Democracy hahahaha

the 1978 Winter of descobtent, believe me you wouldn't if you lived through it

I imagine the vast majority of us on here lived though it Luckylegs. So you have to ask yourself why you have one view and others do not. Your opinion is just that - your opinion; not everyone shares the view of that time with you.

Luckylegs did you see the "bodies stacking up to be buried". I don't remember any such problems round here but I do remember lurid headlines from the gutter press.

I don't see myself as curmudgeonly and I'm delighted to acknowledge my fears about Jeremy not being able to persuade large numbers to vote Labour were misplaced.

You really are a very gracious poster Iam.

Madgran77 "I am sick of politics!!" So do tell me why you seek out threads with them on. Are you just naturally contrary or did you land here by chance?

Some bodies were stored in morgues and some funerals were delayed, there was a lot of rubbish around to.

Not quite as bad as having to use a food bank to feed your family, or being declared fit for work when you are dying.

Iam64 thank you for your kind wishes, yes, am having a superb holiday so far thanks.Just popped in here before dinner, have looked at this page, but haven't seen the remark you mentioned and certainly won't be looking for it.

I've been googling the Winter of Discontent because my memory of it isn't very clear. As I recalled it it was caused by frustration after a 2 year cap on wage increases. Plus the fact that industrial action was much easier to take then. I was right about the cap. Compared to today's pay cap for public service workers of 1% it seems mind bogglingly generous; the first 'cap' was of increases of no more than £6 per week, then it was a cap of 5%! However, bear in mind that inflation was in double figures during the period and you can see that it restricted pay increases to well below inflation, so reducing their real worth. The public workers' strikes were triggered by private sector increases which breached the agreed 5%.
So far so good, but was it a Very Bad Thing? Although there were instances of unburied bodies and rubbish piled in the street it wasn't nationwide. It didn't happen in Sheffield, where I was working at the time. And, of course, it let Thatcher in to increase unemployment from 1,000,000 to 3,000,000, destroy manufacturing and sell off the family silver... And spread the persistent and damaging myth that a nation's budget is like a household budget.

It was a freezing cold winter and thoroughly miserable; gravediggers went on strike that is why bodies were 'piling up' in a factory which had to be hired, ambulance divers on strike refusing to go to 999 calls, unqualified medical staff deciding which cases had priority, candles at the ready for if the lights went out, rubbish everywhere and rats.

Sunny Jim was accused of being out of touch with the electorate.

Perhaps you were too young to remember it MaizieD but I had two small children and it was miserable.

Was that when Saatchi and Saatchi designed that poster 'Labour Isn't Working' with a large dole queue? There was one on a billboard down the road which we saw on the way to school.

ambulance drivers - sorry

Lots of lively stuff on here, and some people have incredible memories (that have jogged mine). There are two key issues for me. The first is that under the Tory government, austerity measures have been incredibly cruel and damaging for some individuals and families, the like of which we have never seen before. Most people can cope with a change in benefits or tax that costs them a few pounds a week, but we are talking in thousands of pounds a year in some cases. The second is Brexit. We had the Referendum because Cameron was terrified of the upsurge in the support for UKIP after the financial crash of 2008, who were determined to convey to the public that all their ills were down to immigrants who were taking their jobs, bleeding the economy by claiming state benefits, and this applied equally to immigrants from the EU as well as war-torn developing countries. Cameron needed something to focus on and, confident that he would get a result that would please his members, he decided to have a Referendum on membership of the EU. That's two Tory MP's in succession who are incapable of judging the public feeling on things - not surprising as they don't actually KNOW any members of "the public" as such.

The referendum failed to get the result Cameron wanted, and he resigned. The public fell for UKIP's blarney by a very small majority for such a major "decision", and so we are leaving the EU. We didn't need to leave the EU, the referendum was only an indication of public feeling and not a legal message that we had to leave, but Mrs May decided to treat it as a valid vote to leave, and a chance for her to go down in history as the PM who successfully took us out of the EU. She thought it would be a doddle. She was wrong. She is wrong. She will be wrong.

It is all so sad and unnecessary. Even the Remain voters have given up any fight (including Corbyn) for the biggest decision of our lives, following a vote that was taken on the back of lies and serious misrepresentations to the public at large, who are very fickle.

So now we find ourselves with Theresa May and the gang of ten about to ruin our country with immeasurable effect. No relief now for the thousands affected by the Bedroom Tax or the Fitness for Work shambles. No time to even THINK about the NHS, and the police only get a look-in because of three major atrocities carried out.

What a sad, sad country we have become, faced with all this mess. What happened to our welfare state where, in the 1960s, compassion was shown to those with severe health problems, with extra money to help replace their lost incomes or pay for additional help so they could enjoy their lives? What happened that caused men like Nick Clegg to lose his seat after all the effort he put into the country between 2010 and 2015 to moderate some of the even more terrible things that Cameron would have done, had he had the chance, and why does everyone remember him for the one mistake he made in promising the abolition of tuition fees when he wasn't able to carry out his promise, and in any case the revised scheme only affects the middle and upper classes in reality, most of whom can cope with it easily. Let's not forget that it was LABOUR who introduced tuition fees, and really the new scheme is just a graduate tax, which is not an unreasonable idea. Following Tony Blair's pledge to get 50% of teenagers going to University, the only result of that is that Unis were full of kids who just scraped in with the bare 3 A-levels (sometimes only two, and there were other routes in), struggled with the level of work required of them, and ended up working in call centres. There simply isn't room for 50% of people to have graduate-level jobs and there are better routes to good careers for the majority who are able.

So two things matter to me - or have I now made it three? One is the poverty caused by Tory austerity measures that we were all supposedly "in it together", one is Brexit, sold to the people on the basis of lies, and is now making us look stupid in the eyes of the wider world for allowing an "advisory vote" to dictate to us. And the that has now wheedled its way into my thoughts is why did Theresa May not seek her extra votes from the Lib Dems (who would definitely NOT have considered a coalition), but are a party that most of the British people at least know, and understand what they stand for, and they are not extreme in their views.

I never could do short emails.

I doubt the dems would prop them up, they have just about detoxified their brand after the last time. I think they may have IF the tories promised to offer a vote on the final deal.

Brexit and this election have been tory vanity projects. So many people falsely blamed the EU when it was austerity measures that were harming them.

Whow! madmeg i admire your stamina!!! As well as the content

Perhaps you were too young to remember it MaizieD but I had two small children and it was miserable

Don't be patronising, Jalima. Try reading my post a bit more carefully.

What you describe was not a nationwide phenomenon.

And candles at the ready was a different, earlier strike of the miners during the Heath govt, surely?

Bravo, Madmeg
I like a post one can get one's teeth into

Well written and thought out post Madmeg. I am intrigued as to why we have so many Mums coming over from Mumsnet - very welcome of course, I am just intrigued.

I don't care how many come over providing they write like madmeg.
A brilliant post.
Time to stand for parliament?

It's all good isn't it - we just all need to keep it going.

Perhaps you were too young to remember it MaizieD but I had two small children and it was miserable

Did you really live amongst rubbish, rats and unburied bodies Jalima. I, with my two small children, just did not have that experience. It was very difficult during the three day week though -'73 if I remember rightly - when we had to have a special allocation of coal for the fire as it was our main heating at that time and we had a toddler.

I must admit even that pales into insignificance by comparison to my thoughts of the summer of 1976 with a baby, small child and me (with OH after work - I doubt it was as good for him) out in the garden all day long under the shade of the trees - now that is my memory of the 1970s.

But it is so long ago! We have a different world and politics need to fit the changes making a life for us all not the money grabbing, 'when I've got it you're having any of it even if you supplied services that aided me in getting it' attitude of the Conservatives.

I don't care Jen - I said so - I was just interested why we suddenly had some people from mumsnet suddenly joining us. It's all good but interesting.

Brilliant & very succinct post Madmeg, as we move on in life, it is easy to forget those previous & some times dark days. It all a terrible mess at the moment isn't it. Can't see where it's all going to go at the moment, but we have survived worse( I think??)

I remember NHS staff going on strike because of low pay and cuts. NUT on strike because of cuts in the number of teachers. We didn't have rubbish piled up in the streets or bodies unburied where I lived.

I think it sad that there is this 'generational' division over the reasons for the result. Although this is a grans page for discussion, some grans may be in their thirties and oldies in their 80's! Young people think the oldies have had it easy, free higher education, able to buy their own house and a job for life; the difficult war years, out at work at 14 years of age and the self-denial that enabled people to save and buy their home. Higher education was free because fewer numbers had the privilege of attending; increase the numbers attending and the costs rise. The same goes for the NHS with population increase and school pupil numbers. Houses again were affordable with strict budgeting, but the increase in population means house building can never keep up. Jobs have become more difficult, competitive and transient in nature, whilst machinery and robots play a part now. People who have voted for over 50 years, remember how each Labour government left a debt legacy - most recently the note "There's no money left" says it all. No wonder austerity becomes necessary, but that is very unpopular. Taking more from the rich has proven to lower the yield but that fact is overlooked. Debt doesn't seem to frighten the young as it does the old. Rational debate has gone and an attempt to see another point of view, is sadly missing. How do we understand them, and 'them' us, without discussion?

People who have voted for over 50 years, remember how each Labour government left a debt legacy - most recently the note "There's no money left" says it all.

That is absolute nonsense. It's the tories who have left a worse legacy than Labour every time. There are official, government produced, figures to prove it.

The 'no money' note was A JOKE. As has been pointed out on several threads.

During my (almost) 50 years of voting I can vividly remember a tory poster attacking Labour's record when unemployment was at 1,000,000.(labour isn't working' it said.

When the tories came to power they rapidly upped that figure to 3,000,000. But that's OK, of course because those nice caring,careful tories did it...

No wonder austerity becomes necessary, but that is very unpopular.

The majority of economists agree that 'austerity' is a huge mistake. Once again, this has been pointed out on several threads recently, we've even had very helpful video links explaining how 'money' works.

Debt doesn't seem to frighten the young as it does the old

Oh, so that's OK then.

How bizarre; you condemn labour governments for apparently getting into debt but it's fine for the young to be saddled with enormous debts at a very early stage in their lives. Very nice...

Does no-one ever 'hear' what is being discussed.

Does no-one ever change, even very slightly, change their minds when they are shown the facts that challenge the myths they believe in?

It would appear that facts can be distorted to only fit own's own beliefs, which is sad. I also believe economists have a range of opinions, it it important not to just seek out those that agree with one's own views and we all know how experts can get things wrong. Statistics get skewed especially if one wants to believe them to be right, one only has to listen to the news media on different channels.
What is sad is the nastiness that has soured any meaningful debate, the shouting and bad manners demonstrated on television, the gloating of the young interviewed who relished putting 'two fingers up' to any authority, whichever view you support. It shows the worst of human nature when we should all be working together for the good of all, not just old or young or even those in between... Spending more than we earn is a disaster for families, borrowing payback costs more because of interest rates, there is on easy solution, so all parties should put their minds and talents to solving the dire situation we face ourselves in. Democracy means we have a say, but it also means we should then try to supply solutions.

It would appear that facts can be distorted to only fit own's own beliefs

Very true. All you say is very true and it applies equally to you as it does to anyone else.