Reply to: Thatcher wins Scottish independence!

[DodgyAgent]

None of us wants the unions to rule again, or government to interfere in every part of society, however jerking too far in the other direction leaves the greedy and rich to dominate. Balance is needed and the party that can bring that will get my vote.

In other words you want it both ways. You have an entitlement to feed off her reforms by earning vast amounts of money and paying little or no tax. Anyone else who benefits is labelled greedy.

What this country needs is more rich people and a government that can redistribute the wealth effectively. I do not think you will find people to be less greedy prior to Thatcher. She simply enabled people to break away from the dead hand of a collective monopoly

[DodgyAgent]

None of us wants the unions to rule again, or government to interfere in every part of society, however jerking too far in the other direction leaves IT contractors to dominate. Balance is needed and the party that can bring that will get my vote.

FTFY

[proggy]

None of us wants the unions to rule again, or government to interfere in every part of society, however jerking too far in the other direction leaves the greedy and rich to dominate. Balance is needed and the party that can bring that will get my vote.

[minestrone]

I knew her death was going to raise quite a stir.

But the amount of complete pish that is coming out is something else.

[Ignis Fatuus]

Compare & contrast the rise of The Iron Lady with the rise in complexity achieved in the semiconductor industry over the same time period (i.e. from 4004 to 386).

Presumably the rise in the availability of programmable devices led to a requirement for people to program said devices.

Heh, that could be

I notice that IT contracting rose in other countries too - now wasn't that pretty amazing of Maggie, to spread it around the world?

Speaking of other countries, I did not benefit from Thatcher's supposed boom: 4 days after she was elected I left the country. I went to Germany where I could find more contracts, better-paid. Over all these years that has still been true. Don't think the Thatcherite medicine is working yet.

What has also been true up to and even after Thatcher's death, is her fan base making up myths about her supposed achievements.

[Ignis Fatuus]

Contractors were the worst kind of beneficiaries. thatcher intended to create environments for entrepreneurs to invest in and grow businesses to take risks and enable rewards for success and above all to create jobs. She did not intend to enrich a class of individuals who saw the opportunity to simply make a fast buck for themselves, to avoid paying tax, to not take risks and to not have to employ people.

These guys you describe sound greedy and full of themselves. Thatcher's Children IOW. That's the contracting that Thatcher made. That and a bunch of self-satisfied parasite salesmen who rode to wealth on the back of people who could actually make IT work.

[GB9]

That's not socialism, that's farce. It's ridiculous but it's not politics.

BTW which union was that, give us a link for the "revelation" please, and where's the money coming from? On second thoughts don't bother, I don't care. It's a red herring, favourite device of empty rhetoricians.

I hope that doesn't include you, or I might have to get discourteous.

I don't believe it is a red herring, so link attached here.

Living in Yorkshire for near 50 years I have seen close up what the unions have done to the workers. The privileged few at the top, who continued to get paid despite calling the workers out for weeks on end. The desire to keep people in poor conditions as an excuse to use it as a political tool.

If you haven't been to Cuba its worth a visit. Socialism extreme. As usual, it results in a two-tier society, with the workers, who are supposed to be helped by the system, remaining at the bottom, and the socialists leaders, who are supposed to represent them, living the life of Riley.

[Sysman]

I entered into the freelance market in 1982. It was tiny. Over the next ten years it grew rapidly. Before Thatcher there was no need to modernise anything with what were essentially labour saving IT systems. The entire UK was taxed to the hilt to subsidise industries that were highly inefficient. The deregulation of the banking system brought in the development of electronic trading systems as well as more mundane IT in areas of sales and accounting etc etc. In the 90s we had the deregulation of the electricity industry and the huge investment in technologies by marks and Spencer and Tesco.

Not quite. We were using IT for sales and accounting, stock control and other things before Thatcher got into power.

[DodgyAgent]

[QUOTE=Ignis Fatuus;1725022]Forgive me, Dodgy, I was too glib. Regardless of my own personal circumstance, I disagree with your idea that Thatcher created the society that so enriched IT contractors. That is simply imagination. she may have deregulated some aspects of the economy as it impinged upon business, but I can not see that this made much difference to IT contracting. she certainly did not bring about some kind of explosion in micro-freelancing business that made IT contractors rich. IT contactors are freelance professionals (or temps in many cases), almost never businesses like BP or even Dodgy Agency Ltd. No shame in that. But no big boost from Thatcher either.[/QUOT

I entered into the freelance market in 1982. It was tiny. Over the next ten years it grew rapidly. Before Thatcher there was no need to modernise anything with what were essentially labour saving IT systems. The entire UK was taxed to the hilt to subsidise industries that were highly inefficient. The deregulation of the banking system brought in the development of electronic trading systems as well as more mundane IT in areas of sales and accounting etc etc. In the 90s we had the deregulation of the electricity industry and the huge investment in technologies by marks and Spencer and Tesco.

If the country had been left as you would have liked it then we would have now been where Poland was 20 years ago. The country was on the brink of collapse.

Contractors were the worst kind of beneficiaries. thatcher intended to create environments for entrepreneurs to invest in and grow businesses to take risks and enable rewards for success and above all to create jobs. She did not intend to enrich a class of individuals who saw the opportunity to simply make a fast buck for themselves, to avoid paying tax, to not take risks and to not have to employ people.

[centurian]

Not me my dodgy mate. I started my IT contracting career in January 1978. I left the UK on 7th May 1979, so I lived 3 days under the Thatcher regime. I don't owe Thatcher anything.

Will you be returning to an independent Scotland then.

Much like the plethora of Scottish-born celebs living in the USA, there's just something galling about these celebs passionately calling for Scottish independence from afar, safe in the knowledge that if independence turns out to be a complete disaster, then they won't have to deal/live with the consequences.

[camfish]

...that so many of our English neighbours actually thought that Thatcher's government was remotely acceptable...

Some of your English neighbours and the rest of the world thought she was a great leader, which I suppose includes 'acceptable'.
When you go, and take a few million Labour votes with you, your English neighbours won't miss you. 'Bye.

[Sysman]

She even sold off stuff that wasn't actually in public hands, having spotted that there was no power to prevent her (Trustee Savings Banks - they were not public property, but she put them up for sale anyway).

Water was a prime example where I lived during its privatisation. One local town was immensely proud of its water system, having had the foresight to invest heavily in it by building new reservoirs back in the 1930s. The sewage works managed to offset of lot of its costs by selling by-products too. There was a definite pride that it was part of the town's heritage and belonged to the people.

After privatisation Yorkshire Water went on an asset stripping spree and our bills went up.

She sold off council houses but did it for a number of devious reasons (income to treasury, buy votes, divest government of responsibility). I would have been 100% in favour if the government had then built more. Not to do so led to many of today's housing evils (excessive buy-to-let, lack of social housing).

The councils were forbidden from using the proceeds from those sales to construct new council housing.

[Ignis Fatuus]

IMO Scotland should have been out of the Union at the moment of devolution. You cannot be in when it suits and out otherwise. i.e in for free prescriptions and out for gas and oil profits.

I agree about being out, but I must point out the fallacy in your examples.

Firstly, Scotland is not "in for free prescriptions". It is not "getting" free prescriptions from the UK: it is choosing to spend some of its money on that, where the rest of the UK chooses not to spend some of its money on that. That is devolution, not central subsidy.

Secondly, Scotland is unfortunately not "out for gas and oil profits", it is emphatically "in" - the gas and oil is London's as things stand.

So sorry, you have it quite posterior about mammary gland.

[Ignis Fatuus]

Forgive me, Dodgy, I was too glib. Regardless of my own personal circumstance, I disagree with your idea that Thatcher created the society that so enriched IT contractors. That is simply imagination. she may have deregulated some aspects of the economy as it impinged upon business, but I can not see that this made much difference to IT contracting. she certainly did not bring about some kind of explosion in micro-freelancing business that made IT contractors rich. IT contactors are freelance professionals (or temps in many cases), almost never businesses like BP or even Dodgy Agency Ltd. No shame in that. But no big boost from Thatcher either.

[tractor]

That's not socialism that is corruption. You can have corruption anywhere people have unchallenged power.
Unions have been a spent force in this country ever since the miners strike, but in Germany where they are quite strong and active, the economy and manufacturing industry are stronger. The difference between here and Germany is a less split society. Thatcher destroyed the post war consensus and put us on the road to an increasingly polarised society where we are all at each others' throats. I dont actually think she meant it to go as far as it has. I used to hate her with a vengeance, but at least she had principles unlike most politicians now.

Selective memories :P

I don't think Thatcher started it; from Wiki (which I had to refer as the memory starts to fade but that's another story).....

"The strikes were a result of the Labour government's attempt to control inflation by a forced departure from their social contract with the unions by imposing rules on the public sector that pay rises be kept below 5%, to control inflation in itself and as an example to the private sector. However, some employees' unions conducted their negotiations within mutually agreed limits above this limit with employers.[1] While the strikes were largely over by February 1979, the government's inability to contain the strikes earlier helped lead to Margaret Thatcher's Conservative victory in the 1979 general election and legislation to restrict unions."

Indeed I do remember it correctly then, and reading this thread, I find it similar to the distasteful comments by Adams and Galloway et al. - it's clear they learn nothing from the past, she won most of her battles because her enemies had no respect for her, how little they learned from her. Yes she made some big mistakes. Yes she was divisive but the unions started the war, so did Galtieri etc etc.

IMO Scotland should have been out of the Union at the moment of devolution. You cannot be in when it suits and out otherwise. i.e in for free prescriptions and out for gas and oil profits.