For Anyone Thinking Of Voting Conservative...

[The Spanish]

Like say, the automotive industry or the bankers. They were helped out though, propped up, funded by the taxpayer. Why? Couldn't these unproductive businesses gone to the wall and the stronger ones taken their place? Where's the free market ideology here?

because everyone can rally round the miners strike if you are over 35 as we all saw it on tv and mrs thatch was bad. say anything about people concerned over their communities now and social change that is aparently for the best in barking or thurrock or somewhere and you will get shot down in flames by the same people. but brass band playing tetly bittermen who fought thatch are like gods to southern liberals of the thatcher generation. the usual double standards and fantasy.

its a disgrace the mining industry in this country was destroyed due to intransigence and ideology. we have lost plenty of industries but this one is iconic to a generation. the reasons it is special to some people are dubious though.

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

Like say, the automotive industry or the bankers. They were helped out though, propped up, funded by the taxpayer. Why? Couldn't these unproductive businesses gone to the wall and the stronger ones taken their place? Where's the free market ideology here?

Because they have gone to the wall and been taken over and replaced. They have modified, updated and changed their working practices. Last time I checked we did not have Hillman Imps being produced. As it stands now our car industry is not competitive against foreign markets - should we keep on pumping money in or do we, at some point, decide that enough is enough and accept that we cannot produce cars that cheaply or that well anymore, look at retraining staff and move on?

Look at this - How billions failed to fix UK's car industry - CNN.com

 

[Dandyman]

Lions led by donkeys, scargill started that unofficial
strike with a small house and a big union, and ended it with a big house and a small union, tosser of the highest order.

Play the man or the ball ? Scargill was a poor leader IMO but one who recognised that the attack on the miners was always far more about politics than economics.

Thatcher also attacked the printers, dockers, steel workers and other mainstays of traditional working class communities. Do you really think that has resulted in a better country ?

 

[Simster]

Because if Scargill had won, the country would have been held to ransom by the Unions. It is never good that jobs are lost, but expecting to have a job because that's the way it's always been is not a recipe for success. We know the pits were not productive, it's a shame that communities had to die, but if we followed Scargill's way of thought we would still have wattle and daub houses because we don't want to put the wattle and daubers out of business!

I don't really agree with this to be honest. Firstly, the Germans and the French have managed to keep long standing industries running in the face of increasing international competition. The French car industry, for example, is assisted in an underhand way by the French government. That industry is not allowed state support, so instead the state subsidises the firms that make car components, and the French people are not complaining that this is a bad way to spend their taxes. They know that this is considerably cheaper than paying people not to work at all.

Secondly, here is what I'd have wanted from my government in the 1980s. I'd want to attract investment and new enterprise initiatives into areas relying on mining. This happened in Sunderland when Nissan moved up there, but it didn't really happen in many places. Get new industries up and running into the least competitive and largest pit colliery communities first, then shut the pits down.

All we got instead was Thatcher and McGregor bleating about necessary but bad tasting medicine, people needing to move to where the jobs were, and that sort of thing. Sorry, but I just don't think that is good government at all, and nor would have all these people talking about "the wonderful Thatcher years" if they'd lived in Barnsley in the 80s.

 

[Dandyman]

because everyone can rally round the miners strike if you are over 35 as we all saw it on tv and mrs thatch was bad. say anything about people concerned over their communities now and social change that is aparently for the best in barking or thurrock or somewhere and you will get shot down in flames by the same people. but brass band playing tetly bittermen who fought thatch are like gods to southern liberals of the thatcher generation. the usual double standards and fantasy.

its a disgrace the mining industry in this country was destroyed due to intransigence and ideology. we have lost plenty of industries but this one is iconic to a generation. the reasons it is special to some people are dubious though.

There were mines in Kent, as well, Hants.

p.s. I don't mind being called a red bastard but please don't call me a liberal.

 

[simmo]

Can you as a Thatcher hater please also answer this question

Thatcher left office 20 years ago and Labour have been in power for the last 13, far longer than she herself was in power. Why have they not put right all the wrongs that you perceived that she did. Why do they not re-nationalise BT, British Gas etc. Why do they not have massive council house building programme etc. etc. etc. They have had a thumping majority for the last three elections they basically could do whatever they wanted to.

Still no answer from the Thatcher haters then?

 

[pork pie]

There were mines in Kent, as well, Hants.

p.s. I don't mind being called a red bastard but please don't call me a liberal.

How does that work then? The Liberals are more Left Wing with their stupid ideas that new Labour now. Surely, being called a liberal is a complement to someone like you?

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

I don't really agree with this to be honest. Firstly, the Germans and the French have managed to keep long standing industries running in the face of increasing international competition. The French car industry, for example, is assisted in an underhand way by the French government. That industry is not allowed state support, so instead the state subsidises the firms that make car components, and the French people are not complaining that this is a bad way to spend their taxes. They know that this is considerably cheaper than paying people not to work at all.

Secondly, here is what I'd have wanted from my government in the 1980s. I'd want to attract investment and new enterprise initiatives into areas relying on mining. This happened in Sunderland when Nissan moved up there, but it didn't really happen in many places. Get new industries up and running into the least competitive and largest pit colliery communities first, then shut the pits down.

All we got instead was Thatcher and McGregor bleating about necessary but bad tasting medicine, people needing to move to where the jobs were, and that sort of thing. Sorry, but I just don't think that is good government at all, and nor would have all these people talking about "the wonderful Thatcher years" if they'd lived in Barnsley in the 80s.

I can actually see your point. The Miners issue is slightly different because it is where the line in the sand was drawn. Scargill threw down the gauntlet and it had to be taken up otherwise the Unions would have screwed the country. How it was dealt with on both sides remains up for discussion with the benefit of hindsight.

I can see what you mean about getting new industry in place before shutting down old. This is where the Government training incentives are supposed to work, but some people don't/can't/won't retrain for many reasons.

It's not nice putting people out of work, but for the benefit of a country as a whole, you have to cut your losses somewhere. The French and Germans would not hesitate to do the same should they end up facing financial meltdown, particularly in light of Iceland recently. It might not taste nice, but sometimes bad medicine is needed to fix a problem.

 

[Gwylan]

Are you talking about Dennis Hobden - the toad like little man? He lived in a private house in Woodingdean and was hardly your typical red "working class hero" from those days.

I don't know where you got your information from but he was a postal worker and a union official, scarcely a member of the ruling class. There are plenty of working class families who own their own houses - I thought the idea that all working class people lived in council houses had long gone.

 

[The Spanish]

There were mines in Kent, as well, Hants.

p.s. I don't mind being called a red bastard but please don't call me a liberal.

ok dandy i wont as long as you dont tell me there were mines in kent in slow English like am Borat or something. it kind of ruins my sweeping generalisations so they are conveniently omitted. plus there was plenty of other work hopping or putting goldfish into bags for them.

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

There were mines in Kent, as well, Hants.

p.s. I don't mind being called a red bastard but please don't call me a liberal.

Did I? Bloody word replacement software!

Not one of Clegg's wide-eyed followers then?

 

[Simster]

Still no answer from the Thatcher haters then?

Surely you're ignoring the cost of reverting some of these privatised industries. Furthermore, the markets that some of these firms are in now, are totally unrecognisable from the ones they were in when privatised.

At the time of privatisation, BT was a monopoly (Mercury had about 3% the private market I believe). That isn't the case anymore, so why re-nationalise it?

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

I don't know where you got your information from but he was a postal worker and a union official, scarcely a member of the ruling class. There are plenty of working class families who own their own houses - I thought the idea that all working class people lived in council houses had long gone.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-dennis-hobden-1616571.html

Read this obit of Hobden. Comes across as a damn good bloke.

 

[Simster]

I can actually see your point. The Miners issue is slightly different because it is where the line in the sand was drawn. Scargill threw down the gauntlet and it had to be taken up otherwise the Unions would have screwed the country. How it was dealt with on both sides remains up for discussion with the benefit of hindsight.

I can see what you mean about getting new industry in place before shutting down old. This is where the Government training incentives are supposed to work, but some people don't/can't/won't retrain for many reasons.

It's not nice putting people out of work, but for the benefit of a country as a whole, you have to cut your losses somewhere. The French and Germans would not hesitate to do the same should they end up facing financial meltdown, particularly in light of Iceland recently. It might not taste nice, but sometimes bad medicine is needed to fix a problem.

Likewise, I can see that employing 180,000 in an uncompetitive industry is not sustainable. But what I find staggering is the number of people who simply swallow the line that Thatcher was somehow brave or clever taking the line she took. She was nothing of the sort.

Would Scargill ever have been given the foothold he gained if there was a properly thought-out national plan to move the employees of this huge industry into different, competitive sectors?

 

[Gwylan]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-dennis-hobden-1616571.html

Read this obit of Hobden. Comes across as a damn good bloke.

Sounds about right. There have been plenty of chancers, creeps and crooks in the Labour party but I don't remember Hobden as being one of them. I think Pork Pie's slur was unwarranted, as well as inaccurate.

 

[simmo]

Surely you're ignoring the cost of reverting some of these privatised industries. Furthermore, the markets that some of these firms are in now, are totally unrecognisable from the ones they were in when privatised.

At the time of privatisation, BT was a monopoly (Mercury had about 3% the private market I believe). That isn't the case anymore, so why re-nationalise it?

No, you are ignoring my question. The re-nationilisation of industries is just one example of how Labour could have repealed and overturned all her laws. Another example while we are on the subject could be union laws. Why haven't Labour repealed the law concerning secondary picketing for example. Why don't Labour re-open all the pits that the Tories closed is another example

The question that needs to be answered by Thatcher's haters is this......Labour have had 13 years to undo all of Thatcher's (perceived) wrongdoings and put right the wrongs that they (or what their uni lecturers tell them) think.... Why dont they?

 

[Gwylan]

The question that needs to be answered by Thatcher's haters is this......Labour have had 13 years to undo all of Thatcher's (perceived) wrongdoings and put right the wrongs that they (or what their uni lecturers tell them) think.... Why dont they?

Because the Labour party is a pale version of the Tory party - but without the libertarian streak that the Tories have.

 

[simmo]

Because the Labour party is a pale version of the Tory party - but without the libertarian streak that the Tories have.

And why is it that the Labour party have become like this?

 

[pork pie]

I don't know where you got your information from but he was a postal worker and a union official, scarcely a member of the ruling class. There are plenty of working class families who own their own houses - I thought the idea that all working class people lived in council houses had long gone.

Not in the 60s - that was before Maggie gave most normal people the chance to buy a house of their own. He had a son called Sigmond of some equally poncy name.

 

[Simster]

No, you are ignoring my question. The re-nationilisation of industries is just one example of how Labour could have repealed and overturned all her laws. Another example while we are on the subject could be union laws. Why haven't Labour repealed the law concerning secondary picketing for example. Why don't Labour re-open all the pits that the Tories closed is another example

The question that needs to be answered by Thatcher's haters is this......Labour have had 13 years to undo all of Thatcher's (perceived) wrongdoings and put right the wrongs that they (or what their uni lecturers tell them) think.... Why dont they?

I'm not sure what your question was. You can't repeal everything can you, and I guess some of them were good ideas. Secondary picketing was a bad idea, and banning it was surely a vote loser to the Labour core vote, so the Tories have done them a favour.

Some of the stuff you're talking about is idiotic. Why would anyone re-open pits (at the cost of millions) that were uncompetitive and where the skilled workforce moved on from years ago? Same with re-nationalising some of the privatised firms - those industries are unrecognisable now. Mind you, they should have taken back the trains IMO.