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.

Al ,i have to defend Thatcher a little here ,,most of the crap today is down to 10 years of Blair ,it's the reason i'm leaving .

Each to their own, JB, each to their own.
When ya going????

(Please remember, as a professional Yorkshireman, I cannot defend the Maggon. You cannot imagine the crap my beloved county went through at her hands).

I was a great supporter of Maggie until she became to domineering. She reached the stage where she was in her own eyes never wrong. She went from a brilliant strong democratic politician, to almost being a dictator. Her main fault being that she stopped listening to her own cabinet as well as the voter.
Although on balance I feel she did far more good than bad.
As to Maggie and the EU, well we all know that she would still be giving them the diplomatic equivalent of the 2 fingers, and quite right too.
As to Blair, his government during and after his reign, have done more to damage this country than any government in the last 100 years.
My epitaph for Blair would be. He sold the UK down the river.

Greek, "He sold the UK down the river." Would that be Enoch Powell's "river(s) of blood" by any chance?!

And was there anything left to sell???

Greekman ,your bang on about Maggie ,and bang on about Blair ,i can't tell you how much i despise the Labour govenment and all the self rightuous regulaters .

Alan i'm going back to the usa soon to sort out the house i bought and then returning after a few months ,(i'm trying to sell my house here) ,so i'm hoping to live there full time by about September ..

Alan, the only way our manufacturing industry could have been made viable is if it could have been made to compete with the manufacturing countries I have already mentioned.

Grant you, that could have been done - but only if our workers had been happy to have a similar standard of living as those in those other countries. I.E. an annual income of between 400-1200. I seem to remember the unions not being to happy at wages being kept competitive.

The rest of your post is so rambling I don't think even you can take what you say seriously! 'Climb back from the brink'. Look around the world at the standard of living of most people. The average person in the UK has never had it so good, and I'm sure you're old enough to know that! This is a result of changes in the way our economy is financed - i.e. a move away from manufacturing to sciences, service industry, in short using our brains rather than braun to earn income from the world market.

I hate to bring this thread dangerously close to sanity, but I'm not certain how much I can blame Blair for.
Certainly, all politicians deserve blame when things go wrong, and he made several mistakes, but what annoys me most about the UK at the moment, and how much of it is his fault and how much mine?
Our economy was good and is now shit, but that can be applied to every corner of the planet, so it is hard to plonk that one on his doorstep. The thing that gets my goat is the erosion of civil liberties and the nanny culture. I would escape that tomorrow. But can we blame Blair?
Most of it is from european and world dictats, or from bunches of vegitarians sat on steering groups, and we have allowed it to happen.
Blair too has allowed it to happen, but he also has the job of getting on with other countries, whereas The Maggon didn't care about them. Can you imagine our position on the world stage if our leaders told the UN to pi55 off, we would not accept their latest tripe about the number of refugees we must accept, and from which countries, or the EU to get knotted, we would not accept a law that said all factories must produce tulip blossoms from their chimneys and spend millions adapting their place of work to accept disabled people who don't work there anyway?
This is where the USA have got it partly right. They tell the rest of the world to mind its own damn business, and everyone hates them for that, but then they go and home grow the same rubbish.
Apparantly in LA it is now illegal to consume alcohol after 2am. Even at home. What a hoot life must be there.
So lets get rid of the world enforced nonsense and the next time someone suggests we dictate what anyone thinks or does in their own time, lets bend them over the table and subject them to cruel and unusual punishments in contravention of the Geneva Convention. At least we can then blame ourselves properly.

Seriously Oblo. The rest of the world will increase prices for the things we need. And we definitely need them, and we will have to pay cos we cannot provide them ourselves.
We cannot do the same now, because the world will happily wait a while for its financial services and a new scientific breakthrough, whereas on the whole we would prefer our dinner to be imported, cooked on a German stove with French gas, within the next few hours.

sums up the state of play I would say:

Staff at McDonald's will soon be able to gain the equivalent of A-levels in running burger bars after the fast food giant won government approval to become an exam board.

The firm is piloting a "basic shift manager" course, which will train staff in everything they need to run a McDonald's restaurant, from marketing to human resources and customer service skills.

and more b*ll*x from po face:

Gordon Brown has denied that plans for McDonald's and other firms to run A-level topics would amount to dumbing down - insisting the courses would be tough and intensive.

unfortunate name , Ed Balls!

Actually i hate to say it but the French have it right ,,go in to any french car park and 8 out 10 cars are french made ,,immigrants,, they just find new ways of sending them to us ,,don't want imports ,burn the trucks ,,don't like something ,block the ports,,the Iraq wars wrong ,we won't help,,they don't suck up to anyone..

Strange that the McDonalds A Level doesn't include nutrition. Wonder why.

great debate this morning-keep it up! I agree with most of it but would never be critical of Maggie--today we are governed by donkeys who've never had a proper job and only agreed to accept a lower pay rise because Gordon said they can continue to claim up to 43000!! of expenses with out any receipts or proof. With all the other expenses and perks they get--that is disgraceful. The poll tax may have failed because it wasn't presented properly but to charge every person rather than every household seems fairer to me and much easier for the pensioner living on his own.

I find it quite hard not to be critical of The Maggon.
Despite one or two good moves, there are numerous others that one could question more than a little.
Norman Lamont.
Section 22 (Do you remember it?)
Poll tax.
General Belgrano
Sanction busting in Zimbabwe
Norman Lamont (so good I had to put it in twice)
The North/South divide
Westland
Norman Lamont (OK then, 3 times)
No milk for schoolkids
3 million unemployed
20% inflation
Jeffrey Archer
Fat cats and the loadsamoney economy
And finally Norman Lamont
Its funny how a poor leader can make us yearn for a worse one.

Yes yes, faults for sure, but this Land was a lot less green and pleasant then, with Government being only partly in control, due to huge power of unelected unionists who "probably" had a hidden agenda to cause economic trouble.
The Unemployed figure was not really any worse then, IMHO - today any white males over 50 are simply not counted.

Fat cats and loadsamoney = still with us, and it is endemic from the top of politics and commerce.

Moneyplus, you forgot to mention the Pension Pot MP's receive..... that "money can't buy" - along with over-generous pensions for all Local Authority pensioners - - - we are becomming a 2-tier state: for white males it starts at 50 and while ladies about 65 - as women gradually take over employment markets. At exec-level this is nearly white-male dominated ( but let's face it, they aren't exactly working for shareholders!) - so it may take some Legislation, but the Boards can expect a minimum 50% female target within the next 5-years, I expect.

The 2-tiers are those folk with well-funded pensions who will continue to have nice homes, holidays and cars - - - and others who have missed "private schemes" and rely on the State - they will be relyant on Winter Fuel payment, bus-passes and if they have their own house will find it is a mill-stone as all utility charges are at top prices, relative to their income. Car tax, speeding fines and insurance is still at levels that mean low-income homes are unduly hit making a car almost impossible to run except for those in employment.
Oddly it is a Labour Government that has made the existing situation even worse, esp in connection with Council Taxes anad "fines" to balance their books mainly aimed at motorists, because they are seen as an easy target.

Meanwhile our streets are being taken over by criminals, gun/knife gangs and supermarkets that dictate the shape and look of our shopping.
Their out-of-town emphasis means that you always need a car, or a good friend with one.

Bah, Humbug!

Maggie sent tropes to the Falklands because they were invaded ,she helped push Saddam out of Q8 because he invaded ,but do you really think she would have gone along with that moron Bush to kill 600 000 people in Iraq like Blair did ,i don't think so ,in fact she would have told him ,no no no .

Now i am seriously fed up.
I have just tried to tax my car online.
And it will not let me. It cannot, for the life of it, work out that even though my insurance expired at noon yesterday, a new one started at the same time. It will let me in 72 hours, and then I can wait 5 days for the disc through the post so I cannot use the car.
This was bad enough. The thought of shuffling along a queue of old ladies at the post office, all sniffling with cold and talking about dead friends fills me with dread. But then I called the DVLA to point out that their inability to operate a sensible computer system should not make me a criminal, and perhaps it would be better if they got real people to do the job instead of form 4b at the local primary school.
Typical of any large body, getting through the automated system and speaking to a real person was more difficult than getting Salman Rushdies home number from directory enquiries.
Today at least, my opinion is that the anti-christ walks among us, and he is employed as a high ranking civil servant.

Anyway i used to have weird dreams about Maggie when i was in my early 20's i don't want to go in to them here.

There quite beautiful ,, i'm sure it was all wrapped up with power and that stern look ..

Funny how you consider Bush a moron, but have a desire to live where (arguably) 50% of the population supported him..................................
Anyway, having pervy dreams about The Maggon is very suspect.
Can't you fantasise about Wilma Flintstone, like the rest of us normal types?