For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
By Bill Haddow
#1566474
Leodisflyer wrote:She was clever at playing the “were in, but also out” game to take full advantage of the opportunities created by being part of the Single Market. She helped to create a service economy that makes a lot of money out of trading with Europe. She also attracted a lot of investment through a combination of EU grants and attracting companies from outside the EU to base here and take advantage of the Single Market.


Thanks for flagging up a few more of Thatcher's successes, but the point of this thread, from the OP, is "So, what if she had never been premier, what would Britain look like today?
"

So let's stick to speculation about the shape of the UK under Callaghan ( " Crisis ? What crisis" as the tabloids put it) and thereafter.

Remember hospital mortuaries being chockers because council cemetary and cremetoria worker were on strike? Remember RHF soldiers being criticised by the left wing press for having rat killing competitions when they were clearing Glasgow's rubbish mountain during the dustbin men's strike? We would have had much more of the same.

Bill H
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1566527
I remember the 70s well: I began my first paid job after 6 years of fulltime training, lived through 3 day weeks, power cuts, dustbin strikes, miners' strikes (My dads family all worked down't pit in Shirebrook, now home to JD sports and I remember different branches of the family not talking to each other-pit electricians wouldn't strike).

The one great thing that Mrs Thatcher did was to kill the Unions' stranglehold on the country, with outlawing the rent-a-mob ethos of secondary picketing.

Subsequent governments have tried their best to overturn this, more recently using the Bolshevic 'Them and us' theory.

Peter
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By kanga
#1566551
Rob P wrote:..

So, what if she had never been premier, what would Britain look like today?

..

Would the people of the Falklands .. now be under a much different administration?

..


without (as ever, I hope) being partisanly political, but being personal (ad feminam, as OP invites), on this one issue ..

It has reasonably been argued by those in a very good position to know that the Falklands War was considerably provoked by diplomacy which Mrs T personally directed and by her indifferenceor even antipathy then to the Armed Forces in any context other than anti-SovBloc; and it was then won by the talent (not least for innovation) of those Armed Forces (and supporting civilians eg RN dockyard workers) in spite of damage which her measures had already caused and her own initial panic.

Of course, after the victory, she publicly became the Forces' best friend (not their supporting civilans', of course).

As for domestic issues, I am happy largely to leave that to other Forumites' comments; but do agree that the ideological influence of Joseph was and remains baleful on many aspects of UK society, notably the unique to UK requirement that regulatory agencies must make a profit which affects us in aviation.

A further legacy in both foreign and domestic governmental activity from the years of her premiership was the 'one of us' obsession. Anyone in public service who had crossed her when she was a junior Minister, and anyone who did not appear to subscribe to the Joseph ideology, could not be recruited, promoted or appointed anywhere in the public service where central Government had an influence; and she never forgot nor forgave a perceived slight. Junior recruits to the 'fast-stream' Civil Service from that time are in senior positions today, especially in Treasury, and still instinctively believing 'private good, public bad' in providing any public service or 'common good'.

Also, anyone who had or (by same enduring legacy) has volunteered to be seconded to a European Commission post was automatically suspect so that they came to know that their prospects on return would be limited. Many thus chose to stay in EU service, or go to the private sector on return from their secondment, where there experience was highly valued. The legacy of that is a severe dearth, again unique to UK among EU members, of a generation of public servants who actually understand how the EU works :roll:
johnm liked this
#1566578
kanga - Mrs T was browbeaten by Admiral Sir Henry Leach into taking action to recover the Falklands. As I've said before, we were on our way days before she finally made the decision. Indeed, when the Argentinians "invaded" in 1977 we were sent down there by a Labour Government, prepared to take action, contrary to press reports. I still believe that Mrs T had a personality defect - remember the Lawrence of Arabia style tank "photo opportunity" and others.
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By Bert Presley
#1569177
Below is an interesting insight which might help the 'what if' guesswork :D

1968 - Labour government takes free school milk away from secondary school children. The Secretary of State for Education at the time was Ted Short.

1971 - Conservative government takes free school milk away from 7-11 year olds. The Secretary of State for Education at the time was Margaret Thatcher.

1977 - Labour government with Callaghan as PM and Shirley Williams as Education Secretary, cancels free school milk for 5-7 year olds.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1569183
By the 60s and 70s most kids were getting a half decent diet, rationing and shortages finally having disappeared. Moreover the MMB was no longer promoting consumption supported by the State.
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By kanga
#1569207
johnm wrote:... Moreover the MMB was no longer promoting consumption supported by the State.


Indeed. The nutritional and social benefits of the free school milk programme, from 1946, were indisputable; but it had actually started as a proposal from the Milk Marketing Board as a way both of evening out guaranteed milk production (for which the Government through MMB would be paying anyway) through the school term (ie, non-summer) months when doorstep demand was usually less, and to 'nudge' families into associating guaranteed quality fresh milk as a desirably healthy part of the entire family's diet. Both aims were met.

It was one of many successful MMB programmes. One has aviation connexions: in order to provide a healthy and incidentally domestic alternative to the early chilled cola bottles dispensed by coin-operated machines, the MMB commissioned coin-operated dispensers of chilled long-life milk cartons. The refrigeration required was more complex, which affected the coin mechanism. For the necessary precision engineering, the contract went to Glosters. A Gloster secretary, who came to one of the company reunions at JAM, produced photos of herself as a teenager both draped languidly over the wing of a Javelin in a sales brochure, and posed in healthy outdoorsy clothing drinking milk from one of the cartons beside one of the machines. She said she was not paid any extra for either of these extra duties .. :)

Incidentally 'pinta' must be one of the few neologisms to reach the dictionaries as a result of a marketing slogan thought up by a public servant. A MMB veteran told me that there was much heartsearching in parts of the Government about whether HMG should be appearing to promote poor spelling :) .. but sales were very well boosted :thumright:
Last edited by kanga on Sun Nov 05, 2017 6:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
johnm liked this
#1569235
Fed up with both the bone idle unionised workforce and the inept money grabbing capitalists, the people of Britain become disheartened and seek instead a benign dictator. Many people rally round Cliff Richard and he is made emperor. Summer Holiday becomes the national anthem and a new law is introduced making glumness a crime punishable by ... being told off quite harshly.

Cliff fixes many of the problems of the day by smiling a lot, and all goes well for many months, until one day, tragedy strikes ... the narrator awakes and has the epiphany that the least worst option is slightly better than the worst option.
Last edited by MercianMarcus on Mon Nov 06, 2017 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.