RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing

RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing (Full Version)

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Aneirin -> RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing (12/6/2009 3:53:45 PM)
But, isn't this the waqy with politics, just as soon as you call on whoever is in power about what they are failing at, they are quick to say, oh, another government did worse, the conservatives this, Blair that and the other. None of them will take responsibility for their current actions and lack of actions, they just try to pass the book all the time. I believe this is the same in the US, with your politicians, instead of working out how to make things better, they refer to a past defenceless politician, and what they did. This happens in both countries, but what they do not realise is, when they do it, they are engaging in a childish game of '' well such and such a body did it first, so why am I not allowed '' Every time I see this happening, I just think for fucks sake, just grow up and be responsible for your actions, someone having done it before, is not a defence, as you in power now said you could do better than they, that is why you are in power, not because the majority of voters suddenly decided for a change they like the colour red. I did hear something though on the manufacturing front, was that when Germany was being rebuilt after WW2, the machines and infrastructure that was put in place, was state of the art new machinery, all that whilst Britain soldiered on with the ancient technology it had always used, it was good enough to supply the war effort, just keep patching it up when it breaks down and keep going. So come the new age of health and safety, guards and cut outs on machines, well the British machinery was not even fit for purpose, never mind adding safety to it to protect the operative. Old ideas have destroyed Britain, and continue to destroy, we will not get any better whilst old ideas remain in force. Britain is not the shining example any more, if it ever was, lets look at the successful countries and learn from them. Oh and whilst we are at it, chuck out the old money, tell them to assimilate or fuck off, we don't need their tactics and method of business anymore, as all it has served, is themselves.

Politesub53 -> RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing (12/6/2009 4:26:55 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Moonhead quote: ORIGINAL: Politesub53 Apart from mining, steel, yellow goods, ceramics, publishing and farming, of course. (I'm sure other interested posters can add others.) Can you give me some proof to back up your claim. As I have said before, the mining inustry was at its peak just prior to WWI. British Steel, nationalised by Labour in the late sixties was already making a loss in the seventies. EU rules ended the subsisies used to keep the steel companies going. Sure Thatcher privatised it again, but British Steel was in terminal decline since then. I can also tell you that under Thatcher the construction industry of the 80s boomed, so I dont know where you are comming from re yellow goods. I cant comment on agriculture, although it seems more farms have shut since she left office than while she was there. Pig farming is certainly affected by Britains animal welfare laws that dont apply to many of our competitors.

Politesub53 -> RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing (12/6/2009 4:33:59 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: philosophy quote: ORIGINAL: Politesub53 Thatcher is the cause of much debate in the UK Mike. History will show her in a better light than the chattering classes of today do. She is someone you either like or you dont. ...this is what i know. As a direct cause of Thatcher's policies, the number of homeless people, in particular teens, sky-rocketed. She systematically destroyed support for the weakest and most vulnerable people in order to finance tax cuts for the middle classes. She shut psychiatric hospitals and used an accounting trick to pretend the new system was in place, when it wasn't. Her government was riddled with corruption and graft. History may be kinder to her, once those who suffered as a direct result of her policies are dead. But some of us are still alive. Phil, my point is she was no different from any other government. I have said before about my dislike of the so called care in the community scheme. Even so, it is better than the institutions that existed before, mostly built 100 years or more ago. Sadly corruption and graft existed then, before then, and after then. Nothing new there then. If you think its all conservatives take a look at the Poulson scandal, and most of the Labour councils of the north east.

Moonhead -> RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing (12/7/2009 6:35:26 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Politesub53 quote: ORIGINAL: Moonhead quote: ORIGINAL: Politesub53 Apart from mining, steel, yellow goods, ceramics, publishing and farming, of course. (I'm sure other interested posters can add others.) Can you give me some proof to back up your claim. As I have said before, the mining inustry was at its peak just prior to WWI. British Steel, nationalised by Labour in the late sixties was already making a loss in the seventies. EU rules ended the subsisies used to keep the steel companies going. Sure Thatcher privatised it again, but British Steel was in terminal decline since then. I can also tell you that under Thatcher the construction industry of the 80s boomed, so I dont know where you are comming from re yellow goods. I cant comment on agriculture, although it seems more farms have shut since she left office than while she was there. Pig farming is certainly affected by Britains animal welfare laws that dont apply to many of our competitors. Well, the mining one is a no brainer. Yes, production has been reduced to the extent where it had actually become viable to import rather than mining coal domestically, but that doesn't alter the fact that the main thrust of the dispute with Scargill was down to Thatcher picking a fight with the most powerful union in the country and destroying it to put the wind up the others. Apart from JCB (which still has a few subcontractors doing piecework dotted about Staffordshire) no heavy plant is being manufactured in the UK anymore. This is another branch of industry that's been outsourced to third world countries where the workforce don't have to be paid a living wage. Construction is still one of the industries that isn't doing too badly, but most of the money for the heavy plant that's used is going out of the country now. As for farming, the two main problems there are imports, and centralisation. During the '80s the supermarket distributors were able to insist that most of the small local slaughterhouses were closed down, so that livestock was transported to a couple of big ones from all over. Not good for the livestock, but great for spreading foot and mouth. Then there's the whole BSE scare, that you may remember: one of the previous Labour government's last acts was to establish a set of regulations about what could go into cattle feed. These were quietly dropped in '79.

Politesub53 -> RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing (12/7/2009 12:16:45 PM)
Moonhead, thanks for the reply. I dont really see how any party, Labour or Conservative, would have let the miners " bring down this goverment " as Scargill threatened to do. Given that he had already brought down one Conservative government. As for the BSE crisis, the regulations you mentioned could hardly have been to avoid BSE, since before the mid 80s little was known about it. However, they could have been more to do with Samonella ( sp ) so you may have a point. As for JCB, as I recall they expanded rapidly in the seventies and 80s, taking operations world wide. The decision to move their manufacturing to India was only recent, so hardly fair to blame Thatcher some 19 years since she left office.

Moonhead -> RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing (12/8/2009 6:53:21 AM)
I think you've missed my point about BSE: that only exists because the regulations on what cattle could be fed were abolished. People were predicting that feeding the creatures sheep's brains because the price of fishmeal had risen was going to cause trouble back in '88. The whole fiasco did a lot of damage to British farming, and it's never quite recovered.

Politesub53 -> RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing (12/8/2009 4:57:19 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Moonhead I think you've missed my point about BSE: that only exists because the regulations on what cattle could be fed were abolished. People were predicting that feeding the creatures sheep's brains because the price of fishmeal had risen was going to cause trouble back in '88. The whole fiasco did a lot of damage to British farming, and it's never quite recovered. Thatcher had banned that by 88, as far as i recall. I got your point but I am saying Thatcher, or anyone else for that matter, didnt know what BSE was when she took office. As an aside, the main problems for farming have been the buying power of the supermarkets, who now get much of their meat abroad. I seem to recall only 40% of meet in Asda`s is reared in the UK, according to a recent news item. This is why i will only knowingly buy UK meat and veg.

Moonhead -> RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing (12/9/2009 5:17:12 AM)
Nobody knew what BSE was when she took office, because it didn't exist then. BSE only exists because they were feeding cows the brains of sheep infected with scrapie and (as I said) abolishing the guidelines on how cattle could be fed was one of the first things her government did when it took power. Now the fact that the farmers were a bunch of cheap shits is also a factor, but sadly Thatcher's government made it very easy for them. I'm dubious that she did anything about the problem in '88 as well. D you have a source for that? I know that when Ron Davies predicted that disease might be passed down the food chain due to the relaxed regulations (he was thinking of TB) back in '89 he was ridiculed by the then government and ignored. Would that have happened if the regulations had been tightened up? Come to that, would BSE even exist if the regulations had been tightened up two years before the first mad cow scare?

Moonhead -> RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing (12/9/2009 5:18:59 AM)
The main point though is that beef exports wee banned worldwide for two or three years, and the industry has never really recovered. Hence (as you say) the tendency of supermarkets to import meat now.

Politesub53 -> RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing (12/9/2009 11:05:21 AM)
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jul2001/bse-j06.shtml I must say I am stunned to learn the didnt ban MBM for export at the time. This link also mentions changes to the rendering process. I think this is something to do with the use of dry heat as against wet heat. The areas of Scotlann that stuck with the old process didnt have any problems, as far as i know.

Moonhead -> RE: Thatcher and the decline of UK manufacturing (12/9/2009 3:00:02 PM)
Now I can't be sure, but I think the claim that MBM had been banned from cattle feed in '88 is bollocks. It wasn't, and if it was, the ban certainly wasn't enforced. A depressing read otherwise, though. Thanks for that.

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