Would Labour turn this country into a communist state?

I was working, like you were dj and I remember tube strikes in London too.
The seventies were riven by industrial action on a ,well, industrial scale! It was ruining our economy.

There was certainly rubbish piling up in the streets in London and the South East, and problems with waiting for burials as well as other sector strikes.

What were you doing in the 70s, lemon?

I don't remember constant strikes. There were two years at the beginning of the 70s, under Heath, then Callaghan's in 1978.
That's not the whole of the 70s.
In the 70s we moved house four times, twice because of redundancy where my husband worked, but he was working for private companies, not in a union then.
In 1975 he started work for a council and joined a union, but my memories are like Maizie's.
I don't remember rubbish piling up in the streets where we lived, or bodies being left unburied. We lived opposite a crematorium from 1976. There didn't seem to be a problem there.
1976-80 I was training to be a teacher, and in a union, but I can't remember strikes then.
There were work to rules in the early 80s, because I was part of them. Thank heavens for the unions then.

You want those days back again as well do you GG?
If not, what the heck are you moaning about?

Hey ho, anything to moan about seems to be your preferred option.

I think that people's experience of the 70s varies greatly
It must do.

The one thing I do remember is the rubbish piled up and seeing rats in the streets where we lived and in the town centre. We'd just moved there and I remember just wanting to 'go home' again.

Inflation of 26% and enforced pay restraints started the discontent.
In my opinion.

How ridiculous can some posters be?
In saying what I did MaizieD I assumed that posters were
Sensible enough not to want the days of wildcat strikes and flying pickets back again.
Perhaps you enjoyed those days and do want them back again?
I shall not be prefacing all my remarks with ‘I think’ as they
are obviously my thoughts, and actually I suspect that only you and the few who always take issue with my posts find them ‘irritating’.
But that’s ok, as there are a few posters that I find irritating too!

I think this says it all.

why would anybody disagree with my comment?

I disagree with your comment, lemon because you have stated your opinion as if it were a fact. It can't possibly be a 'fact' as you have absolutely no way of knowing it to be true that no-one would want that situation back again.

If you'd present your opinions flagged up as opinions, perhaps by prefacing them with "I think", people might not find them quite so irritating.

Yes GG it is my opinion, but am unsure why you would disagree with it.
Perhaps you are not old enough to remember that scenario ( constant strikes ) or perhaps you would be happy to have that back again?
The reasons for the strikes aside .....why would anybody disagree with my comment?
I think you have just got so used to complaining about my every post on GN that it has become your default position.?

GG You just told Lemongrove her post was. an opinion not a fact !!!!! make up your mind!

GG _ I get fed up with the sense of anger or hostility aimed at those who don't agree.

I get fed up with the patronising put-downs aimed at those you disagree with.

You may be imagining anger and hostility GG. You really do not merit that much emotion.

The whole ethos of this site GG is to share, exchange views, thoughts & ohh yes ‘Opinions’

Exactly. Not to tell everyone how they must think. I feel it is just bad manners and comes over to me as very aggressive. Obviously only my opinion and not everyone will share it but I get fed up with the sense of anger or hostility aimed at those who don't agree.

"We" do not all feel the same, think the same, etc. "We" can put our own point of view and, as Maizie said, they are going to be different.

"You put forward your views as if everyone must share them."

No I don't GracesGran. I put forward my views as my views. If you want to nit-pick regarding syntax go ahead and show yourself up to be the self-appointed forum arbiter of style and content, as you so frequently do.

I am not quite sure where you get the authority from to feel you determine style and content. Perhaps you don't know you are doing it?

I am pleased to see others have noticed your put downs as well. Anything to divert a thread, eh?

It's not up to anybody to tell us how "we all think", either, which happens quite regularly.

I'm reading a book about shipbuilding on Tyneside during the first world war.
Anybody living with a suffragette was sacked and the unions did not stand up for them. They were on the side of the bosses, because they could have been sacked too.

Or whether those opinions are relevant or not, it is not for you to decide what is & isnt & that is because it is an ‘ Opinion’ not a court of law !

The whole ethos of this site GG is to share, exchange views, thoughts & ohh yes ‘Opinions’ when will you stop being obsessed with telling other posters how they should word their views & ‘ opinions.’ I am sure you have the intelligence to understand the meaning of a post even if it is not grammatically expressed to your liking .

I think that people's experience of the 70s varies greatly. I was living in Sheffield during the 'Winter of Discontent' and it wasn't by any means as bad as might have been experienced in other places. We didn't have rubbish piling up in the streets, nor bodies left unburied. We did have problems getting shifts covered (I worked in hospital catering) but we worked through it, Being in a management union I wasn't on strike, I was in the kitchen, cooking...

As I recall the public sector workers strikes were an expression of frustration and desperation; after having complied with wage restraint (the Social Contract) and roaring inflation eroding the value of those restrained wages, they were just asked to put up with too much.

I was still in Yorkshire during the Miner's Strike which, IMO, was a huge misjudgement on the part of their leaders who traded shamefully on the solidarity of their members by striking when coal stocks were high and playing straight into Thatcher's hands. The decimation of the unions and of heavy industry in the 80s was, too a great extent, a vicious and vengeful act which went too far. It wasn't just 'curbing the power of the unions', it was complete destruction of them and the North has suffered ever since...

I've always felt that 'the union problem' was very much a management problem too. Too much 'us and them' and not enough appreciation of either side's point of view.

You obviously didn't have a factory working Dad who sat at the kitchen table and cried. The wildcat strikes of the 1970s which meant he had to turn back at the factory gates (after cycling ten miles to get to work) left him without pay and worried sick as to how he'd pay the bills.

As that was your father Day6 it is patently obvious it wasn't mine exact experience. However, I, and many others lived through the 1970s and formed our own opinions from our own experiences - and they are just as relevant. I am certainly not going to trade virtuous pasts with you.

You put forward your views as if everyone must share them. I don't. All that means is we have different views not that I do not have empathy for people who suffered in many different ways then and for those who suffer now under this government.

I notice Lemongrove you are talking for us all again. It is you opinion you are voicing - not a fact.

Yes, we are all (mainly) old enough to remember that scenario Day6 and never want it back again!
Wildcat srikes and flying pickets.

" GGM2 - You would only be able to do that "again" if you felt it happened in the past. I didn't."

You obviously didn't have a factory working Dad who sat at the kitchen table and cried. The wildcat strikes of the 1970s which meant he had to turn back at the factory gates (after cycling ten miles to get to work) left him without pay and worried sick as to how he'd pay the bills.

It was an abuse of Union power. They held the country to ransom. You are saying you don't remember being without electricity, hospitals running on battery power and candles, rubbish littered the streets because of refuse collectors striking, and people seriously had to think about burying their dead when gravediggers went on strike. Corpses were piling up in mortuaries.

If you weren't affected by that industrial action, brought about by militant unions, you were very lucky indeed.

I firmly believe in Unions and I firmly believe in worker's rights but if you lived through the 70s you can appreciate why their powers were curbed.

In its broadest sense, the end of capitalism and everything run by the state.

That's what some of us are trying to find out - the difference between different types of socialism.

Apparently we are supposed to decide for ourselves.

So what do you mean by communism, Monica?