Thatcher Dead

wasn't that one of the freedom things that Maggie went to war with the argie scummers - the right to disagree -the falkanders wanted British rule not argie rule...

if one of these labour c.unts was on holiday in Eygpt for example and was taken hostage, would they not want the Government to free them? - obviosuly not!

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Maggie....................................

But John Major was the best leader the UK ever has had. Really he was.

 

Very underrated John Major, a first class prime minister and human being. I'm a huge Churchill fan, but given her roots and the huge mess the UK was in......and not being a man....Thatcher has to have been our best PM. I can't be bothered to trawl the through the last 15 pages, so if already mentioned please forgive. If people think she was some sort of monster, remember she was democratically elected 3 times, she was everything that this country wanted at that time. Tough if you didn't like it, in the same way I hated new labour......that's democracy for you

 

ZZTop - another question for you, if you wouldn't mind. Since you're obviously completely uncritical on every aspect of Thatcher's reign, it's probably not worth asking you any more about that. However, I was interested to read that you're an employer and would like to ask you about that.

You've stated that you believe yourself to be a 'good' employer who treats his workers well. You said you pay more than what you could "get away with" and believe that treating your staff well is good for the business. This is a commonsense point of view and seems eminently sensible to me, but hopefully you'll agree that it's far from universal amongst employers.

There are many who believe that it is efficient and "businesslike" to try to maximise profits by paying the absolute minimum, hounding, berating and cursing their workers, threatening their livelihoods and family wellbeing by keeping them in constant insecurity, refusing to pay sick pay and every other type of bullying, harrasment and victimisation they can get away with. This is especially prevalent in lower-paid and unskilled work. They are safe in the knowledge that if the worker quits or is fired, there are another ten waiting to snap up the job the minute it's advertised. The worker meanwhile, is trapped in these conditions knowing that to leave or stand up against the boss is to risk financial catastrophe for them and their family and a struggle to find another post. I'm sure there will be several people on this board who have experienced such employers, especially in the private sector.

Within your own company, do you believe that recognising a trade union could be positive for the company? For example, during my own time as a union branch official in a large industry, I was able to provide a direct line of communication to the management - suggesting more efficient working practices, letting them know about workers who were failing to cope mentally or physically with their duties (I recall one chap who was literally getting suicidal through pressures of work and was able to get him removed to light duties for a few months), providing representation to those being disciplined or fired and being able to explain a case logically and fully in order to minimise the disruption and costs of tribunals and legal proceedings etc.

You say that your workers "think I am a fair boss". How do you know that? How do you know they're not scared to tell you what they really think, for fear of jeapardising their livelihood? Would you not receive a more balanced opinion and have a more objective outlook about the state of mind of your employees if their concerns were relayed to you through the relative anonymity of a union rep?

Finally, I'd be interested to know whether you feel there's any place for trade unions in the British workplace today or whether they should be banned completely?

 

Roch, u should, feckin hilarious thread - if only the labour side of the wfc fan base would show as much passion at the games, the club wouldn't need to allocate unreserved seating in the VR end -the ground would be rocking from the peasant fans.

Frst class to Millwall is it?

"The peasants are revolting"

Yes, I know they are!"

 

The pot calling kettle black springs to mind

 

Clive has clearly missed out what he was trying to say here, so I'll help him out.

ZZtop - Could you please offer Clive a job interview as he's currently had very little luck on his dream career as a grave digger.

 

Sorry.

 

that's as feckin meek as tony scum canut blair... fight for your feckin right to be sorry!

 

Well...I'm sorry I got cross. I'm very fond of you.

 

that's as feckin meek as tony scum canut blair... fight for your feckin right to be fond!

 

For me, the greatest British PM of recent times was Clem Attlee.

The post-war Labour government gave us universal health care free at the point of use, the right to free secondary education for the first time (fees for grammar schools abolished), continuous full employment, security of tenure for farmers, the wages board to set minimum wages, the nationalisation of basic industries and public utilities, an end to "casual labour" practices, the family allowance payment, sickness benefit, unemployment benefit, a massive building programme of high quality homes to replace those destroyed in the war, big increases in pensions and social services obligations, big improvements in infant mortality and life-expectancy statistics.....well I could go on and on.

For me, all Thatcher did was dismantle. She built or created nothing.

 

Really? I thought you liked her.

 

Bravo Clive! You've got it......the post war labour government was exactly what this country wanted and needed then in exactly the same way the country wanted and needed Margaret Thatcher in the late 70's. your previous post on poorly treated workers is terribly depressing and I think probably very exaggerated. I've also got my own business, albeit small, we work as a team and are friends as well. I know I am a good boss,but I also know I've got the best support team/staff in my line of work(they know I know too).......apologies for so many knows in one sentence.

 

..... Yes they did. And like every Labour government since they didn't have the faintest idea how to pay for it all once they found out money doesn't grow on magic money trees.

 

zz - one of the reasons why scargill didn't ballot the miners was becuse the posties were out on strike (the ballot paper could not reach the member, tool whatever) in sympathy with the bus drivers who were on strike due to the emergence of new age bus drivers who were also out on strike for their fellow transport workers at British Airways who were out on strike for a worker wearing a cross around her neck on duty becuase it was upsetting non Christians.

London underground came to a halt in sympathy for a lazy train driver who was dismissed for being late thus making London workers late for ten weeks whilst his case was heard and he was reinstated with the privelage of being allowed to be late as a human right as an acceptable part of his employment due to his mental health of having to look out for frozen leaves on the track all year round which ultimatley made him go deaf in one eye and blind in one ear alas Londeners often remained late for work. Optiticians went on strike in symapthy of this and once again Grated Britain could not see what the feck was happening as they went back to the voting booths for the next general erection.

 

Well, you're right inasmuch as they did all this with the economy absolutely destroyed after the war.

It gives the lie to the 'no money' argument put forward by today's Tories.

 

I'll answer your questions, but I think that you could at least comment on the answers I gave previously, as I took the time to answer you in some detail. Common decency, I'd say.

I have never said that Thatcher did everything right. I dont believe she did. For example, she was totally against Apartheid (as the South African De Klerk has confirmed) but she failed to back sanctions, thinking that there was better way, when I think she should have done. The Poll Tax was "fairer" in some ways but not in others and definitely wasn't a workable solution. The Council House sale would have been great if a portion of the money could have been used to build new homes, if matched by efficiences elsewhere. She definitely shouldn't have cosied up to Pinochet, but then she wouldn't have been the first or last PM to cosy to someone who turned out to be a tyrant.

There, a handful of balanced criticisms of Thatcher, more than you and all your fellow anti Thatcherites (combined) have come up with for any positives about Thatcher.

In general, I think there is certainly a place for Trade Unions, or something similar. There will be some bad employers as well as good employers, and whilst general employment rules have been strengthened making it far more difficult to be ill-treated, yes there is a place. They would be useful in a situation like you have described in paragraph three.

In a public service Union, though, the Unions seem to work on the premise that no matter how innefficient the operation is, the public purse should just pick up the tab regardless. When Scargill said that he wanted every pit to stay open until it is exhausted, that is basically what he is saying.The same was happening in most other nationalised industries at the time. It is also still happening. When I happened to ask my cousin ( local government employee) how many days holiday she has left whilst discussing her honeymoon, she quite matter of factly, added her 7 days holiday to the 11 days sick she hadn't taken and said, without any hesitation " I can still take 18 days yet". I questioned her about that and she said "We all do it, we're entitled to it and our Union rep tells us we should take it". That is what I am talking about.

In the 70's, the Unions were not looking out for their members. They repeatably called strikes without a mandate, they did the damage to the Country and there is no way that we could have carried on as we were. Something had to give. The Unions were not addressing what you mentioned in Para three, they were running the country. They bankrolled the Labour Party. Both Harold Wilson and James Callaghan were powerless to stop the rot. Hence the "winter of discontent" that happened under Labour. How convenient it is for all the Thatcher haters to forget the rats in the street, rotting rubbish all over the pavements, bodies unburied, the 30 million strike days lost in one year, the bail outs from the IMF mostly due to the high cost of the public services - PRIOR to Thatcher being the PM.

It is different in a private company, as the money pot is certainly not as deep as in a public service and any Unions should be taking that into account. But let's be clear. Regarding my Business, I took the risk, it was my mortgaged house on the line, and I stood to lose everything if it failed, so whilst I may be happy for Union involvement in some things I do not want them involved in applying demarkation rules, strict hours or in any other way creating inneficiencies in my operation. Neither do I want them telling me how to run my business. They are not the experts.

But every day I consult, discuss and argue over decisions I need to make in my business, with my employees and colleagues. I encourage dissent, providing they explain why. I dont need Union involvement. If I want to open a new office, or indeed close an existing office, I dont want some Union Rep telling me to do something in a different way, or "we'll be out on strike". I accept that you have suggested more efficient working practices to your Company when you were a Union Rep, but I would expect that from my employees, and that is what I get. I believe that Business owners should treat every worker well, but the business owner is the one supplying the job and that shouldn't be forgotten.

You must ask why Nissan, for example, I think, has not lost a single day to industrial action in 25 odd years. it is because they have a single Union that works with the Company. They look after the workers interests, but every worker has some say in how the business can be shaped, through a policy of regular "across level" meetings and Kaizan (Japanese for "continuous improvement"). They have a Just In Time logistics plan, which means that a part is only made when it is needed. All that requires co-operation and a Union that knows it's place.

Nissan is one of the most productive and efficient car plants in Europe but they wouldn't have even been in Sunderland if they had Red Robbo to contend with

Lets also be clear that many of the Union leaders were self confessed communists and some of those rose through the ranks of the Labour Party. If they had succeeded in applying their mantra to Britain, then we would have failed with the rest of the communist regimes. It is a strange situation that although many Union Leaders were Communists/Marxists/Stalinists, in the USSR itself, the Trade Unions are actually not there to look after the workers but are well known as "arms" of the Communist Party and government. Hypocracy at it's finest.

On a slightly different matter. Talking about hypocracy, during the miners strike, when the lefties hero Scargill was trying to get everybody on strike and not paying them from Union funds, unless they went on the picket lines, Scargill was getting his own mortgage paid by the union as well as for another luxury flat in London. It was only three months ago that he lost a long running court battle against the (now tiny) NUM about whether they should continue to pay for this Londo flat that he says should be paid for beyond his life and that of his wife's life. Sociallism only works for those at the top. Bob Crowe, Head of the RMT Union, for example, needs a council house apparantly (he earns £140,000 pa minimum) and gets his rent subsidised by the council!!!

I hope that answers your questions, but as I have said, it would be decent if you actually acknowledged my answers with some comment.

 

Yahoo finance has an excellent article on Thatcher's policies. Take it with a pinch of salt as it is from a City AM correspondent but interesting facts are used to back up his claims.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/blame-margaret-thatcher-todays-problems-174519607.html

 

An excellent article with, as you say, some real facts to digest or ignore, depending on what side of the Thatcher argument you sit on.

 

Ref trade unions.

There is no need for them in UK if employment law is robust enough and applied effectively. As it is not they have their place, but often they focus on what they can get for the employees, rather than what can they do to improve the situation for the employees and the company as a whole.
Recent public sector and tube strikes completely focused on their members and not on the fact that everyone has to take a little pain when time is hard. They expected everyone else to suffer a little extra in place of their members who should get increased benefits.

 

I think the ballot rules should be changed.

Apparantly a strike "mandate" has been demonstrated by the following ballot results;

By the NUT --- 92% in favour of strike, but only 40% felt strong enough to vote, so in reality only 36.8% want to strike
By Unison --------78% ----------------------------------------29% --------------------------------------------------------------22.6% ----------------
By the PCS-------61% ---------------------------------------- 32%--------------------------------------------------------------19.5% ---------------

How can strikes be called when less than a fifth of staff want a strike. The law should be changed.

Strike action should only be allowed if something like 55% of all members vote to strike

 

Do you even lift?

 

i fink they should vote on that idea zz...

My sources from inside have informed me that now when they vote for strike action via the internet, they expect to be automatically put into the ballot box ipod draw. Whispers that one member was not enetered into said draw and is considering strike action, having already submitted multiple complaints to HR. One day they will go on strike of striking the fick scum canuts.

 

Were the canuts balloted before their revolt in Lyon?

 

There's only one way to settle this.... FIGHTTTTTTT!

 

they were sent shallot papers but they were english so the stoopid frogs couldn't understand what it was all about - the frogs have been bi-lingual ever since.They were bi sexual for ages before that a trait that still brings the arabs/north africans/Kingjames to their humble abodes - in abundance..

 

Yes, I would agree to an extent. But the main difference is how both sides of the spectrum present themselves.

A business owner will be in it to make money. Everybody knows that. He doesn't set up a business to just provide jobs. The methods he uses to get a profit will vary in accordance with how he feels he can get the best out of his workforce. On one hand he can treat them well, treat them like friends or family, like I think I do, in the expectation that a happy ship is a more succesful ship, for everyone. Or he may believe that he can treat them mean and get the best profitable result through the "stick". But everybody knows what both types of business owner is ultimately after - a profitable, successful and sustainable business.

Thatcher, was blunt. She told us at every opportunity that we were uncompetitive and this had to be rectified. She told us that the Unions were too powerful and had to be kerbed. She told us that public services were expensive and inefficient, and that had to be rectified. She was telling us nothing new, as we were almost bankrupt when they took over from the labour shambles in 1979. We knew all these things already because of the terrible state our Country was in. But she still told us. She told us that we would defend The Falklands, and we did. All these things we did and she still won three general elections.

Whereas, Unions pretend that they are there for the good of their workers, but that is a sideline. There are numerous papers from Marxist groups demonstrating the infiltration of the Unions was a significant part of establishing communism in this Country and bringing down the western society. That is why many of the Unions were lead by Communists, the leaders regularly visited Moscow with Labour Ministers and MP's, meeting with Soviet leaders, etc. They discussed how the Soviets could help bring down the UK government. That is why a large amount of funding came from the USSR to the unions to create disputes and strikes. That is why, when strikers were starving, their leaders were living in luxury. These are facts and not disputed. There are at least 8 major Union leaders, including at least two Heads of the TUC, that were communist at around that time, that I am aware of, but there will be many more.

Dishonesty and hidden agenda's only fool (over time) those that want to be fooled and want to shut out or hide from the truth when it comes from sources that they believe are politically opposite. When communication improves and it becomes more difficult to hide from the truth then the fooling is less successful. That is why Unions are now a shadow of their former selves and why strike ballots only show that 20% of members actually want to strike.

The unions were a lie. That is the difference between the "left and right" in recent history.

 

But that isn't the point.

Do you think that the Unions would have become so powerful in the eyes of their members if they had been honest and declared that they are part of the Communist/Stalinist/Marxist to overthrow their country, in the middle of the Cold War? Of course they wouldn't. so they largely hid it. It was a lie. It isn't demonisation, it's a fact. Ken Gill whilst leading the TUC, even admitted that he was a member of the Communist Party at their conference in his closing speech. Several of the communists have admitted the meetings took place in Moscow and that they attended conferences in Cuba and ways of bringing down the UK was discussed with the Soviets.

Some communist links did come out at the time, but they mostly reflected links with Communist organisations in East Germany. Maybe that pounded more palatable.

You may call it demonisation, but it's the truth.

Your last Tory bashing sentence need a further qualification to have any credibility.

 

ZZTop - I hadn't realised you were expecting answers to your answers and had thought to leave them to be judged by readers. However, since you've asked for some feedback I'm happy to do so.

I don't think you can conclude that the failure to hold a ballot meant that the majority did not support the strike. As a branch official in a union that was part of the 'triple alliance' of miners, dockers and railwaymen at the time, I was very much involved at the time. My father in law, was a striking NUM member from Tilmanstone pit in Kent. Certainly, I never heard any complaint from him or others that they had been 'forced' into striking against their will. The vast majority came out on strike and remained on strike, despite the deliberate policy of impoverishing strikers in order to force them back to work as detailed in the Ridley plan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridley_Plan) we discussed earlier . I would say that this implicitly showed their support for the action.

You yourself agree that local ballots that were taken also showed a majority in support of action. This would seem to conclusively disprove your assertion that a "huge majority" were against the strike. It's illogical to assume that those who didn't vote in the ballot were against a strike. You simply cannot make that assumption. As we know, the current Tory government has no popular mandate. It won 10.7 million votes across the country, which was 35.2% of votes cast. However, this was on a turnout of 61%. If we're to assume that the 17 million people who didn't vote were automatically anti-Tory, then those voting for a Conservative government was less than 20% or 1 in 5 voters! You can't make that assumption.

As for the law that was invented to sequester the union's assets, this was clearly a political use of the courts and intended to break the union financially. It was one of the first times that there had been such blatant political manipulation of the impartiality of the British judicial system - something we've seen on many subsequent occassions unfortunately. The NUM was very smart to move its money out of their clutches before the inevitable "judgment" was declared. In the meantime, the secret services planted black propaganda and lies within the media about the NUM being financed by Gaddafi and other such nonsense. Every single aspect of the state and establishment was brought in to defeat the miners. You'll remember that the government denounced the miners as 'the enemy within' and acted accordingly. In her autobiography, Stella Rimmington, who was head of MI5 at the time, revealed 'counter subversion' actions that were taken against the NUM and its leadership.

I would not agree that London Weekend Television or MORI are Marxist organisations. As much as we accept any opinion poll, it seems reasonably safe to assume that their sample was taken from sufficient miners nationally to make it a reasonably accurate snapshot of opinion amongst NUM members at the time. Certainly if, as you contend, a huge majority of miners were against the strike, you would not expect a poll to show almost two thirds saying the opposite. The only reason such a result could occur would be if there were serious flaws in the polling methods used or some deliberate tampering with the results. I cannot think of any reason why LWT or MORI would fake such a poll. I'd suggest that if either of those were the case, this would have been challenged and/or exposed at the time.

Judging by those who came out and supported the strike throughout a long year of impoverishment and sustained attacks from all of the forces the state could muster, I would think that a result of around 2/3 in favour and 1/3 against would be about right. Around 73% of miners came out on strike at the start and this (understandably) declined to around 60% by the end. This again would support the LWT/MORI poll results of 62% in favour.

No serious analysis of the strike that I have ever read, even by the most right-wing commentators, has ever suggested that a majority of miners were against the strike, let alone a huge majority as you claim. There's no evidence whatsoever to back up such an allegation and as such, I'm afraid I'd dismiss it completely.

As I've explained above, I had intimate and personal experience of the miners' strike - and not just second hand tales from golfing chums. As I stated, the NACODS union voted 82.5% in favour of strike action. This vote took place in October 1984, some 7 months into the NUM strike. Until then, NACODS members had gone into work to carry out essential maintenance without which pits would suffer structural damage and would have to close down anyway. If they had gone on strike, all of the working pits would have had to close immediately.

Following the NACODS vote, a joint proposal to stop the pit closures was drafted by the two unions and submitted to ACAS. The NCB agreed to consider the proposal and return for talks a few days later. It has been reported that Thatcher told a government special committee at the time that she felt she had no option but to agree to the settlement terms. However, on the eve of the promised talks, NACODS suddenly announced that it had reneged on its agreement with the NUM and settled separately with the NCB. The reason for this sudden dramatic volte face has never been adequately explained. I would suggest that the 'dark forces' of the state were almost certainly involved. Certainly, the settlement made no sense and NACODS members were subsquently thrown onto the scrapheap alongside their NUM counterparts. The NACODS leader, Ken Sampey, took the secret of this sudden betrayal to his grave. It would make for a good episode of 'Spooks'!

As part of the Ridley Plan detailed earlier, great efforts were made to keep the miners isolated from other workers. We in the railway unions were bought off through immediate agreement to a large pay rise (unheard of under Thatcher!) and a subsequent letter published in the Daily Mirror confirmed this was to stop us from striking at the same time. Many members were outraged at this and believed that as part of the triple alliance, we should have been out in solidarity anyway, along with the dockers. The dockers also came out on strike at the time, but were similarly bought off and sold out by a right-wing leadership in pretty quick order.

Unfortunately, we had a weak leadership who were worried about being persecuted by the state in the same way as the NUM leadership had been. Secondary action in solidarity with the miners was by then completely illegal and there's no doubt such persecution would have taken place. They were worried about the union's funds being sequestered and losing their houses and cars. The TUC and the "Labour" party were worse and as Scargill said when the strike was defeated "One of the reasons is that the trade union movement of Britain with a few notable exceptions has left this union isolated." .

Nevertheless, as individual members we refused to cross NUM picket lines, which often meant we didn't move any coal during the strike. Our branch adopted a pit and sent regular donations and individual members (including myself) travelled to take part in pickets many times - even though this working class solidarity had been declared 'illegal' by the Tories. Many, many other individual union members backed the miners solidly and were dismayed by the leadership's failure to take supportive action. We realised, as was subsequently proven by events, what would be the future of trade unions and future employment conditions, if the miners were beaten.

For our trouble, we had a huge number of depots and yards closed down after the strike. The scab lorry drivers kept the coal traffic and that's why to this day, you have hundreds of lorries roaring up and down the country, ripping up the roads, rattling the windows, choking up the air, getting stuck under bridges and running people over, rather than a single quiet efficient electric freight train doing the same job.

I particularly recall a night shift where we refused to move copies of The Sun which had the headline "Scum of the Earth" and began "Britain's miners used to be considered the salt of the earth. Today, they're the scum of the earth." Unfortunately, every locomotive attached to the paper trains that night was discovered to have unrepairable faults and that sh1tty poisonous rag never went anywhere. Subsequently, we also lost the newspaper traffic, and that's why to this day the papers are taken up to the midlands, north and scotland in thousands of belching lorries as above.

I won't deny there was some intimidation of scabs. Anyone who experienced the strike or who researches it, will know that there was also tremendous violence from a politicised police force who appeared in riot gear and black jumpsuits with no numbers on. You'll be aware of the current investigation into the fabrication of police evidence and the savage beating and subsequent framing and prosecution of miners at Orgreave.

I imagine it'll be hard for you to envisage, but when you're on strike along with everyone else and losing your wages in a fight for everyone's future, one or two people letting you down and going into work and getting their full money is seen as an unforgiveable betrayal. In my experience, when the union wins extra pay or conditions, the scabs are the first ones in line to get their handout. When violence is handed out to you, it's very difficult to not respond in kind. I'm in total agreement with Jack London when he wrote:-

"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab.
A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue.
Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.
When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out.
No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there is a pool of water to drown his carcass in, or a rope long enough to hang his body with."

The strike was calculated to have cost the country billions. Not just in the huge cost of militarising the police force, importing foreign coal, stopping free movement by setting up road blocks on the major motorways etc., but subsequenly in unemployment and other benefits paid to those who were thrown out of work. There was also a huge human cost in ruined lives and livelihoods. There were the suicides, the divorces, the drug addiction and dereliction that still blights former mining areas to this day.

Scargill and the NUM said that the closure of the five pits was the first step in government plans to decimate the coal industry. You'd surely agree that events have proved them to be absolutely correct on that score. Once the pits were judged to be 'uneconomic' and closed, they quickly became unsafe and can never be opened again. All the reserves are lost. Of course, with the volatility of energy prices, such foolish judgements of 'uneconomic' change in an instant. Technology has been developed which allows the clean burning of coal. We're now dependent on energy imports from unstable and unpredicatable countries such as Russia.

It wouldn't have mattered what the NUM had done, the government had prepared for a strike and wanted a strike in order to defeat the 'vanguard' of the trade union movement and exact revenge. If Scargill had said that they accepted completely the need to close the six pits, the government would have announced the closure of 60 more. If they'd accepted that, they would have done something else until the miners came out and the plan could be put into operation.

You might feel that this represented 'good leadership', but I would contend it was short sighted, vengeful, spiteful class war carried out on behalf of the rich and powerful against the poor and powerless.

I doubt whether you're really ignorant of what the French resistance did during the second world war. Yes, they were fighting against a foreign occupation and domination of their country and civilians were often killed. Often the Nazis took revenge on many hundreds of innocents following resistance sabotage and other actions against them. It's surely not too much of a stretch to view the ANC struggle against the apartheid regime as a war against European colonialists who had occupied and dominated not only their country, but also large parts of their continent.

The Thatchers were supporters of apartheid and racists. I note the former Australian minister's comments about her "unabashedly racist views" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22087702) and recall her earnestly stated concerns about Britain being "swamped" with immigrants. Dennis was profoundly against sporting sanctions against SA and was often a visitor to that country.

In contrast to almost every other country in the world, she refused to impose sanctions against the apartheid regime and called Mandela a terrorist. Displaying her usual political vision and astuteness, she said that anyone who believed the ANC would ever rule South Africa was 'living in cloud cuckoo land'. Even Cameron has been moved to disown and apologise for her SA stance. Little wonder that FW De Clerk will be one of the principle mourners at her funeral, whilst back in South Africa it's reported that there will be 'few tears shed' over her demise (http://www.johannesburgnews.net/index.php/sid/213693553/scat/371b1b8643d479c1).

 

It's a lot to read I know, but I've tried my best to answer fully.

Just a quick note on Communist 'infiltration' of unions and desire to bring 'the country' down.

Yes, there were/are many communists amongst trade union members. When British and Soviet troops met in Berlin in 1945, the British were particularly impressed with what the Russian workers had been able to achieve without the need for being ruled by a elite clique made up of an aristocracy, a monarchy, plutocrats and their supposed 'betters'. It was this sentiment that led to the defeat of Churchill and the election of the Attlee government after the war.

It was not "the country" that british communists wanted to see fall, it was capitalism. Many (myself included) think that the concessions given to the poor at the time, such as universal education, the NHS etc, were not out of the goodness of capitalists' hearts, but out of a fear they would end up the same way as the Tsars or the French aristocracy! Now there is no fear of such an outcome, those concessions are gradually being removed and taken away from us.

I don't want to get into another long discussion about the merits or otherwise of communism. However, I do think that its basic premises (as expounded by Marx & Lenin) are sound, but that it became perverted and twisted in its implementation in some countries.

I think capitalism is way, way past its sell by date. It was perhaps appropriate back in the days of the industrial revolution, when there was a need to bring workers in from agriculture to the factories, but in these days of mechanisation and computerisation it's tremendously wasteful, terribly inefficient, cruel and the cause of conflicts and wars all across the globe. It's also destroying the planet through pollution and waste of resources. It causes more than half the world's population to live in abject, ignorant poverty. How many Einsteins, Galileos, Brunels etc are we losing through leaving most of the world's population struggling in a desperate fight just to survive?

ZZtop - I'd be interested to know whether you've ever read the book 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' by Robert Tressell? This was the book that was judged to have won the election for Attlee when it was passed amongst British troops returning from war. If you have, I'd be interested to know your opinion. If not, I'd recommend it to you.

Although it deals with working life in Britain in the early 1900s, I'm sure you'll recognise many of the characters amongst todays employers, such as Mr Didlum, Mr Slyme and Mrs Starvem.

 

Thank you Clive for finding the time write such interesting posts :sign15::sign15::sign15:

 

You live on planet fantasy mate. Two things:

How do quiet, efficient and clean electric trains run where there are no overhead lines? Did anyone tell you that large parts of the country are still not electrified.
Papers aren't all printed in London anymore. We have this thing called digital media so that papers can be printed all over the country and delivered locally.

The way the unions treated people who didn't want to strike was appalling, and still people are abused TO THIS DAY, yet you brush that under the carpet with half a line. You're stuck in the 70's pal with your communist mates.