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still back to mrs thatcher then,she should get credit from turning the sick man of europe where even grave diggers were given a 9% pay rise while the body's were piling up,all of the industrial action,into a vibrant forward thinking economy where entreprenours can thrive like,alan sugar,stelios from easyjet,and richard branson.

"Excuse me but the Saudis quadrupled the price of crude in 1974 without consulting anybody and it didn't cause a recession."

Excuse me but it did. The whole western world went into a severe recession. The British economy almost collapsed, and we needed an IMF loan to keep going. Don't you know any history?

The 70's recession spelt the end of the post-war Keynsian consensus, because it had both high unemployment and high inflation. Keynsian economics could not cope with that. The Labour government had to impose real cuts in public spending because the money just was not there, and no-one would lend to what was seen as a washed up country.

"The utility was publicly owned which means that everybody owned it and maintained it with their taxes."

When everybody owns something, no-one ones it. Plato worked that out, do catch up. What was your "share" of BA worth? The floatations have by and large worked. The state got paid for what it sold, and has since gained taxes from businesses which it once had to subsidize. The telecoms market has been revolutionized in ways which could never have happened under a GPO monopoly.

"I think the Tories sold off the utilities knowing that eventually shares owned by individuals would get sold and the big players would own most of the stock."

I think they genuinely wanted a share holding democracy, for the same reason they allowed people to buy their council houses: to give them a stake in society.

"No I didn't say that the civil service would deliver mobile phone and internet technology. People in government have advisors and what I was saying that it must have been pretty obvious to people who knew about technology in the 70s that mobile phones and the internet would become cheap and easy enough for most people to use in time"

And I'm telling you it just was not at all obvious. It wasn't obvious to the industry, it certainly wasn't obvious to government. Developments such as mobile phones or the internet can only happen in a free market. No bureaucratic structure can ever deliver such advances. It has never happened anywhere, and it never will.

"The idea, not a fact, I was putting forward was that you don't in fact need a huge number of missiles available or even real parity, because no ordinary person can see them anyway, it's cheaper to have fewer than you say you have and since when did governments ever tell the truth about things like defence..."

You claimed that the USSR only ever had a few dozen nuclear missiles. I pointed out to you that this was an error in fact. Why can't you just admit it? Instead, you construct a fantasy whereby the USSR seems to have made up its missile numbers, and the dumb Americans believed them during the SALT negotiations. Why don't you just read up about things before presenting your opinions as facts?

"Yes I know there was a recession in the 70s but mothing like the devastation of the 1980s"

The 70's recession was devastating for Britain and the world. Inflation exploded. Britain was on the verge of financial meltdown and need an IMF loan to keep going. It was one of the biggest humiliations of any recent British government. The unions were out of control and the country was bankrupt. Happy days.

"If they Tories wanted a share-holding democracy they would have issued governemnt stock in the utilities they wanted to sell. BA and the GPO were maintained by public money, ie taxes. Wasn't that democratic ownership enough for you? I would have bought stock in a publicly owned company, no problem."

How would you have bought shares in a company owned by the state? That makes no sense. But I agree with your point, inasmuch as BA and the GPO used up taxpayers' money, whereas the privatised BA and BT actually contribute money via their corporation taxes. That's better isn't it?

"On the subject of mobile phones and the internet; the internet already existed in the 70s and so did mobile phone technology, though used by a very small number of people. It isn't beyond the realms of imagination for some expert to imagine that the technology, as with all digital technology was getting smaller, lighter and cheaper and would one day be used by more people"

You might think that now, but I can tell you that no "expert" predicted what would happen in mobile phones and the internet in the 70's, and if one had, the idea that a government bureaucracy would have been able to bring such things to the market is sheer fantasy. Have you ever had any dealings at all with government departments? They are too bound in red tape to do their own jobs properly, much less bring new technologies to the market. Especially if there is no market, and they have to invent it. That will never happen, because no bureaucrat will ever risk his position in the hierarchy to suggest such a thing.

Look, if you are a risk taker, an innovator or an entrepreneur, you just don't go and get a job in the civil service do you? It's just so obvious!

"I did say earlier that the GPO should have been split up into smaller companies which deals with the twaddle you've just been talking about a 'monopoly'."

What, there would have been competing state run telecoms companies? Dream on, that is just not the way things happen. The state never has competing companies. If it nationalises an industry, then it always merges the various companies it nationalises into one state concern. There are so many examples to choose from: British Steel, British Aerospace, British Shipbuilders etc etc etc. What you are suggesting has never happened anywhere and never will. The sort of people who nationalise industries (let's call them "socialists") do so because they are against competition, and believe a wise government can run things better than the chaotic old market. The last thing they would do after nationalising an industry would be to break it up into competing state owned units. That would make no sense at all under their political theory.

these people may well have money abroad,but they employ a lot of workers in this country who pay tax and spend money,the point i am making is thatcher helped turn britain from a high tax and spend economy into a place where people like alan sugar can do business.