Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 94 total)
  • Thatcher Dead!
  • CaptJon
    Free Member

    Did you know, the mines in Russia where much of the coal burnt in our power stations comes from have the same safety standards as the 1890s UK coal industry. It won't be long until the UK starts using its own (massive) coal reserves again.

    bassspine
    Free Member

    if we can pump the water out of the mines…

    Bikingcatastrophe
    Free Member

    Hmmmm, kind of gross overreactions from people here over someone who quite clearly is not evil. While not a card carrying Maggie fan I don't subscribe to the view that she was evil and with my memories of the times this country was in a right state, mostly down to the incompetent labour government and the power crazy unions who seemed to have forgotten that their founding role was to protect and support their members and not to hold businesses to ransom. Sure, the greed cycle that emerged during the 90's was not edifying or good in any way there are still a number of fundamental changes that were made during those tory years that changed this country for the good. But how much of that is down to the government and how much is down to individual people and their choices? I also think you will find that the tories were NOT happy to let interest rates go up to 15% but had to do it to keep our compliance with the ERM. They had the courage at the time to come out of it – something labour would have been happy to carry on supporting as they want us to be a full part of Europe. You can't have it all. 🙂

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    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    I also think you will find that the tories were NOT happy to let interest rates go up to 15% but had to do it to keep our compliance with the ERM. They had the courage at the time to come out of it

    They had the courage at the time to come out of it ? 😕

    No they didn't. Interest rates where at 15% in October 1989 three years before September 1992, when on Black Wednesday, Britain was forced out of the ERM – because the government was unable to keep sterling above its agreed lower limit…… nothing to do with "courage"

    And far from the Tories being "not happy" with high interest rates as you claim, they were very happy indeed – 'high interest rates' are a vital characteristic of monetarist policies and it's obsession with inflation/money supply.

    Consequently Thatcher's government deliberately pushed up interest rates to obscene levels. Within 6 months of being elected in 1979, the Tories had pushed up interest rates to 17% ! And they kept interest rates at 12-17% throughout the recession of the early 80s …. that's how they managed to get 3 million unemployed.

    You obviously have a very rose-tinted memory of the Thatcher years Bikingcatastrophe 😐

    HeathenWoods
    Free Member

    Well, it seems that the majority of people will be a having a Thatcher Death Party (I hope the crap-eyed ghost dies on a Bonfire Night so we can have flaming effigies every year). This is deeply reassuring, I sometimes think people have forgotten how vile the 80s were and that Thatcher's evil black heart beat at the centre of it all, supercharged by Mad Ron's nuclear powered pacemaker.

    MisterCrud
    Free Member

    Thatch decimated the coalmining industry in the UK….was she perhaps a proto ecologist?
    To be frank, she was serially voted in, with a large majority, on a mandate of change. The country had had enough of muppet-like union leaders dictating national policy for the benefit of their members.
    The union leaders got theirs, and they deserved it. The mining communities ,unfortunately, where the ones to suffer, and are still suffering. Lions led by donkies?
    Of course, we have had some great leaders since then, so everything's rosy now.

    grantway
    Free Member

    Think it should be known has Maggies Death Party and have one every year so it will Not be forgotten and be marked in this countrys history books
    for our youth to be reminded what the Tory Paty really stand for and capable of doing when in power.
    She'll probably get a state funeral too.
    I wonder whilst there burying her will they show people like me
    burning a model of her and opening a £ 50 quid bottle of chapagne
    and celebrating

    me1onhead
    Free Member

    Frankie Boyle says it best: '3 million for Thatcher's state funeral? You could use that to buy a shovel for everyone in Scotland and we'll dig a hole so deep you could hand her over to Satan personally'.

    grantway
    Free Member

    LOL Me1 Should give her to the IRA and do it properly this time

    jimbobrighton
    Free Member

    hmmm. I'm no maggie fan, I'm really not. but I don't think I'd hold a party to celebrate someone dying no matter what they did. seems a bit weird. We don't hold a Hitler Dying party do we?

    HeathenWoods
    Free Member

    '3 million for Thatcher's state funeral? You could use that to buy a shovel for everyone in Scotland and we'll dig a hole so deep you could hand her over to Satan personally'.

    Lol. That'll have me lolling all morning 🙂

    MisterCrud
    Free Member

    Better Thatcher than any of the softcocks we've got leading the two major parties at the moment.
    Argue with that!

    grantway
    Free Member

    Hard/soft irrelevant they **** up big time you cant argue that

    monkey_boy
    Free Member

    you had me going there, i nearly put all the bunting up in the street!

    i was brought up in the middle of the miners strike and saw first hand the impact it had and STILL has.

    also it was maggies fault that all the MP's took the piss with the recent expenses saga, back in the 80's rather than give them all a pay rise she set up the expenses scheme, and obviously over the years the pricks took the p*Ss.

    i dont wish death on anybody but i wont be sad when she goes, what will p*ss me off is all the bollox that the BBC1 etc will pump out, all the books about how feking great she was.

    i need to get out on the bike

    Macinblack
    Free Member

    Also I would be interested if you could explain how Scargill destroyed the Notts coalfields………the Notts miners were told that if they turned their backs on the NUM and trusted Thatcher, then their future would be bright and rosy. The Notts miners did exactly that and trusted Thatcher – so what happened Mr Woppit ?

    They must feel let down,how would they possibly forgive the conservatives for that !! http://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/home/your_council/elections/electionresults.htm

    If you look at where the pits were, they have broadly remained labour voting (Mansfield/Ashfield/Sherwood.)

    Macinblack
    Free Member

    But anyway Mr Woppit, you have conveniently avoided answering my question, ie : the Notts miners were told that if they turned their backs on the NUM and trusted Thatcher, then their future would be bright and rosy. The Notts miners did exactly that – they didn't go on strike, and they trusted Thatcher – so what happened to all the pits in Nottinghamshire, eh ?

    Bit disingenuous that, the Notts miners were all NUM at the time and the union was pushing for a strike vote, which the overwhelmingly labour voting majority decided not to do. There was no government influence in their decision and the irony is that if Scargill had gone for a national ballot and won (which is almost certain,) the Notts miners (and the other non striking areas,) would have gone out on strike too.

    westkipper
    Free Member

    Its funny, I dont remember the seventies as being bad at all.
    I remember my dad having a secure skilled job and life being a bit cash-short but comfortable.
    A few years into the Thatcher-economic-miracle and he'd been paid off and both my parents were working very long hours in increasingly low paid jobs just to stand still. I left school with less qualifications or prospects than they did and was homeless for a period- Many people I grew up with, like me, didn't see things getting any better till the mid nineties.
    Now maybe in the South-east of England things were different, but for working class people in Scotland, The North, and Wales, we paid the price, and for that she'll never be forgiven.

    El-bent
    Free Member

    Its funny, I dont remember the seventies as being bad at all.
    I remember my dad having a secure skilled job and life being a bit cash-short but comfortable.
    A few years into the Thatcher-economic-miracle and he'd been paid off and both my parents were working very long hours in increasingly low paid jobs just to stand still. I left school with less qualifications or prospects than they did and was homeless for a period- Many people I grew up with, like me, didn't see things getting any better till the mid nineties.
    Now maybe in the South-east of England things were different, but for working class people in Scotland, The North, and Wales, we paid the price, and for that she'll never be forgiven.

    I think it was the same everywhere. A lot of people have been suckered into "if you work more you will be rewarded" scenario, but unfortunately the economics of the country adapt to this also. This is why it takes two peoples salaries to even think of buying a half-decent house that one person's salary could afford in the 70's.

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    Bit disingenuous that, the Notts miners were all NUM at the time and the union was pushing for a strike vote, which the overwhelmingly labour voting majority decided not to do. There was no government influence in their decision…….

    I reckon it is you that is being totally disingenuous Macinblack. Approximately one third of Notts miners supported the strike, the remainder carried on working precisely because they were given cast-iron guarantees by the government, that their 'profitable' pits would be saved ……. do you not remember the much fabled "Super-Pits" and how they had a guaranteed future ?

    And far from the government not attempting to influence their decision, the government did every thing possible to influence them and support them in every way possible. They fully supported and encouraged the setting up of the Union of Democratic Miners as a scab union, and Thatcher even rewarded the UDM president Roy Lynk with the honour of the 'Order of the British Empire' for "services to trade unionism".

    In return the UDM did everything it could to support Thatcher, even to the extent of advising her how she could break the miners :

    THE Union of Democratic Mineworkers advised ministers on how to minimise the impact of strikes in a privatised coal industry, make miners work longer hours underground and weaken the pit supervisors' union.

    However Thatcher repaid the Notts working miners and the UDM for their loyalty towards her and the support they gave her in undermining the national strike, by shafting them. Within 6 years of the strike being over half of the Notts pits had been closed – so incensed was the UDM president, that he resigned from his post and returned his OBE.

    Today out of the 25 pits which were operating in Nottinghamshire at the time of the national strike, only one still exists. As the wife of a Notts working miner put it :

    "The UDM did what the Government wanted them to do. You'd have thought they would have stuck up for them"

    Had the Notts working miners not believed the lies told to them by Thatcher, then the strike would probably have been successful. Still on the plus side, I understand that the former mining communities in Britain provide the largest concentration of new recruits for the British army. I believe that the Rhondda Valleys are a particular rich source of young men prepared to die in Afghanistan.

    Macinblack
    Free Member

    I reckon it is you that is being totally disingenuous Macinblack. Approximately one third of Notts miners supported the strike, the remainder carried on working precisely because they were given cast-iron guarantees by the government, that their 'profitable' pits would be saved ……. do you not remember the much fabled "Super-Pits" and how they had a guaranteed future ?

    And far from the government not attempting to influence their decision, the government did every thing possible to influence them and support them in every way possible. They fully supported and encouraged the setting up of the Union of Democratic Miners as a scab union, and Thatcher even rewarded the UDM president Roy Lynk with the honour of the 'Order of the British Empire' for "services to trade unionism".

    As there was no national ballot (because Scargill knew he would lose it,) individual areas asked their members whether they wanted to strike. It was a simple yes/no question and the Notts miners overwhelmingly voted no. There was no influence from the government in that decision and it was down to each individual miner with little more that snap time conversation to mull it over. If there had been a national ballot and a strike decision Notts miners would have gone out, as they had in previous disputes. Whatever the government were saying before the strike largely fell on deaf ears and most Notts miners didn't work at "super pits" and so any such assurance wasn't valid, neither was the talk of profitable pits as most Notts mines were on shaky ground, including the one I worked at.

    Of course the government supported those that chose to work, however the momentum gained by the UDM was born more from a rejection of the NUM than any acceptance of encouragement from the government, even working miners had little trust in the Tories or McGregor.

    Your mention of the UDM advising the government does not relate to the time of the strike but the point that the union was losing its way holds water, Roy Lynk was a tosser but he jumped into a pool to deep for him to swim in.

    You're right about the decimation of the number of pits, it's no comfort but there are three pits left and some of those that have gone went under labour.

    My main point is that you seem to think that the Notts miners acted out of some belief in what Thatcher told them, you're wrong they weren't listening to her. The fact remains that if Scargill had had the bollocks to call a national ballot, then things may well have been so much different.

    ton
    Full Member

    thatchers plan was solely to crush the strongest union in the country, and to take any power away from the working man………..
    she did this and was aided the notts miners………..
    and that is why the country is fecked now……..
    and it is why a average working class mans wage is £7 per hour..

    MisterCrud
    Free Member

    ton – Member

    thatchers plan was solely to crush the strongest union in the country, and to take any power away from the working man………..

    So the majority of the country voted her in, cause they were sick of the unions bossing successive governments around. Backfired a bit though!

    ton
    Full Member

    MisterCrud
    thatcher got in in 1979 with only 43% of the vote.
    one of the lowest voting turnouts ever.

    allthepies
    Free Member

    1979 Tory Percentage 43.9% Total votes cast: 31,221,362
    1997 Labour Percentage 43.2% Total votes cast: 31,286,284
    2001 Labour Percentage 40.7% Total votes cast: 26,368,204
    2005 Labour Percentage 35.3% Total votes cast: 27,110,727

    joolsburger
    Free Member

    I am not political and was too young to offer an informed opinion on Thatcher but I do know that keyboard warriors letting off about how they will be raising a glass to her death makes me ashamed to be British.

    I expect you'd all have the balls to kill her yourselves as well.

    Children.

    CaptJon
    Free Member

    if we can pump the water out of the mines…

    Too big a job to reopen old mines as the shafts were usually filled in, plus flooding would have made any old tunnels structurally unsafe (probably most collapsed).

    ton
    Full Member

    jools like you said, you are too young to remember her.
    i, on the other hand am not.
    my dad worked at ackton hall mine when the strike was on, he was a miner all his life untill that point.
    when the strike ended ackton hall was the 1st pit to close, even thought its coal supply that was being used 4 miles away at ferrybridge was viable for another 30 years.
    we lived in the center of the yorkshire coal field, and the whole of the area was booming.
    good pubs, shops, villages, all booming.
    i can tell you about dozens of villages that were the same..
    after the pits shut, these place changed, there was nothing left for the people who lived in them.
    crime rates soared, drug addiction soared, not only the young, but older decent people too.
    these place are dead still, villages with no shops, pubs or local amenities.

    have you ever seen your dad cry with despair and shame jools, because he has no money or means to feed his family?
    do you know what it feels like queueing for food parcels?

    so i will raise a glass when she dies mate, i will not be ashamed to do it either.
    but no i do not have the guts to do it myself…

    joolsburger
    Free Member

    My father was a print proofer at Wapping and was laid off with loads of his friends during the strikes.

    He picketed and was arrested (but not charged) and found it almost impossible to get another job in the print so yes I'm fairly familiar with the situation.

    I sympathise with the plight of the mining towns and genuinely feel for those suffered but still don't wish death on anyone, maybe I'm just a hippy at heart.

    She may have been ruthless and made bad choices but think about what you're saying – You'll toast her death, that's just harsh and demeans your completely valid points.

    I have no love for politicians of any hue, most are self serving shitbags but it's the lack of value that we place on life ( not just human) that keeps us in the dark ages.

    I took my kids to the big pit a few months back, it struck me that the life of a miner was pretty unpleasant but I agree that taking away a mans livelihood is a shitty thing to do.

    westkipper
    Free Member

    jools, politicians are capable of causing massive suffering to peoples lives and its not really surprising that some would like them to answer for their actions and motives.
    My own preference for Thatcher would be for her, in a rare moment of lucidity, to REALISE WHAT SHE'D DONE, and offer some regret.
    For what its worth, I think Blair deserves an early visit to his lord more than Thatcher ( have a read of the total number of dead, civilian and military, in the wars he's been complicite in)

    grantway
    Free Member

    Joolsburger I too had family in the press and used to drink in the bar across the road from the Wapping print But you cannot put this in anyway
    shape or form to what the people in the minning communties lost or even went through. Once these guys lost there jobs all the other shops etc business died too. As all other business grew around the coal mines.
    Communities destroyed and most are still today.

    Need to also remember the Poll Tax How can someone in a Mansion pay the same rate of tax as a common man in a council house.
    Also the Poll Tax riots.
    Then you had the Silcot council housing riot in London.
    Black Wednesday
    They Sold off the railways etc and look what shit we have today.
    Also maybe why the country is in a bad way including public services the Torys happily gave you £ 1 tax rebate in you pay packet per week point less, but gave a hell lot more to the higher earners.

    Joolsburger im i am in East London so have seen a different side to the
    deepression of the 80's to the guys above but to see friends splitting up through very high intrest rates and also work collegues every day counting how much they could spend and hopefully not losing there homes
    And I too bought so nearly each week by week having to find extra money to keep my home.
    So **** yes I will have a very large drink when she is dead.
    and I am a very placied person.

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    If there had been a national ballot and a strike decision Notts miners would have gone out….

    I very much doubt that indeed. The NUM under Joe Gormley held two national ballots concerning new productivity schemes. Both ballots firmly rejected these new schemes. Despite that, the Notts NUM regional committee voted to implement the 1977 productivity schemes – in direct violation of the wishes of the NUM membership nationally as expressed in two national ballots. As a consequence of that, Notts miners became the highest paid miners in Britain – they obviously put their own personal interests before that of other miners nationally. At the start of the '84 strike, not one single pit in Nottinghamshire was under threat of closure, there is no evidence that the Notts NUM regional committee would have put the interests of other miners nationally concerning pit closures, before their own narrow interests.

    grantway
    Free Member

    Say that Ernie_lynch I liked the way Pet Shop Boys brought the Welsh
    miners choir on stage dressed in there pit wear singing Go West on TV.

    MisterCrud
    Free Member

    The Notts miners fought the NUM. The poll tax brought riots. The police fought everyone. People fight their neighbours. Brits fight in Afghanistan.
    Men just like to front up to each other. It's in their nature.
    There's no point blaming Thatcher.

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    Men just like to front up to each other. It's in their nature.
    There's no point blaming Thatcher.

    Agreed. I have always thought that it was hugely unfair to blame Adolph Hitler for World War 2 ………after all,
    "men just like to front up to each other"

    And let us never forget that when Thatcher arrived at Downing Street for the first time, she said made that famous speech at the front door of number 10:

    "Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope"

    http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=104078

    avdave2
    Full Member

    Before Thatcher there were no mountain bikes in this country.

    dickydutch
    Full Member

    I love this forum!

    105champ
    Free Member

    tough politics i know, but there was never going to be a future for the coalmining industry.

    MisterCrud
    Free Member

    ernie_lynch – Member

    Men just like to front up to each other. It's in their nature.
    There's no point blaming Thatcher.

    Agreed. I have always thought that it was hugely unfair to blame Adolph Hitler for World War 2 ………after all,
    "men just like to front up to each other"

    As far as I know, Hitler never fired a shot. Men just love to front up to each other.

    iDave
    Free Member

    let's not forget someone's cat died last week. very upsetting.

    avdave2
    Full Member

    Didn't he fire a few shots into the roof of a Munich Beer Keller?

Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 94 total)

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