You should check out your facts Bret…Harold Wilson (Labour) actually closed more pits than Maggie ever did.
Our friend was a miner. He said that, after the troubles died down, he was glad never to have to go down the pits again. Having been down one myself during a trip to Yorkshire, I can see why.
I can’t remember the name of the pit but one was kept open as a museum and our friend broke his vow never to go down another and came down with us (even got Mrs mart down in her wheelchair). A dire place to work I’d say. One that a person would get used to but not a good environment.
We used to travel from Denaby to Barnsley while we were staying with them and could see new shopping centres, factories and businesses springing up all over the vast stretches of flat land between those two towns. I can’t say without actually living there but that entire area of Yorkshire appeared have recovered from the pit closures and even looked to be a boom area as regards business and employment. Maybe OGF would be able to say if that really is the case now.
Troubled times with Mrs Thatcher but right or wrong, I don’t believe her policies are anything to do with current day problems. It’s too far back in history for that to be the case in my opinion …all apart from one thing.
We both lost our houses in failed marriages and eventually ended up in a council house. She allowed us to buy it. We have since sold and moved on. This was maybe not good but the real mistake was that councils were not allowed to build another council house for each one sold. Hence a shortage of housing today.
If I could ask one question of her it would be why more council houses weren’t built with the money from sales.
We may be frowned on for buying a council house but I think most under the same circumstances might have found it hard to resist on the grounds of principle. We therefore benefited under the Thatcher era. Whatever her faults, she could never be accused of being wishy-washy like today’s politicians seem to be, trying to please all people by blowing in the wind and ending up pleasing nobody.
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A good post Mart, and it more or less describes the reasons why I believe the things I do concerning Brexit, my environment and the Thatcher years.
In her later years Mrs Thatcher realised it was a mistake to be part of the EEC as it was known then. She could see where it was eventually leading (total control from Brussels) One of the reasons she was stabbed in the back by her colleagues. The upper classes made lots of money out of the common market and were loath to have to leave the gravy train, irrespective of the trade, industry and jobs that would be lost as the EEC sucked the life out of this country and leaving it in the condition we see it today.
One of the reasons she adopted the slogan of ‘Buy British’ a philosophy we should adapt today. I worked in the engineering sector. There were factories in abundance scattered around Sheffield, Rotherham and Barnsley. Factories full of skilled engineers but sadly lost today. The EU, with their red tape and compliance rules made it difficult for small family run establishments to compete with the large global conglomerates. And with the demise of the coal, fishing and steel producing industries all the engineering firms and communities who supported those industries were also lost or turned into poverty and decay. Farmers also bought their machinery from foreign based factories instead of home grown machinery resulting in the closure of the massive International Harvester company, just up the road from me, that was purchased by Case with production moved to Italy. The story is a common one around here with companies like ICI, Crompton Parkinson’s, Pilkingtons Glass, SR Gents…and many others who either went out of business or moved to foreign countries. It all comes from China now…
So no, this area has been devastated now with a large influx of foreign nationals occupying whole streets of slums, with no work to speak of shops have closed and the local population have moved out of town into the suburbs. Fortunately it is recovering but the work is very different to the sixties, seventies and eighties. It now consists of mainly warehouse jobs in the many warehouses that have recently sprung up the size of small African countries packed to the rafters with Chinese manufactured goods while our skilled people are either retired or are assisting shoppers with advice or helping them to find stuff in the local B&Q…Which again is all produced in China.
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I’ve always thought the answer to that was simple - Thatcher hated the notion of social housing and knew that many who became house owners would vote Tory. It was a form of gerrymandering, the worst examples happening in Westminster borough. But I very much agree that this was a bad decision and in part led to our current housing crisis.
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Actually the selling off of council property was first mooted by a labour government because they were skint and saw it as a good way to make a quick buck…
Quote:-
Yet from the mid-70s some influential Labour figures, such as Harold Wilson’s press secretary Joe Haines and Jim Callaghan’s economic adviser Gavyn Davies, began to wonder whether renting from the council, often for life, was a satisfying way for such Britons to be living, and also whether governments could afford to keep building the necessary properties. By the late 70s, the Wilson and then Callaghan administrations were increasingly short of money; and their more forward-thinking members were increasingly interested in the growth of consumerism and private property, and how Labour might adjust to it, before the other parties could take full advantage. Both Labour governments built progressively fewer council homes. In 1977 a high-profile housing study by the Callaghan administration accepted that “for most people, owning one’s house is a basic and natural desire”. The language used by Labour and the Conservatives to talk about the issue was beginning to converge.
I’m no fan of Thatcher, she was just another self-serving politcian, as far as I’m concerned.
But whilst there were people badly effected by her policies, it was more politics than anything else: a show of left/right wing argy-bargy. Many more people benefited from her policies, the majority being “ordinary hard working” folk. People who were able to both own property and invest in the stockmarket for the first time. Earning big money was no longer something to keep quiet about, not to boast about either but it wasn’t shameful. And we did earn good money and we partied. I’m just glad I lived through those times, Today we are far more divided … because of those days? hmmm I don’t know. Thatcher was just one factor in what brings us to where we are today.
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Your insight into mooting is interesting but meaningless. The Labour government might have finally acted on their early moots but that does not mean the resulting freedom to buy council houses was also directly linked to not building more. That took the Tory Housing Act of 1980. We can ponder over mootings right, left & centre all we want but all that matters is the details of the statutes implemented.
Even Arthur Scargill tried to use Thatcher’s right to buy policy.
Scargill used Thatcherite policy in bid to buy London flat - BBC News
Hi
Very simple really.
I would simply say give us a kiss darling, in a broad Yorkshire Accent.
That would get to her.
So? My point is that it was not bad, in of itself, to offer long term tenants the right to buy the place they called home. For a fair price. All very positive. My point is that it was very wrong to stop council house building along side that. That was the mistake.
… and when a block goes up around here nowadays the flats are mostly private sales, next to that part-ownership, with a small percentage of social housing. I think there’s rule saying there’s got to be at least a few council/housing-trust properties, for people already living in the borough.
How long have they lived in the borough for and under what circumstances?
Oh I don’t know Chilli. But I’ll vouch for you, say you’ve been lodging in my attic for 20 odd years, we can’t take it anymore but he’s a good lad really. 
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You’ve got an attic in a west London post code area… very posh, when can I move in d00d?
I promise to play my Stranglers albums very quietly… honest guv! 
are you nice 'n sleazy?
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I’m not telling, things aren’t always black and white 
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I’m also one of those fortunate folk who was able to purchase my council house, thus securing a better future for my family, after working non stop in my lifetime. I think it was disgusting the way Mrs Thatcher was treated by her party, and all the stupid, “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead”, rabble, who need to focus on some real horrors. Like Hamas & Hezbollah lover, Jeremy Corbyn, who has supported just about every nutcase regime going. There are plenty of other loonies, Scargill, Starmer, Owen Jones, Momentum, and loads more too numerous to mention. Mrs Thatcher left office with great dignity, for which I salute her. It’s a pity the weasel politicians we have at the moment, don’t take inspiration from her career.
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John, are you still grafting now? Your country needs you. 
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You seem to have taken a shine to the word ‘Moot’ Lincs, since you have referred to the word three times…I’ll make a Yorkshireman of you yet…
I remember interest rates were high at the time of us buying our council house. Coped OK though. I mended an extra video recorder or TV and Mrs mart cut or styled a few more heads of hair. 
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