RIP Michael Foot

[dronskisaint]

your wasting your time with tory boy,he only sees what he wants to see,no mention of the tories putting up vat from 5 to 17 percent in charge and creating a drug culture and mass employment, 2 recessions and wasting all our oil reserves,

destroying our manufacturing trade with a overvalued pound.

cameron is just another blair clone

 

With worrying Thatcher tendencies sadly & a triumph for image over substance.

[South Londoner]

I love the way these youngsters use the term "Socialist" when clearly they have no idea what "Socialism" is !!!!

[Joensuu]

Since when has Blair been anything to do with Socialism? That's like saying Thatcher was a liberal

[solentstars]

I love the way these youngsters use the term "Socialist" when clearly they have no idea what "Socialism" is !!!!

 

i agree that's why i think the poster may be in his 60.s has its rare to hear that word nowadays.

[Wes Tender]

He might have been a great orator, but that doesn't mean to say that what what he spouted forth upon was in any way right. That is a matter of opinion and rather dependent on which side of the political spectrum one's views fall.

 

He was a clown and thank God that the electorate had more sense than to elect him and his befuddled Socialist ideals. Whereas on a human perspective, I feel empathy with his family, otherwise I couldn't care a toss at his passing.

 

I certainly don't hold with opinion that says that he was a great man; he wasn't.

[Special K]

Whatever the colours on his mast, he was one of the last examples of that rare beast; a politician who believed in a sense of duty and stuck to his prinicples and beliefs. And for that he should be remembered fondly.

 

RIP.

[Wade Garrett]

It's not a non argument. Look at the tax burden the Socialists have imposed on us with the stealth taxes that they've squandered on the beurocracy and the bone idle benefits scroungers. That is Socialism for you.

 

You could argue that the tax burden is due to the Tory idiots in the City who took the whole banking system to the point of bankruptcy. That's the free market for you.

[Thedelldays]

the country needs a tory style government..it has since maggie came in...

[Wade Garrett]

the country needs a tory style government..it has since maggie came in...

 

What the country needs is a sobering dose of reality, and a willingness to tackle the big problems the country faces - getting people back to work, reducing the welfare state, improving the NHS, having a coherent immigration policy, sorting out the feral youth and the criminal underclass.

 

Unfortunately, Cameron and Brown both seem unwilling to really address these issues.

 

Don't get me wrong, I detested Thatcher and everything she stood for. But at least she had the courage of her convictions and saw things through. So I accept you have a point. We need a leader that has the courage of their convictions. The only difference is you want a Tory, and I want a Labour man.

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

What the country needs is a sobering dose of reality, and a willingness to tackle the big problems the country faces - getting people back to work, reducing the welfare state, improving the NHS, having a coherent immigration policy, sorting out the feral youth and the criminal underclass.

 

Unfortunately, Cameron and Brown both seem unwilling to really address these issues.

 

Don't get me wrong, I detested Thatcher and everything she stood for. But at least she had the courage of her convictions and saw things through. So I accept you have a point. We need a leader that has the courage of their convictions. The only difference is you want a Tory, and I want a Labour man.

 

A Labour support calling the youth of today 'feral'?

[Wade Garrett]

A Labour support calling the youth of today 'feral'?

 

Sorry, I didn't mean that all of the youth are feral, I meant that the government have to sort out the youths that are feral.

 

Are you saying that we don't have a problem with feral youth?

[Foxstone]

He was certainly not my idea of a great politician in terms of ideology or achievement, and could never impress the electorate in the new media age by his appearance or demeanor - He was very much a pre-WW2 throwback!

 

However I recognise him as an honest, conviction politician that would have no truck with spin but said it as he believed it - And that deserves respect from whatever political persuasion you might gravitate towards.

 

RIP

[ecuk268]

The problem we have is that any party who were willing to do what's actually required probably wouldn't get elected.

 

If you want good services - health, education, public transport, you have to pay for them.

 

These things have to run as public services and shouldn't be expected to make a profit. Look what's happened to buses since privatisation - far fewer services. Rail - the highest fares in Europe and we don't want to go the way of the USA with healthcare.

 

France is a good example - world-class in all of the above but they pay a fair bit more tax than us.

[jeff leopard]

Whatever the colours on his mast, he was one of the last examples of that rare beast; a politician who believed in a sense of duty and stuck to his prinicples and beliefs. And for that he should be remembered fondly.

 

RIP.

 

Absolutely

 

I remeber him as the scruffy old guy who got whooped by Thatcher, but maybe he was just out of time and didn't fit into a new political order where looks and presentation take presidance over content. He was a very intelligent man though, a celebrated author and owner of a very sharp wit.

 

Yes he would have persued a peaceful resolution to the Falklands crisis, and who is to say that would have been so wrong? We just ended up stealing the islands off the country we stole them off before, at a great cost. Lest we forget that first and foremost, Thatcher used the Falklands to resurrect her flagging political career.

[Lord Duckhunter]

Whilst it's always sad when someone passes, I find all these tributes to Foot and his beliefs a bit OTT.

 

He was wrong about most of the issues he stood for, and I dread to think where the Country would be, if we turned to his ideas in the 70's/80's instead of Maggie's. I believe he was a founding member of CND, a dangerous and in my opinion, discredited organisation.

 

The fact of the matter was the 1983 Labour manifesto, reflected Foot's beliefs. I can not recall another election where a manifesto so reflected the leader's core beliefs. To recap the Labour party suffered it's worse drubbing since 1918, as the British people rejected Foot's ideas.The lean towards the left of him and Benn, nearly destroyed the Labour Party, and it was only when they moved as far away from Foots ideals as possible, that they were able to be be elected once more.If they had followed the Foot/Benn path, they would be a tiny party, representing a few Labour heartlands now.

 

Yes, he was an honest politian, who stood by his beliefs and was unwilling to water them down or change them to gain popularity. However, he was wrong time and time again (Just like Tony Benn).The Benn/Foot ideas for Britain would have left us a basket case and thankfully the British people rejected them.

[dune]

Absolutely

 

I remeber him as the scruffy old guy who got whooped by Thatcher, but maybe he was just out of time and didn't fit into a new political order where looks and presentation take presidance over content. He was a very intelligent man though, a celebrated author and owner of a very sharp wit.

 

Yes he would have persued a peaceful resolution to the Falklands crisis, and who is to say that would have been so wrong? We just ended up stealing the islands off the country we stole them off before, at a great cost. Lest we forget that first and foremost, Thatcher used the Falklands to resurrect her flagging political career.

 

We're British and if a country invades one of our overseas territories we should strike back. There's nothing to negotiate.

[Fan The Flames]

Whilst it's always sad when someone passes, I find all these tributes to Foot and his beliefs a bit OTT.

 

Then you're a wierdo if you can't understand that someone who has been in the political sphere for 50 years and was the leader of one of our parties would not attract a few column inches and would not have a few people who admired him.

[dune]

When Margaret Thatcher dies she should get a state funeral. Churchill got one so Maggie should.

[Saintandy666]

Wasn't necessarily around at the time, but from what I gather Michael Foot was a real man as well as politician and what you saw was what you got whether you agreed with him or not. This, I think, is what we need more of in today's politics as more often than not none of the present bunch seem that sincere.

[Yeovil Saint]

We're British and if a country invades one of our overseas territories we should strike back. There's nothing to negotiate.

You do realise that Michael Foot was actually more pro-Falklands War than Thatcher and lost a lot of support from the rest of the Labour Party for so doing?

[St Landrew]

When Margaret Thatcher dies she should get a state funeral. Churchill got one so Maggie should.

 

Oh I see. The person who created the no-society society. Who plunged the working classes, who were the least equipped to cope, into an era of unemployment. Who carried on with a Poll Tax, that was hugely unfair, and unpopular. Who left a generation anxious, fearing, uncared for, and uneducated in the wider world, because they couldn't find work to keep their dependants. These were sons and daughters of people who had grown up in full employment, and so they hoped and expected to be able to do the same thing, and work.

 

These are the people who make most of the wealth in this country, not Prime Ministers. Without them, Prime Ministers don't actually represent anything. These are the people Margaret Thatcher cast adrift and managed to get us to love her for it. The working class can't employ excellent spin doctors and PR experts.

 

Before you touch that keyboard, please don't tell me how you pulled yourself out of your bad surroundings, with your own effort, because I did the same. But if everyone could do it, we'd all be in the same sinking boat. It's lucky for some that there are less capable people around. We all stand on their shoulders.

 

I suppose I'm saying no state funeral for Maggie.

[RedAndWhite91]

He reminds me a little of my old History teacher at college. If you went to Peter Symonds and did history at any time since 1973 you may know who I mean.

 

Foot meanwhile, seemed like an honest bloke.

 

And to the comments up there ^, not all youth are feral ffs

[dune]

Oh I see. The person who created the no-society society. Who plunged the working classes, who were the least equipped to cope, into an era of unemployment. Who carried on with a Poll Tax, that was hugely unfair, and unpopular. Who left a generation anxious, fearing, uncared for, and uneducated in the wider world, because they couldn't find work to keep their dependants. These were sons and daughters of people who had grown up in full employment, and so they hoped and expected to be able to do the same thing, and work.

 

These are the people who make most of the wealth in this country, not Prime Ministers. Without them, Prime Ministers don't actually represent anything. These are the people Margaret Thatcher cast adrift and managed to get us to love her for it. The working class can't employ excellent spin doctors and PR experts.

 

Before you touch that keyboard, please don't tell me how you pulled yourself out of your bad surroundings, with your own effort, because I did the same. But if everyone could do it, we'd all be in the same sinking boat. It's lucky for some that there are less capable people around. We all stand on their shoulders.

 

I suppose I'm saying no state funeral for Maggie.

 

Oh please. Britain was the sick man of Europe when Maggie came to power and it's only because of her policies then that we've enjoyed 30 years of prosperity. Unfortunately the last 13 years of Socialist rule have put us back to sqaure 1, but I believe David Cameron will deal with the mess in the same way Maggie did. It's going to be painful paying back Gordon Browns Giant Credit card, but once that's done there's no reason why we can't have another 30 years of propserity.

[Yeovil Saint]

The fact of the matter was the 1983 Labour manifesto, reflected Foot's beliefs. I can not recall another election where a manifesto so reflected the leader's core beliefs. To recap the Labour party suffered it's worse drubbing since 1918, as the British people rejected Foot's ideas.The lean towards the left of him and Benn, nearly destroyed the Labour Party, and it was only when they moved as far away from Foots ideals as possible, that they were able to be be elected once more.If they had followed the Foot/Benn path, they would be a tiny party, representing a few Labour heartlands now.

Bit unfair to pick on you as you're only repeating received wisdom, but the 1983 Labour Party still received 8.4m votes at that year's general election, that can be compared to the 8.3m Hague got in 2001 or the 8.7m Howard got in 2005. But we don't say that the British people rejected Tory ideas, they don't seem to mind the warmed up and more professionally presented version that Cameron's offering now.

 

In fact, given that his leadership had been crippled before it got started with the formation of the SDP he didn't really do that badly.

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

Sorry, I didn't mean that all of the youth are feral, I meant that the government have to sort out the youths that are feral.

 

Are you saying that we don't have a problem with feral youth?

 

There are some for sure that could be classed as 'feral' (although a bit strong IMO), but I need to be careful what I say as I work with children on a daily basis

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

When Margaret Thatcher dies she should get a state funeral. Churchill got one so Maggie should.

 

Churchill stood up to facism; Thatcher embodied facism.

 

There would be riots if she had a state funeral! God bless you Dune, you're like my daily dose of prozac.

 

Just out of curiosity Dune, what music were you into as a lad? Anything along the lines of "The Jam", "The Sex Pistols", "The Clash", "The Specials" and you'll be classed as a massive hypocrite...

Edited 4 March, 2010 by Thorpe-le-Saint

[Yeovil Saint]

When Margaret Thatcher dies she should get a state funeral. Churchill got one so Maggie should.

Douglas Haig got a state funeral so the precedent's there for Thatcher.

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

Douglas Haig got a state funeral so the precedent's there for Thatcher.

 

I don't want to get all 'history teacher' on you Yeovil, but the idea that Haig was indeed some sort of 'donkey' has been dismissed by academics since about the late 80s/early 90s...

[Sergei Gotsmanov]

If you are not a socialist when you are twenty then you have not got a heart but if you are still a socialist when you are forty then you have not got a head.

 

However unsavoury, Britain has to be run as a business and Michael Foot's vision was based on an ideology that would have crippled us. Maggie got it right; people lost their jobs not because of her but because the Unions had made us uncompetitive in a global marketplace. What socialists never understand is that not everyone can work for the State; somebody has to create wealth. There will always be pigs at the top but under socialism there will be fewer of them.

[Yeovil Saint]

I don't want to get all 'history teacher' on you Yeovil, but the idea that Haig was indeed some sort of 'donkey' has been dismissed by academics since about the late 80s/early 90s...

I know, just wondering if Dune would catch my reference :-)

[Sergei Gotsmanov]

Thorpey you are not getting all pseudi Intellectual are you!?? It is a sweeping statement to say that academics have dismissed Haig as a Donkey. Some have it is true but not all. Personally (and I am not an academic) from what I have read of him I concluded him to be a butcher lacking in Charisma (he was hardly Custer or Monty), who fought a war with very limited flair. He received a state funeral in my opinion because Britain needed a hero to celebrate a decade after the end of the war and because of his work for ex servicemen after the war.

[TopGun]

We're British and if a country invades one of our overseas territories we should strike back. There's nothing to negotiate.

 

I take it you are aware that Callaghan's Labour government of which Foot was a Cabinet member always kept an attack sub in the South Atlantic to deter Argentina. As soon as the Tories came to power it was withdrawn and our presence in the South Atlantic reduced to the arctic patrol ship, HMS Endurance, which had no defences and small arms ammunition.

 

Thatcher's government's policies invited the Falklands invasion Dune.

[Wes Tender]

Oh I see. The person who created the no-society society. Who plunged the working classes, who were the least equipped to cope, into an era of unemployment. Who carried on with a Poll Tax, that was hugely unfair, and unpopular. Who left a generation anxious, fearing, uncared for, and uneducated in the wider world, because they couldn't find work to keep their dependants. These were sons and daughters of people who had grown up in full employment, and so they hoped and expected to be able to do the same thing, and work.

 

These are the people who make most of the wealth in this country, not Prime Ministers. Without them, Prime Ministers don't actually represent anything. These are the people Margaret Thatcher cast adrift and managed to get us to love her for it. The working class can't employ excellent spin doctors and PR experts.

 

Before you touch that keyboard, please don't tell me how you pulled yourself out of your bad surroundings, with your own effort, because I did the same. But if everyone could do it, we'd all be in the same sinking boat. It's lucky for some that there are less capable people around. We all stand on their shoulders.

 

I suppose I'm saying no state funeral for Maggie.

 

I usually have a great respect for your football opinions, because they are reasonable and balanced. Unfortunately, your post here shows that that balance doesn't travel well into the sphere of politics.

 

Margaret Thatcher didn't plunge the working classes into an era of unemployment. You obviously forgot that she came to power on the back of a poster saying "Labour isn't working" under Callaghan's "What crisis" government. Anyway, market conditions and restrictive practices is what brought about rising unemployment. When you have car workers who were unreliable and shoddy in their work, is it surprising that they would be replaced by robots who work to a uniform standard and never go on strike? If our shipbuilding industry is overmanned and its workforce overpaid, is it any surprise that the shipping lines would have their new ships built abroad if it could be done more cheaply? Workers in those types of industry could not be sustained forever against modernisation and international competition, so they had to retrain in markets where there is still demand. MT recognised this and had the guts to do something about it. As Dune says, we were the sick man of Europe and had to go cap in hand to ask the International Monetary fund to bail us out. The birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and the greatest manufacturing nation on Earth, had sunk to the depths of producing the Austin Allegro, the Western World's equivalent of the Trabant.

 

Perhaps you might understand better the football analogy that we were the equivalent of Portsmouth Football Club.

 

The Community Charge, to give it its proper name, was fairer than the rates that preceded it. There was only one fault that MT didn't address; people on benefits should have been exempt from paying it. What is still unfair, is that under the Council Tax, a single widow potentially pays more than a family of 6 next door if she lives in a bigger house, although she might make much less use of the services for which she is being taxed to pay for.

 

These were sons and daughters of people who had grown up in full employment, and so they hoped and expected to be able to do the same thing, and work.

Well they must have been bloody naive then. The World doesn't owe anybody a living. What exactly are you saying? You wish to ignore that we longer had an Empire, that we virtually bankrupted the nation through two World Wars, that the Tiger economies of the Far East had no effect on our industries over here, that there were not other countries who had lower paid work forces, or who had modernised their industries whilst we still allowed restrictive practises through archaic and too powerful Unions?

 

These are the people who make most of the wealth in this country, not Prime Ministers

Not so. It is the middle classes who create the majority of the wealth of the country. They also pay the most in taxes to sustain the economy, although being law abiding citizens at the same time, they do not riot, even though the tax burden on them has risen massively under Labour. Also saying that a Prime Minister cannot create wealth in the country shows a lack of imagination and contradicts your own arguments. I'm surprised that you can accuse a Prime Minister (MT) of doing so much to cause unemployment, to affect education, cause anxiety, introduce taxation changes, but yet you deny that a PM is not also therefore capable of doing things through their Government's policies to produce wealth, to increase employment prospects, improve education standards, etc. You are right that a PM himself/herself is not capable of doing these things, but they are the leading light and the appointee of the party in Government that carries out those policies, just in the same way that the responsibility for the collapse of Saints sat squarely on the shoulders of Lowe.

 

Before you touch that keyboard, please don't tell me how you pulled yourself out of your bad surroundings, with your own effort, because I did the same. But if everyone could do it, we'd all be in the same sinking boat. It's lucky for some that there are less capable people around. We all stand on their shoulders.

I don't understand your point. What sinking boat would we all be in if we could all improve ourselves? It isn't luck that there are less capable people around; it's the law of nature. Some are more capable than others, may have been born with more advantages, might strive to improve themselves through their own efforts, etc. We don't stand on the shoulders of those less capable than us, quite the opposite. A civilised society ought to make provision to support those who through no fault of their own are disadvantaged. We pay our taxes towards better health provision and better education in a effort to gain an egalitarianism in society. Resentment and division is caused when the level of taxation becomes unduly high and acts as a disincentive to work harder, especially when those who pay the higher taxes feel that much of their taxation is wasted on those who are capable of improving themselves, but just can't be bothered, because the welfare state feather beds them.

[ecuk268]

Margaret Thatcher didn't plunge the working classes into an era of unemployment. You obviously forgot that she came to power on the back of a poster saying "Labour isn't working" under Callaghan's "What crisis" government. Anyway, market conditions and restrictive practices is what brought about rising unemployment. When you have car workers who were unreliable and shoddy in their work, is it surprising that they would be replaced by robots who work to a uniform standard and never go on strike? If our shipbuilding industry is overmanned and its workforce overpaid, is it any surprise that the shipping lines would have their new ships built abroad if it could be done more cheaply? Workers in those types of industry could not be sustained forever against modernisation and international competition, so they had to retrain in markets where there is still demand. MT recognised this and had the guts to do something about it. As Dune says, we were the sick man of Europe and had to go cap in hand to ask the International Monetary fund to bail us out. The birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and the greatest manufacturing nation on Earth, had sunk to the depths of producing the Austin Allegro, the Western World's equivalent of the Trabant.

.

 

Unemployment in 1979 was apporx 1.5M (or 4%). It rose steadily under the Tories to a peak of 3.2M (12%) in 1983. It was actually higher because they changed the way the statistics were recorded. The was a dip to 2.1M in 1989 and then it rose back to 3.0M in 1993.

 

When Labour came to power it was about 2.2M and has since fallen steadily to today's figure of 1.5M despite the Tory claims that the minimum wage would be disastrous for employment.

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

Thorpey you are not getting all pseudi Intellectual are you!?? It is a sweeping statement to say that academics have dismissed Haig as a Donkey. Some have it is true but not all. Personally (and I am not an academic) from what I have read of him I concluded him to be a butcher lacking in Charisma (he was hardly Custer or Monty), who fought a war with very limited flair. He received a state funeral in my opinion because Britain needed a hero to celebrate a decade after the end of the war and because of his work for ex servicemen after the war.

 

Monty wasn't exactly the pinnicle of military excellene! No credible historian these days would state that Hiag is an outright 'Donkey'. That awful book published in the 60s called "The Donkeys" is a terrible peice of historical writing. I did my undergraduate dissertation on the week leading up to the Somme and my postgrad dissertation is on whether or not is was actually NCOs who were 'Donkeys' compared the Generals.

 

What needs to be remembered, is that WW1 changed warfare for ever. The British generals, through no fault of their own, were fighting a war that had never 'happened' before. They had no pre-requisite (sp?) on how to fight a modern war and were in many cases still fighting the Boer War. What else could the generals have done?

 

I cn provide you with a more comprehensive answer (with regards to munition failures etc) but I don't wish to annoy everyone! I can PM you if you wish.

Edited 5 March, 2010 by Thorpe-le-Saint

[Gemmel]

Still nothing on what Foot actually acheived as a politician :confused:

[Lord Duckhunter]

Bit unfair to pick on you as you're only repeating received wisdom, but the 1983 Labour Party still received 8.4m votes at that year's general election, that can be compared to the 8.3m Hague got in 2001 or the 8.7m Howard got in 2005. But we don't say that the British people rejected Tory ideas, they don't seem to mind the warmed up and more professionally presented version that Cameron's offering now.

 

In fact, given that his leadership had been crippled before it got started with the formation of the SDP he didn't really do that badly.

 

"Bit unfair to pick on you as you're only repeating received wisdom", received from whom? I voted in '83 and took an interest in politics. I saw for myself what happened.

 

 

 

They polled 11.5 million in '79 and that was after the Callaghan years, a massive drop in 4 years, they also polled below 30% of the vote in '83.

 

Had the Labour party kept to Foot's ideals of Clause 4, withdrawal from Europe, abandoning the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent (during the cold war), abolishing the house of lords, and an end to council house sales, they would have never formed a Gov again.His beliefs were rejected by the British people, that's why the Party did a complete about turn on nearly all of them.

 

The reason for the SDP was because the policies of Foot, Benn and other loons drove moderate men like David Owen and Bill Rodgers away from the party.

 

The comparison with Hague and Howard does not stand up, because although a watered down version, DC's manifesto will not differer that much.

 

Foot and Benn were not eccentric, harmless idealists but dangerous men in powerful positions. Men who if they had their way would have changed the UK fundamentally beyond recognition.

 

I find it strange that Mrs Thatcher, who had the same conviction about her beliefs as Foot, but was proved to be right, is hated by the left wing establishment, and yet Foot, who was wrong time and time again, praised for sticking by his ideals long after they were discredited.

[Wes Tender]

Unemployment in 1979 was apporx 1.5M (or 4%). It rose steadily under the Tories to a peak of 3.2M (12%) in 1983. It was actually higher because they changed the way the statistics were recorded. The was a dip to 2.1M in 1989 and then it rose back to 3.0M in 1993.

 

When Labour came to power it was about 2.2M and has since fallen steadily to today's figure of 1.5M despite the Tory claims that the minimum wage would be disastrous for employment.

 

Altering the basis on which statistics are recorded isn't exclusively the preserve of the Conservatives, you know. Labour is perfectly capable of making those alterations too and has done on more than one occasion since coming to power. The last Conservative government was ejected partly because of an aura of sleaze attached to it, but their successors have proven to be equally or more sleazy themselves. There is no moral high ground that they can claim here.

 

Your point about the minimum wage was illustrated well on that documentary last week, where unemployed British workers were offered the opportunity of taking on jobs that were being filled by immigrant labour, typically from the former Iron Curtain states like Poland, Latvia, etc.

 

Levels of pay were determined by piecemeal rates dependent on productivity, i.e. in the farming environement, dependent on how much weight of vegetables were harvested. The foreign workers achieved pay levels well above the minimum pay rates, whereas the British workers achieved productivity levels well below and the farmer had to pay them the difference to make their pay up to the minimum wage level. The farmer is a businessman, so who is he going to employ? The minimum wage is a piece of legislation that plays a part in his decision making.

 

That is just a microcosm of the bigger picture, that many jobs in this country are considered unworthy of the efforts of many of the unemployed, as they get more in benefits for doing nothing.

[South Londoner]

I support the call for a state funeral for Maggie; that way I can attend and personally ensure that lid of the coffin is well and truly nailed on.

[ecuk268]

I support the call for a state funeral for Maggie; that way I can attend and personally ensure that lid of the coffin is well and truly nailed on.

 

I met her once. She's a lot shorter than you think. Also met Denis who, despite his political views, was a very pleasant chap.

[Fuengirola Saint]

Oh I see. The person who created the no-society society. Who plunged the working classes, who were the least equipped to cope, into an era of unemployment. Who carried on with a Poll Tax, that was hugely unfair, and unpopular. Who left a generation anxious, fearing, uncared for, and uneducated in the wider world, because they couldn't find work to keep their dependants. These were sons and daughters of people who had grown up in full employment, and so they hoped and expected to be able to do the same thing, and work.

 

These are the people who make most of the wealth in this country, not Prime Ministers. Without them, Prime Ministers don't actually represent anything. These are the people Margaret Thatcher cast adrift and managed to get us to love her for it. The working class can't employ excellent spin doctors and PR experts.

 

Before you touch that keyboard, please don't tell me how you pulled yourself out of your bad surroundings, with your own effort, because I did the same. But if everyone could do it, we'd all be in the same sinking boat. It's lucky for some that there are less capable people around. We all stand on their shoulders.

 

I suppose I'm saying no state funeral for Maggie.

 

 

 

Well said that man!

[Thedelldays]

I was younger when the poll tax thing happened..I remember all the protests..

 

isnt council tax another version of the poll tax..?

[ecuk268]

I was younger when the poll tax thing happened..I remember all the protests..

 

isnt council tax another version of the poll tax..?

 

The original poll tax replaced the old rating system which was based on the rateable value of your house. This was deemed unfair on single people who lived in big houses and so paid more than large families in smaller properties.

 

The Tories changed things so that it was based on the number of occupants which, despite my left-leaning views. I thought was a better idea. However this triggered the riots and the government gave in and we're back to a tax based on the value of your house.

[exile on main street]

Foot and Benn. One self-effacing, kindly and committed to the betterment of mankind so much that he became blinded to political realities and paid the price. The other, despite his tea-drinking 'man of the people' image, possessed of enormous vanity and a 'vision' so monomaniacal that it mattered not a jot that he almost destroyed his own party in his determination to remake Britain in his image.

 

Thatcher stayed where she was for as long as she did precisely because of unapologetic ideologues/demagogues like Benn and Arthur Scargill, a man who, while he was totally RIGHT in his assessement of what the Tories and British Coal was going to do to the industry when no one else would believe him, was willing to destroy his own union on the altar of his own ego. He's still about too, brooding behind his desk and in front of his massive portrait somewhere in Yorkshire.

 

I supported the Miners' Strike, fundraised and went on marches. I saw it all turn to ****e and that's why, I suppose, the sight of Benn relentlessly taking his moral high ground reduces me to impotent, furious revulsion.

 

Sorry. Went off on one, there.

[Fuengirola Saint]

Altering the basis on which statistics are recorded isn't exclusively the preserve of the Conservatives, you know. Labour is perfectly capable of making those alterations too and has done on more than one occasion since coming to power.

 

Yes Labour have changed the way the unemployment figures are calculated, they now use the ILO system which actually adds around 700,000 to the JSA claimant count so i don´t really understand your point.

[Lord Duckhunter]

I was younger when the poll tax thing happened..I remember all the protests..

 

isnt council tax another version of the poll tax..?

 

A Poll tax is a per head flat tax.

 

The Tory manifesto included a pledge to abolish the rates and replace it with a fairer Community charge. Personally, I thought it was a fairer system. There are many elderly people living in big houses, who have less disposable income than others in smaller cheaper property. To judge someones ability to pay on the value of their house is a very crude way of collecting taxes.

[Thedelldays]

A Poll tax is a per head flat tax.

 

The Tory manifesto included a pledge to abolish the rates and replace it with a fairer Community charge. Personally, I thought it was a fairer system. There are many elderly people living in big houses, who have less disposable income than others in smaller cheaper property. To judge someones ability to pay on the value of their house is a very crude way of collecting taxes.

 

 

it may seem very simplistic...(like i said I was too young to really grasp it all) why was there such massive outrage about it...?

[Fuengirola Saint]

it may seem very simplistic...(like i said I was too young to really grasp it all) why was there such massive outrage about it...?

 

Because a family with four adults living for example in Millbrook in a council house would have paid around 1200 pounds a year, the same as Lord Montagu ( With four adults in his house as well ) in his enormous mansion in Beaulieu. It was a regressive tax dressed up a a fairer solution to the rates problem, designed with one thing in mind, to help the rich!

[Yeovil Saint]

"Bit unfair to pick on you as you're only repeating received wisdom", received from whom? I voted in '83 and took an interest in politics. I saw for myself what happened.

 

They polled 11.5 million in '79 and that was after the Callaghan years, a massive drop in 4 years, they also polled below 30% of the vote in '83.

 

But that's almost exactly the trajectory the Conservatives had from 1992-2001

 

Compare these:

Labour

1974(Oct) 11.4m votes

1979 11.5m votes

1983 8.4m votes

 

with

Conservatives

1992 14.0m votes

1997 9.6m votes

2001 8.3m votes

 

But no-one calls the Tory 2001 manifesto the longest suicide note in history, William Hague's still seen as a potential Prime Minister.

 

The reason for the SDP was because the policies of Foot, Benn and other loons drove moderate men like David Owen and Bill Rodgers away from the party.

 

Except the timeline doesn't match your theory, the formation of the SDP was already well into the planning stages in November 1980 when Foot was elected leader, in fact a number of SDP defectors voted for Foot over Healey so that they would have a better chance in the new party. There was nothing Foot or Benn could have done to keep the SDP in the fold (though to be honest I don't think Benn wanted to).

 

The comparison with Hague and Howard does not stand up, because although a watered down version, DC's manifesto will not differer that much.

That's exactly my point, you're taking one election as evidence that the British people would never vote for a socialist programme of action whereas there's lots of times when a very right-wing programme has been defeated, but it keeps coming back and one day will be elected.

 

Foot and Benn were not eccentric, harmless idealists but dangerous men in powerful positions. Men who if they had their way would have changed the UK fundamentally beyond recognition.

Agreed, but not necessarily a bad thing

 

I find it strange that Mrs Thatcher, who had the same conviction about her beliefs as Foot, but was proved to be right, is hated by the left wing establishment, and yet Foot, who was wrong time and time again, praised for sticking by his ideals long after they were discredited.

There's plenty of right-wingers who hate Foot, Benn, Blair and Brown, can you imagine the outcry if Tony Benn was given a state funeral?

[Wes Tender]

Yes Labour have changed the way the unemployment figures are calculated, they now use the ILO system which actually adds around 700,000 to the JSA claimant count so i don´t really understand your point.

The Times:

According to official statistics, the employment rate is 74.2 per cent. But the unemployment rate is just 6 per cent – 1,864,000 people. That leaves one person in five unaccounted for: neither employed, nor unemployed…

 

According to another set of official statistics, the unemployment rate is just above one million… There are 1,071,900 people currently claiming jobseeker’s allowance. Everyone agrees that they are unemployed. But most statisticians also agree that there are plenty of unemployed people who are not on the dole [such as those who don't qualify]…

 

[ONS methodology] counts people who want to work, are available to work, and are actively seeking employment – based on survey data. This brings the rate for August to October – the earliest period for which data is available – to 6 per cent, the highest since 1999…

 

For the same period, there were 7.9 million people over 16 and below retirement age who were classed as “economically inactive”; 2 million of those were students; 2.3 million said they were looking after a family or home; and another 2 million were long-term sick. None of them is counted as unemployed, whatever definition is used.

 

But, when questioned, 2.1 million of them said they would like a job. If they were included, the unemployment rate would rise to just under 4 million.

 

Are the Governments unemployment figures correct?

The Office for National Statistics said the number of working-age people in work less households jumped by 500,000 to 4.8 million in the year to June.

 

The UK's Government current unemployment figures are around 2.6 million, so does that mean that in reality 2.0 million plus people not claiming or in receipt of unemployment benefit - as per the Government's own unemployment figure.

6 months ago

 

As it is not argued that statistics can be manipulated to prove whatever position one wishes to portray, perhaps you can be bothered to manipulate the figures here to justify your position.

 

It is much the same regarding Government statistics to prove that the NHS is running more efficiently, that crime figures are down, that education standards have improved, etc.

 

If you believe any of it, then you are mightily naive. If you lived back here, you might have the evidence of your own experience to back it all up.