P.K. Posted May 8, 2009 Share Posted May 8, 2009 Why? Think I'm making them up or something? It's like the current furore over MP's expenses. The Torygraph very selectively puts up the cabinet figures. Oh yeah, right. Brown isn't stupid, not by a long way. He has pledged that ALL MP's claims will be in the public domain come the summer. This made me think that they know a great many senior tory figures will currently be suffering from squeeky-bottom syndrome. Making an election in the autumn the biggest mud-slinging exercise yet seen in British politics. Sure it could be me. Maybe... While we're about here's another Thatcher "achievement" - pre-Falklands she managed the lowest popularity score EVER for a sitting PM in the history of British politics. Saatchi & Saatchi have a great deal to answer for... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gladys Posted May 8, 2009 Share Posted May 8, 2009 She did away with free school milk too. Can't remember if it was as PM or Min of Ed under Heath. Not such a big deal you say, but it was at a time when nutrition of the nation was not good and was another example of her disregard for the less fortunate - just illustrative of the woman really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P.K. Posted May 8, 2009 Share Posted May 8, 2009 "Thatcher Thatcher - milk snatcher!" Strange from such an out and out cow... Education wasn't it? You know, when your brief is to raise the bar... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
La_Dolce_Vita Posted May 8, 2009 Share Posted May 8, 2009 She did away with free school milk too. Can't remember if it was as PM or Min of Ed under Heath. Not such a big deal you say, but it was at a time when nutrition of the nation was not good and was another example of her disregard for the less fortunate - just illustrative of the woman really. Probably better for kids that she did. Children don't need milk. Maybe children should be offered a nutritious food source that is very good for them for reasons to try and ensure that all have a good diet. Don't understand why it should be milk though. Lactose, caseine, fat, etc. It is food for cow's babies, very weird that people drink it and talk about it as if it is necessary part of our diet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gladys Posted May 8, 2009 Share Posted May 8, 2009 How can you come to that conclusion LDV? Possibly not so important if the diet is otherwise good, but it is an excellent source of calcium for growing bones and teeth, or is that a myth? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gladys Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 On that point, you do realise that the diet of your parents lays the foundations for your health and wellbeing, don't you? So if your parents had a poor diet even if you enjoy a good diet, you will not thrive as well as a child whose parents have also enjoyed a good diet as children. It is not to do with learning good eating habits, but rather what is nutritionally passed on to you during development in the womb. Children's diet is not just important for them but also the health of their progeny. I don't know the exact science, but something to do with passing on the ability to assimilate good nutrition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
La_Dolce_Vita Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 How can you come to that conclusion LDV? Possibly not so important if the diet is otherwise good, but it is an excellent source of calcium for growing bones and teeth, or is that a myth? Sorry Gladys, I went back to edit my post. Yes it is a good source of calcium, but you read more and more about the problems with milk. It is quite unnatural that we drink it. It is designed for calves, not humans. It contains substances designed for baby animals, not children and animals, and in the case of cows milk is nutritionally balanced for a calf's needs. When you think of our lessened ability to digest lactose, the effects of caseine on our digestion system and minds, and the fact that cows gets mastitis it doesn't seem that wonderful. You don't need to get calcium from milk. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/200...nddrink.weekend http://www.notmilk.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gladys Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 You, naughtily, edited your post. Cows' milk is a good, not perfect, analogue of human milk and can pass on the required nutrients. In an otherwise poor diet, it is a very good bolster and is readily available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evil Goblin Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 She did away with free school milk too. Can't remember if it was as PM or Min of Ed under Heath. Not such a big deal you say, but it was at a time when nutrition of the nation was not good and was another example of her disregard for the less fortunate - just illustrative of the woman really. And I suppose that the fact that most school milk was either not taken up by the children or was just poured away because it was sour had nothing to do with it? You and PK are as bad as each other. I wouldn't be surprised if the pair of you blamed Thatcher for World War II! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rog Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 Lady Thatcher, or Mrs Thatcher as she was, was quite possibly the very best PM that Britain ever had. She took a country on the brink of bankruptcy (in every sense) and turned it into a place where lame (and dead) duck industries were dealt with appropriately. She destroyed the unions who had long passed simply providing the means for an organised workforce to withstand unfair employers and employment practices and had become power brokers in their own right. She freed an entire nation so that individuals could achieve the best that they were capable of. Many communities were broken up but in reality those communities only existed because what was holding them together was subsidised by others through taxation. Coal being mined at a cost in excess of what it could be sold for was a classic example. Today the UK is in an even worse state than when Mrs T came into office and it’s only that the debt that the UK now carries is being carried by people who have huge mortgages to pay houses bought in a vastly over inflated housing market that is preventing the true state that NuLabour has dragged the UK down to being obvious. I really want to see a latter day Thatcher government come into office. The country needs it and The Isle of Man needs it because despite what many people may think the Island is absolutely dependent on the Mainland. The pain will be horrendous, but it will be the pain that comes with recovery. Thatcher was the surgeon that cut out the malignancy, a malignancy that had it been left unchecked for even a few weeks more would have utterly destroyed Britain. And the Isle of Man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted May 9, 2009 Author Share Posted May 9, 2009 Got a link for those figures? Why? Think I'm making them up or something? You aren't particularly clear in what you are saying about the current Nulabour government: what does "+/-6 or 7" mean. The information I see is pretty ambiguous that Nulabour have been any better at reducing inequality than Thatch - in fact quite the opposite - there is evidence that it has got worse under them. I don't deny relative poverty increased while Thatcher was in power - whether absolute poverty did is debated - but overall the country prospered. The Figures available from the World Inequality Database basically agree with what you are saying with it going from 92 to 131 under Thatcher. But in 2003 (the last year figures are available, when comparing like for like) inequality was at 137 (using your metric compared to 1961) (a gini of .35); when Nulabour took over in 1997 it was 132 (.336). So 12 years of Nulabour have pushed it up too - remember that when you get outraged about Maggie - Mssrs Blair and Brown have been just as bad if not worse. Edited to add - In doing the above I was using old figures I'd been working with previously - checking out the latest data before posting they have updated their results - they are 133 in 2005 and 125 in 2006 - that is the same level as existed in 1988 - between 1979 and 1988 ie the majority of Thatcher's reign inequality was less than it was in 2006, and for the majority of Nulabour's rule it has been higher than Thatcher ever had it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rog Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 The fly in the ointment in the case of the NuLabour lot is that the prosperity has been based on the nation as a whole taking on unprecedented levels of debt. Equity release and money injection into the economy came about y the inflating of the housing market with the funds being provided from overseas, in other words debt to overseas sources. Government spending on lunatic ideas, hugely generous and widespread spending of taxpayers money added to by Brown issuing Gilts like a man with no limit saw more inflation, and the open door policy to expand the population (and so cream off more cash) added yet more. The whole thing was smoke and mirrors just as the present government backing of banks and industry as that too is based on borrowing yet MORE money from overseas. Except the majority of the borrowing is planned borrowing, come the day the loans are actually applied for the government are probably going to be in for a nasty shock when they take the gilts to market and no one wants to buy. Under Mrs. T borrowing was kept to a minimum and so instead of making the cake bigger she reduced the sizes of the slices in some cases to zero. Give me Mrs. T’s strategy any time because all that this shower is doing is pushing an even bigger problem foreword in time and to be resolved by whoever is next in office. What is of real concern, or should be, is that the fundamentals behind Britains economy are broken. The balance of trade is all to hell, at the last count 80% of the working population work in the service sector so creating next to no foreign earnings, and the City is never going to become what it had been allowed to become under Brown. I suspect that what has been experienced so far as regards the recession is nothing compared to what’s coming down the pipe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P.K. Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 Got a link for those figures? Why? Think I'm making them up or something? You aren't particularly clear in what you are saying about the current Nulabour government: what does "+/-6 or 7" mean. The information I see is pretty ambiguous that Nulabour have been any better at reducing inequality than Thatch - in fact quite the opposite - there is evidence that it has got worse under them. How is what I have posted ambiguous? It's crystal clear that Thatcher increased the gap by a disgusting 39 points to 131. Like her popularity plunging in 1981 that's an all time British record. Just how hard is that to understand? "+/- 6 or 7" means that since Thatcher's thirty-nine point rise it's only moved plus or minus six or seven points. I believe it's currently at one hundred and thirty-four. So labour have increased the gap by three points, or a pathetic one thirteenth of Thatcher's effort. Must try harder... While we're on about her "achievements" I was in a seminar when John Harvey-Jones told Thatcher to her face that she was the worst thing that ever happened to British manufacturing. This is the man who turned around ICI and he was right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evil Goblin Posted May 10, 2009 Share Posted May 10, 2009 Ah, PK, this would be the same Harvey-Jones who saved ICI so well that it then had to be dismembered in order to enable most of it to survive? You should choose your idols more carefully! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evil Goblin Posted May 10, 2009 Share Posted May 10, 2009 BTW, PK, you should read this quote from the noted mathematician John Allen Paulos when discussing things like poverty/inequality measurements: "The mathematics may be exact but the judgements, guesses and estimates supporting its applications are anything but". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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