Good things done by Tories

[joevsimp]

i believe that it was Enoch Powell who was instrumental in moving mental health and learning disability care away from the victorian institutionalisation and towards care in the community

now i know nutters have gone and murdered people since then, but i'm talking about the vast majority of people with severe learning difficulties and disabilities having a decent quality of life and not being locked away in asylums

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Reformed the unions.

Got rid of the practice of secondary picketting.

These were valuable reforms, proven so by the fact that Labour have not undone them while in power.

This country could be a much much better place if secondary action was made legal.

Louis MacNeice

 

[Stoat Boy]

First woman leader.

First Comprehensive educated leader.

First Jewish leader.

In short a whole ethos of social mobility not only in what it preaches but how it practices. By far the most forward thinking and socially inclusive political movement this country has ever had.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

i believe that it was Enoch Powell who was instrumental in moving mental health and learning disability care away from the victorian institutionalisation and towards care in the community

now i know nutters have gone and murdered people since then, but i'm talking about the vast majority of people with severe learning difficulties and disabilities having a decent quality of life and not being locked away in asylums

It was Enoch's anti/minimal state liberalism (not his conservatism) which lead him to attack that victorian institutionalisation. It was an attack that needed to be made, but not only from the direction he was coming.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Santino]

Was it the Tories who enabled the Radio Times to publish ITV and C4 listings? I'd take that over a functioning welfare state any day.

 

[HackneyE9]

it's certainly impossible to imagine how it would be if telecoms provision had remained as it was. In many ways it's the key denationalisation, and the one which, in retrospect, makes most sense.

In some ways the mindset, that they know best and any customer service at all is a privilege, remains to this day, and BT still fights anything which reduces their monopoly power just as they fought flat rate internet (lets hear it for Red Hot Ant!) or LLU.

Even simply allowing competition inside the home (remember the GPO had a monopoly on all wiring, even extensions) wouldn't have changed that- the whole edifice was (maybe is!) an unnecessary brake on the development of society at large. However, like most evangelists, the tories didn't know when to stop and tried to extend their idea to other industries, without recognising that what made telecoms special was the extraordinary rate of technological change. That simply didn't apply to gas, water or rail.

Interesting post (and I say that as a leftie). I was quite young, so all I remember of the BT privatisation was "Tell Sid" (or was that gas?), and the fact the first thing BT did was open loads of 80s high-street BT Shops, merely selling new telephones. I used to think it was crazy you could have an entire shop, just selling telephones....

 

[barney_pig]

after Boris became mayor he raised the minimum wage for GLA employees to £7.40ph- £2 more than any labour council

 

[joevsimp]

after Boris became mayor he raised the minimum wage for GLA employees to £7.40ph- £2 more than any labour council

erm, minimum wage full stop is £5.52

 

[barney_pig]

erm, minimum wage full stop is £5.52

my apologies, £1.88 more than any labour council


pedant

 

[joevsimp]

my apologies, £1.88 more than any labour council


pedant

i am surprised tho that no labour councils do this though

 

[lewislewis]

S4C and the Welsh Language Act, although these were just implemented under Tory rule rather than Tory ideas. They had to be fought for by Gwynfor Evans' fasting, civil disobedience, protest etc.

 

[tbaldwin]

Just to stress- I don't vote Tory and don't intend to.

However just as the Labour party is far from perfect, the Tory party can't be all bad. So let's have 'em- they can be as historic as Wilberforce's campaign against slavery or just a little good thing your local Tory councillor has done.

I'll start the ball rolling with the 1950s clean air acts.....

They bought a new spirit of rebellion and public revolt in the 80s and 90s.
They got loads and loads of people to feel passionately about social injustice.

Oh and Winston Churchill etc did stand up to the nazis...

 

[bluestreak]

after Boris became mayor he raised the minimum wage for GLA employees to £7.40ph- £2 more than any labour council

i thought that wasn't the case, i was under the impression that they were already to be raised to 7.20 and he just upped the game a bit.

 

[The Black Hand]

Oh and Winston Churchill etc did stand up to the nazis...

People who like Churchill seem to misinterpret what he was about, and take the best bits (in their opinion) for their own 'this is what Churchil was like and did for 'Britain'. Just a thought. I have never heard anybody say that 'Churchill was a great One Nation politician', because that is what he was during WW2, the most important part of his career.

 

[joevsimp]

People who like Churchill seem to misinterpret what he was about, and take the best bits (in their opinion) for their own 'this is what Churchil was like and did for 'Britain'. Just a thought. I have never heard anybody say that 'Churchill was a great One Nation politician', because that is what he was during WW2, the most important part of his career.

exactly why he lost to atlee in 1945

 

[The Black Hand]

exactly why he lost to atlee in 1945

Your point?

 

[joevsimp]

Your point?

no point really, just that in the 1945 general election, Labour had policies and ideals coming out of their ears and the tories were just "vote for Churchill, he won the war" with more of the same old policies as before

 

[newbie]

Interesting post (and I say that as a leftie). I was quite young, so all I remember of the BT privatisation was "Tell Sid" (or was that gas?), and the fact the first thing BT did was open loads of 80s high-street BT Shops, merely selling new telephones. I used to think it was crazy you could have an entire shop, just selling telephones....

I'm glad someone liked it I'd say I'm a leftie too but there's little point in pretending everything pre-1979 was perfect and everything done since then has been a disaster. We are where we are and some of the plus points of society today- including telecoms- are a result of tory policies which were strongly resisted by the left at the time.

No, most of the development work necessary for the internet connections we have now was done by BT pre-privatisation.

I'm not sure if that was a response to my post about BT or not, but if so could you expand a little please, because I really don't understand your point.

 

[trevhagl]

Torys are good deep down about six foot.but he is right they have done somethings i agree with but too few to mention minuscle i would say

Ha ha like it

 

[trevhagl]

I think the only good the Tories ever done is when David Davis opposed New Labour Big Brother policy

 

[glenquagmire]

I'm not sure if that was a response to my post about BT or not, but if so could you expand a little please, because I really don't understand your point.

Sort of, just pointing out that the improvements in telecommunications over the last thirty years are not solely (or maybe even at all) due to privatisation.

Lots of the technical groundwork had been done before then by BT.

That's all.

 

[HackneyE9]

I'm glad someone liked it I'd say I'm a leftie too but there's little point in pretending everything pre-1979 was perfect and everything done since then has been a disaster. We are where we are and some of the plus points of society today- including telecoms- are a result of tory policies which were strongly resisted by the left at the time.

Mind you - wasn't the French minitel innovation presumably all state owned? Everything else in France is!

 

[Paul Marsh]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but the Tories made a huge contribution to reducing the amount of 'fit-ups' and miscarriages of justice by introducing taped interviews for suspects.

I think in the PACE Act, 1984?

The days of 'verbals' were never the same again.

 

[Belushi]

Oh and Winston Churchill etc did stand up to the nazis...

He did, and in the 1930's he was loathed by most of the Tory Party for doing so, outside of his small circle of supporters his closest allies in opposing appeasement were the Labour Party.

 

[HackneyE9]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but the Tories made a huge contribution to reducing the amount of 'fit-ups' and miscarriages of justice by introducing taped interviews for suspects.

I think in the PACE Act, 1984?

The days of 'verbals' were never the same again.

Do the Tories deserve credit for that, though - or is it a case of being in power when tape recorders became practicable enough?

 

[Spion]

Oh and Winston Churchill etc did stand up to the nazis...

Get it right. He stood up to the Germans. He didn't give a fuck that they were Nazis*, but he did care about the rise of a powerful rival to the British Empire.

(*as Churchill's atrocious record on workers' rights shows)

 

[agricola]

He did, and in the 1930's he was loathed by most of the Tory Party for doing so, outside of his small circle of supporters his closest allies in opposing appeasement were the Labour Party.

It wasnt really "a small circle of supporters", there were at least 40 Tory MPs who were willing to publicly defy Appeasement (and a very strong Tory whip) , nearly all of whom were loathed by "the Party" (which in this case meant Chamberlain and his supporters), who at the time had a huge lead in the Commons (400+ Tory MPs).

Those Tory MPs do deserve some respect, especially Harold Macmillan (who must have had the patience of a saint during this time), and Leo Amery who was the person who more than anyone else did for Chamberlain during the infamous Norway debate.

 

[joevsimp]

Those Tory MPs do deserve some respect, especially Harold Macmillan (who must have had the patience of a saint during this time), and Leo Amery who was the person who more than anyone else did for Chamberlain during the infamous Norway debate.

was that where the Narvik expedition stemmed from or something else?

 

[agricola]

was that where the Narvik expedition stemmed from or something else?

It was the debate that followed the failure of that campaign:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway_debate

edit: as an aside, there is a very good book on the anti-appeasement Tories by Lynne Olson: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Troublesome...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216308863&sr=8-1 . One also should not forget the Duchess of Atholl who (in addition to supporting the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, and being vehemently anti-Soviet) resigned her seat in protest at Munich and lost - in an infamously dodgy by-election - her seat in the Commons as a result.

 

[newbie]

Sort of, just pointing out that the improvements in telecommunications over the last thirty years are not solely (or maybe even at all) due to privatisation.

Lots of the technical groundwork had been done before then by BT.

That's all.

were Post Office Telecommunications even connected to the internet in 1979? I'm a little doubtful tbh.