God that was cruel. There was I thinking that Thatcher had popped her clogs while I was out at ZZ Top. Had to scan through news websites to find that the old bag is still with us and there is no cause for celebration at all. You shouldn't do things like that!
I must add Cranker that this is how you come through to me and it is my opinion. If it just how I see it now, here but if it is not correct well hope you know none of it is meant to offend. Ignore the benefit part above.
Lucaz, I appreciate what you'r saying, but you can't just take some random person, give them training then expect them to deliver without real-world experience. Part of bringing contractors in is to give those people the real-world experience without giving them the opportunity to really cock it up. We see the same thing in London every day: contractors come in to an organisation partly to fill a gap and partly to train the existing staff who don't have the skills in specific areas. God knows, I've worked with some 'special' locals who need re-skilling.
Jerry I never said random I said right person, one that fits the profile. If you never train a person to do your job for someone that someone becomes reliant on you to do it for them over and over. Business wise that is what you want and I get that. Yet do not then go do a job(s) in another country and complain that foreigners come to yours after to do a job. Tit for tat is what I think you call it? (might be so wrong on that saying ).
Jeez, there are some very good points/ideas/arguments on here but somewhat off the original thread. However I'm going to put my own point of view and pray I don't get killed by any who I (unintentionally) offend. To reduce the deficit we need to increase our output, reduce unnecessary expenditure , and get as many people back to work and contributing to the economy. To do all the above is going to take some hard work and some radical thinking by those in power. Firstly I think we need to increase the taxation on the super rich ( they were the beneficiaries of the Tory tax cuts when they came to power), not to the ridiculous levels they were in the past (over 90%) but back to say 60% with the promise of reductions when we are back in the black. Tax loopholes must be closed to stop tax avoidance which is only practiced by those with far more money than they should have. Secondly the government should be helping companies, big and small, to increase their workforce and therefore producing more goods to sell, it also cuts the amount of benefits being paid. Thirdly and seemingly most controversial is the subject of immigration, now I am not against immigration per se but I am against those who come to sponge from our welfare state. If you come here to work, pay tax and contribute to our society then welcome, if you come to be handed money by the state then bugger off, also if you don't like our culture, religion or whatever then why the hell come here in the first place? If I go to a foreign country ( so far only on holiday) I try to respect the culture and rules they have there, it's their country not mine therefore I want anyone coming here to abide by our rules. There is a big swell of discontent here towards Muslims which is only caused by the few who seem to want their rules to apply here ( mr quatada etc), most of the Muslims I have come across are far more respectful to our country and it's rules than they are given credit for. If I were to go to Jordan would I be allowed to spout vitriole about the state and people, I dont think so, I would very soon find myself in deep trouble. ( apologies here as I've been side tracked by my pet hate). We need immigration to contribute skills to our country same as other countries need emigrants to help theirs, so it should be a 2 way thing not, as seems to me, a one way street to our welfare state. As I said at the top, I don't wish to offend anyone on here, but we are all entitled to our opinions and through forums like this can learn from others.
You have little understanding of projects............................. You seem to think its monkey see monkey do. I wonder who's the monkey then?
We have commented here on the lack of competitiveness of British industry in the 70's. Thatcher took on the unions, turned the country around and left Gordon Brown a legacy that he squandered, laying some of the foundations for the mess we find ourselves in today. She was not all bad .
Do away with the NHS and go the way of the rest of the world. Either get insured or pay for treatment. This would stop relatives of non nationals abusing the system. It would also stop the sponging scrubby bas tards going to A&E with a feking cold
Thatcher did the job of cutting back the dead wood on the tree. It probably had to be done so credit to her for doing it. She was tough, she had guts, was uncompromising and she had a vision - whether you shared it or not. That's the good stuff - probably not negligible. But she was a divisive personality, talked down to everyone, behaved in a tyrannical manner, not using the strengths of the team around her. She divided the country rather than uniting it. More importantly, (and probably linked to the above) she had no real plan for encouraging the new growth after the lopping of the dead wood. She presided over a massive growth in unemployment, oversaw the demise of traditional industries, had a maniacal dislike of unions (who aren't all bogeymen - they stick up for the less empowered in most instances) and, daughter of a shopkeeper, seemed to think that the country's future resided exclusively in the service economy. It was from her premiership that the gap in rich and poor started to grow exponentially and casino style banking to emerge. I reckon she also killed off the north and had the whole country focused on the south-east. I was in Liverpool in 1985. It was grim. Massive unemployment, no future, rampant crime. Some of that has to be laid at Thatcher's door. In the words of John Cooper Clarke: "Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies / In a box on Beasley Street". Created a legacy that Gordon Brown squandered? That's pretty simplistic. Every government since Thatcher has just continued to promote Thatcherite policies. Her legacy is a disenfranchised under-class, an overly congested south east, the privatisation to the greater detriment of the people of things that used to belong to them - railways, water, post-office etc - casino banking (and over-reliance on banks to provide the country's tax revenue), the squandering of North Sea oil revenues, the death of a British economy that makes things, increases in crime. The supposed boom in the British economy was created out of two things: women going to work (lower birth rate, more stress, higher divorces, less family time) and personal credit (buy it now, try and pay for it later).
The Japanese deep coal mines were nearly all closed down at around the same time as the British ones were, the 1980's. The loss of Japanese miners' jobs equated to an increase in manufacturing industry jobs there. The loss of British miners' jobs equated to an increase in unemployment here. Clearly deep coal mining was not economically viable, and the decision to close the mines was justified in a sense, but contrast the way M Thatcher's government did it with the Japanese experience. And the social consequences. The USA approach was the Thatcherite one.
A school friend of mine's father was the personnel manger for the Westoe Colliery in the NE of England, at the time the biggest colliery in Britain. He left to take up a non mining personnel managers job in the Midlands, I asked him why he was going and he told me that there was no future in mining and that he had personnally seen a large list of collieries scheduled for closure, that was in the late sixties, long before Thatcher. But I do take the points that you make Glidd and Pete.
We need to get back to manufacturing and exporting. The stumbling block is that the UK workforce has an overinflated view of its worth.
Yes but manufacturing and exporting what? Going back to making simple products & commodities which can now be made more cheaply elsewhere is hopeless - those days are long gone. Nor can we make PC motherboards in competition with Taiwan, or TV sets against Thailand. Rolls-Royce aero engines, Airbus wings, Bentley cars - those are more like it. Better still is to make distinctive things like SatNav software, books, music, computer games, films - stuff which consumes few material resources, employs highly skilled creative people, and is high value-added. Some clever coding on a tiny chip is best of all - consumption of resources nil, potential profits huge. Britain has an amazing capacity for making scientific and technological discoveries in many fields, to an extent far beyond the level our population and size would imply. We also have a proven reputation for giving up later, and handing over the lead to other nations. Obviously that needs to change, as people have been saying from Harold Wilson onwards. Not sure how it could be achieved, though. Easier said than done.
I wish ... I apply for ( and worked in quite a few over the past few years) anything and everything, but am continually getting told "we don't feel the position would offer the right challenge to someone of your experience" ... and I'm talking about real bottom of the pile stuff here on minimum wage (and you'd better believe that many very big well known companies are finding ways of paying less) - I have rejections from jobs as diverse as engineering departmental head (one of my many previous positions) through to 'temporary, short notice, refuse collector on non-guaranteed hourly contract of min wage +1p' ..... so basically they could call you up at 1 hrs notice and offer you a 4 hr shift (ie someone called in sick) for less than £25 - not exactly a highlight when I didn't even get interviewed for that one, but that's how the cast aside over 40's/50's are being treated in UK today. Unfortunately my bank manager insists I pay the mortgage with cash and doesn't care if I'm over-qualified so wont allow me to have an inflated view of my worth!
