Originally Posted by flashman

I read somewhere that the employment opportunities are mainly in the public sector with government money rather than in the private sector.

Originally Posted by SANDRAPAUL

Where did I say this? I did not say she fixed the UK. Simply that she was of her time and like todays party some of it was good and some of it was bad. It is always a mixture. Voters forget that.

Unemployment - the truth is it has not changed much then. A rollercoaster with 3-4 million people going up and down. Even under the new presentation methods the level has risen by over half million in the last 18 months. Not much flag waving on the numbers. The Torries dare not critisise as they did the same and would need to do the same. It matters little.

You need to have a section of society unemployed as I dare to say they are .... unemployable in certain economic conditions. I would guess I would/should be one of them. You advocate a complete employed workforce. If that is so and I have read this before you will have to adjust payments across the board to a much lower level as this is a massive cost factor. To pay someone £1,000 per month benefits is much cheaper than paying a governement worker £2,000 per month to the country and it will likely return very little in many areas. I hear you cry we need these workers. An economy only needs enough - not too many. Now if you take Labour as an example, the party that likes civil servants, even they admit we have far too many. But thats political speak as in fact they would and have prefered to borrow heavily to make the ecomony and unemplyment look good to get to this point. The Third Term. Now we shall see where it all ends. No different to the later days of the Tory rule. It takes time for all this to sink in.

It really depends on what you want long term. Massive debts, or a bank balance in the black which is what the Labour Party inherited.

The economy in the UK since after the war was going through the death throws of traditional manufacturing and raw material extraction. The third world has not just overnight taken over these roles. We are simpy seeing more of it and through the magnifying glass of the media. During the 60's and 70's the workforce operating in old industries were becoming expensive on a world scale and it became cheraper to import than to have our own workers in place. It is not right but that does not change jack shit. Do you see labour really doing anything about manufacturing. No - 1 million more jobs lost in this sector during the last 7 years so they fully understand the principles of world trade.

In a economic good time a tidal wave of civil servants is affordable. Sadly this area does not generate wealth or profit. It is the latter area that is of more concern than ever before. Is this the wrong tme to keep borrowing. How many people view meeting the Fiscal arrangements as a good thing. Many I guess. Meeting this means simply borrowing more and more from the world bank. Going back to the days of the country not being able to meet its commitments eventually. We are not there yet but there are a growing mainstream section of industrial and economic leaders that know the train is beggining to stop. They are not sure what station we are pulling into though.

I guess you may not have been very old or not around in the 70's.

1976..it was a nice summer and thats why people look back fondly on it. It is human nature to not recall the bad parts - and I would think thats good.

Over to you I guess.

PS. If Mrs Thatcher was so bad why is she a hero of Mr Blair's?

Originally Posted by seacreature

There is nothing wrong with Britain, apart from crime, however I don't see how that is Labour's fault.