On Thu, 2 Aug 2012 08:51:54 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

On Thu, 2 Aug 2012 00:08:30 +0100
"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote:
The disaster is also the result of
policies from the first Boris administration coupled with current
government policies. No blaming the opposition this time.

It'll probably happen regardless. Conservatives learned to blame past
governments where necessary from Blair - and there were times when he blamed
the Macmillan government so there's precedent for resorting to this line for
a few decades yet.

In certain cases it is justified. The thatcher government did screw up
british industry and mess up the trains. The blair government did preside
over a pointless war, flagrant public spending and ideoligically based mass
immigration just to stick one to the BNP. These arn't things the following
government can change in the space of 5 years.

Did the Thatcher government screw up the trains? That's not how I
remember it.

On Thu, 02 Aug 2012 12:55:43 +0100
Recliner wrote:
In certain cases it is justified. The thatcher government did screw up
british industry and mess up the trains. The blair government did preside
over a pointless war, flagrant public spending and ideoligically based mass
immigration just to stick one to the BNP. These arn't things the following
government can change in the space of 5 years.

Did the Thatcher government screw up the trains? That's not how I
remember it.

Perhaps it was Majors government. Anyway , it was one of the tory governments
who privatised it. BR was far from perfect but it was a lot better and cheaper
to run than the mess we have today.

B2003

On Thu, 2 Aug 2012 12:18:40 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

On Thu, 02 Aug 2012 12:55:43 +0100
Recliner wrote:
In certain cases it is justified. The thatcher government did screw up
british industry and mess up the trains. The blair government did preside
over a pointless war, flagrant public spending and ideoligically based mass
immigration just to stick one to the BNP. These arn't things the following
government can change in the space of 5 years.

Did the Thatcher government screw up the trains? That's not how I
remember it.

Perhaps it was Majors government. Anyway , it was one of the tory governments
who privatised it. BR was far from perfect but it was a lot better and cheaper
to run than the mess we have today.

So, you misremembered [1] who privatised the railway, despite being
interested in the subject -- I wonder how much political history the
average citizen remembers?

[1] Maggie was no lover of the railways and avoided travelling on
them, but she was also smart enough not to attempt to privatise them.
She was long retired when Major privatised BR. Major was desperate to
privatise anything left in the nationalised industries cupboard, and
knowing he was going to lose the next election, did so in a way that
made it very hard to reverse.

On Thu, 02 Aug 2012 13:37:04 +0100
Recliner wrote:
So, you misremembered [1] who privatised the railway, despite being

Yes fine mea culpa. But the point still stands. Anyway, thatcher might not have
done railways but she did do BT, British Gas, water and probably a load of
other smaller ones that I've forgotten.

She was long retired when Major privatised BR. Major was desperate to
privatise anything left in the nationalised industries cupboard, and
knowing he was going to lose the next election, did so in a way that
made it very hard to reverse.

Unfortunately flogging off the family silver is a standard tory response to
the treasury cupboard looking bare. Heavy borrowing is the Labour response to
the same.

B2003

On Thu, 2 Aug 2012 12:50:25 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

On Thu, 02 Aug 2012 13:37:04 +0100
Recliner wrote:
So, you misremembered [1] who privatised the railway, despite being

Yes fine mea culpa. But the point still stands. Anyway, thatcher might not have
done railways but she did do BT, British Gas, water and probably a load of
other smaller ones that I've forgotten.

Most of those have improved through privatisation. You forgot BA, BP,
electricity, none of which were small.


She was long retired when Major privatised BR. Major was desperate to
privatise anything left in the nationalised industries cupboard, and
knowing he was going to lose the next election, did so in a way that
made it very hard to reverse.

Unfortunately flogging off the family silver is a standard tory response to
the treasury cupboard looking bare. Heavy borrowing is the Labour response to
the same.

And PFI. Remember how Gordon Brown managed to find an even worse way
of privatising the Tube than Major did BR?

On Thu, 02 Aug 2012 14:01:22 +0100
Recliner wrote:
Most of those have improved through privatisation. You forgot BA, BP,

Well , thats debatable. They could have improved anyway. No large industries
in the UK bar finance were particularly well run in the 70s and 80s and
i'm not convinced that converting a public monopoly into a private one
benefits the end consumer. Privatising BA and BP made sense as they operated
in a competative market. Gas & water? Not in my opinion.

Unfortunately flogging off the family silver is a standard tory response to
the treasury cupboard looking bare. Heavy borrowing is the Labour response to
the same.

And PFI. Remember how Gordon Brown managed to find an even worse way
of privatising the Tube than Major did BR?

Gordon Brown - what can you say? Probably the worst PM since Wilson.

B2003

No. He was the worst since Tony Blair. My early adulthood was during the
Wilson era and I remember that period well. He certainly wasn't a
good P. M. but no-one, not even Thatcher, was as bad as Tony Blair.
Indeed Tony Blair's one genuinely remarkable achievement as Prime
Minister was to manage to be even worse than Thatcher.

One of John Major's promises about privatising the railways was that it would
at last get the railways off the tax payer's back. As the tax payer now coughs
up far more to support the railway than it ever did under nationalisation,
I'd love to hear John Major's view of that. Why is he never asked his
opinion on a current affairs programme like "Today?"

On Thu, 2 Aug 2012 17:37:36 +0100
Robin9 wrote:
Wilson era and I remember that period well. He certainly wasn't a
good P. M. but no-one, not even Thatcher, was as bad as Tony Blair.
Indeed Tony Blair's one genuinely remarkable achievement as Prime
Minister was to manage to be even worse than Thatcher.

Well, Blair did preside over the biggest ****up of british society in
hundreds of years with Labour metro liberal immigration ideology that no one
outside islington dinner parties agreed with or wanted so he was certainly
a disaster - but Brown had exactly the same ideology and given the same
length of time in office as Blair he'd have probably made even more of a
mess and didn't even have the acting skills to sell the nonsense he spouted
unlike Blair. Luckily he only got 3 years instead of Blairs 10.

Not that the current bunch are much better. There isn't a collective pair
of balls between them.

B2003

It isn't their lack of testacular fortitude that alarms me. It's their lack of brain cells.