I've lived in rented houses until my early 30's. The rents were affordable but you had to work pretty hard to afford them. My father worked 5 days a week but sometimes 7 days a week for a few weeks in summer (fire fighting in the forestry). My mother was a housewife but had to take in washing or cleaning other peoples houses so we just about managed from week to week, rarely was there excess money. Just about all we had, usually second hand, was Made In Britain and built to last. If you could manage to save the interest was good, when I first married for a number of years we managed to save with good interest, once the interest plummeted people who could turned to property to rent and the rents went from affordable to ridiculous add the demand for homes because of Tony Blair and his vision of open door immigration and 'changing the face of Britain' - here we are. We have many mines in the vicinity that I live in, all closed of course but the majority were closed by Labour long before Thatcher, why would anyone close a going concern that's making money? We have, I think a degree only slightly above slave labour, working in mines in China and other countries that made it profitable to import inferior coal into Britain, the same happened with the textile industry and many others, no solidarity with fellow workers then, the majority of people just want a cheap alternative and the owners just want a fat profit. .
Nice post Vintage.
My dads family came from Durham, his father, uncles and grandfather were all miners, a hard and dangerous life, my dad never returned once he left the army.
Thatcher closed a lot of working mines in the NW of England, in doing so a lot of communities were wiped out.
Maddog said
Dec 19 4:51 PM, 2022
Our coal industry is pretty much gone too. It wasn't propped up by the government and died a natural death, like any unprofitable industry (horse carriage makers) should.
Much like your coal industry was, our solar industry is supported by tax payer subsidies.
If it wasn't, there wouldn't be people making money from it.
But it's not the taxpayers job to support industry. Supposed to be the other way around..
Digger said
Dec 26 6:05 PM, 2022
Paris.
Maddog said
Dec 26 6:47 PM, 2022
Digger wrote:
Paris.
Who's killing Kurds and where are they being killed? Turkey, Syria or somewhere in France?.
Digger said
Dec 26 7:16 PM, 2022
Maddog wrote:
Digger wrote:
Paris.
Who's killing Kurds and where are they being killed? Turkey, Syria or somewhere in France?.
Paris has witnessed a second day of violent unrest after Friday's deadly attack on the city's Kurdish community.
Protesters who gathered on Saturday overturned cars, setting some on fire, and hurled objects at police. Officers responded by firing tear gas.
Three people were killed in Friday's attack, which took place at a Kurdish cultural centre and a restaurant.
The suspect, who has reportedly described himself as racist, has been transferred to a psychiatric facility.
The 69-year-old was released from custody for health reasons following an examination on Saturday, prosecutors said. He is yet to appear before a judge.
In the wake of the shootings, the suspect said he hated foreigners, a police source earlier told the AFP news agency.
The same source said the gunman launched his attack with a "much-used" pistol and was found with a box of at least 25 cartridges and "two or three" loaded magazines.
Witnesses said the attacker - tall, white and elderly - shot dead two men and a woman in the city's 10th district.
Three others were injured, one of whom remains in a critical condition.
Three places came under fire - the Ahmet-Kaya Kurdish centre, as well as a nearby restaurant and a hairdresser - before the gunman was arrested without a fight.
The suspect, a retired train driver, was detained on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, and was later also charged with acting with a racist motive.
Digger said
Dec 26 7:17 PM, 2022
So, the whole of Paris gets trashed because of one nutter. This is the mentality of these people. When you consider all the murders related to Middle Eastern terrorist and nutters here, and the lack of public response it kind of tells you something.
Maddog said
Dec 26 8:03 PM, 2022
Digger wrote:
So, the whole of Paris gets trashed because of one nutter. This is the mentality of these people. When you consider all the murders related to Middle Eastern terrorist and nutters here, and the lack of public response it kind of tells you something.
What do they want?
Execution on the spot without a trial?
I get it, if he were to be found not guilty, but we that's not what happend.
Anonymous said
Dec 26 11:04 PM, 2022
Syl wrote:
Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:
Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:
Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:
Society has worked when the people who earn pay in...the more someone earns the more they should contribute.
If more people are taking out of the pot when they should be putting in...that is hardly the fault of the people who have contributed throughout their working lives. Immigration is vital when the immigrants are contributing...if they are not, they are just draining an already decreasing pot, not to mention wringing schools, NHS services, and affordable housing dry. If people choose to scrounge rather than work.....ditto.
We are far too soft on illegals and scroungers, we are also 12 years into a Tory government, who look after the rich better than the workers...which is why the unions are once more flexing their muscles here.
Almost everything works temporarily.
The Canadian system worked quite well too.
The Japanese are no slouches either.
I'm sure you know people that were living beyond their means, and for awhile appeared like they were quite successful. Then they ran out of money.
Many off these government programs are the same way. The wheels don't fall off for decades.
I know a lot of Brits despise the old Iron Lady, but she was absolutely correct when she said "eventually you run out of other people's money".
Personally, I couldn't stand Thatcher.
I think you would have had to live here at that time to know the damage she caused....the UK is still suffering because of some of the decisions her government made.
We lived under her cousin, Reagan.
The damage she caused was trying to be financially responsible. People don't like that. Its a terrible way to remain popular. That's why most politicians won't do it.
She was responsible for closing all the coal mines, she smashed up communities, encouraged greed, and sold off everything that made the UK self sufficient....not to mention all the council houses, which her government failed to replenish.
That was why she was so unpopular here.
The UK wasn't self sufficient. You were broke. The mines were a litteral money pit.
And the council house is a terrible idea. It ties poor people to a home and they can't move to better areas with more opportunity.
Just because the government was doing something doesn't mean it was working well. That's the problem with government programs. No one cares what they cost, just that they need to continue or your mean amd greedy.
That's not reality.
Reality is millions of people not able to afford to keep warm or feed their kids properly in 2022.
Once we had our own industries, steel, fabrics,coal. I come from a part of the country that was once filled with mills and industry....now everything is imported.
Wasn't it you who said you had no sympathy for the UK because we were importing our fuel instead of supplying our own? ?
When we manufactured our own goods, instead of importing cheaper crap from China, goods would last a lifetime...now it's a throwaway society because everything is knackered after a few short years.
Thatcher did encourage people to buy their own homes. Like Digger said, it enabled many people who lived in rented social housing the chance to buy cheaply....great for them, not so great for the people who needed a council house after she had sold them all off. That began the rise of huge rent increases for private renters, and millions left in negative equity when they took her advice, bought, and were left in huge debt because the cost of living was soaring....just as it is now.
I also grew up with huge textile mills all around and their huge chimneys.
They closed down because the owners were business men who saw a good opportunity with the arrival of container shipping.
Those textile mills were huge as you know and needed endless money spent maintaining them.
Thousands of workers inside them needed paying with ever increasing rights and benefits and along came container shipping.
A cotton mill in Manchester would buy cotton bails from America which would come in at Liverpool and Manchester docks and then had to be warehoused in just the right conditions for months on end and then shipped by road to the mills as needed.
It didn't make economic sense with the arrival of container shipping.
All the machinery was sold off and shipped out across Asia but especially to India and Pakistan.
Now the cotton bails were sent not to England from America but to Asia where the machinery was and a slave labour desperate poverty class.
Around the new Asian sweatshops for spinning cotton combing wool grew ever growing clothes manufacturers making use of the spun and combed yarns on their doorstep so the raw materials were finished off as shirts frocks underwear bedding etc etc.
The ex mill owner who had sold buildings land machinery could now buy these products without a work force and huge buildings and machinery and transport to pay out for.
When the container shipping first took off big time the mill owners at first used containers as stores rather than paying for expensive warehousing for the bails.
When the first guy closed up sold off and started importing finished products the rest followed rapidly.
The textile industry in the UK which was the biggest in the world for a hundred years folded and laid untold numbers off it was nothing to do with politicians or unions but everything to do with the simplicity of shipping containers and easier money. I suspect we'd all have done the same thing had we been the mill owners.
Selling off our manufacturing for short term gain was a big mistake which over the last twenty years has started to bite us on the arse bigtime.
There are very similar story'es regarding steel chemicals etc.
Asia is now the manufacturing centre of the universe they make our stuff pollute their skies and recycle our waste. I use the word recycle loosely.
It's resulted in India having more science graduates then America has graduates and they have a space programme we don't!
History will show we traded our greatness for a basket full of paper.
Syl said
Dec 27 12:52 PM, 2022
We can also buy goods for a fraction of the true cost,,,have a walk around Primark for example sometime.
No matter the people who make them are working for a pittance, in dangerous conditions abroad.
Or are even working illegally in sweatshops under our own noses.
The price of progress.
Vita said
Dec 27 3:12 PM, 2022
Children as young as four have been referred to weight loss services in Scotland amid Scotland's obesity crisis.
280 children some still at nursery were referred to paediatric weight clinics with 163 of the youngsters so fat they were obese.
In total 1,500 under 16's were referred by their doctors which averages 4 a day.
Campaigners have accused the Scottish Government of failing to address the problem.
When I was at Primary School there was only one fat child there, not many more when I went to High School.
Maddog said
Dec 27 3:44 PM, 2022
Vita wrote:
Children as young as four have been referred to weight loss services in Scotland amid Scotland's obesity crisis.
280 children some still at nursery were referred to paediatric weight clinics with 163 of the youngsters so fat they were obese.
In total 1,500 under 16's were referred by their doctors which averages 4 a day.
Campaigners have accused the Scottish Government of failing to address the problem.
When I was at Primary School there was only one fat child there, not many more when I went to High School.
Part of its lack of exercise. A lot of it is cheap, processed food from factory farming.
I used to blame people entirely for their weight issues. It's still largely their fault (or their parents), but we inadvertently eat a lot of crap food that appears to be "healthy'.
Food that's better for you tends to cost a little more.
Then there is just sheer ignorance on the topic of nutrition. And laziness for many that sorta know what they are doing is unhealthy.
In any event, I look at fat kids as a form of abuse. You are making your child unhealthy and reinforcing unhealthy behavior that they will struggle to unlearn as adults. May as well give them beer and smokes after dinner..
Anonymous said
Dec 27 5:32 PM, 2022
Syl wrote:
We can also buy goods for a fraction of the true cost,,,have a walk around Primark for example sometime. No matter the people who make them are working for a pittance, in dangerous conditions abroad. Or are even working illegally in sweatshops under our own noses.
The price of progress.
I'm not sure why you call it progress when it clearly isn't.
It's change.
Syl said
Dec 27 5:44 PM, 2022
anonymousrollup wrote:
Syl wrote:
We can also buy goods for a fraction of the true cost,,,have a walk around Primark for example sometime. No matter the people who make them are working for a pittance, in dangerous conditions abroad. Or are even working illegally in sweatshops under our own noses.
The price of progress.
I'm not sure why you call it progress when it clearly isn't.
It's change.
It's called irony Jack.
Maddog said
Dec 27 6:07 PM, 2022
Syl wrote:
anonymousrollup wrote:
Syl wrote:
We can also buy goods for a fraction of the true cost,,,have a walk around Primark for example sometime. No matter the people who make them are working for a pittance, in dangerous conditions abroad. Or are even working illegally in sweatshops under our own noses.
The price of progress.
I'm not sure why you call it progress when it clearly isn't.
It's change.
It's called irony Jack.
He's been Americanized and no longer gets irony. 😉🙄
Syl said
Dec 27 7:29 PM, 2022
Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:
anonymousrollup wrote:
Syl wrote:
We can also buy goods for a fraction of the true cost,,,have a walk around Primark for example sometime. No matter the people who make them are working for a pittance, in dangerous conditions abroad. Or are even working illegally in sweatshops under our own noses.
The price of progress.
I'm not sure why you call it progress when it clearly isn't.
It's change.
It's called irony Jack.
He's been Americanized and no longer gets irony. 😉🙄
Vita said
Dec 28 5:51 AM, 2022
Maddog wrote:
Vita wrote:
Children as young as four have been referred to weight loss services in Scotland amid Scotland's obesity crisis.
280 children some still at nursery were referred to paediatric weight clinics with 163 of the youngsters so fat they were obese.
In total 1,500 under 16's were referred by their doctors which averages 4 a day.
Campaigners have accused the Scottish Government of failing to address the problem.
When I was at Primary School there was only one fat child there, not many more when I went to High School.
Part of its lack of exercise. A lot of it is cheap, processed food from factory farming.
I used to blame people entirely for their weight issues. It's still largely their fault (or their parents), but we inadvertently eat a lot of crap food that appears to be "healthy'.
Food that's better for you tends to cost a little more.
Then there is just sheer ignorance on the topic of nutrition. And laziness for many that sorta know what they are doing is unhealthy.
In any event, I look at fat kids as a form of abuse. You are making your child unhealthy and reinforcing unhealthy behavior that they will struggle to unlearn as adults. May as well give them beer and smokes after dinner..
I see a lot of high school children each day and most of them are stuffing themselves with pot noodles and rolls and sausages.
You see packed lunches (usually pieces) that have been made for them, chucked away and lying on the pavement.
I suppose rolls and sausages are tastier than cheese pieces.
Some parents are trying but some are not.
A woman I know with two children is morbidly obese and her going the same way, takeaways every night.
When I was young a takeaway was an occasionally treat, sweets on a Saturday and one bottle of ginger each week between me and my brother.
It's the long term health problems that worry me, when you're young you think you're invincible, then you grow up and realise you aint.
I know I stopped smoking last year after 30 years but I wish to hell i had never started.
Vita said
Dec 28 5:53 AM, 2022
Sandwiches are called pieces in Scotland, just in case someone thought "Pieces of what?"
Vita said
Dec 28 6:01 AM, 2022
It was the anniversary of the Lockerbie Bombing last week.
I was watching a programme about it.
When you see scenes from in and around Sherwood Crescent it's a miracle the wreckage didn't kill more on the ground that it did.
Children as young as four have been referred to weight loss services in Scotland amid Scotland's obesity crisis.
280 children some still at nursery were referred to paediatric weight clinics with 163 of the youngsters so fat they were obese.
In total 1,500 under 16's were referred by their doctors which averages 4 a day.
Campaigners have accused the Scottish Government of failing to address the problem.
When I was at Primary School there was only one fat child there, not many more when I went to High School.
You rarely saw fat kids or teenagers 60 or 50 years ago. The obesity epidemic began in the 1980s when they started seriously dicking around with our food. We saw things like ice cream being bastardised with the removal of butter and cream for glucose syrup and palm oil. Low fat was the trend but the food had to taste of something so sugar and salt was added in bigger amounts. We suddenly had more money to spend, so everyone could afford a car, so we walked less. You don't seem to see kids out playing like you did years ago. We'd go out and play all day. And if we got hungry between meals you made yourself a bit of toast. We only ever got sweets and crisps etc at weekends if we were lucky. We are what we eat. People still don't seem to get that.
Syl said
Dec 28 12:08 PM, 2022
I also think obesity is accepted more now.
In spite of the mental obsession of people wanting to stay eternally young, on the other side of the coin is people who flaunt their fatness and are seen as some kind of crusader because they don't follow the norm.
The simple fact is, in the vast majority of cases, people are fat because they eat too much and exercise too little.....nothing admiral in that.
Nice post Vintage.
My dads family came from Durham, his father, uncles and grandfather were all miners, a hard and dangerous life, my dad never returned once he left the army.
Thatcher closed a lot of working mines in the NW of England, in doing so a lot of communities were wiped out.
Much like your coal industry was, our solar industry is supported by tax payer subsidies.
If it wasn't, there wouldn't be people making money from it.
But it's not the taxpayers job to support industry. Supposed to be the other way around..
Paris.
Who's killing Kurds and where are they being killed? Turkey, Syria or somewhere in France?.
Paris has witnessed a second day of violent unrest after Friday's deadly attack on the city's Kurdish community.
Protesters who gathered on Saturday overturned cars, setting some on fire, and hurled objects at police. Officers responded by firing tear gas.
Three people were killed in Friday's attack, which took place at a Kurdish cultural centre and a restaurant.
The suspect, who has reportedly described himself as racist, has been transferred to a psychiatric facility.
The 69-year-old was released from custody for health reasons following an examination on Saturday, prosecutors said. He is yet to appear before a judge.
In the wake of the shootings, the suspect said he hated foreigners, a police source earlier told the AFP news agency.
The same source said the gunman launched his attack with a "much-used" pistol and was found with a box of at least 25 cartridges and "two or three" loaded magazines.
Witnesses said the attacker - tall, white and elderly - shot dead two men and a woman in the city's 10th district.
Three others were injured, one of whom remains in a critical condition.
Three places came under fire - the Ahmet-Kaya Kurdish centre, as well as a nearby restaurant and a hairdresser - before the gunman was arrested without a fight.
The suspect, a retired train driver, was detained on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, and was later also charged with acting with a racist motive.
What do they want?
Execution on the spot without a trial?
I get it, if he were to be found not guilty, but we that's not what happend.
I also grew up with huge textile mills all around and their huge chimneys.
They closed down because the owners were business men who saw a good opportunity with the arrival of container shipping.
Those textile mills were huge as you know and needed endless money spent maintaining them.
Thousands of workers inside them needed paying with ever increasing rights and benefits and along came container shipping.
A cotton mill in Manchester would buy cotton bails from America which would come in at Liverpool and Manchester docks and then had to be warehoused in just the right conditions for months on end and then shipped by road to the mills as needed.
It didn't make economic sense with the arrival of container shipping.
All the machinery was sold off and shipped out across Asia but especially to India and Pakistan.
Now the cotton bails were sent not to England from America but to Asia where the machinery was and a slave labour desperate poverty class.
Around the new Asian sweatshops for spinning cotton combing wool grew ever growing clothes manufacturers making use of the spun and combed yarns on their doorstep so the raw materials were finished off as shirts frocks underwear bedding etc etc.
The ex mill owner who had sold buildings land machinery could now buy these products without a work force and huge buildings and machinery and transport to pay out for.
When the container shipping first took off big time the mill owners at first used containers as stores rather than paying for expensive warehousing for the bails.
When the first guy closed up sold off and started importing finished products the rest followed rapidly.
The textile industry in the UK which was the biggest in the world for a hundred years folded and laid untold numbers off it was nothing to do with politicians or unions but everything to do with the simplicity of shipping containers and easier money. I suspect we'd all have done the same thing had we been the mill owners.
Selling off our manufacturing for short term gain was a big mistake which over the last twenty years has started to bite us on the arse bigtime.
There are very similar story'es regarding steel chemicals etc.
Asia is now the manufacturing centre of the universe they make our stuff pollute their skies and recycle our waste. I use the word recycle loosely.
It's resulted in India having more science graduates then America has graduates and they have a space programme we don't!
History will show we traded our greatness for a basket full of paper.
No matter the people who make them are working for a pittance, in dangerous conditions abroad.
Or are even working illegally in sweatshops under our own noses.
The price of progress.
Children as young as four have been referred to weight loss services in Scotland amid Scotland's obesity crisis.
280 children some still at nursery were referred to paediatric weight clinics with 163 of the youngsters so fat they were obese.
In total 1,500 under 16's were referred by their doctors which averages 4 a day.
Campaigners have accused the Scottish Government of failing to address the problem.
When I was at Primary School there was only one fat child there, not many more when I went to High School.
Part of its lack of exercise. A lot of it is cheap, processed food from factory farming.
I used to blame people entirely for their weight issues. It's still largely their fault (or their parents), but we inadvertently eat a lot of crap food that appears to be "healthy'.
Food that's better for you tends to cost a little more.
Then there is just sheer ignorance on the topic of nutrition. And laziness for many that sorta know what they are doing is unhealthy.
In any event, I look at fat kids as a form of abuse. You are making your child unhealthy and reinforcing unhealthy behavior that they will struggle to unlearn as adults. May as well give them beer and smokes after dinner..
I'm not sure why you call it progress when it clearly isn't.
It's change.
It's called irony Jack.
He's been Americanized and no longer gets irony. 😉🙄
I see a lot of high school children each day and most of them are stuffing themselves with pot noodles and rolls and sausages.
You see packed lunches (usually pieces) that have been made for them, chucked away and lying on the pavement.
I suppose rolls and sausages are tastier than cheese pieces.
Some parents are trying but some are not.
A woman I know with two children is morbidly obese and her going the same way, takeaways every night.
When I was young a takeaway was an occasionally treat, sweets on a Saturday and one bottle of ginger each week between me and my brother.
It's the long term health problems that worry me, when you're young you think you're invincible, then you grow up and realise you aint.
I know I stopped smoking last year after 30 years but I wish to hell i had never started.
Sandwiches are called pieces in Scotland, just in case someone thought "Pieces of what?"
It was the anniversary of the Lockerbie Bombing last week.
I was watching a programme about it.
When you see scenes from in and around Sherwood Crescent it's a miracle the wreckage didn't kill more on the ground that it did.
You rarely saw fat kids or teenagers 60 or 50 years ago. The obesity epidemic began in the 1980s when they started seriously dicking around with our food. We saw things like ice cream being bastardised with the removal of butter and cream for glucose syrup and palm oil. Low fat was the trend but the food had to taste of something so sugar and salt was added in bigger amounts. We suddenly had more money to spend, so everyone could afford a car, so we walked less. You don't seem to see kids out playing like you did years ago. We'd go out and play all day. And if we got hungry between meals you made yourself a bit of toast. We only ever got sweets and crisps etc at weekends if we were lucky. We are what we eat. People still don't seem to get that.
In spite of the mental obsession of people wanting to stay eternally young, on the other side of the coin is people who flaunt their fatness and are seen as some kind of crusader because they don't follow the norm.
The simple fact is, in the vast majority of cases, people are fat because they eat too much and exercise too little.....nothing admiral in that.