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Minutes silence !!!!
april fools was other day , all getting a bit daft now she was a pm not queenie!
april fools was other day , all getting a bit daft now she was a pm not queenie!
Discuss shes a gonner in the Plumbing Jobs | The Job-board area at PlumbersForums.net
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V
vern
Romour has it she could change a PRV on a greenstar within 5 mins no problem, she went in from the back through the outside wall, I heard heard her 1st demo of this was on an earlier prototype on an hotel wall in Brighton?? :teeth_smile:
J
julesverne
i was in born in 71. i hate all politicians as they are only politicians to serve their Ego's i also hate trade unions for the same reason. and whilst i totally blame thatcher for decimating british manufacturing trade unions must also take equal blame as they did just as much damage to british manufacturing.
My old man was a very active member of the Militant tendancy during the miners strike and i was with him as a small child when he met Scargill. Christ if i was too meet him today i think i would chin the ****.
Its People like him and his ilk that ruined the mining industry just as much as thatcher did for fighting a battle that could not be won. promising the miners something that was never going to happen.
My old man was a very active member of the Militant tendancy during the miners strike and i was with him as a small child when he met Scargill. Christ if i was too meet him today i think i would chin the ****.
Its People like him and his ilk that ruined the mining industry just as much as thatcher did for fighting a battle that could not be won. promising the miners something that was never going to happen.
G
Guest123
Heard she was asked to swap an auld bathroom suite fer a new one but replied....
"This lady is not for changing".
"This lady is not for changing".
J
julesverne
still this made laugh ant and decs impression of maggie thatcher
best ever spitting image part 1 of 7 - YouTube
best ever spitting image part 1 of 7 - YouTube
K
kirkgas
This post could have been written by me
P
petercj
The BBC have been sucking up this morning to the memory of Thatcher (fawning as they do to those in positions of power), they played a recording of Carol Thatcher made a few years ago, and she made comment on how single-minded her mother was - she used the term "tunnel vision" and "blinkered" to describe the way her mother powered and applied her determination to get things done - she wasn't being critical of her mother, just describing her as she saw her.
Having lived through (survived) the Thatcher years, I think her daughter's description of her was very accurate and insightful.
Thatcher drove her policies through with a complete disregard for the collateral damage she wreaked on people, and also whole communities.
She trained in the physical sciences, and she analysed things from the whole down to the elements - as is the way in the physical sciences. I've always thought that partly explained why she was such a champion for individualism, and so opposed to collectivism. This was reflected in her idea that there is no such thing as society, just many individuals who should follow their own best interests, which would work out as the best option for running the country based on the overall balance sheet.
It might be something of a parody to say that Thatcher saw "society" as a jungle where the fittest would survive, but that was the core model she so often followed. Her ideas have now become a political bible for the Tory hard Right to follow. Shrink the State and reel in anything that smacks of a social service and hand it over to the private sector.
Her simplistic and dogmatic ideas were very easy for a lot of working people to take up - her talk of: "Victorian values" connected with many of the older generation around in that era. Although in many ways she distorted history to suite her own political ends, or at least her advisers did, because seen in context of the period, the Victorians did much to civilize society and support the poor.
Some of the posts on here suggest that the folk writing them seem to take the attitude that British industry was finished anyway, and that Thatcher just dismantled the outdated structures and swept away the debris. Having read many a post on this forum over the past year, I have the impression that very few people on here have any idea of what the Trade Union movement was really about. Which for a website visited by so many tradesmen is incredible, while also understandable, but never-the-less, very sad.
We live in a society where history is written by the media, and the media have the power to create and spread narratives that many people take to represent an accurate record of earlier times. Mention Trade Unions, and for many people those two words conjure up images of miners battling with the police, restricted power supplies, and perhaps the most emotive image, the unburied dead of that period.
I can't remember seeing a documentary on the role of the Trade Unions in the training of craftsmen; or the development of safe working practices through the ages of British industry; or the general improvement in working conditions, and pay, that the Unions fought for over many decades, long before Thatcher was even born.
The high profile Trade Union leaders that battled with Thatcher were labelled militant because they stood up for what had been achieved by the Trade Union movement over time. Most of the moderate Trade Unionists who also tried to protect people's jobs and working conditions during that period have never been heard of by the general public.
Scargill and Thatcher were theatre, and the media loved it, because it was the stuff headlines are made of. Very little has changed in that respect over the past 50 years.
The details of the problems involved, of which there were many, were lost in what was a living soap opera.
Thatcher became an icon because so many people needed something simple to hang on to. One of her talents was to convert complex issues into simple black and white concepts that many people found easy to get a handle on. Thatcher frequently referred to the national economy as a: "cake", of which there was only so much to go round. Trade Unionists were "greedy people” who didn't care about other people having a slice of the cake, they'd eat the lot if mummy Thatcher didn't stop them.
It was all nonsense, but a lot of people related to the simplicity of it all. There was a battle on between US, and THEM, and Thatcher was on the side of "US", i.e. fighting against the bad guys! She was like the Lone Ranger without a mask, fighting for the greater good and firing her silver bullets at anyone who opposed her - including those in her own Government when it suited her (which eventually was to be her folly)
Yes, there were lots of problems around re continuity and change in British industry, but had it not been for the trigger-happy Mrs Thatcher blazing away to get her self in the headlines, Britain could have had a much smoother transition through some difficult times.
At that time, and also when looking back, it's easy to think that Scargill could have handled things much better too. The theatre of that period was about power, and I do think Scargill got caught up in the drama of it all. But then, if he'd been a quietly spoken, mild-mannered moderate man, Thatcher would have steam-rollered over him, i.e. he would never have been heard of by the general public, like most other Trade Union leaders of that time. If you are going to get in the ring with someone like Thatcher,you need to be able to throw a punch, as well as deflect them. Scargill wasn't very good at deflecting, he actually led with his chin on most public occasions. Thatcher claimed the Trade Unions wanted to run the country, which was a load of nonsense, but the media added it to the drama and sold it to a lot of people.
However, getting too caught up with the individuals involved is to miss the bigger picture.
A lot the mines that were closed down in the Thatcher years were still profitable. Which is not to suggest building a future on coal (to suggest that is a classic example of how Thatcher would polarise issues to suite her purpose). With hindsight, making the best of the energy resources we had at that time would have made sense in so many ways. However,at the time, North Sea gas seemed like an easy option, and so in Thatcher's eyes, coal was an outdated source. Accepting that some transition needed to be made at some point in the future to other sources, it would have made sense to have gradually run down some of the mines, while providing transitional training for miners into other occupational fields. Such a move would have offered miners some hope of financial security, and the radicals around the Trade Union movement would not have had a mandate for doing battle.
British Leyland was another mess - which is probably another post.
What I have a vivid memory of from that period is of British workers being accused of being "lazy and incompetent" and statistics being banded about by the Press to the effect that Japanese workers could turn out three cars to every one made by British workers. What they failed to mention was that the Japanese workers were operating state-of-the-art equipment in car manufacturing plants that had received massive investment.
If British workers were so lazy and incompetent, why did Japanese car manufactures come to Britain to set up car plants, and why did those plants do so well?
Why didn't the Japanese swallow 'the narrative' that British workers are hopeless, and that Britain is a country unsuited to making things?
Why is it that we have so many foreign manufacturers willing to invest in British based industry, and so little investment by British capitalists? Many of whom would rather transport their wealth to invest in China and other high-return areas of the world. Ironically,China’s prosperity flows from collectivism, and not the individualism inherent in Thatcherism.
Thatcherites who use the narrative to say: "well this is just how it is", should be asked to explain why Germany has not been subject to the same "inevitable global forces", having not dropped their industries as we did.
No doubt the legacy of Thatcher will live on for many years to come.
Thatcherism as an ideology has become every-day commonsense for most of us in Britain, i.e. love her, or hate her,she has shaped all of our lives. Personally, I would say for the worst, others will say for the better. Possibly, my views are different because I remember a Britain where people did care about each other, and they didn't see their neighbour as a competitor to be defeated in a jungle that will swallow you up if you take your eye off the ball. A Britain where people didn't get a kicking when they were down, i.e. people who were out of work were seen as unfortunate, and not as scroungers. A Britain in which people were proud to be British, and proud of the skills British people had, and the things that they made. Nowadays, so many people seem happier running down Britain, then finding something good to say about it.
Some people have compared Thatcher to Churchill, which imo is a huge mistake, because whereas Churchill united British people in: 'the hour of need', Thatcher divided people, and such divisions will live on long after her demise.
The most powerful industrial nation in the world today is China, and their culture is based on collectivism, not the individualism that has pulled Britain apart in so many ways.
I often wonder how different things might have been for Britain if we had held on to the collectivist culture that Britain had after WW2, i.e. if we had sorted out Britain's industrial evolution with more diplomacy and care, and with less drama and strife.
Good-bye Mrs Thatcher - unfortunately, a lot of us will remember you for a long time to come.
Having lived through (survived) the Thatcher years, I think her daughter's description of her was very accurate and insightful.
Thatcher drove her policies through with a complete disregard for the collateral damage she wreaked on people, and also whole communities.
She trained in the physical sciences, and she analysed things from the whole down to the elements - as is the way in the physical sciences. I've always thought that partly explained why she was such a champion for individualism, and so opposed to collectivism. This was reflected in her idea that there is no such thing as society, just many individuals who should follow their own best interests, which would work out as the best option for running the country based on the overall balance sheet.
It might be something of a parody to say that Thatcher saw "society" as a jungle where the fittest would survive, but that was the core model she so often followed. Her ideas have now become a political bible for the Tory hard Right to follow. Shrink the State and reel in anything that smacks of a social service and hand it over to the private sector.
Her simplistic and dogmatic ideas were very easy for a lot of working people to take up - her talk of: "Victorian values" connected with many of the older generation around in that era. Although in many ways she distorted history to suite her own political ends, or at least her advisers did, because seen in context of the period, the Victorians did much to civilize society and support the poor.
Some of the posts on here suggest that the folk writing them seem to take the attitude that British industry was finished anyway, and that Thatcher just dismantled the outdated structures and swept away the debris. Having read many a post on this forum over the past year, I have the impression that very few people on here have any idea of what the Trade Union movement was really about. Which for a website visited by so many tradesmen is incredible, while also understandable, but never-the-less, very sad.
We live in a society where history is written by the media, and the media have the power to create and spread narratives that many people take to represent an accurate record of earlier times. Mention Trade Unions, and for many people those two words conjure up images of miners battling with the police, restricted power supplies, and perhaps the most emotive image, the unburied dead of that period.
I can't remember seeing a documentary on the role of the Trade Unions in the training of craftsmen; or the development of safe working practices through the ages of British industry; or the general improvement in working conditions, and pay, that the Unions fought for over many decades, long before Thatcher was even born.
The high profile Trade Union leaders that battled with Thatcher were labelled militant because they stood up for what had been achieved by the Trade Union movement over time. Most of the moderate Trade Unionists who also tried to protect people's jobs and working conditions during that period have never been heard of by the general public.
Scargill and Thatcher were theatre, and the media loved it, because it was the stuff headlines are made of. Very little has changed in that respect over the past 50 years.
The details of the problems involved, of which there were many, were lost in what was a living soap opera.
Thatcher became an icon because so many people needed something simple to hang on to. One of her talents was to convert complex issues into simple black and white concepts that many people found easy to get a handle on. Thatcher frequently referred to the national economy as a: "cake", of which there was only so much to go round. Trade Unionists were "greedy people” who didn't care about other people having a slice of the cake, they'd eat the lot if mummy Thatcher didn't stop them.
It was all nonsense, but a lot of people related to the simplicity of it all. There was a battle on between US, and THEM, and Thatcher was on the side of "US", i.e. fighting against the bad guys! She was like the Lone Ranger without a mask, fighting for the greater good and firing her silver bullets at anyone who opposed her - including those in her own Government when it suited her (which eventually was to be her folly)
Yes, there were lots of problems around re continuity and change in British industry, but had it not been for the trigger-happy Mrs Thatcher blazing away to get her self in the headlines, Britain could have had a much smoother transition through some difficult times.
At that time, and also when looking back, it's easy to think that Scargill could have handled things much better too. The theatre of that period was about power, and I do think Scargill got caught up in the drama of it all. But then, if he'd been a quietly spoken, mild-mannered moderate man, Thatcher would have steam-rollered over him, i.e. he would never have been heard of by the general public, like most other Trade Union leaders of that time. If you are going to get in the ring with someone like Thatcher,you need to be able to throw a punch, as well as deflect them. Scargill wasn't very good at deflecting, he actually led with his chin on most public occasions. Thatcher claimed the Trade Unions wanted to run the country, which was a load of nonsense, but the media added it to the drama and sold it to a lot of people.
However, getting too caught up with the individuals involved is to miss the bigger picture.
A lot the mines that were closed down in the Thatcher years were still profitable. Which is not to suggest building a future on coal (to suggest that is a classic example of how Thatcher would polarise issues to suite her purpose). With hindsight, making the best of the energy resources we had at that time would have made sense in so many ways. However,at the time, North Sea gas seemed like an easy option, and so in Thatcher's eyes, coal was an outdated source. Accepting that some transition needed to be made at some point in the future to other sources, it would have made sense to have gradually run down some of the mines, while providing transitional training for miners into other occupational fields. Such a move would have offered miners some hope of financial security, and the radicals around the Trade Union movement would not have had a mandate for doing battle.
British Leyland was another mess - which is probably another post.
What I have a vivid memory of from that period is of British workers being accused of being "lazy and incompetent" and statistics being banded about by the Press to the effect that Japanese workers could turn out three cars to every one made by British workers. What they failed to mention was that the Japanese workers were operating state-of-the-art equipment in car manufacturing plants that had received massive investment.
If British workers were so lazy and incompetent, why did Japanese car manufactures come to Britain to set up car plants, and why did those plants do so well?
Why didn't the Japanese swallow 'the narrative' that British workers are hopeless, and that Britain is a country unsuited to making things?
Why is it that we have so many foreign manufacturers willing to invest in British based industry, and so little investment by British capitalists? Many of whom would rather transport their wealth to invest in China and other high-return areas of the world. Ironically,China’s prosperity flows from collectivism, and not the individualism inherent in Thatcherism.
Thatcherites who use the narrative to say: "well this is just how it is", should be asked to explain why Germany has not been subject to the same "inevitable global forces", having not dropped their industries as we did.
No doubt the legacy of Thatcher will live on for many years to come.
Thatcherism as an ideology has become every-day commonsense for most of us in Britain, i.e. love her, or hate her,she has shaped all of our lives. Personally, I would say for the worst, others will say for the better. Possibly, my views are different because I remember a Britain where people did care about each other, and they didn't see their neighbour as a competitor to be defeated in a jungle that will swallow you up if you take your eye off the ball. A Britain where people didn't get a kicking when they were down, i.e. people who were out of work were seen as unfortunate, and not as scroungers. A Britain in which people were proud to be British, and proud of the skills British people had, and the things that they made. Nowadays, so many people seem happier running down Britain, then finding something good to say about it.
Some people have compared Thatcher to Churchill, which imo is a huge mistake, because whereas Churchill united British people in: 'the hour of need', Thatcher divided people, and such divisions will live on long after her demise.
The most powerful industrial nation in the world today is China, and their culture is based on collectivism, not the individualism that has pulled Britain apart in so many ways.
I often wonder how different things might have been for Britain if we had held on to the collectivist culture that Britain had after WW2, i.e. if we had sorted out Britain's industrial evolution with more diplomacy and care, and with less drama and strife.
Good-bye Mrs Thatcher - unfortunately, a lot of us will remember you for a long time to come.
B
Barry98
You have too much time on your hands
J
julesverne
What i dont get and to be honest this is another subject entirely power stations could be built to burn coal just as cleanl as gas. Based on the fact we have at least 1000 years worth under the ground it seems stupid and short sighted to have a reliance on gas and nuclear. If they can make a nuclear surely they can make a clean burning coal powered station.
It seems short terms gains are always in the politicians eye rather looking at the bigger pictures and just think of how much employment it would create and best of all its ours.
It seems short terms gains are always in the politicians eye rather looking at the bigger pictures and just think of how much employment it would create and best of all its ours.
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