Thatcher - Is it possible people have selective memories when remembering her legacy?

[Bernie Gunther]

<snip> I guarantee that if you ask the 'man on the street' whether the state of the country is better now than it was in the 1970s, almost every one with a memory will tell you it is better now. <snip>

Not in Birkenhead they won't. Nor many other places up North.

 

[tobyjug]

but I guarantee that if you ask the 'man on the street' whether the state of the country is better now than it was in the 1970s, almost every one with a memory will tell you it is better now.

You must use very different streets to me. My mortgage went to 17.5% interest under Thatcher, millions lost their jobs, often their homes as well, businesses went bust in near unheard of numbers, and many millions of people have never recovered from the economic damage Thatcher did to them.
I am many others would strangle Thatcher with our bare hands if we could get close enough, due to the damage she did to us, our families and our friends.

 

[RedSkin]

Ok so my points contain no personal insult.
gbpg48 answer the question of how it is uneconomical for the miners to attempt to gain a better living standard yet 'our' economy can mantain the wages of the National Coal Board whose member are probly out asset stripping other industries as we speak.

My point is: you only see workers' wages as uneconomical not employers wages despite the fact they do no productive work whatsoever. In fact part of their job is to lay people off so that industry can be mantained i.e. lining their own pockets.

when our wonderful leaders talk of tough decisions they mean tough decisions for us but a fat pay-cheque for them. Unless of course your an employer in which case I completely understand your logic yet look foward to your removal.

 

[newbie]

I do know that Thatcher made a number of mistakes, like any PM, but I guarantee that if you ask the 'man on the street' whether the state of the country is better now than it was in the 1970s, almost every one with a memory will tell you it is better now. Ask any economist and there won't be one among them who disagrees. From this point of view, and from this alone, am I arguing that Thatcher was perhaps not as bad as you guys make her out to be.

I'm a man on the street with a memory. I think people are better off now, at least in the areas I have some knowledge of. I also think we would be had we had a PM during those years who wasn't as unnecessarily brutal as she was. She caused a war solely to keep herself in power, kept the 6 Counties in a state of terror quite deliberately, destroyed communities without need or pity, and shattered countless lives.

Her specific successes were relatively minor, far outweighed by her leaving the country in a worse condition than she found it. In some sense the only way out was up or the complete collapse that her policies were driving towards. She wrecked but the rebuilding has happened only since she went.

 

[Spud Murphy]

Standards of living must have risen for most people in every country in the developed world since the 1970s. That's down to technological progress. No individual politician can claim much credit at all on that score.

 

[newbie]

Standards of living must have risen for most people in every country in the developed world since the 1970s. That's down to technological progress. No individual politician can claim much credit at all on that score.

Precisely so, and it's not necessary to buy into Thatcherism to recognise it. Nor is it neccesary to gloss over how awful the 70s were, which is why I'm surprised to read claims that we're generally worse off now than then.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Violent Panda,

Firstly your " marks around my name seems to imply you think it's odd an odd one - it is in fact my initials followed by my old school number! Come to think of it, that is a little odd actually...

Glad we can agree on something.

Secondly, you accuse me of being a Conservative, correct, but also of being delusional, which is not only unnecessary, but wrong.

Judged by your unsupported claims so far on your thread, "delusional" is a reasonable label.

I am stating simple facts, not purely speculative opinions.

Simple facts such as "Britain will overtake Germany" without qualifying the over-riding reason why this will happen. It may not be a "speculative opinion", but is is a partisan interpretation.

I do know that Thatcher made a number of mistakes, like any PM, but I guarantee that if you ask the 'man on the street' whether the state of the country is better now than it was in the 1970s, almost every one with a memory will tell you it is better now.

Which proves absolutely nothing. "The man on the street" may or may not be well informed about politics or economics, so he is opinion will be, to a lesser or greater extent subjective. It is still valid, but its subjectivity should be borne in mind.
By the way, most pensioners who survive on the state pension only (that's over a million people) would strongly disagree with your opinion that things are better now. remember the link to earnings?

Ask any economist and there won't be one among them who disagrees. From this point of view, and from this alone, am I arguing that Thatcher was perhaps not as bad as you guys make her out to be.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't economists those chaps who measure national improvement in terms of productivity against cost? Forgive me for not trusting their mathematical rationality as a base from which to calculate social improvement.

So, Violent Panda...

It's ViolentPanda, single word.

if you, or anyone else for that matter can provide credible evidence arguing that life was better pre-Thatcher than it is post-Thatcher, or, if you can't do this, go on to provide decent reasons why none of Britain's post-Thatcher sucess is due to the lady herself, then I'll accept she's as bad as you say she is.

As you appear to have set yourself up as the arbiter of what comprises credibility, forgive me if I don't play your peurile game. You very obviously have little understanding of the changes in social dynamics that Thatcherism brought about, or you wouldn't be attempting a comparison of what are, in effect, apples and oranges.

Unitl then, I'll leave the delusional insults to you, and remind you once again that I am here to generate debate, so don't be surprised if my views are opposed to yours, but then again, don't use what I must confess to see as a very left-wing tactic of simply smearing the credibility of a person who disagrees with you through various insults, rather than facing the questions posed by them head on.

All the best.

Ah, the brave rightwing soldier standing tall against the leftist hordes, my heart fair bleeds for you.

You think you've been insulted because people have dared to question your shallow interpretation of history, you haven't been insulted, you've been critiqued. if you had come up with solid argument backed by solid data people would respect you even if they thought you were wrong. As it is all you've done is regurgitated some "golden age" misty-eyed politically partisan opinion about Thatcher and Thatcherism, and have made no attempt to substantiate your claims.

Don't cry about people smearing your credibility. You never had any, and you won't have any until you can back your claims rather than making spurious appeals to the opinion of "the man on the street" and cheap references about you being smeared and attacked for being a tory.

Grow up, get a decent set of arguments, stop blathering about "smears", and maybe you'll get taken seriously. Until then I suggest you widen your reading beyond political biography.

 

[gpbg48]

ViolentPanda,

I'm afraid I must 'smear' you with exaclty the same accusation. Where's your evidence?
Since you asked, I will provide you with some facts and figures:

May 1979 - The average salary stood at £5,427 per annum.
When she resigned, average salaries were £15,252 pa. Today it is closer to £20,000 pa.

Though unemployment reached a high of 18% under her, by 1986 this had fallen to 3.4%. Today it is 1.3%.

In part, the short period of high unemplyment in the early 1980s, was down to a need to deal with the Unions, who effectively managed to bring down two democratically elected governments, Ted Heath's Conservatives in 1974, and Callaghan's Labour party in 1979. The Unions were an unelected, unaccountable minority.

By the time Thatcher came to power, the Miners Union, and others, were demanding 60% annual pay rises. Failing this, and earlier demands they went on strike. Frequently: I find myslef repeating myslef here, but since you clearly didn't pay attention first time round - in the winter of 1978-9 widespread strikes lasting some 6 weeks across Britain left most of it without power for much of the time, bins unemptied, bodies unburied, houses without means to heat themselves. How often do you see that today?

The FTSE 100 plummeted to a low of 134, today it is nearly 5,000.

Home ownership rose from 55% in 1979 to 66% by 1990. Today the figure is 69%

In 1973 the government had to declare a 3-day working week because economic productivity was so low. 24 million working days had been lost due to strike action in 1972. Today such a thing is unthinkable.

We had to appeal to the IMF for a loan...


You, it would seem, fail to see the wood for the trees. Look around you, see what the country is like today and compare it to what it was in 1979. If you stopped for a moment to see the bigger picture, you would find that 'facts and figures' are actually totally unnecessary. The state of the British high street and home speak for themselves. And yes, I live in the north - Yorkshire to be precise. Also, stop being so bloody unpleasent.

 

[nino_savatte]

Do you really think people aren't better off now than in the 70s? I find that surprising because it's pretty much the opposite of what I see around me.

The gap between rich and poor has gotten wider and society, since Thatcher, has become more selfish. The flexible labour market (as it is euphemistically called) screws people.

Were you around in the 70's? It's a perfectly straightforward question...and relevant.

 

[nino_savatte]

Not in Birkenhead they won't. Nor many other places up North.

Exactly and I think our Tory friend is a southerner. If he isn't then he's wearing blinkers.

 

[gpbg48]

Exactly and I think our Tory friend is a southerner. If he isn't then he's wearing blinkers.

Nino_savatte,

You are proof that people don't bother to read posts properly. If you check you will find that I stated earlier that I live in Yorkshire, where I have done for all my life. Don't presume to know things which you do not.

 

[nino_savatte]

Nino_savatte,

You are proof that people don't bother to read posts properly. If you check you will find that I stated earlier that I live in Yorkshire, where I have done for all my life. Don't presume to know things which you do not.

I've read your posts (perhaps not the one in question) and not that it matters really, since the thrust of your argument remains unaltered. I notice you didn't deal with my other posts and just this one - why is that? Don't tell me, it allowed you an opportunity to patronise a 'lefty'.

 

[nino_savatte]

If Thatcherism has done so much for Britain, why do the Tories alternate between praise for her and silent embarrassment?

Edited to add: the internal market was forced on the public sector by obsessive monetarists. Instead of rescuing the public services it has condemned them to a slow lingering death; strangled by paperwork and creating imaginary competition between departments that are meant to be working together.

Many people cannot get work that pays well and that offers the benefits enjoyed by workers in other sectors of the economy. Indeed, many have little choice but to work through an employment agency. The company or organisation that makes use of temporary staff, thinks that it is saving money but this is not true since the company is actually paying twice as much for one person as it would for a single permanent member of staff. So who wins? The temp agency, that's who.

 

[ViolentPanda]

ViolentPanda,

I'm afraid I must 'smear' you with exaclty the same accusation. Where's your evidence?
Since you asked, I will provide you with some facts and figures:

May 1979 - The average salary stood at £5,427 per annum.
When she resigned, average salaries were £15,252 pa. Today it is closer to £20,000 pa.

Which proves WHAT exactly?
May I suggest (if it doesn't strain you too much) you look up "price inflation" and index it to the rise in wages.
I think you'll find that there hasn't been much of a concomitant rise in purchasing power alongside that rise in average salaries, so all your "fact" proves is that wages have kept pace with costs, not that everybody is better off now because of some mythical Thatcherite legacy.

Though unemployment reached a high of 18% under her, by 1986 this had fallen to 3.4%. Today it is 1.3%.

The "fall" in unemployment is, to a greater degree, attributable to changes in methods of calculation (if I recall correctly over 40 revisions between 1983 and 1997, and over a dozen since) of total unemployment than to employment policy.
This is isn't rocket science, this is all easy-to-find statistical data from the NAO and the ONS.

In part, the short period of high unemplyment in the early 1980s, was down to a need to deal with the Unions, who effectively managed to bring down two democratically elected governments, Ted Heath's Conservatives in 1974, and Callaghan's Labour party in 1979. The Unions were an unelected, unaccountable minority.

Heath challenged the country with his "who governs?". The electorate voted him from power, not the trades unions, not some dark cabal of leftwing interests funded by "red gold", the electorate.
As for trades unions power, there is no legislation banning the right to organise for collective interest, indeed if there were, the likes of the CBI would have to go along with the unions. Your "thesis" is politically partial, ill-informed, and based around a set of "beliefs" that don't stand up to historical scrutiny.

By the time Thatcher came to power, the Miners Union, and others, were demanding 60% annual pay rises. Failing this, and earlier demands they went on strike. Frequently: I find myslef repeating myslef here, but since you clearly didn't pay attention first time round - in the winter of 1978-9 widespread strikes lasting some 6 weeks across Britain left most of it without power for much of the time, bins unemptied, bodies unburied, houses without means to heat themselves. How often do you see that today?

To deal with some of your canards:
1) The NUM (one of the mining unions) were the only union to bandy around a 60% igure. They [did not "demand" it (if you can find **sound historical proof that they did, I'd be interested to see it). No others made a "demand" like that, although they would have been perfectly at liberty to. Free collective bargaining is about haggling, about negotiation.
2) You bring up "the winter of discontent". I lived through it. You imply that these things happened "across Britain". Rubbish. The "unburied bodies" (kept in refrigerated morgues, not rotting in piles as the Sun reported) happened in Merseyside, not "across Britain", the binmen's strikes were local not national, the power strikes were local, not national. Please provide some **decent evidence to support your claims. all I've seen so far ar reiterations of tabloid headlines.

The FTSE 100 plummeted to a low of 134, today it is nearly 5,000.

As with your "fact" about rising wages, your claim is irrelevant unless you contextualise it. In what context do you make this claim? Are you attempting to claim that the rise or fall of a stock index is a relevant reference point by which to gauge putative social gains? What is the historical context of the footsie being at 134?
You see, without context (and I mean serious context, not contentious claims based on your political bent) what you're saying has the same applicability to your Thatcher thesis as the colour of your underpants, none.

Home ownership rose from 55% in 1979 to 66% by 1990. Today the figure is 69%

The over-riding cause of which was the institution of the "Right to Buy" policy without assuring continued provision of social housing, which is probably the main cause of "key worker" shortages in most cities.
How many more of these context-free outpourings before it penetrates your skull that you're not providing "facts and figures", you're promoting myths?

In 1973 the government had to declare a 3-day working week because economic productivity was so low. 24 million working days had been lost due to strike action in 1972. Today such a thing is unthinkable.

Context?
I'll give you a few clues for low productivity: aging plant due to poor investment in manufacturing infrastructure by both the govt and by industry; various raw materials shortages, some due to "xold war" squeezes, some due to de-colonisation; poor industrial relations.
The last one isn't (as you believe) attributable only to the evil leftwing trade unions, but also to the short-sightedness of management and of government.

We had to appeal to the IMF for a loan...

Historical context: Clearing up the pile of shit Edward Heath left on the rug.

You, it would seem, fail to see the wood for the trees. Look around you, see what the country is like today and compare it to what it was in 1979. If you stopped for a moment to see the bigger picture, you would find that 'facts and figures' are actually totally unnecessary. The state of the British high street and home speak for themselves. And yes, I live in the north - Yorkshire to be precise. Also, stop being so bloody unpleasent.

Actually, darling. I see both the wood and the trees. It's a function of "getting the whole picture", something you seem curiously averse to.
You appear to believe your thin intellectual gruel should be accepted without being critiqued. Sorry, but I don't do that. I have seen most of the last 40+ years from my position in what is now known as "the underclass", and I am able to dissect your never-never land of claims to reveal the heroine-worshipping mythologising that they are.

As for stopping being "bloody unpleasent [sic]". Go and grow a pair of testicles. If you can't take criticism then try not to post such arrant bollocks.

** By sound historical proof and decent evidence I mean material from non-partisan sources.

 

[nino_savatte]

Still no reply gpbg48? Okay let's go back to the late 70's: I could walk out of one job and straight into another the same day. By 1981 that was no longer possible.

How many teaching jobs in the Further Education sector were supplied by agencies in the pre-Thatcher period? The answer: none.

How many council houses were sold off to the detriment of those waiting for a home? Too many to count.

I hardly saw homeless people on Britain's streets when I was growing up, when Thatcher came to power the numbers of rough sleepers more than doubled.

To coin Jimmy Cricket, "There's more" but I'll leave it there for now.

 

[redsquirrel]

Nino_savatte,

You are proof that people don't bother to read posts properly. If you check you will find that I stated earlier that I live in Yorkshire, where I have done for all my life. Don't presume to know things which you do not.

I take it you don't live in South Yorkshire or a mining village then.

 

[gpbg48]

Violent Panda, Nino_savatte et al.

Yes of course I can take criticism, that's why I'm here to debate. The essence of debate is disagreement and discussion. Crass insults don't help anything, not least your arguments, and that is all I'm asking for an end to. I'd rather this were a discussion than an argument.

Almost everyone I have spoken to about the 1970s to date, including my family agree that it was, in a word a pretty crappy time for most in Britain. Today this is not so. When I ask them why this is, the answer usually comes back, 'Thatcher got a grip on government and sorted the mess out', and you cannot deny that the country today, and living standards in general, are far superior to what they were then, yet this is what you all seem to be arguing, that the 1970s were ok, but that Thatcher screwed everything up. In the short term, it was bad, but the long term results most certainly are not. This is what I mean by not seeing the wood for the trees - you're so caught up in all the individual things that Thatcher did wrong, most notably to the miners (who I'm not at all against by the way) that you tell me she was the devil incarnate and presume to call me delusional for thinking otherwise. I judge by what I see, and what I see now is a country in pretty good nick. This was not the case thirty years ago. That's my point! Pure and simple; its not very complicated.

George.

 

[totaladdict]

your simple point is easily countered though. britain is 'better' now than it was then (i'd have no idea if this is actually true, but we'll go with it) despite thatcher, not because of her.

 

[Isambard]

............and the steel workers and the car workers and the civil servants and Northern ireland and the gays and lesbians and local democracy and broadcasting and police powers and the right to protest and trade union rights and the inner cities and the military expansion and the Poll Tax and privitisation and cuts in social security and and and.........

People might seem superficially better off but its a veneer.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Violent Panda, Nino_savatte et al.

Yes of course I can take criticism, that's why I'm here to debate. The essence of debate is disagreement and discussion. Crass insults don't help anything, not least your arguments, and that is all I'm asking for an end to. I'd rather this were a discussion than an argument.

Almost everyone I have spoken to about the 1970s to date, including my family agree that it was, in a word a pretty crappy time for most in Britain. Today this is not so. When I ask them why this is, the answer usually comes back, 'Thatcher got a grip on government and sorted the mess out', and you cannot deny that the country today, and living standards in general, are far superior to what they were then, yet this is what you all seem to be arguing, that the 1970s were ok, but that Thatcher screwed everything up. In the short term, it was bad, but the long term results most certainly are not. This is what I mean by not seeing the wood for the trees - you're so caught up in all the individual things that Thatcher did wrong, most notably to the miners (who I'm not at all against by the way) that you tell me she was the devil incarnate and presume to call me delusional for thinking otherwise. I judge by what I see, and what I see now is a country in pretty good nick. This was not the case thirty years ago. That's my point! Pure and simple; its not very complicated.

George.

George, you're taking anecdote and applying it as if were fact, you're taking opinion and applying it as if were fact, you're doing the same with partisan political viewpoints.
You're also positing that market fluctuations and wage growth are sound gauges of social good when they are merely markers of economic forces, which although politics have a small effect on them, are not driven by external political influences.

Thatcher isn't the devil. As I said in my first reply to you, she was originally the figurehead for a social experiment, fronting the policy ideas of rightwing ideologues of the likes of Sir Keith Joseph. She started to believe in her own publicity and many people suffered for her whims.

You're attempting to extrapolate the sum of social, technological and possibly financial change from 1979 until now as a function of Thatcher and Thatcherism. That's hopelessly naive and implies that her ambit was greater than it was. Change is due to technical innovation, to social cohesiveness (or its' lack), to a multitude of external motive factors, not to a single person or even a group of persons.

 

[ViolentPanda]

............and the steel workers and the car workers and the civil servants and Northern ireland and the gays and lesbians and local democracy and broadcasting and police powers and the right to protest and trade union rights and the inner cities and the military expansion and the Poll Tax and privitisation and cuts in social security and and and.........

People might seem superficially better off but its a veneer.

Allied to which "consumption" as a form of self-definition is rampant in comparison to the 70s and 80s. People have more "consumer goodies", but are they financially better off?
No, you only have to look at the amount of 2-parent families where both parents work to know that society is running to stand still.
A family used to (with difficulty) be able to live on a single average wage, something which hasn't applied for at least the last 15 years.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Violent Panda, Nino_savatte et al.

Yes of course I can take criticism, that's why I'm here to debate. The essence of debate is disagreement and discussion. Crass insults don't help anything, not least your arguments, and that is all I'm asking for an end to. I'd rather this were a discussion than an argument.

Almost everyone I have spoken to about the 1970s to date, including my family agree that it was, in a word a pretty crappy time for most in Britain. Today this is not so. When I ask them why this is, the answer usually comes back, 'Thatcher got a grip on government and sorted the mess out', and you cannot deny that the country today, and living standards in general, are far superior to what they were then, yet this is what you all seem to be arguing, that the 1970s were ok, but that Thatcher screwed everything up. In the short term, it was bad, but the long term results most certainly are not. This is what I mean by not seeing the wood for the trees - you're so caught up in all the individual things that Thatcher did wrong, most notably to the miners (who I'm not at all against by the way) that you tell me she was the devil incarnate and presume to call me delusional for thinking otherwise. I judge by what I see, and what I see now is a country in pretty good nick. This was not the case thirty years ago. That's my point! Pure and simple; its not very complicated.

George.

George - social mobility has decreased, income inequality has increased, health inequalities with regard to class have either not moved or worsened (working class people suffer more ill health and die younger), inequalities in access to the 'first division' of universities remain (indeed middle class students have effectively squeezed their working class counterparts relative to the position in the 1970s). Given this state of affairs (I can add to the list if you like- and I can provide references if you doubt any of this), it would appear that for many people things are worse now than they were in the 'bad old days' of the 1970s. This is certainly true in comparison to the rest of the population - and in some cases it is also true in absolute terms - which is afterall where people actually live their lives; not in some sort of simultaneously continually grateful and yet fearful reference back to the past.

But perhaps the worst legacy of the three Thatcher govts, is the political dominance attained by the twin notions of the effectiveness of 'the free market' and the valorisation of individualism. It has left us in situation where an inability to join 'the home owning democracy' is seen as a sign of moral failure; in popular story telling the 'estates' have become dangerous places whose residents, the 'underclass', need to be monitored and policed. It has left us unable to place children's dietary needs above the needs of companies to extract a profit from the process of giving our kids healthy school dinners; hence the idiocy of framing a discussion on school dinners in the context of how much the local authority has to spend rather than on what the kids need. It has left us with a politics bereft of notions of social responsibility and solidarity (in their place are touted a multitude of increasingly narrow self-interests, often sheltering behind threadbare appeals to 'community'; we have even been told there is something called the community of nations for crying out loud!). It has left us almost incapable of talking about needs unless those needs can create a demand from which some value can be extracted, a profit turned, and some economic clout gained.

Thatcherism in the UK, Reganism in the US, the whole New Right project with it's brutal combination of neo-liberal and conservative impulses, was and continues to be a disaster; don't let the paid for on credit affluence of some take your eye of the bigger picture.

Cheers - Louis Mac

 

[Isambard]

Top post LMN!

 

[Dilzybhoy]

I can only go on my own personal experience of living under her regime.
Sometimes she was very clever, I'll give her that, but she could be incredibly dumb at the same time. Her proposed solution to the N.Ireland problem e.g. "cant we just make the border straight lines"
In Scotland she'll be remembered for polarising Britain into the affluent south and the "moaning minnies" of the north.
Trying out the Poll Tax on us first to see if she could enforce it. I'm sure our newest prospective Tory candidate for No 10 had something to do with that btw.
The Scots seemed to find her out long before the rest of Britain. The Tories were almost wiped out in Scotland. She decimated our industries and is a hate figure in Scotland. Rightly so.
She created the Loadsa money characters who were lucky enough to have a job which created an "I'm alright Jack" culture. As it was, I was alright, and able to buy nice clothes and go to the football for a ruck. But I still never considered voting Tory. Funnily enough I have yet to meet anyone, personally, who admits to voting Tory. I've been told of three but these are unconfirmed and may be just malicious gossip.
This view may well be selective but it's my selection based on my experiences.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

George - here's another view of the wood and the trees; taken from C4 yesterday (24th):

"Life Changes

Published: 24 Apr 2005
By: Faisal Islam

Research shows the British now have less mobility in income and educational
opportunity than our key European neighbours -- and it's getting worse...

Opportunity for all. That's been New Labour's mantra - repeated at every
opportunity in this campaign. But today New Labour stands accused of denying
the least privileged in society exactly that.

A new report out tomorrow - but seen exclusively by Channel 4 news - reveals
those from underprivileged backgrounds are less likely to "better
themselves" than they were thirty years ago.

And while social mobility is improving in most developed countries, in
Britain it is getting worse, with more and more advantages going to those
from already wealthy backgrounds.

Our business correspondent Faisal Islam reports on why Britain is going
backwards, not forward:

A new generation: These are 'Blair's children' - born well into an era where
all politicians seem to be committed to a new, merito-cratic recipe.

"If we're in politics for one thing, it is to make sure all children are
given the best chance in life." - Tony Blair, Labour leader

"The British dream which enables anyone whatever their background to go as
far as their talents will take them." - Michael Howard, Conservative leader

"Children well cared for, well taught in their early years have a far better
chance of long term success" - Charles Kennedy, Liberal Democrat leader

But is it just talk? New research seen by Channel 4 News says that chances
for Britain's least privileged children to progress are actually
diminishing. The trend in Britain is now the worst in the industrialised
world.

"There is a sort of a veneer that we're moving to a meritocracy, but the
bottom line is that we're really very much a class driven society. And we've
got worse actually, if you look at the data." - Sir Peter Lampl, Chairman,
the Sutton Trust.

The data shows how well people from different backgrounds had done
financially by the age of 30.

Of those born in 1958, 30 per cent from the poorest backgrounds remained
poor.
The rest moved into higher income groups with about 17 per cent making into
the richest group.
Of those from the wealthiest backgrounds, just under 20 per cent ended up
poor - about a third remained top earners.

Compare that with those born in 1970. The proportion staying poor has shot
up, while those moving to the top group has fallen back. Many more of the
rich are staying rich.
When that's compared with other countries Britain is second from bottom. And
while things are now improving in the United States, Britain is the only
country where its getting worse.
So what's going wrong? The experience of schools in Cheltenham may shed some
light as to why Britain is becoming less socially mobile. Why life chances
have more to do with your parents wealth now than before.

Pate's is a flagship beacon school in the state sector. It's hugely popular
and families from all over Gloucestershire try to get in. The school chooses
by ability - but like other successful state schools, it's now dominated by
children from middle class and fairly wealthy backgrounds.

Which is one illustration of the report's finding that most reforms to
education policy, even those aimed at the bottom of the social scale, tend
to be captured by more affluent families.

Case study: Pate's Grammar School

Pates is the third best state school in the country and what's more it's
situated in one of the most deprived council estates in the area. Yet hardly
any of the local kids on the doorstep get to come to the school, it's a
striking metaphor for how in Britain more than any other western nation the
wealthy stay wealthy and the poor stay poor. The roots of that issue is in
the education system.

"Parents from a more advantaged part of society are better at working the
system to ensure that their children gain places that are more successful
and this becomes a more self perpetuating process. I think we need to be
more radical in the way we think to try to break this cycle." - Richard
Kemp, Head Teacher, Pate's Grammar School

To correct the balance the headmaster has launched special classes for some
pupils from the 12 local primary schools.

Again, the evidence shows a child's background dramatically affects their
development at a very early age.

At 22 months the brightest kids come from mixed backgrounds, but the scores
of the poorest decline far more sharply. Of those with a low score at 22
months, the richer kids do far better - actually overtaking the bright but
poor children.

The Scandinavian experience has shown that investment in toddlers is key.
The government's pilot Sure Start scheme has made some inroads.

"We're quite proud of their achievements and their parents are proud of
their achievements. If that can go on through infants and juniors and
secondary school, they're much more likely to achieve well when they do
their GCSE and go on to do other things in later life - Bernice Thomson,
Hester's Way Neighbourhood Project

When asked how many of her children she thought would go on to university,
Bernice Thomas replied, "probably less than 2 per cent the way things are
now."

Back at Pate's, there are sixth formers who say their own university
ambitions have been restricted by another government policy

"I wanted to do medicine, and for that it's a six year course. So I'd be
looking at a lot of money to pay back and with the top up fees I just don't
think I'll be able to afford it. "- Rachel Wong, Sixth Former, Pate's
Grammar School

So for all these kids from cradle, to school, university - and even when or
if they buy a first home, life chances are still dominated by who their
parents are.

The real problem - genuine social mobility requires some of the more
affluent doing less well in the next generation as well as the other way
round. And whatever the rhetoric of politicians, that's not an easy sell at
election time."

 

[dylanredefined]

Well i voted tory in the 80s belived the lies .also belived the lie about south africa from the daily mail SORRY . Foot and Kinnock were unelectable as soon as cold war ended stopped voting tory would have voted for new labour but it was either lib dem or tory where i live .

 

[redsquirrel]

. Foot and Kinnock were unelectable

Does this mean you didn't vote for them because you thought weren't going to win?

 

[Belushi]

A family used to (with difficulty) be able to live on a single average wage, something which hasn't applied for at least the last 15 years.

I was thinking about this recently as it happens. When I was a kid in the Seventies my Dad was a surface worker at a pit in the Valleys. He could afford to buy a nice three bedroom Victorian semi, support my Mum as a housewive and then through Uni as a mature student, run a car, take us all on holiday once a year and provide his three kids with everything we needed. We also went to an excellent state primary and enjoyed very good public services.

I think it would be much more difficult for anyone in a manual job to support a family to such a good standard today.

 

[Dr_Evil]

Dear All,

At the risk of incurring all of your wrath (which is fine, since I am here for debate, so long as it's polite) I'm going to raise a Thatcher thread. I'm not on this site very often, but I have been here enough to know that a good word for Thatcher is viewed in much the same light as a good word for Hitler! However, I think people are very selective in their memories of her legacy. Anyway, I'm going to go on because I think it's interesting.

Britain is now the 4th largest economy on earth, and in 20 years it is predicted to overtake Germany (which is currently carrying out its own, hugely unpopular, program of Thatcherite reforms to get itself out of the styx it is in at the moment) making us the largets economy in Europe. British standards of living, in general are some of the best in the world... Think back, if you will, to the 1970s, a time when the Unions were so powerful that if the government tried to do something the Unions really didn't like - or even vaugely disliked for that matter (and the miners especially) - they would go on strike so that elected British governments were literally brought to their knees by unelected, unaccountable minorities with very selective interests. 24 million working days were lost to strike action in 1972 alone, so that in 1973 the country was so poor Ted Heath had to introduce a 3-day working week because the country couldn't afford to pay for anymore than that; this in itself had hugely damaging economic consequences. Inflation was sky-high, as was unemployment (don't say it: I know it was highest for a period under Thatcher, but not by the end), and the FTSE 100 at one time was down to 134! Bear in mind that it is now close to 5000 and you get an idea of how bad things were. We had to appeal, with American support, to the IMF for aid which is a fund meant almost exclusively to help third-world, not allegedly first-world countries. Strike action got so bad that the 'Winter of Discontent' in 1978-9 saw even dustbin men and gravediggers go on strike so that quite literally the streets became full of rubbish, and the dead went unburied. Power cuts were more routine than out of the ordinary. In the midst of all this, the miners, and others, in all their goodness, were demanding a 60% pay rise at the end of every single year, or they would simply go on strike again! This was made all the worse by the fact, that, without putting too fine a point on it, their industry was no longer even an economically viable one.

Thatcher came in at a time when much of Europe and America thought Britain would simply sink into economic, political, and social oblivion and that would be the end of it. Look at the country today and you see quite the opposite. Margaret Thatcher is almost exclusively to thank for this transformation. Certainly in the short term things were bad, but then they were already absolutely terrible (something people also frequently forget) but in the long term, things are comparitively fantastic. The selective memory seems to only remember the time when Thatcher was in power, not the legacy her reign has brought about now she is out of power. Please be open minded and let me know your views on this.

George.

Where have you been for the last 6 mnths? Finally someone who can see past all the socialst anti-thatcher propoganda and can see the BIG picture of what thatcher did to bring our country right back into the top league of countries!

That post was beautiful! Well done that man

 

[Sorry.]

Where have you been for the last 6 mnths? Finally someone who can see past all the socialst anti-thatcher propoganda and can see the BIG picture of what thatcher did to bring our country right back into the top league of countries!

That post was beautiful! Well done that man

you going to read all the subsequent posts that showed it up for the trite, poorly-thought out rubbish that it was?