People weren't drawn in by a leveling up promise ,itv was about Brexit and labours stance on it ,oh and that clown Corbyn and his shadow cabinet full of gompers

Not on this thread though eh

Think the lib dems could gain support but they need another Charles Kennedy type as leader ,somebody who can get their message across,the tories need a credible opposition which ain't coming from Labour anytime soon

Think the lib dems could gain support but they need another Charles Kennedy type as leader ,somebody who can get their message across,the tories need a credible opposition which ain't coming from Labour anytime soon

And could anybody answer my question about the coal mines ,did they return a profit and was it cheaper to import coal

The UK did import "cheaper" coal from Poland for a while and yes, some mines were profitable.
However, mining was seen as an essential core industry, an idea that went out of the window in the Thatcher era, when everything became about "the market".
Promises of cheaper, water, gas, electricity and the nationalised industries were all sold off for a quick buck.
How has this worked out ?

I agree we should never have sold the silverware, the working man made money from buying and then selling the shares, it helped to win her another term ,in my opinion we are paying a big price because of Thatcherism ,one the country will never recover from, it gave birth to the underclass

Might be wrong here but wasn't they sold off because they were all running at a massive loss aided by the unions.

There was certainly a desire to break the power that the Unions had and privatization of the utilities was seen as an effective way of doing so and it's fair to say that the policy was very effective in reducing the power of the Unions.

The loss making issue was a little less straight forward.

If government wants to cap prices for certain utilities, they would certainly have to "help" by increasing their financial input or, show a loss on the balance sheet.

Some of the price increases that we are seeing at the moment on gas/electric, would have very likely been "subsidised" under public ownership, something with just doesn't happen in the private sector.

Some would argue that the utilities were sold "on the cheap" to help curb the Unions and that many are now making hefty profits for overseas companies and on the face of it, that seems crazy.
Has privatisation been good or bad, well, I suppose it depends on your politics and who knows whether our bills would have been higher or lower under the previous regimes.
It was certainly simpler back in the day and you didn't have to worry about shopping around, exit clauses etc and you knw exactly who to contact when there was a problem

Scargill turned down an offer from Thatcher to invest £800 million (a Kings ransom in the early 80s) in viable pits. He turned it down because "not 1 pit will shut". A ridiculous position to take and designed to provoke confrontation.
A lot of people think it was Thatcher that engineered the strike. IMHO I think it was Scargill, he wanted to bring down an elected Tory government, just like his cronies did with Heath.

Scargill thought that Union power would win the day. He was wrong.

Scargill was right, he just went about it the wrong way.

Scargill thought the whole union movement would support the miners and cause a general strike - he was wrong and the writing was on the wall when Callaghan lost the election a big part of which was a desire of the general public to stop all the needless striking. Scargill lived in his own little commie bubble - sadly for all the members.

Unfortunately union members are just expendable collateral in the political struggle.

Interesting fact I would appreciate a source for that as never heard that before ?

Rubbish at that sort of stuff. Found an article about macregor in the guardian but it's scant on details. I'll keep trying but I saw it on a TV documentary and I'll try to find it.

And the country is a better place with weaker unions.

I took time out to attend Maggies Funeral. A great leader for the country at home and on the world stage.

Well at least Mark Thatcher, her despicable offspring , made billions out of her eco ness lol.

Closesest she got to eco is now, fertilising nettles

, all she’s fit for

It's funny because I've seen no end of right wing muppets moaning about poor wages and working conditions during the current staffing crisis. The morons have got what they deserve. Crap jobs with crap conditions paying crap money, and in competition with immigrants who are happy to do the job for even less. "Suck it up", as they say.

"Great Leader" Mmmmm, well, the casualties from her determination to smash the NUM (and Unions in general) left a hell of a lot of people "Up North" out of work with many places taking the next 30+ years to recover.

The only reason I can think of for attending her funeral would be to make sure she was in the box

Would that be her determination to smash the Num and the Steel industry and the rest of the state controlled industries that threatened to bring down the government of the day with they're outlandish demands and they're determination to hold the country to ransom, that is indeed very poor fare from her, what's the saying, do unto them before they do it to you, and lets not forget the rest of the working class what would have had to pay for all that because they weren't fortunate enough to have the same membership as all the bully boys, or indeed no union at all, job's for the boys but at what and whose expense

The issue with Thatcher and her fight with the Unions was that it didn't affect her voting public and the vast majority of the fall out was felt by the Labour voters "up north".
I actually agree that some of the power of the Unions needed tempering and despite my years, I was too young to really be affected by the 3 day week of the 70's etc and maybe had I really experienced it, rather than a kid having to light candles, I may have felt differently.
However, my memory of the late 70's and early 80's was of some hardship and immense difficulty in finding work, although I eventually did and fortunately have never been out of work since but, rioting on the streets, high unemployment etc were the order of the day and while most of the South were unaffected, "we" got a damn good "kicking" from the Tory establishment and that is the reason that I would never vote for them.

Only a despicable, obnoxious, twisted guttersnipe like thatcher would weaponise Miners wives and kids

Interesting that the Tory supporters on here really struggle to understand what Thatcherism was about.

1983 keep the pits open and subsidise them a little to keep the industry going.
“No the market determines everything let the industry die”


2021. We need the car plant at Nissan to be subsidised so it does not close .
“ Oh ok here is 50 million please don’t close as it will make Brexit and us look stupid. “

That same pattern will be repeated ad nauseous in the next few years.

Which one is right state intervention to save Nissan workers or no state intervention and sod the miners

Don't hold back squire, you tell us your true feelings

Right so all the people of the North who voted labour were the only people who felt the fall out from the fight between the government and the unions, people such as myself and my workmates who weren't in a union who didn't have a union to fall back on because back in the day unions were frowned upon in private enterprise to a large extent and we were shopping at different shops, what you are saying also is that we were exempt from relative hardship due in the main to the weaker labour governments getting into bed with the powerful union leaders and pleasing them at all costs to the tune of jobs for the boys at whatever price to stay in government, which inevitably led to the confrontations with Thatcher and bully boy Scargill and his cronies who thought that they should run the country and decide there would be no redundancies whatever the cost to the general public wherever they chose to live

It's good you agree that the unions needed tempering because it was not funny having no lighting and heating due to power cuts brought on by power crazed union leaders fuelled by greed, and one last thing, I do hope the we got a damn good kicking from the Tory establishment isn't just reserved for you because a lot of innocent people felt the hardship due in the main to Scargill.