BS: Where now Thatcher haters?

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: ollaimh
Date: 28 Sep 12 - 01:48 PM

speaking of covedrt operation s there is the much more disturbing and damnning decades of cover up by all levels of british society of the murders of irish people on bloody sunday. when you have a culture committed to milartism for five hundred years all levels of society get coopted into the cover up mentality or they are destroyed. that of course is why britain is so class bigoted as well--the sociologocal militasrizaytion of civil society as well. if you do not have rank and class in civil sopciety you can't keep torturing, iv=vading others countries and mufdering your percieved enemies without rebellion.

oh yeah thatcher started the removal of the presumption of innocence fron the criminal law in the uk as well.it got worst with blair but thatcher started the elimination of "the golden thread of british justice"

people like that go to hell, usually before they die with alzheimers and other forms of dementia. live demented, die demented

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 27 Sep 12 - 03:38 PM

Of course there are covert operations going on. Are you telling me that the Labour Party has nobody spying on the opposition?

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 27 Sep 12 - 01:33 PM

Maybe so.....the rumours were very persistent though. And come to that there were very obviously covert operations going on . No news has surfaced about that - but that very obviously the case.

If they could bullshit us about WMDs - they could be lying about anything. and covering up their lies.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 27 Sep 12 - 06:17 AM

"My gut instinct tells me your "squaddie" was shooting you a line."

I agree. The fact that no ex-squaddie has ever come forward to confirm this, and the fact that no investigative journalist has (to my knowledge anyway) ever produced any proof suggests that it was never anything more than an urban myth.

BTW. Pizel. It's true that if any soldiers had been involved they would have been sworn to secrecy and made to sign the Official Secrets Act. Even so, I don't think that the threat of loss of pension would be an issue here, simply because of the scandal that would have erupted if any of them had spoken.

CTTOI, an ex-soldier taking a story like that to the newspapers would probably make far more money out of it than he could expect to lose by being de-pensioned.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,pizel
Date: 27 Sep 12 - 05:28 AM

Not me Teribus, my son.
As this happened long before the days when we had television in this house I have no idea of the numbers involved, it may be as you seem to suggest thousands were deployed at each incident although common sense tells us that the majority of these would be policemen with, if any, a few forces personel deployed to provide a bit of backbone.
Recent revelations about Hillsborough seem to indicate, that for whatever reason, fear, blackmail, shame or just shear stupidity secrets can take a long time to leak from uniformed and disciplined organizations.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 27 Sep 12 - 05:09 AM

There were a lot of rumours around. Itwas weird times to live through. Some parts of England will never be the same - some parts were saying, recession...what recession?

One regiment that I did hear mentioned was the Green Howards. Rumours though...

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 27 Sep 12 - 03:15 AM

Guest pizel - Use the Freedom Of Information Act to establish the facts.

If true it must have involved hundreds if not thousands of soldiers. Too many "actors" to maintain secrecy.

The thing you want to enquire about, having looked at the most likely units involved having discovered who was where (Falklands, BAOR & Northern Ireland will tell you which units were serving at home and where they were based - did this "soldier" tell you what Regiment or Corps he served in? Extremely suspect if he did not.), should be their pay records if there are unnaturally excessive amounts being paid in what was called "Local Ration Allowance" (Subsistance Allowance) then you have proof that troops who should have been in Barracks in the UK being billetted and fed off base without any reasonable explanation - such costs cannot be hidden, and they most certainly would have to have been paid.

Other things that can be looked into - transport (no military transport could have been used) - their clothing and equipment would have to have come from somewhere, so who supplied it??, thousands of extra jackets, trousers, batons, riot shields and helmets??

At the time UK armed forces did not have batons of any description in "Aid to Civil Power" we were issued with trenching tool handles roughly 12" to 18" long if that. "Look at the length of the batons" he said?? What about their footwear - their boots??

My gut instinct tells me your "squaddie" was shooting you a line.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,pizel
Date: 26 Sep 12 - 02:15 PM

Anyone out there with videos of the confrontation between the police and the miners should be able to check if there is any truth in the claim about the length of the police batons.
Do the police use a standard baton or do the various forces have a choice of length?.

I am sure that the mention of loss of pension rights would prevent most soldiers from talking.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 26 Sep 12 - 11:08 AM

I've always been sceptical about claims of soldiers being used in the miners' strike, although I certainly wouldn't have put it past the beyond the bounds of possibility, Unfortunately, I doubt an FOI request would yield anything. That's partly because of the length of time that's elapsed since, but mainly because whoever might have been responsible would have made a damned good job of covering up their tracks. You can bet your darned tootin' there would be no paperwork trail for future investigators to uncover.

It is, to this day, common practice among police to remove their badges etc when things get rough. Just watch the news the next time there's a riot and see how many badges you can spot.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Musket
Date: 26 Sep 12 - 10:18 AM

Interesting. In business, we bought out a company in Germany and I ran it for a while whilst we installed a new management to take it forward.

Speaking to colleagues there, we decided the main differences were that in Germany, you rented your home but bought your factory but in The UK it was the other way around.

That was 20 years ago. I note that in our case it is still the same today.


On your other point, I was a miner in the strike. There were many officers without any way of seeing their number, rank and force, (a legal requirement even back then.) I often wonder if this had happened and at the time decided it was just so no complaint could be brought against a single police officer. If the bloke your son gave a lift to wasn't pulling his leg, an FOI could sort it, assuming you knew what to ask of where. The cynic in me does think though that if so many soldiers had been involved, there would gave been leaks, press investigations and public outcry before now?

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,pizel
Date: 26 Sep 12 - 09:38 AM

I understand that up to 80% of Germans live in rented accomodation. This is given as one of the main reasons why that country has weathered the economic meltdown of the past few years in a much better manner than has been the case here.

If any one of you so called house owners wish to find out who owns your property just renegue for two or three months on your payments to the bank/building society and you will soon find out.

My middle son gave an ex. soldier,not previously known to him, a lift to Aberdeen, during the long drive they talked of many subjects, one of them being the miners strike of the 80s. This man told my son to watch any film of the confrontation between the miners and the police, he stated that those, although dressed in police uniform but wielding longer battons than the others, were in fact soldiers and that he to his sorrow had been one of them.
Perhaps a FOI request could find out if there was any truth in this mans assertion.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 25 Sep 12 - 01:17 PM

Marx didn't quite know how the implosion would work though. Neither he nor Adam Smith could foresee globalisation and international events echoing around the globe so quickly.

The Internet age isn't just about a cheap film in California leading to immediate riots across the Muslim world or even just about how The Arab Spring could occur. After all, the iron curtain came down without it.

No, the reason why Marx may end up being partially right is electronic trading. Computers monitoring the market making immediate best decisions. Unfortunately, the best decision is also the worst decision for others. Nothing new there except the speed of trading which is potentially catastrophic.

And catastrophic is a more than tenuous link to Th*tcher. I hope she does life a long and happy life. Long enough to see that her free market ideals have led to no more than showing pure capitalism doesn't work any more or any better than the socialist models she so despised.

She had no intention to hit the middle ground. The boring yet only system that stands a chance. I just wish her successors would make a better job of the middle ground they claim to inhabit.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 25 Sep 12 - 01:04 PM

Interesting, last night's Panorama showed how removing schools from Local Authority control has allowed fraudsters to rip them off.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 25 Sep 12 - 12:34 PM

I watched it last night and am still wondering how far round the bend you would have to be to dream up such a totally unfettered free market and expect it to work. The Road to Serfdom, eh? Someone should have pointed out the amount of damage which Thatcher's vision of a free market did to personal and public liberties.

(Thinks. Please don't remind me of the damage which has been done by governments since. I know, but she was the one who so enthusiastically embraced Hayek and Friedman's ideas on unfettered capitalism.)

Never mind. Next week Stephanie Flanders is going to condense the whole of Marxist theory into a single one hour programme. The extent to which she will manage it was possibly indicated by the trailer.

Sorry Steph. Marx didn't decide that the way to solve the inequities of capitalism was to get rid of it. Marx predicted that capitalism wouldn't be abolished by offering socialism as a rational alternative, but that it would collapse under the weight of its own internal contradictions. In Marx's eyes, such a collapse was inevitable and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it or particularly to accelerate it. The whole point of Marxism is not to "offer" an alternative to capitalism, but to make the workers aware of their role in history, so that when the time comes, they'll be ready.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 04:11 PM

Is it that show Master of Money. It is all about Hayek? Uggh. No thanks. I am depressed enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 03:21 PM

She introduced the internal market into the NHS. Soon we will be back to not having one. Watch TV tonight for what that was like. Only the rich will be able to afford medical care. Bitch.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: ollaimh
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 02:36 PM

thatcher was a classic british militarist, british soldiers have brought war to almost every corner of the globe and she was in that tradition. they continue to take every opportunity to punch above their weight by tagging along with the new militarists running america.. she introduced torture as an official practice, waterboarding and the like, and deindustrialized te country. she was at the start of the financialization of the economy, which has exported manufacturing and allowed he financial sector to run all and everything even the money supply, which makes the financial sector control fiscal policy.

this strategy works so long as others around the world use your financial markets and traders, we are now seeing the beginning of the end of that. the consequence is the loos of skills and plants which could start up if they hadn't been gutted/

in addition thatcher ran real economy deficits. she paid for them with oil revenues. now the oil revenues are in decline and the deficits are back in force.

the whole neo con hayak inspired theory was a crock , a smoke screne to hide the destruction of those who oppose the supre rich, unions, and oh yeah, the people!!

its all about keeping control of governemtn out of the hands of the people

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,A lan Whittle
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 10:29 AM

Her legacy is secure. WE are all plebs. Its been decided at cabinet level.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 09:55 AM

What system should be puit in its place? New Labour licked the arses of big business, and toadied to Murdoch and co. I really can't see any difference between any of the parties.
Social engineering is all very well, but when it's done on borrowed money, all you do is store up trouble for the future.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 09:26 AM

one thing all the above has made apparent is that with thatcher you made your choice very early on - an objective one as well as a lot of subjective. for those of us -like me - in our early adulthood she had a big polarising effect and i doubt that many people have crossed the line between loathing and loving her since. also apparent that in general terms the right are finding it very difficult to find any coherent way of supporting the conservative/global capitalist system in its current manifestation. certainly they wont be attracting any folk from the left these days. so we could go on bickering about her and her successors for ever-but our minds (and our gut instincts)were decided years ago, so none of us will be persuaded.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Musket
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 10:40 AM

Interestingly, The People's Republic of North Derbyshire had 92% GP fund holding.

Something for economics students to ponder, as Surrey was around (I did know the figure, getting old..) 70%. ish

Granted, that included the well heeled Peak District, but also Clay Cross, Shirebrook, Staveley...

Bookbinder did ask for some of his vilification. His witch hunt of Alf Parrish, the chief constable was questionable and his emphasis on the schools budget spending more on a hot meal for the kids was commendable until you see the academic investment paid for it, which does lead to debate on priorities...

Still, I was happy to work with his legacy once he went. Thinking on, back in my firebellied youth, I shared a stage with him, Skinner and Benn. They were speaking, I was singing. Might had been interesting if it were the other way around........

Oh, the subject? Stuffing Th*tcher of course!

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 08:59 AM

Today on the morning tv, there were pundits from all three parties all arguing about ways to reflate the economy. Basically put rubber patches on the inner tube the monetarists poured acid on and kicked the shit out of.

There was nowt clever about closing down industry to make the sums work out.

The huge investment made by a Labour council to get Toyota to Derby was roundly condemned by all the tories. Labour paid the price - villification of Bookbinder in the tory press. And the loss of the support of an electorate - in a place where before him, it was said if you put up a donkey for labour it would have won.

The tories were spending money like water on right wing projects like the national Curriculum in schools and fund holding GPs in the health service - both of which have since been acknowledged as complete wastes of public money.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: goatfell
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 08:31 AM

there will be few tears shed in Scotland as well when she goes

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Musket
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 07:50 AM

I come from just outside Bolsover. it ain't in any bloody Midlands. As Derbyshire stretches North of Manchester city centre, is Manchester in The Midlands? Don't confuse constituency boundaries with cultural or real life ones.


The "city" we used to go to for big hospital appointments, football or shopping is Sheffield for starters. Do you think if Th*tcher thought that either North Derbyshire or North Nottinghamshire was anywhere other than oop North she would have wreaked the disgusting havoc she did?

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: akenaton
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 06:04 AM

So a benevolent, purely local type of capitalism, can sustain the standard of waste and entitlement to which we have become accustomed?

If not, "THe Beast" should surely be informed?

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 05:53 AM

thatcher's influences? she often said her dad and then there was keith joseph and other right wing tories. further afield? friedman, hayek, reagan and pinochet - all those mad, mad and very dangerous chicago boys who aim to destroy democratically elected states and replace their governments with an aggressive global capitalism for the benefit of the 1%.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 09:23 AM

Bolsover is just to the east of Chesterfield in Derbyshire. Burnaston where Toyota set up lies just to the south-west of Derby itself. Both in the same county both in the Midlands.

Neither Toyota or Nissan went to either Spain or France they came to the UK perhaps because in the UK the Government was in charge.

My apologies Guest Sturgeon for my appalling spelling

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 09:08 AM

Aye Dave, an the beauty o' livin' in a world o' yer ain, is that everybody knows ye there. ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 07:57 AM

She was a self made woman, who worshipped her creator.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: cujimmy
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 05:28 PM

When Thatcher came to power and throughout her time in govenment - who were her influences did she aspire to

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 08:37 PM

...steve - that's a long time away from the north. i was up there in may and i can't wait to get back, as soon as i can get a few quid together. something to do with the wildness, the space and the scarcity of other people (and particularly tories or any hint of sympathy with their way of looking at life) that makes it exciting and refreshing just to be there.

It was like that in the mid-70s too. I managed to have a brilliant holiday on 22 quid a week, including beer. I'll get to work on the missus. I spent a bit of time in Durness too. I got in league with a bloke from Glasgow and we pissed off the locals at the Smoo with our prowess at darts. Think they'll still remember me if I ever go back? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,Al
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 03:31 PM

the fish ad been far from hooked and played. Every other manufacturer was getting the hell out of England, because of the Economic Nuclear Winter brought on by the heroes of monetarism.

We were facing strong opposition from Spain, which had got the Fiesta assembling job and france - who had many financially depressed areas, and was opening the coffers of the EU as a come on.

It was Bookbinders biggest achievement. But like i say, it cost him what was solid Labour constituencies - rates (council tax) rocketed and there was a row about him stopping a primary school from keeping a pig.

it was one good thing he did. No help from the Toriess usual could think of nowt to be done except the Father Ted solution ( Are y'sure derrs nothing t'be said for another tax break for millionaires?)

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,sturgeon
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 02:01 PM

Re. Teribus.

The eejit can't even spell 'ransom' correctly (unless he's making some dubious point about swallows and amazons.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 01:10 PM

Teribus, on this one you are slightly wrong

Toyota would not have heard of The Beast of Bolsover, as Bolsover is up North and the Toyota plant is down in The Midlands. I come from and at the time was living in The People's Republic of Bolsover (Shirebrook Cooperative) and if was a bloody long way to the other side of Derby. In fact when I was involved in planning the local NHS we had no clinical links to the midlands, due to no transport links either, so fail to see the link to Burnaston. The Council, under its leader David Bookbinder swung the deal and that pissed off Th*tcher and her mates because Toyota weren't so politically obsessive with socialism.

The mining areas have attracted some inward investment to be fair, but having been involved in such matters in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire I can say that what there has been has been little given the available workforce and almost all of it despite of rather than because of her, Minor or the Islington Socialist Tories that followed.

The pit I worked at is long gone. She is still with us. A bit like this morning's glory is long gone but my corn on my foot is still here.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 12:47 PM

Missed the point Big Al - you were asked who brought the likes of Toyota and Nissan and a host of others to the UK.

Once they had agreed in principle to locating and setting up in the UK, where they located in the UK was immaterial - who gives a rats ass about which Councils scrambled over one another to land the fish AFTER IT HAD BEEN HOOKED AND PLAYED.

Answers still remain as before:

1. Margaret Thatcher, sure as F''K wasn't the beast of Bolsover or any of the other Liebour wankers

2. Economic and political stability

3. Trade Unions put in their place and reminded of their purpose - i.e. responsibility to their membership as opposed to dictating to elected Governments and holding the country to ransome.

Example of "responsible" Trade Unionism

Germany - 5 trades unions in the whole of the country
Japan - 3 trades unions in the whole of the country
UK - John Browns Shipyard - 38 trades unions all fighting and bickering with each other.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 10:37 AM

'They will let you watch them play polo. But you're from the wrong side of the trax, and they will always secretly despise you'.,..,.
.,,.

A weeny touch of paranoia? Hooccchhh, perish the thought!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 10:25 AM

I think if you look over the history of the project, you will find that Thatcher was still ballsing on about scorched earth monetarism, honest money, and that with her little shopping basket, she couldn't buck the market.


Same sort of argument the tories had for opposing the labour Nottingham council giving Torville and Dean a grant to enable them to give up their jobs and compete.

Like the tories great humourist Jim Davies used to say such investments are 'too wisky'.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 08:24 AM

Wrong about everything there ,I'm afraid Terry old bean.

1) The Derbyshire County Council that pulled off the Toyota deal were the ost left wing in history. Their HQ i Matlock was called locally The Kremlin. All of the area was in ruins with Thatchers stupid policies and the council's policies were VERY expensive for rate payers -as they tried to offset the rolling disaster programme of closing manufacturing industry in mining textiles, and engineering. the inducements Derbyshire councils offered to Toyota were in fact opposed by Thatcher, who tried to aid our common market allies in taking the Labour council to court for unfair competition. Don't know about the other places - didn't live there.

2) Stabilit - there wasn't much political stability around in those days with Tebbit and her ladyship shoooting their mouths off in the most inflammatory way. Derby had IRA bombs. the miners strike. the closing of aLL the good textile employers like Viyella.

3) The unios by and large welcomed the Toyota management's arrangements as enlightened compared to the dozy English toffs they had been dealing with before hand.

Face it Terry - you love the Tories and the woman - but its an irrational love. And infatuation. An impossible dream. They will let you watch them play polo. But you're from the wrong side of the trax, and they will always secretly despise you.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 08:22 AM

Council Houses

"The theory of council housing is great, the practice is crap, and we need to start again with better guidelines." - John MacKenzie

Agree with you 100% John.

"The right to buy" - the thing that Harold Wilson's Government was so vehmently opposed to. How many houses did Harold Wilson own before he entered politics? He owned five by the time he left - but he wouldn't let Jo Bloggs buy a place where he had been paying rent for decades - how remarkably egalitarian of Mr Wilson.

"Bring back rent caps and create a massive 'council house' building programme with councils actually building and maintaining the stock rather than private firms and HB and the over-all cost of the 'welfare state' will drop like a stone. Also, like existing (ex) council stock, they'll pay for themselves many times over." - wyrdolafr

There was only one thing wrong with that though wasn't there. Because of your rent caps over time it meant that the Councils could not afford to maintain the houses and they became slums. It meant that those who did own and maintain their own houses had to shell out and pay more in rates to cover the shortfall. No council houses never paid for themselves many times over, they eneded up as a millstone around the necks of the Councils who had to adminster them and maintain them.

If you do want Council Houses then you must have uncapped, realistic rents and you also need something else to help pay for them - a little thing similar in a way to what was called called Poll Tax - whereby the rent is paid by the number of those earning in a house.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 08:14 AM

don't do that teribus! seeing this thread back at the top of the list i assumed the old witch must have died or something. instead it was just a highly selective and in the great scheme of things, irrelevant note about cars. i do wonder about the sanity or the intent of those still willing to defend the conservative/capitalist way of ripping up everything that is hopeful and positive about our country. come on people, get a grip!

...steve - that's a long time away from the north. i was up there in may and i can't wait to get back, as soon as i can get a few quid together. something to do with the wildness, the space and the scarcity of other people (and particularly tories or any hint of sympathy with their way of looking at life) that makes it exciting and refreshing just to be there.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 07:44 AM

"as Toyota proved"

They set up at Burnaston (Derbyshire) and Deeside (North Wales) in 1989 - OK then Big Al tell us all who brought them to Britain and why did they come here instead of anywhere else in the EU?

Same goes for Nissan UK 1984 - Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. Oh and Al what was their ONE condition and why did they make it?

For those interested to know:

Answer 1 - Margaret Thatcher

Answer 2 - Stability

Answer 3 - Nissan INSISTED that their factory be SINGLE UNION

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 08:27 PM

Achmelvich, we scuttled over the low hill to the south of the hostel to find a private spot overlooking the sea on that side (we were a lot more innocent than I was lasciviously suggesting in that earlier post!) It was a long time ago. As for Arctic terns, we had "fun" with a colony of 'em on the causeway at Tongue. You were taking your life in your hands walking across unless you had a hard hat! I haven't been to northern Scotland since 1977. I'd love to meet you there, clothed preferably as I couldn't possibly do the trip sans wife!

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 03:02 PM

You have a good deal of fact-checking to do, Don. Those people had nothing to do with the bombings.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 03:00 PM

steve - are you talking about a small(er than the other small bay) sandy bay here? apparently designed (no, i am not wanting to open another thread here) for the purpose of entertainment for 2 only? i have spent some time above that bay watching divers and working out what i think with an accommodating arctic tern. anyone want to take the appeal of scottish beaches to another thread? see you there. fully clothed.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 01:19 PM

al re: don 'we don't agree with him but we don't reject him as a human being' hmmmm.... human just about, humane certainly not. i've seen some nasty stuff on here but that is taking it to a new low.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 01:14 PM

""That is a horrible and unjustified slur on the names of innocent people. They were not proven guilty, far from it in fact, so they are innocent. And they really are innocent.""

Not at all.

The court did not state that they were innocent, but merely that the mechanism of their conviction was unsafe.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: cujimmy
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 09:38 AM

Just guilty of being Irish

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 09:09 AM

That is a horrible and unjustified slur on the names of innocent people. They were not proven guilty, far from it in fact, so they are innocent. And they really are innocent.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 07:24 AM

""I suspect that such things had been going on long before Hillsborough. Just that nobody thought the police would do anything as dishonourable as tell lies to convict the innocent, or falsify their records to cover their arses.""

Damn right John.

Achmelvich just mentioned those who were jailed for the bombings. They were later released because their convictions were considered unsafe due to the way the police handled the cases. They were NOT proved innocent and they probably weren't. But the police acted wrongly in strengthening the case against them.

I believe they were jailed in 1975, just a tad before Callaghan lost his job, and released in 1991 while Maggie still held hers.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Where now Thatcher haters?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 04:42 AM

I'm in Lairg, which is about 45 miles east of Achmelvich.