Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Actually, we can see what was achieved by the war over the Falkland Islands and it is viewed as a positive by the inhabitants. What has been achieved by the war in Iraq, how many lives lost and £ billions by comparison. If it wasn't for Thatcher we would have the communist trade unions running this country by now, a bunch of Arthur Scargills who pretend to be standing up for the under- priviledged, but in reality who want to be living in country mansions and driving about in flash cars.

Driver........filter cynic I did yesterday ( a 6 week suspension) hes not genuine in his debating just wants to cause arguments and disruption and doesnt even believe in whats hes posting. Basicaly hes just out to take the -iss.

If more and more filter him hel get fed up and enter a debate without returing to his public schoolboy rheotoric where he trys to take delight in getting one over on you through his use of the English language.

Bin him.

sticky has only squelched me because i had the gall to challenge him on his assertions as to my lack of integrity .... sorry sticky, but even if you can't read this, you clearly lack backbone and balls

and no, i'm not out to take the piss or (necessarily) just to be contentious .... however, i seem to manage to raise questions that certain people find it difficult to answer

Doodlebug.......... proffessional bodies for accountants, solicitors, lawyers, doctors etc etc are far more militant than any labour union today.

For a kick off they are restrictive practices and you have to be a fully paid up member and pay your annual subs or you just dont practice, its as simple as that.

You cant opt in or opt out like you can in the labour unions these days.

This practice enables these proffessions to keep monopoly positions and leads to the extreme charges they levy on customers.

So please can we have a balanced debate and not the knocking you seem to like to carry out on the working classes.

This is not the 'Cockneys Den' thread where all have to follow the dictator in charge or face eviction.

The fact that the Belgrano was streaming away has nothing to do with its sinking. It was a legitimate target. It was not a civilian ship. It was an Argentinian warship. (actually it was American sold to Argentinia and survived Pearl Harbour).

Actually a lot of these professional bodies have brains, gf - unlike Scargill. Margaret Thatcher was a product of the working classes, people seem to forget that just because she had a 'posh' accent. And I don't know why you suddenly introduced 'Cockneys Den' into this debate. What on earth has this got to do with 'Cockneys Den'? I'm not knocking the working classes, I regard myself as working class i.e. I have worked hard all my life, was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, paid my taxes etc.etc.

I see goldfinger is spouting the same nonsense. There have been several investigation into trades union in recent years. The opt in/out is a fallacy in many unions. Some unions make it a condition of opting out of the 'political levy' that you have to attend a union meeting and request the opt out. You have to do this in front of work mates. Another example of union pressure on workers to fall in line.

Thatcher, polarised opinion and will continue to do so long after her death.

There is little doubt that she intended to break the unions or at the least, bring them to some sort of account. Anyone looking back through history or lived as a clear thinking, rational adult through the 70s could doubt that the country had been brought to its knees by union power and outdated practises. Scargill, fortunately, stepped willingly into the breach and allowed the NUM to become the tool of its own destruction and he became almost solely responsible for the emasculation of the Unions. Scargill was responsible for the destruction of the mining industry but the old, one eyed miners never saw it that way and probably never will.

Britain desperately needed modernisation and she made it happen. As ever, there were mistakes, some major, some minor, but the UK recovered from been a banana republic to a functioning country. Many of those former miners and factory workers retrained and found alternative employment. Their two weeks in Butlins at Skegness, living in a council house and catching t'bus to work, became two weeks in Benidorm, a nice new shiny car and a mortgage. A quantum shift in UK living standards.

Grocers were considered Middle class DB in those days.

And ive seen your rants against labour on the CR thread.

Anyway Im not going to get pulled into the debate about Maggie not yet. Its time for respect. Theirs a time and place for everything.

Just want to balance things out. Scargil was God to some of the miners and was a very clever man although a scheming man history as shown, but their were other decent union leaders.

Again we are going back to Tory propoganda.

And Goldfinger did very well out of the policies introduced by the Conservative govt, yes?

Good post chuckles. It's interesting that a lot of the people who claim to be worse off now than they were in the 70's can now afford to go overseas for a nice holiday.

Chuckles......... Scargil claimed he had seen a secret hit list of 38 pits that were to be axed.

Hesaltine in the House OF Commons denied this and said no such list existed.

More or less than 1 year to the day 41 mines were closed.

Hesaltine had along with the PM lied to parliament.

Little wonder the miners grouped behind Scargil.

Chuckles err no. Read my profile.

Rants against Labour on the CR thread - copy and paste please gf. I seem to remember having a laugh about Milliband and Balls, but who wouldn't - hardly a "rant".

Milliband and Balls happen to be 13 points ahead in the opinion polls. I think the rant is on you DB for calling it so wrong.

Goldfinger, the miners rallied behind Scargill because they had little choice. To stand against the Union meant been ostracised not only from the Union but even from family life. Scargill lied throughout the strike in an effort to maintain support, he's beneath contempt for what he did to the mining industry.

I have no doubt that politicians also lied at the time and I'm betting that politicians of all colours will continue to lie in the future. As for pit closures, of course there were going to be pit closures and rightly so. Many of the mines were uneconomical due to union practises and nothing was ever going to save them.

You did quite well out of Tory policies, yes? How do you square away that fact with your entrenched Labour standpoint? Or is it simply, I'll grab what's going but I'll wear me cloth cap whilst I'm doing it?

Goldfinger - where do you think the ability to trade the dotcom boom came from?

Labour policies?

Don't be soft our lad, it came from the deregulation of the City introduced by Thatcher.

You made your fortune from Thatcher policies, PMSL :-)

Thank Scargill for helping Thatcher break the miners

AND just for the balance

Revisiting the miners’ strike

Bottom line - Scargill never called a national ballot.

I did not benefit from tory policies in fact I was unempoyed on 2 occasions once under Maggie and once under Major.

And Hesaltine and the PM lied through their teeth to not only the miners but also the electorate.

It was also proved at the time that coal could be sold to India and Belgium for a profit.

Like I said earlier I will take this matter up further with you and anyone else when the timing is decent.

And by the way please dont repost anymore posts to me I have on squelch or I will adhere to the sites policy and report you to Bully.

An interesting - if long winded read - The Great Miners Strike 1984-5: Twelve Months that Shook Britain: the Story of the Strike