So was it all a metaphor for Thatcher's reign?
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BigBlaster123 — 9 years ago(June 06, 2016 11:33 AM)
Kate1976, I'm afraid your summary of Thatcher's legacy is verging on blathering nonsense.
Are you for real? Thatcher's legacy has been a disaster. The UK has a huge trade deficit and is in debt up to its eyeballs. No one under the age of 40 can sensibly afford a place to live it (rent or buy) and inequality is at its worst in decades.
Pure drivel. -
hugovaz-604-326222 — 9 years ago(July 15, 2016 03:08 PM)
as anyone alive in the 70s knows, things have immeasurably improved with privatisation. Power cuts were so frequent
Well, in here it went the other way around (utilities were private, and then they were nationalized and a national electric plan was devised, as it was for water supply and so on) and I can say that since they were nationalized things improved immensely. So what does that tells us? That has nothing to do with being private or being State owned but rather if there is a plan and strategy or not.
With that said, in here the electrical company was privatized some 6 years ago, so the question at that time was: does the state gets a better deal keeping a profitable company or selling it and getting the revenue through taxes? Well, question answered as well: a profitable company was sold and the tax doesn't cover the revenue it used to have (that's actually a no brainer, x% of something in tax is always less than 100% of it). Oh, and the electricity bill went through the roof, even though we have cheaper energy than 6 years ago, so it didn't improve to the customer either. Only the new owners went out as winners, everyone else turned out to be the sucker. -
Squeeth2 — 9 years ago(July 26, 2016 06:50 AM)
The power cuts were due to industrial disputes, not the ownership of the utilities. When they were expropriated prices rocketed and the profits went to speculators, instead of the public paying the bills. Thatchler only followed the logic of the policies enacted in 1976, which colonised Britain for the benefit of a fascist boss class. It wasn't difficult to predict the police state at home and the terrorist state (mostly) abroad at the time, millions did.
Marlon, Claudia & Dimby the cats 1989-2010. Clio the cat, July 1997 - 1 May 2016. -
Kate1976 — 9 years ago(May 02, 2016 04:18 PM)
So Margaret Thatcher was in power when this book was written and the whole thing is an inditement of her?
So sorry, I almost forgot that thanks to his time machine, Ballard spent the entire book condemning the evils of free enterprise, capitalism, and the Tory party. -
GethinVanH — 9 years ago(May 04, 2016 01:52 PM)
Try asking the few countries which have privatized water how well they're doing. It was attempted in Bolivia with disastrous results. There was water shortages, accounting errors and huge increases in pricing. The people rose up and there was a revolution because things were so bad.
The book and movie were both an indictment of Thatcher before Thatcher was even around. I guess it was obvious enough to JG Ballard when he wrote the book in 1975. At that time Thatcher was elected as leader of the Conservative Party. Maybe JG Ballard heard some speeches by Thatcher and realized how insane her plan of small government was.
It certainly didn't improve Britain. That country still has one of the worst rail systems in Europe and it's because of the Conservative privatization under Thatcher/Major. -
Kate1976 — 9 years ago(May 04, 2016 08:52 PM)
Um, water was privatised here in 1989, under Margaret Thatcher, and 27 years later the world hasn't ended yet.
Were you actually around in the 70s and early 80s to realise how beep these services were before they were privatised? Can you imagine living in a country where your power goes out randomly? Where your telephone took a year to get and 6 months to get repaired?
Plus, as a proportion of income, all these services are FAR cheaper than they used to be.
Do you have any idea how many companies the state used to own before they were privatised? Everything from Rols Royce to British Sugar to British Aerospace, to Thomas Cook, to British Airways. And they pretty much all gave crap service.
I really wish people would stop believing propaganda and actually research the history for themselves. -
GethinVanH — 9 years ago(May 07, 2016 06:29 PM)
Everything you're saying is actually wrong.
- Tariffs increased by 46% in real terms during the first nine years,
- Operating profits have more than doubled (+142%) in eight years,
investments were reduced and
public health was jeopardised through cut-offs for non-payment, however, this was made illegal in 1998 along with prepayment meters and 'trickle valves'.
It was alleged that the consequences of the 1988 Camelford water pollution incident were covered up partly because prosecution would "render the whole of the water industry unattractive to the City".
Yes, let's all trust profit-hungry capitalists with our water. What a brilliant idea. What could possibly go wrong?
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paulm-02838 — 9 years ago(May 25, 2016 03:20 AM)
Both Gethin and Kate are right, unfortunately the blame must lay fairly and squarely on our shoulders. Thatcherism was not to blame, neither were the Conservatives, or Labour. It's all down to us (The Great British people), myself included, it seems we will let no end of governments do exactly what they want, when they want and how they want.
Meanwhile we watch TV and moan about the weather. -
sly_3 — 9 years ago(September 13, 2016 09:48 PM)
^this^ is ballard's call to action.
donkeywranglertothestars.com
@sly_3 -
TallPaulus — 9 years ago(May 09, 2016 05:51 PM)
I really wouldn't get too hung up on when the book was written. Whilst it was published in 1975 (the year the Thatcher took over leadership of the Tory party so perhaps Ballard had her pegged from the get-go!), the film was made in 2015. This allows the director to overlay his own interpretations/reference points onto the basic structure of the original source. The source material is very much about societal breakdown and many see Thatcher as someone who presided over a negative change in society in the UK (remember her famous quote that "there is no such thing as society'". Royal says in the film that the building "is a crucible for change" and I think the building represents the UK moving from the immediate post-war era of community and collective working into the 70's and the start of the Thatcher philosophy of the individual as the only significant unit that matters.
In the end, it is not a documentary, it's an interpretation, an impression and it is not pure chance that a quote from Thatcher is used in the film. -
BigBlaster123 — 9 years ago(June 06, 2016 11:37 AM)
As a debt per head proportion, we are in serious trouble, with no manufacturing base, very few national assets, and most utilities and services now owned by foreign countries:
http://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk
So how is it "cheaper" Kate? Explain -
guesspotty — 9 years ago(June 09, 2016 04:22 AM)
Rols Royce to British Sugar to British Aerospace, to Thomas Cook, to British Airways. And they pretty much all gave crap service.
they still do.
And, how many of these are still British owned? Rolls Royce isn't, BAE is a mess-reliant on a lot of dodgy investments, British Sugar is ??? a mix up of different brands and subsidaries that would be a tangle for an MBA student to figure out. Thomas Cook was state owned? crikey. British Airways is partially owned by other airlines.
Lets not get started on the current Conservative gov's great Cadbury sell off to Kraft. -
Squeeth2 — 9 years ago(July 26, 2016 07:00 AM)
I was and such failings as there were came with dirt cheap prices. After the expropriations, the quality fell and prices rose well above inflation. Much of the "investment" since then has been to catch up with the cuts imposed during the Heath regime and blamed on the oil price rises that began in 1973.
Your horror stories are a cross between fiction and the bleats of an elitist sent to the back of the queue. The services are far more expensive because the proportion of income going to the working class is much smaller and each utility charges a poll tax for the item, gas, water, electricity etc. Rolls was bailed out in the mid-70s and recapitalised with public money, British Sugar was vastly profitable and so was every other nationalised concern that the state wanted run properly.
Do your homework Tory-girl and look around you; Thatchler brought back beggars, homelessness, drugs, permanent mass unemployment, death squads and corrupt history teaching.
Marlon, Claudia & Dimby the cats 1989-2010. Clio the cat, July 1997 - 1 May 2016. -
LeonardPine — 9 years ago(October 12, 2016 02:57 AM)
"Thatchler brought back beggars, homelessness, drugs, permanent mass unemployment, death squads and corrupt history teaching. "
'Death squads'?!!!!
Do shut up you leftie twit. You probably weren't even around in the 80's
Was it a millionaire who said "Imagine no possessions"? -
KingNee — 9 years ago(May 25, 2016 04:50 PM)
Socialism without responsibility IS anarchy.
If people see it as an easy fix to get what they want without giving anything back; The whole thing collapses.
Why do you think the Nordic countries aren't particularly happy about 100s of thousands of immigrants roaming in to be on welfare for the rest of their lives. (They will be, no matter what some lying hippie study is telling you about cultural enrichment)
Why do you think they came here and not other closer countries?
"You'll be taking a soul train straight to a disco inferno where you never can say goodbye!"