Thatcher dead

[Norman Verona]

Jim, good reasoning, someone said similar on Newsnight. She may well have had to save us but she could have done it with some thought for those the got hurt most, it wasn't the rich.

 

Also agree about the state of the finances. A few cuts (that mainly affect the lower paid) will not help.

 

Moff, you forgot to put the smiley.

 

I have a better plan. Make all the non-medical managers in the NHS redundant, get the medical heads of departments to run their departments, employ more nurses and doctors. Reduce our armed forces to a size that befits our standing in the world, our means and the threat we have to defend against. Independent nuclear deterrent?  Who are we going to use these nuclear bombs against?

Who is going to attack us with armies, air forces and a navy?

 

Not a popular view I know but the common sense one. We stopped being a "superpower" in 1945, when are we going to understand that.

[jim_l]

I am in broad agreement with that Norman, we can have an NHS, and public sevices,  but they have to run more efficently than they do now, too many 'Managers' that nobody reports to, but also individuals that have poor performance and atrocious attendance records but are still stoutly defended by the unions.

 

If our public sector ran more efficiently there would be absolutely no reason to privatise any of it.

 

I travel to India a lot, I am stunned that in a country where two million children each year die before reaching the age of 5, billions is spent on nuclear missiles.  We are not as far removed as we think...poverty, foodbanks, and Trident...doesn't add up.

 

I like the concept of 'Balancing' the economy, the public sector can only be as big as our incoming revenue can support. Sadly our private sector is being strangled by debt and other European and world events, for the bits we can inluence we must be allowed to do the right thing, and we must pay off our debt, before our children, and their children, get saddled with it...

 

We need a proper centre political party that can plan the best tomorrow for the country without undue influence from the wealthy or the unions. Otherwise we get pulled from pillar to post in constant conflict.

[davidgh]

We need a proper centre political party that can plan the best tomorrow for the country 

 

I see that "nice Mr. Blair" is coming out again in the media saying almost exactly the same thing . . . . 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22105195

[woodman]

Yes lets go back to New Labour and socalism

Whats better than spending other peoples money and spending what we dont have.

Then we can always borrow a bit more

That we we can become bankrupt and all the EU immigrents and scroungers will have to find somewhere else to live , problems solved

I seem to remember that when Thatcher and Major handed over to Blair the country was in good financial health with little or no debt

As for the poll tax- the perfect fix for todays struggling councills

How anyone can seem to   be litle the sacrifices our forces made in the Falklands defending British people is beyond me

[Norman Verona]

Mr Woodman, I haven't seen anyone belittle our troops.

 

I and others have asked why our lads are dying in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. I have asked why we didn't attempt a peaceful resolution to the Falklands conflict. It may not have succeeded and it may have delayed the task force by a few days, maybe a week, but we owed our lads the right to live their lives the allotted span and have children who could be brought up in peace.

 

As a Socialist, I tend to agree with your criticism of New Labour and Brown in particular, However can you not see what the Conservatives are doing is creating real unnecessary hardship for the lower  paid. We're all in it together only applies to those at the bottom. I see very little evidence of the middle class or "rich" suffering. I also see very little evidence of government spending cuts which are not passed on to the public.

 

Being the cynic I am, the budget before the next election will give tax cuts to all and an easing of the cuts so they get re-elected.

[jim_l]

I think the coalition has done some good stuff wrt to the 'lower paid' (which incidentally is for the most part private sector workers on or about the minimum wage)  Raising the personal allowance by £4000 puts £800 a year in most pockets, whilst lowering the higher rate threshold so those earning over £40,000 don't benefit from that, quite cleverly done. 

 

'Tax cuts for millionaires' is about the least clever thing since the poll tax, and is likely to cost them the next election all on its own.

 

Interestingly, Tomorrows 'very poor' will be todays private sector workers, 70% of whom will be relying entirely on state pensions.  Tomorrows 'middle class' will be the private sector workers that do have a pension, and the public sector pensioners, with both state and public sector pension keeping them in good stead (as I said above, the unions have their uses..)

 

Any suggestions for how we move lower paid private sector workers from the Minimum Wage to a Living Wage?  I think companies should not be able to employ you in this country then pay you at a level that you need state support, but how does that impact employment levels? 

[Norman Verona]

Jim, surely a slight rise in minimum wage and a rise in free pay will go a long way to allowing the lower paid to manage without state aid. However we desperately need more low cost housing to house the lower paid.

 

I came from a low pay household. My father had 2 jobs when I was growing up to make ends meet. We lived in a council flat in Upper Clapton, Hackney. In later years things got better and we had a weeks holiday on the Isle of Wight. 

 

However, my father would have died rather than take benefits. 

 

I despair at some of the things I see. I had a friend who was Down Syndrome. I took him to the pub every Sunday lunch and if we went out he would come with. His widowed, elderly mother gave her life to him. He went to a school 3 times a week which gave her a break.

 

Then the allowance for carers was raised. However, at the same time the local authority ceased to pay for the taxi that took and fetched him. It is people like this that we, as taxpayers, should willingly help. 

 

On the other side, I needed a builders labourer to work on a house renovation I was managing in 1996. I got someone for £40 cash a day. He was on every benefit going. His total income in cash and kind (no rent, rates or utility bills) was £400 per week. Probably more than most working people earned.  

 

Wouldn't it have been nice if we could remember Lady Thatcher for sorting this out rather than closing industries and taking us to war.

[woodman]

Paying someone in cash, who you knew was on beneficts , only added to the misery of low paid workers strggling to make end meet lawfully.

Also it was the out of control unions, with their resticted practices That led to gross inefficency and total uncompetitiveness in the market place that caused the closures

[Norman Verona]

I didn't go through the whole story. I asked him to sign off and I'd pay him the going rate. It was then that he laughed and told me all he got on benefits. He got his phone paid because his daughter was disabled. I asked what was wrong and learnt that she had Glue Ear. Hardly a complaint that needed a phone in case of emergency!

 

I'm more than aware of the union practices during the 70s and 80s. We were installing a conveyor car wash on the Metro production line at Longbridge. Our installation engineer arrive to commence the instal but was sent away as the unions wouldn't allow his Japanese Datsun in. Not the management, but the unions. These were the days of Red Robbo. 

 

However, who was to blame, the management or the unions. I was inspecting the completed wash with the director of works. After the wash was a small set of rollers where the side stripes were affixed to the cars after paint rectification and final wash. There was a table with a kettle and 9 chaps sitting round playing cards. A car came through and one lad put his cards down, got up and fitted the stripes to the car. He then resumed his card game.

 

I counted the number of men sitting down, Nine. I asked the director why nine men were employed to do what one could do. "We negotiated with the union that it takes 3 men to apply the stripes". But, I exclaimed there's nine!. "Oh, there's three types of stripe".

 

However, in my view Lady Thatcher was correct in legislating to get the unions under control. But it was management's job to implement the changes not the Police under government control.

 

I also believe that she was vindictive to the mining industry following the strike. They had little choice but to follow Scargill. 

 

If industries needed closing down a minister for regeneration should have had a large wad to entice new business to the areas hit.

 

The hatred shown by some against the Lady is not based on myth.

[jim_l]

Social housing is a case in point Norman, where people that could afford a house (with or without a little help) choose to remain in social housing, a) because once you are in you are in, there is no means testing, and b) because of the understanding that if you do buy a house then go on to need care, the goverment will recover care costs from your estate, i.e. your house, so what's the point.

 

The people that will be hurt most when we can no longer afford it are those that really need it, but we are not making enough distinction between those that need it and those that are taking it because it is there. 

 

Another case in point is the 2.6 million people claiming disability benefits, of over a million new applicants in 2008 to 2011, 75% were found fit to work or dropped their claims when faced with assessments (introduced by Labour, good on them). I won't talk in terms of scroungers or other emotive and unsavoury terms, but we should talk of a sustainable welfare state where we identify those in need and give them all the help they need

[jim_l]

 "a minister for regeneration" and a fund to go with it...absolutely spot on, and how it should have been done, a managed transition...

[Norman Verona]

Jim I think we both sing from the same hymn book.

[Moff88]

Norm, I don't know to get smileys on my phone so you will just have to guess and imagine all of them!

[jeff oakley]

We can have the NHS and we can have an effective welfare system. We hear a lot about the low paid, but the reality is if they have children the tax credit system helps them. My sister works part time as a hairdresser, bil works as a printer, they get tax credits and a care allowance as the daughter is diabetic. They have two cars, have just moved home with a mortgae, bught a 7 acre field and had an £10k stable block errected for her horse. They have sky etc etc. They do not need the benfits but if you hear them they are so poor and I am lucky.

 

I know that Norm is a great supporter of the EU, but to me we need to look at what we get. There are many UK companies who have closed factories here down and opened with EU grants in East Europe. So we give money to the EU so they can give to the new members, so they can bribe companies to go there, so we effectivly pay to export British jobs how is that right?

 

We need a balanced economy where working is rewarded and refusing to work is punished. We need to look after all our pensioners and those who genrally are too ill to work. I employed a driver who had one leg, he was told he never need work again but chose to set an example for his family and was never out of work, so what is unemployable and deserving of disability benefit? I certainly would not pay anyone because they are obese to sit at home stuffing their fat face with more pies.

 

We need to get a society where we applaude accomplishment, where we are not ashamed to be rewarded for excellance or ashamed to have the trappings of sucess, where those who are not blessed with academic skills are not looked down on but encouraged to develope there skills. Until we get back to this instead of rewarding people with inflated tits whose only skill is to have photos taken with legs so far apart they are in different postcodes, or someone famouse for being on tv we will continue to slide even further.

 

As for the armed forces, as an island we need to have our own set of people with the right equipment. I have no problem with that at all, should we be in Afganistan I thing we should as probably by being there we have stopped terrorisum expanding so fast as it would have and when you see girls being schooled where they would no other wise be it is hard to not see some good. However the price has been high, too high for many.

 

But back on topic I suspect if we had a leader now with Thatchers backbone we would not be dictated by the EU or be apologising for everything we ever did anywhere in the world. I just hope the trash who are allegedly going to disrupt the funeral are dealt with by the armed forces not by social workers who want to appease their behaviour because their dad told them Thatcher took his milk.

[s2rrr]

Jeff well said, going back a little re the Belgrano, I suspect the servicemen on the Antelope, The Sheffield and Sir Galahad may have an opposing view about not sinking it. Pre emptive strike not a problem it was a vessel of the invading opposition and had to be dealt with, had they raised a white flag or made it obvious they were surrendering then we would be guilty. I haven't read anywhere that they were surrendering although they were repositioning themselves. Game over, the Conqueror I believe did its work exactly as it was trained to do so.

 

One thing which does bother me greatly about the funeral and Maggies legacy is how come soft ar*e Mark Thatcher can call himself Sir Mark just because Dennis was a Baronet, Mark the numpty should not be allowed to hold that title.

 

Fairly good debate with a few hard lines sliding in.

 

Bob