Osborne Loses It - Our Triple A Rating And Its Future

StevieJ

A._Badger wrote: »

Now, now, SteveieJ, there is no need to put words in my mouth. I didn't say they were all spies - though some clearly and indisputably, were: Jack Jones for one. The rest are just open or allegedly former supporters of communism.

Which ones do you dispute?

The ones that weren't charged by the police?

A._Badger

StevieJ wrote: »

The ones that weren't charged by the police?

It's a bit difficult to charge the dead. Though I'm sure one of your cuddly communist states would have found a way.

I repeat which of my list of prominent trade unionists are you denying were (are in some cases) communist sympathisers?

StevieJ

A._Badger wrote: »

It's a bit difficult to charge the dead. Though I'm sure one of your cuddly communist states would have found a way.

I repeat which of my list of prominent trade unionists are you denying were (are in some cases) communist sympathisers?

Is this a quote from a ghost then

This was denied by Jones, who described the allegations as a "slur and an outrage"

A._Badger

As I have said, the proof came when Jones had died, He was finally exposed by Professor Christopher Andrew.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8289962.stm

The fact that the traitor denied it is hardly to be wondered at.

StevieJ

A._Badger wrote: »

As I have said, the proof came when Jones had died, He was finally exposed by Professor Christopher Andrew.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8289962.stm

The fact that the traitor denied it is hardly to be wondered at.

Ah so at worst he was a spy against the Labour party? I notice you haven't brought up the real spies, e.g. The Queens 4th cousin (Blunt) and that Daily Telegraph/Times journalist (Philby).

The book says he only passed on Labour party documents,

BobQ

A._Badger wrote: »

The predictable 'reds under the beds' sneer you hear from those who either don't know what they are talking about, or who wish to conceal the truth.

Well here are a few randomly chosen names to consider:

Jack Jones - former TGWU boss and friend of Labour under Wilson. A paid KGB agent for 45 years. Finally outed by former KGB defector Oleg Gordievski.

Ken Gill - AUEW leader: open communist.


Is the picture emerging yet? Or is the myopia permanent?

As you are playing the bogeyman game, you may like to note that Ken Gill was the leader of TASS (which merged with Clive Jenkins ASTMS) not AUEW. Of course the AUEW had its own demon, Hugh Scanlon, a man also characterised as a communist who was debarred from several influntial industrial jobs after he retired by M15 comments which they subsequently had to retract.

So these people, many of whom had grown up in the depression years in abject poverty and unemployment decided to stand up for themselves. The Communist Party of GB they chose was not outlawed, it was a legal party that even had a MP.

As I recall the right wing in Britain were not exactly famous for opposing fascism until they had no choice, unlike Jack Jones and many other communists and socialists, who actually fought against it in Spain when their respective governments shunned their efforts.

Of course we were not too proud to call these ghastly communists our Allies for much of WWII when we eventually got a backbone to stand up to HItler.

Its fair to criticise excessive militancy in TUs but the idea that it was all a communist plot is an invention of the British establishment. There have been reds under our beds for years. You would no doubt have believed the story in the Mail a few days before the 1924 election (calling on communists to rise up and intended to undermine the fragile Labour Government). Credible studies have since shown the Zinoviev letter was a forgery.

A._Badger

So the waves of strikes and unrest that crippled the UK throughout the 1960s and '70s had no political motivation and were in so sense coordinated by militant communist unionists?

'In denial' barely covers it. But then look at the beliefs of the deniers.

CLAPTON

I believe it's true that Blunt was never charged even though none dispute he was a traitor

It didn't of course stop the BBC running a program on him recently full of praise for his artisitic work.

BobQ

A._Badger wrote: »

So the waves of strikes and unrest that crippled the UK throughout the 1960s and '70s had no political motivation and were in so sense coordinated by militant communist unionists?

'In denial' barely covers it. But then look at the beliefs of the deniers.

Just because you say its so, does not make it true.

I cannot comment on the specific circumsatances of every strike over 20 years, but from what I have read most of them were (rightly or wrongly) about their discontent with their terms and conditions and working practices.

Its always possible to point to political motivations of individual leaders but many of the strikes in that era were not even supported by the trade union leadership but were wildcat strikes over local issues in car plants or print shops. These were very different times.

While the motivation of governement action was probably to emasculate the trade unions it did provide a dregree of regulation that was needed.

Of course readers of the right wing press only ever see conspiracies.

lemonjelly

posh*spice wrote: »

Indeedie. Take a look at the numbers. In 1979, when Margaret Thatcher came to power, the amount Britain owed, as a nation, was £88.6 billion. In the subsequent six years, taxes from the North Sea (which had been pretty much non-existent previously) generated an incredible £52.4 billion.

In 2008 thanks to record oil prices, the Treasury had its largest ever haul from the North Sea, at £13 billion. This colossal sum equates to more than 3p on the basic rate of income tax.

Look at what was put out by the government this week:-

The UK expects its tax revenues from the oil and gas industry to slip by more than a third in the current tax year as declining North Sea production levels, lower than expected oil prices and upstream tax breaks crimp its receipts, the UK's finance ministry said Wednesday.

Tax receipts from North Sea corporation tax and petroleum revenue tax are seen totaling £7.4 million in the 2012-13 tax year, down 34% from £11.2 billion collected in the 2011-12 tax year, according to UK Treasury's pre-2013 budget statement.

Further ahead, the treasury expects North Sea tax receipts will continue to slide, falling to £6 billion in the 2014-15 fiscal year and hitting £4.1 billion in 2017-18.


For the past quarter of a century, Britain has been a petro-economy. In 1999, we were producing more oil than Iraq, Kuwait or Nigeria. The following year, we pumped out almost twice as much natural gas as Iran – a country with reserves that are the envy of the world.The result is that while we are apt to attribute the sudden spurt in Britain's prosperity in the mid- to late-1980s to a deregulated and reinvigorated City, it owed far more to the massive windfall from the North Sea.

Looks like oil and gas won't save the conservatives this time.

Thatcher presided over the selling off of £1bn in state assets, yet still presided over 2 deep recessions. Why is she constantly trotted out as being a success story?