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.

hitler
starlin
thatcher

flopsy
mopsy
cottontail

Barry
Robin
Maurice

me me me

I see the ALD of Jefferies’s fame has risen again.

When I was a school boy and student I worked at a colliery during “holiday” periods and union “dues” were deducted from my weekly pay packet.

This was a voluntary deduction and I objected to my father (who was management) and told him I didn’t want to pay the dues or be a temporary member of the NUM.

His reply, was it was up to me, but suggested that I looked around first and thought about what the unions had achieved and provided for me :

1) Improvement in Health and Safety standards
(Over 439 men had kill by fire and explosions at one pit at Senghenydd Colliery.
More than 500 men and boys died in 1901 and 1913 at the Universal Colliery in Senghenydd.)

As a young “man” he had worked there after and at the time of those explosions,
He thought the Unions had be responsible to help raise those standards.

2) Raising the standards of training of “boys” and those working at pits.

3) Provisions of welfare at Pits.

Medical examinations, recognition of Chest diseases, treatment of those injured and “Rest or Recovery Homes”

Simple things like Pit head baths, decent protective work wear.

Also legal representation for pit workers in case of accidents and sacking on “false cause”.

Pointed out that I may have use of such, if I had an accident at the pit and broke my leg.

Financial support families of workers "kill" at work.

Representation of a working community.

They also providing funding for many to go to “night schools” and university and into politics.

They also enabled decent standards of pay in the mining industry.

I won’t carry on, but one can see the importance of the unions.

I did not ask for my subs. back.

-----------------

Many of the pits after the WW2 were worked out and uneconomical because geological reasons and also due to lack of mechanism and also Coal imports produced in countries with “better” geological conditions and newly mechanised pits.
Were the unions “barmy” in the 50s,60s,70s,? Yes.

But the step, which was needed, was the introduction of the “secret” ballot and the “right” not to be a member in a union to work in an “industry” and removal of the closed shop in some industries.

The whole scale castration was brought on of the unions was by the stupidity of some of the union leadership at that period and viciousness of government of that period.
Scargill, Ummh.

I thought before that the “strike” that it was wrong and thought it would fail. Also recall the apprehension of that period discussing how unstable and dangerous the prior period in the Heath government was.

Much of the above, could be written about other heavy industries where the working conditions were appalling. (I witnessed them.)

I was against the Faulkland war and saw it as immoral self glorifying political stunt by Thatcher.

Also, I was against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and foresaw the results, both of which were supported by the tory political leadership wanting to get on the bandwagons.

Apologies, the above is scrappy, but giving details is long winded.

Chuckles.

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

This would suggest your ethos and that of the Thatcher period was what you could grab for yourself and not what you could do for others.

That is what the Thatcher philosophy and period will be known for.

Chuckles.

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

This would suggest your ethos and that of the Thatcher period was what you could grab for yourself and not what you could do for others.

That is what the Thatcher philosophy and period will be known for.

Good point that Fred about Unions. Some people forget about all the welfare benefits they provide.

Not only that but some of them also give help towards education and further training.

The unions in their inception were very much needed, due to unscrupulous practices, employment of children etc etc. But by the 1960's they had become self-serving,bloated and probably more unscrupulous and corrupt than those they were meant to "protect" against.

God knows where we would be now, without the curtailing action attempted in the 1970's and finally actioned in the 1980's.

North Korea warns foreigners to quit South

SEOUL | Tue Apr 9, 2013 10:01am BST

(Reuters) - North Korea intensified threats of an imminent conflict against the United States and the South on Tuesday, warning foreigners to evacuate South Korea to avoid being dragged into a "merciless, sacred, retaliatory war".

The North's latest antagonistic message belied an atmosphere free of anxiety in the South Korean capital, where the city centre was bustling with traffic and offices operated normally.

fred - there's nothing wrong with unions per se ..... indeed if you go back to victorian times and earlier, it is blatantly obvious as to why they were needed ...... however, when unions like the teamsters or boilermakers or miners or any other high-profile union gets too powerful, you find that they are solely interested in their own ends ..... leaving aside their associates and associations with dubious backers, the unions (and sometimes or even often the employers too) choose to forget that their members are best served by a healthy and profitable company working pretty much in harmony and for mutual benefit

it goes almost without saying that the actual goals of the likes of scargill and "red robbo" was the destruction of uk industry and the economy ...... like her or hate her (plenty of good reasons for both), MT had the balls and tenacity to ensure that that would not happen

MT's emasculation of these unions was one of her great successes and, though it assuredly caused severe hardship in some quarters, it put uk as a whole back on the road to growth and prosperity

that labour did nothing whatsoever to reverse this position say plenty about that party's private views even if it could not voice them publically

Maggie Thatcher didn't destroy British heavy industry - it was more or less dead anyway by the time she took office. The damage had already been inflicted a decade or two earlier.

At a time when Germany was shifting its focus from heavy industry to precision instruments and the high(er)-tech stuff that it's famous for now, Britain wouldn't let go of the past as it was being strangled by the excessive power that had been granted to the unions. The result was that many northern British towns lost valuable ground in the new industrial revolution post-WWII.

The footloose industries which could or should have filled the heavy industry void ended up locating on the M4 corridor instead, and the north-south divide grew wider.

My niece lives in South Korea. She and her family have noticed no change in the behaviour of people, as if nothing is likely to happen. Everyone and everything is relax and as normal.

Her husband is a lecturers at the university and ...

for once i decided on a slightly less contentious approach, but of course you're right, from shipbuilding to mining to steel manufacture and so on and so forth ...... the decline was pretty much inevitable due to the growth of these sorts of industries in china, korea and india etc ...... however, it was certainly exacerbated by the succession of weak uk gov'ts that refused to grasp the nettle of the destruction-intent (militant) unions

he's getting very repetitive in his dotage
perhaps there's a link between that and his inability to support his allegations against me (they're minor relative to some here!) with any evidence ....... silly old buffer he is :-)

Have enjoyed reading present debate, which has motivated me to DMOR which has also been interesting. As always there are two sides to every story! Ref Mgt Thatcher dividing a nation, surely that could be said about every PM (exception Gordon Brown where the majority of people were united in wanting him to go) and surely that's democracy. The voting public voted her in for 12 years ( it was her own party who removed her) therefore they, the voting public, must have thought, either she was doing something right or there was nobody going to do any better.

ohhhhh she got things and policys passed maggie but it was at a great price to the nation.

For a kick off 7.6 million people unemployed.

The loss of billions of north sea Oil revenues which were used to pay for the unemployed.

Housing stock sold off which is now 2/3trds in greedy private landlords hands.

Utilitys sold at knock down prices.

The break up of whole towns and villages north of watford.

And last but not least and were still reeling from it now, the breakup of the family unit as it was previously known and the birth of the latch door key kid and his/her feral young and total loss and lack of discipline in society as a whole with greed dictating family values.

I think you may have got your point about Brown wrong aswel. Dont forget Cameron wouldnt be PM now if it werent for the lib Dems, in other words he couldnt secure a majority.