owning a council house does not make you middle class.

I know that and you know that, but there are quite a few people who don’t. 😉

The need never went away, but council house building did. Of course that leaves lots of room for wealthier individuals to step into the breach, buy up houses and rent them out to those who can’t afford/don’t want a mortgage. So – the rich get richer……..

**for what is worth i think some of the privatisation has been a disaster. For example we are now in the position where the government subsidises a French state owned company to produce energy, with the profits of going to the French company/government rather than being reinvested in improving UK energy infrastructure – which could cut energy costs and in turn help create more wealth within the UK. But we can’t have that sounds too much like socialism, best make a quick buck and who cares about more expensive energy costs and foreign state owned companies owning our utilities. So the long term benefit of this was debatable but at the time it is undeniable that the privatisation raised alot of revenue, it just that money wasn’t invested wisely and was squandered.

I think you will find that the privatisation was more about taking the industries (and the required future capital investment) of the governments balance sheets. It also had the advantage of pushing the idea of share ownership at large numbers of the population and the staff of the companies

For the naysayers have a look at the water industries in Scotland and Nortern Ireland, both have massive issues around future investment which simply won’t happen if it raises the public debt regardless of who is in power.

but it’s far simpler to have a bogeywoman to blame everything on 😉

Reply to original question:

Give it 12 months and you will know what it was like: riots, strikes, no jobs, no money, no prospects and music was angry…. Hold on we are already there without he music.

strange that the pre 79 unclass that I remember seem identical to the one we have now

Just that it was only a fraction of the size it is now.

So – the rich get richer……..

I’m talking about social housing not the private landlord here. While they are private companies, they don’t have freedom to charge what they want and are quite tightly controlled.

For the naysayers have a look at the water industries in Scotland and Nortern Ireland, both have massive issues around future investment which simply won’t happen if it raises the public debt regardless of who is in power.

I’m not really sure you should bring up water companies as a success story and advertisement for privatization.

I’ll give you a hand to start – the most recent PM to get a larger share of the vote than Maggie got was Ted Heath.

Edit: damn you, Garry Lager – you should have let Jeremy do the research himself. Soz – good pub quiz question that!

Do folks really think a Thatcher argument is ever going to end well or change minds in the slightest?

I agree with you Druidh. The 1997 incarnation of Labour will be judged to be little more than a continuation of the previously-incumbent government. The point I was trying to make is that the voting populace has continued to endorse policies that allow personal gain to prevail over the health of society and the cohesion of communities, despite the fact the the campaign literature has simply changed colour from blue to red but in substance remains much the same.

druidh – Member
Unless you’d like to rent a council house and you now find there are none available.

ask one of the £100k+ p.a. Union leaders to move out of theirs 😉

big_n_daft – Member

strange that the pre 79 unclass that I remember seem identical to the one we have now

Spend any time as an adult in the big council schemes pre 79 did you?

I did.

Darnley / Arden and Carnwadrick on the south side of Glasgow. Yes there wa unemployment and social ills – however most people worked and hard drugs were almost unheard of. Now? Its a very different place. Thats what decades of mass unemployment does for a society

Do folks really think a Thatcher argument is ever going to end well or change minds in the slightest?

No, but it is giving emsz a bit of an insight into the whole Thatcher thing, which is good.

Spend any time as an adult in the big council schemes pre 79 did you?

I did.

😆 😆 😆

Goodnight all. 😉

No, but it is giving emsz a bit of an insight into the whole Thatcher thing, which is good.

Fair point.

I’ll give you a hand to start – the most recent PM to get a larger share of the vote than Maggie got was Ted Heath.

yes – and he had a slim majority – without the divided opposition she would not have got the huge majorities. That the point

At least she won her war.

Don’t cry for me Argentina.

Her main fault was she applied an ideology to government. Ideologies are always disastrous regardless of colour.

Actaully 1997 labour was not so bad. Blair consolidated his grasp on policy later. Devolution came out of that government for example

I’m not really sure you should bring up water companies as a success story and advertisement for privatization.

why not?

how else were we going to raise the billions needed for the enviromental restoration they’ve doing for the last 20 years?

I’m sure it could have been done better but they didn’t have hindsight at the time and the regulator has been tying itself in knots to maintain the cross subsidies that keep your bills down.

She was so hated that she got re-elected – twice and her policies so reviled that “New” labour adopted them whole-heartedly in order to get elected.

Does anyone remember all that Thatcher legislation that Tony Blair over-turned when New Labour got into power? All the industries they re-nationalised? The increased control they re-exerted over the financial services? Nope – neither do I.

druidh – you do know that the traditional rabids of this forum will largely ignore your pertinent comments of argue right around them.

Why argue around something thats easy to explain?

Thatcher tried out one big social experiment on the country. She set out to turn the working class into middle class, and attempted to improve the material wealth for the individuals of this nation which is not necessarily a bad thing.

So she got re-elected because of this and a weak opposition which in turn had to become more “middle ground”, hence Tony Blair. Of course once new labour came to power, they weren’t going to upset the “mondeo man” voters by doing anything particularly left wing and they weren’t going to upset the city, which was becoming more and more vital to the UK economy(after Thatchers de-regulation) since manufacturing was in decline. Manufacturing was too working class.

Her failures are real slow burners, and one of them only reared its ugly head in 2007-2008 when the de-regulated markets crashed in the city that had become too powerful, because it knew we had become too reliant on financial services, and had little else to fill the void, all watched over by politicians who had followed her policies to become electable.

There are many subsets within the class system, but the way I see it is you now have the underclass, the aspiring class, the true middle class and the upper class.

Apart from the underclass, The the ones who you would call working class 25 years or so back, through the right to buy(thatcher policy), cheap credit and loans and mortgages(De-regulation), which enabled them to buy houses, cars, white goods and shit loads of plasma TV’s and so forth suddenly believed they were middle class and behaved accordingly, hence the very middle of the road political parties, these are the aspiring class. And their aspirations are now definitely looking downwards.

The true middle class and the upper class sail on as if very little has happened.

The Thatcherite and subsequently Reaganite policies of the 80’s sowed the seeds of the trouble both economically and socially we have today.

Big and daft – I’d like to know what you actually know about life in the poorer parts of our cities pre 79.

People can make their own minds up about Thatcher (and I am sure that the dance on her grave type suggestions will not receive the same kind of abuse as Clarkson’s poor attempt at humour yesterday).

But any review of what she did/was forced to do, should not be made without a full understanding of the context in which she came to power. It was my childhood and a bloody miserable time characterised by:

Unprecedented levels of inflation (26% in 1975, took until 1985 to get back to 1970s levels)
The highest UN since the WW2
Stagflation
A bankcrupt economy – requiring international funding of $5000m
Declining economic growth
BoP crises leading to emergency deflationary budgets
The Labour Government introducing what ironically became known as “the first Thatcher budget”
The Winter of Discontent
Power cuts – doing homework by candlelight
Rubbish in the streets
A crisis of confidence in the UK leading to massive capital flight
Catastrophically high rates of marginal taxation

I am sure that life in certain parts of the Uk were not fun under Thatcher but it was far from a barrel of laughs for the whole economy under the previous Labour government. One again the selective memory of some astounds – even by STW standards

Do folks really think a Thatcher argument is ever going to end well or change minds in the slightest?

Not in the slightest

I am sure that life in certain parts of the Uk were not fun under Thatcher but it was far from a barrel of laughs for the whole economy under the previous Labour government. One again the selective memory of some astounds – even by STW standards

But all those problems pre-thatcher Government does not excuse all what she set out to do and the subsequent problems that were created by thatcherite policies since.

TINA? There were always other ways.

A time of potentially massive prosperity because of the oil money lost and the money wasted on paying benefits. Her economic policies were disastrous. with high inflation, low growth, massive unemployment. its only the oil money that stopped the country gong bankrupt

I think you will find that the privatisation was more about taking the industries (and the required future capital investment) of the governments balance sheets. It also had the advantage of pushing the idea of share ownership at large numbers of the population and the staff of the companies

For the naysayers have a look at the water industries in Scotland and Nortern Ireland, both have massive issues around future investment which simply won’t happen if it raises the public debt regardless of who is in power.

We are certainly paying the “price” now aren’t we? The only success privatization has been is to the shareholders.

but it’s far simpler to have a bogeywoman to blame everything on

There’s this book called the bible and the first chapter is called Genesis…you get my point.

I’m an ordinary man, nothin’ special nothin’ grand,
I’ve had to work for everything I own,
Well I never asked for a lot, I was happy with what I got,
Enough to keep my family and my home,
Now they say that times are hard & they’ve handed me my cards,
They say there’s not the work to go around,
When the whistle blows the gates will finally close,
Tonight they’re going to shut this factory down,
Then they’ll tear it down.

I never missed a day nor went on strike for better pay,
For 20 years I served them best I could,
With a handshake and a cheque it seems so easy to forget,
Loyalty through the bad times and the good,
The owner says he’s sad to see that things have got so bad,
But the Captains of industry won’t let him loose,
He still drives a car and smokes a cigar,
And still he takes his family on a cruise,
He’ll never lose.

Now it seems to me to be such a cruel irony,
He’s richer now ever he was before,
Now my cheque is all spent and I can’t afford the rent,
There’s one law for the rich, one for the poor,
Every day I’ve tried to salvage some of my pride,
To find some work so’s I might pay my way,
But everywhere I go, the answer is always no,
There’s no work for anyone here today,
No work today.

And so condemned I stand, just an ordinary man,
Like thousands beside me in the queue,
I watch my darlin’ wife tryin’ to make the best of life,
God knows what the kids are goin’ to do,
Now that we are faced with this human waste,
A generation cast aside,
For as long as I live, I never will forgive,
You’ve stripped me of my dignity & pride,
You’ve stripped me bare.

its only the oil money that stopped the country gong bankrupt

…in the 1970s

TJ – please fell free to have your usual last word. Nothing will change you opinion or the likelihood of some balance in the points. But in your sleep think about re-phrasing your last sentance in the context of the 1970s economic history of the UK. My last comment, as I have no interest in the usual TJ bashing into submission. History will tell it as it is.

Good night.

context in which she came to power. It was my childhood and a bloody miserable time characterised by:

Unprecedented levels of inflation (26% in 1975, took until 1985 to get back to 1970s levels)
The highest UN since the WW2
Stagflation
A bankcrupt economy – requiring international funding of $5000m
Declining economic growth
BoP crises leading to emergency deflationary budgets
The Labour Government introducing what ironically became known as “the first Thatcher budget”
The Winter of Discontent
Power cuts – doing homework by candlelight
Rubbish in the streets
A crisis of confidence in the UK leading to massive capital flight
Catastrophically high rates of marginal taxation

Just to pick one out, I can’t be bothered going through it all……“Declining economic growth”.

The downward trend continued under Thatcher :

yes – and he had a slim majority – without the divided opposition she would not have got the huge majorities. That the point

What, like the majority Tony got in 2001 (bigger majority than Maggie ever got) on a smaller share of the vote than Maggie ever got? Terrible thing these divided oppositions.

It’s that there Churchill who you should really get upset about if you’re bothered about electoral unfairness. After all, Atlee actually got a higher share of the vote, yet Chuchill unfairly became PM. We all hate him for it.

Or maybe that pesky Ramsay MacDonald – he won despite getting a whole 1% less of the popular vote than the rightful winner Stanley Baldwin. If only it hadn’t been for that jumped up nobody Lloyd George splitting the opposition vote.

Indeed history will tell it – as the numbers do now.

Thatchers “economic miracle” was based on spending a once only bonanza of the oil money as revenue – wasting it on paying people to do nothing instead of using it to create prosperity for the future.

Oil – very little was brought ashore before 1976 – most of the production was in the 80s.

http://www.peakoil.net/Publications/06_Analysis_of_UK_oil_production.pdf

So teamhurtmore – the oil production had little economic impact until the last couple of years of the 70s and didn’t really take off until into the 80s.

The downward trend continued under Thatcher :

Somebody should have pointed out to whoever fitted the blue “trend line” to that data that “lies, damn lies and statistics” isn’t an aspiration.

Nice bit of Christy there Seosamh 🙂

deadlydarcy – Member
Nice bit of Christy there Seosamh

Aye canny whack him! That song’s as relevant today as it ever was.

teamhurtmore

Good post(s). I’m old enough to remember that too.

I had a poignant reminder this week of how ‘wonderful’ things were pre Thatcher, when men were men and toiled at the coal face, in the shape of an ex-miner bent double coughing his guts up and barely able to breathe. Not many of them left now.

teamhurtmore – Member

It was my childhood and a bloody miserable time characterised by:

Woody – Member

Good post. I’m old enough to remember that too.

What’s all this “you don’t know I was there” bollox ?

As if it’s any sort of argument.

What’s all this “you don’t know I was there” bollox ?

As if it’s any sort of argument. Is that your argument?

Of course you are right ernie. Personal experience is no substitute for extrapolating ‘facts’ from questionable sources to support an argument.

Ah – but I was there too and I watch society unravel under the stress of the mass unemployment.

Its a part of the reason why Thatcher is so divisive. if you did OK under he you did really well – but those that got left behind got shat on badly. Working with the old, the sick and the poor as me and my missis do you could see the damage happening. So some people experienced this adn saw it – others did not. it tends to colour your view somewhat

No point in arguing with you TJ, although I am somewhat relieved that you actually managed a post without mentioning oil 😉

I’ll leave it now with a LINKY for the OP to add a bit of perspective to show just how wonderfully the UK was governed under Labour pre-Thatcher.

TJ + a million. And Elfin was right – we’re tired and this is as emotive a subject as anyone could bring up.

That said, my Grandad was at the forefront of promoting Scottish business during the 60s – 70s, culminating in the huge hydro-electric projects in the Scottish Highlands. Thatcher was instrumental in getting these enterprises up and running. These days, taking these developments as a seperate entity, she might be applauded for her forward thinking, environmentally aware attitude, not to mention the employment opportunities for the local communities.

Beyond all that, I’ve lived in the North East of England for eight years now and have worked with many of those for whom the miners’ strikes were a reality, rather than something to yawn at on the news, or read a bit about in ‘The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole’.

I have friends whose parents were arrested for cutting down telegraph poles to heat their houses.

She was a destructive force for the main part but had her eye on the bigger picture, at all and any cost. I am so not about to invoke Godwins’ law and am off to bed also.

Personal experience is no substitute for extrapolating ‘facts’ from questionable sources to support an argument.

“Personal experience” ? What about all the “personal experiences” of people who don’t agree with you ?

Wait a minute, I think I know this one…..they don’t count. Am I right ? ….. just the opinions of those who were there and liked Thatcher count ?

And what do you mean “extrapolating ‘facts’ from questionable sources” ? Since when is the Office of National Statistics a “questionable source” ?

Oh wait a minute again, I think I also the answer to this one. The Office of National Statistics is a “questionable source” when you don’t like the statistics – am I right ?

Here you go you drongo, a few more facts that you can dismiss ’cause they don’t suit you. Growth per quarter before and after Thatcher.

1978 Q2 2
1978 Q3 0.9
1978 Q4 0.3
1979 Q1 -0.5
1979 Q2 3.9
1979 Q3 -1.3
1979 Q4 0.5
1980 Q1 -1
1980 Q2 -1.9
1980 Q3 -1.6
1980 Q4 -1.6
1981 Q1 0.5
1981 Q2 0.1
1981 Q3 1
1981 Q4 0.1
1982 Q1 0.6
1982 Q2 0.8
1982 Q3 0.6
1982 Q4 0.2

Interesting ernie. Your ego knows no bounds in that you assumed I was referring to growth, or facts and figures supplied by you.

Wait a minute, I think I know this one…..they don’t count. Am I right ? ….. just the opinions of those who were there and liked Thatcher count ?

Assumptions again and the irony of that statement is almost as amusing as your resorting to insults so early 😆

Your ego knows no bounds in that you assumed I was referring to growth, or facts and figures supplied by you.

😕 Nothing to do with ego – why would it ? Yes, I assumed you were ‘referring to facts supplied by me’. Since you commented that I had allegedly “extrapolating ‘facts’ from questionable sources”.

Are you drunk, attempting to talk in riddles, or just a bit dim ?