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

It was not including house prices in inflation that meant interest rates were fixed too low in the pre-07 boom.

But the entire sham economy required us to keep borrowing the money the Chinese were investing in London that we'd given them for making all our stuff so that we could feel rich and keep borrowing to buy more Chinese made stuff so that they would invest in London so that we could [repeat until inevitable crash]

I remember chucking eggs at thatcher's car on one of her visits to that economic miracle that was Keighley, West Yorkshire 1983 ish.

I fail to understand how anyone other than an Essex barrow boy could give the tories the time of day.

Some people are forgetting that although nearly everyone went round in the 1980s saying they hated the Tories, at election time people voted for them in droves.

The modern day equivalent I think is people paying lip service to green issues then jetting off to Prague or Barcelona every other weekend.

Started a promising training career with the coal board in 1982, ditched it just before miners strike 😥 Alot of this countries wealth was built on the back of miners who worked in terrible conditions & only received a decent wage for about the 10 years upto the time that Mrs T shat one them from a great height 👿

I remember when government spent what it could afford rather than what it could print.

You mean when we had North Sea Oil?

I have to say that Thatcher had it easy. During her time we had a massive subsidy from North Sea Oil that isn't there any more. The difference between then and now has got sod all to do with the supposed Tories superior financial management.

Thatcher was also responsible for the Dash to Gas, building loads of gas power stations that now leave us reliant on imports from Russia, whilst at the same time destroying our coal industry.

Just remember the calibre of opposition that Thatcher had to face...
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= Comedy Gold[/url]

Blame Thatcher if you must, but remember the Labour government in the '70s, put us in a position where we were the sick man of Europe and had to call in the IMF, like Greece of today. The economy was so bad they started printing money like a banana republic...... printing money who'd of thought we'd be doing it again?

If Thatcher had it easy then Blair had it easier. Fact is they both squandered a fabulous resource that could have lasted decades longer with an appropriate energy policy.

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Thatcher was also responsible for the Dash to Gas, building loads of gas power stations that now leave us reliant on imports from Russia, whilst at the same time destroying our coal industry.

and allowing us to meet our CO2 targets agreed at Kyoto.

In 1975 with inflltion at 25% Labour fixed the interest rate at 11%. Totally inappropriate.

In 1981 with inflation at 12% Thatcher set interest rates at a highly appropriate 15%.

In 1997 Gordon Brown made the Bank of England independent and put a stop to the use of interest rates as a political tool.

Oh come now Righplace, the BOE does what the government tells it to. Since 1997 that has been to keep to an inflation target based on inflation figures provided by the government. How independant is that? Perhaps if the BOE had been truly independant then it would have increased interest rates when faced with market bubbles, runaway government spending and nonsense government infaltion numbers.

I was born in '62.
As I was approaching school leaving age, we were constantly warned that unemployment was almost 1 million and we would have to do well in our exams if we wanted a job.
Then came 1979 and the "Labour isn't working" posters.
Within a couple of years, the Conservatives had unemployment up to 4 million.

Big employers like Cadbury closing is a major news story now.
I can remember a feature on the end of the TV news every night listing all the job losses. Every day there were factories and businesses closing with the loss of hundreds or thousands of jobs.

Trying to claim the Brixton and Handsworth riots were "race" riots.

Raising funds by selling off nationalised industries.

Nationalisation of industries where free competition was possible has benefitted us all. However, monopolies such as water would have best remained public IMO as a public monopoly is no less efficient than a private monopoly but more expensive as there are share holders to pay. Would you really go back to a monopoly telephone provider?

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

I love the way, in the face of overwhelming damning testimony of real experiences of life under the Tories, the best any Thatcherite apologist can come up with is 'oh let's forget about it all and just ride our bikes'. 😆

Pathetic. That the best you've got?

Since 1997 that has been to keep to an inflation target based on inflation figures provided by the government. How independant is that?

More independent than it used to be. And GB didn't have to do it did he? Must have been very tempting to hang onto that particular lever of control, but he didn't.

Would you really go back to a monopoly telephone provider?

We have some of the shittest and most expensive internets of any developed nation. Had the telecommunications infrastructure remained in public hands, the whole nation could now be benefitting from renting it out to all the different telecommunications companies, instead of one private company holding the rest to ransom. Fair competition? My arse. We could have had proper fibre optic cables all over by now. Instead, we have an increasing number of customers being squeezed onto ageing copper wire technology which is completely inadequate at supplying demand.

Blue thro and thro!

Funny that, I have a fibre optic Internet connection provided by a private company and the bill for that, HD TV, and unlimited telephone use is about a fifth of what I paid the state monopoly provider for telephone alone ten years back.

Mines being shut down as unecconomic, still millions of tonnes of high quality coal in the ground, better than the stuff they import- just to shaft the NUM really
Shipyards forced to compete for orders against foriegn subsidised yards- just to further shaft the workers really
The selling off, to her rich cronnies, the services of our country-pulling the wool over the eyes of the population by bunging them a couple of quid for 'their' shares
Giving people the right to buy council houses at vastly under-market value, without putting anything back into providing more social housing
etc
etc
etc

Funny that, I have a fibre optic Internet connection provided by a private company and the bill for that, HD TV, and unlimited telephone use is about a fifth of what I paid the state monopoly provider for telephone alone ten years back.

Where do you live? Not the UK, I'd wager...

I remember loads of riots in and around Birmigham and I remember wondering quite why I was considered the scum of the earth for growing up in a single parent family. (which reminds me of an old thread when I had a huge argument about this with somone or other....

"There's no such thing as society".

That summed her up for me.

Well the NUM needed shafting. It got pay back for imposing its political will on the country rather than fighting in the interest of its members. When you vote for a government you don't want or expect a union to dictate government policy (unless you voted Labour at the time in which case you knew you were voting for a trade union funded political party).

>You mean when we had North Sea Oil?
>I have to say that Thatcher had it easy

Did North Sea oil only come on stream in 1979 ? Or did the Labour government pre-Thatch have access to the oil money also ?

Did North Sea oil only come on stream in 1979 ?

It was a little before that but not much - it wasn't till the early 80s that it was coming ashore in enough quantity for us to be self sufficient

[Well the NUM needed shafting]

Yep couldn't agree more, unfortunately the working miners and their communities were caught in the power battle between Scargill & Thatcher. Much like the poor Iraqi's caught up in the chaos caused by Bush, Sadam & Blair.

Don't vote it only encourages the b'stards

You win your wager Talkemada. None of the 3G telephone network was installed by the monopoly state operator either here or in the UK AFAIK. Companies bid huge amounts of money for licences with clauses on the quality of infrastructure. The same public regulation of private providers could be applied to ISPs. However, it's competition that has brought prices down. I pay 35e/month for fibre optic which is only 5e more than ADSL from one of half a dozen providers.

I remember Black Wednesday, Poll Tax, The Riots in London, I witness the signing of the end of the mining strikes.

I cannot forget the intrest rates going sky high day after day
and The Tories had no idea how to control it or what to do.

Also Trever Howard screwed up the pensions and introduced private
pensions was the way forward and how many are about to suffer?
But also Gorden Brown has screwed up here too!!!
Also every time the Torie MPs got caught doing wrong, and you expect them to chuck them out of Parliment they do this Done Thing and kept them in.

Also the Tories sold most of our Assets for next to nothing.

The Tories sold off our social housing cleverly to control the working class people.

I also had a client who introduced the back to basics policy for the
Tories, but unknown to him what was going on And The Tories had taken
him to court but he had won. If it was not for Labour who had given him help
He had his phone bugged and was constantly followed.

Somehow, I can tell Grantway went to school in the Tory era...

>Also Trever Howard screwed up the pensions and introduced private
pensions

Yeah, but he ROCKED in Brief Encounter.

Look at Labours legacy. Its disgusting. expansion of the public sector to 60% of the working population, then theres the "we'll help the poor" by feeding complacency and idleness rather than tough love.

We are going to get 5 more years of this from them and then the Tories will have to pick up the pieces.

Don't get me wrong. I grew up in poverty. Poverty some of you have never known the likes of. However I, like many working men am aspirational. I want something better. As such I can't vote for a party that enriches itself whilst showing the ultimate incompetence.

Labour does not represent the working man. Never has. None of them have. However any honest hard working man wants something better for his children. Look alot of Asians for instance.

Therefore I look to the Labour legacy, £900,000,000,000 debt and growing.

We are all poor now.

Trevor Howard 😆

The bits that stand out for me (born in 1977 btw) are
-falklands
-miners
-poll tax
-poll tax riots
-Kenneth Baker
-Care In The Community Act
-Student grants phased out in favour of loans.

I didn't like drinking milk as a child and so remember it well and remember being not at all bothered about it. 🙂

My father in law worked from 16 to retirement for british gas/transco. He also loves/fundraises for etc trains and Vulcans (the plane that is). His three favourite things in life fairly well dismantled under conservative governments and still he looooooves them so. 😕

I'm too young, mainly I remember "kill the bill", being told that there was no chance at all the CJA would ever be used to suppress peaceful protest, then my mates being arrested under the powers in the act 24 hours after it was passed while peacfully protesting. Impressive stuff.

"Fuel prices is my current issue"

Oil is expensive. The tories massively increased fuel tax, for most years of the last labour government fuel taxation fell in real terms. Fact.

then theres the "we'll help the poor" by feeding complacency and idleness rather than tough love.

Or

By providing better health care, education and social support. Areas where Labour have performed better than the Tories.

Hora; you've not thought this through really, have you?

However I, like many working men am aspirational. I want something better. As such I can't vote for a party that enriches itself whilst showing the ultimate incompetence

So, you won't be voting Tory then? 😀

We are all poor now.

No we're not. We live in one of the most affluent countries on Earth, you numpty! Poor? I thought you said you knew what real poverty was? 🙄

They talk about terror laws being used as the basis for all sorts of arrests now but I can remember when the Tories [Trevor Howard again, I think 😉 ] ordered the police to break up peaceful protests using - long forgotten - Victorian laws to arrest people
'watching & besetting' - WTF?

>being told that there was no chance at all the CJA would ever be used to suppress peaceful protest, then my mates being arrested under the powers in the act 24 hours after it was passed while peacfully protesting. Impressive stuff.

You'll love Anti-terror legislation introduced under Labour then 🙂

>-Student grants phased out in favour of loans.

Yes, Labour implemented that one ( http://www.independent.co.uk/news/student-grants-and-free-tuition-to-end-next-year-1251578.html )

"Well the NUM needed shafting." Edukator, you're a teacher, what the **** do you know about the coal industry? Scargill may have had an overinflated ego, he may well have made the struggle personal due to his emnity of Thatcher, but you know what? He was right. And as an ex-pat, what gives you the right to hold forth about the state of the nation?

He's got French broadband. 🙁

"You'll love Anti-terror legislation introduced under Labour then"

Yep, exactly the same thing... Except that the anti-terror legislation is being abused, the CJA was designed to do the job it was used for from the ground up, but that's a trivial distinction.

left school, went on dole.
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f3cking Thatcher[/url]

Nationalisation of industries where free competition was possible has benefitted us all. However, monopolies such as water would have best remained public IMO as a public monopoly is no less efficient than a private monopoly but more expensive as there are share holders to pay. Would you really go back to a monopoly telephone provider?

As said before, they still are a monopoly, but "free competition" has only benefited the shareholder and no one else. Aside from this, is it a good idea to have electricity in the hands of a French state owned company or the recent acquisition of a large chunk of rail and transport network bought by a German state owned company?

When you vote for a government you don't want or expect a union to dictate government policy (unless you voted Labour at the time in which case you knew you were voting for a trade union funded political party).

I'm trying to figure out whether it was bad to be voting for something that was union backed or what we have today where political parties are dictated to by businessmen.

To loosely quote US President Obama: "A free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it."

Which is one of the many legacies of Thatcherism.

Edukator, you're a teacher, what the **** do you know about the coal industry?

So only people who worked in the coal industry know about the coal industry? Is that what you're saying?

And what exactly was Scargill right about?

Sorry if this has already been mentioned but I haven't read every single post. Has anyone mentioned giving the "Argies" a damn good kicking.

And what exactly was Scargill right about

Scargill claimed early on that was an agenda to close the pits whether they were economical or not
This was denied by the gov

one of them was right

Scargill claimed early on that was an agenda to close the pits whether they were economical or not

He may well have been bang on the money with that one...

For those having a go at Thatch for closing the pits, a few minutes on the history section of the NUM website might be enlightening. Obviously they hate the Tories, but wait til you see the vitriol for Labour governments in the 50s 60s and 70s who closed uneconomic pits.

And besides, we'd have either closed a lot of pits or not signed Kyoto in the 90s anyway, think it through...

Sorry if this has already been mentioned but I haven't read every single post. Has anyone mentioned giving the "Argies" a damn good kicking.

Wrong. Tory govt in Mexico 86, Labour govt in Japan/Korea 02.

I know quite a lot about the coal industry, mainly from an economic point of view, so I know that economically viable pits were closed especially when you integrate the social cost of closing them. The majority of miners knew that too and were prepared to compromise their political ideals to save their jobs and communities. Only their leader who was not dependant on a job in the pits or a mining community stopped a compromise being reached. A case of a bourgeois communist sacrificing his comrades on the alter of his own ego and ideals. A secret ballot would have saved the industry.

Oh and I worked in the A-series engine plant in Longbridge in 78 so demarkation disputes, sabotage, the closed shop, restrictive practices, theft and plain idleness are things I do know about.

Edit: to sum up research at Aberystwyth it was Thatcher who closed the uneconomically viable pits and Scargill that closed the economically viable ones.

For those having a go at Thatch for closing the pits

it wasn't just the pits though, that was her personal crusade & she couldn't have given 2 figs how many lives she destroyed doing it - it had absolutely nothing to do with economics
no, it was every other manufacturing company that was hit that did the real damage across the vast parts of the country

She set out to destroy the working classes by any means she could

bring back maggie, be interseting to see what her party of the day would do now.

uplink - that's a view you often hear expressed, but I have to admit I struggle to comprehend it.

Why was she doing this, do you think? For what purpose?

For what purpose?

Political dogma

I still don't understand. What do you mean?

uplink - are you there?

"Wrong. Tory govt in Mexico 86, Labour govt in Japan/Korea 02."

Gold star!

The only time I supported the IRA was when they tried to blow the
Tories up.

>The only time I supported the IRA was when they tried to blow the
Tories up.

Nice! What a pleasant chap you must be.

Yes and an honest one too! 😉

Yup, internment was not the solution. Funny how Brown and Blair introduced similar measures in their fight against terror (freedom fighters). Lock people up without trial and their communities get upset. Management of the troubles was not a Thatcher strong point.

Scargill built Thatcher. He gave her the green light to break the unions, and the NUM in particular, through the illegal strike. Andrew Marr put it nicely in one of his recent history shows - Thatcher was very, very lucky with who her enemies were. Derek Hatton was another one, like 10 Christmas' rolled into one for the Tories. I've heard it argued that both Scargill and Hatton were MI6 plants - tounge in cheek, but certainly you couldn't have invented two more effective tools for furthering Conservative policy in 80s Britain.

I fail to understand how anyone other than an Essex barrow boy could give the tories the time of day

"The only time I supported the IRA was when they tried to blow the
Tories up"

+1

Their remodelling of Manchester city centre was better IMHO

The only time I supported the IRA was when they tried to blow the
Tories up.

I remember thinking, as a child when that happened, how it would have been great if they'd got Maggie.

As a grown-up, I can understand that there were also many other people who were simply doing their jobs; aides, secretaries, catering staff, cleaners etc, who were in no way responsible for anything in NI. Did they deserve to die?

Maggie and the Tories may be scum, and I for one won't mourn her, but I can't condone any act of war or terrorism where innocent people are killed. That's Human Life we're talking about.

LOL When has a Torie been human

Falklands.
Riots.
Miners' strike. I remember being out on a night out in Wakefield mid 84 and seeing van after van after van of police setting off just before dawn - it was almost military in its scale & coordination.
13% interest rates meaning £300+ repayments on a £30k mortgage.
unemployment - way higher per capita than it is now, or certainly seemed so at the time.
the death of heavy industry, including one that I worked in for a while. I think that particular company's demise was more about biting off more than it could chew in terms of acquiring competitors, than directly as a result of the government, but I could be wrong.
Gulf War I - never finished the job off
Militant Tendency, Scargill & the Socialist Workers' Party, among others. The death of the GLC

I could go on for hours

One thing people forget, Thatcher ran an environmental agenda way before it was cool. To hear a lot of people (largely tories funnilly enough) speak you'd think that environmental policies are a nu-labour creation and a recent development, Maggie's early policies seem to be completely forgotten.

Not to say that she wasn't an evil space robot, but she did have her moments.

Edukator what exactley do you know about coal mining apart from the 'economics' that you read about in the Telegraph? Yeah you had a summer job in a car plant-- big deal. as one of your beloved said "put up or shut up"

13% interest rates meaning £300+ repayments on a £30k mortgage.

I think you'll find that interest rates hit 17% under the Tories.

Give credit where credit's due ........ the Tories certainly know how to give us sky-high interest rates - not just sky-high unemployment. Although obviously both go hand in hand.

I'm sure they probably did; but I'm thinking of [i]my[/i] first mortgage here, taken out in 1990.

Only just sold that b*stard f*cking house too.

I remember when there was a couple allowance tax when buying a property
and the Tories put a panic for people to rush through to buy and then shortly after the dead line the intrest rates went up and then through the roof.

Also I remember walking down Wapping High rd and came upto the Sun news
paper and there was a print strike at the time A peaceful one at that. Then Thatchers Army of Police working with Murdoch Charged at the
people on horses and causing alot of injuries.

grantway nothing much has changed! murdoch runs the tory party 🙄

murdoch runs the tory party

I believe that Rupert Murdoch also had a quiet word in Peter Mandelson's and Tony Blair's ears about what a New Labour government could, and couldn't do.

Not bad for a foreigner without even a vote in UK elections. Don't believe for a moment that the Sun's "support" for New Labour for 13 years came with 'no strings attached'.

Which is ironic considering that the Unions had no influence at all despite bankrolling New Labour.

Rather tha ask for my credentials colnagokid and Mitch, test them. It's easy to make a laughing stock of people who haven't got a clue. Go on, make a fool of me. So far I've made contributions that are a mix of fact and interpretation. Challenge my facts and argue against my interpretation if you disagree with me or think I'm bullshitting.

Edukator how old are you?

One thing people forget, Thatcher ran an environmental agenda way before it was cool.

???????

I must have missed that. Maybe you could explain?

I must have missed that. Maybe you could explain?

It was when the Greens started making impressive gains in Europe and Thatcher responded by making very vague green noises in an attempt to pre-emptive any simular developments in the UK. She didn't actually do anything - just talked a little on the subject.

So old I haven't worked for eight years Pigface.

[i]Yeah you had a summer job in a car plant-- big deal.[/i]

Even if you do provide interesting relevant credentials on this site you will be mocked.

Although the hole in the ozone layer and tackling CFCs happened on her watch I suppose?

Met Eddie Shah last night.

For those who don't know him he revolutionised the newspaper industry.

His terrifying stories about the unions confirmed my suspicions.

Utterly fantastic chap; 'fraid I'll carry on voting tory unless someone more right wing whose not totally bigoted come along.