Reply to: Denis Healey RIP

[BrilloPad]

I think you'll find that the quadrupling of the price of oil was the thing that screwed the economy in the early 1970s. I was there, I remember it clearly.

And I don't have any riches. I might have if Thatcher hadn't squandered the revenues from North Sea oil on creating mass unemployment and destroying manufacturing industry.

I was there in the 1970s too. The UK was slipping ever seen WW1 and WW2 escalated the downfall. Heath was rubbish - probably the worst PM since WW" until Gordon Brown But Callaghan/Healey did not to stop the rot. You cannot spend your way out of a crisis like the 1970s.

Thatcher decided to reduce red tape, cut spending and kill off the trade unions. She was lucky with the Falklands war or would have gone in 1983. Alas the city recovered better than manufacturing so the strong pound choked off the manufacturing recovery. That could have been fixed and should have.

I also don't have any riches. But my ex-wives do.

[darmstadt]

You are a contractor therefore unless you are a stupid one (and you are not) then you are rich .. live with it!

Richer than you'll ever be

[DodgyAgent]

I think you'll find that the quadrupling of the price of oil was the thing that screwed the economy in the early 1970s. I was there, I remember it clearly.

And I don't have any riches. I might have if Thatcher hadn't squandered the revenues from North Sea oil on creating mass unemployment and destroying manufacturing industry.

You are a contractor therefore unless you are a stupid one (and you are not) then you are rich .. live with it!

[NickFitz]

You mean a Heath government brought to its knees by the Trade Unions. And of course never forget that your own riches and privilege are thanks to the reforms of Margaret Thatcher

I think you'll find that the quadrupling of the price of oil was the thing that screwed the economy in the early 1970s. I was there, I remember it clearly.

And I don't have any riches. I might have if Thatcher hadn't squandered the revenues from North Sea oil on creating mass unemployment and destroying manufacturing industry.

[DodgyAgent]

And getting the IMF to bail us out is so different to printing money via QE?

Both necessitated as a result of labour rule

[DodgyAgent]

You missed out the last part of your sentence. FTFY.

You mean a Heath government brought to its knees by the Trade Unions. And of course never forget that your own riches and privilege are thanks to the reforms of Margaret Thatcher

[ZARDOZ]

His greatest success was that he managed to get a loan from the IMF to bail the UK's economy out

And getting the IMF to bail us out is so different to printing money via QE?

[NickFitz]

His greatest success was that he managed to get a loan from the IMF to bail the UK's economy out of the appalling mess it was in after four years of Tory government.

You missed out the last part of your sentence. FTFY.

[DodgyAgent]

His greatest success was that he managed to get a loan from the IMF to bail the UK's economy out

[xoggoth]

savaged by a dead sheep

Mmmmm. Sounds rude!

[Sysman]

Apart from the bin job on the TSR2 he was mostly harmless.

And he'd done stuff other than PPfeckingE at Oxbridge before going into politicks.

I remembered him for the phrase "Tax the rich until the pips squeak" so tapped it into the search box.

I got this instead:

"In a speech in Lincoln on 18 February 1974, reported in The Times the following day, Healey went further, promising he would "squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak" and said Lord Carrington, the Conservative Secretary of State for Energy, had made £10m profit from selling agricultural land at prices 30 to 60 times as high as it would command as farming land. He was later widely reported as saying that Labour would "tax the rich until the pips squeak", which Healey denied. "

I could never quite forgive for him for what turns out to be a misquote. He's just gone up in my estimation.

Posthumously of course.

And of course who could forget the savaged by a dead sheep quip?

he likened being attacked by the mild-mannered Sir Geoffrey Howe in the House of Commons to being "savaged by a dead sheep"

[EternalOptimist]

His eyebrows should be preserved for the nation. In a museum or something

[SueEllen]

you mean modern politicians that should be convicted?

Watching England lose to Australia isn't probably the best time to post.

[vetran]

You mean he was a conviction politician unlike the current bunch.

you mean modern politicians that should be convicted?

[SueEllen]

You mean he was a conviction politician unlike the current bunch.