"MUCH INDUSTRY HAS BEEN MOVED TO THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES", by conservatives who would rather trade in goods made by swet labour than support British industry - much more profitable for those who would make a quick buck without getting their hands dirty.
" Answer: Labour"
Another distortion - Labour may have overseen the closure of more pits, but decades of sabotage of the mining industry by Conservative governments had destroyed it as a viable concern - whatever their failings, Labour were left to pick up the debris
"because they could not compete in the world market"
Our industries were viable and efficient and the products were of a high quality -
Thatnk to Tory philosophy, it was more profitable to invest abroad in inferior products so quality and efficiency were sacrificed so the investors could make a quick buck out of sweat labour abroad - steel industry, textiles, electronics... and the rest - all gone - that is "competing on world markets".
You describe British Steel as "crap" yet it was the best in the world, and accepted as such - that was place by inferior foreign product.
Far from the "middle class expanding" the distance between the classes has become a yawning chasm thanks to the accelerating wealth of the rich and the increase in poverty and insecurity - poverty among the lower paid who have become poorer - they have not disappeared, just become an invisible inconvenience.
Unemployed workers are still working class.
What has changed is the emergence of sub-groups - a division of the working class into poorer groups ('precariat' and 'emergent service workers') - largely regionally based, thanks to Thatcher's 'Home Counties v the rest of Britain' to divide the nation' tactic.
Are you still claiming that British Steel was crap? - don't expect an answer - just keeping your ant- British attitude on the boil
Jim Carroll