Andrew Marr The History of Modern Britain

StevieJ

dervish wrote: »

pathetic :rolleyes:


and cheap.

And most probably true, what a horrendous female

StevieJ

Kez100 wrote: »

I also read somewhere that the Wall Street Crash started with too much credit.I couldn't believe it - credit, in the early 1900's? Yes, money lent to buy new Ford cars to people who couldn't repay! These repeats are as old astime - why do they keep letting them happen at ever more dangerous levels?

Andrew Marrs series is really interesting.

Are you for real?

Pobby

dervish wrote: »

pathetic :rolleyes:


and cheap.

So I guess you weren`t a miner that not only lost his job but saw his whole community decimated.

baby_boomer

Pobby wrote: »

the selling off of the "family silver".

I believe the Major government made a mistake selling off RailTrack.

But how did the consumer not benefit from selling off the inefficient nationalised industries that were BT, BG, the Water boards and Electric companies?

Telephone bills are dirt cheap as a result

And would we want a return to basic rate taxes of 30%+?

If this aspect of the Thatcher Revolution was so awful, then why didn't New Labour even think about reversing any of it [or the Thatcher trade union reforms] in spite New Labour's 15 year monopoly on power?

Could it be that they agreed with her?

Pobby

Oh yes, and selling off local authority housing!

boyse7en

But how did the consumer not benefit from selling off the inefficient nationalised industries that were BT, BG, the Water boards and Electric companies?

Telephone bills are dirt cheap as a result

Yes, phone bills are cheap - but BT won't stump up the readies to pay for an update to the old copper-wire systems, as it will benifit it's LLU competitors without them having to pay for it. This means that most of Britains communication system being stuck with very old technology - and consequently being slower by comparison.

BG - prices went up how much this year? 20-30% on top of 10-15% rises earlier

Elec - see Gas

Water - Depends where you live. I'm in Devon, where the average water bill is three times more than Thames customers pay, so we can pay to keep all the beaches nice an pollution-free for when the rest of the population want to come on holiday. A national water company would mean that the clean-up burden was shared equally.

Just an alternative viewpoint

Sapphire

I fear we will never learn the lesson – human greed and short-sightedness always takes over. Today, people are far more indebted than they were in Margaret Thatcher's time – and have much higher expectations about what they 'deserve'. Most younger people have never experienced real hardship (although they think they are doing so), whereas many of those who were in heavy debt in the early 80s had lived through quite hard times (by comparison) in their childhoods in the 50s and 60s.

StevieJ wrote: »

I am not sure this make any sense.

In what way doesn't it make sense to you?

StevieJ

Sapphire wrote: »

I fear we will never learn the lesson – human greed and short-sightedness always takes over. Today, people are far more indebted than they were in Margaret Thatcher's time – and have much higher expectations about what they 'deserve'. Most younger people have never experienced real hardship (although they think they are doing so), whereas many of those who were in heavy debt in the early 80s had lived through quite hard times (by comparison) in their childhoods in the 50s and 60s.



In what way doesn't it make sense to you?

In the 50s and 60s there was hope in the future, company pensions were the future, the talk was about what people would do with the increased leisure time.
In those days kids could leave school at 16 or 18 and enter a profession with 0 or A levels, now they need a degree. I think todays kids are experiencing real hardship, drugs that suck in and destroy lives , yes they have a choice but fortunately kids in the 50's and 60,s didn't.
No I don't think the young have it easy now.

dervish

Pobby wrote: »

So I guess you weren`t a miner that not only lost his job but saw his whole community decimated.

Why prolong the inevitable.?


Mrs Thatcher brought prosperity to millions of people.

Middle England has never really looked back tho the Labour lot are trying to tax us back down to the working class levels.

People who criticise Mrs Thatcher are bitter and jealous of those who profited in the true capilastistic style. They think its cool to have a go at someone when they werent around to judge for themsemleves.

Pobby

Um, I wasn`t around to judge for myself. I don`t think so. Prosperity that ended up with many losing their homes and incomes. I was in a very well paid job long before Thatch came to power. I have no bitterness for my part, I just saw an someone who thought she was the Queen using bully boy tactics to thrust her will on everyone. That woman not only destroyed the manufacturing base, sold off our oil, and took 3 million into unemployment.

The !!!!! even screwed up the little bit by reducing state pensions increasing from the average earnings to the rate of inflation. Dreadful woman!