Urgh, listen, compare British economic performance before the war and then after it to 79. It wasn’t good, and yes I know it wasn’t just a labours fault, but all the governments we had up to that point. Come on, you can’t say it was some economic success, we weren’t called the ‘sick man of Europe’ for no reason.
Bah ha ha ha!
When comparing British economic performance pre-1939 and post-1945, are you sure that there is no other factors that you may wish to take into account other than the change of government? Some event that may have happened in the intervening years that may have had some effect? Such as a big fuck off War, several hundred thousand men of working age being killed, much of the infrastructure of the country being bombed to shit? You think that might have had any impact at all??
No I didn’t mean the war, apologies, I mean look at say at the economic performance of Britain in the pre war period, and the performance of it in the 50’s and 70’s, we saw a steady decline in British economic output and performance.
Look; the simple fact is that Britain took a wrong turning in 1945 - turning towards socialism and that this is pretty much accepted as a bad thing by all and sundry - including today’s Labour Party.
ALL politicians from 45-79 are responsible for the appaling state this country was in in 1979. It needed fixing. We were lucky that Margaret Thatcher came along and started to put things right.
The Heath manifesto now reads like it was written after a particularly insane conference of the SWP, so the Tories have to take some of the blame.
The unions were the de facto government of the UK and they were crap at it. They needed to be broken so Mrs T broke them.
The nationalised industries weren’t actually industries, they were subsidised employment schemes for bolshie peasants. They needed to go - Mrs T got rid of them.
The job is far from finished - we need to bring back gramar schools and get rid of pretty much any teacher who went to teacher training college in the 70 s and 80s for instance - but we are getting there, and for that we must thank the Blessed Margaret.
Remember our neighbours subsidised industries, y’know Peugeot and Renault ?
They consumed even more than BL, I know they have been sold off but they were still profitable before they were.
As I say, BL management were crap, but then, so much of other British management was crap, shipbuilders were very reluctant to hire anyone with a degree in engineering !!
Our management system and the investment record of our shareholders was garbage.
I can’t see how the Elecrical Industry can be called a state subsidised failure, it was something of a running sore that it made such large profits before sell off, in fact there was a school of thought that said it was a de facto tax on industry, same applies to the Gas Board for that matter.
I do remember Ms Thatcher instructing the Gas Board to put up their tariff because electricity was struggling to compete, even though Gas made plenty of money already.
As for steel, what is perhaps the most frightening thing, is that there was a plan for rationlisation and modernisation, which would have made it by far the most efficient in the world, and which coincidentally is pretty much what is left of the industry today, that plan was dated 1911!!!
The problem was that it could not be rationalised because it could only be done to a monolithic industry, in other word a nationalised one, and that was never going to happen in those days.
So even back then the future problems of transport and investment were well understood, just not realisable, especially the idea that maybe lots of working men would become unemployed and that the Russian Revolution was a genuine fear soon after and ensured this rationalisation didn’t take place.
The Conservatives, and Labour for that matter, had the great good fortune to be in office after the war when demand was sky high, and this meant little new investment, whilst all our future competitors had the benefit of the Marshall plan and rebuilt their industries from scratch.
I have been in British factories that were using machines around 150 years old, the only change being an electric motor strapped onto them rather than the old shaft power take offs on the overhead group drives, and the same could be said of virtually all British heavy engineering.
Its really easy to make a return on plant and machinery that is worthless, there is little risk to the shareholder as the land the factory stands on is worth more than the value of the company, and its why asset strippers such as Hanson made so much cash.
The model for the new post war Germany actually came from looking at the problems in UK industry, such as demarcation, from working patterns and reinvestment ratios, and was used, we knew what the problems were, we were too stupid, or greedy as shareholders to invest.
I’ve made this point on these boards several times, reasonably well if I might say so, and its actually much more of a stretch to believe that the Falklands war was a complete surprise or mistakes were made, than it is when you know of previous invasion preparations made by Argentina and our effective reponse to said attempts.
It also does not sit well with the fact that the Falklands war unquestionably saved the Thatcher regime which was without going down badly.
The real issue that continued to make Labour unelectable time after time once they had lost power was unilateralism, the sight of CND campaigners sharing platforms with various Labour leaders was a disturbing sight to any who understood what the threat of the Soviet Union was, it became their albatross, much as the Poll Tax eventually became Thatchers.
Whilst I agree that all politician of all shades made a mess of things since 1945, I also include the short termism view of investors, who did not have the vision to realise that investment in industry, as opposed to investment in shares, was the only way to keep making money, instead they chose the easy option and invested abroad.
Yet when foreigners came over here and invested, using the self same labour that our own money people had snubbed, we notice that they had success, we could build cars just as well and quickly as everyone else, among other products such as tvs, even modern steel plants, so my point still stands, that it was crap British managers and investors who must tke responsibility for poor British performance, for it is they who allowed the situations to develop that made the unions so powerful, it is they who did not dismiss the likes of Red Robbo.
There are no bad workers, just bad managers.
It’s interesting to note, that whilst we harp on about the subsidised state industry, guess which industry consumed more public money than all of them put together, several times over ?
…and we still do so today, we have never exposed this industry to market forces, like we did with so much other industry, and yet they are still relatively more expensive producers than we can purchase form abroad, the clue of course is that they have always been traditional Conservative voters, else they would have been left to the wolves a long time ago.
Urban myth, in fact Germany and Japan had more industry in '45 than in '36.
How the hell do you know what state I’m in? When did I say I was an American?
In regards to the Americans and their involvement in the nightmare that you assholes created, I’d say they’ve actually done far more good than the British ever did. In fact, it was the Americans who came to the aid of Nasser when the British and French continued their unabashed attempts at colonization during the Suez crisis. It was America who finally ended the cold/warm/hot war between Egypt and Israel. It’s America who has consistently (although somewhat ineffectively) tried to broker some sort of agreement in the region. And the comparable British attempts and successes would be?
So now this pathetic little ass monkey is pretending to matter just so he can get exposure. That’s it and that’s all. His insignificant yaps mean as little as he does on the world scene, particularly on this issue.
Just remember chaps that there is no truth in the stereotype that yanks are loud boorish and stupid.
Absolutely none at all.
They’re not fat either.
COUGH COUGH URGH! ACK! ACK! SPLUTTER! Bluergh. Man, did that statement reek or did someone dump a rancid dead badger in this thread?
Too… many… jokes… must… not… submit… to… them…
Otherwise; discussion progressing as projected. All sides blindly conforming to worse in stereotypes. Carry on.
Someone called “Futile Gesture” making leftie noises…
As you say; stereotypes running at full pelt…
(Just waiting for “flying pig” to explain howe the labour party are making things better.)
Oi, you.
:o Apologies to Dead Badger. I did not in any way mean to imply anything about his/her personal smell, which I’m sure is quite fragrant.
At least in comparison to fairy tales about the witch Thatcher. 
You know, with a capital H you could have stopped that sentence right there.
[QUOTE=
Fuck you you mousey, weasely, little nobody. What makes you think that either you or your tiny pissant, pathetic, insignificant island nation even factor into that equation in any way? You limey assholes were the creators of this international nightmare. Since its brilliant inception, you’ve done nothing but make it far worse.
.[/QUOTE]
I cannot disagree with your opinion of Blair, but don’t tar my entire country with the same brush because of him.
As you have not yet stated it, which pissant, pathetic, insignificant nation are you from? Just need to know so that I can come up with a list of all the times your nation has fucked up.
He spells “Arse” “ass”. That means he comes from the land of the fat, and the home of the knave.
So where should we start? Or would we break the internet if we started to list every mistake that the “cheese-in-an-aerosol eating, war starting, then losing, monkeys” have made?
Nietzsche - you are a fucking tosspot.
However - it was nice to see the word “dingleberry” used.
Carry on
Sin
So, no-one could be bothered to guess that the most subsidised industry in the UK, the one that preaches self reliance, Britishness, are the core Tory vote and among the first to wave the flags when working class Britons are sent off to some battlefield to die, are the fucking farming industry.
Yup, this class of person, especially the landowning rent out farmers are among the first to say that old fashioned metal bashing industries,and manufacturing compnies should compete on the world markets and die by them, are the most protected and pampered bunch of reactionary right wing twats around.
These are the types of people who are the constant support of the likes of Thatcher, they are the ones who prevent the Tory party modrenising and they are the ones to continue to look at little Britain instead of realising that if industry must compete, the same must also be true of agriculture.
These are the ones who criticise the ‘townies’ who allegedly ‘don’t understand country ways’ and cheerfully swagger off home in their farm vehicle non-taxed top of the marque Range Rovers.
I notice that no-one here has yet aknowledged the difficulties faced by British industry and the economy cause by the oil price hikes, nor is there any aklnowledgment of th epoints I made about appalling British industrial managers, just lots of talk about unions, and none about the stewardship of those who were entrusted in running industry.
Please defend British management since WWII, there are so many instances of British industry being world leaders and investors just letting it slip from their grasp, preferring to take a larger slice of a diminishing cake rather than actually do the hard work and run industry in a capable manner.
There were plenty other industries that behaved as stupidly and ineptly at the British motorcycle industry, and it was not the unions that were solely responsible, but also the heads in the sand attitude to competition from, among others, the Japanese and the Germans.
Yes, go on, continue blaming the unions, but actually when it came to the crunch, they were crushed readily enough, it could have happend many years before, we could have had worker inclusion in company affairs, like Germany did, but the workers were not good enough to be consulted, bad managers always blame their workforce, its much easier than being self critical.
It’s part of the selective mythology about British industrial failure, that the unions were totally at fault, it lets the accusers off the hook, and Tories never take responsibility for their failings, its why they are unelectable, because they didn’t engage the next generation, in fact its closer to say they alienated them, and they continued to rely on the old school, the blue rinses and the older voter along with their farming friends, instead of investing in the youth of the country, just like their friends in the city failed to invest in industry.
Time passes and the Tory electorate is dying off faster than they can attract more, fucking serves them right.
You know, just as I was beginning to think that perhaps my rant had sprayed its bile a bit too far, you get vile vermin like this coming in and posting…
I spell ass a-s-s because that’s how the word is spelled outside of that island shithole you call home. However, you are free to continue to think I’m American if you so desire.
Yeah, the first one mistake listed should be when they saved your collective “bums” from German bombs. You recall that, dontcha mate, aye? Had they not made such a terrible mistake, your current poodle in command (or “my little bitch” as Bush refers to him) wouldn’t need to pretend he has any sway in the Middle East conflict. Nor would you and I be discussing is it ass or arse since you’d be calling it der arsch.
Go fuck yourself you tea slurping has-been. Limeys like you are the remnants of the most despicable garbage to roam the planet.
To the others I offended, my apologies.
I concur. (By the way that means agree Nietzshe)
Now I’m not the biggest supporter Britain ever had but I hate this shite.
The US fought a war with Germany coz it was forced to. It didn’t do it out of any altruistic need to save GB. They made hard decisions based on thier own need. When it suited them they sat on the sidelines when GB and it’s few allies stood alone against the third Reich. It suited the US to fight in Europe and not at home. Apart from Pearl and a few balloon bombs the US got off scot free when it came to bombing. If the US had have let the UK fall it would most likely have given the Germans plenty of time to develop missiles that had the range to hit the continental United States.
The US fought in WWII horourably and bravely. It’s men died for the world’s betterment but so did many people from many countries. The US just happened to be the biggest power in that alliance. It didn’t do anything other than protect it’s own interests as every other country was doing.
It deserves at much thanks as every other country who stood against the fascists. No more no less.
This “We save your ass” mentality is intellectual laziness. It’s just bullshit feel good propaganda for the home crowd.