Margaret Thatcher, R.I.P.?

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Successful industries are self sustaining, those that fail do so because they produce goods that people don't want or produce them too expensively.

If your idea of a solid community are racist, homophobic, misogynist, wife beating, nepotistic centres of excellence then you may have a point.

Remind me, how many femaleunion leaders are there??

Really?
As the graph I put up from the BBC shows quite well, the coal industry wasn't uneconomic - it was class warfare that was being waged, not a fundamental restructuring of an ailing industry. It wasn't just coal mining either but the manufacturing basis of the entre country including train building, ship building, and steel manufacture that was targeted. Targeted, deliberately by a political party that believed service industry should take the place of manufacturing. So it had nothing to do with sustainability but everything to do with the warped ideas in Thatcher (and her cohorts') head.

And here's you saying 'communities' don't exist and then in the next breath classifying entire communities as being racist, homophobic, misogynistic, wife beating and nepotistic. Was that every coalminer then, or just those in Yorkshire and Tyne and Wear and South Wales. It really does show your complete ignorance. I'd go further and say that that sentence in particular shows that you are a moron.

[Worthy4England]

Successful industries are self sustaining, those that fail do so because they produce goods that people don't want or produce them too expensively.

If your idea of a solid community are racist, homophobic, misogynist, wife beating, nepotistic centres of excellence then you may have a point.

Remind me, how many femaleunion leaders are there??

There were more women TU leaders at the time, than women in Thatcher's cabinet. The misogynist bit is complete guff. Lets face it I only need to be able to name 2, which is easy enough given I worked with them. Brenda Dean and Liz Symons.

But I see you needed to broaden your horizons and have bizarrely expanded the notion to include plenty of things that were nothing to do with the main point you originally made and now the wrongs seem to have been expanded from "didn't get off their arse individuals" to a bizarre viewpoint that seems to be saying it was ok to wreck the communities anyhow because they weren't worth saving.. I've heard it all now. (Until the next post anyhow).

[BWFC_Insane]

Successful industries are self sustaining, those that fail do so because they produce goods that people don't want or produce them too expensively.

If your idea of a solid community are racist, homophobic, misogynist, wife beating, nepotistic centres of excellence then you may have a point.

Remind me, how many femaleunion leaders are there??

So you're saying every privatised industry was failing and now in it's privatised state is either successful or has disappeared?

[bobo the clown]

So you're saying every privatised industry was failing and now in it's privatised state is either successful or has disappeared?

Pretty sure the first part was true.

[Worthy4England]

So you're saying every privatised industry was failing and now in it's privatised state is either successful or has disappeared?

Pretty sure the first part was true.

Wouldn't fundamentally disagree.

Not much different than the Financial Services sector today.

[Lord Kangana]

We pile money into all kinds of state funded "privatised" industry. You'd have to be a gibbering idiot not to see that they've just moved the subsidy to areas where they think they'll get more votes. London and the SE is now more directly subsidised than any area of this country has ever been, ever in history. Moreover, it also recieves more capital infrastructure from government than the rest of the bloody island put together. Its got nowt to do with the free market.

[Athers]

Of course us young'uns are entitled to a view but an emotionless automaton who wasn't there, like me, weighing up movements in inflation, employment and growth at a macro-level is not likely to convince someone adversely affected on a more local level of anything. I can understand this.

My own personal anecdote is that I have worked for a privatised utility for a 5 years now and even 29 years after being made private it's still difficult to be agile as a business and push through change. A large proportion of the staff have been here their whole working life (including me) and while this means we have an experienced and loyal workforce, some staff naturally have at least one eye on their final salary pension. We struggle to implement any performance management and non-managers are paid a flat pay-rise negotiated with a union rather than anything related to how well they do their job.

I can only imagine what it was like to do business back in the day!

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Of course us young'uns are entitled to a view but an emotionless automaton who wasn't there, like me, weighing up movements in inflation, employment and growth at a macro-level is not likely to convince someone adversely affected on a more local level of anything. I can understand this.

My own personal anecdote is that I have worked for a privatised utility for a 5 years now and even 29 years after being made private it's still difficult to be agile as a business and push through change. A large proportion of the staff have been here their whole working life (including me) and while this means we have an experienced and loyal workforce, some staff naturally have at least one eye on their final salary pension. We struggle to implement any performance management and non-managers are paid a flat pay-rise negotiated with a union rather than anything related to how well they do their job.

I can only imagine what it was like to do business back in the day!

And I work for a huge multinational, squarely in the free fxckin market, and it's the same as you describe only without the unions. It's the size of the things that weigh them down, not whether they're nationalised or private.
Give me a small cutting edge company anytime (either private or government).

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

We pile money into all kinds of state funded "privatised" industry. You'd have to be a gibbering idiot not to see that they've just moved the subsidy to areas where they think they'll get more votes. London and the SE is now more directly subsidised than any area of this country has ever been, ever in history. Moreover, it also recieves more capital infrastructure from government than the rest of the bloody island put together. Its got nowt to do with the free market.

You think money generated elsewhere in the country is being used for state subsidy in London and the SE generally?

[Lord Kangana]

Thats a bit of a self-perpetuating question, and frankly loaded. We've effectively borrowed ourselves to the hilt to keep those industries afloat, and its all of us paying for it. We don't all see the benefit.

Its in the same way that northern industrial"communities" were subsidised in the '80's through having significant government owned/subsidised jobs putting money back into those same-said communities. Theres plenty of economists, chiefly Gordon Brown (admittedly, not the greatest guy to have your back in a discussion, but one of its chief architecs, (or possibly custodians)) who make this very point.

[thebish]

We pile money into all kinds of state funded "privatised" industry. You'd have to be a gibbering idiot not to see that they've just moved the subsidy to areas where they think they'll get more votes. London and the SE is now more directly subsidised than any area of this country has ever been, ever in history. Moreover, it also recieves more capital infrastructure from government than the rest of the bloody island put together. Its got nowt to do with the free market.

You think money generated elsewhere in the country is being used for state subsidy in London and the SE generally?

that could certainly be argued in the case of the rail industry...

[BWFC_Insane]

We pile money into all kinds of state funded "privatised" industry. You'd have to be a gibbering idiot not to see that they've just moved the subsidy to areas where they think they'll get more votes. London and the SE is now more directly subsidised than any area of this country has ever been, ever in history. Moreover, it also recieves more capital infrastructure from government than the rest of the bloody island put together. Its got nowt to do with the free market.

You think money generated elsewhere in the country is being used for state subsidy in London and the SE generally?

that could certainly be argued in the case of the rail industry...

And it's one of the most striking cases as well.

And as a more general point (and although Major privatised and not by Thatcher) one of the industries where privatisation has been a massive failure.

The problem with the argument of privatisation (and if we're being honest some things certainly benefit from private ownership and market forces) is that it negates the societal benefits of public ownerships. Soaring energy/water bills, massive profits, unethical practices, indian call centres, job losses, drops in service quality. All those things have to be factored in. They are usually forgotten amidst talk of competition and efficiency. Neither of which are bad things but we have to decide if a) leads to b) and also whether b) is really achieveable, and if it is at what price.

[Lord Kangana]

Actually, I think it was the Blair Government that completed the privatisation of rail. They could have stopped it if they wished. Just for clarity.

[thebish]

Actually, I think it was the Blair Government that completed the privatisation of rail. They could have stopped it if they wished. Just for clarity.

indeed.. though under Labour, the East Coast mainline was partly re-nationalised (and still is!)

[Lord Kangana]

Yes, but thats because the privatisation and franchise system in place is a monumental f*ck up. With the highest priced tickets in Europe, haven't we? We must be doing something wrong. Quite fundamentally.

[TANGODANCER]

Not to put cats amongst pigeons, or even defend or decry Margaret Thatcher, but the great London smog of 1952, followed by the clean air act of 1956, was the real beginning of the demise of the coal industry in this country, twenty three years before M.T arrived on the scene. I was seventeen at the time, and even then we could watch the news and read newspapers. On its heels came the Suez crisis for the British government, so even back then we were in a bit of a mess. All this just ten years after we'd just seen World War II end. Worth considering when judging the overall picture we have today?

[Lord Kangana]

We were bankrupt at the end of WWII. Totally bankrupt. Thats the price of both freedom and principle.

Without the massive skills of John Maynard Keynes to persuade the yanks to lend us money for the NHS and rebuilding, without Churchill (and lest it not be forgotten his wartime power base of Morrisson and Attlee) persuading the Americans to go easy on the Germans and rebuild a strong Europe, we'd be f*cked.

I think we could learn some very valuable lessons from that. I believe that we haven't.

[Athers]

Of course us young'uns are entitled to a view but an emotionless automaton who wasn't there, like me, weighing up movements in inflation, employment and growth at a macro-level is not likely to convince someone adversely affected on a more local level of anything. I can understand this.

My own personal anecdote is that I have worked for a privatised utility for a 5 years now and even 29 years after being made private it's still difficult to be agile as a business and push through change. A large proportion of the staff have been here their whole working life (including me) and while this means we have an experienced and loyal workforce, some staff naturally have at least one eye on their final salary pension. We struggle to implement any performance management and non-managers are paid a flat pay-rise negotiated with a union rather than anything related to how well they do their job.

I can only imagine what it was like to do business back in the day!

And I work for a huge multinational, squarely in the free fxckin market, and it's the same as you describe only without the unions. It's the size of the things that weigh them down, not whether they're nationalised or private.
Give me a small cutting edge company anytime (either private or government).

On your last point, of course, until you mentioned government. The government's investment decisions in smaller firms cannot be trusted due to their record of picking winners. e.g. US government investment in that solar panel firm.

But I know my firm and am being kind on here just in case. What you may like though is that the government-enforced 25-year promise of never making anyone redundant is still in place, 140k job losses later, so maybe the slow transition isn't so bad!? It's a good job we're still in dominant position to still have that in place I suppose.

[BWFC_Insane]

Actually, I think it was the Blair Government that completed the privatisation of rail. They could have stopped it if they wished. Just for clarity.

Indeed, although it was pretty much done by that point only small parts left. They did say they would reverse it, but didn't.

[Bruce Rioja]

But as you are squarely middle class, you wouldn't have known anything about that

Well, I must be if a survey on the BBC website says so, eh?
And even if I were, I don't see how that would mean me not knowing anything about it.