The Beeb and VAT

[Peoplesoft bloke]

What an astonishing spin on the miners dispute. Arthur Scargill couldnt have interpreted his position any better himself.The miners had been holding the country to ransom before Thatcher came along and the country decided to vote for someone who could remove the reliance on coal for power, or remove the power of the Unions.

Which is pretty much what I said - did you read any of it?

Coal was cheaper to buy from somewhere else, was uneconomical and therefore the mining Industry went out of business.

As for the short term "if I can get it cheaper elsewhere, shut ours down" this is a little simplistic in connection with energy although I understood why she did it - and I'm the one being accused of being a redneck.

Scargill's agenda had nothing to do with the welfare of the miners. He wanted to exploit his power and the miners to bring down Thatcher. It was the same with the print unions and it was the same with the unions who ran British Leyland. To use a throw away line as "agenda was to smash the whole industry" is quite ridiculous, and to suggest that ".

I agree with you about Scargill in large part - I wasn't defending him - he was an idiot. Where he went wrong was hijacking a trade dispute for politics, playing politics with someone who was much better at it (Maggie), and not realising that just stating the obvious that Maggie wanted to shut down the coal industry wasn't enough to win sympathy with people who didn't care about it.

I will just give you an example of how your redneck mind works: You said "As a result she decided not to settle the dispute despite several opportunities" .

What do we assume from that? is that it she was patently out of order? Why are you not bright enough to simply ask the question? "on what terms?". Surely this is a fundamental question that anyone would ask.

You can assume what you like from my stating Thatcher had opportunities to settle - I was merely drawing attention to it. In my opinion she declined to do so in order to assert her authority and to push through her plan to shut the coal industry. I didn't offer an opinion on whether this was right or wrong

I despair with people like you that you can turn on someone who dismantled the evil system ...

I despair of people like you who can't accept anyone's right to a different view of history they lived through. I didn't "turn on" Thatcher - I never liked her in the first place and nothing in the intervening years has persuaded me she had much virtue (although she wasn't all bad). Certainly the attitude of her fervent supporters doesn't do anything to improve my view of her or them, often being characterised (as in your case) by a festival of name-calling rather than any attempt at proper discourse.

that was impoverishing people through sheer guts and determination, the effect of which being to enrich especially people like you.

There you go again "people like you" - you need to characterise me in a particular way in order for all the pieces to fit in your world view, but in point of fact you have no way of knowing (and nor for that matter has anyone) whether such personal wealth as I have has anything to do with Thatcher.

Your dogmatic one eyed stance on her suggests only that it is either "cool" in your social circle to "hate" Thatcher (middle class guilt) or that you are truly a Taleban[sic] mysoginist[sic].

Only to someone whose one-eyed dogmatic love for Thatcher refuses to accept anyone else's opinions as valid, if disagreable.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Essentially there was a tax levied on the difference between pre-war profit and war-time profit of 100% which combined with accountancy changes made it effectively way more than 100%, and bankrupted the companies. In 1949 Clement Attlee's Labour government set up the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain. There was massive confusion about what companies were defined as companies to be nationalised and which weren't, thereby preventing most from raising finance to retool for many years, and driving what money that was looking to invest to competitor economies.

Thanks for this - I wasn't aware of it.