Phil Pascoe
Established Member
I've done it three times over a few years, my reading varies from 2 squares left, one down to one square left, two down. I appear to be nearly perfectly balanced.
Very sad news
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Which bit ?, the slated by the tabloids or the whisperings from servants and courtiers ?
1970's, strikes all the time especially in nationalised industries. Any effort at reform, modernisation or improvements in quality or productivity usually met with cries of all out brothers. So we spent years subsidising the likes of British Leyland to the tune of millions, to produce outdated rubbish that no one wanted. Even when they came up with something genuinely innovative like the Range Rover, it was ruined by appallingly bad build quality. The simple fact is that governments are rubbish at running businesses, and shouldn't try and do so. When you have Labour governments, reliant on union funding it's even worse, as they are powerless to take on the union's over these issues. Unfortunately we had some really hard line Marxist types in the Unions at the time, Red Robbo at Leyland being a good example. The nonsense that went on with demarcation and so on was ridiculous. It was at around this time that Henry Ford said that if it had still been up to him he would have shut their UK operation down and never come back, all down to disruption by militant unions. It wasn't all bad, the strike by female Ford workers over equality issues was an great example of how unions should intervene in behalf of workers. Unfortunately there was far to much industrial action that was just politically motivated and ultimately enormously damaging.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
I had the misfortune for six years of going to school by train under BR - never since have I ever seen such a bunch of self righteous, entitled, bone idle jobsworths.
J-G
Established Member
You can forget the musings of anti-royal disgruntled people and start with a rescue by the Royal Navy at 18 months, loss of all contact with immediate family at 8 years then look at his naval career that ought to take you at least a couple of months to do it justice.
The fact that you appear to be in the first category sited will probably mean that you have no interest in the reality though.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
They existed at all because of the failures of the businesses which preceded them.
Should have been a lot better financed but there's always been a British prejudice against state control.
As a result we have no coal industry, virtually no motor industry and Europe's most expensive railways. They are replaced by imports and/or managed by foreign businesses often state controlled themselves but by foreign states with more imagination than poor old Britain.
Also British tendency to blame those at the bottom for failure at the top. The motor industry was hopelessly mismanaged and underinvested before the big strikes, coal was shut down as a political decision - the miners were fighting to keep the business going, rail was underinvested and the subsequent privatisation very problematic.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveke...-owned-by-other-eu-countries/?sh=838a68e208f2
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francovendee
Established Member
Do you think this would happen again now that unions are no longer closed shops and union power has been weakened considerably by Maggie?
I know that railways still get huge subsidies and the Government has had to hand out 'sweeteners' to car manufacturers to convince them to set up and stay in the UK.
I personally think a mix of private and public ownership is the best way.
You do have to recognise when an industry is no longer viable, steel may be a case in point.
The car and bike industries were both victims of complacency. Take Land Rover as an example. A fine vehicle when launched but as long as people kept buying them they saw no need to develop the product, so a series 3 from the late seventies was still essentially the same vehicle as launched in 1948. They were even still using the Rover engine with side exhaust valves for goodness sake. When Toyota came along with the Landcruiser it was like a spaceship by comparison. Bikes were the same Triumph were selling bikes in the 1970's which were essentially pre war designs. Along came Honda with bikes like the 750 four and put them out of business.
Have to disagree about coal. The problem there was that the miners union view was that a pit should only be closed if the coal had run out. Whilst there was still coal in the ground miners should continue to dig it out, regardless of the economics. So industries like British steel, also nationalised, had to buy British coal. This left the government in a predicament. If the likes of British Steel had to pay what the coal actually cost then their own products would be uncompetitive, and they would go under. The answer was to subsidise the extraction of coal from completely uneconomic pits, with the long suffering tax payer picking up the bill. Thatcher sought to change this and proposed shutting down a small number of the most uneconomic pits, a perfectly reasonable idea. The union refused point blank to entertain any such notion and so we had the miners strike. I have no doubt Scargill entered into this confidently expecting the government to cave in, after all this is what had always happened before. Thatcher was not going to cave in and the irony is that many more pits closed as a result of the strike than had ever originally been proposed. And let's not forget how those miners who didn't agree with the strike and continued to work were branded scabs, and both they and their families were intimidated, threatened and physically attacked by their 'comrades'. Trades Unions at their very worst, and just the sort of thing Thatcher sought to put and end to by introducing such sinister, filthy capitalist ideas as secret ballots to vote for or against industrial action. Interesting that the vast majority of supposedly oppressive anti union legislation introduced by the Tories at this time wasn't repealed by Blair when he got in. Equally interesting that Corbyn did propose to repeal much of it, God knows what chaos might have resulted then.
Have to disagree about coal. The problem there was that the miners union view was that a pit should only be closed if the coal had run out. Whilst there was still coal in the ground miners should continue to dig it out, regardless of the economics. So industries like British steel, also nationalised, had to buy British coal. This left the government in a predicament. If the likes of British Steel had to pay what the coal actually cost then their own products would be uncompetitive, and they would go under. The answer was to subsidise the extraction of coal from completely uneconomic pits, with the long suffering tax payer picking up the bill. Thatcher sought to change this and proposed shutting down a small number of the most uneconomic pits, a perfectly reasonable idea. The union refused point blank to entertain any such notion and so we had the miners strike. I have no doubt Scargill entered into this confidently expecting the government to cave in, after all this is what had always happened before. Thatcher was not going to cave in and the irony is that many more pits closed as a result of the strike than had ever originally been proposed. And let's not forget how those miners who didn't agree with the strike and continued to work were branded scabs, and both they and their families were intimidated, threatened and physically attacked by their 'comrades'. Trades Unions at their very worst, and just the sort of thing Thatcher sought to put and end to by introducing such sinister, filthy capitalist ideas as secret ballots to vote for or against industrial action. Interesting that the vast majority of supposedly oppressive anti union legislation introduced by the Tories at this time wasn't repealed by Blair when he got in. Equally interesting that Corbyn did propose to repeal much of it, God knows what chaos might have resulted then.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Which of course makes them economic, but in another part of the economy.
Just nit picking here - too much text for me this early in the morning!
John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
I think you are absolutely right. It was only by curbing the union's that we were able to attract companies like Nissan and Honda to set up here. I do believe that certain industries are so vital that they should be state controlled, but only the basic utilities like water, gas and elecricity. In other cases you can certainly make the case that something is so beneficial that it should be subsidised, public transport being a good example. We spend, or used to at any rate, a great deal of time in Spain and Holland. Both have great train bus and tram services, clean efficient and cheap. All are subsidised but provide a valuable service and reduce traffic and pollution. None would probably be viable if the end user had to pick up the full cost, but the benefits to society as a whole make subsidising them perfectly sensible. Unfortunately here we have never been particularly good at this, and in part this may be down to an inherent aversion to state control of things. I think with the ever increasing threat of climate change we have to get our public transport system sorted out, so that it is a viable and affordable way for people to get about. In Spain we go everywhere by bus, I honestly can't remember the last time we drove anywhere. Here I can't remember the last time I used a bus, because there never seems to be one to where I want to go, and the cost of trains is prohibitive. If you want to go any great distance it's cheaper to fly, how daft is that?
AJB Temple
Finely figured
This has now morphed into a full on political thread.
How do you work that out? If the government pays say £60 to get a ton of coal out of the ground, then sells it for £30 how is that by any stretch of the imagination economic?
Agreed, and apologies for my part, we have got a bit off topic haven't we. Suspect HRH might have found that quite amusing in itself, God bless him.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
1 British steel needed it 2 it paid the wages of the miners 3 kept pits open, and so on
There's more to profit than a balance sheet. The UKs biggest and most successful industry, the NHS, makes no profit at all!
I suspect 99.9% of the population know who he is. Boasting about ignorance ................. your a strange one.
I rather liked the old boy (HRH), I do like Jacob as well, cracks me up from time to time.
is Jacob part of the Royal Family too?
Doug B
Shy Tot
well according to a previous post we all are,
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
No, but if I was King I'd sort everybody out in no time!
Doug B
Shy Tot
Isn’t that basically what China are doing now? Seems to be working for them at enormous cost to the climate
I don't consider it privileged living at all.
Sometimes I wonder if folk could actually get out of bed on a daily basis and do what they do.
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