BS: Thatcher statue

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 10:11 AM

For me "it was a pretty good time" implies "it wasn't a perfect time". It's what I'd say about just about anything - relationships, singers, meals, weather. It's the way I see the world. No downgrading involved. If I'd been saying the days before Thatcher were perfect, the stuff Teribus has put up could serve to discredit that claim, but they do not in any way contradict what I did say, which was that it was a perfect time.

Thatcher's years weren't perfect either. My judgement and recollection is that they weren't a pretty good time either, but more of a pretty bad time. In fact most supporters of Thatcher seem to agree with that, while saying that it couldn't be helped, and was necessary as a way of making things better.

So we disagree. That's what happened. People still disagree about Tudor times.

Spouting venom at people we disagree with, even when they might start doing it at us. And that goes double for people like Sen, who never goes

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Iains
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 10:02 AM

Stanron. Succinctly put and very accurate! But for many here to accept it would mean overturning decades of party brainwashing.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Stanron
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 09:58 AM

Don't forget Empire. It's not that I'm in favour of Empire but you have to remember that while we had an Empire we had enormous captive markets. By 1950 Britain no longer had an Empire. By the 60s and 70s idigenous producers, with lower waqe bills and overheads had taken Britain's industrial place. Obsolete as our post war industry was by the 60s and the 70s it was overproducing to markets that no longer existed. Nationalisation might have offered a temporary solution but in the long term just became an ever tightening noose around the taxpayers neck.

There is no point in blaming the Unions in all of this. They were doing their job of protecting the rights of their members. OK, some of them were Communists and worked to see the end of Capitalism but others were genuinely working for their members. Unfortunately when they put the interests of their members ahead of the national interest they became part of the problem and not part of the answer.

In retrospect we can see that Nationalisation gave a short term opportunity to restructure (the cruel word is 'close') most of heavy industry and begin to find alternatives. It should have been obvious in 1950 that this was on the horizon but neither party bit the bullet. There were 30 years between 1950 and 1980 for a solution to be found. The can was kicked down the road again and again, and again by both parties, until Maggie picked it up and started to deal with it.

She is now vilified by the left for what she did but I have yet to see any attempt at saying what would have happened if she'd not done what she did.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Iains
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 09:30 AM

If you want to hurl insults jimmy, try to get the spelling right. The errors make you look a fool- but then judging by your posting history, posting in capitals and a kaleidoscope of colours to hide the lack of substance.......... Need I say more.

I assume you are colour blind since spellcheck would automatically underline in red your plethora of errors in your every post, or perhaps you cannot understand this? perhaps you are a mental midget (notice correct spelling)

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 09:02 AM

From your link Iains
"British Steel, British Petroleum, Rolls Royce, British Airways, water and electricity were among the major utilities for sale. These privatisations provoked serious opposition, perhaps sufficient to curb any tendency toward privatisation in the NHS. Nonetheless, market-driven measures continued to be imposed in the public sector, from the "internal market" in the health service to Major's ill-fated citizen's charter."
British Steel has disappeared under privatisation and Britan no longer produces steel - or very little else
BP becam multinational and is largely in-hoc to Russia and Rolls Royce died in 2002
"Balanced" maybe, but hardly a recommendation for privatisation
The Housing con was aan utter disaster for the people who relied on affordable homes and was very much a part of widening the gap between haves and have nots and tearing Britain in half
A word of advice - stop trying to talk down to people - it makes amental midget like you look silly
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 09:00 AM

An inconvenient truth for the leftards.
"The Labour Party initially proposed the idea of the right of tenants to own the house they live in, in its manifesto for the 1959 General Election ...

Why? An idea is good or bad in its own right. It doesn't bother me one way or the other where the original idea came from.

Now it is true that any policy is also made better or worse depending on its surrounding context, so you would have to see where it fitted into the manifesto and the financial situation at the time, as that all modifies its effects, but if you think it was a bad one, it matters not a jot who came up with it.

I don't believe there are many Labour voters or Conservative voters or Liberals or Grens who agree with 100% of the policies of whoever they voted for.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 08:00 AM

The Labour Party initially proposed the idea of the right of tenants to own the house they live in, in its manifesto for the 1959 General Election which it subsequently lost.

That's a rather selective snippet isn't it Iains? Why did you not show the rest of the Wiki entry? Thisngs like the next line or two which go

Later, the Conservative-controlled Greater London Council of the late 1960s was persuaded by Horace Cutler, its Chairman of Housing, to create a general sales scheme. Cutler disagreed with the concept of local authorities as providers of housing and supported a free market approach. GLC housing sales were not allowed during the Labour administration of the mid-1970s but picked up again once Cutler became Leader in 1977.

Or the start of the next chapter which says

After Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in May 1979, the legislation to implement the Right to Buy was passed in the Housing Act 1980.

Or things like the fact that

Cutler was close to Margaret Thatcher (a London MP) who made the right to buy council housing a Conservative Party policy nationally

I suspect those are rather inconvenient to you.

The Labour party suggested it and lost the election. Maybe it was an unpopular policy? It was introduced by Margaret Thatcher who did not give a shit about ordinary people and their views.

Eliza - I hope you are still reading this and have noted that the people you have aligned yourself with are happy using the term 'leftard'. Makes you proud to be Conservative doesn't it :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Stu
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 07:26 AM

I patted her on the back once, when I was a Young Conservative.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 07:15 AM

" "Right to buy scheme" illustrated the unpalatable truth that the "liberal left" are in the main hypocrites."
The Right to Buy Scheme was the greatest of Thatchers cons
It undermined affordable rented housing in Britain, took rented property off the market and placed it in private hands and brought about s speculation flurry that sent the entire property market crashing.
It was based on the con that people, by turning their homes into commodities, could become part of investment capitalism - utter crap.
One of the greatest scandals concerning this scheme was when Lady Porter moved tenants out of their homes in the pretence that they were to be "modernised", but in fact, it was to put them on the open market to move potential Tory voters into Westminster.
What Porter failed to mention was that the temporary homes the tenants were forced into were riddled with cancer-causing asbestos
HOMES for VOTES SCANDAL
Porter was forced to resign and eventually fled to Israel, owing Britain millions in unpaid fines for her murderously criminal behaviour
Capitalism at its very lowest
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Iains
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 07:13 AM

An inconvenient truth for the leftards.
"The Labour Party initially proposed the idea of the right of tenants to own the house they live in, in its manifesto for the 1959 General Election which it subsequently lost."

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: akenaton
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 06:52 AM

The "Right to buy scheme" illustrated the unpalatable truth that the "liberal left" are in the main hypocrites.
Most people know that and Mrs Thatcher and her cabinet certainly did, it was a political masterstroke, though one which I opposed strongly.

Te myth that "liberalism" equates to egalitarianism was brutally exposed, as the "downtrodden" stampeded to become the "downtrodders"

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 06:50 AM

Only a fool invests in a losing enterprise, and fools generally are not rich.

Actually a lot of investors do this. Not people who deal in stocks and shares, but businesses who specialise in "turning around" other failing businesses. They may well lay off a lot of people and close factories in the process, but they are not fools. And that   was just one of the strategies open.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 06:31 AM

Margaret Thatcher was hellbent on destroying the unions for her own ideological ends. As the unions that were likely to cause her the most inconvenience were in the big industries and mining, her obvious target was a no-brainer. Also for ideological ends she sold off the nationalised utilities far too cheaply in order to get as many people owning shares (which means sitting on your arse as the money rolls in, especially in the early killings, and voting Tory for the rest of your life - and you talk about Corbyn bribing students to vote Labour!!) We've spent the last thirty years trying to work our way around their incomprehensible jungles of tariffs and price plans, designed to rob us, of course, as those do-nothing shareholders need their dividends, don't they. She sold off council houses at massive discounts - our money given away again. Only the best, most desirable, of course. The poorest could go hang. And she didn't create all those "services sector" jobs. They blossomed because she deliberately turned a blind eye to regulation and ended up virtually scrapping it. Some bloody services sector - we ended up with extremely irresponsible banks used as cash cows for speculators and a financial sector infested by spivs. Some "service." I'd like to see a breakdown of those "services sector" jobs that replaced industry and which were so good for the country. The only people being "served" were the ones getting millions in unearned "bonuses" while those extremely profitable industries that Teribus likes to crow about squealed at the very idea that their workers might be worth £6.25 an hour with no job security (and haven't we gone downhill since then with bogus apprenticeships at half the minimum wage, millions of "self-employed" to avoid national insurance contributions, no sick leave, no holiday, no bloody nothing - Parcelforce drivers fined £400 per day just for being sick, over a million on zero hours - oh yes, we euphemistically call it the "flexible workplace," I forgot) Thatcher's legacy. None so blind. And I'm afraid that covers you too, Senoufou. I'm staggered that a person who posts with such common humanity can sycophantically stand up for one of the most inhuman leaders this or any other country has ever had.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Iains
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 06:17 AM

"the rich people of England were allowed to sit on their money and invest it abroad"
Yes, and why not? Money is invested to make money-not lose it. Only a fool invests in a losing enterprise, and fools generally are not rich.
Can you see the connection Big Al?
Do you wish government to take even more control of your life and dictate how to spend your money?
Why do you think manufacturing in heavy industries has packed it's bags and gone? It is because other countries can do it better and cheaper.
Economics is a very unforgiving discipline and really does not give a hoot if your pit village only offers   unemployment as a nearby job opportunity. Do you think it is only the UK has these problems. Why do you think third world countries have huge shanty towns, Could it be that with exploding populations subsistence farming, along with a host of other reasons, no longer hacks it? Ever since Ironbridge gave birth to the industrial revolution successive generations of the working population have been subjected to change. This is an inescapable fact of life. To demonise one person at a particular moment in time as being the prime instigator of these changes is patently absurd.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Teribus
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 05:55 AM

Big Al,

1: You do not get to tell people what they can and cannot save or invest in.

2: With Britain's track record on labour relations in the 1970s you would have to have been a complete and utter idiot to invest in anything in the UK that would be dogged by unnecessary politically driven disputes.

3: Coal produced in the UK from deep mining cost £250 per ton - you could get coal from Poland and from Australia delivered at £8 per ton. If you rely on coal powered power stations where do you buy your coal from if you wish to stay competitive? Matter of good financial common sense. As Iains has pointed out the UK's coal mining industry had been in decline from the start of the twentieth century.

4: The "Winter of Discontent" came before the miners strike that Maggie famously crushed. Callaghan's "moderation" had been spurned by the Trades Union Movement before Maggie entered office.

5: When did Maggie offer the miners 30% pay rise Al?

6: Scargill's position that no pits should be closed on economic grounds, even if the coal was exhausted made sure confrontation would not be avoided. Arthur Scargill brought coalmining to a close in Britain far faster than would have happened had the NUM been led by some prevaricating, dreary old-style union hack. Yet somehow he gets a free pass.

7: Fact of life Big Al - you cannot spend money that you do not have - high time those on the left of the political spectrum realised that.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 05:47 AM

As the only comment I made on the 70s is that it had was complicated as every age is, I don't see why you decided to link me to a different comment about it being a pretty good time.

But if you must, that's what being complicated means. A picture that is wholly black is as inaccurate as one that paints everything as largely rosy.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 05:47 AM

"No doubt, on this very left-wing and sometimes spiteful forum"
Polluted by right wingers who describe British workers as greedy layabouts, British industry as shit not worth saving, and British soldiers who fought in the trenches as "liars"
I'm truly sorry you choose to defend these people Sen
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Teribus
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 05:36 AM

DMcG the comment I was responding to was the following:

McGrath of Harlow - 08 Jul 17 - 04:29 PM

"The '70s was in many ways a pretty good time"

Which was rather rapidly downgraded by the same person to:

McGrath of Harlow - 08 Jul 17 - 08:39 PM

"It wasn't a perfect time, no time is."

Then you yourself chipped in DMcG with the following:

DMcG - 09 Jul 17 - 04:07 AM

"The 70s was a complicated time - as they all are - and there were plenty of problems including but not restricted to those Teribus listed."

Seems like we've come a long way from the 70s being "a pretty good time" with strikes just being mildly inconvenient for a just few directly involved.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 05:31 AM

no no ....a thousand times no!

English industry needed modernising. not closing down.

this required investment

the rich people of England were allowed to sit on their money and invest it abroad.

the factories that were built in China should have been built in England.

Thatcher and the EU caused this.

THe increase in the GDP she achieved was done like this. SCargill asked for a 30% pay rise. She agreed to it. Inflation hit the roof! Callaghan had been trying to keep wage increases down to £3 a week - and was urging moderation, She got elected by promising 'free collective bargaining'.
My wifes disability allowance and most other state benefits had previously been index linked. under THatcher , all allowances were frozen. THus effecting a damn near 30% cut on the living standards of the most vulnerable in society.

you had to be there. you had to be at the bottom of society. you had to hear that creature Bottomley jeering at state dependants to a cheering tory conference to a Gilbert and Sullivan parody.

i'd agree - stay away from the thread if you can't face the truth about the loathsome bastards you facilitated by voting for the fuckers,

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Iains
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 04:55 AM

What is very conveniently overlooked when discussing changes that occurred in society during the Thatcher years is that Britain does not operate in isolation. Many changes were occurring throughout the world in terms of economic advances that placed britain's manufacturing and extractive industries in a non competitive position and as a result they lost money. Things had to change to remain competitive. Scargill was a prime example of a person blind to reality. His stupidity forced the government to take on the unions head on. The government rules, not the unions. They lost and a very good thing that they did. With the loss of the coal industry the reduction of death and injury in that sphere is also conveniently overlooked. Also the reality is that coalmining had been steadily declining since at least 1900.
In essence Thatcher presided over a decline that was beyond her powers to reverse, rather like Canute telling the Atlantic to back off.. What she did have control of was the ability to try to tackle theinevitable changes that would occur in the working population.
I wonder what state the country would be in had labour presided over such fundamental changes to the country? It always seems to be coalmining held up as a shining example of Thatchers destructive legacy. Any fool can see this simply cannot be supported by the facts.
Also Agriculture also had a huge decline in numbers, over a longer time frame. Do I hear any bleating about the hard done by "horny handed sons of the soil"?
No I did not think so. It does not fit the retarded lefty narrative too well, does it? They all have fulltime jobs in Agriculture-cherry picking.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 04:07 AM

It's a total waste of time 'you lot' spewing forth vitriol at me, as I shall not be returning to this thread

Even if you don't post to the thread I hope you look in a little. I for one think it possible to disagree with someone without throwing vitriol, which some on each side can avoid and some can't. You always seem to avoid throwing it, Sen, so I would certainly regret anyone throwing it at you.

The "Yes Minister" made famous the politicians (invalid!) syllogism:

1. Something must be done.
2. This is something
3. Therefore it must be done.


The 70s was a complicated time - as they all are - and there were plenty of problems including but not restricted to those Teribus listed. Solving them was immensely difficult and probably took someone as single minded as divisive as Thatcher to do it. But it does not follow that the "something" that was done was the right course.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 03:34 AM

Teribus, I congratulate you. All the things you've listed so comprehensively are the very reasons I voted for her. No doubt, on this very left-wing and sometimes spiteful forum, we'll get flamed to ribbons, but we have every right to express our viewpoint and to stand by it.
In my view, Mrs Thatcher saved Britain. It was losing money hand over fist, and we were descending into enormous debt trying to keep dead ducks afloat. It was extremely difficult for the workers in these industries, but it just had to be done. That's why I said above she was a very brave lady.
It's a total waste of time 'you lot' spewing forth vitriol at me, as I shall not be returning to this thread. I have better things to do on a bright Sunday morning than reading (no doubt) screeds of vituperative bile.
I just wanted Teribus to know I agree with his every word.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Teribus
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 02:52 AM

To MGOH, Big Al, pfr & "Good Man" Shaw. Here is another uncomfortable FACT for you all in the 11 years that Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister:

1: Average growth - Under Thatcher, GDP rose by 29.4 per cent — an average of 0.6 per cent growth per quarter. (That's the same as the average growth rate from 1955 to 2013.)

2: Jobs Lost/Jobs Created - A net of 1.6 million jobs were created under Thatcher. The manufacturing industry lost 1.9 million, while the services sector grew by 3.6 million.

3: Industry - When Blair took office in 1997 Industry accounted for 20% of the country's economy. By 2007 it had declined to 12.4% so the decline in British Industry was worse under Blair's Labour Government than it was under Thatcher.

4: Steel - The Big Lie: "in 1980 Margaret Thatcher's government shut down most of the steel industry, as part of her plan to break the unions" - The facts shows that that is simply untrue.

In 1955 the British steel industry was working at 98 percent of capacity.

By 1966 just 79 percent of capacity was being utilised.

By 1978 British Steel was operating at just two-thirds capacity. And by 1979, British steel workers were a third less productive than their French competitors and 40 percent less productive than West German steel workers.

In the fiscal year 1978-1979 British Steel lost £309 million. This rose to £545 million the following year, one in which workers struck for six weeks for a 20 percent pay rise. By the time they went back to work their foreign customers had gone elsewhere.

In 1980-1981, British Steel lost a staggering £1 billion on turnover of £3 billion, earning itself a place in the Guinness Book of Records. By contrast the output of Britain's small private sector steel industry doubled between 1967 and 1979, from 3 million tonnes to 6 million tonnes.

Between 1967 and 1974 employment in the British steel industry fell from 250,000 to 197,000. And by 1990 it had fallen again by 74 percent to 51,000. Elsewhere in the developed world other countries also saw drastic declines in employment in their steel industries in the same period. In France, for example, employment fell by 70 percent, while in the United States it fell by 60 percent. Even Germany lost 46 percent of its steel workforce.

In 1976-1977 it had took a British steelworker 15 man hours to produce a tonne of liquid steel, by 1986-1987 it took just 6.2 man hours and that year British Steel turned a profit of £177 million on turnover of £3.5 billion. When the company was privatised the following year it had made a profit of £410 million on turnover of £4.1 billion. By 1997 British Steel was the most profitable integrated steel company on the planet.

5: Coal - Between 1965 and 1970 Harold Wilson's Labour Government closed down 211 coal mines - Between 1979 and 1990 Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Government closed down 154 coal mines. IIRC Thatcher offered properly managed closures. She offered millions of pounds in redundancies and retraining. Scargill turned her down flat and started militant strikes. As a result the miners and the communities lost out. That one's down to Scargill, not Thatcher. 

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 09:16 PM

I see no point in having to explain or justify how brilliantly culturally fertile and vibrant the 1970s were
to the likes of Tezzer,
who can never recognise or understand anything that wasn't strictly written by military or political historians.... 😣

Thatcher's reign of malevolence cast dark clouds over all that had previously been optimistic...

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 08:39 PM

It wasn't a perfect time, no time is.

The strikes were sometimes an inconvenience for those not directly involved, lasting a few days or a few weeks - but the time lost and the production lost and so forth were dwarfed by the impact of the jobs lost in Maggie's deindustralisaton, which devastated whole regions.

And a work force with the capacity of going on strike was a million times more healthy for society than one which is cowed and impotent and broken down. A few inconvenient strikes are a price worth paying.

As for the failure to use the oil revenues responsibly, that was Thatcher all over. She blew it.

We came to a crossroads at the end of the 70s - and we took the wrong road. And now we're far far from where we should be, and making that right again is quite a challenge. We had a chance to do that back in 1997, but we messed up. Soon I hope we'll have another, and will have learnt a few lessons.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 08:34 PM

Good man, Al.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 06:52 PM

there was a lot to contend with.
it was no easy task to keep us a decent compassionate society, keeping industry going often with outdated track, and capitalists who enjoyed all the fruits of our stable society whilst not investing in or modernising our factories.

the common market countries decided that our way of subsidising industry that had been in use since the war was unfair competition - unlike their own systems of state intervention.

Opec had us by the balls and the IRA was trying its best to turn our country into a warzone.

it was a difficult situation.
Thatcher tackled none of the problems - but she got rid of inflation by increasing unemployment and virtually closing down manufacturing industry. north sea oil money paid for closing down the mines. i heard tories at the time saying it was worth every penny.

if you'd lived in the wreckage of Thatcher. seen hard drugs take the place of apprenticeships. beggars on the street outside london for the first time in living memory. you wouldn't keep up with this smarmy approbation of Thatcher, Teribus

but obviously you saw none of it - or if you did, none of it affected you, or made you sad for your country.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Teribus
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 05:46 PM

"The '70s was in many ways a pretty good time" - f**kin' priceless Kevin.

Here's your 1970s:

We found oil in the North Sea at the start of the 1970s. This should have been the eureka moment that the British economy needed, a fillip to the nation's purse and the guarantor of an era of prosperity. But it didn't quite work out like that.

Compared to the Sixties , this was to be a decade brought to a halt by industrial action, a decade of falling productivity and an economy wilting under the hot lamp of globalisation.

Edward Heath, The Prime Minister, presided over an economy that had tied itself into a Gordian knot. Inflationary pressures were almost visible to the naked eye. Unemployment was high. Heath's Conservative government was principally concerned with curbing trade union power; the striking British worker would be a leitmotif for the decade. Even if union bosses could be talked out of striking, even they could not exert full control over their members. The British worker was not generally well-paid, and there was a growing militancy to their discontent. Also, The Troubles in Northern Ireland would reach their bloody peak under Heath's leadership. Constitutionally, he had the awkward issue of Europe.

It wasn't just the conflict in Northern Ireland that was putting pressure on Heath's beleaguered administration. In 1973, war between Israel and Egypt emptied British petrol tanks. Motorways had their speed capped at 50mph to help preserve petrol stocks.

The three-day working week was enforced in '74.

Television broadcasting stopped at 10:30pm. Post-watershed programming was restricted to shorts.

People encouraged to see to their daily toilet in the dark, sharing bathwater and a nationwide parsimony when it came to putting central heating on, Britain was shutting down. Would the last one out please switch the lights off?

With the country in a bit of a state, the 1974 general election saw a Labour campaign win under Harold Wilson , Wilson's second term in office ended after just two years, his resignation announced on 16th March 1976 . Citing exhaustion, owing probably to the early onset of Alzheimerís, Wilson was succeeded by James Callaghan . The economy was choking on both inflation and unemployment, the recession was crippling the country.

Inflation peaked in 1975 at 26.9 per cent.

Callaghan had to approach the International Monetary Fund for a crisis loan of £2.3billion in 1976. Public sector spending was iced as a condition for the loan.

Britain shuddered to one of its most notorious moments of economic dysfunction: the 1978/79 Winter Of Discontent.

The Transport And General Workers Union struck first; petrol tanker drivers and lorry drivers went on an overtime ban, just before Christmas. The threat of fuel shortages panicked the government into putting the army on standby. The situation worsened in the New Year. Having been placated with a fifteen per cent rise, the lorry and petrol tanker drivers went on strike again. This time, the fuel shortages closed petrol stations. With the overwhelming majority of Britain's goods delivered by haulage, this brought the panic button ever closer.

Hospital ancillary staff, refuse collectors and even undertakers went on strike; the latter seeing 300 dead in Liverpool going unburied while the streets were filled with rotting bin bags. Schools stayed open with the help of volunteer janitors and secretaries. Even hospitals would be picketed.

"Pretty good time indeed".

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 05:28 PM

Margaret Thatcher took the country on as a complete and utter basket case and completely turned the situation round.

T, that statement is turned round, arse end foremost.

Then again, that's your usual orientation, innit?

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 04:44 PM

Very bloody convincing, Teribus. Not. Try again. Be warned: some of us use the railways in the EU. I should try it yourself some time. It would open your eyes. Oh, I forgot: you don't like first-hand witness, do you. Get thee to a Waterstones. I'm sure you'll find a book there to confirm your received wisdoms.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 04:29 PM

I worry sometimes that the stuff Teribus was sounding off with, about how everything was terrific ble before Thatcher was elected, and how much they've got better since is accepted by younger people as true, in the same way as the lie about how the crash of 2008 was caused by Labour oversepending wss swallowed by so many.

The '70s was in many ways a pretty good time , and the changes brought about under Thatcher radically altered this country for the worse.

That doesn't get said often enough.

We took a wrong fork in the road back then, and were still a long way from where we should be.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 03:25 PM

"A funny kind of privatisation"

Yes, I am sure we all agree about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Teribus
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 03:19 PM

Steve Shaw - 08 Jul 17 - 02:12 PM

What a pity Shaw that the figures do not match your assertions and your opinions.

"Passenger Focus looked at frequency of UK trains versus those in seven other European countries, it found Britain had the most frequent service in the short and longer distance bands (we were third in the medium band).
Government spending is another. There are estimates that, despite privatisation, public funding of the railways is three times more than it was under British Rail – in real terms. Some claim the figure is even higher.
Even the government's own figures show public funding has ballooned from £2.3bn in 1993-4 to £5.2bn in 2008-9 (and both figures are at 2008-9 prices, too). A funny kind of privatisation.

When Passenger Focus looked at fares in the UK against other European countries, it found Britain's tickets to be both the cheapest (longer distance advance tickets) and the most expensive (long distance walk-up return tickets).

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 03:12 PM

the other thing is of course - the artistic merit of the statue.

theres a statue of Queen Victoria in Derby that i really like. its really well done. you don't need to be a fan of the person to appreciate the artists handiwork.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 02:40 PM

i don't think you can ever make Thatcher fans give a shit about society and admit to the damage she inflicted on this poor nation.

they were obviously not living in a place where the ravages of her actions confronted you every day.

that was the secret of her success. she took care of the people in the constituencies that voted for her.

i can remember some members of my wife's family who lived in Sussex not far from Cambridge coming up to see us in Nottinghamshire.

Recession....what recession? they asked.

i think a statue would be pretty safe in those places.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 02:32 PM

Why is going to the IMF such a bad thing? Many governments, both Labour and Tory, did so in the 50s and 60s.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 02:12 PM

Once you let coal mines flood its next to impossible to reopen them. Still plenty of strikes and discontent on the extremely expensive and bloody unreliable railways. I've used the long-distance system four times in the last year and (a) it would have been three times cheaper and no slower to jump in the car and go on the M5/M4, and (b) not once - NOT ONCE - did the trains run anything like on time. Diabolical. Yes, the Wilson lot went to the IMF. The clown of the century Cameron has guided us out of the EU in the stupidest bit of short-sighted politicking ever seen in this country and the pound instantly devalued 20% and is going down, down, down. Wilson's devaluation was a bloody walk in the park in comparison. And Thatcher did not turn the country round. She left it bereft of major industries, left hundreds of thousands wallowing on incapacity or unemployed with no future and she devastated whole communities. Oh, and the poll tax, lest we forget. Another great piece of fine Tory judgement. The only people happy with her legacy are the unregulated yuppie brigade who we're depicted, not inaccurately, as waving wads of banknotes in our faces. Government by spiv. Maybe you were one of 'em, Teribus?

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 02:11 PM

How unrealistic is it to imagine a hardcore volunteer platoon of elderly Thatcher fan club members,
voluntarily mounting 24/7 guard of her statue - armed with walking sticks, brollies and handbags - prepared to defend it against all assaults with their lives....

This promises to be quite some tourist attraction... 😜

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 02:03 PM

Dave,
then spend it on themselves and statues of their heroes.

It was funded by The Public Memorials Appeal Trust - a charity.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Teribus
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 01:54 PM

Oh dear, Maggie Thatcher, she left office 27 years ago and the usual clowns here are still whinging about her.

Since she left power we have had:

1990 to 1997 - Conservative Government
1997 to 2010 - Labour Government
2010 to 2015 - A Conservative- Liberal-Democrat Coalition Government
2015 to Present - Conservative Government

And not one of the policies of the 1979 to 1990 Thatcher era have been reversed - No renationalising of the railways who now carry more efficiently and with greater frequency more than double the passengers than they did in the days of strike bound "jobsworth" British Rail. No reopening and resurrection of the mining industry that cost the British taxpayer millions each day to bail out.

We do now have a Labour Party that has been hijacked by todays version of Militant Tendency that has proposed such reversals offering a manifesto that they claim is "fully costed" at £48.6 billion yet would appear to financial experts to be underestimated by somewhere between 150% and 200%

Margaret Thatcher took the country on as a complete and utter basket case (What Conservative Government has had to go cap in hand to the IMF for money just to stay afloat?) and completely turned the situation round - yes it was a painful journey but that appears to be the required task of any government who takes over from a Labour Government. In 1997 Tony Blair and Gordon of Cartoon took over from a Tory Government who handed on a nation in good economic state. This pair in the course of the 13 years they were in power handed over the Treasury with a scribbled note which read "No money left". If Corbyn ever gets in it will be ten times worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 01:48 PM

Spending a small fortune commissioning, erecting, and maintaining statues is all a bit too 19th Century really.. innit...???

No matter how well deserved by a person's reputation - though obviously The statues for Billy Fury and Eric Morecambe
might be considered good valid exceptions here and now in the 21st Century...


Though it does raise interesting questions about monumental art in public spaces... and who should pay for it...????

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 11:28 AM

Oh, well I suppose Thatcher upheld socialism for ten years (selling off the family silver, selling off only the choicest council houses at massive discounts, destroying industries, ruining whole communities, massively increasing unemployment, putting hundreds of thousands of fit people on incapacity benefit in order to stop the jobless figures from looking even worse, celebrating and protecting a murderous dictator, encouraging a me-first unregulated yuppie culture), just waiting for Labour to swan in and outlaw it. I mean, what planet are you on?

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: akenaton
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 10:59 AM

When they did come to power they continued the "wreckage".....outlawed socialism.....carpetbaggers.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 10:31 AM

She showed over a decade that she wasn't fit to govern a chimp's tea party. Like the chimps, she left a trail of wreckage behind her. In her case it was people's jobs, communities and lives. Of course, the yuppies were happy. As for no-one in the Labour Party, etc., just a teensy historical note: Labour were not in power.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 10:25 AM

Three lines that time and not one single response to what she actually did
Do you think Pinochet represented democracy the yay thatcher claimed she did
If not, what on earth was she doing as Prime Minister of a 'democratic' country?
THatcher tackled the economic problems by diving the country sharply into haves and haven nots
The party which fought its way to power so valiantly under the slogan "Labour isn't working "complete with illustrations of dole queues) inherited an unemployment figure of less than one and a half million, in five years that peaked to over three million, and left the country with over 2 million unemployed
The hardest hit, with one in five people out of work were Norther Ireland and Northern Britain
So much for "Labour isn't working"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: akenaton
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 09:49 AM

I don't care about statues, never voted for Mrs Thatcher, what annoys me is the group here who want to shit and urinate on a democratically elected politician who no matter her political views was a hundred miles above them in guts and fitness to govern.

I don't like politicians in general, but sometimes they have a dirty job to do......someone had to make a decision on UK manufacturing, the alternative was national bankruptcy.....no one in the Labour Party had the will or the guts to address the problem....nothing new there then!

The answer of course was to adapt to conditions, change the system, but NOBODY wanted that....did they?

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 09:38 AM

In the open in London it would be almost as unpopular as one of Hitler.

I should think MORE unpopular.

Mrs Thatcher suffered from dementia in her last days

Only in her last days?

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 09:33 AM

no ones defending her - apart from the usual suspects.

its just that we don't go in for erasing people from photographs of an era in this country.

i used to walk past the statues of Redvers Buller on the way to college in Exeter.

if you didn't do statues of the right arseholes - we might forget about them. theres a statue of Cromwell outside the English parliament.

look at all those Holbeins of Henry VIII - did it make anyone forget what a bloodthirsty bastard he was. i don't think so.

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 09:12 AM

"that is a good idea. however a hell of a lot of people voted for her and honour her memory."
How on earh does that excuse what she did, unless you are going to blame those people for the damage she did to Britain
A hell of a lot of people voted for Brexit, Donald Trump and Hitler
Sorry Sen - you are defending this woman by refusing to respond to what she did - or are we making it up?
Can't say I'm not disappointed
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Thatcher statue
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 08:55 AM

To my mind she was a hateful, divisive figure who had no time for ordinary working people and who wilfully destroyed communities. She enthusiastically supported a murderous dictator and was in bed with a dreadful US president who also loved dictators. Her me-first legacy has lingered on and has made this country a far less civilised place. Stick the statues up in Conservative clubs and spare the rest of us from being reminded of her.