Margaret Thatcher RIP;!...

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Steelworkers' clogs - fireproof, see?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Am I alone in wondering how only the UK had to close down all these uneconomic industries, like car making, steel, ship building, deep coal mining etc, while other European countries with similar wage costs managed to make them profitable?

Is the answer none of those countries have unions?

[djc]

Profitable? Propped up with state subsidy more like. The current state of Europeana economies suggests the reckoning may yet arrive.

[Steve Firth]

Which mythical countries do you refer to?

Those countries where the businesses you refer to are profitable are few and far between. Germany can do it. Errm that's about it.

Where business is productive and unionised the unions have entered into "no strike" deals with management and concern themselves only with wage bargaining and workers' welfare. Countries like Germany and errrm what's the name of that country? Oh yes, the United Kingdom.

SAAB - gone Volvo - not far from gone Daf - gone and subsumed into Volvo Fiat - limping along an coughing up blood still loses about EUR 1bn pa Lancia, Alfa dead and badge engineered from Chrysler Deep coal mining - never profitable and closed in every European country. Poland and the Czech Republic produce coal, it's open cast mined, not deep mined. Citroen - dead and now just badge engineered Peugeots

You're living in a fantasy.

BTW, Britain's car industry is doing rather well, but perhaps you hadn't noticed? Over 80% of the cars produced in Britain are exported and our export market is growing at close to 10% pa overall with some makers increasing sales 25% pa. Britain actually produces more cars than Germany, where sales have declined "Germany - the largest economy in Europe and one of the biggest car manufacturers in the world - saw its car sales drop 10.9%. France fell by 17.9%, Italy fell by 25.7% and Spain declined by 36.8% from September 2011." (BBC)

Steel making in Britain hit its peak after 1984 and only declined in the last couple of years - largely seen off by cheap Indian and Chinese competition. Its still ahead of Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Austria but there's over-supply in the European market and Britain has not competed with Germany for steel production for decades.

Like most of the left wing you seem to want to sit and whine about what was, instead of building a future and your grand vision of the way things should be is for British workers to compete with the third world as a source of cheap, unskilled labour.

[harry]

The intention was there.

[harry]

The Tretower coliiery was run as a co-operative after the miners strike. It was run with half the manpower as previously and you had to pay to join/work there.

[harry]

The answer is that governments don't know how to make a profit. They were producing stuff that no-one would pay an economic price for. And we were not alone. The USSR and it's satellites had exactly the same experience.

[dennis]

They had unions that helped investment rather than fighting it.

Or they switched from native workers making stuff to cheap immigrant workers making stuff like the large number of "Turks" that were in the German car factories.

[The Natural Philosopher]

in the case of unions, we designed the German industrial law post WWII for them. So unions never had the same power.

In te case of France, they simply subsidise everything. The tacit arrangement of the EU is with germany '; we do the farming, which you pay for, you do the engineering, which you pay for'.

Eastern Europe as was, are so9 happy to have any money at all, and hate communism so much, that the unions are a lot smarter and are anti-sovcialist.

[Steve Firth]

says a lot.

Yes it says that your friend's Uncle couldn't afford to stay at the Ritz.

Envy is a terrible waste of time and emotion.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

So the answer to the Uk's woes is more immigration?

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Probably better at it.

[stuart noble]

says a lot.

It's not envy at all. We are entitled to ask how a public servant and her odious offspring have amassed sufficient dosh to behave like royalty. The words "ill" and "gotten" spring to mind.

[Tim Streater]

Met them, have you?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Then apply that instead to the Milbands, to Blair, to Huhne, to Clegg, as well as the odious Tim Yeos.

They are all at it with expense account fiddling, chairmanships of companies whose corner they fight *against the public interest* or property deals *whose capital gains are guranteed by engineering property booms*...and don't get me started on 'renewable energy'...

Politics is a lucrative career, as long as you are prepared to accept that it has little or nothing to do with acting in the public interest or on behalf of those that elected you.,.

[whisky-dave]

that says a lot.

And why isn;t a hospital good enough for Ms Thatcher . I can understand why she wouldn;t want to be at my mums hospital as they couldn;t even suply her with pickle on the cheese sandwich's they served. Or why she had to wait 10mins for a kermode as there werent; any aavailible. or the many other facilitoies they canb;t suply on the NHS. As you say it might be interesting to see how sh eamassed her money, I trhough she was paid from tax payers money or maybe she struck some deal with friendsd in certain industries. Perhaps her son takes after her but he got caught. She was also good pals with Jimmy savile although I doubt she knew that he was a peadophile, sometimes the company you keep tells you something though.

Hopefully truth will come out one way or another as it has done with JS. Unless of course there are people important or rich enough to alter things.

[John Williamson]

that says a lot.

As I understand it, she wasn't ill enough to require a hospital bed until after she had her final stroke. She was frail and had failing faculties, that's all. A hotel was her preferred residence, or she could have stayed at home, needing 24 hour assistance on hand. Her money to spend as she wanted.

After the sroke, she would have been taken to hospital, had she survived it.

couldn;t even suply her with pickle on the cheese sandwich's they served.

trhough she was paid from tax payers money or maybe she struck some deal with friendsd in certain industries.

Initially, she chose the right husband. I thought this was general knowledge. After she became famous, she became richer, as happens to those in power, no matter which side of the political fence they're on.

[Man at B&Q]

that says a lot.

Who says it wasn't?

couldn;t even suply her with pickle on the cheese sandwich's they served.

Who says they should be able to? Did they claim they could and then fail, or what?

Is that Mark, or...?

How far should the NHS go?

MBQ

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Her husband Dennis was said to be very wealthy. Dunno what he actually worked at. After she left office she was in great demand as an after dinner speaker. At which she was very good - and would have commanded a high fee. And, of course, her pension as an MP.

What I wondered about was her ending up in an hotel for such a long period

- most with dementia would prefer being at home and cared for there - which she could obviously afford. Of course the less well off end up in a home of some sort, or geriatric facility.

[whisky-dave]

her son was a loan shark and involved in some sort of coup ? her daugther a radio presenter.

Yes I doubt her pension suffered in the same way others have. I think a room at the ritrz starts at about £400 a night, but maybe she u sed Groupon voucher.

It does seem rather strange, but perhaps she knows the staff better than he r own family.

if they get lucky.

Perhaps she had a good deal from a health company.

would be intresting to know more about this, but prying into medical record s might be a bit much even if I didn;t like her or what she did there are s till lines I'd draw. celibrating her death in a pub is one thing, but I won 't be out demonstarting at the funeral that's just not on AFAIC.