Well done London!

[usedbustickets]

I wasn't looking to win, but to simply to make a point or two, and of course enjoy myself along the way.... which i have.  Anyway I've just had a shout from Mrs Tickets that I have got to come in for my tea, but if I am good I'll be allowed out to play again after  

[Jacqui Harvey]

It's an amazing fact but true Harold Wilson closed more mines in his two terms in office that Margaret Thatcher did in her three.
However, when all the arguments die down.  History, as I have said before will mark Mrs Thatcher of one of the great Prime Ministers of our time.  I did not agree with all her policies but I have great respect for her and admire her grit and determination, she also was not in the job to line her own pockets like many of today's M.P's.   
It's strange now to think how unpopular Winston Churchill was in his time but now he is idolised by many as a great man and Prime Minister.

[Highlander]

An extremely personal question UBT - do you vote in General Elections.

I genuinely will not object if you choose not to answer that question.

[scorcher]

Well there's me on page 2 of today's Daily Telegraph middle picture doing my bit for Queen,Country and CBF. Concentrating on the onlookers for signs of dissent and got sidetracked by events and ever mindful of your kind expectation of me Colwyn.
I hold no brief for her as it happens because I was made redundant from Thames Television in her purge of the unions and she was also very cross about our transmission of our "Death on the Rock".However, as the gun carriage and casket passed and on reflection immediately afterwards I thought how ironic it was that a last gesture to me was to enable me to get paid to film her passing. In truth, I found the event to be very moving and was gratified that her dissenters were sensible in their protestations - I wish her peace.

[stoop]

An interesting question that I obviously do not know the answer but .....

Would Mrs T have bailed out the banks like Brown did?

I'm not sure she would have you know.

Wasn't it Brown who virtually forced the Halifax/TSB merger causing the meltdown of the latter? Could he have caused it or shall we blame Mrs T?


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/4632804/Gordon-Brown-could-have-saved-HBOS-without-need-for-Lloyds-merger.html

[Colwyn]

You seem to floundering around to keep the argument going now, Stoop. I don't think any historians will be debating the greatness of Brown as a prime minister. Don't see the point of dragging him in here. What about Stanley Baldwin? Dull day in Leeds, is it?

[scorcher]

Bit brighter in York perhaps ?

[kevin3]

Stoop. Thatcher destroyed manufacturing and engineering stating that Britains future lay in the service industries such as   err'  BANKING.

[usedbustickets]

I've had my tea and I am back out to play.

Stoop we got into a financial mess because, as Kevin pointed out there was a Thatcher myth that we could survive indeed prosper as an economy based on services, in particular financial services, then and this is an important point we then started to deregulate the financial sector, so putting the uk economy at double risk, an over dependence upon financial services - concentrated into fewer and bigger financial institutions - and the weakest financial regulation.  And unsuprisingly the inevitable collapse happened, as a result of poor economic policy emanating from the Thatcher era, and brown and Blair have to take their share of the blame for continuing with such economic folly.

H yes that is a strange question, and I am not sure why you ask the question unless you intend to suck me in to a further set of increasingly closed questions, but go on for your information I have voted in every election - local national euro referendum - since 1974.  You see I see it as a matter of rights and duties, if you have the right to vote it is your duty to vote or at the very least attend the polling station.

[usedbustickets]

Oh yes Stoop and would Thatcher have bailed out the banks.  The answer is a very big yes, what would the alternative have been for her, let them crash or perhaps nationalise them, neither option would she have chosen.