Thread: What have the Conservative Government ever done for us ?

They were poisonous for the Northern Manufacturing cities and their Mantra of "Let it Break, and the Devil take the Hindmost" will not be forgotten.

So you are blaming the Conservatives for the p*ss poor management, radical unionisation, lack on innovation and generally poor products our factorys were turning out?
I'm dreading in 12 years time when my youngest stares at the desolation of her first pay packet as taxes swallow up most of her wages to pay for the bank bail outs and I can say, in the same kind of voice that idiots now do in some areas when they tell their kids 'The Tories did that to our town' that 'You can thank Labour for that'.

Originally Posted by MrShanklysboots

Originally Posted by Oil_Slick

The 'industries' in the midlands and north were terminally broken and needed culling.

Really? All of them? They are were all Terminal? Try telling that to the millions who lost their Jobs.

The ones that went bust, yes…

BL was not only a national joke, it was also an international one and encapsulated in a nutshell what was wrong with British manufacturing industry in the 70's.

Not sold us out to Europe.
Whats is the alternative
Not sold us out to the US.
Do you remember Grenada, Cruise Missles, Bombing Libya?Not allowed immigration to go out of control.
Careful before the credit crunch what narionality was the checkout girl at Tescos?Not allowed PC to get out of control.
Grow up. Only dead 70's comedians and the Daily Balckshirt (Mail) believe thatNot sold of our gold reserves to fill their own pockets.
Really is Gordo now a multi billionaire like the key Tory backersNot brought the country to its knees.
Define on our knees? 3 million or 5 million unemployed. Closed hosiptal wards, unemployed nurses and rotting classrooms
Not gotten us involved in needless costly wars.
Define needless how about avoidable. In 82 it was Maggie who ignored the intelligence from the Americans about the Falklands
The list is endless.
Yea and so is peoples hatred of anything that isn't a rebrith of Thatcherism.

Originally Posted by Command_doh

They "maintained" the Forces, rather than scythe through them with a barely concealed socialist zeal. And (aside from the "Welcome Somalia" influx of the early 90's) didn't have an open door/conveyor belt immigration policy.

Gave the impression of being tough on crime.

Appear to hate the EU/single currency/Brussels + Strasbourg/Whole EU zone as much as I do.

Thatcher fcuked off all those waster miners, stopped us becoming a Nation of strikers like our 'continental cousins'.

Thatcher fcuked off Galtieri, when you just know that Cyclops or Cardinal Blair would have handed it over in a flash, trousers around their ankles, gleefully bent over. And they would probably offer them compensations too...

"Appear to hate the EU/single currency/Brussels + Strasbourg/Whole EU zone as much as I do".

That would explain the Tories signing the Maastricht Treaty which brought in the EU and before that, the Single European Act.

Originally Posted by DarkNinja

Strangely enough Heath has been leading the charge to get us out!

Hard job since he has been dead since 2005

Originally Posted by Speedy

So you are blaming the Conservatives for the p*ss poor management, radical unionisation, lack on innovation and generally poor products our factorys were turning out?
I'm dreading in 12 years time when my youngest stares at the desolation of her first pay packet as taxes swallow up most of her wages to pay for the bank bail outs and I can say, in the same kind of voice that idiots now do in some areas when they tell their kids 'The Tories did that to our town' that 'You can thank Labour for that'.

No, I blame most of that on Poor Managers, Radical Unions, lack of innovation and a willingness to accept shoddy workmanship.

Odd though, that exactly the same people, managers, workers and unions were able - with HUGE investment, to turn out what was, by comparison, Quality Products in Sunderland (Nissan) and Longridge (Honda tie in with Rover). Yes, it was the Tories tax incentives that brought them in, my point is that you can't blame Labour for the Little Englander self satisfaction that allowed such shoddy practice in the first place.

And before you say "It's all the Unions fault", I agree that the Unions were out of hand (printers being amongst the worst offenders). But there was no negotiation - from either side. "My way or the Highway" said the Government / Management, "We'll strike unless we get everything we want" said the Unions.

From there on in it was only too easy for both sides to portray this as class war. My point is that there were alternatives to the Tory Policy of "Let it break". They had a big enough Majority to ignore those alternatives. Just like the current bunch of Shoddy incumbents.

I do only recall only once chancellor in recent memory announcing to the house that he had 'Balanced the budget'.

....and the party ?

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, 1849

As someone was was 15yrs old in 1972 I was pretty well placed to see the Before and After picture. The first miners strike saw the country on a 3 day week and regular power cuts that had us recruits sitting round a Hurricane lamp in our Spider bulling our boots. The country was an economic basket case and known internationally as "the Sick man of Europe. Trade union militancy was rampant and there was a real question of "Who Runs Britain", Govt. or the Unions. In fact Ted Heath went to the country on that question and the country, fed up to the back teeth of endless strikes and industrial strife bravely answered "Well not you mate" and he was out. Labour got back in and more importantly Maggie was made leader of the Tories, the long national nightmare was about to end.....well in about 4 years time anyway. The continuing mismanagement of the country under Wilson and then Callaghan was sufficient to convince anyone with a brain that Labour wasn't the answer and the Unions helped a few waverers across the line by helpfully bringing the country to its knees again in 1979 with their "Winter of Discontent" (in the middle of which I read recently, Tony Benn, then a Govt. Minister, circulated a 19 page letter to all ministers laying out the case for Marxism!!!).
It is not a myth that bodies went unburied because the Unions wouldn't allow the graves to be dug, and refuse was piled high in the streets as the bin-men were on strike. The mess was cleared up by the Army of course. This was a time when our so-called industries, inefficient,unprofitable and
all riddled with bloody-minded openly-communist wreckers like Red Robbo at Longbridge, Mick Mcgahey and of course Arthur Scargill, were writing their own suicide notes. In a nutshel we were producing nothing that anyone wanted to buy at a price no-one would pay anyway, these weren't industries, they were an elaborate system of outdoor relief, like the Bog roads in Ireland, and subsidizing them was bleeding the country dry and preventing it's modernisation. Anyway, the Japanese and Koreans made bigger and better ships, faster and at a lower price than us. Ditto for steel, car-making, coal production and just about everything else you could think.
The forces were starved of cash and I recall little meaningfull training apart from that required for Op. Banner, everything else was in short suppply and morale was pretty poor. In most areas of life we were years behind everybody else and the state owned all sorts of thing which it had no business owning. it took f**king ages to get a phone line installed and the only phones available were black or white, like it or lump it. You had no choice as to who supplied your gas, electricity, water etc and you paid what was asked and put-up or shut-up. Honestly it was a differnt world, think East Germany with a Queen and you wouldn't be far off, and we all wore flares, platform shoes and and big F**k-Off collars too!

Odd though, that exactly the same people, managers, workers and unions were able - with HUGE investment, to turn out what was, by comparison, Quality Products in Sunderland (Nissan) and Longridge (Honda tie in with Rover). Yes, it was the Tories tax incentives that brought them in, my point is that you can't blame Labour for the Little Englander self satisfaction that allowed such shoddy practice in the first place.

Onlt once the workers, managers and other staff had been completely retrained to another countries working practices, including management havign shop floor experience and gettign the workers involved more in working practices.
As I said, the UK was working with outmoded practices, machinery and techniques, and as a result we were beaten by the rest of the world. Yes, the govt invested heavily in getting Japanese car plants into the UK because they knew it was far cheaper than trying to fix our own crippled motor industry.

Very well put and probably the best description of life in the 70's.

You forgot to add for us slightly (not much) younger was the long hair

Originally Posted by Oil_Slick

Originally Posted by Taffnp

Yep sitting in the dark with candles waiting for the power to come back on. Like being in an air raid without the bombs

Are you talking about this from personal experience, or is that a quote from the 'My Little Pony, How to be a Socialist' quote book?

personal experience in my case.......sitting in the dark ,wearing my little red hooded coat with a candle cos there was no light and no heating as some very nice workers had gathered outside their place of work for a picnic....

i dont really know what they have done wrong in the past but some of their policies on the army are pretty cool!

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Originally Posted by Oil_Slick

Originally Posted by Taffnp

Yep sitting in the dark with candles waiting for the power to come back on. Like being in an air raid without the bombs

Are you talking about this from personal experience, or is that a quote from the 'My Little Pony, How to be a Socialist' quote book?

personal experience in my case.......sitting in the dark ,wearing my little red hooded coat with a candle cos there was no light and no heating as some very nice workers had gathered outside their place of work for a picnic....

I remember that too, especially having all of the spare blankets in the house being shared between my older brother and myself. Grim times.
Mind you, Nu Labour have grown a genration of youngsters who know just what mass unemployment looks like. I'll bet they will just be dying to vote in more of the same!

Originally Posted by FR_Trooper

i dont really know what they have done wrong in the past but some of their policies on the army are pretty cool!

So when did you suffer your debilitating head trauma?

Originally Posted by excrab_exstab

Define on our knees? 3 million or 5 million unemployed. Closed hosiptal wards, unemployed nurses and rotting classrooms

What, like right now..?

Not gotten us involved in needless costly wars.
Define needless how about avoidable. In 82 it was Maggie who ignored the intelligence from the Americans about the Falklands

Kosovo, Macadonia, Serra Leone, Iraq, Afganhistan. Any I missed?
The list is endless.
Yea and so is peoples hatred of anything that isn't a rebrith of Thatcherism.

And so is some peoples blind hatred of someone who left office in 1990, 19 years ago.