Originally posted by Skydancer
How Beetle can say that Maggie was a great Prime minister escapes me. Squandered Oil revenue,on payiong benefit to over 3 million unemployed, totaly decimated manufacturing industry. destroyed Coal industry, and a growth in the F**k you mate I'm ok culture.
Oh yeah she was a dream. (dream *****)
Maggie's govt. reduced the top level of tax (set by Labour) from a
swingeing 83% (with a 15% surcharge on "unearned" income) to a mere 40% with no investment income surcharge. "Ah", I hear you say. "Taxes only affect the rich". Wrong. Our high earners were leaving Britain in droves during the Labour years. That meant that instead of getting a substantial tax take from them, the govt. got nothing. That's why, after the Tories reformed our tax situation, tax
receipts actually went up - because fewer people felt the need to domicile themselves overseas, out of reach of the taxman's claw.
The "F**k you mate, I'm OK" culture - Labour had failed in its pledge to modernise our industries, a pledge that Harold Wilson made in his devaluation speech in 1967. When Britain was
eventually dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the 19th century and into the digital age, too many people still relied on loss making dinasaur industries. So when the plug was pulled on nationalised industries which were little more than charity organisations, there were problems. The heady days of trade union excess in the 1970s were like a big piss up. The penalty for that excess was a massive hangover in the 1980s. However, some of us were prepared to work to become proficient in the skill of our choice, and then made good at it. If that's a corollary of a FU society, then so be it.
Saying that things are OK, ie the economy is sound etc. is like the Brinks Mat bank robbers crowing that their personal finances are in good order - and so they should be after one of the biggest heists in British history. Gordon Brown's achievements have been funded by raiding the piggy banks of middle Englanders. But what does he care? They all vote tory anyway. Talk about a FU culture.
Oh yes, and let's not forget the National Health Service. Remember how Labour promised us a fantastic NHS deal with reduced waiting lists and hospitals which would be the envy of the world? Under Labour, hospital waiting lists got longer. Eventually, T Blair conceded that "if you want a decent health service, you must be prepared to pay for it" (psst Tony - we're
already paying for it) So up went national insurance - from 10% to 11% for an employee, and from 12% to 13% for the employer. But guess what? NHS hospitals didn't get better. We hear of operations being cancelled seven times in order to "meet govt. targets". We see that hospitals are NOT the envy of the world; they are filthy, and more people die from hospital infections than die in traffic fatalities on our roads. Labour simply
threw money at the NHS, and much of it ended up in the toilet. In the NHS, there are now 3 managers for every 2 NHS beds. And while nurses' pay has risen 50%, NHS managers' pay has risen 70% - and that's where the money has gone. Squandered on meaningless bureaucratic and administrative functions.
Oh sure - things are just peachy - never been better.
<--sometimes one is not enough
