Contractors are Thatchers children

[SantaClaus]

Was speaking to someone today about the Labour govt. in 1973.

He reminded me of:
90% top tax rate
power cuts
strikes
3 day working week

I was 4 years old, but remember granny getting out the candles.

In comparison, Margaret Thatcher was a breath of fresh air.

[Bagpuss]

Was speaking to someone today about the Labour govt. in 1973.

He reminded me of:
90% top tax rate
power cuts
strikes
3 day working week

I was 4 years old, but remember granny getting out the candles.

In comparison, Margaret Thatcher was a breath of fresh air.

Ted Heath (conservative) was in power in 1973 and the 3 day week.

[Gonzo]

Was speaking to someone today about the Labour govt. in 1973.

He reminded me of:
90% top tax rate
power cuts
strikes
3 day working week

I was 4 years old, but remember granny getting out the candles.

In comparison, Margaret Thatcher was a breath of fresh air.

Where's the shakes head smiley?

The 3 day week was at the start of 1974 and the Conservatives were in power (Ted Heath was PM as mentioned).

However, the 3 day week was a response to power shortages caused by striking coal miners and retribution came in the end a decade later.

[SantaClaus]

Ted Heath (conservative) was in power in 1973 and the 3 day week.

I stand corrected, but I was only 4 years old!

Am in right in thinking the Tories inherited the misdoings of a Labour govt?

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Was speaking to someone today about the Labour govt. in 1973.

He reminded me of:
90% top tax rate
power cuts
strikes
3 day working week

I was 4 years old, but remember granny getting out the candles.

In comparison, Margaret Thatcher was a breath of fresh air.

You have just 100% proved my point about revisionist history.

[Gonzo]

Am in right in thinking the Tories inherited the misdoings of a Labour govt?

No. Much as I am loathed to admit it.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the British economy was described as "stop and go" rather than boom and bust. Recessions were unheard of - only in 1958 did the economy decline and then only by 0.2%.

Inflation averaged 3.3% (5.4% max) and unemployment averaged 1.9% (2.6% max) through this period.*

At the time the main criticism of the governments was that productivity growth lagged behind more successful economies such as France and Italy (and the US and Germany obviously).

The trouble in the 1970s started with the conservative Chancellor's policies resulting in an inflationary boom (google "Barber Boom").

That said, the quadrupling of the price of oil at the end of 1973 made things very much worse and it is not easy to decouple the effects of the two.


* Figures taken from From Boom to Bust David Smith 1992.

[Gonzo]

There was an interesting piece in the FT from 10 years ago.

Descriptions of how things went wrong for post-war Chancellors. Most of them were Conservative.

http://specials.ft.com/ln/budget99/q310e.htm

It's not the whole story though - there is no mention of what can now be called the halcyon days under Norman Lamont.

[DodgyAgent]

1. As others have said - totally unknowable.
2. We've been over this, but just a few highlights:

Support for Apartheid
Refusal to settle Miners strike when she had the opportunity
Failure to act to prevent Falklands Invasion when warned and cynical use of it subsequently
Claim to refuse to negotiate with "blood stained marxist" Mugabe - and then negotiating.
Claims never to U turn but doing one any time her personal power was threatened.
Her sickening support for the utter reptile Cecil Parkinson - Mandelson's a sleazy rat, but he didn't abandon his own child and refuse to have anything to do with her or her Mum.
Claims she cut taxes when she didn't
Claims to respect democracy and free speech but refused to let a legally constituted Polictical party appear and speak on TV
Sickening Support for Pinochet
Claim to cut red tape but increasing it - Poll Tax top but not the only example
Squandered Oil and Privatisation revenues
Created most of the current Quangocracy current Tories complain about
Purchase of Jonson Matthey Bank - a Nationalisation when it suited her
Had the cheek to campaign on the basis of that "Labour Isn't working" poster on the basis that Labour wasn't ensuring people had work! What a laugh. Took over and more than doubled unemployment (as well as gerimandering the stats).
Selling us stuff we'd already paid for then creating pointless regulators and watchdogs to do sod all at our expense

You could apply such a negative diatribe to any Prime Minister or leading politician, especially with being able to distort the reality and circumstances armed with hindsight. What you cannot distort is the fact that you personally have become fat and rich thanks to her policies.

[EternalOptimist]

What you cannot distort is the fact that you personally have become fat and rich thanks to her policies.

hey. easy on the rich bit buster

[Peoplesoft bloke]

You could apply such a negative diatribe to any Prime Minister or leading politician, especially with being able to distort the reality and circumstances armed with hindsight.

True to a point but irrelevant - the question was reasons I don't/didn't like Thatcher, not anyone else.

What you cannot distort is the fact that you personally have become fat and rich thanks to her policies.

I would have been fat anyway - which of her policies have made me "rich"?