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

That woman is satan in a dress. She destoryed the coal mining areas just because they were left wing. Ar bless. Now there is record poverty, low standards in health and education and there seems to be no hope in sight.
That woman decided, bring this country off it's knees it would bring in the POLE tax. Which was the same for every one, reguardless of how rich or poor. And it wasn't cheap, around thousand pounds.
As you could guess it was that popular and it cause mass roits in London, Birmingham. Basically anywhere with a population of above 6.

The reason for the reduction in the coal industry was more that emmissions guidelines required it. The industry she really did kill off for no reason was the Computer industry. She wasn't keen on it and so we are left playing catch up to the rest of the world.

A rather hysterical outburst,YFB. When the history of the 20th C comes to be written, Margaret Thatcher will stand head and shoulders above the pigmies who have also occupied the premiership of this nation. You clearly are too young to remember what England was like pre Thatcher. Rampant left wing unions; strike after strike; sympathy walkouts, the nation being held to ransome, and almost bankrupt. We truly were "the sick man of Europe".

It needed a politician of stature, and courage to put things right, and in this we were lucky that the iron lady came along when she did. Much of what she did was unpopular, especially among those of a left persuasion, but it was necessary all the same. People always blame her for destroying the mining industry"...but we were simply piling up coal mountains at huge expense which nobody wanted. There was no market for coal. The Pole tax was a good idea, destroyed by the layabout regiment of this country who simply objected to having to pay anything, and who were determined to continue their free ride on the Welfare state.

It is her legacy that allows Blair to strut and preen on the international stage, with the backing of a sound economy, and a well regulated industrial base; although he and new Labour are doing their best to destroy all she built up. We all (you included YFB) owe a great debt to Mrs Thatcher. She was the greatest P<M this nation has had since Churchill.

Hey? I can’t possibly have read that correctly can I? The real victim was the computer industry? You didn’t really say that did you? Surely no on can be that flippant and insensitive about the lives of hundreds of thousands of working people. It'a almost as if what thatcher did to the pits is of no real consequence.

Why Thatcher and her henchmen decimated the British mining industry is open to debate. Although the emmissions excuse is a new one on me and I’ve heard them all. Emmissions guide lines didn't actually require it and only refer to coal fired powerstations. Most of which could be made relatively safe by fitting simple filters. Perhaps you could tell me what you based this assumption on.

On the other hand, the devastation and social problems left behind as a consequence of Thtchers policy to close the pits are far clearer to see.

I grew up in a mining community. They were great places to live. Low levels of poverty, even lower levels of crime. People had a sense of self respect and self worth. Young men knew they had a future as long as the pit was open. When you left school there would be a job waiting for you down the mines. People always had money in their pockets which had a knock on effect on the local economy. The entire local economy relied on the pit. Shops, pubs, schools and services in these areas employed tens of thousands of people. The entire social life, traditions and economies of large parts of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, the North East, South Wales and Scotland, revolved around the pits.

Now the Pits have closed down, some of these areas have been reduced to abject poverty. Go visit some of these places. See the rows and rows of boarded up houses. See the burnt out shops. Ask the old folks why they can’t go out at night for fear of being robbed. Ask the far too numerous families living with sons and daughters who are heroin addicts, why their children have so little hope. Since the closure of the pits, there has been a massive rise in heroin addiction and violent crime. Suicide rates are at an all time high. The levels of social deprivation in some of these areas are nothing short of horrific.

Go spend a week in Grimethorpe or Fitzwilliam and then give me those two lines of wisdom.

I work in a non-unionised workplace nad we could do with a rampant left-wing union here. I'm glad shes now long gone but sadly, unlike Tigger, I don't see Tony Blair as much different to her.

That should've been and not nad . Also Tigger rates Thatcher a little highly. Were Lloyd George, Churchill, and Attlee all pygmies then.

It seems to me that the only difference between Thatcher and Blair is a question of style.

The best way to get a rampant left wing union is to build one yourself. You have the right to join a Union and you have a right to Unionize your workplace. Even if your employer refuses to recognise a Union, there are numerous benefits to being a member of a Trade Union. The two links below might be of some help.

http://www.tuc.org.uk/tuc/unions_form.cfm
http://www.tuc.org.uk/organisation/index.cfm

If I was braver I'd do it, but until I've been employed for 2 years I have no protection from dismissal and I hope not to be still working in a call centre when I do have that protection. I completely agree the main difference between Blair and Thatcher is style, not substance.

Ah, the dreaded call centres. Those places are little more than factory farms for people. Anyway, hang in there and don't let the b******s grind you down. Hope you get to where you want to be soon.

I do not think Tigger is seeing the overall picture. Sure our lady brought about big changes and I agree that changes were needed but while she no doubt destroyed some of the elements that held the UK back, she also destroyed many things that were good. For example, since Thatcher, Britain is no longer a nice, & I stress the word nice, place to live. Peoples attitudes have changed and while the country as an economic unit is no doubt much more efficient and people are generally better off, the overall atmosphere in British society is a much more uncaring one. Equally, abroad, the Thatcher years created an attitude of "Oh for Gods sake let her rant & rave and meanwhile we can go ahead with our planning" Amongst the rank and file populations abroad the feeling was that Britain, while being a power that one had to listen to, one did not have to take it heart too much. Ranting and screaming types are generally considered by anyone to be not worthy of serious consideration

You took the words right out of my mouth. Yes you are right.

We don't seem to care much about anything these days except money and power and the price of our property.

I was in my 20s when Thatcher was in power and I remember those days well - they are etched in my mind. The unrest, the uncertainity and the fear her leadership generated, not only to the miners but to us, the ordinary man in the street, was unprecedented. She was cold and had no compassion. She was singleminded and disrespectful and a bully.

We did our "Dig Deep for Miners" here in rural Norfolk and supported their cause and we were horrified at some of the scenes that unfolded on News at Ten. It is a shameful that she used the miners and their families to boost her own ego. And then came the uncaring 90s, the Yuppies, the greed and the credit card! Thatcher shaped history and the future and look at her legacy.

I for one laughed when she cried.

The unions are the people. The unions need people and we are the union. They cannot function without us. Without unions we are all vulnerable. I work in the NHS and believe me I have seen some truly disgraceful behaviour by management - dispising the "powerless" unions. If the workforce joins together and unite we can strive for fairness and fearless working lives.

MUF

Despising

I travelled to the UK for a 5 week hitch-hiking tour in '75. I was appalled at the level of poverty and general " backwardness " in comparison to the North American standards of living at that time. I took $1,500 in travellers cheques, fully expecting to be flat broke well before the flight home to Canada; but to my surprise, I actually returned with plenty of cash left over ( nearly $500 ).

I ate three-course suppers in up-scale city restaurants for 2 quid
which was nearly half what it would have cost me at home. B&B's were no more than 3 quid ( about $6.75 ); similar accommodation cost at least $20 in Canada. In short, I thought I had entered a third world country similar to Mexico or Cuba. Everything was dirt cheap. A lot of conveniences that one would normally expect in North America were reserved for the well-to-do. Those were the days of Ted Heath and Harold Wilson.

In '78 I took another trip over, but the costs had risen markedly due to Britain's deepening alignment to the EEC. But it was still a good deal. The conditions in the country though, didn't seem any better ( Jim Callaghan was Prime Minister at this time ). Sadly I didn't get back for several more years -- just after Maggie had been given the boot. But what I saw nearly popped my eyes out. England was not the same place -- a much higher standard of living, general prosperity, a real mover and shaker within the European community. You could feel the sense of strength among the citizenry. Fancy gadgets and other sophisticated products that were rarely seen in Britain in '75 were now commonplace. There was nothing in Canada that I couldn't purchase in the UK -- they had everything that we had in North America and construction-wise, at least, they built it better!

To be sure, there were still regional areas of poverty ( but what nation doesn't have them ). I left Britain after that trip in '90 realizing that something dramatic had occurred under Maggie Thatcher. The nation was changed from a have-not to a relatively prosperous realm. I felt good for the Brits. In '75 it had bothered me terribly that the land of my forebears was doing so poorly.

So I can attribute that turnaround in large measure to the Iron Lady.

RJC