Re: Selling the Family Silver? Or Prudent Move?

By "resolve" I assume that you mean capitulate?

Re: Selling the Family Silver? Or Prudent Move?

Not a question of capitulation, if the workers employed in that industry own and run it, then the question of strikes against an intransigent management ceases to be an issue.

Re: Selling the Family Silver? Or Prudent Move?

Re-nationalisation was never my contention, and to re-nationalise with no compensation to the thousands of average, normal, working people who bought shares in these companies in good faith is pure theft.

Regarding your quote above, isn't this is where nationalised industries always fail? Without strong independent management, workers will always act in their own selfish interests, which isn't usually in the interests of others, and you invariably end up with overpaid, undermotivated workers and shoddy , overpriced goods or services which no-one can afford, want, or find desirable. Think British Leyland.

Another prime example would be the coal industry. The miners were the instruments of their own demise, demanding too much money for doing too little work, which the rest of society would have to subsidise.

You may want to subsidise idleness and incompetance, but I certainly don't!

Re: Selling the Family Silver? Or Prudent Move?

You may want to subsidise idleness and incompetance, but I certainly don't!


Really Plantman??? - and what would you call those overpriced ignorant cretins currently called 'Bankers' (I have another name for them) who reward themselves with vast bonuses whilst at the same time ruining the country with enormous debts and then expect 'us' to bail them out???

Many years ago, we had a manufacturing industry but Margaret Hilda (phth, phth, phth), either sold it off, or bankrupted it for idealogical reasons.

Re: Selling the Family Silver? Or Prudent Move?

I agree Joe, I don't want to subsidise the bankers either and have, like the majority of the population, a distaste for their immorality, although I don't believe they were the sole architects of our present predicament.

Regarding your final sentence, my contention is that Margaret Thatcher saved this country from the ever downward spiral of dogmatic socialist destruction, and put the "Great" back into Britain. She is, though, a very useful scapegoat to the socialist, rather like the bankers are now, but history will eventually set the record straight.

Re: Selling the Family Silver? Or Prudent Move?

Wasn't the main reason for the demise of the coal industry the fact that we were importing cheap coal from countries where the working conditions for the miners were atrocious and people had to work for so much less with a very poor standard of living with few rights that some would akin to slave labour. Gas was also more plentiful, cleaner and competitive then and many power stations were no longer coal fired. Homes stopped using coal as well in favour of a cleaner environment, cost and convenience. Granted that the Unions had got very arrogant and a power struggle developed between them and the government (a struggle the govvernment had to win) but the British mining industry could not hope to compete with foreign imports, even if the miners had halved their wages and health and safety had gone back to Victorian times in this country. A very similar thing happened to the clothing industries in Britain - they could not possibly hope to compete with China, India and other countries, where the workforce still work in intolerable conditions for very little reward. Nobody can say that the garment industry in this country ever had high wages and the workforce priced themselves out of the market. It was never going to be a level playing field when countries with almost third world working conditions and wages came on the scene. Even call centres went abroad because companies found they could pay the workforce peanuts and it made economic sense to them.

Re: Selling the Family Silver? Or Prudent Move?

All very valid comments Aerolor, certainly major factors, and all further evidence against the assertion by some that the destruction of our industries was all the doing of the "wicked" Margaret Thatcher.

Re: Selling the Family Silver? Or Prudent Move?

Maggie might not have been wicked, but she was arrogant, abrasive, confrontational and bossy. I still don't like her and think she could have been more diplomatic, less destructive with her short term thinking and not gone head to head with everyone who disagreed with her - the old trout.

Re: Selling the Family Silver? Or Prudent Move?

Isn't this indicative of most strong leaders, that they have a vision which people then vote for? Is strength of vision and purpose always a bad thing, or just if it's Margaret Thatcher? Did Tony Blair give way to anyone, he even took us to war whilst all around were doubting him. He never once wavered from his purpose, and that was just doing a favour for a mate!

Re: Selling the Family Silver? Or Prudent Move?

No I don't think a strong leader need to be like she was. Strength of vision and purpose is a good thing, but you can have a sense of purpose and a vision without becoming an abrasive pain in the a.... A political leader should have more diplomacy than she had. A good part of the role is dilomatic persuasion and she was about as persuasive as a rhino on the rampage. She just put her head down, stamped her foot and went for it regardless. I think Tony Blair was far more diplomatic - not necessarily right, but definitely more diplomatic. I became ashamed that she was the first female Prime Minister in this country. She became petty and mean minded, intolerant of anyone who went against her - in that respect I think she betrayed her gender. She was even mean spirited and disparaging of John Major when he took over leadership.

PS Tony Blair was not doing a favour for a mate - we have to have a firm alliance with the USA.