Originally posted by Dowding
Frankly, most people don't vote, and out of those that do, most vote out of habit. Take Beetle for instance - he's a dyed in the wool Tory Boy.
Sorry Beetle! 
ROFL! No apology needed! Gave me a good laugh.
I haven't actually voted since 1992. In 1997 I was still seething about the Major/Lamont handling of the ERM fiasco, the idiotic high interest rates that were introduced - at a time of recession - in an attempt to attract investment to Britain. The results - thousands of small businesses bankrupted, inevitable ejection from the ERM (what a relief - White Wednesday), ¼ of our gold reserves blown on this fatuous exercise, and the currency that had been bought back buy said gold reserves was only worth $1.53/£ instead of the $2/£ it had been worth a day earlier.
Grunherz! I see you are well versed in the history of British industrial relations 1972-1985. I lived through that period, and can't find anything wrong with what you said, apart from the Stalin analogy being somewhat unsuitable.
Yep, we had trade unions which clamoured for higher pay, irrespective of whether their employers' could afford it and the effect it would have on the British economy. A three day week was introduced to conserve electricity in shops and offices. Many folks suffered on 60% of their normal salary. Labour promised it could rectify the situation with immediate effect. They got into power in 1974 and immediately gave into the NUM (miners' union) wage demands as a means of ending the strike. But... all the other unions were waiting in line for theirs. The result? Riproaring inflation of 25% which peaked in July 1975, a month in which the rate of inflation expressed as an annual rate topped 30%. The basic rate of tax had to be raised to 35% to try to pay for the mess that had been created. The top rate of tax was 83% but with an investment income surcharge of 15% making the top rate of tax on investment income 98%. The economy, and the country as a whole, was f***ed. Labour wondered why people left Britain to live overseas as tax exiles.
Maggie turned all that around. The top rate of tax came down to 40% where it has remained ever since. The trade unions had their wings clipped. The number of days lost through strikes was slashed. Strikes themselves became a thing of the past - or so we thought. Strikes are coming back into vogue under this Labour administration.
Various companies were privatised. Jaguar Cars was a good example. They got rid of half the work force, but were able to make MORE cards and BETTER cars. That's because the unions could no longer mandate how many people had to be assigned to do a job. Labour had allowed ridiculous overmanning in years gone by because it made the unemployment figures look better.
The problem for the folks involved in those old labour intensive dinosaur industries was that Labour had let the situation fester for too long. When Maggie came to reverse the decline, there was so much to do in so little time if we were to become competitive in the world market place, that a lot of ordinary folks in the North of England suffered terribly because of unemployment once those dinosaur industries with their 19th century working practices were allowed to die. We had a nation of haves and have-nots. The miners had refused productivity deals, and had eschewed any form of new technology - Luddite mentality. The coal they were producing by 1984 was so expensive that it was cheaper to import it from France. And in the meantime, other energy sources had been discovered, including natural gas and oil - both from the North Sea.
The inevitable happened. The British mining industry collapsed. Dowding will tell us just how rapidly it collapsed. Unfortunately, public sympathy for the miners was somewhat limited because of their actions 10 or so years earlier when many of them made it clear that they didn't give a stuff for anyone or anything but themselves.
