Mrs Thatcher Vs The Miners

[Thomas]

That's OK I am watching you; I have my suspicions you have attended the school of Brussels.

I attended the school of life on the copland road sheep , before moving onto posher climes. Im not quite living the high society life like bright young thing in morningside , but im struggling on regardless.

As for the EU , well ,you know my position..........i couldnt give a feck either way. If it gets us out your onion , all well and good if not who cares?

Remember im not trying to take you back into it, i leave that to dynamis , srb quackers and patbox , your friendly fifth columnist countrymen.

You are much closer to paris than glasgow sheep wash , and i bet you had baguette for breakfast and strong coffee?

...im watching you.

[Sheepy]

im watching you sheep.

You live at the top of senlac hill , speak french , barbecue frogs legs and are supporting France at the euroes.

Ive had my suspicions about you for a long time you know.

That's OK I am watching you; I have my suspicions you have attended the school of Brussels.

[Thomas]

Nothing much changes in that way, the most powerful heads at the G7 are Norman Catholics.

im watching you sheep.

You live at the top of senlac hill , speak french , barbecue frogs legs and are supporting France at the euroes.

Ive had my suspicions about you for a long time you know.

[Sheepy]

or this great lament by wee rab of gloucester....

Nothing much changes in that way, the most powerful heads at the G7 are Norman Catholics.

[Thomas]

Back on the subject of Saint maggie thatcher...

Health inequalities in the UK worsened markedly under Thatcher.Poverty in the UK rose from 13% to 25%.

The impact of Thatcherism on health and well-being in Britain

Abstract

Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) was the United Kingdom's prime minister from 1979 to 1990. Her informal transatlantic alliance with U.S. President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1989 played an important role in the promotion of an international neoliberal policy agenda that remains influential today. Her critique of UK social democracy during the 1970s and her adoption of key neoliberal strategies, such as financial deregulation, trade liberalization, and the privatization of public goods and services, were popularly labeled Thatcherism. In this article, we consider the nature of Thatcherism and its impact on health and well-being during her period as prime minister and, to a lesser extent, in the years that follow; we focus mainly on Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales). Thatcher's policies were associated with substantial increases in socioeconomic and health inequalities: these issues were actively marginalized and ignored by her governments. In addition, her public-sector reforms applied business principles to the welfare state and prepared the National Health Service for subsequent privatization

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24684084/

[Thomas]

Which worked out at about eight bob a Scot.

no it wasnt.

...and you tell me you worked for hmrc?

Re read my post. You saddled scotland with 2.5 million of englands collosul 18 million war debt  , so by my reckoning  , that left scotland not richer by 8 bob a scot , but worse off to the tune of 2.1 million or therabouts.

I can never understand what is the greater tragedy, Scotland's inability to resist an English pound or the fact that the folk can be bought so cheap.

Thats rich( pardon the pun) coming from a guy who lives in a city that lives off the back of johnny foreigners cash.

I tell you Tommy, once he gets himself organised Boris will be up north building flower bridges from the Mull of Galloway to Out Stack, buying fireworks for the Rangers supporters and celebrating Mass at Celtic Park. Poor, dour Wee Krankie won't stand a chance and Scotland will remain England's outhouse for another hundred years at least

I reckon borkie by then , labour will have sorted themselves out , got rid of starmer and the blairite muppets , and taken the yookay ( if it has indeed still survived) back into the EU.

The great english dream of independence from europe will all be over , the fantasy of the empire resurrected all gone , westminster turned into a museum and us politics geeks talking about the big election for our parliament in brussells.

We will be asking why cant the cockney sparras resist the brussells euro? Who knows maybe 2066 will be a major historical date like 1066 , the last time the europeans conquered England .

It will be like the days of old borkie , when any englishman wanting to better himself had to learn to speak proper french , travel over to poitou , and beg his angevin king for permission under french law to build an extension at the side of his shed by the banks of the thames.

ranulph higden wrote....

Children in school, contrary to the usage and custom of other nations, are compelled to drop their own language and to construe their lessons and other tasks in French, and have done so since the Normans first came to England. Also, gentlemen's children are taught to speak French from the time that they are rocked in their cradles and can talk and play with a child's toy; and provincial men want to liken themselves to gentlemen, and try with great effort to speak French, so as to be more thought of

or this great lament by wee rab of gloucester....

Thus came -- lo! -- England into Norman's hands,
And the Normans could not speak anything except their own speech,
And spoke French as they did at home, and their children did also teach,
So that high men of this land that of their blood come
Hold to all that speech that they took of them;
For unless a man knows French, men think little of him.
But low men hold to English and to their own speech yet.
I suppose there be none in all the countries of the world
That do not hold to their own speech, save for England alone,
But yet it is well for a man to know both,
For the more a man knows the more he is worth.

[Thomas]

In all aspects the likes of France and Italy look like third world countries, mind you, have you seen the bogs in France 😂

Not sure about France nick , again , an extremely wealthy country. Sure they have their culturaly peculiarities , as you do in your country , but if i was moving abroad France is where i would move to.

London is regarded as the richest city in europe , yet any time i travel around the city , you have the wealth of the square mile compared to some of the third world shitholes on the periphery.

The french on average certainly have a very high standard of living , and jealously guard their working rights much to the annoyance of the likes of macron.

[Thomas]

Don't agree, and yes there are loads of websites that prove and also disprove what you say.
The average Mechanical engineers salary U.K. is £45K, Germany €49K. That puts the U.K. salary ahead.
Also when you look at their GDP compared to the U.K. based on population there is not a lot in it either.

What is clear is that both Germany and the U.K. are streets ahead of the other European countries.
In all aspects the likes of France and Italy look like third world countries, mind you, have you seen the bogs in France 😂

I dont think its beyond reason to argue germany has what is regarded as the richest and most successfull economy in europe. The german mechanical engineer in your example gets a bit more for his 49 k euroes as for example housing is much cheaper in germany than in the uk , especailly your country and its over inflated housing market.

Berlin is far cheaper to buy/rent property than london on average , and the same for many  of the other german cities. We did a thread quite a while back on this forum that showed how transport costs in germany , for example railways , were far cheaper than transport costs in england , espeically the over inflated south east.

So without going into each and every minute detail and comparing cost and wealth , i think its fair to say you admit yourself there isnt a lot in it , and the point was wether germany is richer or not or wether not much in it as you say , germany is a clear example of how a highly unionised country can thrive.

As i said to patbox , whatever was going wrong economically in the uk in the seventies before thatcher came to power , there was far more to it than the tory myth of simply blaming out of control unions.

[Borchester]

Im often reminded of english historians laughable comments about englands generous reimbursement to scotland for the union of 1707 , when they gave scotland £398 000 in that days money.

Which worked out at about eight bob a Scot.

I can never understand what is the greater tragedy, Scotland's inability to resist an English pound or the fact that the folk can be bought so cheap.

I tell you Tommy, once he gets himself organised Boris will be up north building flower bridges from the Mull of Galloway to Out Stack, buying fireworks for the Rangers supporters and celebrating Mass at Celtic Park. Poor, dour Wee Krankie won't stand a chance and Scotland will remain England's outhouse for another hundred years at least.

[Nick]

https://www.iexpats.com/where-do-british-expats-live/

Maybe borkie can help me here , but what i always wonder is why is it when english john moves abroad , he is an "expat" , but when  radek comes over from romania hes an immigrant?

I'm fairly sure John has a few quid in the bank and moves to a sunnier clime and has to have a job waiting for him. Travels by air.

Radek tends to come here in the back of a lorry, no job offer and lives in the black economy.

#Merkelsmillions

[Nick]

1   Australia   1,300,000

Why would they go there? I hear the beef if crap 😉.

[Nick]

It was British trade unionists, who'd developed close ties to Soviet trade unionists, that planned trade union structures for post-war Germany with German trade unionists. One plan that envisaged the involvement of worker representatives on company boards, served as a blueprint for economic reconstruction of German industry, and industrial peace and eventual prosperity. 

Strangely the TUC never showed the same willingness to help the post-war reconstruction of UK industry, and the Soviet influence derailed UK industrial relations for decades after.

Attlee and Churchill never saw industrial modernisation as an imperative. While Germany and other European countries chose to use post war Marshall Aid on reconstructing their industry, Britain — despite getting vastly more Marshall Aid than any other European country — chose to spend the bulk on building up its armed forces in an effort to retain the Empire...

Unions in the U.K. have never represent the workers, they're there to swell their ranks and shout through a megaphone. I can't remember a Union that has brought about real good.

And what is so wrong with the Empire? As it is now, the Commonwealth is still 28% of all countries and a third of the population. These people / countries choose to stay our friends, not sure what will happen when Liz croaks and Charlie warms the seat.

[Nick]

Germany has the highest paid , one of the most highly skilled unionised work forces in europe , and it doesnt stop them having the biggest most successfull european economy.

Margaret thatcher was a complete utter can't , and her  sermon on the mound is still one of the most infamous incidents in modern scottish history.

When scotland finally becomes independent , i hope thatcher gets a statue in george square for services to the independence cause.

Don't agree, and yes there are loads of websites that prove and also disprove what you say.
The average Mechanical engineers salary U.K. is £45K, Germany €49K. That puts the U.K. salary ahead.
Also when you look at their GDP compared to the U.K. based on population there is not a lot in it either.

What is clear is that both Germany and the U.K. are streets ahead of the other European countries.
In all aspects the likes of France and Italy look like third world countries, mind you, have you seen the bogs in France 😂

[Thomas]

More than 5.5 million people from Britain live overseas and leave the country at a rate of around 2,000 a week.

That's about 1 in 10 of the population, according to in-depth analysis by think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which carried out the research as part of their Brits Abroad project

Rank   Country   Number of British expats
1   Australia   1,300,000
2   Spain   761,000
3   United States   678,000
4   Canada   603,000
5   Ireland   291,000
6   New Zealand   215,000
7   South Africa   212,000
8   France   200,000
9   Germany   115,000
10   Portugal   60,000

https://www.iexpats.com/where-do-british-expats-live/

Maybe borkie can help me here , but what i always wonder is why is it when english john moves abroad , he is an "expat" , but when  radek comes over from romania hes an immigrant?

[Thomas]

It is one of a life's ironies that a long and reasonably harmonious marriage is cheaper than a divorce. However it is cut, the retreat from empire turned out to be startlingly expensive. 

Of course it did.

Extracting what.......£45 trillion from a country like india alone , never mind all the other 64 nations , is expensive when the tap is turned off . No one likes it when theri cash cows decide to stop donating money to the cause of enrichment , but such is life borkie.

We werent talking about the expense though. Your last excuse to me was that the british , who really are a decent sort who just happend to trot across the globe helping all those poor nations out and colonising them for the good of the natives , then decided belatedly to peacefully hand the land back.

By my reckoning which tends to chime with patboxes , the vast majority of those 65 nations or thereabouts had to literally fight their way out and boot you british out their countires. So you`ll forgive me if i dont tend to agree with your version of events.

A lot of the blame can be laid at the door of the Irish, Scots and Welsh who made up the Imperial Civil Services and who were understandably reluctant to have their rice bowls broken even if it did bankrupt the UK.

I know mate , it was all our fault. Dont forget the indians and all the rest who similarly served in the capacity as administrators.

Richi  sunaks ancestors and patels just all of a sudden happened to find themselves on the east coast of africa adminsintrating the empire out of the good of their hearts , and got a nice holiday out of it into the bargain.

Im often reminded of english historians laughable comments about englands generous reimbursement to scotland for the union of 1707 , when they gave scotland £398 000 in that days money. Like you often do in your one sided version of events and fantasy about the empire ,they fail to inform the reader of how england then subjugated scotland with 2.5 million of englands then 18 million debt , leaving scotland 2.1 million worse off.

Funny how all these wee awkward details get missed out at times isnt it.?

That said, although many tales have been told of freedom fighters flinging themselves on the bayonets of English mercenaries in their bid for independence, most of the empire had gone by the 1960s

It had mate , but in the vast majority of cases your elite were reluctant in the extreme to let it go.

I suppose the writing had been on the wall for a long time since both world wars , ireland leaving , then by the suez crises when america told the "british " whats what and how the new world was going to be , even the most ardent brit nat was probably by then accepting the inevitability of it all.

You couldnt hold it mate not for any reasons of decency , but simply because you werent strong enough. By the eighties , you were reduced to fighting with pissed up argies for the malvinas and a few hundred angry irishmen in belfast  ,and by the nineties , hanging onto the coat tails of the yanks to protect what little you still possessed around the world.

By camerons time as prime minisnter , it had gotten that embarressing for the mpire even wee denmark was flying more bombing raids against gaddafi than the royal air force.

The question then arises in that with the horrors of Imperialism and racism being so burned into the souls of the King Emperor's ex subject, why so many of them have chosen to settle here? 

So you keep telling me , and on the flip side of the coin , why are so many english desperate to settle in malaga or the dordogne in those nasty european countries away from the wonders of the home nation you keep telling me about that is attracting all our friends from the third world?

I can't understand it borkie , i mean any englishman i meet worth his salt  , as soon as he saves ten bob is legging it for the airport for a better life abroad.

As for london.......well feck me , every londoner i meet is desperate for a one way ticket out the place. I used to work in colchester many moons ago , and every ex londoner i worked with told me their old stomping pad was the biggest shithole on gods earth , and to steer clear of it.