General Election June 8th

[bluethrunthru]

She took assertive action on situations that had been swerved for years by weak politicians and limp-wristed managers. She took on tin-pot militants like Scargill on her own ground and reversed the millions of man hours lost every year to petty disputes. Yes, she was instrumental in closing down lame duck industries but this prepared the ground for radical new thinking: namely that industry and commerce actually needed to be competitive and customer responsive. These truths are taken for granted now. In her day they were heresy.

She fought vested interests and caused short term pain, which is why some hate her. In so doing, she jolted attitudes into the 20th century. That was the catalyst for a relatively prosperous Britain that was otherwise heading down the pan.

she closed down manufacturing in the North. She squandered our oil wealth on supporting the 3m plus unemployed she created ( unlike Norway and look where they are now ) .She proclaimed there was no such thing as society and brought in the me, me, me culture that still pervades today and whilst closing the mines, manufacturing and a traditional Britain that a lot of people now want back. She caused pain because her strategy was to close down ailing industries with no fucking plan on how to replace the job losses that caused and she took no account of the fact that her policies did nothing to address the fundamental failings in UK industry.

Why were we uncompetitive? Mostly because there was a lack of investment by the owners of those businesses to improve productivity. BL cars were shit because of the unions and not because up until the 1990's most relied on the A series engine developed in the late 1940's? Nobody invested. Those in "the City" did well out of things like the big bang but that money leeched out indirectly off shore and directly to Porche and BMW. Why? Because BL was shit and hadn't been invested in.

Her ideas continue to cause pain to this day - productivity in the UK is piss poor compared with EU competitors like Germany and France and the rest of the world laugh at our income inequality and the resultant poor investment levels in industry and poor productivity for such a large economy. Thats why they come and snaffle our rail and utility companies and cream off our money in subsidies - and who was in power when that privatisation bonanza was going on eh?

 

[urban genie]

But it isn't tho.

GEC at trafford park closed 2002 under labours watch.
British Aerospace (Chadderton) might have finally closed when the Tories were in power but all the damage was done earlier. Thousands were employed on the site, and the apprentice school used to take on 60-80 apprentices a year when the Tories were in power. All the mass redundancies and shipping people off to Woodford etc happened under Labours watch.
Mather & Platts was renowned for pumps, not food packaging etc and the site at Newton Heath was gutted and the mass redundancies happened under Labour.

Wasn't GEC trafford park though soley Alstrom by then and not part of the british owned side of the old GEC business with no connection to BAE or Marconni?

So the decission to close was on the part of the french parent company and nowt to do with the government of the day?

 

[bluethrunthru]

But it isn't tho.

GEC at trafford park closed 2002 under labours watch.
British Aerospace (Chadderton) might have finally closed when the Tories were in power but all the damage was done earlier. Thousands were employed on the site, and the apprentice school used to take on 60-80 apprentices a year when the Tories were in power. All the mass redundancies and shipping people off to Woodford etc happened under Labours watch.
Mather & Platts was renowned for pumps, not food packaging etc and the site at Newton Heath was gutted and the mass redundancies happened under Labour.

Eh? So the company GEC / Metrovick had long since existed in that form when it became a branch of Marconi in 1999. I would guess several changes of owner and moving production around new owners organisation did more to devastate the company from 1960 to which to refer.

I was wrong - 2012 not 2011 when when BAE Chaddy shut. Of course when a Tory Govt was in power but you choose to claim Labour closed it. Not again rationalisation in a Europe wide organisation - Chadderton may have shut but I'd guess jobs were moved to places like Woodford. And that was the direct result of the actions of a Labour Govt? Can you just say what Labour did to cause that?

Again Mathers were taken over - its called international trade in a capitalist world - and so pumps assembly was moved and the nature of the production at Mathers was changed to packaging. Again I'd ask you to state specifically what did Labour do to affect that change?

More worryingly is the fact that skilled production jobs were moved abroad probably because it was cheaper to produce there ( India? ) and probably due to the UK skills shortage - you know all those apprenticeships that were binned in the 1980's under Thatcher. Her bold and visionary review of UK plc continues to have its effects today as skill shortages persist due to the lack of time served qualified labour that stems from her industrial policy. Furthermore we plug that gap with skilled labour that benefits from free movement around Europe - we are about to choke that supply off then who will keep the skilled manufacturing jobs in the UK? Maysim is as narrow minded as Thatcherism and will be equally negative - and sadly folk like you will blame it all on Labour and the Unions over 40 years ago

 

[bluethrunthru]

Wasn't GEC trafford park though soley Alstrom by then and not part of the british owned side of the old GEC business with no connection to BAE or Marconni?

So the decission to close was on the part of the french parent company and nowt to do with the government of the day?

In five years time a skilled job in the UK will be making cornflake packets at Mathers - the rest will have been moved to where the skills are in Europe by the business owners - the Governments of EU countries. We may control our borders and prevent people coming in ( easy when none of them want to come anyway as there are no skilled jobs ) but we won't be able to control the jobs going out.

 

[Ghandi's Flip Flops]

Wasn't GEC trafford park though soley Alstrom by then and not part of the british owned side of the old GEC business with no connection to BAE or Marconni?
So the decission to close was on the part of the french parent company and nowt to do with the government of the day?

One of GEC at Trafford Park's main threat came when the power industry was privatised (by the Tories of course) and it was under severe chance of closure. This was averted by shifting to building Gas fired power stations and the Tories enabling policies to encourage & compensate for this, with what became known as 'the Dash for Gas'.
Loads of gas (or CCGT) power stations were then built between 1991 and 2002 which pretty much kept GEC trafford park operating (and also power engineering within the UK).
When Labour came to power they removed all the previous incentives that were there, which pretty much killed off power engineering in the UK (and why we now need to use French companies like EDF to build our new power stations),

Also there was approx 140 seperate companies under the GEC banner around the 90's-2000, with i think 7 (GEC Traction & Hotpoint included etc) based at Trafford Park. GEC Traction were involved in Metrolink and although i'm not sure exactly what happened, it was inferred to me by people involved that certain actions & decisions by Labour when in power, greatly led to its demise at the site.

Leading up to site closing there was various mergers & sell offs, with a lot being cherry picked by foreign institutions & companies before being dissolved.

 

[hilts]

Balaclava man protecting rich pensioners and property owners, Tories grabbing a death tax, posters arguing which politician is the most ill informed the black or the white one. Just need Paul Nutall to marry a polish nanny and Tim farron to accept democracy and we have a full set.

Strange times.

 

[MellowJoe]

May trying to merge Tory and Labour..

'Laboratory'? sounds scientific.. and we love that.

 

[bluethrunthru]

Also there was approx 140 seperate companies under the GEC banner around the 90's-2000, with i think 7 (GEC Traction & Hotpoint included etc) based at Trafford Park. GEC Traction were involved in Metrolink and although i'm not sure exactly what happened, it was inferred to me by people involved that certain actions & decisions by Labour when in power, greatly led to its demise at the site.

Leading up to site closing there was various mergers & sell offs, with a lot being cherry picked by foreign institutions & companies before being dissolved.

Fucking Labour bastards eh? Up to things that look like no good according to people who may or may not know and disguising themselves as foreign businesses to buy up UK businesses - will they stop at nothing to fuel conspiracy theories............

 

[bluethrunthru]

Balaclava man protecting rich pensioners and property owners, Tories grabbing a death tax, posters arguing which politician is the most ill informed the black or the white one. Just need Paul Nutall to marry a polish nanny and Tim farron to accept democracy and we have a full set.

Strange times.

Taking the homes off dead peoples families is being billed as the biggest stealth tax in history according to the Bow Group. Who they? The oldest Conservative Think Tank who boast John Major, Geoffry Howe, Norman Lamont, Michael Howard , Peter Lilley, Ken Clarke, Daniel Hannan and Norman Tebbit in their number - My is going all out to fuck their major constituency off - I am starting to think she has a fiver on Labour - suspicious betting patterns from Number 10?

 

[MellowJoe]

Don't see anything wrong with the principle of the social care proposal... anything above 100k you pay. As if you haven't been dealt good enough cards already is irrelevant. Inheritance is a bigotry anyway. I hope more rational policies like this are implemented.