RIP Maggie Thatcher.

Do you think most miners agreed at the time that closing the industry down medium term was wise?

speak the national toungue sunshine.
get that plum maggie used to have in her mouth

supersavo


08 Apr 13 19:47
Joined:

19 Apr 02
| Topic/replies: 1,610 | Blogger: supersavo's blog

BB sounds like you fitted the part well for your scumbag job.

get educated , fool

I won't stoop to your level savo; unfortunately for me I have slight brain damage which makes taking in new information in impossible

took away the ability of fathers to force their sons to work down a mine. how many of the 30 year olds of today want to work in a mine?

jermaine defonebox , you are so typical of the right wingers in this country , it defies belief how brainwashed you have become , they couldnt give 2 **** about the working class in this country and if you couldnt see it then , you must surely see it now , have you no idea what a hatchet job they did on scargill and the num leadership through the tory press and regrettably the ****g daily mirror ??, do you just take everything that is peddled out by the paid journalist and believe it , maybe you are one , dickhead

Winner_Winner_Chicken_Diner
08 Apr 13 13:23
Joined:
27 Feb 10
| Topic/replies: 12,473 | Blogger: Winner_Winner_Chicken_Diner's blog
The devil himself has been dreading this day

no liking or disliking for her, but this did make me

Bert I'm certainly not right but I don't like  mixing with low working class types like mentioned very threatening a burden to the country   They are all getting phased out now with intelligence and machinery

witch horror bag please stay dead for a longtime horrible woman

Run that by me again Einstein 


Bert I'm certainly not right but I don't like  mixing with low working class types like mentioned very threatening a burden to the country   They are all getting phased out now with intelligence and machinery

RIP, great leader, wonderful lady

get back in your kennel you silly pooch.

Apr 8, 2013 -- 8:02PM, Injera wrote:

Do you think most miners agreed at the time that closing the industry down medium term was wise?

Erm, no. But she was the Prime Minister ffs, with the wealth and minds of the nation at her service. Ergo she should have been making correct decisions.

She was no friend to the Irish people, both religions. Responsable for a number of needless provocations and made the hunger strikers into folk heroes. I, for one, will not be attending the funeral. Just to add to that, I cannot say that she was not personable as a woman or friend to her own and I conceed she was a god mother and wife.

A Churchillian leader of people.

RIP.

When she closed the outdated slave camps called mines she brought Nissan etc plus the enterprise scheme but the thick soot covered twats didn't have the brains to adjust to other jobs just preferred scrounging benefits and faking lung diseases

25 Aug 05
| Topic/replies: 2,683 | Blogger: Charlton2005's blog
took away the ability of fathers to force their sons to work down a mine. how many of the 30 year olds of today want to work in a mine?

Local news this evening asked that same question in a mining village shut by Thatcher; answer was unfortunately the majority of 30 year olds in the area are now drug addicts because there are no jobs around

You seem to be under the impression that all she did was damage the mining industry. She destroyed the manufacturing base of the country to the extent that there is no foreseeable hope of us  bridging the trade gap in the years to come. No time or attention is given to the balance of trade any more but it's key to a nation's economic and social health. She shot it to pieces and was able to do because she culd throw money at taxpayers through a combination of privatisation of national industries and the promise of North Sea oil.
People rightly criticise Brown for selling the gold reserve when he did, but its as nothing compared to the financial mismanagement of the Thatcher years.

The greatest Prime Minister we have ever had, great lady.

RIP Maggie

RIP has always seemed a ridiculous thing to say anyway. Its like there's some choice in the matter.

Love the women she had aa fair pair of headlamps when she was young

Pandorica u make an idiot of yourself on these forums, you describe Thatacher as 'thick' whatever your political views she certainly wasn't thick

Bish Bosher:

...the majority of 30 year olds in the area are now drug addicts because there are no jobs around


and there in a nutshell you have the thick lefty view on how to take responsibility for your own lives. 

"there aint no jobs round ere guv so I do drugs, wheres me benefits"

I also have a very strong view about current affairs.  I think you should all listen to what I say.

Pandorica post your proof, MT did what you state.

fair comment allweather; there again I found a low paid job and got told I should get educated and that I was a fool

Lets not be sad, she is a rare case of someone who does not deserve any respect even in death.

The architect of slave wage Britain, and Tories wonder why immigration.

The architect of slave wage Britain, and Tories wonder why professionals move abroad.

The architect of slave wage Britain, and Tories wonder why no demand for their small businesses.

There were no great problems when she took office, North Sea Oil, Housing boom, near full employment, I worked for a Titan of British Industry, the first company in the world to make £1 Billion profit in a year, by the time she left office and sold all the countries assets there was nobody left to sell anything to.

"There were no great problems when she took office"
LOL this is about the most ridiculous thing I've read on the subject. You're either trolling or on crack, the country was a wreck, she took over shortly after we had just had a greek style bailout by the IMF. The country was on its knees.

Labour and co are pathological liars with their daily dishonesty lies and spinning rubbish about things NOW, what hope is there of any truthful or fair view of events of 30+ years ago?

And how old were you exactly 30 years ago...

Tonyface you make yourself look an idiot...'no great problems when she took office'

"And how old were you exactly 30 years ago... "
So you make a fool of yourself spouting complete rubbish and not having a leg to stand on try and turn it from historical facts to ad hominem on the person who called you on it. Brilliant.

Says MrBaboon, I lived through her rancid time in office and are not just listening to rose tinted biased right wingers.

Agree pretty much with Tonyface..the 1970s were a much better time for working and middle class people

British Aerospace,British Steel,British Rail,British Telecom,British Airways,British Coal,British Leyland,British Road Services,British Shipbuilders,British Petroleum.
JUST SOME of the many industries that inglorious bhastard sold off in her pursuit of self-satisfaction.

"there is no such thing as society"

not in a rich mans/women world when the only help u need is from ur butler to wipe ur ****, there is one however when uve been supressed by the toffs in every which way, what a stupid statement ironic cameron came out with the "big society" thinly veiled, ok there is one then, help urselfs out
may she burn in hell, only a hard nosed tory idiot would defend this cretin

Yes Callaghan borrowed a few Billion from the IMF, which is nothing compared to the wheeling and dealing that goes on between Governments now, and the bins never got emptied for a few weeks, but I dont remember the country being on its knees as the Thatcher admirers will have everyone believe.

All the build up to this with documentaries about the Falklands and the Thatcher letters shows how the British establishment works at conditioning people.

Apr 8, 2013 -- 10:52PM, AyersRock wrote:

"there is no such thing as society"not in a rich mans/women world when the only help u need is from ur butler to wipe ur ****, there is one however when uve been supressed by the toffs in every which way, what a stupid statement ironic cameron came out with the "big society" thinly veiled, ok there is one then, help urselfs out may she burn in hell, only a hard nosed tory idiot would defend this cretin

Of course, you are talking about a grocers daughter who didn't take no for an answer and climbed the social scale despite people like you trying to put her down.

You didn't know that though, did you?

Apr 8, 2013 -- 10:54PM, Tonyface wrote:

Yes Callaghan borrowed a few Billion from the IMF, which is nothing compared to the wheeling and dealing that goes on between Governments now, and the bins never got emptied for a few weeks, but I dont remember the country being on its knees as the Thatcher admirers will have everyone believe.All the build up to this with documentaries about the Falklands and the Thatcher letters shows how the British establishment works at conditioning people.

Callaghan took Britian to bankruptcy. Let's not try and make the forced reconstruction of the countries finances voluntary. There's similar people in Greece now trying to spin IMF bailouts as inspired.

I did actually, she forgot her roots. Politics does that to people. Most politicians start off with good intetions, genuinely want to make a difference, but in the end legacy and power are more important the further up the ladder they climb, she pissed all over working class people in the end

Apr 8, 2013 -- 11:06PM, AyersRock wrote:

I did actually, she forgot her roots. Politics does that to people. Most politicians start off with good intetions, genuinely want to make a difference, but in the end legacy and power are more important the further up the ladder they climb, she pissed all over working class people in the end

Of course. If you keep saying the same thing over and over again you will believe it.

This is the same situation as when you cheered a Labour policy as GOOD and a Coalition policy as EVIl & SCUM despite it being the same policy.

You don't like anything that is an opposition to Labour, we get that.

cj, not true, the policy was aimed at the private sector where rents were stratospheric and not set by local councils, plus its also the implementation of the bedroom TAX, not giving people a chance to downsize, just hitting them straight in the pocket

ive explained this to you now 3 times

Apr 8, 2013 -- 11:15PM, AyersRock wrote:

cj, not true, the policy was aimed at the private sector where rents were stratospheric and not set by local councils, plus its also the implementation of the bedroom TAX, not giving people a chance to downsize, just hitting them straight in the pocketive explained this to you now 3 times

Yes, yes you have.

Anyone with knowledge of the last thread will just give a little giggle. That's the problem you have when you don't fully understand what is happening and lash out because you see someone else doing the same.

not lashing out mate, just an opinion, and i made a thread as soon a i herd, and it was deleted so im following nobody,

u appear to be a compulsive liar cj

Apr 8, 2013 -- 11:28PM, AyersRock wrote:

not lashing out mate, just an opinion, and i made a thread as soon a i herd, and it was deleted so im following nobody, u appear to be a compulsive liar cj

Cheers for that.

As you said, you don't lash out.

make it no1 lads on Sunday.........


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4BCUWopQQ4

any reason why she had elocution lessons? first signs.

Record high unemployment, you can keep defending her, but some stats don't lie

Apr 8, 2013 -- 11:51PM, AyersRock wrote:

any reason why she had elocution lessons? first signs.Record high unemployment, you can keep defending her, but some stats don't lie

That one does

Keep trying.

so what was the unemployment figure in April 1984 ? tell me.

Apr 8, 2013 -- 11:58PM, AyersRock wrote:

so what was the unemployment figure in April 1984 ? tell me.

I'm not that anal. Was it higher under Labour or Thatcher?

Do tell us.

Coachbuster 08 Apr 13 14:05 Joined: 08 Apr 06 | Topic/replies: 23,139 | Blogger: Coachbuster's blog

lol at all the commies on a gambling site

what does that matter? two shades of shyte.

UK unemployment hit it's highest levels (excluding the depression) in April 1984.

Fact!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_in_the_United_Kingdom

as i said make it no1 lads.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4BCUWopQQ4

you know it makes sense

k sera sera,

cj has no answer, he strikes me a failed politician, an amateurish spin doctor

Apr 9, 2013 -- 12:06AM, AyersRock wrote:

k sera sera, cj has no answer, he strikes me a failed politician, an amateurish spin doctor

Sometimes you just have to laugh.

As the cat appears to have got your tongue, I'll tell you, it was 12% of the working population were unemployed.

Apr 9, 2013 -- 12:27AM, AyersRock wrote:

As the cat appears to have got your tongue, I'll tell you, it was 12% of the working population were unemployed.

You haven't worked this out yet have you. Was unemployment higher under Labour or Thatcher?

CLUE: I'm asking you the question.

what part of record high unemployment don't you understand?

Apr 9, 2013 -- 12:51AM, AyersRock wrote:

what part of record high unemployment don't you understand?

Christ, this is hard work.

Have a day off cj

today was a good day night all

She was at the top when the many lies were spouted/propagated about Hillsboro and the cover up was her doing. Add to that the fact that she wanted to bury/cast aside Liverpool as a city.

2 million council house sold....higher rate tax reduced from 83 to 60....Argies put back in their box along with the Paddies....anything else just ask...

Apr 8, 2013 -- 9:09PM, MrBaboon wrote:

Pandorica u make an idiot of yourself on these forums, you describe Thatacher as 'thick' whatever your political views she certainly wasn't thick

You seem to be confusing intelligence with academic ability. There's a correlation - but not an exact one. When it came to flexibility of mind, ability to think things through, making rational judgments, and most importantly think long term and not short, time and time again she was found wanting.

Mandela is a terrorist. (Yes, clearly.)
Pinochet is a great friend. (And a reasonable humanitarian no doubt.)
She brought up Mark ffs.
Housing crisis.
Banking crisis.
Poll tax.
Withdrawal of HMS Endurance and funding for the South Georgia project which were the among the first moves leading to the Falklands War.
Investment in infrastructure with the windfall of North Sea Oil revenue. (Ummm, nope, let's not do that. Let's fund tax cuts that see the top 8% of earners benefit while those in the bottom 15% lose in real terms)

The list is fecking endless. If you think that she was an intelligent woman, then I'm afraid it says more about your thought processes than anything else.

This is a short list of the cretins that will no doubt be celebrating dear old Lady T's demise:

[x] The unemployable;
[x] The unwashed;
[x] Sweaties, Paddies and illiterate inbred northerners;
[x] Scousers;
[x] People too stupid to get off their @rses and try to make something of their pathetic lives;
[x] Argentinians;
[x] Tarzan;
[x] Britain's dole scum;
[x] Arfur Scargill;
[x] Red Ken and his newts;
[x] People who prefer to spend their days sitting in their council house surrounded by kids chowing down on horse meat burgers and blaming everyone but themselves for their poverty!!!

RIP Maggie!!!

Pandorica, which one from Pasties list are you ? Or you able to to admit to several ?

I think the wording of his posts says everything that need be said. And the fact that you find either it, or your own joke, funny speaks volumes too.

Please answer the question

No. Don't mind a reasonable debate. Don't particularly want to respond to the likes of that.

Fair enough....good reply.

Apr 8, 2013 -- 9:41PM, SPOT THE DOG wrote:

Pandorica post your proof, MT did what you state.

Not sure what you mean but if you mean the destruction of the manufacturing base of the UK.

.http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/balance-of-trade

Select your dates. Let's say Jan 1 1979 to Jan 1 1990

I don't want that as a graph in my poker account.

Not much is made on the news these days when balance of trade figures are announced. I've no idea why because they give one of the strongest indications of the economic health of a nation. For those who want to believe the 70s were all doom and gloom, try pushing the graph back another decade.

And the "We couldn't even bury our dead" is pretty much a load of b0llocks too. A couple of unofficial strikes, unsanctioned by Unions, delayed burials in 2 local authorities out of a total of about 300.

"Cap in hand to the IMF" which is another Sunism or Daily Mailism from the day. Yes, following the oil crisis the UK applied for financial help from the IMF. I think the UK have done so 8 times in total, 5 of them under a Tory government.

Still... whatever floats your boat.

I'd be interested to know when you think the UK went to the IMF.

She supported the apartheid regime in SA and Denis used it to swell her family coffers. That says a lot about her. I don't celebrate the death of a frail old woman but in life she was a nasty piece of work who demonstrated time and again a startling lack of compassion or humanity.

For the dates of the UK applications to the IMF and World Bank for borrowing I think you'd have to look at the individual year's financial budgets for the UK and the IMF. I don't think the details of loans pre 1990 are available from the IMF without subscribing to their archive. They don't seem to be. I'm sure the relative number of applications is correct but it's a very long time since I saw them last - certainly that Conservative governments have used the IMF for funding on several occasions, and done so more often than Labour governments.
In the first 25 yrs of the IMF virtually all the loans they made were to the major industrialised nations starting with France in 1947 before loans fell off as major currencies were allowed to float. It wasn't a "big deal". Governments used the World Bank instead of the IMF between that fall off and the OPEC crisis.
The reasons that the Callaghan government's dealings with the IMF have achieved folklore status are many fold; the severity of the financial crisis at the time in the wake of the oil crisis and before North Sea oil revenues hit the tap; whether to accept the loan; whether it was even necessary; the demands the IMF put on the loan; and the sustained attention that Murdoch and his newspaper business was giving the Labour Government of the time. Having been a Labour supporter albeit in name only in the early 70s that rag had changed tack completely and was giving it out daily to Callaghan and co.
"Crisis? What crisis?" That quote. Perfect example. Pithy. Made a point. Hit out at the government. Using it summed up the feelings of people frustrated by the economic times. And of course, a fabrication. Much like "We couldn't even bury our dead."

Thinking about it, somewhere on this very forum is a link I posted in a previous political debate that highlighted each UK loan from the IMF and the World Bank. Fecked if I know where it is.

Unemployemnt isn't always a bad thing if it's managed correctly and folk are given part time work with top ups


in the UK it is quite good as long as hanouts don't get out of control ,as they have done and folk abuse the system

Our business these days is high tech ,we're no longer  making cars that fall apart 

in summary we don't require a heavy numbered workforce and no one would buy British as the products would be too expensive

folk want cheap,cheap,cheap 

some folk would sooner spend £60 on lottery tickets than a good sturdy pair of British made shoes

OK found a couple of things. It was a grind of wading through economic papers so I'm not doing it again.

Specifically, 1956. Following the Suez debacle Eden's government sought and received funding from the IMF.
James M. Boughton
International Monetary Fund (IMF) - Policy Development and Review Department; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) December 2000 IMF Working Paper No. 00/192

And from nearer to home:
.http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/865/1/WRAP_Clift_negotiating_credibility.pdf
You can wade through the whole thing if you like, (I haven't), but the opening paragraph says enough really.
There's also a snippet a bit further on that puts the 70s issues into context.

Despite the mythology to the contrary, the IMF visit and subsequent loan was not the cause of the reversal of British economic policy seen in the mid -1970s. Rather, policy had already shifted fundamentally towards deflation rather than maintaining employment before IMF officials set foot in Britain. This does not mean that the IMF was irrelevant to resolving the economic crisis of the time. The key role of the Fund was to give its seal of approval to British policy in order to rebuild confidence. As Burk and Cairncross put it, what ‘financial markets...looked for was the acceptance by the IMF that enough had been done.

In the balance of trade CB it doesn't matter what the product is. Fine, flog computer games to the world as your only export; as long as that is giving you a positive balance. Unfortunately we haven't had a consistently positive trade balance since the 70s and early 80s - the start of Thatcher's ski-slope.

also the credit crunch was born on her patch.

unfortunatley she wasnt strong enough to see that her philosophies she bred would lead to another greater credit crunch which still threatens the world economy.

ROT IN HELL.

best leader we have had in my lifetime not like the spineless ****s we have today.

she was just as spineless....last credit crunch came back to hit us 10 times as hard

she just talked a good game.

if anything the one thing this government have done right is to curb the banks.....saying that everything else they have done is just fkin shocking.

Politicians were just as spinless then as they are today -- it's in their job description! The only reason we hear/read about it more than we did then is because of the internet/computer technology. Virtually everyone with access to the internet is a potential leak.

Politicians, priests, pedophiles, there is no difference. All prey on the innocent for their own benefit and hide behind lies.

Pandorica - foreign m-billionaires  in the UK offset that 

coachbuster, that is the silliest thing posted for some time,i suggest you listen to Pandorica and learn

best leader we have had in my lifetime not like the spineless ****s we have today.


>>>Certainly not spineless, heartless? definitely.


She led us directly to the state we are in now, her legacy is the biggest financial disaster since the 1930s - when people complain we don't make anything anymore, it is her fault. She hated ordinary people with a passion and she sold off everyone's birthright for short term selfish gain.

No Maggie = No Clegg, Blair, IDS, Osbourne, Bojo or call me Dave.

That's the problem with Socialists. It's always the fault of somebody else.

The link above by Pandorica is rather interesting. I haven't had time to wade through it yet.

Good luck with it. It's a dry as a corpse.

she considered every football fan a criminal.

Lets bring back the Wonderful Winters of Discontent under the Labour Party shall we: Wage Limits, strikes, refuse stinking our streets etc............Wonderful ? 

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. Public sector employee strike actions included an unofficial strike by gravediggers working in Liverpool and Tameside, and strikes by refuse collectors. Additionally, NHS ancillary workers formed picket lines to blockade hospital entrances with the result that many hospitals were reduced to taking emergency patients only.[2]
The phrase "Winter of Discontent" is from the opening line of William Shakespeare's Richard III: "Now is the Winter of our Discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York…", and was first applied to the events of the winter by Robin Chater, a writer at Incomes Data Report. It was subsequently used in a speech by James Callaghan and translated to define a crisis by tabloids – including The Sun.[3][4]
The weather turned very cold in the early months of 1979 with blizzards and deep snow, the coldest since 1962–63, rendering some jobs impossible, reducing retail spending and worsening the economy.[5]
[edit]Background

In 1969 Callaghan had led a cabinet revolt which led to the abandonment of a proposed reform of trade union law outlined in a Barbara Castle white paper called 'In Place of Strife'; had Castle's white paper been implemented, most of the action during the Winter of Discontent would have been illegal.
The Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan continued a fight begun in 1972 against inflation on being elected in February 1974. Inflation had peaked at 26.9% in the 12 months to August 1975, but while demonstrating to markets fiscal responsibility they wished to avoid large increases in unemployment.[6] As part of the campaign to bring down inflation, the government had agreed a 'social contract' with the Trades Union Congress which allowed for a voluntary incomes policy in which the pay rises for workers were held down to limits set by the government. Previous governments had brought in incomes policies backed by Acts of Parliament, but the social contract agreed that this would not happen.[2]
Phases I and II
Phase I of the pay policy was announced on 11 July 1975 with a white paper entitled The Attack on Inflation This proposed a limit on wage rises of £6 per week for all earning below £8,500 annually. The TUC general council had accepted these proposals by 19 votes to 13. On 5 May 1976 the TUC accepted a new policy for 1976 increases, beginning 1 August, of between £2.50 and £4 per week with further years outlined. At the Annual Congress on 8 September 1976 the TUC rejected a motion which called for a return to free collective bargaining (which meant no incomes policy at all) once Phase I expired on 1 August 1977. This new policy was Phase II of the incomes policy.
Phase III
On 15 July 1977 the Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey announced Phase III of the incomes policy in which there was to be a phased return to free collective bargaining, without "a free-for-all." After prolonged negotiations, the TUC agreed to continue with the modest increases recommended for 1977-8 under Phase II limits and not to try to reopen pay agreements made under the previous policy, while the Government agreed not to intervene in pay negotiations. The Conservative Party criticised the power of the unions and lack of any stronger policy to cover the period from the Summer of 1978. The inflation rate continued to fall through 1977 and by 1978 the annual rate fell below 10%.
The 5% limit
Having prepared for the imminent end of the incomes policy, global inflation supervened and was coming towards record levels during the 1978–82 period [n 1] on 21 July 1978 Denis Healey introduced a new White Paper which set a guideline for pay rises of 5% in the year from 1 August[n 2]. The TUC voted overwhelmingly on 26 July to reject the limit and insist on a return to free collective bargaining as they were promised. Unexpectedly, on 7 September, Prime Minister James Callaghan announced that he would not be calling a general election that autumn but seeking to go through the winter with continued pay restraint so that the economy would be in a better state in preparation for a spring election. The pay limit was officially termed 'Phase IV' but most referred to it as 'the 5% limit.' Although the government did not make the 5% limit a legal requirement, it decided to impose sanctions on private and public government contractors who broke the limit.
[edit]The Ford negotiations

Although not an official guideline, the pay rise set by Ford of Britain was accepted throughout private industry as a benchmark for negotiations. Ford had enjoyed a good year and could afford a large rise, but was a major government contractor so the management at Ford made a pay offer within the 5% guidelines. 15,000 Ford workers, mostly from the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) began an unofficial strike on 22 September, and the TGWU made it official from 5 October and the number of participants grew to 57,000.
During the strike, Vauxhall Motors employees accepted an 8.5% rise. After long negotiation in which they weighed the chances of suffering from government sanctions against the continued damage of the strike, Ford eventually revised their offer to 17% and decided to accept the sanctions; Ford workers accepted the rise on 22 November.
[edit]Political difficulties



At the 1978 TUC, Callaghan sings Marie Lloyd's song "Waiting at the church" in a non-leaked attempt to privately inform delegates that he would not call an October general election, four years from the previous one. At the conference he came across on television with the message that the Conservatives would be caught unawares by an autumn election.
As the Ford strike was starting, the Labour Party conference began at Blackpool. Terry Duffy, the delegate from Liverpool Wavertree Constituency Labour Party and a supporter of Militant Tendency, moved a motion on 2 October which demanded "that the Government immediately cease intervening in wage negotiations". Despite a plea not to put the motion to the vote from Michael Foot, the resolution was carried by 4,017,000 to 1,924,000. The next day, the Prime Minister accepted the fact of defeat by saying "I think it was a lesson in democracy yesterday", but insisted that he would not let up on the fight against inflation.
Meanwhile the government's situation in the House of Commons was increasingly difficult; through by-elections it had lost its majority of 3 in 1976 and had been forced to put together a pact with the Liberal Party in 1977 in order to keep winning votes on legislation and pact had lapsed in July 1978. A decision to grant extra Parliamentary seats to Northern Ireland afforded an alliance giving temporary support from the Ulster Unionist Party, but the Unionists were clear that this support would be withdrawn immediately after the Bill to grant extra seats had been passed – it was through the Ulster Unionists agreeing to abstain that the government defeated a motion of no confidence by 312 to 300 on 9 November.
[edit]Further negotiation at the TUC
By the middle of November it was clear that Ford would offer an increase substantially over the 5% limit and the government entered into intense negotiation with the TUC, hoping to produce an agreement on pay policy that would prevent disputes and show political unity in the run-up to the general election. A limited and weak formula was eventually worked out and put to the General Council of the TUC on 14 November, but its General Council vote was tied 14–14 and it was rejected on the Chair's casting vote. One important personality on the TUC General Council had changed earlier in 1978 with Moss Evans replacing Jack Jones at the TGWU. Evans proved a weak leader of his union although it is doubtful whether Jones could have restrained the actions of some of the TGWU shop stewards.
After Ford settled, the government wasted no time and on 28 November announced that sanctions would be imposed on them, along with 220 other companies, for breach of the pay policy. The announcement of actual sanctions produced an immediate protest from the Confederation of British Industry which announced that it would challenge their legality. The Conservatives put down a motion in the House of Commons to revoke the sanctions. A co-ordinated protest by left-wing Labour MPs over spending on defence forced the debate set for 7 December to be postponed however on 13 December a Bill Amendment against the sanctions was passed by 285 to 279. The substantive motion as amended was then passed by 285 to 283. James Callaghan put down a further motion of confidence for the next day, which the government won by 10 votes (300 to 290), but accepted that his government could not use sanctions. In effect this deprived the government of any means of enforcing the 5% limit on private industry.
[edit]Lorry drivers

With effectively no means of enforcing the pay policy, unions which had not yet put in pay claims began to increase their aim. The first to take extreme action were lorry drivers, members of the TGWU. Large numbers of the lorry drivers worked on oil tankers, and drivers working for BP and Esso began an overtime ban in support of rises of up to 40% on 18 December. With supplies of oil being disrupted, the Cabinet Office prepared 'Operation Drumstick', by which the Army were put on standby to take over from the tanker drivers. However, the Operation would need the declaration of a state of emergency in order to allow conscription of the assets of the oil companies, and the government drew back from such a step. Before the situation developed into a crisis the oil companies settled on wage rises of around 15%.
From 3 January 1979 an unofficial strike of all TGWU lorry drivers began. With petrol distribution held up, petrol stations closed across the country. The strikers also picketed the main ports. The strikes were made official on 11 January by the TGWU and 12 January by the United Road Transport Union. With 80% of the nation's goods transported by road, essential supplies were put in danger as striking drivers picketed those firms that continued to work. While the oil tanker drivers were working, the main refineries were also targeted and the tanker drivers let the strikers know where they were going, allowing for flying pickets to turn them back at their destination. More than 1,000,000 UK workers were laid off temporarily during the disputes.


Alec Kitson, Executive Officer of the TGWU, sent this Telex to branch officers to warn them to allow emergency supplies through.
A further plan was drawn up to call a state of emergency and safeguard essential supplies through the Army, regarding which the government warned the TGWU leadership, which resulted in the union accepting (12 January 1979) a list of emergency supplies which were officially exempt from action. In practice, what counted as an emergency was left up to local officials of the TGWU to determine, and practice across the country varied according to the views of the local shop stewards who established 'dispensation committees' to decide. When strikers in Hull did not allow the correct mix of animal feed through to local farms, the farmers dropped the bodies of dead piglets and chickens outside the union offices; the union contended that the farmer had actually wrung the chicken's necks to kill them, and the piglets had been killed when the sow rolled over and crushed them.
On 29 January, lorry drivers in the south west accepted a deal awarded by an Arbitration Panel of a rise of up to 20%, just £1 per week less than the union had been striking for; this settlement proved a model which was accepted throughout the country.
[edit]'Crisis? What crisis?'

On 10 January, James Callaghan arrived back from a summit in Guadeloupe in the middle of the lorry drivers' strike. Having been tipped off that the press were present, his press secretary Tom McCaffrey advised him to say nothing and return immediately to work, but his political adviser Tom McNally thought that the image of Callaghan returning and declaring his intent to take control of the situation would be reassuring. Callaghan therefore decided to give a press conference at Heathrow airport. To McNally's dismay Callaghan was jocular and referred to having had a swim in the Caribbean during the summit. He was then asked (by a reporter from the Evening Standard) "What is your general approach, in view of the mounting chaos in the country at the moment?" and replied:
"Well, that's a judgment that you are making. I promise you that if you look at it from outside, and perhaps you're taking rather a parochial view at the moment, I don't think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos."
The next day's edition of The Sun featured the famous headline "Crisis? What crisis?" with a subheading "Rail, lorry, jobs chaos—and Jim blames Press", condemning Callaghan as being "out of touch" with British society.[2]
[edit]Public sector employees

22 January 1979 was the biggest individual day of strike action since the general strike of 1926, and many workers stayed out indefinitely afterwards. With many in the private sector having achieved substantial rises, the public sector unions became increasingly concerned to keep pace in terms of pay. The government had already announced a slight weakening of the policy on 16 January, which gave the unions cause for hope that they might win and use free collective bargaining. Train drivers belonging to ASLEF and the National Union of Railwaymen had already begun a series of 24-hour strikes, and the Royal College of Nursing conference on 18 January decided to ask that the pay of nurses be increased to the same level in real terms as 1974, which would mean a 25% average rise. The public sector unions labelled the date the "Day of Action", in which they held a 24-hour strike and marched to demand a £60 per week minimum wage.
With the succession of strikes having been called and then won, many groups of workers began to take unofficial action – often without the consent or support of the union leaderships. Ambulance drivers began to take strike action in mid-January, and in parts of the country (London, West Midlands, Cardiff, Glasgow and the west of Scotland) their action included refusing to attend 999 emergency calls. In these areas, the Army was drafted in to provide a skeleton service. Ancillary hospital staff also went on strike.[2] On 30 January, the Secretary of State for Social Services David Ennals announced that 1,100 of 2,300 NHS hospitals were only treating emergencies, that practically no ambulance service was operating normally, and that the ancillary health service workers were deciding which cases merited treatment. The media reported with scorn that cancer patients were being prevented from getting essential treatment.
[edit]Burying the dead
The most notorious action during the winter was the unofficial strike by gravediggers, members of the GMWU in Liverpool and in Tameside near Manchester. As coffins piled up, Liverpool City Council hired a factory in Speke to store them. On 1 February a persistent journalist asked the Medical Officer of Health for Liverpool, Dr Duncan Dolton, what would be done if the strike continued for months, Dolton speculated that burial at sea would be considered. Although his response was hypothetical, in the circumstances it caused great alarm. The gravediggers eventually settled for a 14% rise after a fortnight's strike.
[edit]Waste collectors
With many collectors having been on strike since 22 January, local authorities began to run out of space for storing waste and used local parks under their control. Westminster City Council used Leicester Square in the heart of London's West End for piles of rubbish, and as the Evening Standard reported, this attracted rats.
On 21 February, a settlement of the local authority workers' dispute was agreed, whereby workers got an 11% rise, plus £1 per week, with the possibility of extra rises, should a pay comparability study recommend them. Some left-wing local authorities, among them the London Borough of Camden, conceded the union demands in full (known as the 'Camden surplus') and then saw an investigation by the District Auditor, which eventually ruled it a breach of fiduciary duty[n 3] and therefore illegal. Camden Borough councillors, among them Ken Livingstone, avoided surcharge. Livingstone was Leader of the Greater London Council at the time the decision not to impose a surcharge was made.
[edit]The International Monetary Fund

Prior to the "Winter of Discontent", the Callaghan government had sought (in 1976) an International Monetary Fund loan of £2.3bn[7] to combat the rampant inflation at that time. The media reported this a humiliation for a former imperial power working to rebuild its economy after World War II and the nadir of the post-war economic period, this in itself led to only a narrow lead over Margaret Thatcher's party in October 1978 in opinion polls.[8]
[edit]Political developments

Strikes by essential services dismayed many senior ministers in the Labour government who had been close to the trade union movement, who thought it unlikely that trade unionists would take such action. Among these was Prime Minister James Callaghan himself, who had built his political career on his connection to the trade union, and had practically founded one, the Inland Revenue Staff Federation.
The government was negotiating with the senior union leaders and on 11 February came to agreement on a proposal to be put to the TUC General Council. On 14 February the General Council agreed the concordat, published under the title 'The Economy, the Government, and Trade Union Responsibilities'[n 4]. By this stage union executives had limited control over their members and strikes did not immediately cease, although they began to wind down from this point. In total in 1979, 29,474,000 working days were lost in industrial disputes, compared with 9,306,000 in 1978.
[edit]Political impact

In the summer before the Winter of Discontent, the minority Labour government's fortunes in the opinion polls had been improving and suggested that they could gain an overall majority in the event of a general election being held. However, on 7 September 1978, Callaghan announced that no general election would be held that year. Callaghan's failure to call an election would ultimately prove to be a costly mistake for his government.[8]
The strikes appeared to have a profound effect on voting intention. According to Gallup, Labour had a lead of 5% over the Conservatives in November 1978, which turned to a Conservative lead of 7.5% in January 1979, and of 20% in February. On 1 March, referendums on devolution to Scotland and Wales were held. That in Wales went strongly against devolution; that in Scotland produced a small majority in favour which did not reach the threshold set by Parliament of 40% of the electorate. The government's decision not to press ahead with devolution immediately led the Scottish National Party to withdraw support from the government and on 28 March in a motion of no confidence the government lost by one vote, precipitating a general election.
Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher had already outlined her proposals for restricting trade union power in a party political broadcast on 17 January in the middle of the lorry drivers' strike. During the election campaign the Conservative Party made extensive use of the disruption caused during the strike. One broadcast on 23 April began with the Sun's headline "Crisis? What Crisis?" being shown and read out by an increasingly desperate voiceover interspersed with film footage of piles of rubbish, closed factories, picketed hospitals and locked graveyards. The scale of the Conservatives' victory in the general election has often been ascribed to the effect of the strikes, as well as their Labour Isn't Working campaign, and the party used film of the events of the winter in election campaigns for years to come.
Following Mrs Thatcher's election win, she brought the post-war consensus to an end and made drastic changes to trade union laws (most notably the regulation that unions had to hold a ballot among members before calling strikes) and as a result strikes were at their lowest level for 30 years by the time of the 1983 general election, which the Tories won by a landslide.[9] Indeed, this shift to the right in British politics led to the formation of a new consensus, which dominated politics until the 2010s; both the Conservative and Labour Parties favoured lowering government spending, lowering taxation, an end to new council housing, and to accentuate the changes privatising industries and services that had hitherto been publicly owned. This shift was cemented in place by New Labour, which won the 1997 General Election.

Apr 9, 2013 -- 7:56PM, Pandorica wrote:

Good luck with it. It's a dry as a corpse.

I opened it up, started reading and then ran off to Indian football. I'll make it through at some point.

as if anybody is going to read that.

Socialists wont np, not many of the thick morons have a long enough attention span...........or the desire to learn that it is the Labour party who are the filth of the piece..along with the trade union scum bags of course!!



Red Robbo for Prime Minister...... lets sleep on night shift instead of working....remember????

?

29,474,000 working days were lost in industrial disputes, compared with 9,306,000 in 1978.
____________

that's not that many working days really - something like 2 days for each working adult in Britain

I'm Irish and wouldn't celebrate a person's death. But you can tell from the reaction of the majority in very large areas of the country that she was considered evil - how rarely do you see that for a former leader's death in any country, at least one who was not a dictator? use your own head to answer that question instead of reading biased media.

Seems to me that her policies caused irreparable damage to the economy and large areas of the country. She certainly wasn't fair to large cross-sections of society.

All of these arguments always descend into 'but what about labour and their policies'. that has nothing to do with it, whether they were worse or not. That has no bearing on how her policies should be judged. She was remarkably unfair and looked after her own and those connected to her to the detriment of the masses. You might agree with her policies but they were not those of a great leader.

Anything the coalition does now is portrayed by some as deliberately nasty and derived from "evil" motives and people who sit on one side of the fence lap it up and repeat it verbatum. 20-30 years passing won't make this interpretation any more right, you seem to think it would.

i aint gonna read anything other than say this .......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1ajCnlawi8