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Every year I complain, and every year they pursue me through the courts to pay up. The law does not define value or correctness - its just the law.

I always pay it just before they make the Court Order - I consider it an interest free loan.

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The odds on getting hit by a bus round here must exceed those of the lottery - its 17 million to one that one operates, much less hits you

Getting a police response doubles those odds unless you 1, pass a speed camera or 2, fall into the 'at risk category' - over 9 break ins at your house or a death in your postcode

I would not venture down a footpath unless i had a 750cc trials bike like the other users


the sports centre is still waiting for the fire brigade, but i understand under the recent poll tax increase they are holding an enquiry to rebuild it from the ashes

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Time to move house I think :D Complain to your MP instead, obviously your local council is worse than useless.

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Unfortunately my MP is Labour and is unable to join up the dots on the diagram I sent him pointing out the errors of the (Labour) council.

As a side point, the local lot are Infamous for removing the Free bus pass for OAP's as a cost saviing excersise.

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Nikko, think I understand what you mean. As a single person seems to be a lot of money shelling out and don't seem to get much back for it. Must remember to put my bin out this week so I feel I'm getting something for my money at least :D

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Thanks Debs - I was beginning to think it was just me.

Back on the absolute topic - Thatcher did a lot of good in the '80's given the poor inheritance she had. I am old enough to remember strikes, 3 day week, power cuts, raging inflation and a new administration (Heath/Wilson/Heath/Callaghan) about every 10 minutes. MT was a tough cookie and put things back on track. Then the daft mare forced Poll Tax through in the face of all sensible opinion and completely blew it overnight.

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Hmm, and how much does your little process cost every other council tax payer? Money that could be going to pay for local services instead of paying for the legal process?

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Headline-grabbing statistics do little to paint the bigger picture of the success or failure of any government. For example, quoting 1.4 million unemployed under Labour implies that it is their policies that are responsible, when unemployment levels have actually been falling steadily since 1993 (one year into the last Conservative administration). In fact, the peak in 1993 came at the end of the recession of the early 90s and when you take a look at the last 25 years as a whole you see a rapid rise from 1979 to 1983 (although levels were rising before 1979), followed by a downward trend to where we are today. Taking a long-term view, it is possible to argue that Thatcher's reforms, after some short-term upheaval, have been for the long-term benefit of the UK.

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And if the unemployment figures are still falling, surely Labour aren't doing too much wrong in that dept. And just how did we end up in the worst recession 'for 50 years' under the tory govt. ?

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A lot of third world countries have developed considerably since Thatcher days.

Funny thing is we help a lot of these third world countries and then the businesses that were founded and run in the uk outsource all there work to these countires that have now developed enough. Eventually that will kill manufacturing in th UK. However i believe Thatcher started this process, labour have just let it run out of control.

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But what about services? Less tax is a common component of the tories so individuals are bound to do a bit better

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So long as you're not self employed.

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This link is interesting:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3681973.stm

It appears even those who hated her have to admit this country is changed for the better as a result of what she did. Norman Tebbit has an interesting take on the 3m unemployed as well:



...She is blamed for creating three million unemployed. Of course, she didn't. She exposed the fact that three million people were on the payroll who were not doing a job. It wasn't always their fault. But in many cases we were over-manned. People were doing jobs which didn't need to be done and, of course, that was very painful.

And as for Labour doing well to keep unemployment falling, how about these words from the same article, by historian Andrew Roberts:

Of all the many things she created, including New Labour, the greatest was a Britain strong, proud and free. (My emphasis)

So, how has Labour managed to keep unemployment falling? By abandoning the policies that Thatcher successfully fought off in three general elections and by embracing market forces just as she did. In a very real sense, the spirit of Margaraet Thatcher is still at 10 Downing Street.

As for the recession - brought about by a combination of factors, but largely the disastrous entry of Sterling into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism at an unsustainably high rate.

A weakened Margaret Thatcher, in the twilight of her premiership, was ambushed by Europhile Tories in her cabinet and all but frogmarched into the ERM, something she was personally ambivalent about. Clearing up the aftermath required a number of crippling hikes in the Bank of England Base Rate which inevitably hammered the economy.

This is a prime example of Europhile stupidity of the kind that could be exhibited by any of the main political parties in this country. There are still those in the Conservative Party that, incredibly, think the Euro would be a good thing, Blair is famously in favour of it (but is thankfully held in check by Brown and others) and as for Charles Kennedy ... *shudder*

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Personally I'd rather have people working (even if we are "over manned") then claiming benefit and sitting at home committing crime and causing mischief. I'm sure the 1.6 million others that were out of work because of MT cost cutting exercise would agree with me, I know my family would rather be working than sponging.

As for the rest of the article, yes I'd agree with you that new Labour is a bit of a hybrid, but there nothing wrong with that, your not telling me that the previous conservative governments have never taken policies from other parties and implemented them.

On the other issues, I cant honestly believe that the country would be in the state its in today if the conservatives were still in power, their lack of investment is still crippling the railways and the NHS, in fact the NHS may have even crumbled if the Tory's were still in power. You cant keep on asking for something to work without paying for it.

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The issue of mass unemployment is, as Tebbit said, a painful one. I think if anything, it is probably still too soon to properly evaluate the effects of Maragret Thather's premiership on the UK. At the scale of individual families who were devastated by mass pit closures, the disappearance of our shipbuilding industry and the like, she was and always will be a hate figure. But 50 years from now, there will be few people alive with any real experience of those days, and all that will be left will be to assess, on a wider scale, the effect of her reforms on the country as a whole. I think you would be hard pressed, even now, to find an economist who will argue that the structural reforms of the 1980s have been bad for Britain in the long term.

Over-manning is a strange issue. You might say it is preferable for someone to have a job in an over-manned industry, but preferable for whom? It is not to the benefit of the country as a whole, if he is not contributing anything to the wealth of the country. And if a job in an over-manned state-run monolith is acceptable, then why is it considered political suicide for any Government to make people perform work to 'earn' their benefit (a scheme proposed by the Tories in the early 90s, IIRC, was decried as 'workfare' by Labour)?

Mass redundances were politically risky and personally painful for a lot of people, but today's unemployment figures prove that it was the right thing to do. The majority of people found new jobs, performing tasks that needed performing. That is better for the UK economy as a whole and also for the self-esteem of the individuals concerned.

As to New Labour, and the causes of New Labour - I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the fact that they stole the Tories clothes. I'm just observing that, in evaluating whether Margaret Thather was A Good Thing or A Bad Thing, it has to be highly significant that eventually her 'arch-enemies' had no choice but to become like her in order to get the British people to elect them.

For the other issues:

Railways: The result of more than 50 years of neglect by both Labour and Conservatives, as Labour has now acknowledged. Privatisation was possibly the biggest single ****-up but Labour's dithering, dabbling and u-turning over the last seven years has been disgraceful and arguably fatal on more than one occasion.

NHS: I am very suspicious of parties that, seven years after taking office, are still happy to blame the previous administration for the state of services that they are elected to run for us. The state of the NHS today is the responsibility of the Labour Government, which has learned the hard way what the Tories knew all all along: that massively increasing spending on unreformed public sector services is just throwing good money after bad. Labour can only challenge the Trade Unions so far, because at the end of the day the Trade Unions still pay Labour's bills. They just don't have the stomach to do what Thatcher did, which was to sacrifice her personal popularity, and short term political gain, for the long-term benefit of the country.