The alternative is responsible capitalism.

Where companies and individuals don't engage in shady deals, or move money glabally to avoid paying their share of tax. Especially when those same companies are benefitting from the products of other taxpayers' largesse. Look at the companies that make $bns from internet services (Google being just one example), how much did Google invest in starting up the world wide web?

The state (in a global rather than domestic sense) is usually the major investor in proposed new technologies. Pioneering medical treatments, communications, alternative fuel technologies, even now-mundane things like colour LCDs (Hull University) were generally pioneered and developed by the state, most of them via the military. The funding for that came from taxation and we are now in the situation where private and publicly quoted companies feel it is somehow right to avoid putting anything back into the system.

Have a look at some of the works of rlMariana Mazzucatorl especially rlThe Entrepreneurial Staterl

I accept that the so-called socialist states that we've seen so far have not been raging successes but unregulated capitalism can hardly be called anything like a success either. One thing is certain, rolling back the state will lead to a reduction in responsibility, we're already seeing that in the NHS, where the Secretary of State for Health (Hunt) is seeking to absolve himself of any responsibility for what happens in the NHS. That must not be allowed to continue.

Back on the original topic, it's also interesting to read about rlTower Collieryrl, a mine deemed uneconomic and earmarked for closure, yet the miners bought it and worked it for another 14 years.

This.

To addFT[/i This book has a controversial thesis. But it is basically right. The failure to recognise the role of the government in driving innovation may well be the greatest threat to rising prosperity."

In 1974 when Wilson got to power - the miners agreed a 30% wage increase with the NCB - I would say that was writing your own pay check would you not agree?

The introduction of more modern machinery would see a decline in numbers - that is just process improvement nothing to do with Wilson - its just evolution.

I agree with your sentiment re Scargill - my point is how much of what he did was about self-interest i.e. war against the capitalist rulers and all the lefty codswallop. The question for me did he actually shorten the life of the mining industry and cause he members unnecessary hardship just for his own political ambitions. Another point is why did Thatcher pick specifically on the NUM for the fight?

In 1974 when Wilson got to power - the miners agreed a 30% wage increase with the NCB - I would say that was writing your own pay check would you not agree?

The introduction of more modern machinery would see a decline in numbers - that is just process improvement nothing to do with Wilson - its just evolution.

I agree with your sentiment re Scargill - my point is how much of what he did was about self-interest i.e. war against the capitalist rulers and all the lefty codswallop. The question for me did he actually shorten the life of the mining industry and cause he members unnecessary hardship just for his own political ambitions. Another point is why did Thatcher pick specifically on the NUM for the fight?

Its not really news is it. We all knew of her lies. They say history is the only judge. Well the votes have been counted and the polls are in. When she died they had street parties, they danced on her grave. When the man she dismissed as a terrorist died the world mourned. History has judged, her reign was weighed, measured and found massively wanting. She will, forever be remembered for the damage she caused. Its over.

She is irrelevant. Her Children on their ideological crusade are the worry now. They are what needs to be stopped so they don’t leave the legacy she did. Fighting ghosts isn’t going to help.

~mod hat on~

Cut out the abuse and the follow-on from that.

Perhaps a more relevant and accurate appraisal of the iron Lady can be found in The Economist;

[iJudged from the grand historical perspective, Mrs Thatcher’s biggest legacy was the spread of freedom—with the defeat of totalitarianism in its most vicious form in the Soviet Union, and with the revival of a liberal economic tradition that had gone into retreat after 1945...[/i


The Baroness does indeed still cast a long shadow, and I suspect there will be some who will be forever in it.

Read the AUP on quoting from newspapers etc. Mintball

Behave.

Thousands of people took to the streets of London to see her off.

A few left wings bigots celebrated.

in other news, the peoples daily is a big fan Xi Jinping.

52605 paid money to celebrate her death. There were bonfires and street parties in Brixton, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Belfast Cardiff, 3000 in Trafalgar Square. All corners of the uk. They asked to hold a minutes silence at the football games that weekend and were laughed out of the room.

As that well known left wing propaganda piece of the left The Economist said " Perhaps no previous recipient of a state send-off—not even William Gladstone—has inspired such loathing as Lady Thatcher."

To be fair, there was that bloke who had "she never turned" tattoed on his shin

It wasn't 52,605 people though was it? It was a few thousand people that purchased a record over and over again.

3000 people in Trafalgar square? Is that it? There were 2,300 at her funeral....

I think you need a bit more evidence to suggest this "History has judged, her reign was weighed, measured and found massively wanting. She will, forever be remembered for the damage she caused. Its over".

You might think this. The majority don't.

It always makes me smile that when all else fails, you left wing types resort to childish insults, and regurgitate the same old nonsense......and best of all, some of you actually believe it!

We are well aware that The Iron Lady was not without her faults, the Poll Tax her most glaring one, and it was the self same faults that lead to her eventual downfall, but as the first woman Prime Minister of Great Britain I think her accomplishments far outweigh the petty antics of the morons you seem to set great store by.

Anyhow, here's the link to replace the paragraphs La Mint rldeletedrl.

Feel free to make an educated rebuttal of the analyisis.

Can you provide evidence only a few people purchased the track over and over?

And yes that's 3k in Trafalgar Square, with more throughout the towns and cities of Britain.

They didn't celebrate as much when Shipman died. In fact I struggle to remember anyone since Hitler whose death was greeted with as much celebration in this country.

It is forever now, recorded historical fact that large numbers of people actively celebrated her death, whereas the man she dismissed as a terrorist was almost universally mourned. I can think of no more clear cut decision that history can hand down to a PM than dying an old, irrelevant woman, unable to wipe her own bottom, still hated, still reviled, with people dancing on her grave. I don't believe in an afterlife, so that is just about as close to hell as I can imagine.

the only opinion in there was that they were laughed out of the room when discussing a minutes silence for her. In fact what fans group said was "it would be a disgrace and an insult to all football fans"

Everything else I put is recorded fact