I hope this doesn't descend into chaos but here's my twopennorth.

Looking back, I remember the miners strike, and the aforementioned conflict. And whilst my father wasn't a miner, he was a soldier, as was my Uncle, and both served in the Falklands. My other Uncle was a postie and was a member of the Grimey band, and continues to blow with miners bands all over.

The idea of Thatcher using the conflict to win an election (and I certainly don't come across this as a universal truth and or opinion) is a line I do hear from miners and ex miners on a regular basis. I don't hear it from the soldiers who went to the South Atlantic, which seems at odds with this line of thinking. What makes it even more crass is that a lot of miners did very well from the redundancy packages they recieved, some of them from several pits, and have since done quite well from VWF, tinitus, emphesema etc whilst the rest of the population has had to just get on with the ailments caused by their trades.

And yet the miners still hold themselves up as objects of pity. And I get it almost every time I go down the club to sit with a bunch of men who haven't worked a day since they left the pits because they haven't needed to.

Oddly enough at the time of the Argentine invasion the RN was in the process of being disbanded, piffle you may say, but it was. The need for a Navy was massively low on priority in Monetarist circles. The 1982 conflict enabled various chiefs of the defence staff to secure funding to continue with the development of the Navy and various programmes, Rapier, Harrier, MLRS, which proved vital 9 years later.

The monetarist line was I admit, harsh and cold, and Thatchers battles with the Unions are often thrown up as examples of her brutish and calculating approach.

I do however find it a little frustrating that the actions of one government (that in reality halted the counterproductive effects of the unions,see France at the moment) have permanently affected your ability to make balanced,reasoned and evidenced voting decisions on your own. How can anyone say "I shall never vote X". What if the policy if your chosen party was so at odds with market common sense and the opposition policies sat much more in line with what was best for the country in the longer run? Would you just not vote?

No doubt she chose her moment well, coal stocks were at their highest levels ever at the power stations, but I don't really want to get into a "Thatcher is the root of all evil debate"

But if memory serves me right, there was no strike ballot, and I think you'll find that it was the arrogance of Scargill who railroaded the mining industry into the ultimately disastrous strike, which decimated the industry.

I grew up in a midlands mining town My dad wasn't a miner but my grandad was, as was our neighbour. The perception amongst many at the time of the strike was that Arthur was arrogant (as per Billy's point on the ballot) and also that this rubbed salt into the feeling that when local pits had been threatened and closed under a labour government he hadn't supported a call for industrial action - in other words that he was just as political as Thatcher was.

I don't think there is any question that Thatcher welcomed an opportunity for confrontation with the miners and had prepared well for it - remembering her predecessors disasters of 1973.

As regards the Falklands I don't believe the conflict was sought but she certainly seized the opportunity to turn into into a jingoistic festival. Without that she would very likely have lost the next election.

A profit of £100m - some things to consider:

1. How much capital you have employed to generate that profit

2. It also depends how much of that profit is operating profit

3. What does the cashflow position of the company look like - as the saying goes profit is sanity but cash is king

4. What are the long term order books looking like - it could be they don't look so hot so it makes prudent sense to downsize now in order that supply of labour matches matches demand for product two years down the line - that is the job of management - strategy!!!

Maybe you could answer these questions rather than getting on your high horse - then we can have an informed debate or you could just name the company we can get a set of accounts from companies house and continue the debate based on fact rather than annecdotal notions

Whilst you have asked valid questions (even though one of them shows you didn't read my post fully) you still have to end up with the typical sort of dig that is typical of many on here.

Such a shame that many of you cannot have a serious debate.

So if it offends then ignore the last sentence and answer the serious questions, you can't have a serious debate if you are not prepared to contribute.

I have answered the serious questions



Unlike some on here, I can't answer posts at whatever time of day they come in at and I cannot see how you can imply that I haven't contributed.

Well if you just look a couple of posts above this one you'll see one that asked some questions for you to answer, you preferred to complain about a dig at the end rather than answer the questions.

I appreciate you may not be able to but they do provide some insight into the issues that you raised on the previous page, why ignore them ?

If you read my response again you will see that I have put my answers in bold in the quoted post from Serge A. Storms.

Move along please, nothing to see here...

OK name the company and we will be able to get a set of stat accounts from companies house and we can verify that what you say is correct and have a serious debate.

£300m cash contribution to the parent? was that just a repayment of funds lent to the company by the parent in the first place?

So many imponderables - just name the firm what's the big secret?

They are making a sixth of the workforce redundant so yes.



He evidently can't answer this.

I live down south nowadays, so forgive me if I've got my wires crossed...

But I was told that 'one' of the reasons the refuse guys were being asked to take a paycut was due to the council's oversight in not reacting to the 'equal pay' issue that raised it's head (via europe?) 3 years or so?
The council are now under pressure to be seen to pay equal wages to men/women, so rather than raise the wages of the female staff, they have opted to bring the men' wages down to the ladies level - and in turn, save a load of cash.

Like I say, I don't know if this is true or not - but either way I think the whole thing reflects really badly on the council - unless of course all the council bigwigs are also taking a 20/30% cut....

If they raised the wages of the females it would require a hike in the council tax of approx 18% - a non runner.

And law suggests the ladies in the office should earn what the bin men earn - not sure if that is correct but that is how I read it