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.

I would expect all the Labour party to calk him 'Red Ed'.

We have a couple of word in Welsh which aptly describes you, "twp iawn".

Another area being depressed does not diminish the responsibility for those who partook in the occurrences, if it could have been avoided.

The management of the economy was short term and inappropriate and could have been different, if it hadn't been motivated by ideological greed.

you really do spout a load of crap at times or even a lot of the time

tell us about how the unions could have done so much to prevent the demise of the ship yards or the coal mines or the car industry

bet you will be unable to do that without it sticking in your craw and then telling us that it was actually pretty much everyone else's fault, with little lying at the door of the unions

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by the way, your welsh is unintelligible even to the translators on internet

The trade unions did excellent work historically. They still do very good work supporting workers in some situations.

Apart from that, many are trouble makers, empire builders and basically corrupt. They attempted to damage this country in the 1970s and since then. They ruined the car, newspaper, docks and several other industries.

The trade unions did excellent work historically

quite so, and greatly needed they were to ..... the rest of your comment is also pretty accurate, though heavy industry was heading downhill from the early 50s i think

Thats right H/S and Alf, blame anyone else accept the culprits... typical right wing rhetoric and lies.

and from the red brigade we have what?

So you agree, thank you.

twit!
let's ask again shall we?
and from the red brigade we have what?

Red mist usually.

You right wingers seem to be infatuated with the colour red, well so be it just carry on.

Haze.

Seem suitable opponents for the corrupt tory party of the period.

By the way have they found the file on the paedophile investigation carried out under Maggie and somehow lost or perhaps even covered up.

=====

Napoleon,

"tell us about how the unions could have done so much to prevent the demise of the ship yards or the coal mines or the car industry"


The unions were not in a position of authority, or running the economy. A lot of the time it was the rotten elements of the tory party, who were governing with their own self-interest in mind. Similar to what many think they are doing now. There is a stench coming out of Downing Street.

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Now, if you go back to the period I was referring to, and instead of attempting to score cheap points you engage in thinking a little or in your case a lot, you may be able to understand, that there are and were better ways of managing the economy of that period. The tory management based on narrow-minded ideology caused the same fragmentation and bitterness of communities and society as the present tory mobsters seem intent of doing.

If you do that then it may help you to understand the responsibilities a government of a democracy should take.

As far as the description in Welsh is concerned, instead of shooting your mouth, try a little harder, or get somebody other than me, to help you.

--

If you come up with feasible alternative policies and possible actions regarding the period I described "might" be prepared to discuss them.

It was the red tint that was largely to blame. Union leaders like Scargill (and there were some worse) had politically motivated intentions that were more important to them than the benefit of their members.

Scargill and some of the print union bosses sent their members in to the valley of death.

They had no chance against the Maggon, who commanded all the cannon.


A discracefull episode on all sides!

The unions were not in a position of authority, or running the economy
well they were certainly in a position to do their utmost to wreck the economy and the country with it, and they tried damn hard to do so, but ultimately and thank goodness, failed


do you not remember wondrous strikes like the one by the boilermakers union over who should draw the chalk line on a piece of steel at the shipyards?

There you go again with your Maggie obsession Fred.

That shows your blinkered, or blighted view of the world.

Also, the lousy management styles of period, with Boys from London going to the industrial areas stuffed with "bright" ideas on how the pits and other industries "should" be managed but with little or actual working experience of the areas they were overseeing.

Elitist poured out of universities and other institutions without like yourself little humility.

The same approach as used in reorganisation of schools, universities, NHS and many other organisations.


I am in favour of evolution but not ill-thoughtout revolution, especially by detached neo-cons.

-------

If you go back to earlier posts and read, you will find I have been scathing of unions and many of the leaders, who were driven by their membership.

This similar to Cameron being driven by UKIP and the Neo-fascists in the present tory party..

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie !:-))

On twitter Milly gets a HUGE BOOST........wins hands down today at PMqs according to the polls and trending.

What makes it even better it was in Camorons own backyard the economy and debt and the deficit that Milly won the debate easily.

At times people swore Dave was going to blow up again like in the early days of his leadership.

Clearly an expert says Milliband as changed tactics and is taking Cameron apart.

Even Guido F the Tory blogger admitted Milli played a blinder, "perhaphs this is tactics coming with a late run, for certain the PM had his bottom kicked today".

...................................................................................................................

By Con Coughlin
4:46PM GMT 17 Dec 2014
Claims that soldiers tortured Iraqi detainees were all lies, says a new report. The BBC must undertake an urgent investigation of its own to find out how Panorama got it so badly wrong

Looking back, it is amazing just how many people were prepared to believe the accusations that the British Army routinely tortured detainees.

Of course it was the BBC and its fellow travellers on the Left who made the most of accusations that British soldiers had committed what amounted to war crimes following a three-hour battle with Iranian-backed insurgents in Iraq in May 2004. Rather than praising the British soldiers for their undoubted heroism in tackling the Shia-dominated Mehdi Army in a fierce battle that could have gone either way, the BBC preferred to concentrate its considerable resources on Iraqi claims that some of the captured insurgents had been killed in cold blood, while others had been subjected to torture.

Coming in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, where American service personnel certainly were guilty of mistreating their Iraqi captives, it was easy for some to believe that British forces had engaged in similar acts of mistreatment, even though the evidence was murky, to say the least.

But rather than conducting a proper journalistic investigation into the incident, the BBC’s flagship Panorama programme, in its edition broadcast in February 2008 entitled “On Whose Orders”, instead preferred to rely on the testimony of former Iraqi combatants and their Legal Aid-funded lawyers to make unsubstantiated allegations against the integrity and professionalism of the British Army.

It has taken nearly six years for the truth to come out, but the conclusions of the al-Sweady inquiry published today makes for some uncomfortable reading for the BBC’s current affairs production team, as well as the teams of lawyers who forced the Government to conduct an inquiry into the allegations, earning themselves handsome legal fees in the process.

For the inquiry, which cost a staggering £31 million, has ruled unequivocally that the claims that British troops murdered, mutilated and tortured Iraqi detainees were “wholly and entirely without merit or justification”, and that the baseless allegations contained in the Panorama programme were the product of “deliberate and calculated lies”.

So much for the standards of the BBC's so-called investigative journalists.

It is hard to imagine a more damning indictment of the Army’s accusers, and all those at the BBC and elsewhere who were credulous, or naive, enough to believe them. But now that the truth is out, perhaps those responsible for making this programme, and who gave an air of credibility to the claims, would now like to issue a fulsome apology to the British Armed Forces for their own grave errors of judgment.

They could even make a new programme explaining why they got the story so horribly wrong in the first place. Now, that really would be a first.

More seriously, though, Tony Hall, who as the BBC’s director-general has overall responsibility for the corporation’s current affairs output (in a previous life he was in charge of BBC news and current affairs), should undertake an urgent investigation of his own to find out how Panorama got it so badly wrong.