fear of the future

[Ed Anger]

Ed's Spotted Dick.

[Sheilbh]

I don't know very much, but I get the feeling that the Thatcher years dealt a tremendous blow to certain segments of British society, economically and psychically.

Unbelievably so.  As I say in lots of the country the early 80s recession never ended and socially there's a void that's never healed.

[Capetan Mihali]

I don't know very much, but I get the feeling that the Thatcher years dealt a tremendous blow to certain segments of British society, economically and psychically.

Unbelievably so.  As I say in lots of the country the early 80s recession never ended and socially there's a void that's never healed.

To me, then, it's not laughable that Thatcher's pit closures and strikebreaking -- all within the last 25 years or so -- would stand as a huge milestone for assessing destructive trends in British life.  And I don't think Josq is so off-base, since that sentiment would seem to be widely shared in parts of the industrial North.

[The Brain]

If the areas of Sweden that were hit by closed industries in that era had just stood around and moped they would have been pretty hellish too. No one in Sweden today is very sorry that textile industry, shipbuilding etc is gone. Except possibly some eccentric coots.

[Sheilbh]

The pit closures are particularly odd because they effectively brought urban decline and blight to small towns which I is a weird dynamic.  I mean Liverpool and Glasgow were royally fucked by the 80s (and, in the case of Liverpool the corrupt Trotskyist council didn't help ) but I think it's easier to imagine a city recovering than a Welsh valley town.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't know very much, but I get the feeling that the Thatcher years dealt a tremendous blow to certain segments of British society, economically and psychically.

How could it not?  If you were accustomed to dictating national economic policy and had that power suddenly removed and if you had built up work skills that, once the public subsidy was removed and demand for your output collapsed because of discoveries of competing energy sources, what other possible outcome could there have been?

The invention of talking movies dealt a tremendous blow to most silent film stars.  The mass production of automobiles dealt a tremendous blow to blacksmiths and saddlers.  Tape recorders--short hand writers.  Computers--punch card operators.  The list goes on and on.

[Capetan Mihali]

If the areas of Sweden that were hit by closed industries in that era had just stood around and moped they would have been pretty hellish too. No one in Sweden today is very sorry that textile industry, shipbuilding etc is gone. Except possibly some eccentric coots.

I gather that it wasn't just the passing of traditional industry that hit Britain so hard, but a number of other factors that probably weren't present in mid-80s Sweden.  Though I don't know scheisse from Shinola about modern Swedish history, and only a little more about the UK.

[The Brain]

If the areas of Sweden that were hit by closed industries in that era had just stood around and moped they would have been pretty hellish too. No one in Sweden today is very sorry that textile industry, shipbuilding etc is gone. Except possibly some eccentric coots.

I gather that it wasn't just the passing of traditional industry that hit Britain so hard, but a number of other factors that probably weren't present in mid-80s Sweden.  Though I don't know scheisse from Shinola about modern Swedish history, and only a little more about the UK.

Well we certainly won't elect a female PM.

[Sheilbh]

How could it not?  If you were accustomed to dictating national economic policy and had that power suddenly removed and if you had built up work skills that, once the public subsidy was removed and demand for your output collapsed because of discoveries of competing energy sources, what other possible outcome could there have been?

I don't think you actually know much about the situation with coal mining in this country, then or now,  because this is just ignorant.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't think you actually know much about the situation with coal mining in this country, then or now,  because this is just ignorant.

That's a possibility.

[Josquius]

Already in Britain we've big problems with the non-working class, the children of Thatcher, kids born to parents who have never known work who were born to parents who have never known work, etc... they're just stuck in a cycle of hopelessness, benefits and general shittyness.

Tyr, I love ya man, but you're one of the shallowest political thinkers on Languish.  Yet again your political analysis boils down to "It's all Thatcher's fault".

Not really no, the entire point of my post here is that the way the wind was blowing was  against the working class already, Thatcher certainly didn't invent the microchip or any major advances in robotics.
It is undeniable however that she certainly sped up the process greatly for many and IMO in a very unecessary, over the top, calous and short term thinking way. The children of  Thatcher are a well observed phenomena.

[Eddie Teach]

Ed's Spotted Dick.

Should probably have a doctor take a look at that.

[Neil]

Already in Britain we've big problems with the non-working class, the children of Thatcher, kids born to parents who have never known work who were born to parents who have never known work, etc... they're just stuck in a cycle of hopelessness, benefits and general shittyness.

Tyr, I love ya man, but you're one of the shallowest political thinkers on Languish.  Yet again your political analysis boils down to "It's all Thatcher's fault".

Not really no, the entire point of my post here is that the way the wind was blowing was  against the working class already, Thatcher certainly didn't invent the microchip or any major advances in robotics.
It is undeniable however that she certainly sped up the process greatly for many and IMO in a very unecessary, over the top, calous and short term thinking way. The children of  Thatcher are a well observed phenomena.

Hard to say.  I mean, do you hold Thatcher responsible for cutting off the useless miners, or do you hold decades of British governments responsible for allowing it to get to that point?  Either way, the argument that they were owed a lifetime of work mining coal at the expense of the productive parts of society isn't going to convince many.

[Barrister]

The pit closures are particularly odd because they effectively brought urban decline and blight to small towns which I is a weird dynamic.  I mean Liverpool and Glasgow were royally fucked by the 80s (and, in the case of Liverpool the corrupt Trotskyist council didn't help ) but I think it's easier to imagine a city recovering than a Welsh valley town.

except why would you expect a former company town to recover when the company shuts down?

Maybe that seems odd in the UK, but I know of dozens of examples of small towns devoted to a single resource-based industry that were devastated when that industry closed.  Some survive, even thrive, by converting to tourism, but others survive zombie-like on government assistance.

What we've "learned" is that it doesn't make sense to build a town around a mine - when new mines are opened up these days they just keep the workers in camps, and take them home every weekend (or whatever their shift pattern is).

[Neil]

Britain really didn't have the benefit of that, especially since many of those towns probably predated the mine, and had been mining for a very long time.