I have now thought for many years that we are now living with the fruits of Maggies labours. She gave industry and the financial institutions the freedom to abuse themselves and this they have done effectively ever since. She privatised a huge number of, what I always considered to be national assets, at give away prices, for no other reason than to get rid of the responsibility and let water, gas, railways, schools, hospitals etc..etc.. to fend for themselves out there in the commercial world.
She has led us to a point where we have little social and family structure and a population driven by selfish greed and a "What about me?" attitude where kids have no values, no morals and certainly no sense of social responsibility.
But at the end of the day the people who complain about this now and the people who blame Thatcher for it all forget one small thing. She was only allowed to get away with it all because she had no opposition for 14 years. She did exactly what she wanted and no one stood in her way. That is why I hold Labour equally responsible for the state we are in now because they didn't resist, they didn't fight and they didn't move with the times.
Now, instead of having a balance again with Labour in power we have Blair emulating the Tory line and giving up on all the old Labour values. How many times did you see him wearing a blue tie during interviewsd? Poor Harold Wilson would have rather fallen on his sword than wear blue.
So as Roger says it all goes a long way back and I agree. When I was a youngster you had Harold Wilson and Ted Heath who both staunchly stood up for thier own beliefs and backgrounds and thier party's princliples. They had to compromise because both were equally strong. Nowadays politicians of all parties are more than ever creaming the system and feathering thier own nests and much as we have to put up with the latest indignant whinning of the Tories complaining about Labour's sleeze tactics they are equally as bad and equally capable of the same underhanded dealings.
So back to Niels original point, yes I agree it's all a bit of a joke but don't put it down to Brown and his cronies. The Tory's will be just as bad if they get another chance.