You start looking back and seeing other things too, which seemed quite isolated, but now tie in with a greater scheme, if you will.

The reform of the Sunday trading laws was touted as a need to tidy up some ridiculous things in the law of the time (the specific example often mentioned at the time was that it was illegal to buy a Bible on a Sunday, but legal to buy porn). But what that obviously helped to do was create the conditions for the 24/7 shopping culture.

Another thing that comes to mind was privatisation – both in the NHS ('soft services' – and we know what happened to rates of MRSA and c-diff when the numbers of cleaners were slashed as a result of privatisation) and of the utilities. I remain to be convinced that I have anything like a meaningful choice when it comes to, say, electricity or water, beyond who I pay my money to. We know that companies tend to all put their prices up at around the same time and at around the same amount. Even Tory grandee Harold Macmillan took issue with this, describing it as 'selling off the family silver'.

One wonders how, for instance, it benefits domestic customers in the UK to be subsidising the electricity supplies of customers in other countries? See EDF as an example.

But instead, we see government telling us that it's our responsibility to find the 'best deals' on utilities. What was wrong with having a basic, national provider, providing a service where any profit was re-invested directly into that service and where customers know that they're not simply being used as cash cows for something that is not a luxury, but that they need?

Make a note of the date - I sort of agree with you.

It was a fair and sensible post.

I'm struggling to see the problem with the whole Bible/porn issue.

I don't have a big problem with that.
Nowadays women work rather than do the shopping between 9 and 5.

If I (as usual) don't want to shop on Sundays, I don't do it, but a lot find it useful.

Whilst I do think that we are somewhat overly-materially-minded these days, I don't blame the fact that shops are open.

That's why I suggested making a note of the date too

I can see that this policy was flawed in hindsight, but I can see why this policy made sense at the time.

If a council tenant buys their house through right to buy, then that is one house and its tenant out of the council house system, so technically at least, there was no need (not immediately anyway) to create a new house to replace it, because that tenant has been taken out of the system too.

Clearly, though, this should not have been a permanent plan, as new tenants are naturally 'created' as time goes on, and of course, housing stock needs to be replaced as it gets 'past it', so to speak.

What I'm trying to say is that I can see both sides.

As someone who lost both grandparents during Thatchers era, both to cancer in an NHS hospital, I cannot see where she increased spending on health (unless it was on private business consultants advising on how to spend less on the front line services). My grandmother died in appalling conditions in a Victorian ward in Kingston General in Hull, which had no heating due to the boilers being knackered (and funding denied for replacements), the ward was understaffed and the ward sister apologised to my mam when she went to her in tears asking for her to be moved somewhere more 'human' to spend what was her last days with us. All the hospitals in Hull were starved of funding during her time in office and conditions were very poor at best.

As for the Falklands war (i spent from Jan 1973 to August 1983 in the navy and served in the war from start to finish), she had ample intelligence that the Argies were planning an invasion, in fact HMS Endurance was in BA in the December preceding the war and reported disturbing intelligence to the government at the time, which was ignored. She had ample opportunity to prevent this war as there was a warship with support vessel within 7 days of the area, along with a nuke not to far away (a friend was on it), all she need to do was the same as what Jim Callaghan did in December 1977 when intelligence sources reported a similar build up of forces in the southern naval areas or Argentina, he dispatched HMS Phoebe, a nuke sub and a support vessel from Plymouth just before christmas, but kept its destination secret ( a friend was on Phoebe and he said they were sailing in the morning but destination was classified, they even head north for a day to throw any 'spies' that might be watching). This action prevented an possible invasion. All Thatcher had to do was take similar action and even increase the small Marine detachment with a number of soldiers (flight time in a Hercules is around 18 hours), but she chose not to and preferred the flag waving task force to 'check them out' once they had invaded. This was unnecessary and would have prevented the death of many a servicemen (two of which were mates).

Leadership isn't just about showing your willingness to fight, its about doing whats right and safeguarding the safety, where possible of your citizens. She used the war as an election winner as lots of Sun reading pillocks thought it was a show of strength, which in actual fact it was a show of weak leadership on her part.

As for the coal, if you make something at a cost of £100 and sell it on at a £10 profit, you cannot compete against someone who then gets £30 from the government to make their outlay £70, they can then sell it for £80 and make the same profit. This does not make your item 'too costly' to make, it makes it unfair competition and thats why the coal industry died, all she had to do was place a tariff on coal from nations who subsidised, but she did not believe in this and would rather let communities die instead. I now work in a lot of these areas and they have never got over her policies 25 years on.

Thatcher was bad for this country

You're being very restrained

The main issue with the sell off of housing stock was there was no plans to replace it in the medium to long term which is where the problems would have (and did) occur, the drive to own your own home was a sound idea but an ideal that was taken way too far by both politicians and the public, it shifted the age at when people got a mortgage for the end of their working life (the 25 or so years up to 65) which are usually the best paid, to having to get on the property ladder in your early twenties when people should be having a good time, settling down and breeding.

I always try to see both sides too and of course hindsight is 20/20.

But quite honestly the scenario that you describe should have, and almost definitely was, forseeable and forseen by those who concocted the right to buy scheme, it doesn't take a great mind to look at the social housing stockpile as a whole and agree that there is a demand for such a thing and that demand is self perpetuating and always will be.

Remove one house out of the stock without replacing it and you affect future renters - I expect those who rule the country to have a little ability to think things through.


Afterthought - and the really stupid thing is that it was a gold-plated opportunity to IMPROVE the social housing stock by using all of the proceeds to build new social housing or renovate old stock, I was in the building trade at that time and contractors would have been falling over themselves to employ tens of thousands in building or rennovating social housing, its a real *shakes head in dismay* moment when you reconsider what happened instead.