Dave the gnome - in short, your contention is crap!

Or, a little more constructively, it's a highly simplistic view of a complex situation. Yes, certain of the unions did seek to abuse their power, and too many employers were not prepared to stand up to them . . but there's a lot more to it than that, and the suggestion of "near ruining the economy" is nonsense. As is the idea that we are still suffering the consequnces.

What we do suffer from is a long, long history of poor and incompetent management, one aspect of which is the failure to engage in any attempt to build good "labour relations", or recognition of the importance of "the workers" to the success of any business. The brief period where "union abuse of power" was a genuine problem, but in the context of British (labour) history it was unsurprising. And the right-wing backlash which it was used to justify has done Britain, and all those who have the dubious priviledge of being employed here, immensely more harm than "powerful trade unions" ever did.

G.