(03-12-2026, 01:09 PM)Orby Wrote: Maggie is a legend Andy. Sure she did it a little ruthlessly, but most of the heavy industry was Commie infested Unionised and subsidised by the tax payers. Those steel plants just could not compete with foreigners. Look in a perfect world I'd have backed thise plants but the fact is they were infested with Commies. I love Trump because he is bringing the manufacturing back to the States but those industries can compete these days wit AI and the robots. 1970's Britain was nailed with Commies constantly going on strike in addition to churning out sub standard products like the Ambassadour, Allegro, Princess, Morris Marina, BL Ital. They were just off the mark and state subsidies couldn't go on it was breaking our nation. The Unions needed crushing they were too powerful. Maggie sorted the nation out. 1980 we were in a terrible state yet by 1990 everything was on the up. I lived through it Andy. The world was a better place for having Maggie in it. The northern communities yes I feel them totally and can understand the feeling for Maggie, yet if the industries suddenly terminate and verything falls apart in the locality, then the only way is to move on. Northerners need to do what the ancestry did and migrate. All those shipyard workers in Glasgow etc came from Ireland originally, or the hilly bits of the Highlands, they moved for economic opportunities in the Clyde, unfortunately the time had come by 1980 to move on again, to where the opportunities lay, be it the new world, or the more economically active areas of he British isles. It may sound harsh but that's the way the world works.
On the Trump being the typical American example, I was referring to him being half a Kraut and half a Brit. Those two ethnicities are what made America the country it is today (obviously with the blacks efforts too, Italians and Cathoics Irish a little less and later comers too) the German and Brits settled the americas. Trump is that example of what the country became.
You're smoothing over a lot there buddy.
Thatcher didn't just "modernise" failing industries, whole sectors were shut down without serious transition plans.
Steel, coal, and shipbuilding were declining across Europe.
But other countries managed the change and rode the storm without hollowing out entire regions or destroying communities.
Blaming everything on "Commies" in unions ignores real issues like poor management, under-investment, and government antiquated draconian policies back in the 80s.
Cars like the Austin Allegro or Morris Marina weren't bad because workers were striking, they were piss-poor designed and rushed out the door.
And "just move" isn't realistic, communities, housing, and jobs don't magically follow people Orby.
I wish that were the case.
The growth in the 80s also rode North Sea oil and finance, not just Thatcher's choices, which is something to keep in mind.
Again, she is hated with a vengeance mate.
Only thing she did right was the Falklands.
And if you wish to overlook her relationship with the likes of a Savile, that's up to you.
But it's rather a red flag where the woman is concerned imho.
As to across the pond.
That's a bit of a history remix.
America wasn't just built by a Brit-German double act with everyone else as extras.
We helped, that's rather apparent, and kind of hard to argue otherwise.
But the enslaved Africans built huge parts of the economy also.
Not to mention the Irish, Italians, and Chinese who built the likes of their cities and railways.
I don't think Donald Trump is an average American anything.
As to what he is an example of...
I would not know where to begin.
"Yet so it is, we see the illiterate bulk of mankind that walk the high-road of plain common sense, and are governed by the dictates of nature, for the most part easy and undisturbed. To them nothing that is familiar appears unaccountable or difficult to comprehend."
