BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Apr 12 - 04:16 AM

obviously Akes in this together with Cameron.....

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: akenaton
Date: 26 Apr 12 - 04:00 AM

Class my ass!(US),we're all just people, whether scrabbling to survive or trying to make a fortune.

The whole idea of "class warfare" is simply another divisive tactic to stop real dialogue.

There is only one thing which scares the shit out of the people who run this system.......unity!

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 26 Apr 12 - 03:40 AM

Thatcher was middle class, working class people don't own a business, no matter how small.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: GUEST,petecockermouth
Date: 26 Apr 12 - 02:09 AM

surely it's irrelevant where you come from if what you do is at odds with that start. when thatcher was hanging about with friedman and pinochet and pursuing ruthless anti-worker policies it didn't matter where she started. and blair with bush and the warmongers - they were both aggressive free-market capitalists with all the violence and inhumanity that implies. if you happen to live in a country that has managed to resist that cruel ideology you are lucky. here, we have to fight against it-again-to preserve what rights we have and to try to win some back. and try to have a laugh while doing it...

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 06:57 PM

Middle class rather than upper middle class.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 06:37 PM

I dunno about working class. All the shopkeepers kids went in the A class at primary and grammar school in boston. They were big wheels compared to all the wage earning plebs in the Lincolnshire town where I grew up.

You had to see those class divisions to believe them.

Petty bourgeois - i think maybe that's the term.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 04:12 PM

I would put Thatcher's roots as Working-Class. Her old man was a corner-shopkeeper in a small market town - hardly qualifies as the equal of, say, a doctor or lawyer? More the equivalent of a shop-floor foreman in industry. Yep, definitely nowhere near Middle-Class, obviously Working-Class.

And her lifelong rage at her own lowly beginnings was what drove her loathing for, and viciousness against, those who shared her roots. She hated them because she hated herself for her own "common-ness" (her speech, of course, betrayed her - she would no doubt have had a natural Lincolnshire accent, which she tried to disguise by metaphorically inserting a pound of plums in her mouth. Never quite came off - her posh-talk always sounded affected and 'put on'. Another betrayal of her roots).

IMHO. YMMV.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 03:19 PM

Well, no Cock. Blair was a scion of the wealthy educated at Fettes. Thatcher was at best middle class and went to a grammar school. I agree with your closing words to a certain extent.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: GUEST,petecockermouth
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 03:12 PM

thatcher was doing what tories do if they can. whereas blair was doing what tories do if we let them. at least she was true to her supporters -he was a traitor to his.
orwell (or Orwell for the pedants) said something like - england is a much-loved dysfunctional family with all the wrong people in control. sounds about right-but it's still our family.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Acorn4
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 02:46 PM

....actually just seen there's a thread been started on the "War Crimes" theme - will be useful to cross reference.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Acorn4
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 02:43 PM

"No, if we are talking of war crimes, Mr Blair should be first for the hangmans reel."

Wouldn't argue with that and he may yet be called to answer alongside GWB.

But he'd decided very early on that he wanted to wear Maggie Thatcher's knickers, hadn't he?

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 02:11 PM

"we can learn from other countries"

About the proper use of capital letters, for instance?   :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: akenaton
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 02:09 PM

Mr Blair was arguably complicit in the deaths of thousands, yet if a poll was held on Mudcat.....or I suppose the country, he would win by a landslide against MrsT.

No, if we are talking of war crimes, Mr Blair should be first for the hangmans reel.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: GUEST,petecockermouth
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 01:48 PM

where would i rather live? don't want to live anywhere else but the lakes or scotland - for all the faults,the ruling classes and the daily mail -this is my home. i would love french weather and employment law but could not live without fantastic countryside ,great music, good pubs and and friends and family. the idea that 'if this government does that i'm leaving' i will leave to the wealthy types who could not bear the injustice and indignity of having to pay 5% more tax on the top level of income tax that they don't pay. are they and you MtheGm not interested in trying to make their country fairer, better for everyone? are you happy to see the NHS and welfare system sold off and gutted? we can learn from other countries -french revolution, scandinavian social fairness, sound german economics -and they are good to visit. they all have their own radical traditions and we have ours and it is one in urgent need of revivial-we can't do that by writing sour-faced e-mails from the costa del ex-pat.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 01:37 PM

"Mistake to judge views solely by who might have agreed with them, Jim."
Still doesn't excuse the fact that she helped him avoid going to trial for the massacring of thousands - mainly young people.
You can't choose your rlatives, but you do have to take responsibility for choosing your friends - in this case, by activly supporting a mass murderer albeit, after the fact.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 01:26 PM

Mistake to judge views solely by who might have agreed with them, Jim. I agree with Hitler about smoking; but not about much else.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 01:06 PM

I quite like France - but mostly not the French people. I seem to get on well with most Caribbeans I have met. I liked England in the late 60s and early 70s - indeed most of the 70s. I like almost everything about Skandiwegia apart from the cold, and the price of booze.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 12:56 PM

"Must have got something right then, mustn't she?!"
Can think of a Chilean mass murderer who would have agreed with you wholeheartedly had he not gone to joint the choir invisibule
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 12:38 PM

Ah, Richard, dream on! But in the real world, now?...

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 12:16 PM

In a better England with a climate like Nice. Or a climate like some parts of Queensland without the cane toads floods and right wing politicians like Bjelke-Peterson. Or a climate like the Balearics. In any case without mossies!

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 11:52 AM

I always figured Thatcher was the UK's response and counterpart to Ronald Reagan. He managed to trash a bunch of unions, ruin the savings and loan system, de-regulate important operations and and made government employees into puppets whose lives he could tamper with as if they were livestock.

Back to your discussion. Most of the rest of it is too local for this American to have much reaction to.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: GUEST,Hookey Wole
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 11:20 AM

"And for all this obloquy & these animadversions, where, Al, pete, BWM, Richard, Acorn, Dave, would you prefer to live at the moment?"

dunno about the others,

but me right now today..

I wouldn't mind living in a posh boy's big comfy house high up the hill well above river flood levels....

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 11:15 AM

Canada
New Zealand
But most of all, The Isle of Eigg.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 11:09 AM

And for all this obloquy & these animadversions, where, Al, pete, BWM, Richard, Acorn, Dave, would you prefer to live at the moment?

Just asking...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 10:55 AM

'Scargill was outmanoeuvered but I believe was trying to do his best for his members, trying to prevent them from being oppressed and dispossessed by the government. And lo! looking now at UK mining he was right all along.'

His member were all part of a larger society, and it did his members no favours if that society went down the toilet.

To persist with inflationary wage claims dealt a terrible blow to the disabled and poorer members of society. The first measure Thatcher took was to abandon index linked benfits - so Arthur's inflationary tactic (under the promised free collective bargaining promise of Lady T) meant in real terms a 30% cut in benefits.

Both of them were a couple of absolute buggers.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 10:39 AM

Scargill was outmanoeuvered but I believe was trying to do his best for his members, trying to prevent them from being oppressed and dispossessed by the government. And lo! looking now at UK mining he was right all along.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: MikeL2
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 10:36 AM

Hi
Hunt has refused to resign, but his "right-hand man" Adam Smith has acted as the fall guy and resigned for him.

Any guesses how long Hunt will last ???

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Acorn4
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 10:20 AM

And, of course, it's now emerging that Jeremy Hunt is, as we'd all suspected, rhyming slang.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: GUEST,petecockermouth
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 08:53 AM

i can and do blame thatcher for most things wrong with the state of our country. but there are many more guilty people - and ultimately it is ourselves who seem to lack the collective wit to understand that it is -as ever- the posh boys - wealthy,establishment,owning classes who are doing what they feel they are born to - screw us all for their greed and sick ideology. we have been fooled into believing that a choice between blair/cameron/clegg/brown/osborne/miliband/miliband whoever is a real choice-all marginally different shades of thatcherite blue. there is no point tinkering with the details of the global capitalist nightmare - and there is no-one prominent, in this country anyway, who is making the case for a fairer, more sustainable society. except maybe the occupy movement- and have they disappeared now?

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 08:28 AM

'But a bit of credit where due wouldn't come amiss from some who don't want to remember all the dangers we faced in the early 80s.'

I think she was the biggest danger, she was the rock that England '79 foundered on. Her and Scargill both wiped their bums on the Union Jack.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Acorn4
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 07:25 AM

Unfortunately Scargill and Galtieri provided just the "pantomime villains" that she needed to give her dreadful policies a gloss of righteousness.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 06:42 AM

Thatcher acted out of spite, in the same way she inflicted the poll tax on Scotland first because they returned no Tory MPs

Posh Dave and Boy George have not got the first idea about the working class.
There is a letter in my paper this morning about oh dear what a surprise, the tory budget favours the rich, why anyone should be surprised by this amazes me, this is what the tories ALWAYS do, make the less well off subsidise the wealthy, they think that is what the working class are for.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 06:34 AM

The two sides were however unhappily almost evenly matched. Things would have turned out a whole lot worse if that poisonous noisome Scargill had carried the day and imposed government by Trade Union diktat, with himself [a prime opportunist if ever such was, interested in his own career to the complete exclusion of his supposed members' interests] as virtual dictator. I don't think anyone else would have had the singleness of purpose to carry that particular battle, and a great retrospective debt is owing. Unhappily, power corrupts. I have nothing to say in favour of the later Thatcher, the loony bureaucratiser of our education system to the point of near-irreparability; the obsessive unjust Council Taxer ~~ that was when she had to go; and Howe had the sense to rally the support to make her do so. But a bit of credit where due wouldn't come amiss from some who don't want to remember all the dangers we faced in the early 80s.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 06:19 AM

Why is persisting in idiocy admirable? I'd rather politicians corrected their mistakes

All very well if those politicians have the willingness and capacity to recognise and acknowledge their mistakes, Richard.

Sadly, The Beast of Grantham didn't appear to have either of those fine attributes. What she did have, however, was courage and determination. Imagine what could be achieved by someone with those attributes who chose to direct their energies equitably, and without the vindictiveness and viciousness so apparent during her awful Prime-Ministership.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 05:26 AM

Ake - as John Harvey Jones said at the time. In her first eighteen months she closed 28% of manufacturing industry - some of those were damn good firms.

You may see it as economic brilliance. I see it as the raving of right wing twat - determined to pay back the miners for the humiliation of the three day week.

Political theory has very little to do with it. I doubt she ever read a book about political theory in her life. As Mike said she was the zeitgeist of the times. the middle classes had always enjoyed certain perks - a slightly better education than the working classes, a pension, home owning. In the 1970's the unions started saying bugger that for a game of soldiers - we want some of that.

Thatcher embodied the resentfullness of the average Daily Mail reader at witnessing this.

Unfortunately the extreme right wing saw they could harness this spirit of malice, xenophobia, homophobia to destroy union power by destroying the industries and trades which employed the union members.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: akenaton
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 05:01 AM

BWM.....our whole society is founded on selfishness and greed,it's just that we(our generation), have been fortunate enough to escape the worst effects of "capitalism in decline".

The nice cosy "liberalism" that most of us know and love will no longer serve as a cover for the true nature of the beast.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 04:43 AM

Al ~~ Happily I had no need to hide in any stockroom: I had managed to get early retirement from teaching [best day's work I ever did] a few years before she surfaced.

David Lodge, novelist & Professor of English, has a character leaving education for industry in his novel Nice Work [1988] write in a letter explaining his decision: "The people who work in state institutions are depressed, demoralised, fatalistic. Witness the extraordinary meekness with which the academic establishments has accepted the cuts (has there been a single high-level resignation as distinct from early retirement?). It's no use blaming Thatcher, as if she was some kind of witch who has enchanted the nation. She is riding the zeitgeist. {MGM's emphasis When trade unions offer their members discount subscriptions to BUPA, the writing is on the wall for old-style socialism."

Precisely.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 04:39 AM

Why is persisting in idiocy admirable? I'd rather politicians corrected their mistakes.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 04:25 AM

Good Heavens, I'm in agreement with Richard for the second time in as many weeks.

Michael - I do admire The Grantham Scorpion for her determination, and for having the guts to stick to the policies upon which she embarked. Qualities sadly lacking in many of our politicians.

Unfortunately, her policies (or rather the policies given to her by those to whose influences she was an adherent) were demonstrably wrong-minded and based in the vileness of selfishness and greed, and were the most damaging and divisive of any UK Government of the 20th Century.

INHO. YMMV.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: akenaton
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 04:24 AM

Come on Al...be honest, Thatcher realised long ago, what we can all see clearly now.

We had a raft of industries which through no real fault of their own, had become uncompetitive.

Something had to be done, and it worked ...in the short term.
Unfortunately it has since become obvious that we cant borrow or spend ourselves out of the shit.....you all vote for a competitive society....so what we are experiencing now is part of the competitive cycle.

I just dont think we are going to survive this turn of the wheel.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 04:01 AM

It would have been better had she never led any political party - at the VERY least.

No chance of that. MI6 had chosen her - as the Spycatcher book showed. They exploited the country's difficulty in the wake of OPEC countries starting to screw us all, and engineered a right wing putsch. No wonder she wanted to supress the book.

As an ex teacher MGM - I cannot for the life of me understand how you can defend here. I was a supply teacher at the start of the national curriculum and visited many schools - I saw the whole horror story unfold.

Every subject teacher issued with a folder about how their subjects were to be taught - cost £18 to the school. Every junior school teacher had to have all ten folders each costing the school £18 each. All total right wing bollocks = courtesy of Sheila Lawlor and Keith Joseph.

Then there were the teachers driven to a nervous breakdown and death by OFSET inspectors. One school I worked in - the Head of English's blood pressure ratchetedup so high that he woke up blinded in one eye with the stress.

One school I taught in had an entire stockroom full to the ceiling with unread memo about the SATs tests, which that year they decided were so flawed that they never took place.

All of this in schools where the teachers were struggling along with twenty and thirty year old textbooks.

Which stock cupboard were you hiding in? I thought no one could be a worse Seretaty of Education than Shirley Williams till Thatcher's gang came in.

The only voice raised in protest against the madness was John Macregor in his short tenure of the post. To punish him - he was sent to Northern Ireland - where his work would be unnoticed against the backdrop of the Thatcher and Tebbit yahboo line in diplomacy.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 02:43 AM

It would have been better had she never led any political party - at the VERY least.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 01:24 AM

... and I suppose, BWM, that it would have been better IYO for the country to be governed by that arrogant booby of a president of the NUM than by the government, would it?

Away you...

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 01:20 AM

"Still can't see any good in Thatcher. The stench of that woman will pervade this country long after she's turned up her toes."
.,,.,.,
Behold ~~ Our valiant resident leftiwankaz, so proud of their o-so-progressive atichoods that they can only post under incomprehensible PSEUDonyms [emphasis of first syllable deliberate ~~ so where are those other three acorns, eh?], are still chuntering on about her more than 20 years later.

Must have got something right then, mustn't she?!

Teehee...

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Penny S.
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 02:26 PM

I'm not sure arrogant is quite right - it always seems to me to include an element of conscious decision to assume one's own superiority and look down on lesser mortals. I think some of this lot are so much in their bubble that they are not able to do that. It's related to the word arrogate, isn't it, which is to take power appropriately?

Haughty, maybe. Autocratic? I've been looking in the thesaurus, and all of the suggestions do include that element of deliberation.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: MikeL2
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 02:20 PM

hi Bonzo

"< The lisping fool is just another Tory wearing a red tie!!>"

Don't knock him. He is the one that is keeping your Party in power !!!

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 02:16 PM

Well she was a turncoat too, wasn't she? Daughter of a nobody Co-op shop-keeper, married into money, got into politics and set about destroying those she hated the most - the working class - hated them because they reminded her of her own low roots.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Acorn4
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 01:56 PM

I don't expect that Cameron was "groomed" for governing after a crash, so the masterplan went a bit wrong; he could have kept the rich chums happy and thrown the peasants a few scraps and things would have rolled on quite nicely.

I just can't hate him as much as I did Thatcher. She gave the police and armed forces a hefty pay rise knowing she was going to need them. Cameron's cutting them as well so the masterplan wouldn't seem to be exactly the same.

Still can't see any good in Thatcher. The stench of that woman will pervade this country long after she's turned up her toes.

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Acorn4
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 01:49 PM

Nice one, Jim!

Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Posh Boys (UK politics)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 01:36 PM

"I expect if David Cameron was a crippled homosexual he would be fine!!! "
Ah, that''s better - that's the Toryism we all know and love!!
Jim Carroll