The 70s were a long time ago, the tories won't be able to get away indefinitely with trotting that old line out to scare the horses. Besides, the 70s were brilliant. T. Rex, Led Zep, Mark IV Cortinas, hot pants, and Saints winning the FA Cup. Who wouldn't want to go back to that?
In addition we had the Philly Sound, Jimmy Carter, a very underrated POTUS, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, inflation which helped some sectors of the economy and those who were paying a mortgage prior to the boom in inflation. We entered the then Common Market, had great programmes like "I Claudius," a good mix of the limited over and 3-day cricket (can't say we have the same balance today). When Saints won the FA Cup that year, it heralded the start of one of the hottest and longest summers ever. As you said Archers, the 70s were not that bad.
Every upside has a downside, it depends if you are a glass half full type of person or half empty one. We are all choosy in what we want to recall. To be completely honest with you, recalling the rolling blackouts would be way down on my list about the 70s. For others, not so!!
I think most people recall the happier parts of the past more than they recall the sad/depressing parts.
I think blaming the 70s on nationalisation or on socialism is a little too easy really. Reality is always that a lot of systems fail because they aren't administered properly. With both systems it normally boils down to one or more or several factions demanding that they need more or someone refusing to keep to the rules. Whether it is socialism or capitalism the idea should work but then it requires those who are net contributors to accept that they are net contributors and keep to the rules to enable the net recipients to benefit and for the net recipients not to demand too much. Simplified down I don;t see a huge difference between the 2 systems other than a name and in both systems there are arguments over the contribution and receipt amounts with both side demanding more and blaming the other side. Nationalised organisations should work just like private firms do but without the need for profit. They should in theory be cheaper because of this however for some reason they aren't. I doubt that the 70s problems were down to the political leanings of the parties in power and more to do with the governments of the time being poor mediators between business and workers whether the businesses were nationalised or private. At the end of the day if business wants more money either to invest or to profit from and workers want that money in their pockets as well as more benefits then compromise is necessary and the compromise is always the problem because each side always sees the other as the greedy one or in the wrong. Like I have said on these pages many times. I am not some full on right winger and am most definitely not wholesale against more money to state organisations nor against renationalisation however the system needs sorting out before you can do these things. There is no reason why a national railway or energy infrastructure shouldn't cost less than a private alternative other than mis-management and in that scenario then maybe it is because people or groups get away with much more when the government is their owner than when a private group of shareholders or owners are in charge? While we have this system of everybody and every organisation holding their hands out insisting they need more while employers and rich complain about the contribution they are being asked to make then it doesn't matter what model is in play because it will never work. That is unless it is a policed totalitarian state in which case what the boss says goes and dare you speak out. In this day and age we should be well past where we are now with greed and corruption within the system wiped out whether state or not state but we have a system that fails like all the others where state is happy to facilitate corruption with laws that make it legal and a public that does not accept they are actually having nicer (and longer) lives than their parents did by a fair margin.
The nineties were grim but I loved the nineties. I think in bleak times you tend to do lots of stuff and search out happier things whereas in good times it becomes much more diluted and you have less need to search. Then again I was in my teens/early twenties in the nineties. Not much money around but a great musical movement and people suddenly started enjoying themselves on the cheap. Festivals got really popular (not the commercial version we have now) and dancing away to music you wouldn't normally listen to with nothing more than a bottle of water to keep refilling from the tap and a pill or 2.
Just a sound bite - a clever one, I admit - from a right wing Journo who knew his Shakespeare. Not that much discontent that I recall. The power cuts were some years before, as was the three day week introduced by Edward Heath
When the Eastern (?) Railway line was privatised, the owner failed to make a profit, and returned it to the Government (Labour). They turned the railway line into a profit and tax paying business with one of the highest customer satisfaction records. So a well run railway network can work and be beneficial to the country as a whole. Since then, the Tories have sold this line to, I believe, Virgin or Stagecoach and the profits are no longer going into public coffers.
A mixed economy Imps, that's the way to go imo. A free, but fairly regulated, market in goods and services, but with essential services like Health, Transport, and Utilities held in public ownership and run for the benefit of all. Exactly what the current Labour manifesto proposes.
Yeah, the East Coast mainline was sold to Virgin in response to intensive lobbying by Richard Branson. Network Rail, which maintains track and infrastructure, remains in public ownership because previous attempts to franchise it for profit caused it to fall on it's arse. And now Transport Minister Chris Grayling wants to parcel it up and sell it off again Meanwhile GTR, the franchise responsible for Southern, Thameslink, Greater Anglia and London Midland are failing all their targets and subjecting London commuters to increasing delays and cancellations, but the taxpayer continues to subsidise this failing business. GTR is part of the Go - Ahead group which paid out £35 million in dividends to it's shareholders last financial year. Franchising of the Railways has been a disaster, and we are all paying for it.
No the Labour manifesto just jumps on the premise that more and more money needs to go in to everything. There is no thought given to why so much more needs to go in each year and to eradicate all the siphons that have been attached to the barrel draining money away. All this legal corruption needs wiping out. All these feeds that have lots of non state setups drawing state money out of the state all above board. Not just a Tory problem. It is the Centrist setup. I have no problem with Health, Transport, Utilities being held in public ownership however it needs running properly and not have the bosses, owners or workers constantly asking for more. Publicly owned organisations are not for profit. They should cost less than private. The NHS SHOULD cost us a lot less for the same treatment as private. And treasury income needs sorting out. Quite simply if you benefit from trading in the UK or being based in the UK then you pay the relevant taxes here. Doesn;t matter where your head office is. If you are selling stuff to the UK from the UK then you pay taxes for that privilege . There needs to be a much simpler set of rules that are fully enforced. A real social contract that the contributors and recipients agree to and any attempts by the contributors to renege on the deal should be prosecuted as well as the recipients needing to accept their lot once it is agreed. If all the people who earnt money from being in the UK paid their taxes here where they earn their money then we wouldn't be needing to argue and if on the flip those who represent the recipients would stop trying to make everybody a victim and actually dealt with the real needy we would have no problems there either. Call it capitalism, socialism, mixed economy or anything else because that is a name. They all work the same, The rich put in to help the poor. The problem as always is both sides asking for too much (collectively not individual cases) which means of course that the really needy suffer because of those that aren't really needy and all business and rich getting a bad name because of those that don't follow the rules. But the main point as I said is it isn;t just about putting more money in. All state organisations need to start being run properly like businesses without the profit aspect. Education or Health would cost whatever it cost but without auditing and running it properly money starts leaking out again and then you need more and more to replace it. It is really strange for me as a parent to hear on the BBC head teachers talking about how they are having to make teachers redundant when you go to parents evenings at schools (primary and secondary) where Apple have made their fortune selling tablets and policies like "give every child a hot meal." They can't afford books but they have hundreds of ipads and children regardless of if their parents can afford to feed them and do so get a free hot meal every day. Get rid of the NMW for youngsters and encourage businesses to start taking on youngsters and training them up, giving them day release, REAL apprenticeships on a lower wage increasing as they become worth more to the business. These people are worth far more to the economy than someone with a degree in human studies that works in a call centre for the rest of their life. Young people would have a choice then. Go to uni, got straight to work at lower money but with the incentive of gaining experience on the job they are training to do at the same time. That would reduce Uni back down to a sensible level and then you can scrap the fees.
From memory: I was shelf stacking in Tesco while doing my O levels. The lorry driver's strike meant that for a few weeks we had two full aisles of Heinz tinned products (their drivers were in a different union). Nothing else on the shelves (and that was in a supermarket of the day, so it had four aisles - half a shop of beans and ravioli). Gravediggers' strike in Liverpool left bodies in cold storage - they were considering letting people dig their own graves for their loved ones if it went on for long. Classy. Ford on strike for about three months - possibly Vauxhall also A month of no bin collections in London left huge piles of rubbish for weeks. Link to pictures: http://tinyurl.com/legp2ju Ambulance men and hospital staff for a chunk of the winter I clearly remember it differently from you. And from checking: Support for Labour over the Tories went from +5% to -20% between November and February, so something was happening. Vin
I was doing my A Levels at Itchen College, and working part time at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Portswood. No shortage of chickens anyway It's a matter of historical record that all those things you mentioned happened. But memory is subjective, and that's certainly not the full story of the 70s ; a lot of myths are often trotted out regarding that decade. The three day week was Ted Heath's doing - in response to Opec countries instigating a petrol crisis. Inflation over 20% also happened on Heath's watch, not Wilson's. The Unions were at the peak of their power, and there were frequent abuses of that power. Though I certainly wouldn't hold the Trade Unions wholly responsible for the poor state of industrial relations at the time - the Unions came into being because they were needed, and now that they have been stripped of their powers we see a return to Victorian levels of exploitation and injustice in many workplaces, with bad employers undercutting the good, casualising their workforce through phony partnership/self employed contracts.
"Labour isn't working" was a Tory election campaign slogan, yet just two short years later the unemployment numbers tripled!. That was my experience of the early 1980s, getting my apprenticeship cut short and scrabbling about from job to job getting laid off from each of them.
What was Thatcher's words at the time of her first election win.? I would just like to remember some words of St. Francis of Assisi which I think are really just particularly apt at the moment... ‘Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.' Have to say that for a great swathe of the population she did exactly the opposite. Some harmony that government brought.
