Baroness Margaret Thatcher Has Died

[Tempus Fugit]

Mind you, who's idea was it to put the little Gurkha at the back?

the bearers were graded in height with the shortest at the front, so your 'little Gurkha' probably wasn't so little being behind the Guards

[Domino]

The Para coffin bearer, number three on the right hand side, will be getting some stick from his oppos tonight for sweating like a pig with 'Hope I don't drop Maggie anxiety'.

[Lost Login]

The bringing down of the miners union was as significant as the Falklands war to the tories. It was planned years in advance, the union was presented with a set of demands guaranteed to bring them out on strike in the early spring, when coal demand would be at its lowest for the next five months

 

By the time demand had increased the imported coal was well organised and the miners went through a winter with no income, which eventually finished them off

 

They had also stock piled a considerable of coal prior to the strike and with Mrs Thatcher's henchman Ian Magregor having been brought in as Chairman of the NCB you did not have to be able to read a crystal ball what the intentions were. You just had to look at British Steel.

 

I am not saying changes were not need but as you said Thatcher had a plan to basically raise to the ground

[Domino]

And all these years later, when we are scrimping for any energy available, the mines are still shut. She must have got it SO wrong to shut them down as unviable.

[P.K.]

Normally I don't bother with silly little trolls. But available energy did have a huge bearing on Maggie's "success", such as it was.

 

When Thatcher came to power North Sea oil investment was starting to pay off. Basically when she was elected was the time the UK went to being self-sufficient in oil. The UK went from being a net importer to an exporter. Better than that, thanks to OPEC, the price went from about $14 per barrel to about $37 due to OPEC restricting supply to push up prices.

 

The other day that nice Ken Livingstone stated that NS oil was worth 15% of GDP - which is a very big number. Like all these things it depends on who you believe. But there's no doubt it had a very large effect. Some think that extra revenue would have been better spent investing in industry to make it more profitable for the good of all. Some think that bonanza was squandered on the alter of political dogma i.e. breaking the miners.

 

We'll never know. But if Thatcher had had a duty of care towards ALL of her citizens I can't help thinking the outcome would have been very different...

[Albert Tatlock]

We'll never know.

We do know. When did the UK last have a positive balance of payments? When did people in the UK last think how much a gallon of fuel costs? We're paying nearly the same for a litre today as we ever paid for a feckin gallon 4 years into her 'reign'. She pissed most of the money and the contents from the North Sea on the police and trident. Short-termism was the order of her day. The accountants put in charge of her industries (raped by the financial sector) invested only a tenth of profits in R&D compared to the rest of europe.

 

We do know.

[P.K.]

I have to say that cutting the R&D budget tends to be the first response by useless UK so-called "management" to straightened times...

[Lost Login]

And all these years later, when we are scrimping for any energy available, the mines are still shut. She must have got it SO wrong to shut them down as unviable.

 

Basically the mines were just abandoned and left to flood with the result that really no matter what the price of coal is they will never be viable to open again. It is one thing closing if they are not viable and and you believe it is the correct decision. It is another to basically sabotage so they can never reopen and leaving a large amount of a potentially useable and valueable commodity unaccessable by future generations.

[Albert Tatlock]

 

And all these years later, when we are scrimping for any energy available, the mines are still shut. She must have got it SO wrong to shut them down as unviable.

 

Basically the mines were just abandoned and left to flood with the result that really no matter what the price of coal is they will never be viable to open again. It is one thing closing if they are not viable and and you believe it is the correct decision. It is another to basically sabotage so they can never reopen and leaving a large amount of a potentially useable and valueable commodity unaccessable by future generations.

You can't really say that. Everything suddenly become viable again when the price is right. Just look at the 'formerly uneconomic' mines that have reopened since the massive rise in rare metal prices.

[Lost Login]

 

 

And all these years later, when we are scrimping for any energy available, the mines are still shut. She must have got it SO wrong to shut them down as unviable.

 

Basically the mines were just abandoned and left to flood with the result that really no matter what the price of coal is they will never be viable to open again. It is one thing closing if they are not viable and and you believe it is the correct decision. It is another to basically sabotage so they can never reopen and leaving a large amount of a potentially useable and valueable commodity unaccessable by future generations.

You can't really say that. Everything suddenly become viable again when the price is right. Just look at the 'formerly uneconomic' mines that have reopened since the massive rise in rare metal prices.

 

Maybe I slightly exagerated but the point is the mines could either have be mothballed or abandoned. Correctly mothballed they can potentially be re opened and reworked at some potential point in the future at a reasonable cost. Abandoned they can only be reopened if the value increases exponentially and technology changes to cope with the challenges. Thatcher chose to abandon in the expectation that would mean they could never re open.

[Albert Tatlock]

Abandoned they can only be reopened if the value increases exponentially and technology changes to cope with the challenges. Thatcher chose to abandon in the expectation that would mean they could never re open.

I understand your point and don't underestimate it. But equally, don't underestimate the search for resources and the money they will throw at it over the next fifty/hundred years, before they finally get nuclear fusion to work reliably.

 

IMHO.

[cheeky boy]

Normally I don't bother with silly little trolls. But available energy did have a huge bearing on Maggie's "success", such as it was.

 

When Thatcher came to power North Sea oil investment was starting to pay off. Basically when she was elected was the time the UK went to being self-sufficient in oil. The UK went from being a net importer to an exporter. Better than that, thanks to OPEC, the price went from about $14 per barrel to about $37 due to OPEC restricting supply to push up prices.

 

The other day that nice Ken Livingstone stated that NS oil was worth 15% of GDP - which is a very big number. Like all these things it depends on who you believe. But there's no doubt it had a very large effect. Some think that extra revenue would have been better spent investing in industry to make it more profitable for the good of all. Some think that bonanza was squandered on the alter of political dogma i.e. breaking the miners.

 

We'll never know. But if Thatcher had had a duty of care towards ALL of her citizens I can't help thinking the outcome would have been very different...

 

 

From "The Spectator":

 

"It is easy to forget just what this dope has done for the UK economy over the last three decades. British politicians from Lady Thatcher to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown love to hector Europe about our superior economic performance. Yet without North Sea oil, there might have been no Thatcherism as we know it. Certainly James Callaghan, Thatcher’s predecessor, reckoned that whoever won the 1979 election would stay in office a long time thanks to the oil revenues that were about to start gushing in — a lament that old Labour stalwarts like Tony Benn maintain to this day."

[P.K.]

From Aunty Beeb:

 

"The Daily Mail, which devotes its first 23 pages to coverage of the funeral...."

 

When I first saw it I thought it just HAD to be a misprint. But then it is The Daily Wail which is essentially an unfunny comic. Dear oh dear oh dear, TWENTY THREE pages of sycophantic, gut-wrenching, drooling drivel on Thatcher. It's enough to make you weep.

 

I know I've posted this before but indulge me as it still appeals:

 

 

I much prefer The Daily Mash version of events:

 

The Mash Guide to the Final Journey

 

1) Baroness Thatcher’s coffin leaves Westminster and is taken up Whitehall to Downing Street where it will be removed from the hearse and dropped on Geoffrey Howe. A soldier, sailor and RAF pilot will then kick the former foreign secretary in the stomach for a full minute.

 

2) The coffin is then taken to the former BBC headquarters at Bush House where it will be used to smash open the doors before the union flag is removed temporarily and stuffed into Evan Davis’s smart-alec mouth.

 

3) At Bush House the coffin will be placed on a gun carriage used in the miners’ strike and flanked by serving members from 14 of Britain’s biggest hedge funds.

4) The coffin continues along the Strand where it will stop for 90 seconds so that some hippies and communists can tell it to fuck off.

5) In Fleet Street, a representative of the Murdoch family will place on top of the coffin a single white rose and a large gold brick

6) At Ludgate Hill the coffin will then stop for another 90 seconds where a platoon of middle-aged women from Guildford will stand guard around it while chanting ‘she was too good for the lot of you’.

7) The procession then continues to St Paul’s Cathedral where it will be officially upstaged by the Queen and Geri Halliwell.

8) The coffin will then be carried into the cathedral by members of the cast and crew of Top Gear.

9) The funeral service will be conducted by some Christians through gritted teeth. Readings include St Paul’s Letter to the Saudi Arabians Urging Them to Buy a Shitload of Tornado Fighter-Bombers.

The body will then be removed from the coffin, placed in a large perspex tube and taken to a secret underground laboratory in Liechtenstein.