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.

FRED - 31818 - just a small aside; if the seams and mines were worked out and unprofitable etc etc, why on earth would you keep them open? ..... there is little if any doubt scargill (and others) had an agenda that was nothing whatsoever to do with their union members, but more to do with destroying the whole fabric of the country .... malheureusement pour lui, he ran into a pm who, for all her later faults, proved to be a lot tougher than him and indeed, tougher than any i remember .... the country should still be extremely grateful for that, whatever their political hue

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with regard to re-opening mothballed coal-fired power stations, i am far from convinced, pretty much regardless of the provenance of the coal itself

scrubbing out the sulphur - it is that that causes the pollution from smog to acid rain and similar - is very expensive, and overall, i'm not sure quite how pure that then makes the unavoidable emissions

as already stated, i'm in favour of nuclear, but i fully accept there is a good argument against it and for wind or solar or even wave power generation as the alternative

HS2
i have yet to read or even hear a well-reasoned argument in favour that has not been totally slanted by the lobbyists in favour

£80bn sounds an awful lot of splosh when the TRUE benefits are very undefined ..... a high speed rail network was of great benefit in bankrupting spain, and that's a massive country with similar open and sparsely populated areas .... that said, the madrid/barcelona link has halved the travel time from 6 to 3 hours, so clearly there is benefit where there are exceptionally large distances that need to be traversed .... i don't think london to b'ham or even glasgow quite fall into that range! .... nor do i see HS2 removing a significant if any amount of lorry traffic from the roads

Cynic,

Scargill, was a disaster, what his intentions were or what they were said to be I find difficult to define.

I won't rerun arguments.

However, many of the pits after WW2 were workout and plant etc. was dilapidated.

Work conditions in many pits were appalling and and were subsidised and kept open rather than having mass unemployment in "a land for heroes".

There was gradual closer which allowed for "redeployment" and development of other industries to take up the ex-miners and others in heavy industries.
(similar happened in the 30s)

Was there madness in the unions and their expectancies?

Yes, but there was also stupidity with management and planning "necessary" changes.

For me, the maggie thatcher period stinks, mainly as it represents foe me, the same disregard and abusive approach to the needs of the Class 4 and 5 as many in the present government appear to have. (I use old social classification system).

It wasn't the closure of pits, but the rate of that closure and the lack of thought out replacement and planning for those out of "work". I mean social support and other industrial employment. Human scrap heaps were created.

There was pig headiness on some of the union leadership, but also pig headiness by the tory leadership at the time.

Scargill was a problem but introduction of mediators may and slowing down of closures may have prevented the strikes. (It occurred in some areas.)

To be paying unemployment benefit to somebody when the could be doing something productive and useful, even if subsidised for a period while changes are made seems stupid to me.

Changes always occur, hopefully the majority of changes are beneficial, but her era for me was a callous period.

I think Maggie will be remembered as ideologue who was responsible for the destruction of, rather than upgrading and modifying the industrial economy of the UK. She put the worship of money for its own sake to the front of more individuals' minds and in consequence the fragmentation of society.

Scargill, will go down as another foolish ideologue who thought he had a better hand than he did and was proved wrong.

As far I am concerned, you could bury both in the same grave.

They both deserve one another.

As far HS2 is concerned, I have rarely thought getting anywhere, other than a toilet, faster than appears necessary, is of questionable value.

But seeing people repeatedly travelling up a motorway in the morning to return down the other way in the evening has often struck me as inane.

But there is probably an argument for improving the railway structure and returning "heavy good" transportation to them, if at less cost financial, energy wise and environmentally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vuEQixrBKCc&feature=youtu.be

£80 billion + for Call Me Dave's vanity, is a project too far.

If they really want spend money on trains, upgrade the existing lines at a fraction of the cost of new.

We are talking about saving minutes here, not hours.

would that the railway network in this country was any help at taking heavy loads off the road, but it doesn't and probably can't work that way ....... the overall distances are not that great and tell me what happens when you get your "heavy load" to the nearest destination railhead

for our business, other than for the oil rig biz and similar, we avoid this country as it's horrendously expensive to move the kit out .... hence rotterdam and antwerp remain the key hubs

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not worth expanding, but i wouldn't expect you to have anything other than abusive to say about thatcher ..... we'll agree to differ :-)

elec/gas prices - pre-payment meters
i am amazed that no one but no one has picked up on the outrageous over-pricing that occurs with this type of fuel supply
pre-payment meters are most frequently found in the poorer households, either because the companies will not allow credit (understandable) or because the families don't want to be landed with hefty bills every month

the power companies benefit because they don't have to invoice or chase for money and indeed get their money up front, yet the tariff for these meters is highest of all
this is surely one of the geatest abuses and easiest targets for anyone to tackle who wants to help the poorer households, but the silence is deafening

This is true, had any trouble getting into work this morning Alf?

no - not there yet (still having my coffee at home!) but I walk anyway - unless i'm playing golf later

Ah right, Windy down there?

yes but not ridiculously so and now dry too

electionista‏@electionista27 Oct
UK - YouGov poll: CON 33%, LAB 39%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 12% // 27% approve of the Govt, 59% disapprove // 36% say PM Cameron doing well, 58% badly

Cameroon must know he's on his way out, so whats in it for him?

A knighthood?????

Cameron to "get knighted" G/F ?... Sounds about right then -):

A Lairdship and off to sproutland more like!

6 foot of soil, probably.

He reminds me on one of my last end games, which I lost.

Just wondering when then tories will dump him.

They need a better PR agent.

I can hear the knives being sharpened behind him.

Hear party donations are down.

Hays thinks hes the best thing since sliced bread.!!!!