***** This thread is now closed, please CLICK HERE to go to Volume 4 *****
Further debate about Maggie's recent death.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 15 Apr 13 at 21:27
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The guest list.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22109759
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 11 Apr 13 at 21:22
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>> The guest list.
>>
>> www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22109759
>>
>>
>
Thanks for that as it gave me some links for timing. 11:00 at St Pauls. We've a board meeting at Lincoln's Inn same time so going to be fun for those coming from south.
Time to get one of the team checking out the road closures and bus diversions.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 11 Apr 13 at 21:22
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>> Thanks for that as it gave me some links for timing. 11:00 at St Pauls.
>> We've a board meeting at Lincoln's Inn same time so going to be fun for
>> those coming from south.
>>
>> Time to get one of the team checking out the road closures and bus diversions.
>>
>>
If it were me I'd seriously think of re-scheduling in view of the possible widespread disruption from both protesters and those looking for an opportunity to bag a few free plasma tellys under the civil disorder voucher scheme.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 11 Apr 13 at 21:22
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>> If it were me I'd seriously think of re-scheduling in view of the possible widespread
>> disruption from both protesters and those looking for an opportunity to bag a few free
>> plasma tellys under the civil disorder voucher scheme.
If we could we would. The diaries of people with portfolio careers are however hell's delight to co-ordinate. We'd end up just missing this one and being too rushed in May. I need to make sure people are briefed and have the information to plan safe routes.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 11 Apr 13 at 21:22
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>>There are others who also read this forum who might be offended by your swearing.
In this instance, I doubt it.
However summarily deleting a post, without comment from a non-persistent offender is silly, as is trying to climb onto a sanctimonious pedestal.
Or as people more usually say...
www.car4play.com/forum/post/index.htm?v=t&t=12468&m=279344
Still, better than just maintaining that it mysteriously "disappeared" I guess.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 11 Apr 13 at 21:24
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>> However summarily deleting a post, without comment from a non-persistent offender is silly
I can't help it if I had a lousy teacher ;)
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Westpig wrote in previous volume re the Magster's rise
>>Only the best get to the top. She did because she was.
Mmmmm. As ever politics is an odd game. Quite often it's the second or third best who get to lead parties. Foot won because he was neither he was neither Healey nor Benn. She only beat Heath by 11 votes in the first round. A lot of Tories woke up 12 Feb 75 and wondered what on earth they'd done.
Sometimes the best never get the opportunity because circumstance or prejudice weed them out too soon . That's not just their loss but an organisational loss too - which is why equal ops policies matter so much.
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>>A lot of Tories woke up 12 Feb 75 and wondered what on earth they'd done.
Did you see Diane Abbott's comment in the Standard. Something along the lines of: in 1990, after she resigned, the Tory MP boys were wandering about like a load of naughty schoolboys who had assassinated Matron!
"which is why equal ops policies matter so much"
Here I think you're absolutely wrong. Imagine if the Prime Minister were somebody who had only been pushed up there through an equal patronisation policy. She wouldn't have been the one to invade the Falklands, she'd have gone whinging to a tribunal. Following which the Argies would have paid a few pounds in compensation and she'd have lost.
This was a lower-middle-class woman, who became PM. Perfect victim material, I'd have thought.
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Those who progress through positive discrimination never earn the respect of either their peers or subordinates. You only have to look at some of Blair's Babes to see the dross you end up with through that policy.
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MM and RR seem to be wilfully misunderstanding the distinction between equality of opportunity (even the most rabid Tory can't be against that these days, surely?) and the kind of 'positive discrimination' or 'affirmative action' that actively favours candidates from groups that were previously discriminated against. That arguably has its place - South Africa, for example, not that Thatcher deserves any credit for the end of apartheid - but is certainly a more complex ethical area.
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>> (even the most rabid Tory can't be against that these days, surely?)
I don't understand the implication of this comment? Do you mean that its been the policy of non-Tories in the face of Tory resistance? Bearing in mind we are talking of Margaret Thatcher here.
Positive discrimination is no different to any other form of discrimination. It is a method used to artificially alter the statistics and involves decision making based upon discriminatory criteria.
It is unacceptable and wrong.
One doesn't need to explain anything beyond that, I think. If the basis of choice is someone's sex, race, colour, religion etc. etc. then it is discrimination and wrong. it is not relevant whether you are choosing them to do something, or barring them from doing something.
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>> MM and RR seem to be wilfully misunderstanding the distinction between equality of opportunity (even
>> the most rabid Tory can't be against that these days, surely?) and the kind of
>> 'positive discrimination' or 'affirmative action' that actively favours candidates from groups that were previously discriminated
>> against. That arguably has its place - South Africa, for example, not that Thatcher deserves
>> any credit for the end of apartheid - but is certainly a more complex ethical
>> area.
Thanks WdB I agree some, maybe wilfully, misunderstand. The days of blatant 'I don't want women in my club' mysogony are gone. But there's still other stuff whether it's process, unnecessary constraints (eg hours worked) or culture such as 'presenteeism'. People may need mentoring to help them recognise and develop their talents.
What I'm talking about primarily is ensuring talent is not overlooked or deterred.
Now it's heavy going driving that sort of cultural change in a work environment. It will be much more difficult in politics, on either side, where a selection committee of amateurs plays a big role.
Which is why all parties have experimented with all women shortlists.
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I used to run a retail business in an area which was mostly of one particular ethnic group. Its not that they would refuse to deal with members of another group, but they were more comfortable with their own.
Consequently, I did better business with staff from that ethnic group.
I was not sure what I would do if a person from another group had applied for a job. Morally and personally I truly wouldn't care, all that bothers me is effectiveness.
But then one runs into the conflict that ethnicity can affect effectiveness.
Difficult.
What does one do if one's customers are such that you will lose money if you try to be an equal opportunity employer?
Fortunately it never arose. To this day I'm not sure what I would have done.
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I used to run an office temp agency. Clients used to ask for white receptionists because their customers were 'traditionally minded" and preferred them, so of course that's what I sent them. They weren't keen on wheelchairs either, so I didn't send them anyone with a disability. *
Of course none of this is true. But is it qualitatively different from FM's example? He also says that he did better business by pandering to his customers' prejudice, but that no-one from another group ever applied, so how does he know?
Equality of opportunity works on the principle that bodies - not just government but employers, clubs, service providers - take the lead by applying higher standards than society at large. Prejudice only persists when tolerated.
Apartheid made money for Thatcher's supporters, so she did nothing to hasten its end. Notable that FW de Klerk is on the funeral guest list but none of his successors appear to be.
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>>He also says that he did better business by pandering to his customers' prejudice, but that no-one from another group ever applied, so how does he know?
No I didn't.
I said that as my staff were from that group I did better business. Better for example, than the prejudice bloke in the shop up the road who refused to employ anybody in that group, or at least preferred people who were not.
Your reactionary response, your putting words into my mouth, and your attitude is just the sort of sanctimonious, condescending crap that stops these issues being admitted, addressed and resolved.
Using emotive words like "pandering", expressions like "traditionally minded" and your ridiculous example merely serve to indicate which issues you regard as differentiating between people.
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No, I didn't.
I said that as my staff were from that group I did better business.
No, you didn't. You said
Consequently, I did better business with staff from that ethnic group.
Which is at best ambiguous and tending towards the sense I took from it, rather than the 'I, with staff from that ethnic group, did better business [than the unmentioned competitor]' that you expected us to infer.
But leaving that aside, you've not addressed my central point that if you cater only for people's prejudiced attitudes today (and 'being more comfortable' is just a euphemism for prejudice) then nothing ever changes and you end up with the kind of mono-ethnic ghettoes the immigration lobby wail about. That's why pandering is bad, and I don't withdraw the word, even if I now understand that you were only contemplating it, not actively practising it.
And who do you think you impress by throwing your weight about like this?
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>>And who do you think you impress by throwing your weight about like this?
As I have said before, who should I care about impressing? You? Hardly.
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>> I was not sure what I would do if a person from another group had
>> applied for a job. Morally and personally I truly wouldn't care, all that bothers me
>> is effectiveness.
You employ them, if they are the only suitable applicant. and mange them out again if they are not effective. Something you can do in the first 6 months quite easily.
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>>You employ them, if they are the only suitable applicant
As I said, I hope I would have done so. But given that this was 30 odd years ago and the business was on a knife edge, such a [albeit correct] decision would have caused pain.
Mind you, 30 years ago managing people out wasn't very difficult, it just doesn't do anyone any good.
Anyway, not really my point, not that I'm sure I had a point.
Discrimination is wrong. That includes positive discrimination, which is only ever about balancing statistics.
That said, the real world can be a tough place. And whilst the groups concerned may have changed in 30 years, I bet the challenges for a small, local retail or service establishment haven't.
It is the same with male/female or anything else. Pretending its not there, balancing the statistic with opposite discrimination, or pontification doesn't do any good.
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When recruiting, I used to positively dicriminate against anyone who smoked!
Experience told me they were less productive due to always trying to get extra fag breaks.
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>> When recruiting, I used to positively dicriminate against anyone who smoked!
I think thats legally allowed! Smokers are official outcasts.
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>>Experience told me they were less productive due to always trying to get extra fag breaks.
And I'd probably agree. And thus I might well do the same.
But you're not "allowed" to.
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>> >>Experience told me they were less productive due to always trying to get extra fag
>> breaks.
>>
>> And I'd probably agree. And thus I might well do the same.
>>
>> But you're not "allowed" to.
Are you sure? I'm not pontificating, just curious. It isn't sex, age or race discrimination.
I know those Acts have been superseded in part by the Equality Act, does that get you?
Regular smokers aren't the only skivers of course, but now that smoking is banned in offices some seem to think it's their right to have 10 minutes off every hour or so outside in the smoking shelter. It would make me a bit wary.
I was going to say I'm not prejudiced because some of my best friends are smokers ;-) but I've just realised that's not true any more - I can't think of one, they've all given up.
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>>Are you sure?
Actually no, I'm not.
I do know that smoking breaks are a real productivity issue and cause resentment amongst those who do not take them.
I guess one couldn't target them for their smoking, but one could probably have a go at productivity levels.
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>> I do know that smoking breaks are a real productivity issue and cause resentment amongst
>> those who do not take them.
>>
>> I guess one couldn't target them for their smoking, but one could probably have a
>> go at productivity levels.
>>
As both a smoker and self-employed having a drag does not effect my productivity, nor would it if I worked in an office. I would not consider popping out for a quick ciggie, but wait for my official breaks. I have in the past worked in hazardous environments where smoking was banned and confined myself to doing just that.
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And I am an ex-smoker, and if anything it helped my productivity since I would take the time to think int he car park which improved many a decision.
However, if one has a member of staff who would like to skive, and many do, then smoking gives them an excuse that the non-smokers do not have. And they tend to use it.
My experience is that more smokers lose productivity through smoking breaks than do not.
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Mark and i made identical points at same time. I agree that more smokers skive than produce while on cig breaks
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>> I guess one couldn't target them for their smoking, but one could probably have a go at >>productivity levels.
You could target them for smoking but it might get difficult. Productivity depends what they're employed to do.
Some people's smoking time is thinking and collaborating time. Others smoke ciggys while on William Hill's site on their smartphone.
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>>Some people's smoking time is thinking and collaborating time.
True I'm sure. I used to do t&c by the coffee machine !
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when i was a smoker, and having a fag break, I was normally on the mobile doing work stuff at the same time. Conference calls were good for this!
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>>on William Hill's site on their smartphone.
Here is an argument I used to have all the time;
I am in favour of allowing staff to use the internet for their private business. Be that banking, William Hill or the local knitting website.
My experience is that then people spend more time in the office, less time skiving, less time driving off into town at lunch etc. etc. Tend to be happier, etc. etc. (inappropriate content to one side, of course).
But then, there are very few people who know how to manage IT and actually put it into practice. I've never met a more depressing bunch than a group of IT Directors.
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>> But then, there are very few people who know how to manage IT and actually
>> put it into practice. I've never met a more depressing bunch than a group of
>> IT Directors.
Thats because they get the most complaints, and always have to justify the budget. (which is always a huge one). IT directors are always the whipping boy on the board.
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>> IT directors are always the whipping boy on the board.
Only when they deserve it. Which would be pretty much always.
I've always wondered what an IT Budget is for. (OpEx to one side).
If an IT project will cost £1m and will deliver £2m then it will be done.
If an IT Project will cost £2m and will deliver £1m then it will not be done.
Where's the need, or room, for a budget in that?
An OpEx budget is quite different, but a CapEx bdget is pointless other than for forecasting. And its not much cop for that.
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>> If an IT project will cost £1m and will deliver £2m then it will be
>> done.
1/ Cos its really difficult to quantify the 2m delivery.
One good example of the IT director screwing stuff up is RBS. Outsourcing IT services because its seen as "legacy" and then finding out (when it goes TU and cripples the bank for a week) that its actually core to business operations.
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>>1/ Cos its really difficult to quantify the 2m delivery.
No, it really isn't. And if you can't quantify it, then you don't deliver it.
>>One good example of the IT director screwing stuff up is RBS. Outsourcing IT service
He screwed it up because he wasn't enough of a Director or a businessman to explain to the Finance Director why it was a bad idea, or to determine what the benefits and ongoing costs would be.
And owning IT was not core to their business operations, although its effective functioning was.
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>> I am in favour of allowing staff to use the internet for their private business.
>> Be that banking, William Hill or the local knitting website.
I agree. Sitting at his desk he's got his bet on the 3:15 placed in the time it'd take to get outside.
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When I worked building mobile phones for Motorola as an agency chap while at Uni (1990s), Motorola policy was no smoking.
Anyone smoking even in their car in the car park would be fired.
Motorola would, however, happily pay for employees to get patches, etc to give up the habit.
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>When I worked building mobile phones for Motorola as an agency chap while at Uni (1990s), Motorola
>policy was no smoking.
>Anyone smoking even in their car in the car park would be fired.
That's still the case, at least Motorola US.
No smoking anywhere on Motorola property.
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>>No smoking anywhere on Motorola property.
The first place that I knew who did that was Mercury PC (One2One eventually). And that must have been in 20+years ago. Caused quite a storm at the time.
Still, they knew more about HSE and HR rules than they did about communications or managing a business, so that was probably inevitable.
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>> But there's still other stuff whether it's process,
>> unnecessary constraints (eg hours worked) or culture such as 'presenteeism'.
If the problem is something simple, like changing the working hours AND it works for the company...then fine, do it and be more inclusive..and enhance the role of people who may not have been able to fulfil that role before and gain the benefit of their work/experience/skills.....BUT....some think the hours should be changed when it doesn't suit the job...and that is plain wrong.
People may need mentoring to
>> help them recognise and develop their talents.
Yes, they may well do....BUT...that could apply to all people from all walks of life, why would anyone think it acceptablle to concentrate the mentoring on some people and not others?
>> What I'm talking about primarily is ensuring talent is not overlooked or deterred.
I'd 100% agree with that, AS LONG AS it was applied to all.
>> Now it's heavy going driving that sort of cultural change in a work environment. It
>> will be much more difficult in politics, on either side, where a selection committee of
>> amateurs plays a big role.
>>
>> Which is why all parties have experimented with all women shortlists.
Which is plain wrong...because a more qualified man would be excluded.
You also posted this up the thread....."Sometimes the best never get the opportunity because circumstance or prejudice weed them out too soon"....
That is so very true...BUT...it applies to all of us, not just certain sections of society.
Last edited by: Westpig on Fri 12 Apr 13 at 17:34
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>>London could be an interesting place tomorrow
The boss is going to the 'big weave' at Spitalfields tomorrow and I am to accompany her (and slope off for a pint I hope). Better be ready for the crossfire I suppose.
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The death of Mrs Thatcher has given rise to a complex and detailed discussion in this country, involving a measure of self-criticism unprecedented in my experience. We are an anti-intellectual and philistine nation as a rule. This is new.
Remember you saw this judgement here first.
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Herself is going to the theatre on Wednesday afternoon and we are due to meet in Chelsea for dinner later at someone's gaff.
I hope today's relative peace doesn't presage widespread mayhem round the funeral. Really hate being held up or inconvenienced.
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When the funeral is over there will be a good number of handy current and ex members of the armed and enforcement services in the area.
I doubt they will take kindly to the disrespect of a national leader who arguably was the only one since the war to have been straight with them and treated them with respect.
Could be an interesting day.
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Not sure about Philistine nation A.C.I found Britain when I first visited as a child fascinating.
Three wheel cars,waiting for a bus without pushing each other out of the way.A please and thank you.I used to say to my dad it is like going back in history arriving from Rotterdam by ship in London.I don't mean this in a disrespectful way.
I believe we are a society not a set of individuals looking after number one.It is not the British way in my opinion.Something had to be done about Union power in the past but not the way it was done.My eldest son wrote a thesis about that time in politics in the UK.I have been looking at some of the Dutch papers and opinions about M Thatcher are as controversial as in the UK.
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>> Yes, they may well do....BUT...that could apply to all people from all walks of life,
>> why would anyone think it acceptablle to concentrate the mentoring on some people and not
>> others?
I was not suggesting mentoring be limited to specific groups. Would be available to anyone who requests it, perhaps subject to manager sign. I do however suspect that women and some minorities are more prone to hiding their lights under bushels.
>> Which is plain wrong...because a more qualified man would be excluded.
If that was happening I'd agree. The evidence in both main parties is that selection committees, without intervention, appoint less qualified men rather than
a better or equally suited woman. White middle aged men perhaps tend to appoint in their own image.
The representation of women in winnable seats is such that affirmative action may be necessary to redress the balance.
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>> The representation of women in winnable seats is such that affirmative action may be necessary
>> to redress the balance.
>>
If you mean affirmative action to put a woman in there, regardless of whether or not a man is or could be more talented..then I'd strongly disagree.
If you mean affirmative action to even up the playing field for women who up until now have been genuinely* disadvantaged...then I'd have no problem.
*Trouble is, how do you differentiate between the genuinely disadvantaged (and thereby hard done by) with the low achiever/moaner who cannot self reflect and cannot see the wood for the trees?
I have seen plenty of people move forward who never should have done, but have taken advantage of their sex, colour, sexual orientation or whatever...and believe me it greatly annoys the rest.
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"I have seen plenty of people move forward who never should have done, but have taken advantage of their sex, colour, sexual orientation or whatever...and believe me it greatly annoys the rest."
But to look at it in another way haven't white men take advantage of their sex and colour for centuries? Should we feel too aggrieved if the pendulum sometimes swing a few centimetres in the opposite direction?
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>> But to look at it in another way haven't white men take advantage of their
>> sex and colour for centuries? Should we feel too aggrieved if the pendulum sometimes swing
>> a few centimetres in the opposite direction?
>>
If it is wrong for men to have habitually taken advantage of their sex...and I'd agree it is and they have....then it is equally wrong for women to do it nowadays.
Two wrongs do not make a right...and anyone with an ounce of sense would wish to take the moral high ground.
Same principle applies to race/sexual orientaion etc, etc.
Surely if you are in a minority, have traditionally been sat on, now find the goal posts have changed for the better (and rightly so)...the last thing you'd want to do is 'p' off the majority. Would you not want them on your side?...and celebrate the fact that the past injustices have been addressed.
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"If it is wrong for men to have habitually taken advantage of their sex...and I'd agree it is and they have....then it is equally wrong for women to do it nowadays."
Wrong perhaps but completely understandable. I guess that in virtually every trade and profession men still have an advantage in securing promotion or advancement. I'm not sure as a sex we can take the moral high ground when it comes to sexual discrimination.
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>> If you mean affirmative action to even up the playing field for women who up
>> until now have been genuinely* disadvantaged...then I'd have no problem.
>>
Levelling the playing field is the drum I've been banging throughout. Although I was critical of Mrs T being able to do stuff on the back of Denis's wealth I suppose in sense it levelled the gender bit of the playing field.
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>>MM and RR seem to be wilfully misunderstanding the distinction between equality of
>>opportunity (even the most rabid Tory can't be against that these days, surely?) and the
>>kind of 'positive discrimination'
No, WdB, you are wilfully misunderstanding my impassioned defence of the distinction. You're making it up.
>> not that Thatcher deserves any credit for the end of apartheid
Nelson Mandela counted Baroness Thatcher as an essential ally. So what is the point you are trying to make otherwise than to rewrite history from a left-leaning anti-Thatcher perspective?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22069896
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Nelson Mandela counted Baroness Thatcher as an essential ally.
First I've heard of it, MM, and you'll need stronger evidence than that. Your link contains 'ally' in the words 'eventually' and 'personally' and nowhere else. It contains a Mandela insider's report of Thatcher's own, uncorroborated assertion that she was influential in obtaining sentences of prison rather than death for Mandela and his Rivonia co-defendants in 1964. Did his conversion to viewing her as an ally occur before or after she called him and his party terrorists in 1987.
The BBC article does conclude with
Once we'd forgiven our oppressors ... we didn't find it difficult to forgive everybody
which isn't the kind of ringing endorsement of Thatcher's approach to apartheid that you seem to find in the article.
The source of your other point is lost in the Vol 2 thread, I think, and I can't face digging that out on the phone, but what you seemed not to be getting was that Bromp was arguing for equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. I'll take another look.
Incidentally, are you the Phantom Scowly Scatterer? You've been away from the board for a day or two and I notice I've gained one for my little spat with FM since your return.
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>> The BBC article does conclude with
>> Once we'd forgiven our oppressors ... we didn't find it difficult to forgive everybody
>> which isn't the kind of ringing endorsement of Thatcher's approach to apartheid that you seem
>> to find in the article.
Funny old article that. Certainly one that casts doubt on assertion that BBC is negative about MT rather than open to both sides.
She's described in it as a Front Bencher in Macmillan's govt. In fact she was was a junior miinster, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for NI, in Macmillan's Govt. No connection with foreign affairs so how she might have influenced Mandela's trial is a mystery. Generally she seems to have at best been neutral on apartheid. Indeed IIRC her appraoch to the subject caused some friction with the Commonwealth and the Queen
Like WdB I'd want more evidence
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>>I've gained one for my little spat with FM since your return.
Pah! You're a mere beginner. I got two scowly faces and a thumb.
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Ah, I found it and it is in this volume. MM said
Imagine if the Prime Minister were somebody who had only been pushed up there through an equal patronisation policy.
Nothing to do with equal opportunities, which is what Bromp had been describing. That's not about pushing anyone 'up there', just about not pushing them down because of their origins. Which you, MM, either just didn't get or as I - giving you the benefit of the doubt - suggested, misunderstood on purpose.
So, love-thirty, MM. Keep serving - if you have any more balls.
}:---)
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Equal opportunities is what we need and how life should be. Positive discrimination, on the other hand, is about pushing someone "up there".
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>> This was a lower-middle-class woman, who became PM. Perfect victim material, I'd have thought.
>>
Absolutely. It occurs to me that those who profess to hate her most are motivated in part by the fact that their own cultures cannot deal with the thought of any woman in overall charge, let alone one from Mrs. thatcher's background.
When I lived in Eastwood during the miners strike, some of the miners welfares and working mens clubs in the area still refused to serve unaccompanied women, and the committees of same were very much a male preserve. I daresay this was the rule rather than the exception nationwide.
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Some revealing interviews in yesterday's Times from those worked well down the No 10 food chain. A messenger/clerk told of how how, when Lord Mountbatten and 12(?) soldiers were killed he dealt with 12 handwritten, and all different contents, handwritten personal letters to the families of the deceased. That's leadership by example.
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>> Absolutely. It occurs to me that those who profess to hate her most are motivated
>> in part by the fact that their own cultures cannot deal with the thought of
>> any woman in overall charge, let alone one from Mrs. thatcher's background.
>>
>> When I lived in Eastwood during the miners strike, some of the miners welfares and
>> working mens clubs in the area still refused to serve unaccompanied women, and the committees
>> of same were very much a male preserve. I daresay this was the rule rather
>> than the exception nationwide.
I'd be very cautious of conflating outdated seventies 'club' rules etc with attitudes to Thatcher. A ban on women at the bar or in some rooms (or even at all) was as prevalent in the golf club or the clubs of London as in CIU affiliated establishments. Gender rules were quite common on commercial bar premises too. Remember all the fuss about El Vino in Fleet St?
Thatcher was divisive primarily because of the policies she espoused and put in place. Her hectoring tone and use of patronising 'housekeeping analogies didn't help. But gents can generate as much resentment - look a Michael Gove or Eric Pickles.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sun 14 Apr 13 at 18:10
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>> and use of patronising 'housekeeping analogies didn't help.
....what? Even if true?
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>> >> and use of patronising 'housekeeping analogies didn't help.
>>
>> ....what? Even if true?
Even the truth delivered in patronising tones grates. And the nation's finances are a bit more involved than budgeting for milk and potatoes.
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>> And the nation's finances are a bit
>> more involved than budgeting for milk and potatoes.
>>
Undoubtedly....but the basic principle of 'you can only have it if you can afford it'...is exactly the same.........and someone as undoubtedly intelligent as she was, would surely have understood the difference between running a country and buying milk and potatoes????
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>> >> And the nation's finances are a bit
>> >> more involved than budgeting for milk and potatoes.
>> >>
>>
>> Undoubtedly....but the basic principle of 'you can only have it if you can afford it'...is
>> exactly the same.........and someone as undoubtedly intelligent as she was, would surely have understood the
>> difference between running a country and buying milk and potatoes????
I would say the similarities between budgeting for a country, and budgeting for a household, are probably greater than the differences.
Shame that more politicians don't seem to recognise that.
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>> Even the truth delivered in patronising tones grates.
So it's not the message that's the problem, just the way it was delivered?
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>> So it's not the message that's the problem, just the way it was delivered?
'The medium is the massage'
(Whatsisname, silly American chap, you know the one).
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>> Whatsisname, silly American chap, you know the one).
Or was he Canadian? The proof reader probably was anyway. Or even Australian.
:o}
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>>
>> Or was he Canadian? The proof reader probably was anyway. Or even Australian.
>>
Herbert Marshall McLuhan, CC (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher of communication theory.
He coined the message phrase, and then himself parodied it with "massage", further making the point that the form in which a message is presented itself distorts the message.
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>> Marshall McLuhan,
Welcomed with howls of glee by advertising and marketing men and widely quoted to muddy the waters... God he was a pain...
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>Even the truth delivered in patronising tones grates.
It only grates if you've stuffed up and resolutely deny it. I don't even believe that it was patronising. It was mockery, and well deserved at that.
>And the nation's finances are a bit more involved than budgeting for milk and potatoes.
That is true. And one thing I have learned in my lifetime is that Labour/New Labour couldn't even handle the milk and potatoes budget.
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>> >Even the truth delivered in patronising tones grates.
>>
>> It only grates if you've stuffed up and resolutely deny it. I don't even believe
>> that it was patronising. It was mockery, and well deserved at that.
Much of what she said, 'truth' or not grates through delivery. Why do you think she had to be coached to change her voice. It was a little better after but not much.
For a single sentence look at her 83 victory statement about 'those inner cities'.
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Funnily enough, she only needed 'elocution' lessons because she had had elocution lessons as a child and sounded too posh.
Much like Blair and Milliband, and more recently Osborne, dropping their tees.
I don't think it improved any of them. Thatcher just sounded insincere after the Tim Bell? makeover.
Last edited by: Manatee on Mon 15 Apr 13 at 09:22
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>Much of what she said, 'truth' or not grates through delivery.
Thanks. I won't feel guilty dismissing whatever Miliband has to say now. I find that nasal twang incredibly irritating.
Last edited by: Kevin on Mon 15 Apr 13 at 20:57
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I thought it might have just been me. Although I should listen to what he has to say, everytime I see him I always think of Wallace, as in, and Gromit. Anyone else?
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>> Thanks. I won't feel guilty dismissing whatever Miliband has to say now. I find that
>> nasal twang incredibly irritating.
>>
Me too. Reminds me of Rik Mayall in his "young Ones" persona... then again so did Blair in Opposition.
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>> I won't feel guilty dismissing whatever Miliband has to say now. I find that nasal twang incredibly irritating.
Not kind Kevin. Ed Miliband does seem to have a sort of adenoidal condition that affects the way he speaks. The medium isn't really the message when you get down to it.
I once wrote in French a piece on Mrs Thatcher's accent, and British accents in general, prompted by something in English by a South African linguistics professor called Honey. It was about class and class accents. The copytakers in Paris loved it, (merci cheries, mwah mwah...) But the editorial people couldn't really understand it and it was stupidly edited.
'When two Englishmen, gazing into the distance, are chatting about the weather, each is listening not to the ideas of the other but to his soul, via the architecture of his vowels. This goes back perhaps to a prehistoric time when beings - not yet quite human - were still uttering cries like birds or monkeys,' it said among other things.
Still quite proud of that piece although it wasn't especially polite about Mrs T.
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In a discussion I watched a repeat of last night - question time was it? - there was a Le Monde man who couldn't bear Mrs T. She did take some of the French that way. They thought her attitude to the common market was essentially mad, xenophobic and and uncomprehending, and worse still ungentlemanly -'give us our money back' sort of thing - through not understanding that members of exclusive clubs have to pay their subscriptions.
The level of discourse was poor on the whole. The interesting people are the ones who try to go beyond knee-jerk and arrive at some sort of objective judgement. They may only be a sixth of the British population but they are the interesting ones. There was a bespectacled Russian BBC pundit who tried to do that, but he was too young probably to make much of the research he had obviously done. He very clearly lacked any sort of 'feel' for the period having been raised in the Soviet Union.
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I watched one of those tribute programmes re Maggie last night.
An interviewer was speaking with Ann Widdecombe.... who spoke on what MT had said when she (Ann) had asked her what she thought her greatest achievement was...MT had replied 'Tony Blair'.
Explains why the Left hate her so much...she 'p'd on their parade and took the country to the middle and middle/right.
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Explains why the Left hate her so much...she 'p'd on their parade and took the country to the middle and middle/right.
At last, WP, something I can agree with - almost! Blair's great failure of imagination was in not realizing that he had the mandate to rebuild some of what Thatcher and Major (who wrecked the railways, remember) had destroyed. Instead we got horrors like PFI, PPP and his incessant, grating, entirely inappropriate god-bothering. Worse than Iraq, in its way.
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>> A good summary of what Britain was like in the "Golden Age" before the 1979
>> election, and largely as I remember it -
>>
>> www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9991843/Margaret-Thatcher-never-forget-the-chaos-of-life-before-her.html
Nobody disputes there were problems, though I doubt that's a dispassionate account.
The question is whether there was a less regressive and more consensual alternative.
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>> The question is whether there was a less regressive and more consensual alternative.
>>
Bromp, were you around in the seventies??
Three different PM's had tried consensus in some form
So had some union leaders
The militants of the time were not interested in consensus they wanted their demands met and would fight to get them whoever got in the way, innocent casualties were not a 1980s phenomenon.
They were not smart enough to recognise and change their approach when MT came to power and chose when and how to fight.
It was hard, it was unpleasant and there were a number of innocent casualties but it had to be done at the time and in the way it was done.
The second half of the 80s could have been handled better and maybe then consensus was more of an option although there were probably some, even then, who would have taken that as weakness.
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>> Bromp, were you around in the seventies??
>> Three different PM's had tried consensus in some form
>> So had some union leaders
I was born in 1959, so yes. I worked through the winter of discontent moving to London just as it ended.
The consensus began long before Wilson/Heath/Callaghan. Forged during the war and incorporated under Attlee, it lost traction, inevitably, when the post war rise in living standards faltered after 1968. Heath tried to reject it in the first months after June 70 but pulled out from that course after unemployment hit 1m in autumn 71. The call to change was universal and supported by most of the press including the Times.
It worked again for a time under Labour but fell apart after 1977/8 with a minority government struggling to assert its authority.
Callaghan bottled out of an election in Autumn 78. He might well have won, he lead in the polls. I remember well the address to the nation when he announced that. My Father's immediate reaction as the news began was that Jim had thrown away his best chance.
Re-invigorated, with a new mandate and working majority he might well have pulled off a new deal.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 15 Apr 13 at 10:56
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>> Re-invigorated, with a new mandate and working majority he might well have pulled off a
>> new deal.
>>
Bromp, I admire your optimism, throughout the 70s it seemed that consensus was only available on the union terms, I do not remember much in the way of compromise especially with Heath.
The union bosses regular sessions at no 10 merely confirmed their members view that they could ask for anything and they would get it.
By the late 70s the militants had, to a large extent, taken over control at the big unions and even their own leaders could not get any kind of consensus/compromise out of them.
I cannot believe that there was any point in carrying on with a Labour government in 1978/9 on any basis, and I do not believe there was any real possibility that they would have had any chance of winning an election.
To put it simply, the silent majority had pretty much had enough.
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>> I cannot believe that there was any point in carrying on with a Labour government
>> in 1978/9 on any basis, and I do not believe there was any real possibility
>> that they would have had any chance of winning an election.
>> To put it simply, the silent majority had pretty much had enough.
>>
The opinion polls in autumn 78 put Labour ahead. Victory after a successful campaign was a real possibilty.
Thatcher was initially voted in on 'buggins turn' with a majority of around 30. The '79 Tory manifesto was not the statement of revolutionary intent which we imagine with hindsight.
Callaghan, incidentally scored better than Thatcher, on a personal basis throughout the campaign.
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>> The opinion polls in autumn 78 put Labour ahead. Victory after a successful campaign was
>> a real possibilty.
Opinion polls are not election votes (just ask Neil Kinnock)
Victory was anything but a certainty, as was a successful campaign
If MT was elected on "buggins turn" why should that not have happened a little earlier.
She was elected, and re-elected twice, because many people still remembered the alternative and wanted none of it.
The left in the late 70s and into the 80s didn't want consensus they wanted more for less and stuff anyone else who got in the way.
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>> Opinion polls are not election votes (just ask Neil Kinnock)
Or Harold Wilson for that matter.
>> Victory was anything but a certainty, as was a successful campaign
I said it was a real possibilty. Nothing is certain
>> If MT was elected on "buggins turn" why should that not have happened a little
>> earlier.
Because at that stage the public were not ready to gove Buggins a turn
>> She was elected, and re-elected twice, because many people still remembered the alternative and wanted
>> none of it
By 83 Labour had ripped itself apart in internecine warfare, slecting the decent but unelectable Foot as leader and the SDP was on the scene. She got her vast majority because of the interplay between those factors, the Falkland's victory and our barmy electoral system.
>> The left in the late 70s and into the 80s didn't want consensus they wanted
>> more for less and stuff anyone else who got in the way.
Sound pretty much like the attitude of the Tories today. Squeeze the middle while persuading them to blame the poor for their plight. Meanwhile the rich continue to increase their share of national income.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 15 Apr 13 at 12:59
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>> By 83 Labour had ripped itself apart in internecine warfare, selecting the decent but
>> unelectable Foot as leader and the SDP was on the scene. She got her vast majority
>> because of the interplay between those factors, the Falkland's victory and our barmy
>> electoral system.
No, the Falklands was a factor but Labour was still the same as it had been and the left still had control of the unions and their ambitions hadn't changed, especially Arthur S, the silent majority still wanted a leader who would deal with the unions
>> The left in the late 70s and into the 80s didn't want consensus they
>> wanted more for less and stuff anyone else who got in the way.
The actions of the miners & other militants in the 70s caused more harm to the poorer, weaker members of society than anything MT did
>> Sound pretty much like the attitude of the Tories today. Squeeze the middle while
>> persuading them to blame the poor for their plight. Meanwhile the rich continue to increase >> their share of national income.
>>
for a different thread I think, wrong ,but nothing to do with Mrs Thatcher or the point I was making
Last edited by: commerdriver on Mon 15 Apr 13 at 13:16
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If this majoroty are silent how on earth do we know what they think?
>> The actions of the miners & other militants in the 70s caused more harm to
>> the poorer, weaker members of society than anything MT did
Are there examples?
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>> If this majoroty are silent how on earth do we know what they think?
>>
The majorities Mrs Thatcher got showed what they thought at the time
>> >> The actions of the miners & other militants in the 70s caused more harm
>> to
>> >> the poorer, weaker members of society than anything MT did
>>
>> Are there examples?
>>
There were countless examples in the press of the time and obvious in the streets of Glasgow, and in 78/9 in Newcastle. Old ladies queuing for bread, walking on the road to avoid mountains of uncollected rubbish are two that stick in my mind.
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>> There were countless examples in the press of the time and obvious in the streets
>> of Glasgow, and in 78/9 in Newcastle. Old ladies queuing for bread, walking on the
>> road to avoid mountains of uncollected rubbish are two that stick in my mind.
You're struggling there I think!!
Waht you mention are the transient affects of Industrial Action.
Queing for bread like in the war, walking in the road to avoid mountains of rubbish.
Much more harsh than cuts to benefits, removal of home helps, closure of old peoples homes and so called 'care in the community'.
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>> You're struggling there I think!!
Not at all just can't be bothered going back to newspapers of the time. You were an adolescent lad, how much did you really understand at the time, especially of the shambles that was 70s government both economically and industrially.
>> Waht you mention are the transient affects of Industrial Action.
exactly, of greedy, selfish strikes, which was what people got fed up of and which you think could have been solved by "consensus". The strikers at the time didn't care who suffered.
"Industrial action" was the biggest lie of the time
>> Queing for bread like in the war, walking in the road to avoid mountains of
>> rubbish.
>>
>> Much more harsh than cuts to benefits, removal of home helps, closure of old peoples
>> homes and so called 'care in the community'.
>>
In real terms the suffering was as bad at the time in my opinion. Most people would agree that the economy and most people's standard of living, including the elderly and the poorer part of society by 1990 was miles better than in the 70s.
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>> Not at all just can't be bothered going back to newspapers of the time. You
>> were an adolescent lad, how much did you really understand at the time, especially of
>> the shambles that was 70s government both economically and industrially.
Ahh. So I was too young to understand???
I read the papers, saw the TV and had an interest in politics. My opinions were further moulded by reading political history and biography in later years and from both sides.
Currently working my way through Heath's life story.
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>> Currently working my way through Heath's life story.
Don't you find all the sex and violence and profanity a bit much Bromptonaut? I wouldn't dare myself...
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>> Don't you find all the sex and violence and profanity a bit much Bromptonaut? I
>> wouldn't dare myself...
>>
ROFLOL
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>> >> Not at all just can't be bothered going back to newspapers of the time.
>> You
>> >> were an adolescent lad, how much did you really understand at the time, especially
>> of
>> >> the shambles that was 70s government both economically and industrially.
>>
>> Ahh. So I was too young to understand???
pretty much, especially the 70s bit (much the same way as I was told to leave cycling comments to those who do it etc before you feel too smug)
>>
>> I read the papers, saw the TV and had an interest in politics. My opinions
>> were further moulded by reading political history and biography in later years and from
>> both sides.
doesn't substitute for actually being there as an adult, schoolkids tend to view things from a black & white viewpoint then and now. Also I think it's a bit naive to think that you can have a balanced view just from books which is more accurate than experience. It's exactly what a number of teens & 20+ year olds are using to justify the ding dong stuff and the protests
>> Currently working my way through Heath's life story.
>>
Congratulations, that will tell you a lot about Margaret Thatcher, or is that not the point of this thread
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>> Ahh. So I was too young to understand???
I think you possibly were actually.
How old were you in 1973-4 when I worked for Nat West in Bradford? For a time weren't allowed the lights on for 2 or 3 days a week (I can't remember which myself) and worked literally by candlelight. That was in a city centre. At home we had rolling power cuts.
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>> I think you possibly were actually.
>>
>> How old were you in 1973-4 when I worked for Nat West in Bradford? For
>> a time weren't allowed the lights on for 2 or 3 days a week (I
>> can't remember which myself) and worked literally by candlelight. That was in a city centre.
>> At home we had rolling power cuts.
We're talking here about 1978/9 by which time I was 19 and working.
I can remember all of the other things from the earlier seventies as well actually. Even as far back as power workers strikes in 1971/2 and the first miners strike in early 72
My father, who's business was selling dyes and chemicals to the textile and leather industries, worried about future prospects if production stayed depressed.
Three day week, telly off at 21:30. Schofields and Lewis's in Leeds lit up by festoons of bare bulbs run off a genny.
Only the exam years in school and taught in seperately heated portable classrooms (main heating plant was coke fired).
In that black/white sense commer mentions I recall I actually thought Mr Heath was right in 74!
By 79 I'd read beyond the Yorkshire Post and adopted Labour politics.
Realisation that I was right came later with eighties. Gradual closure of all industry in the suburbs where I grew up. Folks I'd known at school and their parents on the dole. People who'd gone to Uni when I left school graduating to unemployment.
Still, it'd be an odd and boring world where we all agreed on everything.
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>> Not at all just can't be bothered going back to newspapers of the time. You
>> were an adolescent lad, how much did you really understand at the time, especially of
>> the shambles that was 70s government both economically and industrially.
The more times I read this the more I'm gob smacked. Accusing a man in his mid fifties of being 'too young to understand' history is either a new low or desperation.
Didn't bits like my mention of things like 'Selsdon Man' give you a clue I might have, irrespective of my age, studied the history a bit?
My daughter is 20 and a student of history and politics; she too could give an account of the time though it would be more dispassionate than mine.
How old were you in 1972?
And yes, I did apologise for my 'riding round skittles' comment.
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Jim Callaghan tried the middle course and look what happened.
If you walking home from the shops with a bag of steaks, and you were pursued by a pack of feral dogs, what should you do?
Throw them a couple and expect them to see that as a fair deal and leave you alone? Or would that only encourage them?
When they have nothing you want, you either have to stand your ground or give them the lot, all at once or by degrees.
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>> I'd be very cautious of conflating outdated seventies 'club' rules etc with attitudes to Thatcher.
Okay; how's about the total lack of female representation (outside the typing pool and canteen) in collieries, steelworks, car production lines etc. Brenda Dean was pretty much (AFAIK) the only female union leader of that era, I could offer other examples; the point I am making, as you're surely aware, is that Thatcher took on in public, and defeated, a cross-section of influential people and their followers who simply were unable to come to terms with being bettered by a woman, simply because their culture did not allow them to even contemplate it.
They resented it then, and they resent it still.
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>> Okay; how's about the total lack of female representation (outside the typing pool and canteen)
>> in collieries, steelworks, car production lines etc. Brenda Dean was pretty much (AFAIK) the only
>> female union leader of that era, I could offer other examples; the point I am
>> making, as you're surely aware, is that Thatcher took on in public, and defeated, a
>> cross-section of influential people and their followers who simply were unable to come to terms
>> with being bettered by a woman, simply because their culture did not allow them to
>> even contemplate it.
>>
>> They resented it then, and they resent it still.
Some undoubtedly resented her gender. The factory floor structure you describe was universal, at thetime a man's wage would support his family. IIRC women were were actually barred by law from the underground area of pits; a legacy of abolition of Victorain labour practices.
The Sex Discrimination Act was LAbour Legislation. I've not go Hansard in front of me but I've little doubt Thatcher, Mrs MH will be along those in the Noe lobby at second reading.
The idea that swathes of those who disagree with the 'saviour of Britain' narrative do so because she was a woman is wilfully naive. Had Heath pushed on with the Selsdon Man approach of the first months of his government to the same end result he'd have been equally resented.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 15 Apr 13 at 07:38
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>> IIRC women were were actually barred by law
>> from the underground area of pits; a legacy of abolition of Victorain labour >>practices.
Thinking about it some more the issue was one of 'morality'. The heat in a coal mine can be such that men on hard physical labour worked in the altogether.
Hence the joke about the miner who went home for lunch.....
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>> Had Heath pushed on with the Selsdon Man approach of the first months of his government to the same end result
>> he'd have been equally resented.
>>
Thanks for reminding us that the economics behind "Thatcherism" were not an invention of the Sainted Margaret herself. (And for playing a blinder on this thread)
They are associated with Mrs T, however, because it is always convenient for people to put handy labels on things (see also "Reagonomics") and because she pursued the policy with determination/ruthlessness*, whilst also enjoying the unique position of being the first female prime minister. Quite a potent combination.
* delete, depending upon your political viewpoint.
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Baroness Thatcher - Volume 3 - Zero
