Theresa May 3

Got in one trish

I'm glad you posted that trisher I thought I was suffering from false memory syndrome!

"By the late 1960s, France, West Germany and Italy — the three founder members closest in size to the UK — produced more per person than it did and the gap grew larger every year"

And France and Germany still do! Only Italy has slipped back lower than us!

Is that any surprise when these two countries dominate and run the EU to their own advantage (or at least try to)?

Finish the quote Mair
After becoming an EEC member, Britain slowly began to catch up. Gross domestic product per person has grown faster than Italy, Germany and France in the 42 years since. By 2013, Britain became more prosperous than the average of the three other large European economies for the first time since 1965.
Talk about twisting the truth!!!

How do they manage that Mair - all the countries get a veto etc etc.

trish

" NHS forced into a bidding process by the EU" - Wherever did you get that idea from?
And I seem to remember that UK industry was not all hunky dory back in the 60s and 70s. Lots of strikes. Terrible management. Very poor workers rights - especially for women.
Take a company like Jaguar-LandRover which I mentioned somewhere earlier. Twenty years ago it was struggling along with weak management and old-fashioned working practices. I remember the stories my SIL used to tell in her early days with them. Now they are run by TATA, an Indian firm (again nothing to do with the EU - except they like the fact that we are in it) and it is a Midlands success story. Not a basket case car plant.
Back then there were horribly polluted rivers and bathing waters., both here and at holiday destinations. Remember when they used to say "Swimming in Benidorm is just going through the motions" And the quality of the drinking water was not great either.
I agree that all the outsourcing etc has been a disaster for the public sector. However globalisation has occurred since the 1960s, along with container shipping, so the likes of James Brexit Dyson moved his manufacturing not to the Eastern EU but to Malaysia. And most the clothes and other produce in Uk shops get made not in the Uk or the EU but in much further away to countries such as Bangladesh and China. You cannot blame any of that on the EU.

If things had stayed the way they were at first ( the EEC) then all may have been well.We are now finally free ( or will be) of the lumbering beast that the EU is now
I know that some people see it that way too , and some don't, hence the referendum result, but most people at least admit that the EU had many faults and wasn't working well.

Trisha et al. Nowhere in my post did I mention anything about GDP and so called 'sick man of Europe' syndrome which I agree was an issue resultant in part from unions becoming a little too demanding I could discuss this in depth if you wish.
Maybe I was in a parallel universe in a South Yorkshire mining village and the a West Yorkshire mill town. We had all of the facilities mentioned, an old peoples home in the village, fully functioning british manned hospital 5 miles away etc. etc. I voted to enter the common market and watched in disbelief as the heavy industry went to Poland and Lithuania because it was cheaper to manufacture there and EU provided incentives to move and the pits closed in part because it was and still is cheaper to import polish coal. The lie of low productivity was perpetuated to support the transfer of industry to cheap labour regions of the EU, exploiting the workers of those countries by paying them wages that would not be acceptable in the UK. How does the EU benefit the masses when it takes jobs from one country to exploit the workers of another?
Yes, we get grants from the EU (monies already remitted by UK) which pretty up areas devastated by the relocation of our manufacturing base.

JessM
The EU Procurement Directives1, implemented into UK law by The Public Contracts Regulations 20062, apply to the award of contracts by public bodies.

Corbyn's response to May saying there would be no more wars like Iraq.

"I don't remember her joining me in the voting lobby. Maybe she has alternative facts?"

JessM
The HSC Act, and specifically Section 75, changed the NHS from a social to an economic activity and, as a result, it became subject for the first time to legislation such as European competition law. Now it is competition law (and not, as promised, local decision-making by patients and clinicians) that largely determines the kind of health services we receive.

Section 75 requires that commissioners of health services treat all potential providers equally and in a non-discriminatory way, showing, for example, no preference for a bidder’s nationality, status or geographical location. This has not only opened up the NHS to the market but also to the constant threat of litigation – both from within the UK and beyond. This state of affairs becomes irreversible if the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is agreed, and the NHS not excluded from the treaty.

Joelsnan I'm a bit confused. The pits closed in the 1980s. Since the release of Cabinet papers, it's known that Thatcher always intended to close them and to provoke the miners' strike. It was quite deliberate to transfer the British economy to monetarism and to run down industry, much of which wasn't economic. Poland and Lithuania were still part of the Communist bloc at that time and remained in it until the Soviet Union collapsed. Therefore, I don't understand how Eastern Europe was responsible for the collapse of British industry in the 1970s and 1980s. It was more to do with:

- Thatcherism
- the rise of countries such as India, China and South Korea as major manufacturing countries.

Alternative facts from joel?

By far the biggest supplier of steam coal to the UK is Colombia, which supplies more than all other countries combined. It used to be Russia. Neither country is in the EU. The biggest supplier of coking coal is the USA.

Daphnedill
Yes, I recognise that the closure of the mining industry was a Thatcherite plan, not to confront the unions and provoke the miners strike but to start the change from a manufacturing to a service based economy, however the process was expediited quicker due to the availability to import cheap Polush coal to jeep the power stations going. Had this not been the case we would probably still have some mines as I think we still may have at least one coal fired power station.
The town I lived in in West Yorkshire outsourced the majority of its heavy industrial manufacture to Poland And other EAstern European countries as they became members of EU as a result of EU incentives and cheap labour. The M62 bears witness to this with all the HGVs from these countries importing the manufactured goods back into UK.
I do recognise that globalisation is a contributory factor to cheap overseas manufacture, but I do think that incentivising the outsourcing of the work as practiced by the EU has not helped the working population of UK.

Joelsnan the NHS has been put up for sale by Jeremy Hunt, Tory Secretary of State. Nobody, either EU or non EU can bid for a contract that is not being offered.
You think it OK if the NHS is sold off to British companies like Virgin Healthcare?
Seems very odd to be blaming this on the EU.
Nobody, neither UK or EU, is bidding for chunks of the NHS in Wales because it is not up for sale under Welsh Labour government.

JessM the sale of the NHS was started before Jeremy Hunt came into office, however The Health and Social Care (HSC) Act, brought in by the Coalition government in 2012, and enacted in 2013, changed things substantially. It created a competitive market for health services in which the government still provides the funding but no longer has responsibility for providing comprehensive healthcare. this is only effective in England as far as I am aware. Activists are trying to reverse this Act through the Reinstatement Bill that would require The government to take back responsibility for health care provision. At the moment if any question is raised re NHS to SS for Health he just brushes it aside as not his responsibility.

So what are you arguing, Joelsnan?
I don't see your point.

nhap.org/the-lords-committee-on-the-long-term-sustainability-of-the-nhs/the-lords-commission-will-report-at-the-end-of-march/

Jess, I was in hospital when it changed in England, April fools day, 2013. None of the staff I asked seemed to know anything about it, except that they were being given new badges and all paper and signs had new headings, NHSE instead of the old NHS.

Durhamjen
If you read the start of my postings you will note that I am not arguing anything. I had noted that there was a lot of pessimism within the postings and sadness that some people had noting but hostility and derision towards both other posters and the U.K. In general.
Other issues have spun out of this based on responses.

Whatever, joelsnan.

The UK hardly imports any coal from the EU, including Poland and Lithuania, and never has done.

Mystified too, joelsnan - I agree a scandal that chunks of NHS England being sold off since 2010 and increasingly since 2015.
But don't blame the EU, blame the Tories.
(Think that's going to be my slogan for the year )

With you on that as well, Jess.

I just read an article by the man who drafted Article50.
He thinks Theresa May should let the public vote on Brexit terms. That would be interesting. There'll be lots of division in the Tory camp on that.