Will we ever fully recover from Margaret Thatcher?

[Sarah Kelly]

its a resounding "NO" then.... top post ! x

[Sarah Kelly]

Not even 8am and im laughing mr stone.... well done and thank you !wink! x

[Sarah Kelly]

er, mandelson is the consumate politcian jj.... all in politics should watch in awe and learn from him.... to be sacked 11 times and become uk president,thats some achievement! .. !wink!

[Sarah Kelly]

Any economicly depressed area is just heart wrenching,to live in ,grow up in,die in..... But as i saidpreviously,, where would the money come from to keep mining,the shipyards,steel factories and cotton mills etc all going? Higher taxes? people generally dont like paying higher taxes... So, forgetting peoples hatred of Thatcher ( AND I AM NOT A FAN OF HERS BY ANY MEANS ) When there is NO MONEY/ORDERS to build at a shipyard max, WHAT are you actually suggesting whoever is in power , should do? ............. my second point id like to make is,Britain has always had a proud record Re immigration,certainly since the 30"s...... It is now , however a total shambles ,amazing when you consider we are an island and have no borders!.... in my street there are 10 houses,all 3 bed semis..... 8 of these regular brit houses,if there is such a thing, with betwen 2 and 5 people in each........ The remaining 2 houses are polish,and they house , and this is no exageration,10 in 0ne and 8 in the other !....... and they are by no means typical.... I doubt any of them are paying tax(hence the police raid-anoither story) yet they use all the local amenities etc as everyone else... There is no economic blackspot created by this,as its countrywide , so the damage is more pervading exactly becuase you CANT see it, gradually eroding away at local services,housing,schooling,hospital treatment etc............ And a fair few faces seem to "move on" and are replaced by newer ones-so frequently i dont know if they are visiting or a new additions to either of the 2 houses..... ......This country is all to Shite now and i for one am glad i got out of politics!

[Dylan Devere]

I left school may 3rd 1979.... the day that bitch got elected... using the first spin doctors... the sacchi brotheres.

I remember the people march for jobs... and that cows remark about it raining outside after they had marched the entire length of the country.

I have seen many polititians break many promises, they all do- not matter how many good intentions you have you can't deliver everything.

But I know who I believe to have the majority of the countrys interests at heart and it isn't the tories.

PS alot of recent job loses/bankrupcies were due to a global recession and not party policy- it would have happened whoever was in power.

[Sarah Kelly]

i absolutely agree with you.. would the solution be to raise taxes? x

[steve56]

Remember Derek Bentley/Timothy Evans who were wrongly hung

[max_tranmere]

sarah, you are right that if there are no orders then there is little point keeping a failing industry afloat but it usually costs more in the long run for the government to pull the plug than to keep it going. If they can find the money to keep the whole area on Benefit, and to lose lots of tax revenue from surviving businesses in that area - as less people will being going to them to spend because folk in the town now have less moeny as they are all on Benefit - then the State could have found the money to keep the industry instead. It would have a lot cheaper and the region would not have been decimated, and have a later feeling of hopelessness about it. I personally never understood why Thatcher wouldn't bail out failing industries but was content to bail out that very same region with fortunes in social security as a result of her having shut the industry down. Her decisions in the 1980's have cost the country trillions and trillions of pounds (and I mean TRILLIONS). The Welfare State costs over ?100 billion annually. Think how much that would have totalled since the 1980's to now.

Next. You mention about out-of-control immigration and how many immigrants arent paying tax. You are right, and many do live 10 to a house, but the sector they work for would collapse if those people werent doing the scuzzy jobs at the bottom end of it that no one else wants to do. The government brought in this thing of fining employers who take on illegal, cash in hand, foreigners. I remember seeing a business leader from Chinatown in London on TV saying that if all the illegals were stopped from working in that area, the whole of Chinatown would collapse. The same applies to the wider hospitality industry in London, the construction industry, cleaners, and many others. Many may not pay tax but the sector only thrives because of them at the bottom doing it all - which in turn enables the people above them to have their nice salaries and pay a lot of tax.