areas affected, as I have family there. The pit villages in particular, have still not recovered, so deep was the damage.

[I1L2T3]

You are still ignoring the fact that the Argentineans had plans to invade the Falkland’s before Thatcher.

 

 

 

80’s bubble, house prices linked to inflation, when they started to rise interest rate were increased.

 

GB’s bubble, house prices removed from inflation figures and bubble started to grow, when priced started to stall GB lowed interest rated to give it further stimulus.

 

Tories sold council houses to the tenants.

 

Labour evicted tenants and demolished council houses and at the same time he allowed 3,000,000 extra people to settle here.

 

Can you see how the two policies are entirely different and completely unrelated.

 

Get yourself a decent history of the war and read up on it. Or show me a piece of evidence where a reliable commentator backs up your argument that the planned Endurance withdrawal was not significant. You will seriously struggle to find anything except perhaps from right wing histories that attempt to gloss over it. Perhaps even worse the defence review of 1981 had planned in the end of V-force bombers and naval capabilities. In many ways Thatcher was lucky. Had the review been completed as per her plans and the islands had been invaded several months after they actually were, then Britain could never have taken them back.

 

The processes that created the 80s bubble and the bubble under Labour were the same. They both stem back to a culture change in the city in the 1980s.

[tinfoilhat]

Sorry, not quite sure what you are getting at.

 

What was labour going for in the 80s?

 

No, I do not think that everyone should be graduates. I think access to a University education should have nothing to do with finances and everything to do with ability.

 

No, not my finest post - brain wouldn't engage. I don't think currently everyone who gets on a university course (not completes it and gets a degree) is capable of doing one and wouldn't have got near a university 25 years ago.

 

Whilst thatcher caused a nasty, sudden jolt to mining communities (I knew people at the time who got out) labour (and the media) compounded the problem by telling them they are largely worthless without a degree. And now they have to pay for them.

[Obelix]

There were plenty of viable mines, but there was not a workforce that permitted them to be worked in a viable fashion. A lot of the collieries producing coal, especially good coking coal like the Top Hard or Silkstone would have had a bright future but the workforce wouldnt allow it.

 

The deputies would have gone down and kept the mines open, ensured the workings were safe, because NACODS were never out but the regular pickets kept them out. By the time they went back a lot of the mines had serious issues - I can't think of a better way to make it as difficult as possible to restart production but that was the mentality at the time... they dug their own grave effectively. If they ahd modernised, if they had permitted a lot of redundancies which is difficult of course, but entirely necessary we would have collieries today. Not a 170 of them to be sure, but I'd have thought well over fifty for example.

[cuttsie]

I have read some where that the Top Gear lads are driving the funeral cars.