I don't think that we priced ourselves out of the market, I think that "the market" was killed off by third world countries producing cheaper goods and services simply because they paid wages we could not compete with.
This syndrome showed itself right across the board where the likes of coal-mining, shipbuilding, steel production, food and clothing production were imported by us because they could produce these items much cheaper than we could. Many of these products, including heavy engineering, shipbuilding and coal production was heavily subsidised by the third-world governments is those countries. Rather than subsidise our industries so we could compete Thatcher and few others just let them die.
NOW we buy coal from Poland and China and Russia and we get our steel made in India and many of our our ships built in Germany and Italy.
Believe me, Hugh, Thatcher did not care a jot about the many thousands of families that were thrown onto the scrapheap as the Tories have always used unemployment as a crude and painful economy-adjusting tool.
By the time Cameron is finished with this country we are going to have seriously broken the three million unemployed record that Thatcher was infamous for in her halcion days.
It is obvious to anybody that watches that Cameron does not wanted to be tarred with the Thatcher brush after he slapped down his education secretary for suggesting that the free milk for under fives should be scrapped. All of us that DO remember, remember the "Maggie Thatcher milk-snatcher" slogans of the eighties.
No Hugh, that is one leopard that is not going to change it's spots any day soon !
