Labour 1997 - 2010, was the worst government ever

Thatcher couldnt start a strike - but she could make conditions such as one would be started and then behaved appaulingly from then on

prices must be seen in the context of people's ability to pay them, and fuel poverty is a major concern within the UK, where 6.5% of the population say they cannot afford to keep their homes adequately warm, according to European Union figures.

even the parliament put on a front of being concerned and summoned the big 6 over inflation rises

On energy, why is the fact the UK has cheaper energy than Europe not potentially evidence of competition working?

I am saying that Thatcher did not start the strike, she did not back down. Had the NUM had a leadership like the steel workers, then there would probably have been investment in mines and some mines still working. It was union intransigence and appalling behaviour by the NUM which caused the problem.
The NUM has continued to not behave in its members interest - In 2012 it emerged in court cases between the NUM and its former president Arthur Scargill that a substantial proportion of union members' subscriptions was still being spent on expenses for Scargill, including unauthorised rent payments for a flat he owned in the Barbican, London

you can't take energy prices - compare them to europe and infer that they are cheaper to the british public - nonsence

you can't negate thatchers dispicable behaviour by citing scargill

I think this suggests UK energy costs are cheaper than other in europe - probably due to competition
There were wrongs on both sides once the strikes had started, but the strikes were unnecessary and illegal, and some miners wanted them stopped but where over-ridden by Scargill and the NUM bbc piece
Ordinary people have never had power and the rich want to see a society that helps the less fortunate, but the argument is how you get there.
Your apparent belief that the rich want to crush the poor blinds you to the fact that most socialist policies actually hurt the poor in the long run.

whats is the point you are discussing?

On thatcher

Between 1980 and 1993 there were six Acts of Parliament which increasingly restricted unions' ability to undertake lawful industrial action

Ninety five miners and supporters were the victims of a monumental police frame-up at Orgreave in July 1984, accused of conspiring to bring about a violent picket line confrontation with police. One year later, all 95 were acquitted.

mass arrests on the picket line with no justice in the courts

Curfews imposed and restrictions on travelling to other parts of the country.
refusal of benefits to strikers families
MI5 operations against the NUM and its leaders

a shift in the balance of social and economic wealth between rich and poor,

and then she sold off public housing to boot -

so she created a climate where there is a housing shortage and little public housing for those who need it
put energy in the hands of 6 large companies who all put their prices up = this isn't competition, its bullshit.

now, i'm all for competition between companies if it benefits the consumer - but they don't

becuase we - your ordinary people have little power, have no influence

and it will be so forever more becuase thatcher created fed and bred the rise of the 'i'm alright jack'

and i don't get it - i don't understand why rich people don't want to see a society that helps the less fortunate

honestly - i can't get my head round this way of thinking

The report also quotes, straight after your quote:

But over the same ten years the vast majority of other leading industrial countries reduced their borrowing by more than the UK. And most also reduced their debt by more. So while the UK public finances were in better shape when the financial crisis began than they were when Labour came to power, the UK was in a worse position relative to most comparable countries

How was Thatcher supposed to close the mines? She proposed investment in mechanisation, as had been done in the steel industry and the miners began stricking - why not blame Scargill for the way it was done.

utter tosh,

even the NUM official Ken Capstick stated that the miners knew that it wasn't sustainable in the long run as an industry

but there was a callousness to breakng these communities which was unwarrented, this wasn't an unbiased economic decision, the deceipt involved was huge

forges witness statements, the involvement of the MI5 for gods sake

refusal of hardship payments which had always been given before

this she said herslef in her memoir, ‘The Downing Street Years’:

“…it was only by ensuring that they lost face and were seen to be defeated and rejected by their own people that we could tame the militants.’ (P.343)”

it was about taming unions not at all about economic policy

it was the way it was done that was wholly inexcusable an wrong

you say wastage where others say investment.

The datasets in the IFS report are based on a lot of assumptions "Measuring productivity in the public sector is, however, notoriously difficult. There is often no market for public services, and so there is no market price at which to value the output of the services. The Office for National Statistics’ UK Centre for the Measurement of Government Activity (UKCeMGA) has attempted to measure productivity in the public sector by comparing the output of public services (quantity, adjusted for quality where possible) with the inputs (spending, after Public spending under Labour making an allowance for pay and price increases). However for some public services, for instance defence and the police, measuring the quantity of ‘output’ is still too difficult and so the output is simply assumed to be equal to the inputs (which for the purposes of the national accounts was assumed to be the case for all public services prior to 1998)."

This ifs report here states

"By 2007 Labour had reduced public sector borrowing slightly
below the level it inherited from the Conservatives. And more of that borrowing was being used to finance investment rather than the day to day running costs of the public sector.
Labour had also reduced public sector debt below the level it had inherited. As a result the ‘golden rule’ and ‘sustainable investment rule’ that Gordon Brown had committed himself to on becoming Chancellor in 1997 were both met over the economic cycle that he eventually decided had run from 1997 – 98 to 2006 – 07"

The North lost many manufacturing and mining jobs due to increased global trade and the refusal of the thatcher government to subsidise failing companies - as mentioned above, the mining subsidy in 1984 was £15k an employee.
Subsidies and import tariffs generally make a country worse off here
Thatcher did not cause the lack of competitiveness of uk mining and steel industry, just refused to make the rest of the country pay for it.

here custardo

no thather decimated the north, huge unemployment and destruction of communities

link to the wastage of brown?

Blair was never the political son of Thatcher - he wanted to be but did not have the courage to follow through, so just allowed Brown to waste excessive amounts of money whilst mouthing platitudes.
The majority of the country benefittted from Thatcher - the coal board received £1bn of subsidies in 1982, around £3bn in todays money. This is equivilant to 50% of todays unemployment benefit on around 200,000 workers - a subsidy of £15k per employee.

Bravo, Custardo, top rant! I'm afraid that those who still worship at the shrine of the Blessed Margaret are those who did well under her policies and cared (and care) little for those who didn't. (Strange how the scales have fallen from their eyes on her political son, Blair, though.)
When I see peons to her magificence I just look at her mummy's boy abomination creation Right Dishonorable convicted criminal offspring, Mark, whom she ensured was heir to an hereditary baronetcy, but who is unwelcome in the US, Switzerland and Monaco. Well done, Maggie.

What gets me fucking riled is comments such as one I heard recently. I can't remember it exactly but it went along the lines of 'remember to visit/look after your elderly neighbours because the Government won't.'

Which is pretty much what has been said ^^. Society exists because we look after each other without waiting for the Government to do it. Anyone who turns around and says, 'Well, I'm not helping out because it's not my job, it's down to the Government!' is the selfish one in this, not the person who says, 'Actually, it's not the Government's job, it's mine.'

So when people start banging on about Thatcher and that half-remembered quote about society, do your fucking research and think about what she meant. Same reason Cameron goes on about volunteering. Not that I agree with a lot of what he's doing but he has the right idea about us all looking after each other instead of being a bunch of fucking jobsworths who want to pass the buck and ignore their responsibilities.

The full quote is :

I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it: 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society.

There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation

very much communal responsibility - but not government responsibility

will come back to the miners later

Agree, Custardo. We'retalking about an I'm Alright Jack attitude that has yet to die off (and Blair did nothing to condemn).

If you could buy your own council house and sell it for profit, that's great for you. But I don't know how anyone could feel things were going grand when there were entire communities losing their source of income. Like the town my mum came from - wrecked. She had to support the strike because there was no other moral option. Her family were desperate, the stress on her father, a miner, most likely caused his early death. I thought the celebrating and bells and whistles, in general, were off colour after Thatcher's death. But I could not condemn my mother for cheering in the street when I told her.

It was the beginning of the end of communal responsibility - there's no such thing as society, remember?

but borrowing under this government has increased 3 x that of the previous labour govt

the austerity argument is a joke - if austerity were the real reason they would collect the unpaid taxes.

wehere you state that thatcher revolutionised economic thinking

I can tell you first hand she decimated the north, decimated it unecessarily. halved manufacturing from 20% of gdp to uber 10%

what i am not doing is saying that Labour were better, i think it is decidedly unelpful to reduce it down to labour versus conservative whewn thinking about politics

made money on north sea oil to have to spend it on the 3.5 million she made unemployed

sold off council housing - forcing a boom and bust economy, if you owned your own property that you bought for 10k and managed to sell for over 100k - great for you - but what about the rest of the people of this country now facing housing shortages and shit all chance of getting on the housing ladder becuase specifically becuase of thatchers policies?

oh and then what about interest rates rising to a whopping 17% in the early 80's

institute for fiscal studies suggests that poverty went up under thatcher from 13% to 22%

I guess one must have benefitted from thatchers changes to see it as positive in anyway

becuase from where i am standing, she decimated the north, made millions unemployed, started the farsicle boom and bust economy, created a housng shortage, broke communities and created the individualism and greed that had plagued this country ever since

custardo

do you really want to go back to the 70's?

The Thatcher govt revoluntionised economic thinking and turned this country around from the sinking mess we had been since the mid-60's. Major continued this thread and balanced the budget by the mid-90's. Blair won by promising to match Tory economic policy for the first term.
The rot, and increased spending began in 2000, with the Labour 2nd term, with spending ahead of income, despite a one off productivity benefit from IT and increased trade with China reducing costs for all.
Labour wasted £20 billion on the NHS IT spine which was scrapped and wasted money paying CTC to top rate taxpayers with only 1 child.
Hence, when the crash came, caused by Labour lack of regulation and the insane increase in house prices(because the Labour govt remioved housing costs from the RPI calcilation to keep rates low) (the banking crisis was largely UK and US, with some European instances, many countries had no banking problems)
When the coalition came to power, there was no money left, and the govt have to rebuild the economy to not rely on borrowing by the govt and the people - unfortunately this is painful.

No-one has mentioned Edward Heath and the three day week. Are you all too young to remember?

that is a real fear bechuanagirl, i have eaten everything in sight this xmas

Custardo.....well.....I don't think I want to argue with you for fear of being eaten.....

I don't think that new labour was the worse goverment. However they were spendthrifts trying to bribe their way back into power.

As far as bad govements what about

Pol Pot in Camobia
Syria's present goverment
Sadam Husain

as well as Nazi germany

Comparing Tony Blair and his cronies to some modern day dicators is unreasonable. New Labour meant well and the whole of Europe is in dire straights because of problems with the Euro. Prehaps the biggest mistake of new labour was having no controls on immigration from Europe, but that does not compare with mass murder.

I love you, Custardo

"Rage is the dominant sentiment across just about every sub-stratum of the electorate, but is especially marked among men, northerners, voters over 45 and the lower DE occupational grade.

Labour voters, too, are disproportionately cross. But supporters of Ukip, the party that put itself on the map in 2013 with big gains in local elections, reflect the mood of the times most intensely: more than two-thirds, 68%, say the thought of politics and politicians makes them more angry than anything else.

Deborah Mattinson, a former pollster to Gordon Brown and now an expert at BritainThinks, believes politicians have not begun to grasp the scale of the problem. "Voter disengagement is getting worse and worse," she says. "Nobody is really taking it seriously enough."

Custardo, you're not the only one who is slightly peed off

"Fury with MPs is main reason for not voting – poll

Poll reveals anger, not boredom, lies behind drop in political engagement"

www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/26/fury-mps-not-voting-poll