RIP Sir Patrick Moore

[Huge]

Would that this were true. Apparently, it's all Thatcher's fault. Even after 22 years.

[Bob Eager]

Yes.

[harry]

Or gold/silver. Land. Anything indestructible or what people can't do without.

Devaluation is usually with respect to other currencies.

[harry]

Yes I was. I was a hospital engineer. It was a non-event. A few laundry workers didn't turn up for a day or two. They had to catch up with the work not done over the next few days when they came back. It's called lip service.

There were no picket lines or any banner waving.

It was a labour gov, at that time anyway. Callaghan. There's a bit about it here.

of what was reported was crap, exaggerated by the Press.

But it whole country was in another socialist cockup. Inflation was twenty odd percent.

Which Maggie had to fix. The strikes elsewhere played into her hands. She announced what she was gonna do, got voted in and she did it. People could see socialism in action. Mayhem and ruin then as it was under Bliar. There's no North Sea oil to bail us out now either. Maybe shale gas?

Some people here like to rewrite history.

[harry]

Everything is dumbed down these days. Can you think of a single TV program that isn't?

[Another John]

+1. Standards were lowered in order to achieve the entry levels for "50% HE participation", and Universities have progressively lowered their standards to accommodate the progressively less-able intakes.[1]

And in among all that: the end of what I believe Thatcher called "the binary divide" which separated universities from polytechnics ("we're all universities now"). ("...and in any case: since we'll have no manufacturing industry whatever by 2010, we don't need polytechnics any more. But what we *do* need is a self-financing unemployment scheme for those hundreds of thousands of young people whom we will be denying jobs.")

*Furthermore*...

[1] From the late-90s onwards it became almost impossible to fail a student who did badly in his/her exams. Re-takes, re-re-takes, re-re-re-takes, appeals, investigations, and finally pressure put upon the department by the hierarchy to pass the student anyway. All those resources expended to try and rescue someone who shouldn't have been in the boat in the first place, when those resources would be far, far better expended upon the students who pass first (or at least second) time.

So given all that: how does an employer assess a graduate recruit? Even one who claims to have First Class degree? When a "First" might be from a crap department in a good university, or a crap department in a crap university? Add to that the hike in fees, and it's no wonder that intakes are falling. A good thing too: perhaps in a generation the country might be back to the situation in the 60s-70s, when anyone with a degree from any of the "redbrick" universities could be recognized, at least from the CV, as being worth interviewing.

Oh by the way: RIP, Sir Patrick!

[harry]

Taking a degree is a waste of time for many. Costs them, employers know they have been dumbed down and too many are about worthless topics. (eg media studies) They would have beeb better off attending one of the old Technical Colleges if there's any left.

No wonder they can't get a job after university.

[Andy Champ]

Umm... show me the currency that will buy the same quantity of goods today as it would have bought... say 50 years ago. Quoting the price of TVs or some such doesn't count, I mean goods in general.

Andy

[charles]

yes, because Maggie's foreign policy encouraged them.

[John Williamson]

So this:-

a faked picture, then? Typical of sights outside many hospitals and other places of work throughout the country.

If you'd said that you didn't see any,you'd be a lot more credible to those of us that did see such picket lines.

[John Williamson]

Well, you do use an odometer to measure kilometres.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The confusion arises because you imply that today's degrees involve some sort of education.

[Tim Lamb]

I worked in manufacturing control systems/ electrical engineering and was made redundant through the years 1960 to 1983.

My recollection is that manufacturing was hugely inefficient/labour intensive and struggling to make profits once the post war recovery period came to an end.

Take-overs followed by down sizing may have caused union membership to burgeon giving their leaders an impression of strength. What did the strikes at London Docks achieve? Red Robbo and British Leyland was it? Achievement?

Free trade agreements allowed cheaper imports and put pressure on our manufacturers to reduce overheads. 3 day working week somewhere in here.

I think Maggie came in following the beer and sandwiches at no 10 and set about ignoring the trade unions.

My second redundancy came in 1983 (Thatcher years) and was directly caused by a foreign manufacturer deciding to rationalise production across several countries coupled with further automation. This led to the same value of product leaving the factory but using a fraction of the site and about 25% of the workforce. How can anyone blame Thatcher for that?

The coal miners were in a declining industry and allowed themselves to be led into strike action which appeared to accelerate that decline.

[Bob Eager]

What has happened, in practice, is that the pre-1992 universities skim off tbe best, with the remainder going to the converted polytechnics. Now, *some* of the latter are good, but the rest are really rubbish.

[Andy Champ]

Now, now, Bob, a man in your position really shouldn't say things like that about the institutions that compete with yours.

I, on the other hand, can happily say that there are some places seen on CVs that get "That knocks that one out then". And as you say they seem to be converted polys. Not all of them.

Andy

[Bob Eager]

They don't compete!

(actually, they really don't; they offer more 'vocational' degrees)

Yes, I know of some converted polys that are really very good. Brighton (at least for computing) comes to mind.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

British Leyland later failed yet again as Rover without the 'help' of Red Robbo. They quite simply never had the investment needed to build competitive cars in a world market. Nothing to do with the unions - much as it suits some to think so. Although lack of investment and appalling management makes a good breeding ground for militant unions.

All you need to tells us now is how the German car makers survived and prospered - with higher pay rates.

[Frank Erskine]

What has this to do with Sir Patrick Moore?

Please do try to keep to the subject, or start a relevant thread.

[stuart noble]

National treasure, eccentric, lived with his mum. Uh oh..... Only joking

[charles]

which came first, the lack of investment or the militant unions? I', reminded of the incident in Neville Shute's biography where he describes (during WW2) visiting a factory making anti-aircraft defences for small boats to say how useful the kit was and couldn't they up the prodcution rate. Immediate response was from the shop stewards saying if the equipment was so good, they should be paid more for making it.

This attitude could well have made BL management hold back on investment in plant - which would probably have cut the number of jobs.