If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
America kept their right wing leader in power, how come we didn't vote Howard in then at this election...English politics will not be influenced by German politics, or even worse, the politics in the Rhineland...i think you need to get your head out of the clouds sonny boy...
and it took the tories 15 years to implement those...remember '79...labour isnb't working slogan by the tories with the long queues in it...a few years after that unemployment was 3 million under thatcher...who do you trust?
you should also know that in the 80s after the defeat from the tatcher conservative, the labout party split into the sdp and labour. the sdp move to the left and under blari the labour party moved towards the centre left. if you look at the two parties you can clearly see which ideology appeals to more people. there are few people on the left, and a few on the right and everybody else is in the middle. and that was the success of new labour. unless people are polarised to one side by some event, people will generally be moderate.
blah im tired of typing.
thatcher helped revived the economy 80's were the decade of boom and bust...it wasn't a secure economy like we have now (though i fear thats gonna go aswell)
so whats better, you being rich and millions poor, or everyone basically having the same...this is where you fall into two category's, either a decent human being or a cold hearted bastard, i know many on here that fall into the latter
blair? blair didn't become leader till 1994...
blair didnt come til 94 but hes responsible for new labour.
despite the boom and bust, the tatcher government did improve the economy, which because of the coal miners strikes were in pieces then. like i said the improvement though came at the cost of the working class (the unions were weakend etc) which is a shame because they are the base of any society and even though under new labour the economy has stabilised, you cannot ignore the fact that it was in better shape when they came into power than when the first tatcher government came into power.
nah i prefer the whig interpretation of events
So that's why Deutsche Bahn and SNCF (publicly owned) are excellent train services, modern, cheap, clean and fast, whereas in the UK I get to pay £60 a week to sit on a train that is nothinhg more than a very old Leyland bus on train wheels.
K.
calm down my good man...if i was being serious i would have left the wink out
Yes no-one would disagree that the German & French railways are excellent but they come at a price, huge subsidies from the State, and the question is how long can they continue to be funded this way, some say not for too much longer.
some say it's the way to go....
oh... okay. we cool. we cool. :thumb:
So that'd be the British system then, where huge amounts of cash go into the pockets of the companies who own the trains and charge exorbitant rents to the TOCs.
Come on then, explain what the Whig interpretation of history is.
inevitability
You that sure they cover thier own costs?
Of what? I want more than that.
As I remember it, my very first post on this board was on the subject of the railways, making the point that private enterprise built them badly in the first place and proved incapable of investing adequately in them. British Rail, despite being top-heavy, vulnerable to the whims of government and chronically mismanaged for its first couple of decades, actually did a pretty good job in the '70s and '80s - only for Tory dogma and free market bullshit to wreck it all. The best railways in the world are all state run, or at least have/had a high degree of state involvement in building and operation. Railways are a public good, and need to be managed as such, not as a profit-making exercise. It really is that simple.
Having said that, I now wish I hadn't since I'm busy and I've no time to get into a debate...