On 16/03/2015 20:52, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/15 20:03, bert wrote:
In message , The Other Mike
writes
On Sun, 15 Mar 2015 09:51:04 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

It is however reasonably common to hate someone who has tried to
destroy
you, take your savings and kill your children.

It is however reasonably common to hate someone who has tried to
destroy your
life, destroy your industry, decimate your community, left you and
your kids and
everyone you know with no jobs and no hope. Maybe even someone in
government
proposing abandoning an entire city.

Right **** that Scargill

I always assumed he was paid to destroy the mining industry. And the NUM.




His ambitions were much greater than that, he wanted to bring down the
government as well, and probably even introduce Communism. Stalin was
his hero.

--
Peter

On Tue, 17 Mar 2015 17:01:39 +0000, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

And Thatcher selling off the family silver will perhaps never be sorted
out.

This "family silver" was, mostly, freshly acquired and/or founded, very
very little of it pre-war, and quite a bit of it only in the '70s.

British Aerospace? A nationalisation and sellotaping-together of the
failing remnants of a handful of private manufacturers in 1977, barely
four years before privatisation.

Cable and Wireless? Nationalised in 1947, privatised in 1981.

Jaguar? Nationalised as part of BL in 1975, privatised in 1984. Ah, the
late '70s, early '80s. Truly the glory years for Jaguar...

BT? The most successful private telephone company was taken over by the
Government in 1896, then the GPO was spun off from a Government Dept into
a public corporation in 1965, then privatised in 1984

Britoil? Only founded in 1975, then privatised in 1982.

British Gas? Various regional gas companies were nationalised in 1948,
merged into a single body in 1972, then privatised in 1986.

British Steel? 14 private steel companies were nationalised and merged in
1967, then privatised in 1988.

Rolls Royce? Nationalised in 1971, to save it from bankruptcy, then the
car division privatised in 1973, before the remainder was privatised in
1987.

BA? Failing BOAC and BEA nationalised in 1971, sellotaped together in
1974, then privatised in 1987.

Water? Various bits created in dribs and drabs from 1930, but only really
coming together and forming a real national monopoly from 1973, then
privatised in 1989.

Electricity? About 600 private companies nationalised in 1948, but
Thatcher didn't get around to nationalising it - that was in Major's era.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Adrian wrote:
There are some natural monopolies for which there is a strong argument
for nationalisation. They are few, basically just major infrastructure
provision. Railtrack, OpenWorld, Transco, National Grid. That sort of
outfit. I don't see any great natural monopoly in train/electricity etc
provision using that infrastructure.

When anything has to share bits owned by someone else, there are
inevitably going to be problems.

Different train companies using the same track and infrastructure, which
they don't control.

ISPs using the BT phone lines, etc.

Buses competing on the same routes.

Because of this they need regulating.

No they don’t with buses competing on the same routes.

Not quite sure how regulating lots
of different companies is easier than one.

It isn't, but you do get the advantages that come with competition.

On 16/03/2015 23:34, The Other Mike wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 22:58:43 +0000, "Dennis@home"
wrote:

On 16/03/2015 21:09, The Other Mike wrote:

Having little mass manufacturing in the UK the nearest you'd get to it today is
if computers were banned worldwide and the entire IT industry were out of work.
Having known nothing other than computers for years and with no other skills
then they are unemployable doing anything. Stick them on the dole for a
generation or two. Let the ****ers rot.


Blair did that with the telecoms manufacturing in the UK.
He removed about £35 billion from the telcos forcing them to stop
investment for a couple of years which allowed China to build
competitive equipment at a cheaper price.

Just how did he do that then with private industries? A windfall tax? What
date exactly?

They fiddled the 3g license auctions to get silly money, which they then
wasted BTW.

They did it by making sure there was one license less than the current
mobile operators so one was going to be in serious trouble when they
didn't win.

This money would have been used to develop telecoms in the UK but
because the idiot Blair extracted it it delayed all the telecoms
investment by a couple of years.


Of course we didn't become useless as we went out and did something
different rather than sitting on our arses complaining there was no
telecoms manufacturing anymore.

An old mate of mine involved in PABX software development at Plessey went
permanently overseas just before Thatcher was ousted because the arse had fallen
out of the market despite the Siemens 'merger' and the prospect of European
sales to offset the flatlining UK

As far as the mines and steel industry was concerned some did have transferable
skills (electricians, mechanical fitters, hydraulics, process control etc) But
if you were an actual face worker or in a melt shop then you were stuffed and
certainly in the coal industry a number moved overseas to the former colonies.
For steelworkers there really was nothing, hence the mess of South Wales,
Teesside, Corby, S****horpe and Sheffield.

The mid 1980's onwards were never a time of expansion of labour in the UK.
Losses always massively outweighed gains, mass manufacturing industry was dead
and the service sector barely existed.


Is that why there are more people employed now than then?

On 17/03/2015 08:05, News wrote:
In message , john james
writes

For those too stupid to move away from those areas once they had died.

Difficult to move away once you've died ... :-)

Poor old Maggie. No middle ground - people either love her or hate her.

It was Blair I could not stand, not necessarily because of his politics,
but his insincerity. That awful grin, and desire to be loved. Always
saying what he thought people wanted to hear. Maggie was the Marmite of
politics - Blair was the Hughie Greene of politics.

I take it you don't like Farage either then.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
john james wrote:
You get the same result if you use the number of miners
too, more lost their jobs under Wilson than Thatcher.

Can you provide figures to support that?

http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-620/h--...g-empl-006.jpg

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
In article ,
bert ] wrote:
I mean here we are 30 years on from Thatcher and no lanbour
government has bothered to fix all the things she screwed up.

And here we are at the end of a maximum length parliament with Cameron
etc still blaming everything on Labour.

Well they made such a cock up of everything it'll take more than 5 years
to sort it out. We are still borrowing c£90bn per annum mostly just to
pay the bills so debt is mounting at a corresponding rate.

And Thatcher selling off the family silver will perhaps never be sorted
out.

A lot of the silver was somewhat tarnished.
--
bert

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
bert ] wrote:
I mean here we are 30 years on from Thatcher and no lanbour
government has bothered to fix all the things she screwed up.

And here we are at the end of a maximum length parliament with Cameron
etc still blaming everything on Labour.

Well they made such a cock up of everything it'll take more than 5 years
to sort it out. We are still borrowing c£90bn per annum mostly just to
pay the bills so debt is mounting at a corresponding rate.

And Thatcher selling off the family silver

There was no family silver involved. She just stopped
having the state do as much as it used to do.

will perhaps never be sorted
out.

It's not about sorting out, it's about doing things differently.

On 15/03/2015 21:59, john james wrote:


"Capitol" wrote in message
...
Dennis@home wrote:
On 15/03/2015 11:19, John Rumm wrote:

Even if one did believe those things, there will still be some things
that happened in more than a decade of government that is not to hate.
e.g. defence of the Falklands, or the creation of TESSAs etc.

I bet the socialists think raising the minimum wage is better than
removing those on minimum wage from income tax like the present
government has done.


Brown introduced the minimum wage

No he did not. ALL he changed was some of the detail.

Could you remind us who was Chancellor in April 1999 then?


--
Cheers,

John.

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On 16/03/2015 18:58, The Other Mike wrote:
On Sun, 15 Mar 2015 21:38:56 +0000 (UTC), Adrian wrote:

On Sun, 15 Mar 2015 18:37:52 +0000, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Thatcher lovers seem to take any such criticism as 'hatred'.

Seems that opinions of Thatcher mainly fall into two camps these days, a
quarter of a century after she left office...

* Those who virulently despise every single mention of her name, and
blame her for pretty much everything.

* Oh, right. Whatever she did or didn't do, there's been a quarter of a
century and four PMs since, perhaps it's time to get over her?

The vast majority of problems with the UK today have their roots in Thatchers
junta and the bumbling tit Major that followed it.

as rants go, it starts out ok...

Seventeen years of wasted
north sea oil revenues,

Are they being used differently now? ISTR it was a labour gov that
started the trend on how the revenue would be used (i.e. straight into
government coffers, rather than targeted at any specific project)

crumbling national infrastructure, millions on the dole,

For a while... however its easy to forget they were in effect on the
dole before - mining coal we could not sell - while acquiring
occupational diseases into the bargain.

soaring interest rates,

They were preferable to soaring inflation.

exhange rates all over the place, privatised utilities,

I don't have any problem with privatised utilities as such. They were a
pain in the arse to deal with in their state control days, and they
still are (for different reasons).

north sea gas ****ed away generating electricity to make ****s like Enron very
rich, financial deregulation, dependence on gas imports from unstable states.

We don't actually buy much gas from unstable states. Gas is also an
ideal fuel to generate electricity from, so again not sure what the
problem is.

P.S. Blair and Brown were not much better, but whatever the problem UKIP are
never the answer.



--
Cheers,

John.

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On 16/03/2015 10:19, Another John wrote:
Well, it's been a good old shouting match, but I'm bowing out, since we
long since proved Godwin's Law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law (for "Hitler", read
"Thatcher"!) I've got a cold water cistern to sort out...

My parting shots, as I steam over the horizon, are for John Rumm
(incidentally one of the most thoughtful and highly respected people in
this group - thanks John!)

Don't get all mushy on me now ;-)

In article ,
John Rumm wrote:

Its funny how different perspectives alter the opinion. I would strongly
agree that she changed the nation, (although very much for the better
IMHO)

You clearly haven't been much north of a line running through the
Leeds-Liverpool conurbation; and definitely not into the coalfields of
North Durham (as one example).

Its true that I have not lived in those communities. However I do
understand how to them at the time it really must have seemed as if the
government was out to get them, and it felt "personal".

It was a revolution that needed to happen for the country at large.
Could it have happened more gently? Possibly, but its hard to see how,
since any attempt at more gradual management of the dismantling of the
industry would have been resisted ever step of the way by a union that
would have attempted to bring the government down again. It was not
until it could be demonstrated that the most powerful union could be
defeated, that the process of modernising the uk could actually begin.

however more importantly, she saved a nation from terminal decline.

Well, she certainly changed the nation. "**** society" would be a
two-word summary. (with the corollary "as long we we retain all the
power" ... which they always do.)

Society seems to have survived... even the oft taken out of context and
misinterpreted "there is no such thing as society" quote does not seek
to undermine society, but simply to get people to take some
responsibility for their own lives.

However, its history, she is long gone.

As others including me have said: Thatcher is gone, but she made
irreversible changes.

For example selling the nation's infrastructure into private hands

A collection of loss making industries and services that were costing
the tax payer, transformed into profitable ventures now nett
contributors to tax revenue and investment/pension fund income. A model
copied the world over then, and still being copied today.

(conning the public withe the assistance of their friends in the
advertising business). As a result of which at least half of our power
generation (for example) belongs to foreign companies (including -
surprise - the French state).

I also note that none that have
followed have chosen to reverse the major reforms that her government
introduced.

Yes: for me, that was Blair's biggest betrayal: instead of attempting to
moderate Thatcher's legacy, and to reverse the trends, he and his chums
bought into it wholesale, and accelerated the process of privatisation.

Perhaps he realised that the public had no appetite for
renationalisation or many of the old socialist idealogical goals? Hence
if he wanted an electable labour party, they had to be left behind.

What would you like to see - a quick regression to the late 70's? Would
that wrong all the injustice?

No, and NO! I would have liked to see Blair (who was voted in on an
anti-Thatcher swing),

I thought he was voted in as a labour leader who finally how well
conservative economics (note small "C") actually work in practice and so
could be trusted to not shaft the country financially quite as quickly
as previous labour governments. ;-)

It even lasted for a year or two.

promote the idea that the essence of a great 21st
century nation is a sense of a community in which there are "fair
do's[1] for all".

Note: I said "fair", not "equal". I am not a Socialist. (whjatever tha
means.

John

[1] Sorry, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa: I really hate that apostrophe
there, but I've never found a way of typing that word without one.



--
Cheers,

John.

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On Tue, 17 Mar 2015 11:04:02 +1100, "john james" wrote:

"The Other Mike" wrote in message
.. .

The mines always required fewer workers as mining
techniques changed and mechanisation introduced and improved, many
innovations
being pioneered by UK companies and exported worldwide.

None were by the time Thatcher showed up.

That just shows just how little you know.
--

On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 23:09:27 +0000, "Dennis@home"
wrote:

On 16/03/2015 20:49, Nightjar "cpb"@ wrote:

The number of mines is a fairly good indicator of how competitive the
industry is. It started to decline after WW1. In 1923, we had 59% of the
global coal market. By 1945, that had dropped to 37%. The number of
miners dropped from 1.2 million to 0.8 million in the same time. The
advent of nuclear power and the introduction of the Clean Air Act
resulted in reductions in domestic coal consumption.

The clean air act has saved millions of deaths from lung diseases, the
public and miners. Who should we thank for that? I suppose Mike thinks
that was a conservative conspiracy against the miners too.

Dennis, presumably you mean me?

Clean air is good, not having to send blokes underground in cramped dusty
conditions even better, not having to wash a layer of grime from your windscreen
after parking near a steelworks, brilliant.

--

On Tue, 17 Mar 2015 18:00:43 +0000 (UTC), Adrian wrote:

Electricity? About 600 private companies nationalised in 1948, but
Thatcher didn't get around to nationalising it - that was in Major's era.

The White paper dated from 1988, The Electricty Act 1989 was the key legislation
passed that covered the privatisation of generation, transmission and
distribution assets along with their regulation.

It, and all the subsidiary legislation required for privatisation came into
effect on the 31st March 1990, the succesor companies were operating as separate
entities within the new regulatory framework overseen by OFFER from that day.

Thatcher was Prime Minister until the 28th November 1990
--

"The Other Mike" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 17 Mar 2015 11:04:02 +1100, "john james"
wrote:

"The Other Mike" wrote in message
. ..

The mines always required fewer workers as mining
techniques changed and mechanisation introduced and improved, many
innovations
being pioneered by UK companies and exported worldwide.

None were by the time Thatcher showed up.

That just shows just how little you know.

Then you won't have any difficulty listing the innovations in coal
mining being exported world wide at the time Thatcher showed up.

On 16/03/2015 20:28, bert wrote:
In message , John
Rumm writes
On 15/03/2015 19:14, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article , Tim Streater
wrote:
In article , Dave Plowman (News)
wrote:

In article , bert ]
wrote:
In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
In article , bert ]
wrote:
Clarkson is not to the best of my knowledge an employee of the BBC
and as yet no one has disputed that. BBC HR cannot take direct
action against a non-employee.

Don't be silly. Anyone working for the BBC as a freelance is under
contract to the BBC. And will in general be under the same control
as a member of staff.

Being on contract is very different to being on an employment
contract. Perhaps you have no experience of this.

I'd suggest you read a BBC free lance contract. Like all such things,
it attempts to own you.

Who says that's the sort of contract Clarkson is on?

It's the BBC.

BTW, have you ever read any contract you'd get from this sort of
organization?

It depends on if we are talking about a fixed term contract *of*
service (i.e. to all intents a contract of employment), or a fixed
term contract *for* services - a business to business contract made on
(broadly) equal terms that does not create an employment. The latter
can't "own" the service provider since it implicitly acknowledges that
the provider does not work for them.

Also where you have an individual that has multiple and diverse
streams of income (e.g. TV work, writing, public speaking, sponsorship
etc) chances are they will consolidate the whole lot through their own
company anyway - so someone contracting in that form would appear to
the BBC as an employee of a third party company, and not a freelancer
in the traditional sense.

(having said that - theatrical contracts and case law differ from
normal business practice)

Have you been reading IR35?

I doubt there are many in my industry who are not intimately familiar
with it ;-)

(note that while IR35 status is based on employment case law, it only
affects taxation status, so has little relevance for employment and
contract issues outside of tax)

--
Cheers,

John.

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On 17/03/2015 15:09, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
bert ] wrote:
I'd suggest you read a BBC free lance contract. Like all such things, it
attempts to own you.

Who says that's the sort of contract Clarkson is on?

Mr Plowman and he knows everything. Lest that's what he told me.

I've at least attempted to read and understand several free lance
contracts from assorted broadcasters, before signing them. And also seen
ones issued to talent.

Could you clarify what you mean by a freelance contract though? Are you
talking about a contract with an individual trading as a self employed
individual, or are you talking about a contract with an incorporated
body offering the services of one or more individuals?



--
Cheers,

John.

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In message , The Other Mike
writes
On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 23:09:27 +0000, "Dennis@home"
wrote:

On 16/03/2015 20:49, Nightjar "cpb"@ wrote:

The number of mines is a fairly good indicator of how competitive the
industry is. It started to decline after WW1. In 1923, we had 59% of the
global coal market. By 1945, that had dropped to 37%. The number of
miners dropped from 1.2 million to 0.8 million in the same time. The
advent of nuclear power and the introduction of the Clean Air Act
resulted in reductions in domestic coal consumption.

The clean air act has saved millions of deaths from lung diseases, the
public and miners. Who should we thank for that? I suppose Mike thinks
that was a conservative conspiracy against the miners too.

Dennis, presumably you mean me?

Clean air is good, not having to send blokes underground in cramped dusty
conditions even better, not having to wash a layer of grime from your
windscreen
after parking near a steelworks, brilliant.

Not being recognised as a Welsh strike breaker by having black legs even
better still.
--
bert

On Tuesday, 17 March 2015 17:02:16 UTC, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
bert ] wrote:
I mean here we are 30 years on from Thatcher and no lanbour
government has bothered to fix all the things she screwed up.

And here we are at the end of a maximum length parliament with Cameron
etc still blaming everything on Labour.

Well they made such a cock up of everything it'll take more than 5 years
to sort it out. We are still borrowing c£90bn per annum mostly just to
pay the bills so debt is mounting at a corresponding rate.

And Thatcher selling off the family silver will perhaps never be sorted
out.

and Brown selling the Gold, have we got any bronze we can sell off ?

"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
On Tuesday, 17 March 2015 17:02:16 UTC, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
bert ] wrote:
I mean here we are 30 years on from Thatcher and no lanbour
government has bothered to fix all the things she screwed up.

And here we are at the end of a maximum length parliament with Cameron
etc still blaming everything on Labour.

Well they made such a cock up of everything it'll take more than 5
years
to sort it out. We are still borrowing c£90bn per annum mostly just to
pay the bills so debt is mounting at a corresponding rate.

And Thatcher selling off the family silver will perhaps never be sorted
out.

and Brown selling the Gold, have we got any bronze we can sell off ?

Nope, the pikeys have nicked all that now. Lead too.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
On 15/03/2015 12:10, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
bert ] wrote:
Clarkson is not to the best of my knowledge an employee of the BBC and
as yet no one has disputed that. BBC HR cannot take direct action
against a non-employee.

Don't be silly. Anyone working for the BBC as a freelance is under
contract to the BBC. And will in general be under the same control as a
member of staff.

That depends on the nature of the engagement and what the contract says.

I'd suggest you read a BBC freelance contract. If you have a spare month.

do you really think that "million pound" talent gets given the same "take it
or leave" it contract that a freelance sound man gets?

tim

In article ,
tim..... wrote:
I'd suggest you read a BBC freelance contract. If you have a spare month.

do you really think that "million pound" talent gets given the same
"take it or leave" it contract that a freelance sound man gets?

I'm willing to bet quite a bit of it is the same. Written by the same team
of lawyers.

Unless, of course, you know different?

I was once given an artist contract by mistake. Not from the BBC, but from
a very large broadcast company. Was actually pretty similar.

--
*Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Dave Plowman (News)
wrote:

In article ,
tim..... wrote:
I'd suggest you read a BBC freelance contract. If you have a spare
month.

do you really think that "million pound" talent gets given the same
"take it or leave" it contract that a freelance sound man gets?

I'm willing to bet quite a bit of it is the same. Written by the same
team of lawyers.

Well quite a bit of it would be. But, ultimately, it depends who has
the power going into the relationship. If the "talent" has it, he'll
dictate the important terms. The rest is just boiler plate that one
would expect to be the same.

Experience of the BBC says they ain't going to give up their 'rights' for
anyone.

--
*I'm really easy to get along with once people learn to worship me

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Dave Plowman (News)
wrote:

In article ,
tim..... wrote:
I'd suggest you read a BBC freelance contract. If you have a spare
month.

do you really think that "million pound" talent gets given the same
"take it or leave" it contract that a freelance sound man gets?

I'm willing to bet quite a bit of it is the same. Written by the same
team of lawyers.

Well quite a bit of it would be. But, ultimately, it depends who has
the power going into the relationship. If the "talent" has it, he'll
dictate the important terms. The rest is just boiler plate that one
would expect to be the same.

Experience of the BBC says they ain't going to give up their 'rights' for
anyone.

Corse they do with Liz.