tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5190994177632420720.post7075036886077741748..comments2023-10-25T08:27:37.972-07:00Comments on Viridis Lumen: Coda: Thatcher TriumphansViridis Lumenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08097453038753328641noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5190994177632420720.post-76692964856801728672013-05-20T18:19:21.503-07:002013-05-20T18:19:21.503-07:00Anonymous, Greens are no fans of carbon fuels, but...Anonymous, Greens are no fans of carbon fuels, but to compare that with how Thatcher destroyed the coal industry is wide of the mark. Greens would posit a transition from carbon to renewable energy which would be planned and would create much new employment to offset the jobs that would inevitably have disappeared in the carbon sector. Thatcherism by contrast shut down the industry with no regard for future energy needs other than to build a terminal at Hunterston in Scotland to receive coal imported at massive environmental cost from South America. So the processes were very different.<br /><br />Likewise, no one would pretend that pre-1979 UK was Eden before the Fall: but...the post-war settlement had brought increasing equality as well as growing prosperity, as well as shared institutions such as the NHS and wider and wider higher/adult education. <br /><br />The economic crisis of the mid-1970s undoubtedly threw a lot of this into the air and the resulting conflict was a factor in Thatcher's rise - but bear in mind she never polled above 44% support and yes, she began the march away from any form of collectivism and community which has culminated now in the abject selfishness of Coalition Britain. So nowhere does this article suggest things were "rosy" pre-Thatcher, but they were certainly headed in a far better direction than we have been during or since her period in office.Viridis Lumenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08097453038753328641noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5190994177632420720.post-89552029494669087542013-05-12T06:37:09.353-07:002013-05-12T06:37:09.353-07:00"All you need to know about Thatcher - the Na..."All you need to know about Thatcher - the National Coal <br />Mining Museum is sited in a closed pit" No fan of Thatcher but to argue that the post-war economy of steel and coal would still be thriving but for Thatcher is total nonsense. Pit closures and running down coal mining could have been done more humanely; but it would still have been run down under any government and especially any government that including Greens.<br />I don't buy the idea that Britain in the 1970s was an Eden of neighbourliness and public spirit which Thatcher's policies destroyed.One of the reasons that she won in 1979 was because many British voters had come to see the labour movement as selfish. Thatcher of course made selfishness a public virtue, but we should not pretend things were rosy before Maggie.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com