Feel free to highlight the water shortages, gas shortages and power cuts that happened in 1979.

Apart from January, when I had responsibility for flying pickets during the lorry drivers' strike, I worked the whole year. How was school for you?

In the 1960´s and 1970´s successive governments were pouring huge subsidies into these any loss making state run industries. They might just as well have gone into Trafalgar Square and burnt the tax payers money for all the good it did. Civil servants and politicians were/are just not able enough to run industry in a competitve market place.



You could not describe the privatisation of state industries after 1979 as selling the family silver.....they were all bankrupt.

Now if you are talking about selling off the family gold....we should give a mention to Gordon no more boom and bust Brown and Ed Balls up

DaveO wrote:I will go with the House of Commons as my source: http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN05809.pdf It's obvious that while the likes of Germany,France and Italy retain ownership of major car manufacturers and have companies that manufacture rolling stock and so on when n the UK we have one train maker left who is under threat of closure you are hiding behind a very naive interpretation of statistics. The fact some manufacturers such as Rolls Royce build high value aero engines and this bumps up figures that relate to the value of exports doesn't disguise the obvious. Didn't Labour preside over the 13 years before 2010?

DaveO wrote:I will go with the House of Commons as my source: http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN05809.pdf It's obvious that while the likes of Germany,France and Italy retain ownership of major car manufacturers and have companies that manufacture rolling stock and so on when n the UK we have one train maker left who is under threat of closure you are hiding behind a very naive interpretation of statistics. The fact some manufacturers such as Rolls Royce build high value aero engines and this bumps up figures that relate to the value of exports doesn't disguise the obvious. Didn't Labour preside over the 13 years before 2010?

Now if you are going to talk of who ruined the British car industry then look no further than Red Robbo and his militant union chums

As I asked way up the thread, name one private manufacturing company that MRS THATCHER closed down? Name any remotely viable manufacturing entity SHE closed down? I'd be interested.

Bit of a daft question - might as well extend it to any government from any era, governments don't close private businesses down at all, private businesses are nothing to do with governments unless they are running an illegal operation, governments do however close publicly owned businesses down, they run them down through under investment and poor management appointments and when they sell them on its often at a marked down price to get rid and attract buyers, which in the long term hardly ever benefits the public purse.

Like other have pointed out there were obvious basket cases in the 70s like BL and BT and likewise there are cases like East Coast who have proved that public ownership means better service and more profits simply by applying proper management techniques - you don't have to have civil servants running public companies.

I started work in 1961 and have worked continuously until recent semi retirement. I will also feel free to mention the humiliation of the Greek style bail out under Callaghan's Labour Government and the Winter of Discontent with coffins piled up in warehouses and parks full of rat infested rubbish and the failure to answer 999 calls.

I witnessed the greedy selfish unions ruining the country which was by 1979 a basket case. These undemocratic unions were run by short sighted idiots like Red Robbo through various Scottish ones to that twerp Scargill. History will prove these intransigent upstarts bare the real guilt for so many job losses.

But rather like Churchill who saved us from peril in time of War thank goodness we had Mrs Thatcher who saved us from peril in 1979. Not only that but she played a major role in the defeat of communism and freedom for the peoples of so many Eastern countries.

If you were an illegal flying picket you certainly didn't work the whole year. You were skiving or on strike. What a sad thing to boast about! I now understand why Mrs Thatcher's victorys over the bad guys has left you so bitter and twisted.

So Mrs Thatcher did not kill of British manufacturing did she?

Governments ill-advisedly had been propping up failed private business by nationalising them to avoid mass unemployment. But it was just a wasteful use of resources and wholly unsustainable. when you look back it is frankly farcical that British Leyland (and, although not manufacruring) BRS were supported by public money. What thanks did the government public get? Unions always striking because governments had signalled they were too big too fail. All nationalisation of these dead ducks did was prolong the agony and tie up resources preventing the evolution of new more viable businesses.

As I said, Mrs Thatcher did not destroy British manufacturing - certain sectors did well and grew, others failed because they produced obsolete goods, poor goods or goods too expensively.

I am unclear at the point you are making. In the context of "Thather destroying manufacturing" the argument seems we should have propped up shambolic companies that produced stuff that would not sell because of employment. Foreign owned companies provide employment at less cost to us. They produce cars that people want too.

I am unclear at the point you are making. In the context of "Thather destroying manufacturing" the argument seems we should have propped up shambolic companies that produced stuff that would not sell because of employment. Foreign owned companies provide employment at less cost to us. They produce cars that people want too.