Who voted for Margaret Thatcher?

webboo

oxoman said:

PB quoted.

It was pointed out to me as an apprentice in the 70s that some of the equipment I was being trained on had been used to make weapons/equipment for WWII.

PB I worked for a world renowned chain manufacturer in the early to mid 90,s and we had power press's,s from the 1890,s converted to electricity. We also had a huge boring machine that was reconditioned for the war effort. Admittedly still going strong, they were well past there sell by dates.


Same for me. I worked in large engineering factory that made axles for commercial vehicles. It had originally been founded by the monks at the Abbey next door. I’m sure some of the machinery in the forge had been built by the monks.

Jezyboy

Dorset_Boy said:

Jezyboy said:

Dorset_Boy said:

Clearly some posters here enjoyed and appreciated the unions running (ruining) the country, rubbish not being collected for weeks, bodies not being buried, regular and frequent power cuts, the joke that was the British economy, the closed shop and restrictive practices, coal being cheaper to import from Australia than to get out the ground here, going cap in hand to the IMF for a bail out etc etc.

Meh given your understanding of why brexiters voted for brexit, I'm surprised you're this against those that don't like Thatcher...

Am I wrong to assume you didn't live through the latter part of the 1970s? It was censored awful! The UK really was 'the sick man of Europe' - it was in intensive care.

Creating a flexible labour force (by breaking the power of the unions) allowed the UK economy to grow and allowed many people to determine their own destinies.
Obviously there was a lot of pain in part of the country due to a massive shock to those local economies, and some people never recovered, others however prospered greatly.

Of course you can argue that some measures went too far, but it is pretty staggering that anyone could thing we'd overall have been better off if Labour had won the 1979 election.

Correct about my age.

I would say it goes further than just some individuals that never recovered. Large towns have never recovered the loss of their big, reasonably well paying employer.

I'm simply pointing out that there could well be a link between gutting the industrial heartlands, and people feeling like the economy only works for the "metropolitan elites". This doesn't mean I think the country would have been better or worse off under a different government.

Jezyboy

womack said:

I was refused employment with our local bus company in the early 70's as it was a closed shop and as a Conservative didn't want to join a union and pay subs to fund a party (Labour obviously) which I didn't support.

Unfortunately a lot of the younger generation will have no knowledge of things like this.

I too would like a job with good working conditions that have been negotiated collectively by my fellow workers, but am too tight to pay union subs.

elbowloh

Thatcher created the conditions for yuppies or the real metropolitan elites you could say.

kingstongraham

womack said:

I was refused employment with our local bus company in the early 70's as it was a closed shop and as a Conservative didn't want to join a union and pay subs to fund a party (Labour obviously) which I didn't support.

Unfortunately a lot of the younger generation will have no knowledge of things like this.

Since 1913, union members were able to opt out of paying the political levy, so you gave up the job on the buses for nothing.

rick_chasey

elbowloh said:

Thatcher created the conditions for yuppies or the real metropolitan elites you could say.

That's the other side of the charts I posted upthread.

So since the early 80s, overall economic performance has been roughly the same than in the previous 30-40 years (obviously, back then there was thing that happened in the early 40s which was a bit of a big deal), albeit this last decade has basically been lost, but where that economic performance was felt has changed dramatically.

Basically since the early 80s, the top earners account for more or less the entirety of that overall economic performance, with the lower earners seeing very little of that growth.

Plenty of people on here on all sides of the political spectrum point to this inequality as the basis of the current political environment, and, Stevo excepted, not in especially positive light.

Ultimately that is the legacy of the movement which she was a figurehead for, around the world. Back then it was the "new-right".

surrey_commuter

rick_chasey said:

elbowloh said:

Thatcher created the conditions for yuppies or the real metropolitan elites you could say.

That's the other side of the charts I posted upthread.

So since the early 80s, overall economic performance has been roughly the same than in the previous 30-40 years (obviously, back then there was thing that happened in the early 40s which was a bit of a big deal), albeit this last decade has basically been lost, but where that economic performance was felt has changed dramatically.

Basically since the early 80s, the top earners account for more or less the entirety of that overall economic performance, with the lower earners seeing very little of that growth.

Plenty of people on here on all sides of the political spectrum point to this inequality as the basis of the current political environment, and, Stevo excepted, not in especially positive light.

Ultimately that is the legacy of the movement which she was a figurehead for, around the world. Back then it was the "new-right".

Have I told you my theory that the rise in wealth inequality is directly related to the rise of feminism and equality at work?

rick_chasey

Correlation or causation?

rjsterry

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

elbowloh said:

Thatcher created the conditions for yuppies or the real metropolitan elites you could say.

That's the other side of the charts I posted upthread.

So since the early 80s, overall economic performance has been roughly the same than in the previous 30-40 years (obviously, back then there was thing that happened in the early 40s which was a bit of a big deal), albeit this last decade has basically been lost, but where that economic performance was felt has changed dramatically.

Basically since the early 80s, the top earners account for more or less the entirety of that overall economic performance, with the lower earners seeing very little of that growth.

Plenty of people on here on all sides of the political spectrum point to this inequality as the basis of the current political environment, and, Stevo excepted, not in especially positive light.

Ultimately that is the legacy of the movement which she was a figurehead for, around the world. Back then it was the "new-right".

Have I told you my theory that the rise in wealth inequality is directly related to the rise of feminism and equality at work?

No. Is it worth sharing?

I saw someone pointing out the correlation between voter preference and water hardness the other day, which is not as mad as it sounds. US geology maps pretty accurately to Rep/Dem voting for good reasons.

surrey_commuter

rick_chasey said:

Correlation or causation?

definitely causation

Women tend to partner off with people richer than themselves so as the % of higher paid jobs taken by women has increased so has wealth inequality.

eg a partners job in the '70s would have been taken by a man and would have given his family a lifestyle in the top quartile. Now if that job is taken by a woman she will be married to a man earning as much or more so lifting their household into to top couple of %.

rjsterry

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

Correlation or causation?

definitely causation

Women tend to partner off with people richer than themselves so as the % of higher paid jobs taken by women has increased so has wealth inequality.

eg a partners job in the '70s would have been taken by a man and would have given his family a lifestyle in the top quartile. Now if that job is taken by a woman she will be married to a man earning as much or more so lifting their household into to top couple of %.

I see some logical dead ends in your theory.

Pross

kingstongraham said:

womack said:

I was refused employment with our local bus company in the early 70's as it was a closed shop and as a Conservative didn't want to join a union and pay subs to fund a party (Labour obviously) which I didn't support.

Unfortunately a lot of the younger generation will have no knowledge of things like this.

Since 1913, union members were able to opt out of paying the political levy, so you gave up the job on the buses for nothing.

To be fair, from my first job in local Government I would say the Unions didn't exactly advertise that fact and as a 16 year old entering the workforce I wasn't aware at the time that I was even paying a political levy. I wonder if I could do some form of PPI reclaim. My views on Unions were certainly tarnished beyond repair in that time e.g. being told not to use our cars for site visits as the maximum mileage rate of over 60p per mile was being scrapped - this was at a time where a litre of fuel was only about that and the maximum rate we could claim was being reduced to, from memory, 45p which is still the HMRC limit now with fuel at around £1.35 per litre! Then when it came to local Government reorganisation and people genuinely needing the Union's help in 1996 all the reps seemed to disappear, they were only there for their expenses paid p*ss up to the annual conferences, time off to sort out 'Union duties' and because it made them virtually impossible to get rid of (although they did manage to get rid of the one rep who got arrested on paedo charges!).

lesfirth

oxoman said:

PB quoted.

It was pointed out to me as an apprentice in the 70s that some of the equipment I was being trained on had been used to make weapons/equipment for WWII.

PB I worked for a world renowned chain manufacturer in the early to mid 90,s and we had power press's,s from the 1890,s converted to electricity. We also had a huge boring machine that was reconditioned for the war effort. Admittedly still going strong, they were well past there sell by dates.



You must have been making some huge chains to need the huge boring machine.

davidof

orraloon said:

Where did the North Sea Oil revenues go? A Norway model? Nah, benefits for the ex-workers.

North Sea Oil was a curse in some ways as it meant the pound was overvalued (by 1980) which made the poor quality products the UK produced too expensive to export. Something that is referred to as "Dutch Disease" by economists. (the Russian economy suffers from the same problem today). Norway suffered a similar effect but has a much smaller population in relation to its oil wealth.

So the oil revenues were used to prop up a welfare state needed because the overvalued pound had a negative impact on manufacturing.

Labour would have faced the same issues in 1979 as Thatcher. Indeed fiscal policy under Thatcher from 79-82 was less restrictive than under Labour between 75-78. So much for "monetarism" killing the economy.

The 1974 Labour govt struggled due to the OPEC decision to massively raise oil prices. Healey probably did an okay job in the early days even if the "IMF had to be called in". The UK economy's problems go back a long way but Clement Atlee's post war government must shoulder a lot of blame in not restructuring the economy and investing in the future and embarking on the misconceived NHS when the country couldn't afford it. Money was used to nationalize industry, a short term fix for factories worn out by war time production and also to prop up the pound at an uneconomic exchange rate. The empire was a cost not a profit center (indeed it has largely been about rich people extracting wealth from the colonies and the poor paying for the policing) and once freed from the UK they no longer had to buy our produce which laid bare the quality of UK production.


I never voted for Thatcher before anyone asks.

womack

Yeah but she sorted the Falklands out, no thanks to "Our Biggest Stand Shoulder To Shoulder Ally"

rakkor

womack said:

Yeah but she sorted the Falklands out, no thanks to "Our Biggest Stand Shoulder To Shoulder Ally"

The US didn't give overt support to our quest to regain the Falklands, but behind the scenes, the early delivery of the A9L Sidewinder missiles were a game changer.

I was 18 and in the Forces when Maggie gave us two massive pay rises so naturally I voted for her, once, I would have voted twice, but my vote was a proxy vote and my mother hated Maggie with a passion so that never materialised.

Obviously a more politically educated me should never have voted for her, but more beer money is a strong motivator

womack

rakkor said:

womack said:

Yeah but she sorted the Falklands out, no thanks to "Our Biggest Stand Shoulder To Shoulder Ally"

The US didn't give overt support to our quest to regain the Falklands, but behind the scenes, the early delivery of the A9L Sidewinder missiles were a game changer.

I was 18 and in the Forces when Maggie gave us two massive pay rises so naturally I voted for her, once, I would have voted twice, but my vote was a proxy vote and my mother hated Maggie with a passion so that never materialised.

Obviously a more politically educated me should never have voted for her, but more beer money is a strong motivator

From memory and yours will probably be better than mine, they dillied and dallied about letting our planes refuel on a US controlled island somewhere mid journey. Obviously our planes couldn't do the trip on one fuel load.

orraloon

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Ascension_Island

Ain't solely USAnian.

elbowloh

orraloon said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Ascension_Island

Ain't solely USAnian.

And it's just the base that is shared. Ascension Island itself is a British overseas territory, like the Falklands