DingDong

[Dinosaur]

Can archaeology go back to being a Council rather than a profit-based business concern now?

What? Sides staffed with 'vols' paid pin money? Maggie gave us actual wages for digging holes, think I'll stick with that thanks :face-stir:

- and I suspect your kids'll thank you for actual electric lighting when they're trying to revise for their A-levels, as opposed to those of us who had to do it by candle-light courtesy of the unions in 1979

[Carrickavoy]

Her economic policies sowed the seeds of our current crisis. As for pay and conditions, Thatcher supported the deregulation of labour. The current crisis within archaeology, the race to the bottom in regards to wages, that would suit her just fine.

Don't confuse the scraps from the table for anything other then that.

[kevin wooldridge]

...and I suspect your kids'll thank you for actual electric lighting when they're trying to revise for their A-levels, as opposed to those of us who had to do it by candle-light courtesy of the unions in 1979

Well there's a nice piece of Daily Mail-ism for you..!! You must be getting your militant unions muddled up!! The miners didn't strike in 78-79, the power stayed on...there were council workers out, there were firemen out, but nobody switched the power off.....I was a civil servant at the time and we went on strike as part of a campaign to protect the jobs service for the 1.5 million unemployed at the time (soon to rise to 3 million+ under the Tories)...we did it democratically. We supported our fellow workers.....we were sold down the river by the Labour party and the TUC....

There is a piece in today Independent reminding folk about why the unions were on strike in the late 70's. Nothing to do with militancy, lots to do with protecting jobs, salaries, terms and conditions. All of those services and benefits from employment that many people miss today.....

[gwyl]

I am in two minds..........

I'm glad she broke the monopoly and the strangle hold the unions had the country under and brought our country back from the brink of economic collapse and into the 20th century.

I am not glad that a lot of people and communities had to suffer to do this.

Maybe if both sides of that particular political disagreement had been more reasonable, less people would have suffered.:face-stir:

in response - Kevin has already provided the answer to the union issue; and to respond to this pernicious lie that the country was the sick man of europe see below.

'In 1978 the economy was rapidly improving. Inflation was down to single figures and unemployment was on the way down too. The great Thatcherite myth that late 1970s Britain was the "Sick Man of Europe" is not borne out by the facts. "The outlook for Britain is better than at any time in the postwar years," was the verdict not of a Labour party propagandist, but of Chase Manhattan bank's chief European economist, Geoffrey Maynard.' (http://neilclark66.blogspot.co.uk/2008/0...world.html)

there is too much rubbish rewriting of history which is being left go blindly and unquestioned by - Niall Ferguson personifies this neo-liberal position in the historical sphere presenting all sorts of extremely dodgy, and frankly, frequently shameful, things as for the good, which as right-minded folk you must agree with, otherwise you're one of the fellow-travellers. however, this rewrting of economic and social history is in the service - consciously or not - of the politicians and corporations who are in thrall to the Chicago School. And we are all paying for it.

the only people who were unreasonable are the Friedman-influenced boot-stuffers who have brought us to our knees. we are punished by their hubris. as Gordon Gecko memorably said 'Greed is good' and this exemplified the attitude not only of the half-baked gamblers on the stock- & money-markets, but also of the people who should have been regulating them at all sorts of levels. as someone else has noted the only thing that they are interested in is driving down costs (hence off-shoring profits and production) to stuff more in their boots, without realising that an economy needs guidance and some degree of planning to ensure that there is sufficient capital but also liquid moving around to maintain employment: we are all consumers of goods and services, at the end of the day. Reducing your consumers, reduces your profits in the long term, unless you raise prices, causing inflation.

Ladies & gentlemen, I welcome you to the end of the 19th Century. The Long Depression Mk2 could well be starting here.

But we must dump this neo-liberal free-market crap. It's not much good for people and it's rubbish for archaeology.

[Sith]

Can archaeology go back to being a Council rather than a profit-based business concern now?

Are you on crack? At a time when the public purse can barely cover the cost of keeping people fed and watered, hell will freeze over before such a thing happens. In fact, I predict a situation where nobody pays for archaeology (i.e. no profit taxing planning conditions or funded research) is much more likely given the thrust of the current government.

[Jack]

I was far too young at the time to really understand what was going on.....so yeah I may be mis-illusioned of what happened before.

My father was,however, in the thick of it. He was a fireman, from a mining community, his famiily were all from either the mining industry or ship building industries. He was a labour supporter and a socialist.

He, didn't support the strikes, he didn't support labour during the battle, and lamented the poor decisions made by the unions.
From his long and boring stories, in his opinion, the state-run industries were ineffecient dinosaurs that needed modernisation. The union leaders were power-hungry madmen only interested in bringing the country to its knees.

The only thing I remember (living in the north-east) was that during some unrest at a picket line some supporters of the miners dropped some concrete off a bridge onto a vehicle trying to get through their lines to do his job and killed him.

The impression I get from talking to people in the mining communities up here is that all they were interested in was keeping their own pit open and everyone to keep their job no matter what. I feel they didn't see or care about any bigger picture.
Some people in the unions took advantage of this for their own political agenda, trying to blackmail the government and bring the country to it knees.......maybe in an attempt to change our country into a communist state?

The government called their bluff.

All hell broke loose.

The unions lost.

Order was returned eventually.

We are all still here.

Things got better.

I could have got the whole thing wrong, my perspective could be entirely skewed.....but maybe other peoples perspective is also skewed.

Besides in my opinion its very rude to 'celebrate' someones death, be it Osama bin laden, Margaret Thatcher, Neil Kinnock or Hitler.

I wonder how a protest outside of the 'party' planned by the Durham Miners would go down. Would they celebrate this as people rightly demonstrating...or would it turn nasty.....?

Remember, power corrupts, ultimate power corrupts ultimately.

Did the unions have too much power?

[Carrickavoy]

Things got better.

No they didn't. The economic polices that Thatcher put in place have bought us to our knees. More educated authorities then I can articulate it better then I can. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/...hugo-young

Also in regards to her social polices she poured oil on the fire that was Northern Ireland and created an inferno. She entered into a fruitless war over the Falklands and sent too many young men to their deaths. She supported the Pionchet dictatorship in Chile. She branded Nelson Mandela a terrorist and fought bitterly against sanctions on the South African apartheid regime (because it would damage business).

She was an evil woman and so is her legacy.

[Carrickavoy]

'A woman, but not on my terms'[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDtClJYJBj8"]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDtClJYJBj8[/URL]

[Wax]

Are you on crack? At a time when the public purse can barely cover the cost of keeping people fed and watered, hell will freeze over before such a thing happens. In fact, I predict a situation where nobody pays for archaeology (i.e. no profit taxing planning conditions or funded research) is much more likely given the thrust of the current government.

Too true far too true.

As for Mrs T I am with Jack it is rude and mean minded to celebrate the death of anyone (homicidal psychopaths excluded)

How you feel about Mrs T depends on which part of the country you lived in and which industries friends and family worked in. We are still too close to the Thatcher years to evaluate them in the bigger world picture.

Still whatever she was or did she had more colour than the present bunch of insipid public school boys.

[Carrickavoy]

(homicidal psychopaths excluded)

I'm sorry but there are a lot of people that would feel that she met that description.