Drac – ok, so I know where you work reasonably, and would you not agree that a great deal of that poverty that you no doubt see on a daily basis is down to, as Maggie put it “the problems of human nature” – drugs, alcohol, poor parenting, abuse, education, lack of ambition

No I wouldn’t agree, yes it may be the case for some but not all or a great deal as you put it.

Ok, so what proportion would you split it?

I’m speaking as a lad who spent a fair bit of his teenage years hanging around the west end of Newcastle at the turn of the 80’s/90’s (I saw some eye opening things then, I can tell you) and having been back there since, I’ve seen huge differences, but largely through moving problem people on – the damage caused by a small section of the community affected a great many others.

Ok, so what proportion would you split it?

I really wouldn’t like to take a guess.

Yes Newcastle has been revamped, Scotswood, Elswick and Meadowell Estate all improved. It’s certainly not a bad state like it once was but their is still poverty but it’s wrong to say a majority chose to live like this.

I think you might have gt me wrong, I don’t think for one second that people ‘choose to live like this’

I think that it would be more accurate to say that a lot of people don’t have a concept of anything different, and that the reasons for this are very complex, and involve issues that would take generations to fix

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=T7Fj_lF_H4s[/video]

Ah right sorry yes I did.

Having reread it yes it is the nature and culture that some are brought up in makes it hard for them to escape, however I don’t agree that money won’t help it just needs used in the right way. Creating job opportunities, revamping areas so business move may help.

It’s well-documented that Thatcher was dithering about what the response should be. I thought it was the First Sea Lord (Leech/Leach?) who basically talked her into taking the gamble. I would have thought her party would have been similarly pulled in different directions.

There’s no point tipping a load of money into an area unless you’re actually going to create some employment. This would be probably be the ‘re-balancing of the economy’ that Dave and George were fond of going on about when they first got in, but we haven’t heard much about since

Not much chance of that happening then? Especially after George’s latest wheeze. Putting £130 billion in to loan guarantees for mortgages. Brilliant! Truly inspired! Lets put government (our) money into re-inflating another housing bubble in the south east, by lending money to people who couldn’t afford to buy property without it. What could possibly go wrong?

Be fiar Binners how else can you get a second home for you or your children except without a state handout …wont someone help these strivers rather than build houses for the shirkers
Ps I blame the Euro for this 😉

I would also like to pour some money into making the rich and privledged realise that it was not just hard word that got them where they are but wealth 😉

Everyone is a product of their upbringing which includes family and the wider environment – you cannot tease them appart easily and apportion balme it impacts at the top and the bottom- hardly surprising CMD grew up to be right wing etc is it.

Even Primnce charles lectured us about folk having a sense of entitlement and expecting things – yes the birth right heir to throne lectured others on hard work and acheiving things by personal endevaour rather than expecting handouts

I cite the parable of the sower in situations like this

Ok, some of that is fair comments, if we reflect on the (sticking with the area had mentioned) big projects like the Metrocentre and the way that affected the area theres no doubt that job opportunities can improve things for many – I think that my concern from what I’ve seen in the past is there’s always going to be a very hard to reach ‘core’ that you can’t reach with money, and they can drag down a whole area.

I think it was probably ever thus – see the history of the Meadowell, it had had a reputation since it was originally built in the thirties as the Ridges. No doubt other regions have their own equivalents.

there’s always going to be a very hard to reach ‘core’ that you can’t reach with money, and they can drag down a whole area

I am not sure we always need to have an underclass per se but yes we currently do have one and we all recognise them.
I am not sure money alone will change it for the current lot but it is an attempt to remove it from future generations hence why they focus on children centre and intervention as early as possible to negate the influences of the parents/community whatever we choose to blame
I am not sure it will work for all the reasons mentioned but we have to try and abondooning them wont help them or us [ who pick up the tab be it benefits, prison,crime, education etc

At what point do we get into the law of diminishing returns I wonder?

I suppose that the focus on children and intervention is an interesting one – especially having listened to a programme on Radio4 yesterday about Australia apologising for forced adoptions etc… I wonder where you draw the line?

(ps – think its really good that we do sometimes all have these type of deep down and serious polite discussions on here)

Only because we know a mod is watching 😉
Serioulsy i agree on the sentiment there
I heard that as well and the use of the words forced adoption v abduction was telling

Horrific and so recent as well

Steve Bell nails it again….

Purely coincidentally, I’m sure, yesterdays Times contained the supplement ‘The 30 Best Places in Britain to Buy a Second Home’

Ordsall didn’t feature. A glaring omission

Back to the OP

Big problem for me with all this release of “private info” is that it really only tells you what “they” want you to hear.

Firstly, it isn’t by their own admission, complete archive. At best it is merely selected items kept by Thatcher as personal mementos. Lets face it, I could write a letter to Ronald Reagan and not send it, so at the end of the day what does it actually prove if I then publish it 30 years later?

The other thing is why? Any chance it might have something to do with the book published yeterday by her sychophnatic former minister?