h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Who said anything about bringing back Old Labour?

Stop reading hidden agendas. As I said earlier in the thread, the age of party [politics is nearly dead.

Speaking as someone who works alongside various "hard-done by" civil servants, who have now been privatised - cobblers.

The former workers of British rail are paid roughly 25% more than their industry counterparts, and as for the former home office staff - well - lets just say they won't be voting Lib-Dem, they know they'd be paying more tax. Oh - and they've both got final salary pensions as well (protected).

I think you'll fine that stopping pension funds claiming back tax-credits had quite a substantial effect on pension funds as well, they seemed to have survived de-regulation quite nicely.

>> It is becoming increasingly clear that organizations such as Tesco's (who merely happen to be the first example into my head following yesterdays announcements) operate more control financially, dietary and socially over the lives of their customers than any government could ever hope to do.

An interesting point, and one I whole-heartedly agree with. But it isn't just supermarkets is it?

My questions are: Why has this happened? And: what can we do about it?



On a different slant, several people, (Blues, Redpeckham), have mentioned Thatcher's rape-and-pillage slash-and-burn approach to British Industry.

However, can you actually imagine a place for British Manufacturers in this world we live in? In February 1980 I bought a pair of shoes for £10, and thought "That'll be the last time I ever buy shoes for a tenner".

During the mid-80s shoes were, indeed, more than that.

Now I can go into any one of half a dozen shoe-shops during my lunchtime and buy shoes for less than a tenner. This is because manufacturing is so much cheaper in the third world, and the third world are now tooled up to do it. Clarkes closed their last British Shoe Factory last month.

What I am asking is "if Foot or Kinnock had beaten Thatcher in the late 1970s or early 1980s, would British Manufacturing be *any* better off at all?"

Ben

Question -" "if Foot or Kinnock had beaten Thatcher in the late 1970s or early 1980s, would British Manufacturing be *any* better off at all?"

Answer - possibly there would still be a British manufacturing industry, but I doubt it, the only way to maintain a manufacturing industry would be by trade tariffs, and whilst they might have been imposed, Europe would never have allowed them to remain in place. (Unless it was to protect the french agricultural system.)

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The Eds

Replying to Ben;

Very doubtful. I'm no fan of Foot (other than as an orator) and Kinnock was a much bigger fool than assumed by many.

The Market has taken over from Party Politics, and whether it is defined by Tesco (and note I did say they only came to mind because of yesterday, not because they are noticeably better or worse than any of the others) or anybody else is a matter of perspective and choice.

Of course, we do have choices here. Buy ethically. Don't buy from firms that are known to support sweat-shop conditions in the third world, don't support agro-chemical giants. Buy Fair Trade, if possible. Use your local farm shop/farmers market/butcher/greengrocer/fishmonger/baker. Ask petrol suppliers why a 2p rise in tax means a 5p rise at the pump.

If necessary, break the law, like the Cannabis Granny and the inhabitants of Skye.

And McKay, all I can say is that those are very lucky instances. Until three years ago I was still below the average wage of this country with 12 years experience in my job. It's still doubtful whether myself and my NHS employed bride-to-be will be able to afford a house in our part of the world.

And of course, the effects of de-regulation on pensions wasn't an instant thing, but it was obvious as long ago as when Cap'n Bob went fishing face down that pensions needed tighter controls, and it was de-regulation that made massive fraud in the manner of Enron possible.

If a de-regulated financial market was such a great idea, people wouldn't be suing their morgage advisors for selling them sh*tty, worthless endowment policies in the 80's.

Wish I could sue mine but he was a sole trader (and I realised I'd been sold a pup and jumped ship before the crash happened) - however endowment sales were trading on people's greed, much as the buy to rent mortgages are nowadays.

I would like to recant on a statement I made earlier in this thread about the Lib Dems and their local taxation policy. Now I've heard it explained I think its an excellent idea - no doubt whoever gets in will pinch it. Still can't accept their European policy though.

Well, yes. I'm semi-trapped in the endowment knightmare myself, but didn't have any option as I was buying a half share in an already existing mortgage. Fortuneatly I'm out of the property but not yet out of the mortgage, but at least I don't have to worry about the shortfall.

I think the LibDems local taxation policy is wonderful, but I'm not sure I see a rush to adopt it. Both the two main parties tend to get the heebie-jeebies about higher rates of taxation.

Hi Ben

Short answer = NO

We have lost about a million manufacturing jobs under this government, with more to go at Longbridge soon. Lunchtime news on BBC was that unemployment is up for the 4th month in a row,

Although I profoundly disagree with Labour on a great deal I do not blame them. It is not a situation of their making.

Just as the industrial situation facing Maggie was not of her making either,......that will start something running!....I am old enough to remember that indusrtyvery largely cut it's own throat with inept management and restrictive practises by powerful unions. And if arguemnts start on that point I can illustrate with many, many examples.

Governments are not able to control the far east manufacturing except by erecting Trade Barriers , and everyone wants to avoid that.

Novo

>Just as the industrial situation facing Maggie was not of her making either<

I think largely speaking that's probably true, actually.

What appalled about the wretched woman was her willingness to exploit the situation to her own ends. De-Regulation and de-nationalisation were the twin paper tigers that she took from the Chicago Boys which caused the most damage.

Oh, she was an opportunist, no doubt, but I have to say that she was also a clear-sighted realist in the days when the Unions were really loose cannons. I too remember Red Robbo.

In the long run, I suspect that the only difference by now would be that instead of blaming the far right for the loss of British Manufacturing, we would be blaming the far left instead.

However, closing viable coal mines for political reasons was unacceptable, as was the loss of the Cornish Tin Insdustry because of a glitch in the futures market.

Ben

disraeli was pretty right wing as well!

sorry for the silliness but this is the 2005 election. It's all very well putting things in an historical context, but reliving the Thatcher years is giving me the hee bee gee bees!

Hi Blues Shark

I agree , up to a point.

With hindsight British Rail should perhaps not have been denationalised,, but I suspect that if BT and the CEGB had not been de-regulated we would be paying much more than we are now for teleohone and power services.

It is easy to forget that very big state contolled industries/operations were almost impossible to control, and like our current burgeoning Beaurocracy were as difficult to turn onto a new course as a fully laden supertanker.


Novo

Ye-es.

But people - yourself included - are saying that they will not vote Tory because of Thatcher, or (more reasonably), that they will not vote Tory because of Howard's role within the Thatcher Governments.

If people are basing their voting decisions on 20 year old history, then it is on topic - no?

Ben

But aren't the people who say that only saying that because they disagree with the Conservative ideology in the first place?

When the Conservatives talks about traditional British values, I don't assume he's lying, I assume his tradition is different from and expressed in different words to my own.

I think thats a valuable point.

'Traditional' Tory values such as trickle down economics and thelike have traditinally worked very well for traditional Tory voters.

It's a different tradition to mine is all. I happen to find it repugnant, but it's still a truth.

As to the point about Red Robbo, well yes, the man was a buffoon. But what ultimately killed BL was making sh*t cars, just as that is what will ultimately kill Rover.

Our burgeoning bureacracy is actually easoly comabtted by someone with a bit of political will to take on the Whitehall Mandarins.

A classic example is the CPS. Thatchers original white paper envisgaed London HQ consisting of probably little more than 15 people. The DPP, a press office and the like.

It has now burgeoned into an office of hundreds that requires a hugely expensive piece of real estate to house in central London. Whereas I suspect what was originally envisaged was a small annex of the Home Office somewhere.

Now, i accepty that the DPP needs to be in London, and his press office and a few admin bods. With the rise of internet technology there is no reason why the rest of them, if they must be in one place (a very debateable point) can't be posted to Huddersfield or somewhere far less expensive.

CPS mamagement have thought nothing of telling very junior grades that there jobs in my office are being transferred to Huntingdon, thus effectively putting most of them out of a job, but they won't take the obvious step of telling the boys at Ludgate Hill they are of the Carlisle, which would save far more money at a stroke.

I'm going to get someone to acknowledge these basic facts about manufacturing economics if I have to keep making it until I'm, well,

Nations with substantial manufacturing contributions to their economies have very large primary infrastructures, doing things like supplying raw materials and semis, providing distribution systems, and incensitivising education and training of craftsmen.

The principal reason for the decline of the UK's manufacturing sector is short-terminism among financiers. The Tory governments, politically speaking, probably tolerated this more readily than the Labour ones before or since, but the distinction is marginal.

To suggest that manufacturing economies SHOULDN'T be like supertankers is to assume that we're going to make nothing bigger than cuckoo-clocks. We need some inertia in our national economy, for God's sake. We need a f*****g balance sheet. It's great working in service industry, I'm sure, but the exit costs are zilch and the stakeholders are the Spawn of Hell.

Maybe Leyland did make cr*p cars, but I'm more inclined to the view that Japan Inc steam-rolled them. Key Success Factor - the best steel industry on earth in its day.

Will everyone please stop talking about manufacturing as if it's (a) ancient history (b) a lumbering dinosaur (c) some kind of optional activity [delete as applicable]?

We need manufacturing, we need major capital project engineering, we need infrastructure.

Yeah, well spotted. You're right, I'm not planning to vote Green

To be fair, it is very nearly ancient history, and I'd be fascinated to know how you intend to revive something that to all intents and purposes no longer exists.