Originally posted by Grayling
Ah 1976

That was before Thatcher came along and Buggered everything up wasn't it?

G

Originally posted by Grayling
Ah 1976

That was before Thatcher came along and Buggered everything up wasn't it?

G

Originally posted by nosuchluck
Probably right, as i was only 10!

Originally posted by Grayling
Steady on!


I was 27 then

Still it's only numbers

G

Originally posted by desperate2go
I was seven......wasnt it the year of the drought. Bring back the drought as well!

Originally posted by Sandy.l
Yes, I believe it was the same year. I have a vague memory of the stand pipes at the end of the street, where we had to get water, and we weren't allowed to waste any at all.

It must have been like living in Australia!

Originally posted by Sandy.l
Yes, I believe it was the same year. I have a vague memory of the stand pipes at the end of the street, where we had to get water, and we weren't allowed to waste any at all.

It must have been like living in Australia!

Originally posted by desperate2go
Exactly..........Bring back the drought, and the silver jubilee street parties and penny sweets that cost a penny!

Originally posted by dracupg
Slightly off topic, but on the subject of Thatcher, am I the only one here that thinks the Poll Tax was actually quite a good idea, only badly executed? Making an individual financially accountable for the local services used, rather than basing it on the notional value of a property?

The only flaw I can see was the liability of non payment falling on the local authorities and as a consequence having to raise the payments of those people who were paying to compensate.

I reckon it will have its day again once compulsory ID cards are introduced.

Originally posted by OzTennis
It was reported today that a detailed study by economists in the UK concluded, by the criteria they used for measuring the nation's well being, that 1976 was the best year ever (for UK citizens). It is interesting that it should be all of 28 years ago that Britons never had it so good.

I preferred 1979 (by the Smashing Pumpkins) but that's another story!

http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=308712004

So was 1976 really Britain's best year ever?

FRANK O’DONNELL
CONSUMER AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT

A YEAR that saw Demis Roussos top the charts, Rocky win best film and inflation spiral to more than 16 per cent was the best ever for Britain’s quality of life, new figures claim.

Economists have ranked 1976 - perhaps best remembered for its long hot summer - as the best on record, according to a new way of measuring the nation’s well-being.

Although only half of the country’s households owned a telephone, industrial unrest was widespread and the Brotherhood of Man’s Save Your Kisses For Me was the year’s biggest chart hit, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) has surprised most people by labelling it a golden age for Britain.

The think-tank has developed a new index - the measure of domestic progress (MDP) - which, unlike the standard GDP figure, takes account of crime, environmental damage and social inequality.

The year that saw the birth of punk and the death of Chairman Mao won points because of its lower crime rate and energy consumption.

It has generally been assumed that Britain’s quality of life has improved year on year. GDP per head has increased three-fold in real terms, for example.

But the NEF report - released ahead of the Chancellor’s Budget announcement today - found that social progress in Britain has become increasingly decoupled from economic growth over the past 50 years, and has stalled completely in the last three decades.

Despite major increases in income over the past five decades, the costs and risks of environmental degradation, rising inequality, social breakdown and the diseases of affluence now threatening advances in life expectancy mean that real progress towards a sustainable society is lagging dangerously behind, the report says.

"The comfortable assumption that economic growth is a good indicator of human progress and well-being is a myth," the report says.

"Economic growth is leading to unacceptable environmental risks, failing to guarantee social progress and doesn't make us any happier.

"Despite improvements in air and water quality, environmental costs have risen 300 per cent in the last half-century.

"Social costs have increased 600 per cent, with a 13-fold increase in the costs of crime and a four-fold increase in the costs of family breakdown."

But economists have already challenged the conclusion that 1976 - when Harold Wilson resigned and Jimmy Carter became US president, a space probe landed on Mars and Starsky and Hutch was still on television and not cinema - was indeed a halcyon era.

Nicholas Crafts, of the London School of Economics, said measures of well-being should take into account improvements in living standards, such as rising life expectancy and opportunities offered by technological progress. Neither is included in the MDP.

Professor Tim Jackson, of Surrey University, who devised the index, said: "There may be intangible benefits of being better qualified and life expectancy has improved a little. But there are all sorts of other intangibles we have tried to look at."

Most people believe they are better off now than they were in the past, but that is because many want to believe it too, he said.

Hetan Shah, the director of NEF’s well-being programme, said: "The small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, which has never enjoyed the level of economic prosperity in the West, is seeking to replace GDP with Gross National Happiness (GNH).

"We should follow their lead by going back to basics and asking ourselves what exactly it is we are trying to maximise."

OzTennis

Originally posted by desperate2go
I am going to start a Bring Back 76 campaign.....right now. Life was sweet .

Originally posted by bondipom
Thatcher took the axe to industries that should have been dealt with in the early seventies. Instead both the management and unions preferred government handouts instead of restructuring. The procrastination of the period just heightened the inevitable pain.

Companies are like people. Give them free handouts and they become dependant on them.

The other factor not mentioned here is the huge expansion of the oil industry and oil prices in the seventies. This pulled the british economy in 2 ways. It provided jobs for those in the industry but the costs imposed by a high oil price also shocked the economy.

Thatcher was left to pick up the pieces. Whilst I find her repugnant and arrogant some of the policies she pushed through have provided the basis for modern Britain. As Don points out before her people bemoaned the loss of the empire. Love her or hate her she lead the UK through a major turning point.