75A
Established Member
I think you and I are on opposite sides of the fence, but, I've been down the sanitised Big Pit and they must have been very brave men.
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
What exactly did Thatcher do?
- Thread starter Sad Sprinter
- Start date
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
As mentioned upthread prior to Thatcher consensus politics was the norm in this country, a highly desirable state of affairs when FPTP voting consistently returns governments voted for by a minority of voters. Indeed no single party has commanded a majority of votes in a general election since 1931, though of course the coalition government of 2010-2015 did effectively have majority support as did the various National Governments of 1931-1945.
The move to a more polarised form of politics which came with Thatcherism would be much easier to accept if we had some form of proportional representation. Also note that Thatcher's best election result in terms of vote share was in fact her first one in 1979. Indeed nobody has achieved as a high a share since then even though it was a mere 43.9%. While the Tyranny of the Majority is an almost inevitable flaw of any democracy when that majority in fact enjoys only minority support from the electorate the risk of serious discontent is so much higher. UK politicians generally would do well to take much greater account of this. Thatcher never did.
Lost property
Member
- Joined
- 2 Jun 2016
- Messages
- 695
I completely agree. Those working conditions were an eye and mind opener plus the guides were brilliant (having a sense of humour helps) but, when it comes to bravery, the Mines Rescue teams truly deserve this accolade. Cave rescuers are in the same league.
joebassman
Member
As for the free school milk. Do we as humans actually need to drink cow's milk? As far as I know, we are the only animals that drink the milk of other species. There are plenty of other ways of gaining calcium.
Someone said to me recently that the real reason milk was given in schools was because the farmers were encouraged to produce a lot more milk during the war so there was a massive surplus of milk to get rid of. I guess if this hypothesis is true then the farmers would have invested in a lot more cows and facilities so the milk would have still continued to be produced once the war ended.
Someone said to me recently that the real reason milk was given in schools was because the farmers were encouraged to produce a lot more milk during the war so there was a massive surplus of milk to get rid of. I guess if this hypothesis is true then the farmers would have invested in a lot more cows and facilities so the milk would have still continued to be produced once the war ended.
Does anyone know if this is true?
How we got duped into believing milk is necessary for healthy bones
The author of the new book Got Milked wants everyone to know that most of what they believe about the dairy staple is wrong.www.vox.com
Milk, meals... there is widespread malnutrition and undernourishment amongst the school population. Teachers are hang to provide free breakfast clubs. Universal provision is not just to avoid stigma, it has been proven to improve general health and educational development. A healthy and well-educated workforce is a benefit for all, including the rich and those without kids. Why shouldn't it be funded out of general taxation?
In this debate Thatcher is often portrayed as the wicked witch, almost as an anomaly amidst the mass of politicians who generally care. A look at history, including recent history, shows that isn't true. She epitomised and often verbalised the philosophy of laissez-faire, and blaming the poor for their poverty, which has undergirded British politics for many centuries. But she was by no means the only one. If Liz Truss had enjoyed more popular support Thatcher would quickly have faded in people's memory by now.
75A
Established Member
Even scarier, was going down a gold mine in South Africa not only the conditions, but the appalling racism between the Supervisers and the workers, which made me very angry.
Lost property
Member
- Joined
- 2 Jun 2016
- Messages
- 695
Thatcher's legacy has endured for how many years ?....and will continue well into the future. She will be enshrined in UK history for her merciless attacks on those in the population whom, she felt, should be suitably deferential. Even today, her hectoring, rabid, arrogant, patronising and condescending inflection, that epitomised her, still induces anger.
Truss, on the other hand, will become a pub quiz question given the, thankfully, brief tenure even if she and Kwarteng did manage to wreak fiscal havoc in her 49 days
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Well if people did get on their (pedal, non-electric) bikes more that would certainly go some way to helping with the obesity crisis
Although I guess that's not quite what Norman Tebbit was thinkingjoebassman
Member
Ha ha. That would be true. Although it appears Tebbit was misquotedWell if people did get on their (pedal, non-electric) bikes more that would certainly go some way to helping with the obesity crisis
normal tebbit get on your bike speech - Bing
Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you.
But this is hardly the direct 'fault' of Margaret Thatcher. It could be argued that consensus politics were immediately re-established, with Labour morphing into New Labour and essentially stole the Conservative clothes with a softer edge, as the only way to get elected. What Margaret Thatcher did was to achieve the paradigm shift in the political, economic and social thinking of this country. Much of that was achieved by dealing with the bullying Trade Union movement and re-orientating/modernising/closing industries that should have been tackled earlier (but couldn't) by the increasingly ineffective old consensus. More recently there has been a polarisation with Brexit, but this has happened in both major parties.
uglymonkey
Member
- Joined
- 10 Aug 2018
- Messages
- 480
Causing all ( or most of ) the coal mines to close.
What percentage of mines did she close?
I haven't got the figures to hand, but I am pretty sure the UK is near the top of European countries for the percentage of obese people. Like in many things, Europe and the world is becoming more American, but we are much closer to the USA than the EU. Something that was well entrenched before Brexit, but I'm sure given another boost by it.
A bit OT, but I have been down the Big Pit tour and was surprised that we did not see any coal, and went nowhere near a coal face, just around some service passages near the hoist shaft. Slight correction - we did pass a hopper that happened to be parked with some dusty rubble in it that might have included some coal, or coal dust, but with no comment from our guide. The younger members on the tour might have been left wondering what was the purpose of the whole thing - the guides seemed to take it for granted.
Most of the coal mines still open in 1948 had already closed before Margaret Thatcher came to power. She just completed the (inevitable) process.
Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_Kingdom) says
The NCB started with 958 collieries at nationalisation in 1947.
It’s quite an interesting thread this one. There’s one camp claiming Thatcher caused malnourishment and others blaming her for obesity in the UK. Quite the dichotomy.
I believe we’ve led the obesity stats in Europe for a long time so I don’t see a brexit connection. Malta has a higher obesity rate than we do.
115 closed by MT, so 12%.
626 out of the 958 had already been closed, per the figures above, so more like 33% of the remaining number.
75A
Established Member
There are statistics and damn statistics........................................
dangie
Established Member
Well she certainly split a nation and divided communities for years.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Fundamentally, the reason we have an obesity crisis is that so many people aren't willing to take sufficient responsibility for looking after their own health. To my mind, the need for people to take more responsibility for their health isn't a million miles from Thatcher's philosophy that people should take responsibility for their own lives - although Mrs. Thatcher would have been thinking more in terms of, your economic/financial life rather than your health. Sadly, back in those days, health just wasn't an issue in the way it is today, so it wasn't something that came into much consideration from politics of either left or right. So it's probably not surprising that Thatcher's Government didn't do much for us in health terms.
And yet, they kept bringing out new models, with new features and innovative technology, into their automobile line-up. If anything, the issue was with the manufacturing processes, and "make do and hand-fit" attitude left over from trying to make as many engines, tanks, and vehicles as they could during the war. That's a problem that could have been fixed, or if there wasn't appetite, at least protections could have been put in place to ensure that they didn't just get hoovered up, and the jobs moved abroad.
I agree, and I'm getting off-topic also, but it's not helped by the patronising approach of the NHS in which most of its staff act as if they own your health and it's all a big secret - my doctors seem all surprised and flustered when I tell them what I'm going to do!
No dichotomy at all. Poor diet leads to malnutrition on the one hand and obesity on the other.
I wasn't suggesting that Brexit caused any of these problems. Rather that the mentality that led to one led to the other. There is a connection but not a causation. (Anyway Malta was British for a long time so maybe they absorbed our propensity for unhealthy foods).
I'm all for personal responsibility, but when you have large corporations with outlets on every street corner (or their products in every shop), relentless A-B testing of recipes to create the most moreish products (which are of course they then push you to supersize), and ubiquitous and incessant advertising; it's somewhat of an unfair playing field. Couple that with decades of viewing school physical education more as a screening process for Olympic Teams, than as a way of helping people find Pyhsical Recreation that they enjoy; then it's hardly a surprise of the situation we find ourselves in.
If it's a level playing field, I'm up for personal responsibility, but perhaps if we know the waters are full of sharks, we need to take action to help people protect themselves.
She split the nation so much that they kept voting her in; as for dividing communities - the trade union bullies got a taste of their own medicine, and about time too. Yes, the paradigm shift adjustment affected some people quite badly (particularly older people who were redundant and without much prospect of another job) and was a social issue at the time. Similarly affected areas have occurred in countries in continental Europe and the USA too. However, to a certain extent, previous governments (of both hue) subsidising lame duck industries rather than dealing with the issues as they occurred up to 15 years earlier were at the root of this problem, plus increasing competition from more efficient operations abroad.
I lived in the North East at this time, and outside of the pit villages I don't recall a huge amount of sympathy for the plight of poverty stricken mining families whose bread winner was voluntarily on strike..... It certainly was a time of change in Britain, and people naturally have wildly differing views to this day about it. But some of the folklore and film supposedly set during this time is a little detached from the general reality.
Whilst her legacy runs on, of course much has moved on. She met her 'Waterloo' over the Poll Tax (which is a lesson on any politician in office for any length believing their own rhetoric too much, plus discounting the effect on a proportion of individuals of something that is working on average), and there have been numerous other unintended side effects which have not been adjusted for properly. (beyond the scope of this thread)
and the constant, constant stoppages - remember 'Red' Robbo? Just hopeless - MT brought in a no nonsense South African (Sir Michael Edwardes) to sort it out, but frankly it was just too little, too late. I remember Honda coming to Sunderland too - light years different!
Last edited:
3141
Established Member
I think this is one of the most important factors. Other posts have referred to privatisation, the sale of social housing, changes to trade union law, etc., for all of which there was some justification, though as others have said they may have taken place too quickly or without sufficient provision of alternatives. But I remember a news item at the time of the 1987 election (or it might have been the one in 1983). The BBC reporter interviewed people about how they intended to vote and how they reached their decision. One interviewee said she would look at the main parties' manifestoes and decide which one would most benefit her. They then spoke to a local Conservative Party chairman. He said he regretted the previous individual's comments because he thought one should vote according to the party which offered most to the country. That may now seem impossibly idealistic, and not many people will be able to distinguish clearly between the two approaches, but some altruism instead of self-interest may be the only way to ensure a country's future well-being. (You might think of JFK's "Ask not what what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". The contrast in today's USA is Trump.)
edwin_m
Veteran Member
The other factor not discussed much so far was that Labour spun off leftwards after the defeat in 1979, many of the moderates split out into the SDP and thereby split the anti-Tory vote three ways, and Labour didn't look remotely electable until 1992 (when they messed it up). So while many people might not have thought much of the Tories, there wasn't really a credible alternative, and under FPTP division is fatal to electoral chances. Something similar happened after 2010 too, and could happen the other way round in the next election.
Unfortunately people like Derek Hatton, Michael Foot, Arthur Scargill and Ken Livingstone played into the anti-left consensus at the time. Hatton with his cheeky Liverpudlian rhetoric; Foot, who at the best of times looked like a bundle of rags tied up with string; Scargill and the Miner's Strike, held at the wrong time, splitting the Miner's union and accelerating Mine closure; and Livingstone, for just being, well, Livingstone.
That was the opposition.
That was the opposition.