How Dumb can the Government get?

Sapphire

moneysaving_pharmacist wrote: »

These drugs for kidney cancer are extremely expensive - about £30k a year, and extend life by a few months to a year. They are not a cure. The NHS has a finite amount of money, and tough decisions have to be made at times on how best to spend that money. We Brits seem to have an insatiable appetite for health care, and however much money is put in to the NHS won't meet demand.

My brother – an incredibly 'useful member of society' by any standard, without going into details – died much too young with kidney cancer. Since he continued working virtually until his death, doing the good work, £30k would have been very well spent. Your rather callous argument is not convincing to people who have this form of cancer or their relatives.

It's all very well coming out with party-line statements like yours when you are not personally affected.

Protest about the billions of pounds of taxpayers' money this 'government' is wasting, rather than justify not providing relatively paltry sums of money for the betterment of people who have in all probability been taxpayers all their working lives.

MissMoneypenny

jamescredmond wrote: »

I started working in the late 70's and it was def. messy.

thatch arrived in may '79, almost by default.

had lab gone to the country in oct '78, indications were that lab would win / hung parliament.

lab was allready on the way to achieving econ. stability, having endured some pretty lousy disasters (IMF, 26% inflation, etc.)

but then came the winter of discontent, with mass strikes. lab's fate was sealed.

I started work in 1971.

Each time Labour came into power, we knew we would have strike after strike from various unions. That's all I remember of labour when I was growing up.They were driving the country to its knees and the union leaders were drunk on their power.

When the trains went on strike, my bank use to run coaches to get us into the square mile. I was one of the lucky one who worked for a large bank. I had to get up for work in the early hours of the morning to get a lift to where the coaches started. We had nose to tail traffic all the way. Cars were crammed full with people, others used bikes, other walked or ran. Whatever people had to do to get to work, they did.

Our coaches dropped us all off at St Pauls and we had to walk to our offices. I had to get to the Tower. It was in reverse on the way home and I wouldn't get home until gone 10. Then the unions would work again, they we had another strike from them or another union.

When the minors had yet another one of their strikes, we would squeeze around tables and work by gas light. If we needed to use the filing cabinets, we used torches. We had to limit the days we worked because of the shortage of fuel. I was lucky as I was always paid for a full week but many others weren't so lucky. They were bleak times for those who weren't getting their full weeks money due to the unions strike action.

We also had to put up with the ira bombs. Once, when I got a lift with my stepfather, he had to drop me off in Westminster and drive another way because of bits of metal and glass all over the road. As I turned into another street, I realised that the ira had set a car bomb off. the car was still on fire, metal and glass from office blocks were all over the roads and pavement and trails of fresh blood lined the pavements. No one was on the streets, but me.

Another time when the train drivers decided to work, the IRA put a bomb in the carriage I was in. They got the timer wrong and the bomb didn't go off until the train left Canon Street and the carriage was empty.

During this time we also had a major tube train crash at Moorgate. I remember clearly when the call went out for blood as a tube had crashed at Moorgate. The blood centre was at Moorgate, so all those that had given blood before just left their desks and walked to Moorgate. As each street joined, more and more people joined the mass - thousands of us. As we got to Moorgate it was standstill and people were shouting out to go back as they had enough blood now.

During all these strikes, spirits were high in London (I can't speak for other areas). As the news came in of yet another strike date, we would stick two fingers up at the unions. I still get a lump in my throat even now, when I think of how everyone pulled together to keep the county going. We were never going to let them beat us.
It was a different story completely when Maggie got in and played them at their own game. She out smarted their leaders very easily. I was living in a welsh mining valley at the time Maggie took on the minors leader Scargil. There was none of the spirit I had witnessed in London. Denial, anger, asking for help (putting cardboard boxes out and asking for food to be put in it) and then acceptance, happened very quickly.

When Maggie got in she put an end to those dark years of jumped up, thick nobodies, wanting to lord it over the country.

Having actually lived through those terrible years of labour and the continual strikes during their watch, I know Maggie saved the country. The greatest PM this country has ever had. I can understand why labour supporters and unions hate her - she put and end to the unions holding the country to ransom.

mewbie_2

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

When the minors had yet another one of their strikes, we would squeeze around tables and work by gas light.

Gas light? In the 1970's? Are you sure about that? Did you not have windows in the office? I am assuming you worked during daylight hours.

I believe you are referring to the three day week, when power was limited and companies removed fifty percent of their electric lighting. Still enough light remained to see, and I don't recall anyone suggesting using gas light. It was not the miners who switched off the power, but the government, in order to preserve existing coal stocks so they could win the right to destroy the miners and the coal industry.


Coal not Dole!!

MissMoneypenny

mewbie wrote: »

Gas light? In the 1970's? Are you sure about that? Did you not have windows in the office? I am assuming you worked during daylight hours.

Yes. They were the camping lights. Of course we had windows, but we worked in large office blocks and the minors always liked to hold the country to ransom in the winter, to make the country suffer. There were only so many window seats and we had limited daylight where we could see to do our work correctly anyway.
As we only worked for a few days a week, we put in long hours on those days. In winter it gets dark early.

This is not something I have read or a story that my parents told me - I was there.

mewbie wrote: »

It was not the miners who switched off the power, but the government, in order to preserve existing coal stocks so they could win the right to destroy the miners and the coal industry.

We had 3 day weeks to try to preserve the stocks as we had and to keep the country going. The minors were always on strike in the winter when Labour were the government. It was the unions that destroyed the coal industry. It was the unions that made people want to vote tory.

mewbie wrote: »

Coal not Dole!!

I don't think that thought ever entered Scargil's mind.

It's interesting to note that Drax power station along the M62, is next to Selby coal mine. Yet Drax import from Australia as it is cheaper than buying the coal from the coal mine next door.

The minors union needed a thinking leader, but they never got one.

Sapphire

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

Yes. They were the camping lights. Of course we had windows, but we worked in large office blocks and the minors always liked to hold the country to ransom in the winter, to make the country suffer. There were only so many window seats and we had limited daylight where we could see to do our work correctly anyway.
As we only worked for a few days a week, we put in long hours on those days. In winter it gets dark early.

This is not something I have read or a story that my parents told me - I was there.

We had 3 day weeks to try to preserve the stocks as we had and to keep the country going. The minors were always on strike in the winter when Labour were the government. It was the unions that destroyed the coal industry. It was the unions that made people want to vote tory.

I don't think that thought ever entered Scargil's mind.

It's interesting to note that Drax power station along the M62, is next to Selby coal mine. Yet Drax import from Australia as it is cheaper than buying the coal from the coal mine next door.

The minors union needed a thinking leader, but they never got one.

I agree with a lot of what you say. I can remember working by candlelight (though never gas lights) and the 3-day week. (Had we not used candlelight, it would have been pitch black.) I too was lucky enough to be paid a full salary during this time at the central London publishing house where I worked. I remember strike after strike grinding the country to a halt, and how opposed to the unions people generally were.

I also remember a lot of the other things you talked about – IRA bombs and the Moorgate disaster (seeing the police photographs really brought it home to me just how terrible this disaster was). I remember Scargill and the massive annoyance he was considered by most people.

Thatcher had many strengths – not the least her enormous and astonishing energy, and her obvious belief in her actions and pride in her country. No ducking and diving there! Though one could disagree with some of her policies, she certainly believed she was doing the best for Britain – and she had strong and experienced politicians surrounding her, unlike the extremely low-calibre, politically correct lot of 'me first' liars we have now.

Thatcher did make mistakes, in my view, not the least contributing to the destruction of small businesses around the country, many of which had been in operation for a century or more. There used to be a time when 'Made in England' stood for quality, and I regret those days. I also feel she should not have done away with council housing.

dopester

Sapphire wrote: »

Thatcher did make mistakes, in my view, not the least contributing to the destruction of small businesses around the country, many of which had been in operation for a century or more. There used to be a time when 'Made in England' stood for quality, and I regret those days. I also feel she should not have done away with council housing.

Thatchers reforms were entirely necessary. When Labour came back to power, Britain's percentage of government expenditure to GDP was significantly lower than that of the other major European countries.

Conservatives have been out of power for what... some 11 years... since 1997. House prices have about tripled since then in a mad speculative property boom and credit orgy. You can't keep blaming Thatcher and the Conservatives for all the problems the UK now has in front of it. Your suggestion Thatcher was responsible for destroying small business is laughable... she went on to open up opportunities for a whole economy of small businesses.

mewbie_2

Perhaps you Thatcher fans can answer this. Why did she get thrown out as Tory leader? Was it because she was too mental for the other right wing nutters?

MissMoneypenny

I agree with most of what you say Sapphire.

She certainly did have pride in her country.

Who can forget Maggie when the British Airways CEO removed the red white and blue from their planes tail fins because 60% of their passengers were non British. When Maggie saw a model plane of the new look, she covered the new logo on the tail fin, with her hanky and said it was "awful".

mewbie_2

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

When Maggie saw a model plane of the new look, she covered the new logo on the tail fin, with her hanky and said it was "awful".

You just couldn't make it up. Great Britain eh? Was that before or after the Poll Tax riots?

Jobs not Bombs!!!

posh*spice

Sorry I hate MT - always have and always will. Life under her was miserable._pale_