The Big Difference Between Britain Today, and the 60's And Early 70's.

[Ivanhoe]

Looks like some one's been doing a lot of home work

Over to you Ivanhoe

Yes, and it certainly isnt you.

New Labour inherited a mammoth rich and poor devide from the Thatcher/Major years, and sadly Blair and Brown widened the rich and poor devide by sticking to Thatcher's right wing agenda.

The only way the Tory's created a "good economy", was by the creation of mass unemployment ( a price worth paying said Norman Lamont, to keep inflation low ).

Was by creating mass poverty, low wages, high house prices, insecurity on massive level, making UK workers to afraid to strike.

[GrannyMac]

I wonder how much of all this hardship suffered, was due to Tory economic policies ?

Probably some of it, and some because of Labour policies.   But in reality, it was due to a series of things.  My father dying early.  My husband and I taking a chance and moving to England without thinking it through properly.  We could have been people who stayed put, in our council flat, near to family.  But we thought we were doing the right thing by moving away.  Hindsight is a great thing!  Living in South Yorkshire means I've met loads of people who try and blame every ill this nation has suffered on Maggie Thatcher.  I just don't see it like that.  If she had been a man, I don't think she would have been vilified nearly so much.   

[caminito]

Now what changed them once in power 

Peter Mandelson (first Secretary of State and Labour Supremo):
"Mr Mandelson was born into a Labour family - his grandfather was a Labour Cabinet minister Herbert Morrison - but he rebelled and joined the Young Communist League after Labour supported the United States' intervention in Vietnam. It was during this period that he attracted the well-documented attention of the MI5 intelligence service."
BBC Biography
He, along with Clarke and other labour politicians spent time in Cuba in 1978 (see below).

Alistair Darling (Chancellor of the Exchequer):
"Darling attended the University of Aberdeen and earned a Bachelor of Laws. In 1977, Darling was a supporter of the International Marxist Group, part of the Trotskyist Fourth International."
Evening Standard article

Alan Johnson (Home Secretary)
Johnson, currently Home Secretary, is quoted as saying: "I wasn't a Trot," he insists. "I was more CPGB [Communist Party of Great Britain]. I did consider myself to be a Marxist - I read more chapters of Das Kapital than Harold Wilson."
New Statesman biography

John Reid (one time Minister of Defence, Home Secretary and Northern Ireland Secretary):
"I have known John Reid as a Communist, as a member of the Scottish Labour party and now as a general in the New Labour Army. His march across this ideological battlefield has been seamless with not a hint of embarrassment. But John is an able person, one of the most able in New Labour's high command. They put him up to deliver the message. And they are right, he is a very capable, articulate figure," said George Galloway, the Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin.
Guardian
letter

Bob Ainsworth (Minister of Defence)
"In a number of newspaper stories last week, it was suggested that the latest Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, had been - at the age of 30 - a 'candidate member' of a body called the 'International Marxist Group'. The IMG, originally associated with the prominent student revolutionary Tariq Ali, was a Trotskyist group active in the 1970s and 1980s, whose members at one stage adopted the slogan "Victory to the IRA"."
Daily Mail

Steven Byers
Stephen Byers was once an activist in the Socialist Workers Party.

Charles Clarke (one time Home Secretary and Education Secretary)
"He was educated at Highgate School and later King's College, Cambridge, gaining a BA in maths and economics. Mr Clarke was president of the NUS from 1975 to 1977 before becoming a councillor in Hackney from 1980 to 1986. Interestingly, as a radical Marxist he spent a year in Cuba, organising the 1978 World Youth Festival, which was also attended by future New Labour modernisers Peter Mandelson, Paul Boateng (ex Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Fiona McTaggart (ex Under Secretary of State)."

Guardian
Profile

Alan Milburn (one time Health Secretary)
Marxist. "He famously worked in a Marxist bookshop in Newcastle formally called Days of Hope".

Charlie Whelan (Ex advisor to Gordon Brown)
Communist party member: "John Reid, David Triesman, Peter Mandelson, Charlie Whelan to name a few - belonged to the Communist Party of Great Britain" Observer article August 2002 - see below.

David Triesman (once General Secretary of Labour Party)

Communist party member.

Gordon Brown:
"While Tony read for the bar, Gordon was doing his doctorate on James Maxton an idealistic Clydeside MP from the Marxist ILP."
BBC Biography
The decision to give Gordon Brown his first and only safe seat, Dunfermline East, was made by two T&G officials: Hugh Wyper, the regional boss and a Communist Party member , Deputy Director of the TUC and KGB agent, Alec Kitson.

Jack Straw (Minister of Justice):
Joined Labour Party at 14!

According to his own letter in the Independent newspaper Jack Straw is a Self avowed stalinist .

[caminito]

I never got this excited even when I was voting for Maggie 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc9eHI3ieQk

[caminito]

Was by creating mass poverty, low wages, high house prices, insecurity on massive level, making UK workers to afraid to strike.

Just like today then .....

As Mr Brown said ...No more boom or bust .

[caminito]

When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, Britain was a dump, “the sick man of Europe” and on the brink of total economic collapse. When she left power in 1990, it was the one of the financial capitals of the world. She is associated her political philosophy of Thatcherism, based on low taxation, low public spending, free markets and mass privatisation. I personally love Margaret Thatcher for her honesty, bluntness, strength of character and her radicalism. Many others hate her though, mainly on the left of politics who believed that she destroyed workers rights and slashed public spending. During her tenure she had to deal with mass unemployment, out of control inflation, endless strikes, a war with the Falklands, and an attempted assassination by the IRA. In February 2007, she became the first British Prime Minister to be honoured with a statue in the House of Commons while still alive; a testament to her incredible legacy.

Quote....
Socialists cry “Power to the people”, and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State.

[Hugh]

Oh so true, but Ivanhoe would like to see the return of Union controlled left wing labour party, with high inflation, where the real poor, get even poorer. It was a great time if you had a strong union backing, but for the rest of us tough sh-t

[Ivanhoe]

Oh so true, but Ivanhoe would like to see the return of Union controlled left wing labour party, with high inflation, where the real poor, get even poorer. It was a great time if you had a strong union backing, but for the rest of us tough sh-t

No, like you I want to see millions of people thrown once again on the unemployment scrap heap, just to keep inflation low.

So "gentleman" like yourself are "okay Jack".

[caminito]

A paragraph from a business article ..
The UK needs to have an educated work force to survive in the future ..


We work in a digital age. Regardless of economic sector - retail, automotive, logistics, tourism, manufacturing or telecom- the transformation of industrial processes is upon us. No firm is exempt; big and small companies alike are affected. A highly digitalised and automated workplace is now a reality. It is our responsibility to upskill and prepare for this new era of innovation.

[caminito]

Oh great
Then I read this report ...

The UK is slipping down world education rankings in maths, reading and science, and has been overtaken by Poland and Norway, a major study of 65 countries reveals today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/07/uk-schools-slip-world-rankings

[Ivanhoe]

And so everybody lived happily ever after

Quite true Ivanhoe and I have work all my life to make it so, I haven't sat around all day expecting work to come to me I searched for it, and got it. At the age of 12 I got up at 0630 each morning to do a paper round so I could help my parents out. School holidays I found work on farms potato picking which was back breaking work but it help out in a small way. Holidays was a day trip to skegness. I had a very hard childhood but it helped make a man out of me so I have no complaints.

//////, I haven't sat around all day expecting work to come to me I searched for it,//////


Norman Tebbitt number 2 methinks.

[Ivanhoe]

Was by creating mass poverty, low wages, high house prices, insecurity on massive level, making UK workers to afraid to strike.

Just like today then .....

As Mr Brown said ...No more boom or bust .

/////As Mr Brown said ...No more boom or bust ///////

Mr Blair and Mr Brown continued your own love affair with Thatcher.