Blair .... Good Or Bad.

[gozzer]

I liked Margaret Thatcher and I don't mind admitting it. I do not wish her opponents rot in Hell as much as I dislike them. Why is it that left wingers automatically think they are entitled to (aggresively) seize the moral high ground? This arrogant assumption by New Labour supporters that they must always be in the right is what I find most galling.

 

Don't expect to find much support here, but I live in hope.

 

Ian, what was it you liked about her? Was it a physical thing? ( I've heard some men like to be dominated).

Your profile doesn't say your age, or where you live, so I assume, ( from you use of "Northern" as a derogatory term in your rant about Prescott), it is south of the midlands.

Your slant on the Thatcher years, says to me that you're at least 40, (I apologise if I'm aging you).

 

A persons geographic location has a lot to do with their opinion of those years.

I remember being made redundant, several times in those years, as a direct result of the government policies of the day. ( one firm had just celebrated it's centenary, when her monetary obsession caused it to close).

 

I saw whole communities devastated, towns become 'ghost towns', the people left on the scrap heap, in those years.

Skilled men, having to take jobs on £2-3 an hour, because their industries had gone.

I saw the wealth that oil brought to this country, wasted on closing down these industries, and importing subsidised goods to replace them. And when the subsidies were lifted, we had to carry on paying because we couldn't produce them ourselves.

The money was also spent on breaking the power of the unions, forgetting that 'the unions' were largely made up of ordinary working people, not just the few power mad leaders that challenged her.

This money could have been used to better this country, to rebuild the infrastructure, so we still didn't have a Victorian sewage system etc, that we have today. This would have kept an industrial base running, and utilised the skills of the people that worked in those industries.

This didn't suit the Thatcher 'ideal', that profit was everything, that people were just statistics, to be juggled, to suit the 'spin' at the time.

The 'spin' yes it's used now, but when Thatcher, Saatchi and Saatchi, came to power, that's when todays politicians learned to use it, and how powerful a tool it was.

You might have been one of the 'YUPPIES' of the time that made, more than a few quid, from buying and selling 'numbers' (that's all that moved, nothing concrete), or you might have made some cash from the housing boom, good luck to you. But don't forget the poor sods that just wanted to get on with their lives as best they could, but had the ground taken from under their feet by this woman, and her grey men, in grey suits, that hung on her every word. (She didn't pick anyone who would challenge her). In retrospect, that was a wise move, because in later years they were queing up to stick the knives in.

Blair and 'New Labour' have stuck with some of those 'ideals', but in a slightly more 'human' (or should that be humane) way.

 

The legacy of a Government can be partially measured by the generations it produces. Could this be the generation that you condemn in you later post, I wonder?

 

John. (not a Blair or New Labour supporter)

 

P.S. No viable alternatives so far I notice.

[nick]

Very well put John.

[Steve Walker]

the benifits system has become more biased to people with children ,righly so but comes down far harder on those without ,even the small benifit of being married has gone so couples that dont marry can collect more tax perks if they lead seperate lives children or not if they play the system

 

To a large extent I agree that society should not tolerate children living in poverty because of the bad luck or fecklessness of their parents. I'm less happy about two things, though; firstly, that it changes people's behaviour and secondly that I don't agree with extending child tax credits to people on really quite decent incomes. If someone is earning 30-40k, they ought to be bright enough to manage their own finances and lifestyle choices without state help. As far as changing behaviour is concerned, I've heard unemploy[ed/able] couples with five or six kids claim that their benefit dependent lifestyle is a perfectly valid way of living. It isn't, and they shouldn't be offered that option.

 

I know that makes me sound like a callous right-winger, but I do wonder when the focus of the British Left moved from the idea that working men should get a fair day's pay to the idea that the able bodied idle should live in leisure at the expense of those who work for a living? I wonder what the Jarrow marchers would think of that idea?

[nick]

so Steve

 

How do these feckless ones house their family in this modern utopian Britain?

[DavyR]

I don't agree with extending child tax credits to people on really quite decent incomes.

 

The only reason that happens is that it's cheaper to adminster that way, rather than making it a targeted or means-tested benefit. You could also argue that the way the demographic profile of the country is going (along with most of Western Europe), people need to be actively encouraged to have children...

[ColinW]

I know that makes me sound like a callous right-winger, but I do wonder when the focus of the British Left moved from the idea that working men should get a fair day's pay to the idea that the able bodied idle should live in leisure at the expense of those who work for a living? I wonder what the Jarrow marchers would think of that idea?

 

Ironically, I think the blame for the underclass (under not referring to their lifestyle) of voluntarily unemployed in this country can be laid, like most of what is wrong with this country, on Thatcher. She created huge areas where former hard working and relatively high earning men suddenly had absolutely no chance of gainful employment at anything like the pay levels they needed to support families. As these people are not as stupid as politicians like to think, they turned to finding ways of exploiting the benefit regulations.

Before Thatcher, very few people WANTED to be unemployed. She forced them into it and they discovered that they could actually maintain a reasonable lifestyle. Politicians have spent twenty years trying to get the lid back on this particular Pandora's box, but the unemployed simply sidestep to become the disabled and hence the untouchable.

[Ian FG]

John (Gozzer),

 

It was irrelevant that Maggie was a woman. I liked the way she was strong, she stood up to people, she believed in low income tax, low interest rates, low inflation and home ownership. She refused to let the Government be bullied by people like Arthur Scargill. She was prepared to take risks, she took a huge chance sending a task force to the Falklands and it paid off, and don’t forget that the Falkland islanders have always wanted to remain British and that the American secretary of state at the time, Alexander Haig, called the Argentinean government, “A bunch of thugs” after he tried to reason with them. She stood up to bullies.

 

I remember how the miners brought down the previous Conservative government under Ted Heath and how they caused the ‘Winter of Discontent’ under a LABOUR government led by Jim Callaghan. Margaret Thatcher decided this had to stop. Arthur Scargill, the miner’s leader does not get to choose the government, the voters do. If some miners chose to work rather than strike she decided that strikers would no longer be allowed to physically assault those who chose to work. This appeared to come as a bit of a shock to the strikers who assumed they could attack whomever they pleased, they even killed one taxi driver, taking a ‘scab’ to work.

 

When Thatcher took over from Callaghan in 1979 we had huge inflation and interest rates (I forget the figures) I remember that income tax was 33%. She changed all that. She empowered thousands of people to attain home ownership

 

Yes I am a southerner and I apologise profusely for my use of the word “Northerner” as a derogatory term. Yes I am at least 40.

 

You are right, geographic location had a lot to do with how opinions were formed in those years. I have never seen a mine or met a miner. I have never been made redundant, I have never seen whole communities devastated. I watched the news every night of miners violently attacking policemen. I guess I was lucky to live in the south, if your experience was different then I am sorry for it.

 

I am not a ‘YUPPIE’ I left school at 15 and have worked hard all my life. I have never been wealthy and have always been modestly employed, I did move up the housing ladder throughout my life (through bloody hard work) then due to personal circumstances lost it all again. I put my son through university.

 

So yes, I liked Margaret Thatcher and I dislike New Labour, as you say, this may be because of geography. I think Labour has done a good job with the NHS, education and the economy but I can’t understand ‘targets’ PC, immigration, lack of law and order (remember Tony’s speech ‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime?) Brown has plundered the nation’s pensions apparently. I understood the first Gulf War but I do not understand the second. I do not understand why Tony Blair followed George Bush into Iraq.

 

The generation I condemn in my later post is not a generation at all, it is a bunch of chavs, more youngsters these days are going to University than ever before.

 

Ian (a Conservative supporter).

[DavyR]

Ian, regarding the Falklands War (although war was never declared by either side), there was a strong suspicion at the time that Royal Naval patrols in the area were abandoned, not to save money as was claimed, but to send a message to Argentina that Britain "didn't care" about the islands and would not respond if or when they were invaded.

 

Galtieri is on record as believing this to be the case. From his point of view, a successful military action would play well with the people at home (his regime was looking decidely shaky at the time). Coincidentally, the Thatcher government became decidely more popular as a result of the victory.

 

As Neil Kinnock said at the time, (after someone in the TV audience he was addressing shouted that Mrs Thatcher had "showed guts") "It's a pity others had to leave theirs on the ground at Goose Green to prove it."

[barry luxton]

John (Gozzer),

 

It was irrelevant that Maggie was a woman. I liked the way she was strong, she stood up to people, she believed in low income tax, low interest rates, low inflation and home ownership. She refused to let the Government be bullied by people like Arthur Scargill. She was prepared to take risks, she took a huge chance sending a task force to the Falklands and it paid off, and don’t forget that the Falkland islanders have always wanted to remain British and that the American secretary of state at the time, Alexander Haig, called the Argentinean government, “A bunch of thugs” after he tried to reason with them. She stood up to bullies.

 

I remember how the miners brought down the previous Conservative government under Ted Heath and how they caused the ‘Winter of Discontent’ under a LABOUR government led by Jim Callaghan. Margaret Thatcher decided this had to stop. Arthur Scargill, the miner’s leader does not get to choose the government, the voters do. If some miners chose to work rather than strike she decided that strikers would no longer be allowed to physically assault those who chose to work. This appeared to come as a bit of a shock to the strikers who assumed they could attack whomever they pleased, they even killed one taxi driver, taking a ‘scab’ to work.

 

When Thatcher took over from Callaghan in 1979 we had huge inflation and interest rates (I forget the figures) I remember that income tax was 33%. She changed all that. She empowered thousands of people to attain home ownership

 

Yes I am a southerner and I apologise profusely for my use of the word “Northerner” as a derogatory term. Yes I am at least 40.

 

You are right, geographic location had a lot to do with how opinions were formed in those years. I have never seen a mine or met a miner. I have never been made redundant, I have never seen whole communities devastated. I watched the news every night of miners violently attacking policemen. I guess I was lucky to live in the south, if your experience was different then I am sorry for it.

 

I am not a ‘YUPPIE’ I left school at 15 and have worked hard all my life. I have never been wealthy and have always been modestly employed, I did move up the housing ladder throughout my life (through bloody hard work) then due to personal circumstances lost it all again. I put my son through university.

 

So yes, I liked Margaret Thatcher and I dislike New Labour, as you say, this may be because of geography. I think Labour has done a good job with the NHS, education and the economy but I can’t understand ‘targets’ PC, immigration, lack of law and order (remember Tony’s speech ‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime?) Brown has plundered the nation’s pensions apparently. I understood the first Gulf War but I do not understand the second. I do not understand why Tony Blair followed George Bush into Iraq.

 

The generation I condemn in my later post is not a generation at all, it is a bunch of chavs, more youngsters these days are going to University than ever before.

 

Ian (a Conservative supporter).

 

 

Don't ya just love recent history. Thanks for getting me juices going again. There was the rich commissioner Kinnok's friend Roy Hattersly, that was the one likened in the tele programme, have i got news for you as a tub of lard. Then there was Dennis Healy who cancelled the tsr2 project, there was nothing like it in the world at that time when it flew, he cancelled it, destroyed all the paperwork, jig,s etc set fire to the wreckage and we were left with nothing. Wot about concorde, Blairs deal with his company british airways ment that it went the same way when the likes of Branson would have kept it flying.There was nothing like it in the world, then nothing.

 

The car industry, totalled by guys like red Robinson, remember him and all the millions pumped into BL. Then we had dockers striking because they did not like the containers and wished to continue the strangle hold over us ratepayers.

Dustmans strike, was that in the winter of discontent. How i reminisce.

[DavyR]

The Miners' Strike was a rough old time, too - there was certainly a north-south divide in opinion on that one, which was ironic really, as the Kent miners were the first (along with the Yorkshire ones) to go out on strike. There was violence on both sides, but in those days (unlike now) the news media only tended to show one side of it (and it wasn't the SPG (Special Patrol Group) wading in with riot truncheons).

 

British employment practice was certainly in need of reform, but what ended up happening went way beyond that. Perhaps increasing globalisation would have meant the loss of our industrial base eventually anyway, but to effectively shut down whole areas like the South Wales mining valleys and give them nothing in return but a Garden Festival was harsh to say the least.

 

I remember Cwm and Ebbw Vale in the 1950s and it was a thriving and happy community, despite the occasional pit disaster. It's a ghost town now (I've still got family living in the area).