Official thread for the biggest historical mistakes of Britain

[Paddy]

Biggest mistakes of Britain:

Going back to a monarchy after Oliver Cromwell.

Not succeeding in assonating Queen Victoria and overthrowing the monarchy, (bet you didn’t know that happened)

The Enclosures Act. (steeling common land hand handing it over to the gentry)


The Labour Party and Tony Blair.

[expat]

We had huge coal reserves and the Victorians quickly pissed them up the wall. Likewise recently we found a little oil and quickly pissed that up the wall too. Mostly all gone now and we didn't bother looking for alternatives or think bout what comes next. Except of course to rely on 'globalisation', which works great as icing on the cake for countries that don't have huge populations. For us globalisation acts as a life-support system reliant on cheap energy that could be turned off in future world crises. We need to change that. If not this will be our biggest mistake.

Name a free gift, we have pissed it up the wall. We have been in decline since about 1900. For most of the 20th century, we have spent our free gifts trying to keep hold of the Empire; then later, in pretending that we were wealthier than we really were.

We spent our Marshall Aid on re-establishing the empire, rather than rebuilding our country, and it still shows (not in the empire obviously, but in our infrastructure).

We spent the oil bonanza on current expenditure in the 1970s and 1980s (yes, 1980s, when most of the oil revenue came in); pretending not to be so poor as we really were, so as not to have to do anything about it.

If you look around, you can still see signs that we are pretending to be wealthier than we are, as a nation. For example, we boast that we work longer hours than anybody else in Europe. Turned around, that means that our productivity is lower so we have to work more. Not much to boast about.

Drop in oil prices? It won't show at the pump so much in the UK, because the element of petrol prices that goes to the government is relatively high: that's not because we get more back from our government, it's because we have less money to tax, so it has to be taxed higher.

PFI? Have your hospital now, pay for it later. Wealthy people don't buy things that way, in the home or in the government; only poor people do.

[Bagpuss]

Giving up on our car industry far too easily and handing the customers to France and Germany et al

Inventing many things then handing the ideas over for other nations to exploit

The Iraq War II

Scraping Concorde

[DodgyAgent]

Name a free gift, we have pissed it up the wall. We have been in decline since about 1900. For most of the 20th century, we have spent our free gifts trying to keep hold of the Empire; then later, in pretending that we were wealthier than we really were.

We spent our Marshall Aid on re-establishing the empire, rather than rebuilding our country, and it still shows (not in the empire obviously, but in our infrastructure).

We spent the oil bonanza on current expenditure in the 1970s and 1980s (yes, 1980s, when most of the oil revenue came in); pretending not to be so poor as we really were, so as not to have to do anything about it.

If you look around, you can still see signs that we are pretending to be wealthier than we are, as a nation. For example, we boast that we work longer hours than anybody else in Europe. Turned around, that means that our productivity is lower so we have to work more. Not much to boast about.

Drop in oil prices? It won't show at the pump so much in the UK, because the element of petrol prices that goes to the government is relatively high: that's not because we get more back from our government, it's because we have less money to tax, so it has to be taxed higher.

PFI? Have your hospital now, pay for it later. Wealthy people don't buy things that way, in the home or in the government; only poor people do.

Yep the old bottle is half empty

You sound like a bunch of old farts sitting in a pub in the middle of a village with nothing better to do than moan

[HairyArsedBloke]

Yep the old bottle is half empty

You sound like a bunch of old farts sitting in a pub in the middle of a village with nothing better to do than moan

Like these two?

[Rantor]

Yep the old bottle is half empty

You sound like a bunch of old farts sitting in a pub in the middle of a village with nothing better to do than moan

DA - that's you, that is

[DodgyAgent]

[basshead]

Jade Goody

[EternalOptimist]

Biggest mistakes of Britain ?

issuing orders to the light cavalry at Balaclava that were ambiguous. Not taking into account that the general could see the lie of the land but the commanding officer could not. Lastly, and most important, using a headstrong officer to deliver that order.

[Paddy]

Biggest mistakes of Britain ?

issuing orders to the light cavalry at Balaclava that were ambigous. Not taking into account that the general could see the lie of the land but the commanding officer could not. Lastly, and most important, using a headstrong officer to deliver that order.

They were planning the attack using Prince 2.