The economic problems of the 1970's mainly sprang from the fact that petrol prices rose from twenty odd pence to £1.75 a gallon in a record time - due the OPEC countries getting their collective acts together.

Both Tory and Labour pre-Thatcher governments battled valiantly to save and sustain British industry.

Thatcher let the system go to hell. 28% of manufacturing industry gone in the second year of her first period of office. John Harvet Jones (hardly a red under the bed) called her policies pure insanity.

Teribus - anyone who voted for Thatcher was no patriot - not in my book. Your sneers of derision at the group of English workers who mined the coal that founded England's wealth speaks volumes.

Scargill and the TUC leaders of the 1970's weren't overbright. Any fool could see Thatcher's plan and how it would and ensnare them. She outwitted them easily. But they were bloody geniuses compared to you mate. At least they knew that the essence of making a business profitable involved keeping it in existence.