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Guilbert, the signs of Thatcher's reign are still visible though. Not only with Benefit dependency but also this whole thing of being used to not working where some people are almost institutionalised as non-working people and to get them back working, no matter what the financial rewards, is almost impossible. I remember the 1987 electiion, I was about to leave school, and Thatcher kept subsidies on to keep certain areas going and more or less promised the people in those areas that if they re-elected her she would continue to look after them. The subsidy that was going to the shipyards in the north-east was kept going right up to the election that June, she won back those seats, then pulled the entire subsidy to the north-east that October. She promised to look after those people, then just 4 months into a 60 month term of office, screwed them all and the north-east sank back to the 1930's almost overnight. The shipyards closed and the enourmous dole queues formed. The people there had been had and there was nothing they could do as they couldn't vote again for another 5 years. I remember reading many times in newspapers and hearing on the TV over the next few years that 'unemployment in the north-east was destroying family life'. There were some things about Thatcher that were almost evil.

Guilbert wrote:
> And the Roman invasion of Britain in 43AD has also taken a
> while to get over.
Overall, beneficent. What have the Romans......


> And of course the disolution of the monastries by Henry the
> Eighth caused a major disruption, closing down 800 monastries.
Overall, beneficent.
But we lost a lot of wonderful theistic art : -((

> This country may never recover from the mess Blair and Brown
> have caused.
It will, once we get rid of.

ok dont hang them .. its the old without a decent pension that suffer the most ..!

im ok with higher taxes .. most people dont like it tho... x

"No more Taxes " max...... Dont get me wrong-( i voted labour all my life).. but just because the huge damage done by labour is less visible,it makes it no less worse...... and i and my two businesses pay a fair bit in taxes and id gladly pay more,thats GLADLY, if it went to the right people /was spent properly....problem is most people ,including thatcher haters, would like payin more in tax even less,so theres your problem.. im not defending Thatcher at all- just dont tell me Blair was better ... John smith dying was the worst thing ever to happen to Labour, and this country...

"No More Taxes" labour promised....... its called "politics " Max and if you believe what most of them say, er MUG love you!wink!).. mandelson is about the only one who speaks the truth!.. They all lie,decieve... i think it should be mandatory that politicians take a lie detector test pre being elected in a borough-its the only way to test if they have integrity x

at least the romans gave us wine.... decent roads......... and do yu remember how it wasnt safe to go out at night .. x

max if its not too personal a question , what do yu do for work?x

That's interesting. John Smith was somewhat 'New Labour' aswell, although not as New Labour as Blair. Thatcher was a massive tax cutter, and it got to the point where we had some of the lowest direct taxes anywhere in the world by the late 1980's. John Major cut direct taxes even more, on the eve of the 1992 election, and this was done for political reasons. 3p was cut from the basic rate just before the election that year. After 1992 the country was skint and had to borrow vast monies from the IMF. Mayor, the man who said "vote Conservative on Thursday and taxes go down, vote Labour on Thursday and taxes go up" introduced 22 (yes twenty-two!) tax rises following the 1992 election. At his first budget after the 1992 election Major introduced VAT on fuel, which screwed millions of pensioners as their heating bills soared. The Tories (who I used to vote for but I now regret it) were bad, bad, bad...

Sorry Sarah had to check that twice.
"Mandelson is the only one who speaks the truth"

Is this the Mandelson who has had to resign twice because he was caught lying ? and now we can't kick him out of the goverment because he is not an MP anymore, just a unelected Lord.

The only one I trust is Vince Cable, but I would never vote Libdem.