Austerity is a myth.

Well, I think that was what was meant by percent, perhaps I'm wrong.

It certainly made an impact on our household budget!

I see now, I did get it wrong, sorry.

1983 Percent made perfect sense to me, as the interest rate was about 11% and the mortgage rates were very high indeed. I thought it was a saying: Winter of Discontent followed by Percent.

Oh dear, I might as well go now.

I think I'm getting where the OP is coming from now. It DID start with Thatcher imho. Free market, selling off state assets, deregulation of BR etc. And the notion that there is no such thing as society..nice. Not to mention the destruction of the nationalised industries, the loss of decent jobs, yadda yadda.

And Cameron/Osborne seem to have finished off her work quite neatly. 30 odd years down the line we have workers on zero hours contracts, food banks, an ever-widening gap between the haves and have nots and yes, all nicely marketed to us folks as austerity.

""""gettingonabit Sat 16-Jul-16 20:11:23
I think I'm getting where the OP is coming from now. It DID start with Thatcher imho. Free market, selling off state assets, deregulation of BR etc. And the notion that there is no such thing as society..nice. Not to mention the destruction of the nationalised industries, the loss of decent jobs, yadda yadda.

And Cameron/Osborne seem to have finished off her work quite neatly. 30 odd years down the line we have workers on zero hours contracts, food banks, an ever-widening gap between the haves and have nots and yes, all nicely marketed to us folks as austerity""""""quote/unquote. You have it in one sir.............

Not forgetting that Blair and Brown helped quite a lot too gettingonabit
PFIs (the NHS, schools, the London Underground), turning the Civil Services into Agencies on the route to privatisation, privatisation of water, the start of academies etc etc

Both Peter Mandelson and his successor at the department of trade and industry believed it was the role of government to foster entrepreneurial culture
The second and third New Labour administrations pressed aggressively for further state down-sizing and privatisation. Blair had based his 2001 re-election campaign on the extremely unpopular PFI. The calculation was that even if the measure wasn't popular, his victory would prove that there was no realistic alternative. Though there were few major sell-offs, the government's policies on the Royal Mail and the NHS had, as their logical conclusion, the privatisation of these services. Even the fiscal crisis in the NHS, resulting from the high costs of PFI initiatives, did not dampen the ardour.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/mar/29/short-history-of-privatisation

What was the point of voting Labour hoping that they would reverse the trend?

No problem Jalima, my sight if failing and I have my hand and wrist in strapping, not good when using iPad .

The 19th century is so interesting, I spend several hours every day there , working on asylums this summer

Oh God (or any other deity) give me strength!

Perhaps saying please will bring the strength you need Phoenix

Phoenix no Parliament100 is not new. He/,she pops up now and again and is instantly recognisable by not knowing the plural of Tory.

No problem Jalima, my sight if failing and I have my hand and wrist in strapping
Oh dear, it's my foot that is strapped up, at least I can type!

I knew there was something familiar in the OP so looked it up (Tory's I mean)

I never spot those things , same with claims of similar ways of posting

I can type fast but don't always check before I post
hence a lot of boo-boos

I don't think a grammatical error negates what someone posts - lots of people on her make spelling and grammatical mistakes but it seems that only some of them are picked up on it.

jalima Inthink the acronym you were looking for is TLDR.
Too long, didn't read

I think!

I also think it started with Margaret Thatcher. Her policies changed our country forever and made it impossible for any government to reverse the changes. Can you imagine the reaction if the government said it was going to re-nationalise BT, British Gas, the railways, etc.? I still can't believe the government doesn't control our water supply. Time for bed me thinks.

Who said anything about negating a post? We only pointed out how certain quirks help to identify posters.

For what its worth, he or she actually wonders if its worth posting political stuff on here, there seems to be a mindset that just isnt interested/concerned.

This would go with my view that the vast majority of the English simply are neither interested in, or motivated by politics unless things affect them personally, but by then its all too late.

Yes, WilmaKnickersfit , everything happening to day did start with Thatcher, but I honestly think the majority on this thread simply dont give a damn, or they are Tory's who simply dont want to know ???

The English Parliament? Why do you claim the English are more self centred than those in the other three countries of the United Kingdom ?

Perhaps instead of starting new ones you could post on some of the political conversations that are already on the go. There are people posting on those who have A LOT of interest in politics and I am sure you would find them interesting.

These with plenty of action at the moment, with posts added yesterday and today:-
www.gransnet.com/forums/news_and_politics/1227974-So-what-will-Camerons-Legacy-Be
www.gransnet.com/forums/news_and_politics/1227878-More-cuts-to-social-care-on-the-way
www.gransnet.com/forums/news_and_politics/1227899-The-New-Cabinet
www.gransnet.com/forums/news_and_politics/1227253-Brexit-watch
www.gransnet.com/forums/news_and_politics/1227786-Could-Labour-split-Tom-Watson-calls-off-talks

And you will find a list ofother conversations on News and Politics at www.gransnet.com/forums/news_and_politics. Some of those have not had a post added for a couple of days, but you could read what has been posted previously, and perhaps add your opinion.

Exactly! There are four countries making up the UK as I understand it, namely England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, in which ever order you personally want to put them. All of these are both different and the same, none more or less important than the other, so why single out England and HER parliament? or was it just a generalisation? If so,it was a pretty poor one.

Has anybody got a plot, because I'm not sure what this thread is about?

Parliament100 I couldn't agree more with Elegran. The News and Politics sub forum is full of threads with very opinionated posters supporting Tory and Labour ideology (other parties too).

I don't know why you would think posters are not interested.