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Global Warming............Rant!


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I thought so all along!, humans ARE responsible for increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere BUT by only 0.28%, not even half a percent! government idiots don't include in their charts water vapour, the biggest, most abundant and most natural greenhouse gas there is.

 

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

 

and also bearing in mind the sun has been getting steadily hotter, 1% over the last thousand years and will continue to do so, I don't remember anyone including this in there anti CO2 speeches, ill be surprised if us humans can alter the current trend of global warming in either way!!

 

its natural planetary evolution, the planet was hotter than it is now before the last ice age, its probably going to happen again, as it has many times before, are we that arrogant that we think we can stop it?.

 

we don't try to change the weather, don't live in tornado alley for obvious reasons, local councils accept the tide washing away the coastline, "we may as well throw money away, you cant fight nature" they say but we throw billions of pounds/dollars every year at trying to stop the planet from going on its natural progression, its natural planetary evolution.

global warming will result in an ice age, its as simple as that, one precedes the other, 10000 years ago we would have been under 1000 feet of ice and there was more before that, you hear people say "after the last ice age" the word "LAST" gives it away! theres been a few we have heated up and cooled down many times so how come this time is down to CO2 emissions?

 

electric cars, where's the benefit? they have batteries that have to be charged, where does this come from? our houses that are fed from the national grid, power station! so where's the benefit?

 

higher tax on jet powered air travel? its still air travel, people will still travel, they will find the extra.

the government implies increases to duty on activities that are not currently politically correct and does so in the vague hope we will not realise as we all to busy saying to each other "well they got to do something" when in essence all that has been done by the government is to pass the buck to its subjects to cure the problem and tax us more for the privilege of doing so.

and to think we can cut emissions to 50% of the 2004 amount by 2050 is in the most, optimistic!.

 

there really is no definite link between global warming and CO2 emissions its just asumption, no scientist has ever proved it, ever!!!!

 

ask anyone in the green party or the governments scientist's to tell us why MARS is heating up as well?, little green men destroying them selves with CO2 emmisions from their space ships?, i dont think so.

Mars is suffering from global warming as well and its nothing to do with range rovers.

 

THEN bloody THEN we hear the western world's politicians telling china and other up and coming eastern nations to slow up on its building and industrialism programs,

how bloody arrogant are we in the west to have fully benefited from our industrial revolution only to deny them theirs!

Rant over. >:-)

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The British motorist has always been used as a "money cow" its just another way of raising taxes. When the ice caps start breaking away in bigger pieces, and the seas start to rise, so the taxes will rise in a vain attempt to help stop the polution from vehicles, if it was not so pathetic, it would be laughable. *-) chas
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I cannot remember seeing anyone giveing a convincing explanation why the ice caps, that totally covered the UK 150,000 years ago, all melting away.

 

Was this climatic change caused by car's or industrial development or cows breaking wind or what ??

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Peter

As I've thought all along, it's really another Tax us poor motorists have to pay to this government.

We (only 2 in our family) have been recycling for years, but our council wants to put up more taxes for bin collections and fine people who do not recycle enough.

Where is the biggest area of carbon emmissions in our town.?? I'll tell you where -The queue for the recylcing dump on the outskirts of our town on a sunday A.M.!! that's where, as we good ctizens queue to try and gain entry into the depot.

If it's such a major issue, then why oh why does this world's largest polluter - USA -not agree to sign up to the Kyoto treaty.

My small rant over with

Thai

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If it's such a major issue, then why oh why does this world's largest polluter - USA -not agree to sign up to the Kyoto treaty.

 

My small rant over with

 

Thai

 

 

 

Percieved commercial advantage sir

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Syd

Nice of you to call me sir!!!

They don't even want to help any organisation in their own back yard in developing an alternative to the internal combustion engine. They just want gas guzzlers and hang the rest of the world, lets blame the up and coming economies for the rise in crude oil prices rather than themselves.

Thai

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Thai Bry - 2007-05-29 12:48 PM

Peter

As I've thought all along, it's really another Tax us poor motorists have to pay to this government.

We (only 2 in our family) have been recycling for years, but our council wants to put up more taxes for bin collections and fine people who do not recycle enough.

Where is the biggest area of carbon emmissions in our town.?? I'll tell you where -The queue for the recylcing dump on the outskirts of our town on a sunday A.M.!! that's where, as we good ctizens queue to try and gain entry into the depot.

If it's such a major issue, then why oh why does this world's largest polluter - USA -not agree to sign up to the Kyoto treaty.

My small rant over with

Thai

Here in Spain we pay 122€ (separate to our council tax) a year for our refuse collection which includes garden waste and large items e.g washing machines, furniture etc. and we get the bin men seven days a week. Every area has recycling facilities of their own within 1km.
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A couple of other reports quoting well respected figures who say that the doom and gloom “catastrophe” merchants are way of mark:-

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/6460635.stm

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6115644.stm

 

Plus of course – those of us that have been around a bit remember the “Global Cooling!” scare tactics of the 1970’s. For those not aware of the somewhat bizarre world of the bandwagon Climatologist (Weather Forecasters) – in the 1970’s ACC was going to cause the next Ice Age (see below) – when that did not happen they changed tack and said we were all gonna die of Global Warming.

 

Well they had to do something to secure more grant money didn’t they!

 

Meanwhile those of us with memories keep telling people that Climate Change does not mean Catastrophe, that mans contribution to green house gases via the internal combustion engine (CO2) is miniscule compared to that produced via the normal process of respiration of every living thing and when compared to the effects of methane (cow farts) – it really is pointless ranting about 4x4’s cars, or planes because the basic premise of the “anti’s” is flawed.

 

If you look at what Climatologists were predicting just 30 years ago – you will see why Mann (the guy who “reviewed tree ring data came up with the “Hockey Stick” concept of haw awful we were and that we are destroying the planet) However his “Hockey Stick” dodgy research and dossier are now being seen for what they arein a lot of quarters! It ignores the medieval warm period (therefore no straight line “handle” in reality) and the lift at the end he got is knickers in a twist over on the computer model he used – you get with any set of random data.

 

Even more interesting is the fact that if you put back the data points Mann removed as “noise” – you get a very different picture.

 

More interesting still is if you look at history you see that the Romans were growing grapes and making wine in England, something we are only just getting back now. Also Chinese history has startling evidence of an expedition that went around the North Pole in the 1400’s and reported very little ice and wide spread settlements on Greenland and Iceland.

 

So am I saying that the IPCC is wrong? - Well yes I am – not because I do not believe that we should carry on polluting regardless, but because to blame CC on man and only mans activities alone is really stupid! It is a fact that the Earths climate is affected far more by the Suns activity and our proximity to it than the IPCC is prepared to admit – maybe that is because such an admission would render the IPCC redundant and then what excuse would its members have to fly all around the world on taxpayer paid junkets?

 

Have a look at what was being said in the 1970’s and make your own mind up – question what you are being currently spoon-fed as fact when it is simply the current “fashionable” disaster scenario that keeps a group of charlatans on a very nice gravy train thank you.

 

This from 1976:-

 

 

 

 

 

"Suppose we assume, as did weather scientists interviewed by writer Nigel Calder, that the chances of continued cooling and of an Ice Age dawning within a century are one in ten, odds likened by one scientist to Russian roulette. The odds are in our favour, but consider the stakes being wagered: if the cooling continues, we can reasonably calculate that potentially two billion people could starve to death or die of other symptoms of chronic malnutrition by the year 2050. Potentially, we could all die if global famines and embargos on scarce resources, both caused by the cooling, lead to a world war. We simply cannot afford to gamble against this possibility by ignoring it. We cannot risk inaction. Those scientists who say we should ignore the evidence and the theories suggesting Earth is entering a period of climaticinstability are acting irresponsibly. The indications that our climate can soon change for the worse are too strong to be reasonably ignored.

 

”Lowell Ponte in The Cooling 1976"

 

 

"In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.

 

”Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day 1970"

 

"The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population.

 

”Reid Bryson, Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man, 1971"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BUT! ---- Funny how time can change one's mind. It seems that experience and common sense often brings about realizations of past mistakes. And so is with the author Lowell Ponte. As Mr Ponte writes today:

 

 

 

"But the Leftist press continues to quote bug and flower scientists about global warming - including doomsayers who three decades ago were predicting a fast-approaching, planet-freezing ice age. (I should know, being author of the 1976 Prentice-Hall bestselling climate book The Cooling.)

 

As you probably recognized, all such Leftist doomsaying - hothouse or ice age, wet or dry, population explosion or drastic decline - calls for the same remedy. We must have bigger government, more political regulation and control, higher taxes, and permit less individual and private sector liberty if we are to survive whatever is this year's fashionable danger."

 

It is always refreshing to see this - hopefully more of the doom and gloom crowd will awaken to reality and see beyond their wishful utopian view of the world."

 

 

 

 

 

There is a group of people in Bristol who object to Bristol Airport. They have called themselves “Plane-Stupid”

 

I just hope they do not change their name.

 

The descriptive power it engenders would be hard to beat.

 

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Peter

The link is the product of one Monte Heib, a mining safety engineer.  He is no more a climate scientist than you or me, and some cynics point out the desirability of continuing mining to the Heib family's prosperity.  I couldn't comment!  However, what he states is a theory, just as global warming is a theory.  That he appears to present a more reassuring message than most climate scientists, doesn't necessarily make him right, or wrong. 

However, there is great argument over the extent to which the water vapour content of the climate is dependent upon its CO2 content, and therefore upon the extent to which the release of fossil carbon into the atmosphere by man is contributing to warming. 

It is more than likely that some of the warming is cyclical; everyone knows the climate has warmed, and cooled, before.  The great unknown, is the actual extent to which man is accellerating this.  The great debate, is over whether we should seek to curtail our contribution, in case we unwittingly start something we can't stop (which is what most climate scientists seem to be urging), or whether we should carry on regardless and see what happens (which is what they are advising against). 

What you do, I guess, depends on how lucky you feel on behalf of your children!

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"Here in Spain we pay 122€ (separate to our council tax) a year for our refuse collection which includes garden waste and large items e.g washing machines, furniture etc. and we get the bin men seven days a week. Every area has recycling facilities of their own within 1km."

Derek

Sheer heaven!!

This is why I can't understand how we can't even achieve this in the UK without having some kind of study going on. Also I've noticed on my many travels in Germany, how seperate their cycle lanes are, we've just had one put in on one of the major roads leading to our town.

Guess what? Yep your right, the people who live on this road are actually parking across the cycle lane. The sad thing is that they ALL have drive ways!!

A bit off thread I know, but it just shows some of the mentality of our so called attempts at "GREEN" issues.

Thai

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Certainly we have seen this is action when we have been in Spain. Last time was at a village Leronnes just outside Potes in the Picos de Europa. The village had large plastic containers on the outskirts in different colours for different refuse.

 

The system worked well.

 

Even more surprising was when we enquired (as you do) about the cost of a villa and the running costs we were told that the "rates" were about £130. Which we said "not bad - it's about what we pay in the UK"

 

The response with a wry smile was - "No this is a year, not a month"

 

So what are we all still here for? ;-)

 

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CliveH - 2007-05-30 11:25 AM Certainly we have seen this is action when we have been in Spain. Last time was at a village Leronnes just outside Potes in the Picos de Europa. The village had large plastic containers on the outskirts in different colours for different refuse. The system worked well. Even more surprising was when we enquired (as you do) about the cost of a villa and the running costs we were told that the "rates" were about £130. Which we said "not bad - it's about what we pay in the UK" The response with a wry smile was - "No this is a year, not a month" So what are we all still here for? ;-)

Many of us do leave for other countries, but most stay.

Countries are packages, and when you live in them you get the whole package, not just the bits that are attractive, or just the bits that are cheap.  I'm intrigued how many folk who move abroad never learn the language of their host country, live in little England enclaves, employ "British" builders, seek out "British" food and services, and want to come back to UK when one or other becomes seriously ill, or dies. 

If you're going, go.  But have the courage of your convictions and stay there.  Learn the culture, the language, and the customs and make your friends among the natives, not some ex-pat British community.  Otherwise you remain an outsider in a strange land, and as your neighbours move or die off and you age, you slowly become a virtual prisoner.

Anyone remember all those whinging Brits who came crying back to the UK from Malta when Mintoff took over?  They'd lived there in cheap property, on low Maltese taxes and living costs, on relatively good UK pensions, for years; but when the dream finally ended and they woke up, they all thought they'd been hard done by and came limping home.

You do need to choose where you settle very carefully.  High UK property costs give us huge buying power in many other countries, but it doesn't follow you'll be weccomed when you move in.  In too many places the locals find they're priced out of the property market in their own country, and become resentful of all the German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish and British retirees; who move in, but then spend little once they've bought their retirement homes.

If I were to leave UK to live it would be for France or Germany, not Spain, Italy or Portugal.  France for the standard of living (mostly due to lower land prices) and generally better climate: Germany because it is orderly and well maintained and things (generally) work.  Spain still has a long way to go economically, environmentally and socially, Portugal much more so, and Italy is generally too "machismo" dominated for my preferences.

One of the joys of motorhome travel is that you can "peep under the carpet" of the countries you pass trhough, and getting off the beaten track shows you what places are really like, as opposed to what the popular tourist areas and resorts are like.  It can be quite an eye opener! 

What has all this to do with global warming?  Just that moving abroad doesn't make a contribution one way or another.  You just move your carbon footprint to someone else's back yard.  Oh, and recycling doesn't make much difference either, unless you're recycling plastics and mineral oils.  The other stuff doesn't come from fossil carbon, so its effect is broadly neutral.  It's environmentally friendly for other reasons, but it doesn't affect the carbon cycle.

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CliveH - 2007-05-30 12:25 PM

 

Certainly we have seen this is action when we have been in Spain. Last time was at a village Leronnes just outside Potes in the Picos de Europa. The village had large plastic containers on the outskirts in different colours for different refuse.

 

The system worked well.

 

Even more surprising was when we enquired (as you do) about the cost of a villa and the running costs we were told that the "rates" were about £130. Which we said "not bad - it's about what we pay in the UK"

 

The response with a wry smile was - "No this is a year, not a month"

 

So what are we all still here for? ;-)

 

That's right Clive. We pay 197€ (£134) per year for our rates plus 122€ for the refuse collection. In Oxfordshire where we lived until 2003, we paid £1,800 per year!!

 

We also pay a local car tax (there's no national car tax in spain) which is based on horse power. Our Nissan Micra is 45€ per year, but our 146hp Fiat MH is 120€. Petrol currently 1.05€/L and diesel 92c/L

 

I just can't get my head round why everything is so much more expensive in the UK. I know wages are less here, but no that much.

 

 

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You have upset me know Derek!

 

Could you tell me the price of LPG in Spain (my Discovery runs on it) just to put me in a real mood!

 

When we were last in Spain it was sort of getting more common but not much.

 

At one time it was about 18p a litre - so on a 3.9l V8 towing that was bl**dy marvellous! - but it was very sparse because it had no tax at all and was only available for Government Vehicles, Municipal and National. But as tourists the garages saw a sale as a sale!

 

I have just been looking on the web at a nice two bed Villa in the Rioja region (I like the wine) and found one that looks good at 165K euro and had 8 acres of land.

 

When on a canoeing trip in Northern Spain we made friends with a Spanish family and I was surprised at one of the questions the chap asked - he asked was fuel REALLY nearly a £ a litre - I said yes.

 

He then asked how anyone then managed to transport anything within the UK.

 

I said it is easy - the lorries and trucks are increasingly from the old eastern bloc and they all have extra tanks and fill up outside of the UK.

 

Considering we are in a "common trading block" - we really are suffering a rip-off Britain.

:-(

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Now, now, Clive, you're getting all twisted and confused.  :-)

If the Eastern New-Europeans are keeping our transport costs down by having large tanks on their trucks which they fill with cheap DERV from elsewhere, we must surely benefit overall through cheaper shop prices.  If you accept that, where's the rip off?

If, on the other hand, they were prevented from doing this, presumably our prices would rise, but that "rip off" would be at the hands of our own friendly home grown truckers, so how would it be this "common trading block" thingy disadvantaging us?

Do I detect just a teensy weensy bit of anti-EC bias somewhere in this argument?  Apologies for the off topic, but summat seems a bit untidy here.  Sounds a bit like the old straight bananas to me!  :-)

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Not at all Brian. – You are substantially incorrect in a number of areas.

 

I am a great fan of the EU. I have seen how the EU benefits individuals "peed" on by our UK legal system and system of Government.

 

How you can read into my post an anti EU bias is beyond me.

 

I am stating that EU member states are cheaper to live in than the UK.

 

Both Derek and I are asking why?

 

As for the EU, without the EU Court of Human Rights - Part Time employees would still have no pension rights.

 

Neither would there be equivalent pensions for men and women.

 

Currently (decision this month) the EU has asked the FSA to explain why this Government Body has "Gold Plated" every rule the EU has laid down so that we in the UK are over-burdened with so much red tape and confusing rules that savers and investors have virtually given up and we now have a huge "savings deficit".

 

Not helped by the same organisation placing so many burdens on excellent Final Salary schemes that the companies concerned would go bankrupt with the extra administrative burden! Again the EU is now asking questions of the FSA on this matter.

 

And let us not forget the role of the FSA in the Equitable Life debacle. despite a cover up by government and regulator AND the subsequent historic ignoring of the findings of the Parliamentary Ombudsman over this and the Final Salary Scheme debacle- the EU is NOT letting go! - and is forcing the UK Government to take the matter seriously.

 

And this is just examples from my area of expertise – have a chat with someone in manufacturing (what is left of it) – the situation is worse. Then travel to Eire for example, where the government supports business and works with the EU to simplify not hinder.

 

So if you possibly believe that I am anti European - you are VERY much mistaken.

 

On the specific issue of transport - the cost to the UK taxpayer is that:-

 

a) the non-UK vehicles pay no road tax

b) the fuel they use does not have UK fuel duty paid on it

c) the local transport firms cannot compete and jobs are lost

 

If you wanted an example of how BADLY UK citizens were treated by there government - just consider the situation a year or so ago when a Customs Officer could decide on an arbitrary basis that he or she considered the booze and fags you were legally bringing into the UK were "Not for personal consumption".

 

If they decided that - there was no appeal and you had not only the goods that you had purchased quite legally in the EU as an EU citizen confiscated but the VEHICLE YOU WERE IN WAS IMPOUNDED AS WELL! This had NO basis in UK law whatsoever and was a classic case of our rights as EU citizens to take part in a Free Market, being stamped on by a dictatorial government determined to ignore the fact that we are all EU citizens.

 

But - Thank the Lord for the EU - in that they looked at what was going on and said ENOUGH!!.

 

And so once again a truly draconian "law" (which actually had no basis in UK law - it was an "interpretation") and "Gold Plating" of sensible rules by officious "Jobsworths" was kicked into touch by the EU.

 

 

 

So Brian - if you want, from that pedestal you are sitting on, to decide what others are thinking - I suggest that you check with the individual you want to get your claws into first.

 

You are well out of order on this.

 

And totally incorrect.

 

The only banana round here mate is the one you have just slipped on!

 

 

 

 

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Brian Kirby - 2007-05-30 6:37 PM

Now, now, Clive, you're getting all twisted and confused.  :-)

If the Eastern New-Europeans are keeping our transport costs down by having large tanks on their trucks which they fill with cheap DERV from elsewhere, we must surely benefit overall through cheaper shop prices.  If you accept that, where's the rip off?

If, on the other hand, they were prevented from doing this, presumably our prices would rise, but that "rip off" would be at the hands of our own friendly home grown truckers, so how would it be this "common trading block" thingy disadvantaging us?

Do I detect just a teensy weensy bit of anti-EC bias somewhere in this argument?  Apologies for the off topic, but summat seems a bit untidy here.  Sounds a bit like the old straight bananas to me!  :-)

BrianI am not an educated person by any means but even I see flaws in your argument that the east europeans are keeping our transport costs down. Maybe they are in the same way that the Chinese have kept the price of our shoes down, or the price of our ladies bra's down, and the price of nearly everything down, but at what cost.As far as I understand it (and please don't be too harsh with me if i am wrong) our own haulage companies have now registered in excess of one third of their vehicles in Europe, it follows that the drivers come from there too plus the management, plus the maintinence and spares. So in the UK how many british drivers are now looking for work, how many shoe makers are out of work, how many bra makers are out of work and so it goes on and on until all we do in this country is provide leisure facilities and/or financial services to people who are out of work.What is the benefit in that to the UK.
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Now Clive, you're just being rude!  And you didn't answer my first two questions: just had a rant about my tease in the last.

I repeat, where is the "rip off"?  A rip off is something which is overpriced relative to its value, is it not?  So where, in the cheap transport provided by East Europeans (or really any other European with the sense not to pay our fuel prices) lies the rip off? 

My point being that it doesn't lie in the EC, as you seem to imply with your crack about a common trading block.  It lies, as usual, with us, here, at home.  It is the product of disadvantageous cross border taxation and the myopic way we seem to see Europe.  You know, that "fog in channel; Europe isolated", tendency.

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Brian - funny enough I felt your post arrogant and rude.

 

If you cannot find the answer to your questions in my post I suggest you read it again.

 

The rip of is that prices are so high in the UK that other EU countries can and do take our markets!

 

So if they can do it cheaper and yet we are in the same "trading block" we in the UK must be living/trading at a higher cost.

 

And believe me we are!

 

The posts on here are testament and evidence to that.

 

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Syd

I don't think it has to do with education, at whatever level, and I think you're dead right.  We can't stop competition from other countries with lower costs, but we do seem to handle it to our own disadvantage.  Time was, when the UK was regarded as a great merchant country.  That generally meant we bought from overseas, added a bit for ourselves, and sold it on elsewhere for a profit.  We seemed, at the time, to think that was a good idea, whether or not the result was unemployment elsewhere.  Now we just buy from overseas and sell to ourselves at the reduced price so exporting our own jobs!  That, for some reason, now seems a bad move.  Plus ca change. 

However, I share your concern that our conversion to an economy that is almost entirely services based is misguided.  For that we should thank the blessed Margaret, she of the "Britain isn't good at making things" doctrine.  Among her worst campaigns was to get rid of the industry along with the unions.  You don't see the Germans, who according to her were always wrong, doing this.  They don't seem to be doing so badly on the proceeds either, despite being always wrong.  Hmmmm!  Can't imagine why German motorhomes seem to have better reputations than the home grown variety, can you?

Of course we need jobs for folk who need to use their hands, as well as for those who supposedly use their heads - though I do wonder a bit about the latter!  Instead, all we seem to offer are jobs in the call centres we haven't yet exported to India.  It's too big an issue to pursue at length on here, but I do agree we have a serious problem heading our way with disaffected youth who can't get homes, and all the rest that flows from taet: the overpaid "boys in braces" in London, McJobs for many of our population, and immigrant workers living in conditions we mostly wouldn't accept.  We've got it badly wrong, and it's going to take a long time to get right.  However, we can't insulate ourselves from cheaper products of any kind from overseas as a way of trying to correct the imbalances.  What really should worry us is that those cheaper products include products from Germany and France, for example, which are countries that have fewer of the cheap East Europeans pinching their jobs (though they don't agree about that), and higher taxes as we're always being told, yet still manage to under cut us on cost, or out do us on quality.  And that is a problem that's been around for decades, and we have never confronted it!

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"However, I share your concern that our conversion to an economy that is almost entirely services based is misguided. For that we should thank the blessed Margaret, she of the "Britain isn't good at making things" doctrine. Among her worst campaigns was to get rid of the industry along with the unions".

 

Hi Brian

No education and also no political nounce either but I have to disagree with you in part on the above quote.

 

I dont really think Maggie was trying to rid this country of its industry,

I believe she was hell bent on reducing the ability of the unions to grossly misuse the power that they had at that time. I also believe that the unions have a lot to answer for when it comes to the decline of UK industry.

The names of Red Robbo and Arthur Scargill spring readilly to mind but they were not the only ones that thought their unions ran the country, instead of the elected government, were they

 

I remember when it was three weeks before we could bury my mother and even then the pickets were at the crematorium gates

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sorry it's off topic but I was on the picket line once & once only before i clued up, i was payed £4 a week in the 1970s for going on strike. The shop steward got full wages & that scumbag scargill still lived in his million £ mansion (bought by union funds) & was driven around in his Jag. So i back Maggie. Oh & by the way the union agreed that the company should make 1 shift redundent so i lost my job through unions.
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Maggie may have been a "strong" leader - but she was not known to listen much - but then neither did Churchill apparently.

 

Maggie managed to reform the UK economy for the better overall but "by-heck" there were some casualties.

 

From a personal viewpoint, I believe you need to go a bit firther back in time to Beeching and his destruction of the UK railway system to find the real culprit of the UK manufacturing decline.

 

As soon as we lost a unified way of transporting goods from A to B and had to rely on road transport the ability to plan was the baby chucked out with the bathwater.

 

On the subject of Global Warming tho - have a read of this from the Times in Feb. Makes for very interesting reading:-

 

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece

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