After Attila's armies sacked Aquilea, the fugitives founded Venice. Why doesn't Venice have an Attila holiday? Clear Hunnophobia!

I think the unions are, to a large extent, responsible for the rise of the cancer that was Margret Thatcher and the Tory Greed Party of the eighties, nineties and now.

Wrong way round, the unions were the cancer, Thatcher was the chemo, not nice but necessary.

Quote from: cameronian on 09 March 2014, 03:59:02 PM
I think the unions are, to a large extent, responsible for the rise of the cancer that was Margret Thatcher and the Tory Greed Party of the eighties, nineties and now.

Wrong way round, the unions were the cancer, Thatcher was the chemo, not nice but necessary.

I think you're wrong on so many levels but I doubt I'll convince you and I'm certain you won't convince me, so I'll agree to vehemently disagree.

Quote from: Ithoriel on 09 March 2014, 04:29:27 PM
I think you're wrong on so many levels but I doubt I'll convince you and I'm certain you won't convince me, so I'll agree to vehemently disagree.

I agree with Ithoriel on this

While we can certainly disagree on points of princple and ideology, I also agree that cameronian is wrong on this point, an is, as so often happens, conflating and confusing important bht different points.   It is I think true that in the late 1970s, the unions were somewhat hijacked by demagogues who lost sight of what it was the unions were formed to achieve.  But the brutal, Thatcherite destruction of the movement an the hard won industrial rights of the people has swung the pendulum too far back. We now live in a tkme where workers rights are nonexistent rea,ly, and this Iimbalance has led directly to many of the problems wd now face.  Take the financial 'crash'.  While mostly a banking crisis, it wasfuelled by debt, mkstly of the lie of mortgages, but also household debt.  Why are people in debt?  Because ee have a consumer economy fuelled by consumers who are POORLY PAID.  The crushing of the jnion power has meant that rather than profits going to the workers who spend it, it goes to shareholders and rich folks who hoard it...thus the consumer economy stalls, and peo
lE are forced jnto debt to pay their mortgages.  If the unions were left with more power, as in for example Germany, higher wages, lower debt, not as setious a crash.  So Thatcher was wrong to go so far in smashing the rights of the people to bargain collectively for their and societys brtterment.  I would suggest.

Quote from: Ithoriel on 09 March 2014, 04:29:27 PM
I think you're wrong on so many levels but I doubt I'll convince you and I'm certain you won't convince me, so I'll agree to vehemently disagree.

Yep

Even if she was right, her methods were abhorrent!

Quote from: Fenton on 09 March 2014, 04:53:24 PM
I agree with Ithoriel on this

As do I. I put my thoughts in my blog when she died, they haven't changed one bit since then.

I think this will always be an intractable situation. My best friend is from Hull and was very much against Margaret Thatcher and her policies, yet was equally apposed to the jobs for life of the Hull dock workers, 1/3 of whom never turned up for work, yet continued to be paid. The Union power was so strong that their employers could not touch them.

As for me growing up in East Anglia, the unions never affected us as mentioned in a previous post, with the exceptions of the power strikes, rail strikes etc. At the same time we suffered from lay offs in the agricultural sector and the knock on effect on local communities. It never received the coverage that the mineworkers and others got, so we just had to get on with our lifes. My Dad was and is still bitter that the union he had to belong to to work on construction sites, didn't help them one jot when the company started laying workers off.

For me I agree with an awful lot of what she did or had to do, but equally disagree in equal amounts with other policies. Ditto Tony Blair et al. That's life and that's politics.

Luddite has made a very valid point there.

Wealth doe not trickle down, it flows into offshore accounts (recent research).
If the only duty of the business is to make money then who is going to buy products if they are barely covering the basic living and moreover why did we abolish slavery?


Money for the few may be a (political) agenda but unless humanity learns to truly run a communist regime (not some are more equal than others) AND we work for embettering ourselves and the planet we will inevitably run into the corner where the many become so enraged they will replace the few with another few to exploit them. A more equal distribution of resources (and therefore wealth) is not a weakness but essential for a society that functions (as stated by Willson and Picket).

Now without trying to start an argument but all those people who argue that my point is "weak" or the route to communism I must reply they lack the most basic human empathy and intellect. In ancient times (such as the 70s) people were taught Philosophy and had the ability to reflect upon themselves and their actions. More importantly they foresaw that taking too much away from the plebs will at one point make the plebs take back what they think is theirs. Self preservation suggests you do behave a bit more sensibly. Again the point is why we cannot all get along and just do what we should?