The Tories - for those of us old enough to remember 1st hand

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The Tories - for those of us old enough to remember 1st hand

495 posts & 107 voices | Started 2 years ago by BillyWhizz | Latest reply from hainey

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BillyWhizz - Member

what are your memories?

and lets keep it 1st hand - not rumours or stuff you've been told by your grandpa!

Mine are:

The CSA - destroyed the remains of my life for about 8 years under the guise of "catching non paying fathers". (I never missed a single maint. payment before they came along. They took more from me than they gave my ex wife. They never answered phones oor replied to letters)

Interest rates at 16 odd % - My mortgage went up from around 180 pounds a month to over 400. Very hard times - worked evenings and weekends for a long time just to keep my head above water.

On the plus side . . . .

I got shares for free when my building society became a bank. I sold them and paid of some of my mortgage arrears . . .

Posted 2 years ago #
justa - Member

My mrs works for the NHS - they reduced it too a hell of a state... we have a nice new hospital in Derby now..

I was in Education - can you remember the state of schools when the Tories were in ?!

I am really struggling to decide who to vote for but these two things will help me decide !

Posted 2 years ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

For me its mainly the NHS - budgets cut year on year and buildings getting more and more dilapidated. Wages falling significantly against inflation..

The other main thing is the battle of the beanfield and the attacking of anyone who was unconventional.

Posted 2 years ago #
surfer - Member

High unemplyment. Managed to stay employed myself but millions didnt.

Posted 2 years ago #
stumpyjon - Member

Can't really compare the Tories of yestayear with the 2nd rate celebrity wannabes we've got now. You may not of liked Thatcher but she had balls (metaphorically speaking at least). She wasn't chasing votes and photo ops every five minutes, she didn't care what anyone else thought. She go a bit mental towards the end though.

I do remember the Poll Tax riots on the telly and the time her hand started to turn into a claw.

Posted 2 years ago #
surfer - Member

I got shares for free when my building society became a bank. I sold them and paid of some of my mortgage arrears . . .

Oh yes, the great share owning democracy, release shares to the plebs from the nationalised industries, they sell them for a profit, fat cats buy them all and hey presto the industries you paid taxes to create and run are now privately owned and making profits for the few.
Good old Maggie.

Posted 2 years ago #
PeterPoddy - Member

Came in and tried to sort out the mess a Labour government had left us with..... Sound familliar?

Posted 2 years ago #
surfer - Member

Sound familliar?

Nope.

Posted 2 years ago #
uplink - Member

They managed to turn my family from a father & 3 sons working to everyone of us on the dole in the space of around 6 months

They destroyed so many people's lives that I knew, I'd be on here all day listing them but one friend in particular who blew his brains out in despair at not being able to support his family was a low point

Posted 2 years ago #
MSP - Member

Broke the link between earnings and the state pension.
Allowed companies to "steal" the company pension surplus, when the markets were high, that had been previously legaly protected.

Posted 2 years ago #
allthepies - Member

High interest rates allowed my savings to grow nicely at a time in my life when I wasn't a homeowner and had a reasonable amount of disposable income.

Ended the stranglehold the unions had on the country in the 1970s, no more power cuts I remember from my childhood.

Posted 2 years ago #
surfer - Member

Pinched the milk from schoolkids, ye she had balls

Broke the link between pensions and earnings effectively creating a spiral of reducing pensions.
Introduced the fuel escalator which pushed fuel prices even higher.

Posted 2 years ago #
Moses - Member

Cut science & engineering support, reducing our manufacturing capability.

Stopped "subsidies" for mining & manufacturing (mainly in the north and west) but introduced "Incentives" for investment in the city & south-east.

Posted 2 years ago #
yunki - Member

unemployment.. castlemorton.. raves.. ecstacy.. new age travellers.. general civil disobedience on a large scale.. I must admit to deriving a huge amount of pleasure from it all as a wayward youf..

Posted 2 years ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

MSP - Member

Broke the link between earnings and the state pension.
Allowed companies to "steal" the company pension surplus, when the markets were high, that had been previously legaly protected.

One of the main reasons for the pension crisis. all those funds that took money out or stopped paying it in on the back of the boom. When it went bust they were in deficit then used this as an excuse to stop final salery schemes

Posted 2 years ago #
surfer - Member

excuse to stop final salery schemes

Used by my previous employer.

Posted 2 years ago #
GaryLake - Member

High unemplyment. Managed to stay employed myself but millions didnt.

I'm just observing here but I understand unemployment under Maggie hit 3mill - unemployment under Brown is currently 2.5mil... not a great deal of difference.

Posted 2 years ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

Wasted the north sea oil money on paying benefits instead of investing in infrastructure

Posted 2 years ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

Gary - different counting methods. Its hard to say exactly but under the methods used now to count unemployment the peak tory figure would be 5 million or more.

The years the tories were in power they continually altered the method of counting unemployment to lower the headline figure. Labour put it back to a more sensible method that gave a truer figure.

Posted 2 years ago #
binners - Member

Going to school past Parkside Colliery in 85. Seeing the striking miners and the rows of Maggies Stormtroopers just itching to get stuck in and give them a kicking.

Then getting to school and seeing the miners kids on free school meals. Just the general mindless and vindictive destruction of our communities

And The Criminal Justice Bill. Seemed outrageous at the time. Now seems quite tame after Blairs assault on our liberties

Posted 2 years ago #
Berm Bandit - Member

The only good thing I can remember is the fact that they stopped road works on Bank Holiday weekends.

That apart a total cluster **** which we are still paying for.

Posted 2 years ago #
SST - Member

They sold off the family silver big time. If it wasn't nailed down they sold it.

Oh yes, the great share owning democracy, release shares to the plebs from the nationalised industries, they sell them for a profit, fat cats buy them all and hey presto the industries you paid taxes to create and run are now privately owned and making profits for the few.

Spot on. Use peoples greed to accomplish what you want in min amount of time. From the governments point of view it must have been as predictable as flicking the back of your little brothers ear and "predicting" that he will hit you back - and arranging for mum to be there when he does, so he gets into trouble. Then laughing all the way to your friends house to do the same to his little brother . . . . suckers . . .

2nd the CSA. Can't begin to discuss them Grrrrrrrrrrrr

What was it made everyone move to Wales and then later Swindon? Was it tax insentives?

Posted 2 years ago #
rkk01 - Member

Patronising, supersilious, obsequious, c[]nts.

I was doing A levels at the time of the miners strike (coal industry, obviously) and went on to study geology and mining geology, so a personal interest in mining.

When I finished my mining geology masters I worked on the closure of the last Cornish tin mines - The Tories refused to give a £5M grant to Wheal Jane to keep the pumps running after the collapse of the tin price from $10,000/ton to $2,000/ton. (I don't think Thather could see that tin mining and coal mining were different beasts in terms of economics, unionisation and private sector operation - it was all miners and unions to her)

So, no grant - The pumps were switched off and the mine flooded - sterilising the remaining tin reserves (and natural resources are an asset of UK plc), loosing the remaining 400 or so jobs - some of the only well paid jobs in a low pay economy, and causing one of the UKs biggest ever pollution incidents.

So what happened next? The NRA (then EA) realised that they would have to keep the pumps running anyway, and research, develop and install a new minewater treatment system.
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The mine closed in 1991....
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...Because the Tories wouldn't keep the pumps running until the tin price recovered.
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The tax payer has had to pay to keep the pumps running ever since anyway - but because the mine flooded, there's no (economically viable) way to get back at the tine reserves...
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I don't know how much the EA has paid to pump and treat the minewater - I have heard £100M - certainly the treatment plant is estimated to have cost £10M
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ALL FOR **** NOTHING (except political dogma and indifference)

No jobs,
No tin,
And loss of another engineering / technical skill base.

Oh, and the tin price has been over $20,000/ton for years, and is currently $28,000/ton. (with $10,000/ton still reckoned to be viable)

Posted 2 years ago #
uplink - Member

I'm just observing here but I understand unemployment under Maggie hit 3mill - unemployment under Brown is currently 2.5mil... not a great deal of difference.

I think TJ has it with the count method

Anyway - Just observing here too but there was certainly a time in the early 80s when - within my peer group - I didn't know anyone who had a job

Posted 2 years ago #
coffeeking - Member

The Tories - for those of us old enough to remember 1st hand

I can see what labour are doing first hand, not keen on that TBH.

I was in Education - can you remember the state of schools when the Tories were in ?!

My school, during the tory era, was absolutely spot-on. It's who works there, not the government at the time, that makes a school what it is.

Thing is it's very easy to claim one side is better than the other if one has created a mess and another is having to dig out of it because they were voted in to make a change. It's very easy to forget what caused the public to want the change - do you think they'd change their allegence if they were happy with the existing ones?

Get a grip, get out on your bikes and stop arguing over history.

Posted 2 years ago #
Pigface - Member

Taught us that Greed is good, ripped the heart out of the country for the benefit of a small number of people who just got richer.

If you think that Brown screwed up when selling our gold then the selling off of the railways, electricity, water was just a huge FUBAR.

Posted 2 years ago #
Captain Pugwash - Member

High unemplyment. Managed to stay employed myself but millions didnt.

Well its really low at the moment?

And for all the things they have done in the past Labour haven't got too much to be proud of at the moment. Brown is short of ideas and in partly responsible for the current financial issues the country is having at the moment. Fuel prices is my current issue. And as for the Lib Dems they seem to be promising the world but where is the money coming from.... Oh Trident we will scrap that just as Iran are getting the bomb..

It is time for a change just as it was when the tories had their last run at being in power.

Posted 2 years ago #
BillyWhizz - Member

Oh Trident we will scrap that just as Iran are getting the bomb..

Don't need to worry about this - the yanks will step in and sort it all out

Posted 2 years ago #
bearGrease - Member

Coming back to screw the miners 8 or so years after the strike ended. Laying all the miners off whether NUM or UDM and selling the industry to a criminal.

Posted 2 years ago #
rkk01 - Member

Oh Trident we will scrap that just as Iran are getting the bomb..

Please explain how Trident would represent both good value to the taxpayer, and an appropriate defence system in the case of Iran (or North Korea, etc)????
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What do you suggest - have a boomer lurking around the bottom of the Atlantic / Pacific / Indian Ocean ready to nuke Tehran if they start getting uppity???
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What a total load of horseshit - even senior members of the General Staff are saying we need more flexible weapons systems than Trident in the current military - politico and financial climate.
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The LibDems aren't suggesting that we unilaterally disarm and get rid of our nuclear deterrent, just that we can't afford and don't need Trident.

Posted 2 years ago #
rkk01 - Member

Get a grip, get out on your bikes and stop arguing over history.

As is often demonstrated on STW - no politician or party in living memory has been so divisive and engendered such bitter memories as Thatcher and the Tories did during the early - mid 80s.

Posted 2 years ago #
MrSmith - Member

they took my free school milk away.
barstards.

Posted 2 years ago #
ooOOoo - Member

As a child under the tories from 5-18, my most vivid memory was Michael Howard scaring me on the telly, looking like a vampire who simply wanted to lock everyone up.

Posted 2 years ago #
JtotheP68 - Member

VAT rise.
Miners strike, devestation of many communities, then we go and buy coal from France subsidised by its Govt.
Brixton Riots
Selling off of Nationalised Industries to the Taxpayer when we owned them in the first place.
High unemployment, desolate town centres
Decline of British industry.
Crazy high Interest rates, home repossesions.
Struggling to get a decent job when I graduated.

Posted 2 years ago #
ianv - Member

Up side
Subsidised my climbing in the 80's

Down side
Unemployment
Deindustrialisation
Miners strike
Selling off the state owned industries
Margret Thatcher
CJB
High interest rates
Being kicked out of the EMS
etc etc etc

Posted 2 years ago #