Baroness Thatcher has died.

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Amp34 said:
That has little to do with Thatcher though? Considering it must have been taken away in the 70 and then reintroduced in the late 80's/early 90's and then taken away again, unless my school was an oddity providing milk to 7-11 year olds around 93-97.
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It was kind of a broad comment to the loss of milk and not directed as Ms T. It really was meant quite light heartedly
 
Already reincarnated! :eek:

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elmarko said:
I may be bias because I've worked in a nationalised industry (after privatisation) - but I'm well aware of the potential benefits of returning it back into public ownership.

But many of my friends who are life-long conservatives are quite open to the prospect of returning our rail networks to public ownership (which to be honest I found surprising) & many feel the same way about the energy industry.

A poll would indeed be interesting on the subject, a more balanced forum would be preferable (a forum of older/slightly higher socio-economic class geek males isn't going to representative of the wider population :p).
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Whilst I think the ideal of renationalising those industries is a nice one, can we justify it in today's climate?

Workers are already taxed to the hilt and a renationalisation would reduce real-life disposable income from the the ensuing tax hikes. Unfortunately, purely from a fiscal perspective we have far too much national debt to realistically consider renationalisation (IMO anyway). With deep cuts already, and more on the way it would be fiscal suicide (imagine the cost of all the departments, systems, procedures, law, rules and just about every element that would need changing! That is before you even consider tacking the cost of investment and regeneration).

That is not to say that privatisation has worked though. Part of my current job is on a power station and the money it wastes is horrific (£25,000 for a tiny two step scaffold for instance). I have also worked on the railways as a contractor and in my experiences I have seen woeful incompetence. For example, I had to go to a job on the Birmingham main line (under the M6) but it took network rail 3 attempts to get the closure in place as well as the necessary access equipment (3 nights). There were a group of probably 20 men just stood around waiting. Every one being paid for doing essentially nothing and then being sent home. I have had a few like that, and speaking to others it would seem that it is not an isolated incident. I also work on the roads occasionally too, and to be fair, they are one of the best run out of the three.

With regards to the level of support, I cant help feeling people want the perceived benefits of renationalisation, but many perhaps don't fully appreciate that renationalisation isn't a golden ticket (pun intended :p ) to a brilliant rail service. There has been a distinct lack of investment for far too long for it to be an easy route. I think it could work, but not in the current financial climate, and if the current/previous governments are anything to go by, I can't see that position changing any time soon. I fear a vote would boil down to a red top DM style fiasco with people voting for change just to spite the government when in reality, such changes would probably do more harm than good.

On a more cynical note, perhaps part of the reason is that the government and politicians in general are at a low ebb in popularity terms. So if they did renationalise the rail services they would then be in the public firing line when the hoped changes didn't come about, or they did but at massive cost to the tax payer. I suppose the more plates you have, the harder it is to spin them. Much easier, by far, to point the finger at a company when it goes wrong and then act like the embodiment of salvation to the vote casting masses ;) (well, if you don't bungle it at least! :rolleyes: )

Yes a pole on a wider forum would be interesting. Speak for yourself though - I am a James Bond esque image of manliness! Honest :p
 
I think many people would agree that the pendulum swung too much the other way. But thats not the same as saying the institutions at play in 70's did not need curtailing. Much of Northern Europe has a very different Union/Management setup, it is a far more colaborative setup. The UK did not have that. The Unions are therefore just as reposnible as Thatcher for the strong counteraction and the subsequent weakening of Socialist principles in our economy.
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Living in Scandinavia I can tell you the set up here is not so different than what the UK had. Its just that the government tends to fear the unions more here.

Google the Danish School Lockout. Danish kids have been out of school the last two weeks whilst the unions battle with the government over teachers working conditions.

peter_hutson said:
Thatcher on winning, then decided to decimate the mining industry, regardless of long term impact on the economy or society. She did this largely out of revenge and to remove an chance of a further challenge to the state from that part of the economy.
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I disagree that Thatcher's ruination of the mining/steel industries was merely in response to their aggressive stance. Thatcher had an ideology which she stuck to. Her privitisation of energy, water, rail, set the path for the true demise of the UK economy. Her actions got the ball rolling. And now so many conservatives bemoan our lack of competitiveness, our manufacturing decline.

She started it all!
 
peter_hutson said:
The event you're describing sounds like a well thoughtout decision with the nations interests at heart. We never had that in the UK, becuase both parties were effectively at war with each other.

The Unions believed they could run the country and dictate terms to the Government and if necessary bring it down. By the time of the miners strike we had two institutions (NUM and Conservative Government) that hated one another. Thatchers decision to close some mines was right and based on good economic principles, the NUM still fought as they only had their interests at heart and had no interest in the fact that the rest of economy was having to carry the burden of the associated subsidies. Thatcher on winning, then decided to decimate the mining industry, regardless of long term impact on the economy or society. She did this largely out of revenge and to remove an chance of a further challenge to the state from that part of the economy. I think this was wrong and short sited. But I can understand why she did it and her motivations were heavily driven by the unreasonable previous actions of the NUM leadership. The NUM sowed the seeds for what Thatcher did and are just as much to blame for the terrible decimation of mining communities.
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Strong post.

However I feel the nub of it is her getting revenge as you say. Thatcher was a public servant not a monarch or dictator, it is not her place to get revenge on anyone. Obviously the mines needed modernising to get them running effiecently, but she just shut them down and condemmed whole communities to the dustbin.
 
Strong post.

However I feel the nub of it is her getting revenge as you say. Thatcher was a public servant not a monarch or dictator, it is not her place to get revenge on anyone. Obviously the mines needed modernising to get them running effiecently, but she just shut them down and condemmed whole communities to the dustbin.
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I disagree that Thatcher's ruination of the mining/steel industries was merely in response to their aggressive stance. Thatcher had an ideology which she stuck to. Her privitisation of energy, water, rail, set the path for the true demise of the UK economy. Her actions got the ball rolling. And now so many conservatives bemoan our lack of competitiveness, our manufacturing decline.

She started it all!
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oulton said:
Living in Scandinavia I can tell you the set up here is not so different than what the UK had. Its just that the government tends to fear the unions more here.

Google the Danish School Lockout. Danish kids have been out of school the last two weeks whilst the unions battle with the government over teachers working conditions.
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Having lived in Norway and worked a lot with German companies, that is certainly not the impression I get of Northern Europe



oulton said:
I disagree that Thatcher's ruination of the mining/steel industries was merely in response to their aggressive stance. Thatcher had an ideology which she stuck to. Her privitisation of energy, water, rail, set the path for the true demise of the UK economy. Her actions got the ball rolling. And now so many conservatives bemoan our lack of competitiveness, our manufacturing decline.

She started it all!
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I can't agree. Thatchers ideology was one very much of self reliance. If these industries could stand on their own, then there was no reason to close them. What she was against was the rest of the economy subsidising them. I don't understand how you equate the privitisation of key industries to decline? For example our energy industry is one of the most competitive in the world. We have certainly had problems recently, but our domestic gas supply has historically been much cheaper than that seen in Europe. The water companies though are certainly an exception.
 
wordy said:
Strong post.

However I feel the nub of it is her getting revenge as you say. Thatcher was a public servant not a monarch or dictator, it is not her place to get revenge on anyone. Obviously the mines needed modernising to get them running effiecently, but she just shut them down and condemmed whole communities to the dustbin.
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Very true and this is why I have mixed feelings about her. On defeating the Unions she should have adopted a strategy of targeted closures and investment in viable mines. That would have been the "Statesmanly" thing to have done. Instead I stongly suspect she was driven by spite. Politics got in the way of true Goverance. She knew the conservatives would never win over the miners at the ballot box, so she systematically destroyed them. From a purely political perspective this was the right thing to do. When you defeat the enemy you destroy any ability they might have to ever oppose you again. But as I said earlier, the NUM leadership played a significant role in making her feel this was justified and necessary.
 
I can't agree. Thatchers ideology was one very much of self reliance. If these industries could stand on their own, then there was no reason to close them.
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Not sure if serious. Her selling us out made us reliant on foreign imports.


Our energy industry is one of the most competitive in the world.
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Thanks soley to the North Sea.
 
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