Obit: Edward Heath

Subject: Obit: Edward Heath
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 03:07 PM

I'm afraid I never liked the man, but he was instrumental in my formative years. He hated Maggie Thatcher, so he can't have been all bad.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/443009.stm

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Nick
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 03:18 PM

Instrumental? As in he played the organ rather than singing?

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 03:23 PM

Hope he's sitting on a morning cloud. Wonder if maggie will go to the funeral?

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 04:10 PM

Not worth making the trip to urinate on his grave, certainly will for maggie though!

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: alanabit
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 04:32 PM

I think he did great rights and great wrongs. The most remarkable part of his legacy, is that he was far more fervently detested by his enemies in the Conservative Party than he was elsewhere. I may be the only pro European who posts to Mudcat, as I realise this policy is unpopular with both traditionally Labour and Conservative supporters. It is the commitment to Europe, for which I most admired the man. I believe he had integrity and strength.
In his economic policies, he was probably the most liberal Prime Minister we have had since I reached voting age. He once (rightly, I believe) referred to Blair on those issues,"He's to the right of me, of course."
On the down side, his calamitous misreading of the Northern Ireland situation goes against him, as he merely compounded the errors of his predecessors. In his later years, it was also galling to see him suck up to the butchers of Tiannemen Square. (Regrettably, Blair's performance was equally snivelling).
Probably what makes him stand out among the rest is that he was never a populist. It may have cost him popularity in a media age, but I liked him a little better for it.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 05:18 PM

Alan, I agree with you. On the whole I'm not particularly impressed with politicians, but I think he was the second best thing the Tories had on offer, second to Ken Clarke, of course ... A man who loves music can not be all bad, either.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Fliss
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 06:55 PM

Of course Maggie will go... and weep crocodile tears!
f

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 07:04 PM

Back in the mid 70's I used to do a lot of offshore sailing with the RN. One summer I mad ethe crew for the RN's yatch for Cowes Week. Ted Heath was there on Morning Cloud. It was also the first time the Australians had taken part in Cowes week and they had a yatch called Ragamuffin.

The Morning Cloud crew took to wearing t-shirts and polos emblazoned with logos like 'Ted's Ahead'. Ragamuffin's crew took to wearing t-shirts whish just said 'Rago's Arse Beats Class'

This was the man who signed us away our fishing rights to every other European country except ourselves and took us into a bad deal on the Common Market as it was then known. Still RIP.

Subject: Obit: Ted Heath, one of the last decent Tories
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 10:18 PM

Read in the press here (US) Edward Heath died on July 7th 2005.

He was a very good and decent man as well as the last of the old good Tories, after his time it was the nasty kind which drove the grand old Party into the dirt.

My condolences.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 10:41 PM

When Heath lost the election to Labour and hung on in Downing Street, we actually thought he was planning a military coup. Rumours of the sort had been rife (some of them true, it seems) but Heath was, as it turned out, innocent. We thought him a fascist at the time. We, too, were innocents in that respect. When Margaret Thatcher appeared, we discovered who the fascists really were.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: nager
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 10:59 PM

Ted was a muso - so he wasn't ALL bad!

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: nager
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 11:05 PM

BUT... there again, I never heard him perform.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: GUEST,Greycap
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 09:02 AM

The man who took us into the EU, an arrangement where we got nothing of which we were promised, and a load of crap we were not warned about.
JAFP( Just Another Politician)

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 09:19 AM

This thread should be in BS, bullshit, well sh.....

eric

Subject: RE: Obit: Ted Heath, one of the last decent Tories
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 09:21 AM

OXYMORON ALERT, ' decent tory '

eric

Subject: RE: Obit: Ted Heath, one of the last decent Tories
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 09:31 AM

Oh for those glorious times of the three day week. I really enjoyed trying to run a business without the benefit of electricity for part of the week. How wonderful were those good old days when times were shite!

Eric I can't help thinking we've been set up here and we've taken the bait.

I suppose that the fact that the old boy played the organ makes an entry into this thread admissable ??

Hoot(s) of derisive laughter.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ted Heath, one of the last decent Tories
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 09:31 AM

the only good Tory is......

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 09:33 AM

Good man Eric

Subject: RE: Obit: Ted Heath, one of the last decent Tories
From: Ringer
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 09:40 AM

"last of the old good Tories"

Nonsense. The man was out of his depth. Just as Tony Blair is now accused of being a Tory, Grocer Heath was basically a socialist - he believed that more government could solve anything. But it took a real man (in M Thatcher) to turn the country round.

Paradoxically, though he believed the more government the better, he was responsible for the biggest loss of parliamentary sovereignty ever in that he took UK into what is now the EU, whose laws have pre-eminence over the UK's laws. Westminster is now just a rubber-stamp for Brussels.

Difficult not to speak ill of the dead when he's Ted Heath.

Subject: RE: Obit: Ted Heath, one of the last decent Tories
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 10:02 AM

Heath instigated the ' 3 ' day week to try and blame the unions and working classes for his and his goverments failings.

Funny story, at the time I was working for the local bus company, taking the bingo crowd home when the power went off I heard one little old lady say to her friend " oh dear, we'll have to light a candle to watch the telly when we get home "

eric

Subject: RE: Obit: Ted Heath, one of the last decent Tories
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 10:59 AM

Try and keep up, lads. There's already another thread on Ted (ha! poetry!)

Subject: RE: Obit: Ted Heath, one of the last decent Tories
From: Bloke in the Corner
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 11:28 AM

A lovely man, utterly upper class, excellent soldier - commanded a firing squad which executed a Polish deserter - but not fit for politics in the 70s with assorted trotsky dinosaurs betraying the working classes with their siren cries of 'solidarity' and presiding over the destruction of British industry, and laughing while the gullible ones walked to the dole queues singing 'Here we go!'
Thank God for Thatcher. Without her we'd be in a worse position than the French.
R.I.P. Ted, very nice chap.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 06:30 PM

Won't dwell on the fact that nobody in Blighty said or posted a word about this until the very day I did!

Shame on you! lying cheating crooks.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 11:09 PM

The other thread was started after this one. Get a grip, Pink.

I have quite fond memories of the 3-day week (though not of the despicable Thatcherite aftermath). In those days we were used to powercuts anyway, so only idiots didn't keep emergency candles. One week I couldn't buy sugar; a few times I couldn't get exactly the right brand of catfood. That was all; it was trivial. We couldn't afford a television in the shared house I lived in back then anyway, so we had to make our own entertainment (cliché). We had music, drugs, conversation and sex to amuse us. It worked well enough.

Poor old Ted wasn't the bastard we thought him at the time, and the latter part of his life was full of bitterness and disappointment; though it's always difficult to feel any real sympathy for sad rich folk. I wish him peace in death. Margaret Thatcher is another matter, of course. To her, I wish the full sum of the pain she deliberately inflicted upon others; and no peace, even in death, until the world's end.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Ringer
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 08:59 AM

"A lovely man, utterly upper class..."

Nonsense. He was the son a of carpenter, went to the local grammar. Working class, possibly very bottom of the lower middle class.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 09:04 AM

I remember at the time the UK went into the EEC in January 1973 there was a series of concerts in London called 'Fanfare for Europe'. The last one at the Albert Hall featured Steeleye Span, Planxty and Derek Brimstone. Just before Steeleye came out, the promoter, John Martin (no, not that one) came out and said that Heath was in the audience. A spotlight shone on him in his box and 5,000 people booed as one. Heath took it rather well - I could see his shoulders skhaking up and down in that stupid laugh he used to have.

He was a pretty disastrous Prime Minister as far as Ireland was concerned although he was by no means alone in that respect. He presided over internment, Bloody Sunday and the worst years of the troubles. He also locked up trade unionists for picketing. Perhaps Thatcher's greatest achievement was to make people forget how bad he was.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 10:03 AM

What planet do you come from Bloke in the Corner ? Eduparse ?

eric

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 10:08 AM

I second the post from Bloke. Ted was a serious intellectual.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 10:38 AM

He had some virtues.

Most interestingly he made us the first country in the world to be ruled by two queens at the same time.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 10:53 AM

His best point was he didn't reproduce.


flamenco ted being provocative as usual, nobody takes it seriously now ted.

eric

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 10:55 AM

Pardon me for having a different opinion to you Eric.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 11:17 AM

I have a grip now, Malcolm. Thank you.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Bloke in the Corner
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 11:50 AM

But of course, it's heresy to suggest Mrs T. was anything other than an evil ogre. Funny how she won three general elections on the trot and transformed this land from a third world country in 1979 (dead lying unburied in commercial freezers - rubbish in the streets for weeks - 28% inflation - Healey going cap in hand to the IMF for £4 billion, and coming back with instructions on how to manage the housekeeping etc, etc.) to a real world power with respect and a sense of self worth. I remember it - some others obviously don't. Still, at least Tony is keeping to strict Tory monetarist guidelines.....

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: alanabit
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 12:36 PM

As I remember it, the twenty eight per cent inflation from the first years of the Labour government had been cut to just over eleven per cent. The loans to the Shah and the IMF had been repaid. I don't recall either Heath, Callaghan or Wilson systematically stealing the country's assets, given them to their buddies in the Stock Market and then accepting directorships in the same industries which they had plundered.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 01:05 PM

Thatcher set out to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. By any definition that is evil.

She started a war to improve her election chances.

She destroyed UK manufacturing industry. And mining industry.

She destroyed the UK television industry - out of personal political pique at the fact that Thames had shown her government's complicity in murder (murders I happened to approve of, but that's not the point).

She encouraged the greed of the moneymen who make nothing that led directly to the great accounting scandals and frauds.

She encouraged the greed of the suckers she sold houses to as part of her great Gerrymander - a spin off of which was the lying and corrupt Lady Porter's Gerrymander.

I will happily piss on her grave. And I can swim.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Bloke in the Corner
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 01:28 PM

Oh, ye who don't remember union tails wagging government dogs. Why DID Britain become a much better placce to live in the 80s, for rich AND poor? Why DID she win THREE general elections? Was everyone mad? And please don't talk about governments trying to destroy the mining industry - that was Mr Scargill, pure and simple, who destroyed Mr Heath's political career and oversaw the closure of most of our pits. 'Here we go..' is one of the most poignant chants, remembering those men going back to work with nothing, and Scargill going back to his job with plenty. Some people might even say he wanted the mining industry destroyed, after all there were some who wished to see democracy removed and a socialist state imposed. Of course, there's none of that nnow...

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: alanabit
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 04:51 PM

It depends whose Britain you are talking about. Had you driven buses through potholed roads, splashing through huge puddles filled with coaldust in Stavely and Poolsbrook, you may have felt a little differently about it all. Bigoted, spoilt brats, who had never done so much as clean a toilet, were pontificating about wicked Communists, because anciliary workers in the NHS wanted a basic wage above twenty two pounds a week. Whose tail was wagging whose dog? Am I supposed to owe the village bully his tribute of a birthright of deference?

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 06:06 PM

I see at least one person on the Muddie knows all about the wicked witch of Axe!

Good on you, Sir!

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 06:49 PM

Britain did not become a better place to live in the 80s. Those were times of the utmost misery for many, particularly when the chickens came home to roost in the late 80s. If you do not know or admit that, then, come the revolution, you deserve what you get.

And if you bewail the power of the working man and his unions, then we see truly how you stand for oppression, the power of the greater capital to drove out the smaller. When "they" come for you, how glad I will be that there is no-one to defend you.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 03:31 AM

Thatcher won her second election because she pandered to peoples greed, her philosophy, greed is good, reference the Falklands war, Thatcher sent British soldiers to their deaths to further her political career.

Like Richard Bridge I too would piss on her grave, and puke and shit as well.

eric

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: sapper82
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 04:04 AM

Eric, to read your postings one would imagine that Mrs Thatcher made a secret agreement with Galtieri for him to invade the Faulklands simply so she could throw him out and win the election.
If that is that REALLY what you believe, how can you expect people to take you seriously?
Regarding the curbing of the Trade Unions, who else was driving Green Goddesses in '77/'78, on standby to go and dig graves, clean streets in Liverpool or Glasgow or drive fuel tankers into schools and hospitals to keep the central heating going?
Who else recalls the diagnostic skills of Hospital Porters being used to stop sick people crossing picket lines to get treatment because the striking porters did not think they were ill enough?
Who else recalls the violent massed picketing outside a small photo processors called Grunwick where a VERY SMALL number of the workers wanted to impose union rule on the firm AGAINST the wishes of the majority of the workforce?
Who recalls the Builders' dispute where unions agitated and again used violent picketing, to force the nationalisation of the building industry? Violent picketing which resulted, amongst other incidents, in a worker in Shrewesbury being pitched off a ladder, loosing an eye as a result and the thugs who carried out the attack, when they received their just deserts, being hailed by the TU movement as "The Shrewsbury Two"??
Mrs. Thatcher incurs the wrath fo the left simply because she was correct and succeeded in going someway towards reversing the continual leftward creep that had been going unchecked since the '30s.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Lanfranc
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 04:14 AM

I sailed against Ted Heath, admittedly in the early 60s, and encountered him socially on a few occasions. He was a strange choice as Tory leader for any number of reasons, but he was, IMHO, an honest man who got out of his depth. Along with Alanabit I am one of the Euro enthusiast minority on Mudcat, and I'm grateful for Heath's efforts in getting this xenophobic insular nation of ours into the wider European community.

The three day week had it's positive points (giving up taking sugar in tea and coffee, shared baths, dashing from village to village visiting friends as the lights went out in different areas at different times) and if I smell a bottled-gas lantern these days ....

Thatcher I loathed and still loathe, even though the City bubble of the 80s improved my lifestyle dramatically. Heath, I had some respect for - he was, at least a character, if not a particularly loveable one and had interests other than politics and his own self-agrandisement.

Alan

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 04:48 AM

Who remembers a press photo of two policemen holding down a miners picket whilst a third one kicked him in the head, the picket was later charged with damaging the policemans boot.

And sapper82 go to any Yorkshire pit village like Wombwell, Darfield, Darton or anywhere round Barnsley and go into the local Miners Welfare Club and tell them how nice you think Thatcher was.

eric

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 04:50 AM

Sapper 82 - Thatcher turned an incident into a war by ordering the sinking of an Argentinian battleship that was sailing AWAY from the exclusion zone at the time.

As for the rest, it is simple - government military might was used against the workers when the workers combined to advantage themselves against organised capital. Government military might was not used against organised capital when it combined to advantage itself against workers and consumers.

Thatcher's assault on the freedom of assembly of workers was carried out for one purpose only - to keep them in subservience, so her rich friends could get richer.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: GUEST,teechieboy
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 05:54 AM

Good to see a wide range of views. No-one is perfect, Thatcher, Heath, Wilson, I'm sure they all really wanted the best for the country, and so, I suppose, does Blair. Funny how much vitriol Maggie brings out- though you have to admit, she DID win three general elections, and so the MUST have won millions of 'working class' votes. Fine the first time, but if they were all getting poorer and poorer, why did they vote her in again and again?
Still, it's a thread about dead Ted. Rest in peace, Ted - what will any of our rantings mean in one hundred years?
memento mori...

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: GUEST,Dáithí Ó Geanainn
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 05:56 AM

Richard - not that I'm a supporter of the British government on many issues, but ...there is no such direction as "away" in war. The enemy isn't obliged to maintain a course you know!

D

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: sapper82
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 07:54 AM

Richard Bridge
"Sapper 82 - Thatcher turned an incident into a war by ordering the sinking of an Argentinian battleship that was sailing AWAY from the exclusion zone at the time."

The exclusion zone arguement is a total red herring. The zone was in place as a warning to neutral shipping so they could stand clear and avoid the risk of being mistaken for Argentine forces.

As has since been revealed from Argenine sources, Belgrano was sailing away from the zone to "kill time" and allow their carrier force time to get into position to launch a "pincer movement" on our task force.

Belgrano was also sailing towards shallower waters. Had Conqueror delayed the attack but continued shadowing it is possible that she would have been discovered and sunk herself.

Had she been sunk or broken off the shadowing, there is a chance that the planned Argentine attack may have succeeded which would have resulted in the loss of several RN vessles.

Obviously, from the way you write, you would have preferred the two latter options, resulting in many more deaths of British servicemen, the probable loss of the Faulklands to Argentine aggression that would have ensued and the continuation in office of Galtieri's junta.

Just because you hate Maragret Thatcher.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 10:42 AM

Well you got one thing right a lot of us hate Thatcher.

You had to be working class to understand the damage she did to the working classes in this sceptic isle.


And no guest teechieboy Thatcher wasn't doing the best for the country, she was doing the best for her rich friends.

eric

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: sapper82
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 05:03 PM

eric the red
"You had to be working class to understand the damage she did to the working classes in this sceptic isle."

So I am not working class am I?
Apart from serving in the RA from '36 to '46 my dad was a miner at Newbiggin colliery until it closed, then worked the Lynemouth Bewick Drift until he took early retirement in '78 under The Viscount Stansgate's scheme that closed more pits than the big strike.

My mum was the daughter of an Ashington miner who, rather than be allowed to take up a domestic science teaching scholarship in the '30s was pushed into service by her mother.

After going to a decent Secondary Modern, Glendale in Wooler, I did 11½y serving my country, followed by 16y on the railway, before being made redundant and going into teaching. I did qualify, but I regret could not take the abuse from some of the children in the sink schools I was working in, so packed it in.
Following that I spent 2y as a driver/navigator doing trials on a new radio system.
Last job I did was washing cars.

Given the fact that the ruling clique of the Labour Party has long been the preserve of the libertarian minded upper-middle class socialists, making snide remarks about "working class" is a bit off the mark. Appart from a few token trade unionsts like the fat bastard Jonnie Two Jags, there are not many MPs in NL who understand the Working Class!

The damage to the working class was done by a combination of bad management and the unions during the '60s and '70s. All Mrs. Thatcher did was to create the conditions where that damage could be reversed.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 21 Jul 05 - 06:35 PM

You haven't a clue about all that Maggie did! If you did, you'd be a lot slower to praise her.

Never mind what she did to the Unions and miners, look what she did to selfemployed folks like my kin! If it wasn't for saving and living on potatoe soup they too wouldv'e been beggin into Oz - LIKE thousands of other not so lucky buggers - and not that I'm on a preachin - look where I ended up. A lover of good beer and football there is neither here.

If I could get the oldbag within throwing distance I would chuck a cowpat at her!

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: michaelr
Date: 22 Jul 05 - 12:10 AM

Give a clueless Yank a hint -- why is this in Music?

All I know about Ted is the Beatles lyric -- "Taxman Mr Wilson, Taxman Mr Heath".

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Ringer
Date: 22 Jul 05 - 06:27 PM

Well, the cretino-lefties are really out in force on this thread, aren't they, spattering the vitriol of their hatred for Maggie far and wide, like some demented five-year-old with a water-pistol? And very unattractive it is.

And yours seems to me most unattractive of all, Richard Bridge. You say, "Thatcher set out to make the rich richer and the poor poorer," so I conclude that you are stupid as well as hateful, because it was obvious that the rich got richer and the poor got richer. Sure, you can find exceptions, but there are exceptions where the rich got poorer as well as where the poor got poorer, and if there are more of the latter, that is perhaps because the poor so greatly outnumber the rich. But you can't turn history on its head just to suit the chip on your shoulder.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Jul 05 - 06:54 PM

Ringer - If you don't understand the fallacy of "trickle-down economics" I suggest you go back to school. If the man upstream pisses in the water, you get cholera. If you don't understand Thatcher's deliberate attempt to castrate the working man, you need to read history. You speak to someone who until the Thatcher regime was a natural conservative, an agitator at university for one-nation toryism. She, unlike the better Tory grandees, had no idea of "noblesse oblige", only of self-aggrandisement. She destroyed the country. She destroyed our industry and our economy to feed the tinseltown economics of her grabby financier friends. I learned from my mistakes. It took the electorate 3 elections to learn although
I hoped we would be on the barricades by the time of the third one. Time you did. On your bike.

Sapper 82 - if any of what you say to me is true, why did Thatcher lie and lie again to Parliament about it? If any of the rest of what you say above is true, isn't it about time you learned to tell the friends of your class from their enemies? The personal situations you describe were created by capitalism. Rise against it. Or were you too brainwashed by military orders?

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Jul 05 - 11:11 AM

I have now checked. War was never declared. The Belgrano was outside the exclusion zone. Therefore even if militarily advantageous, the sinking of the Belgrano was legally wrong - an act of terrorism and/or a war crime.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Jul 05 - 11:30 AM

what the hell, it was all a long time aga. some folks thought thatch was alright at the time. some don't.. I suspect if you were in the path of the monetarism juggernaut it wasn't too much fun. It wasn't til she buggered off that the rhetoric over northern Ireland got a bit more sensible - though you'd never guess it some days on mudcat.

I wondered if anybody else noticed how the knives are out for Heath in the Sunday heavies this week - denounced as an insider trader.

Wonder where that leaves the thatch gang with all their directorships of privatised industries etc.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: alanabit
Date: 24 Jul 05 - 01:43 PM

If joining the board of a national asset, which you privatised yourself, is not insider dealing, then I am having difficulty in coming up with a consistent definiton for the term!

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: GUEST,HughM
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 08:35 AM

Well, I'm glad Mrs T. privatised Yorkshire Water, because now I can make a decent cup of tea without having to filter the water, and I don't get dirty water coming through with the frequency it did before. As for Mr. Heath, I won't shed any tears for him. Because of his legacy (our EU membership) the electronics industry is in constant turmoil because of one EU directive after another. Keeping up with the directives is almost an industry in itself. Now we have a waste directive which says we must recycle old equipment, and another directive which says that we can't recycle or re-use old compomnents because the solder has lead in it. As Ewan McColl put it, "there's a bye-law to say you must be on your way and another to say you can't wander". With reference to an earlier thread, I used to work for a television manufacturer, and my part of the industry was destroyed by poor management, not by Mrs. Thatcher.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: mooman
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 08:45 AM

Wilson, Heath, Thatcher, Major, Blair...

I didn't/don't like any of them. But I wouldn't wish any of them ill either in their passing away.

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 08:45 AM

Yes well done Mrs T, Yorkshire water now belongs to the French, bloody good asset to the country that is.

eric

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 09:57 AM

Mon Dieu!

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Wolfgang
Date: 26 Jul 05 - 05:58 AM

the sinking of the Belgrano was legally wrong (Richard Bridge)

Perhaps yes (the case brought before an international court has been turned down on a technicality), but even the government of Argentine has declared in 1994 that the sinking was "a legal act of war".

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jul 05 - 08:13 AM

My point precisely - it was an act of war but war had not been declared.

By 1994, of course, they would say most things to cosy back up to us...

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: sapper82
Date: 26 Jul 05 - 08:43 AM

I would have thought that, after an act of agression by a foreign power, a formal declarition of war by the power on the receiving end would not be necessary.

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 26 Jul 05 - 08:53 AM

Re. the Belgrano, why did all government documents relating this action mysteriously and conveniantly for Thatcher disappear ?

eric

Subject: RE: Obit: Edward Heath
From: michaelr
Date: 26 Jul 05 - 09:59 PM

I still don't know what this is to do witn music?