Suresh

Thatcher was right and did a huge service for the future of Britain by ridding the country of uncompetitive primary industries. One can argue that she went too far out of vindictiveness but it's a moot point now seeing as primary industry is long since dead.
The "big bang" deregulation in the City in 1986 was also her initiative and made London the number one world financial centre that it is today. Well done Thatch! Glad I voted for her in fact! The incompetent and corrupt shower that followed is another story and put me off Conservatism for life!

Suresh

JCScooby

I m struggeling to see how u think my comment resembles anything done by that so called "comedy" sketch vicky pollard hmmmmmmmmmm........u should get out more my friend.

Leslie

Paulr,

You can say what you like about the Iraq affair, but the fact is it happened and it will not go away however much you would like it too.

The attack on Iraq was illegal, even if they try to claim that previous resolutions made it not so, The Secretary of the Security Council said it was illegal and he should know. The reasons given for doing it were quite wrong and the JIC intelligence was cooked up even with an ancient article by a university student in an attempt to convince the electorate that it was essential that it happened for our own safety. This was in spite of the JIC advice that the informatoin availble was sketchy and could not be relied on. We were not told about that of course. No one actually believed that in 45 minutes Saddam was able to threaten British interests. The vast majority of the electorate were against it and that was demonstrated by the biggest ever march to demonstrate against it. Biily said positively before it happened that it was categorically not for the sake of regime change!

Our forces were sent in without sufficient body armour and not enough NBC clothing to protect them against the chemical and biological weapons that we were led to believe were ranged against them.

That poor Dr Kelly was hounded to his death because he knew the truth about WMD!

Many many thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed in the war and the country has been effectively destroyed, except for the oil industry which was a priority for rebuild after the war finished, on the day it finished in fact.

The country is in a total mess, despite all the honeyed "Yes Minister" type comments about the high aspiratons of the people etc. who are living in constant fear of their lives and are totally pissed off with having their country occupied, especially by the USA and us.

Iraq is lining up for an enormous civil war when eventually the foreign forces leave the Iraqi government to run their own security, if that day ever comes. As soon as that happens then there will be yet another dictator in charge who may well be seriously worse than the one they had, evil as he is.

This country is now in real danger from more terrorist attacks, when we least expect it of course, and the War is quite obviously the main reason that we are more endangered than ever before from this type of murderous behaviour.

I would be interested in your feelings and justification for all of the above Paulr.

Les

paulr

My feelings are everything you say is true Leslie,and justifying it is hard.My point was about the legality of it.Its over,Tony Blair will NOT be arrested so let it drop.

Move on............

paulr

And Telboy,i'm still waiting for you to explain how the "image" obsessed British Public voted for Carol Thatcher over Kimberly Davies,Sheree Murphy and Jenny Frost.

JTaylor

That's an interesting point Paul, particularly given the audience. Perhaps substance can win out.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Yup possably, and the tories taxed us for everything else, like VAT on takeaway food, clothing etc.
Things the tories did for this country that benefited all the people........

Hmmm ill try a different method.....

Things the tories did that ruined this country.....

Easier this one
Ruined our coal industry
Ruined our industry in general
Had the highest level of unemployment for years (5+million)
Ruined the NHS by doing serious cutbacks
Actually just ruined our great nation
Privatised pretty much everything, including the rail system which still hasnt recovered....

Basically if you were working class during the late 70's to early 90's you were screwed (thats about 80% of the population btw).

Tony

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

One for me

Well being an ex forces member, i can say that during the first gulf war, it is known that chemical weapons were used against allied troops, so the justification of the use, which by the way, controvines the Geneva convention for those who have signed it.
Now on to body armour.
Its not bullet proof, its not designed to be, you have to understand that the guys who died would have probably died anyway, so forget about the body armour, its main purpose is to keep the torso in one piece for recognition, not for out and out protection.
If you want to know what damage is done when a high velocity round hits one of these, including the kevlar plate, which will give some protection, but not much, well graphically, the round goes though the plastic padding, drags that into the body (increasing infection btw, IF the person survives) drags all that out the other side, making a larger exit hole.
Very nice.
Oh, now lets go back to the tories..... who by the way also decimated our armed forces, believe it or not, from 1985-1996 whilst i was a serving soldier, the biggest cuts were under the tories, we had lack of all the above equipment you have stated, but mainly clothing, probably due to this "just in time" system, which was interestingly implemented by a tory government
British troops suffered this during the first gulf war, when supply wasnt able to keep up with demand, due to the war stocks being sold off (by the tories again )

Tony

Leslie

Paulr,

Fair enough but my point basically is that with all those valid criticisms which have been widely made, it is just too easy to say "move on" as though it justifies it all and it does not matter. If he gets away with it then what will happen next time he sees what he feels is yet another chance to leave a legacy? No one should be allowed to get away with a performance like that.

I am surprised at the shortage of equipment reported above during the time reported. I never had to put up with any shortage of any of the equipment that I needed at that time.



Les

Chip

Take your blinkers off Tony. Thatcher inherited a country that was ruled by union power and had been for many years. To get the country back on its feet meant being hard and bringing hardship to many people.

She told us this was going to happen yet still won the election as things were so bad under Labour.

Industry was already in big decline as competition from foreign countries was crippling our union led , strike laden industries.

As for privatisation, isnt it better to have efficiently run international companies ie BG, BT, Nat Grid etc than state run, unaccountable and inefficient businesses that are subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of billions of pounds every year.

Chip

Geezer

Ah yes, the railways safety record are a testament to privatisation. Bottom line will always take precendence over it.

The postal service is going under because of forced competition.

Not even the ultra capitalistic Yanks were stoopid enough to try and take the postal service from central govt. control!

Some things juts aint' suitable for running at a profit. Look at Group 4s record on prisoner transfers. We jus have to pay for some things, privatisation ain't always the answer!
Geezer

Geezer