General Chat

Have you a link to those facts please John so I can see for myself. TA x

Well in 1992 when John Major too over as PM,,,the country was in a ressession,by mid 1992 the £ dropped off the Eurpeon Exchange Rate,known as Balck Wedensday,towards the of 1992 unemployment rose to aprox 3 million the highest ever in this county since 1930sl and almost a million householders faced repossession of thier homes,

we had no industry,as imports were cheaper,,,all manor of factories closed,,,,,,

by mid 1993 we were picking ourslefs up a little and the recession was easing,,,,
Maggie didnt leave a bowl of cherries either,Major had his running shoes on after MT.....))


but its all histroy in the past,,,,,,terry would be better to magnify this present lot which is affecting him or will day to day,not throw insults as its only making him angry at something that can never be changed.

Tell you what John...if folk learned how to cook proper meals and made a pan of stew,soups,vegetables,they would eat cheaper than going out for pizzas,burgers or whatever fast foods they eat.
They should have tried living through the war.
Why do we see so many fat people about??

Muffy. I heard those figures quoted on Question Time and Andrew Neill last night and have no reason to doubt they are accurate.

Have just wickied UK poverty and found this quote from "Britain in Close-Up" by David McDowell.

"From 1979 to 1987, the number of Britons living in poverty (defined as living on less than half the national average income) doubled, from roughly 10% to 20% of the whole population. In 1989, almost 6 million full-time workers, representing 37% of the total full-time workforce, earned less than the “decency threshold” defined by the Council of Europe as 68% of average full-time earnings."

Me and Paula's husband and Roy and many others were doing very well over this period. I know I worked out once I was earning 5 times the average wage and I never felt I was rolling in money. And certainly I was very blind to what was happening in towns and villages that relied on heavy industry and making things. I wondered why we were closing Tescos in the north and Midlands and opening loads in the Home Counties. We seemed to stop being "Makems" in "Great" Britain in that period and became "Takems" :-(

I will do some research tomorrow........I never blindly accept what any journo says.....even though I quite like Andrew Neil.......relatively speaking lol.

too late for my poor brain to take in figures this time of night.......but I will come back to you.

Have just thought of something that is not figures but proves how dire things had become at end of Mrs T's tenure in No 10.

In 1990, I was working for a supermarket company called Budgens. It had 100 shops and 4,500 staff in Home Counties and East Anglia mainly. It had just failed to take over the massive Dee Corp and was making weekly losses which neede to be turned round. No dividends paid for over 2 years, and no sign of any.

We had to either go upmarket to compete with Waitrose or downmarket and become low-range discounters. Aldi and Lidl had been allowed to set up all over England. I went on a fact-finding group round the north to find out what these Danish and German retailers were doing. Whether it would pay Budgens to copy their USP.

All their customers were low income D's and E's - just the people that Sainsbury, Tesco and Asda avoided by then. And there were whole towns in the north and Midlands by then that were predominantly D's and E's. Nelson, Blackburn, Flint, Birkenhead, Grimsby, Hartlepool. It was clear evidence that there was a huge divide - that a large proportion of the population were very unlikely to ever get out of poverty.

Terryj, your reply does not IMO answer the question asked

First the figures you quote for child Poverty? we don't have figures for child poverty because we don't have Real poverty but we do have a thing called Relative Poverty which is quite a different animal, Yes relative poverty in all groups did get worse, What do you expect when the country has been bankrupted buy the unions and it's 13 million members who where led to believe the state and the state alone should provide their ‘rights’ and their ‘entitlement’ They didn't give a dam about the rest of the population who where paying taxes to subsidise them.

you say (we were an island of coal floating in a sea of oil some of that money could have been used to invest in the country instead of lining the pockets of the few)

The coal mines closed because they lost money, our great mining community could not or would not get it out of the ground for the same price or less than other miners in far flung placed and that included the cost of transporting it half way round the world and why should taxes used from oil be used to subsidise coal miners?

you say (giving away council houses to the people living in them to get the society she wanted oh no she said thats no good for my people ie the middle classes)

Why should anyone be given anything they haven't paid for " another case of their ‘entitlement’ no doubt

You say "what did she do to industry there's hardly any left"

You where supposed to answer that question and I'm still all ears

I come from a mining background and worked down 3 different pits be it only for a relatively short time, I preferred to got to work and actually do some work so was not very welcome by my work colleagues in any of those pits, I have also had dealings in the 70's with the British Leyland at Longbridge so I do no what went on and I saw first hand why these industries had to be subsidised to pay their wages

If you believe that one group of workers should subsidise another group of workers, I will send you my Bank details and look forward to receiving your contribution every pay day at today's rates I think £300 a month should do for now as I can always come back for more later if I need/want more

Anyone else wanting to contribute to my newly formed company please feel free to PM me for details

Roy

I think what Roy is trying to tell us is that some people may have called him a scab.

I've been a so called *scab* and walked across a picket line before...and I would do again if i felt it right to do so.

No shame in that. I was proud to be one too.......I stick to MY principles.....same as those choosing not to work did theirs.

The pushing and shoving I received from the picket lines said more about their blinkered views than mine.

Rollo, Ive never crossed a picket line "scabed" and never will although I believe people have their right to strike I also think people have the same right to go to work without fear or threats.

I left the pits because of boredom, when I go to work I need to work I simply got fed up of people telling me every time I started work to "site darn lad have a minute"

Roy

Roy. I went down a coal mine for an hour. It was dangerous, very scary and very claustrophobic. It was enough for me. So I admire you - even if you only did it for a short period.

Not sure what you are getting at with your point about relative poverty. I guess the average weekly wage for a family in this world is £20 a week. And no one in Britain earns less than £13 a week so nobody is poor in absolute terms..

But all countries use relative poverty and most first world countries try to help those below a certain level.

Edited - "civilised" was wrong word - poor countries can be very civilised.

John, Your an educated man i'm sure you not the meaning of the word "Relative"

Relative poverty; in this instance means; relative poverty is a measure of income inequality

so if your on below average wage then your in relative poverty

Bed time I think

Roy

Quite honestly, I fail to see how people can blame one person for what a government did 30 yeas ago

..... nor how one can continue to blame one person when that person has been out of office for 20+ years.

There have been both Labour and Tory parties in government since that time ................

none of them changed what Mrs Thatcher and her government did during their period in power


which indicates to an astute observer that they HAD NO ARGUMENT WITH WHAT HAD BEEN DONE

If Labour had been so opposed to it all, then they would have reversed the policies as soon as they got in ............. no matter what the cost would have been, financially or personally. They had plenty of time to make changes, as well as the mandate.


The fact that the Tories were re-elected 3 times shows that what she was doing was in favour with most people ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, not just in what you are maligning, and sneering at, as the "Home Counties"


Regarding her father ...............

........... I think you are talking out of the top of your hat (for want of a much better phrase) when you say he didn't work hard with a single grocer's shop .........................


he actually had TWO grocery shops, and they lived in a flat over one of them.


and if you think that running a shop is easy, and not hard work ................. then I suggest you try it.


It's damn hard work, granted of a kind different from down the mines ............... but it was very physical in those days (heaving around sacks of sugar, flour, huge wheels of cheese, sides of bacon, etc etc), it required much attention to detail .............. and dealing with the great BBP (Bl***y British Public), as more than one shopkeeper has been heard to describe them.

How do I know?


I worked for one summer in the 1950s in a small grocer's shop ...... the heaving around of supplies delivered from the warehouse to the back door of the shop was what the manager had to do. He was around 50/55 at the time ......... but there was him and me.

Even I had to lift large wheels of cheese around the shop as customers wanted "half a pound of that one, please", and I had to take it over to the cheese slicing board.

No pre-packaged stuff in those days!

Even butter was cut from large blocks.


Unless you did the grocery shopping in those days, of course, you wouldn't have the first idea of what I am talking about.


I also know about running shops .................... OH's parents ran 2 shops from around 1950 until the mid-1960s, when they closed one of them.

Why? Because it was such hard work!

They finally sold the last one, and retired, around 1975.

They had originally opened that shop in the 1930s, and m-i-l ran it all by by herself from 1940 to 1946 while f-i-l was in the Navy. OH was raised for 5 years by his grandmother.

Those shops could never be closed .................. they had to arrange for a locum and a replacement manager if they wanted to be away. It had to be opened every other Sunday, and on Stat holidays for at least 1 hour.

Mrs Thatcher's father would have been in a similar position!

On top of all that, would be the large financial investment ................ and worries


None of the people I knew back then blamed one person for their problems. They might blame the Labour government or the Tories ........... but they had too many brains to even think that one person was responsible.

We bought our council house ,we wouldn't have had a cat in Hells chance otherwise! Just carry on paying dead money every week,with nothing at the end!

I agree with a remark made earlier....schools should teach children how to make basic meals from scratch. Even a half pound of mince can feed a family,if bulked out with mushrooms,grated carrot,onion and tinned tomatoes,with couple of oxo cubes and mixed herbs,and simmered gently,it makes a tasty bolognese to put with pasta....you can buy half pound mince for the price of a bag of chips!

Back to Mrs. Thatcher...I did not agree with ALL her policies,but she did a very difficult job at a very difficult time.

My late father summed her up well...he said she had more b**ls than most men!

She believed in what she said,and went all out to try and achieve it.

At the end of the day,she was a sick,frail old lady. Surely her children and grandchildren shouldn't have to listen to the abuse re their mother/nanny?

And to all those who buy THAT record,you obviously have money to waste.

Rant over!
RIP Mrs Thatcher

I think the heading of this thread is BaronessThatcher,

I'm not typing out a load of why's and why not's ,

I think Sylvia has said it all very welll.

Edit..so did Elaine who posted whilst I was typing.

Why has nobody mentioned the Falklands War and also the sinking of the Belgrano??

Can someone spell out quite simply what exactly were the good changes/laws she as leader brought in that benefited all the people, apart from being able to buy your council house.

I think the Falklands has been mentioned before,perhaps on another thread if not this one.
I'm not trailling thro it to check!
Time for bed.~~~~~~~~~~~

Sylvia, Labour got rid of section 28, as has already been said. Very important.

Interesting round up here of writings this week.

Yes, it's in The Guardian but they have reproduced articles from many sources and opinions from all sides. It was a long read but it pretty much sums up the divisions and why people feel as they feel (on all sides)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2013/apr/11/margaret-thatcher-legacy-best-writing

It begins -

Margaret Thatcher's legacy: roundup of the best writing

Here is a selection of the best writing from commentators, politicians and journalists on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher's 11 years in power - and on her continuing impact in the time following her downfall, as figures from across the political spectrum examine the legacy of one of the most important political figures from the last half-century.

Sylvia. As you may know, I have spent almost all my life in retail. As a 12 year old I was humping hundredweights of local papers about and bringing two 56lbs of coal at a time through to the shop from our lock-up shed in the back yard.

And it was even more manual when I went into supermarkets. Very long hours, very little handling equipment and very large tonnages every week.

Yet I say that was easy work compared to working in heavy industries like coal and steel. It was a healthy service industry compared to the unhealthy work in mining and manufacturing that made a thriving retail sector possible.

I stick by my assertion that Mr Roberts, Miss Margaret Roberts, Denis Thatcher and Mark Thatcher have never understood what a proper day's work is. And it was proper work that made Great Britain great up to about 1960. We were not the nation of shopkeepers that Napoleon claimed.

Since 1960ish, Japan, China and Germany have shown us the way. And we have sat back and watched immigrants do all the proper work (what is left of it). Now we have a stronger immigration policy, we no longer have that luxury - and the pips are beginning to squeak.

Roy. Have not seen anyone suggest that relative poverty is below 50% of average income. Measure seems to be below one third in all countries. 80% of my county are in poverty in my county and perhaps 40% in Hampshire. By your reckoning, it would be over 99% in Rhonnda Cynon Taf and over 80% in Hampshire!! :-0

Thank you Sylvia.

I was pondering on how to respond to John's earlier 'theory' about the Thatcher's and hard work. You put it very well.

John, you seem to be implying that, unless someone took up pick and shovel and went down the mines, then they have no idea of what hard work was!

That implication is something I, personally, find extremely insulting.


I fear each newspaper has it's own particular political slant - like it or not.


It is inevitable that this thread will continue to go round and round in circles. :-(