Wow, this thread has wandered since my last visit.
Skydancer, the 1980s were great.
That was the decade in which I reached my earnings potential, without having the majority of it taken as tax. I'd had tough times under the 1970s Labour govt. A lot of people did, what with 25% inflation, high taxes, high interest rates.
Of course, I could have moaned and done nothing, but I chose to get off my arse and develop skills which I could later deploy for high fees. I think this approach was more productive than standing around a brazier outside my place of employment on a cold winter's morning, yelling "out, brothers, out!" at the top of my lungs, and waving signs begging passing motorists to honk their horns in support. That, by the way, is what a great many Labourites were doing in the 1970s when they found themselves unable to deal with the fact that the days of their 19th century working practices in their
heavily over subsidised, loss making, nationalised industry had come to an end.
And don't expect me to be gulled by all this crap about Gordon's prowess in managing the economy. It's easy to crow that the coffers are full when you've raised taxes 66 times, and committed the biggest legal heist on the piggy banks of middle England that Britain has ever known.
The truth is that Gordon
inherited a healthy economy, with interest rates already down to about 6¼%. One of Labour's big lies is the claim that under them, interest rates have halved. Thay haven't. They are down by more like a quarter, to 4¾%. Labour's interest rate spin stems from having compared the
average interest rate under
18 years of Tory rule, and comparing that average figure with the
snapshot value of today. As you can see - more Labour lies and spin. But, as always, by the time people have unravelled the spin, Tony and Gordon have moved on somewhere else.
As to the NHS saving your parents' lives - good news, but let's have the other side.
- In 1980, I had life saving surgery in an American hospital at Springfield,IL. (Ruptured appendix/peritonitis) I would be brown bread for sure if my operation had been cancelled, as would have been likely on the NHS. Assuming it had gone ahead, I'd probably have died from an MRSA infection. America has no NHS. All treatment is private and has to be paid for. I had Blue Cross/Blue Shield with my job, and that covered it. On the way out, I had to write a check for $100 - discharge fee. I later got that back on the insurance. Stick that in your socialist pipe and smoke it.
- A friend of mine has a girlfriend whose left leg was very seriously injured in a skiing accident in France, which AFAIK has no national health service. (Straffo can confirm) The French doctors were able to repair her leg and had to insert about a dozen plates and pins. The English medical team was impressed when she got home. They said she could have lost that leg had the care not been as good or as prompt.
I'm not against the concept of an NHS; I'm against what it's become - an overbloated government quango.
The 1980s were fine by me - no more strikes, people working harder so we didn't have to put up with chitty products like naff cars unless we chose to. And the memories of Ronald Reagan and Maggie T dancing cheek to cheek at the White House bring a tear to my eye.
;)
