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.

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.

I think you will find that the breakdown with the Unions started with James Callaghan and the famous 'Winter of discontent". This was preceeded by a weak Edward Heath and don't forget that the Irish problem was at it's height, which was exploited by a number of organisations. Maggie at least had the will to confront the issue rather than continually give in to the Unions who were crippling the british economy.

skinny

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.

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

So had many of the employers. The problem was that the most unscrupulous were more interested in their own advancement that of all.

For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

From The Law of the Jungle

-----

One of the problems after WW1 was that while in Germany, there was better a better” “relationship” between "workers", "management" and "owners", where was an element of consultation between the parties and a matter of routine and without “class culture” clash, in general, similar relationships were obstructed by management, owners and those in control of industry owners. Many of the latter saw "workers", as disposable units of labour. The latter view being exposed and was exaggerated during the Thatcher period.”

(Many, in the UK, advocated and hoped for the development of such working arrangements to modify in similar ways to that of Germany.)

Another, factor in the economic decline was that "inefficient", "outdated" plant was not replaced after the war because of "economic restraints, or lack of investment" and partially due to "Luddite" union behaviour.

One of the problems with the present downgrading of the present economy, due to the actions by the present government, is the lack of investment in ongoing “capital expenditure”, which will be probably be at a future cost.

The stupidity of the unions was balanced by the arrogance of management and the Thatcher and other governments.

(I know that Heath was decried, but though his approach was more sensible, but blown apart by the “oil crisis”.)

I think I have lived through interesting times, but realise all periods in time are interesting, especially when time seems to be running out.

Ummh, I shall go back to cooking.

The UK will always be a divided nation.

Those that put in more than they take out and those that take out more than they put in.

I have no problem with a benifit system that is there for those that through no fualt of their own need it, it's those who live off the system like leeches that make me angry.

I see that even the cap on benifits for a single family is being critisised by the Labour Party.

The level of the cap will be:
£500 a week = £26,000 per annum for couples (with or without children living with them)
£500 a week for single parents whose children live with them
£350 a week = £18,200 for single adults who don’t have children, or whose children don’t live with them.
Those not effected by the cap are if you qualify for Working Tax Credit, or if you get any of the following benefits:
Disability Living Allowance
Personal Independence Payment (from April 2013)
Attendance Allowance
Industrial Injuries Benefits (and equivalent payments as part of a war disablement pension or the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme)
Employment and Support Allowance, if you get the support component
War Widow’s or War Widower’s Pension.

And remember the amounts received are not taxed, so taking that £500 per week, someone working and receiving no benifits would need to earn around £700 per week to receive the same amount, IE £36,400 per annum.

No wonder we have so many, don't work, won't work in this country!

The Labour lot are also moaning about the 1% limit on increases in benifits whilst many workers especially in the private sector have either received a pay cut or at best not received an increase.

Mind you as most on benifits vote Labour it suits the Labour Party to look after their electrate.

Being synical I wonder if thats the reason Labour are so pro immigration!

maggie - pointless to expect a balanced and wider view from sticky i'm afraid ..... thank goodness hilary (and a few others) engage their full faculties

.

Harry dont forget tho, management were as much to blame for the car industry going to the wall.

My father worked as a pattern maker in that industry and the Unions were always going to management for years before problems came to light that they needed re-tooling. They could see the germans the french and even Swedes had new machinery and they pleaded with greedy management to compete to no avail.

Little wonder the Unions then took them on in the end.

Greekman, i see no mention of colection of taxes in your post?...why?.

I can't remember the details exactly gf, but the main car manufacturer in the UK was British Leyland which was a nationlised Co. run by successive governments, but predominately labour (Harold Wilson + Callaghan). I seem to remember pretty much every union jumping on the 'Less hours for more pay' bandwagon which was unsustainable. I'm sure there were some well run production lines (Vauxhall...er...er....hmmmm...) but there weren't very many which involved the Unions (Maybe Brit Aerosp, shipbuilding, food processing....)