So was it all a metaphor for Thatcher's reign?
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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!" -
DaliParton — 9 years ago(July 10, 2016 09:03 PM)
Socialism without responsibility IS anarchy.
Pretty much any economic system without good governance results in failure. Even the libertarian concept of just leaving it up to the individual actors encourages failure because power tends to accrue to the unaccountable (or maybe the powerful strive to become unaccountable). -
Squeeth2 — 9 years ago(July 26, 2016 02:24 PM)
No it isn't, socialism, communism, liberalism, fascism and nazism are all carbuncles on society's ar/se. Anarchism is the only political philosophy that's fundamentally different because anarchists want rid of the boss class and their state. We want a society of laws instead.
Marlon, Claudia & Dimby the cats 1989-2010. Clio the cat, July 1997 - 1 May 2016. -
tiggersuk — 9 years ago(July 25, 2016 11:41 AM)
Kate would clearly be a model citizen in Orwell's 1984 and sleeps on her Margaret Thatcher pillow and has posters on her wall Thatcher was a traitor and a puppet for her banker masters and wealthy elite families just like all the PMs who came before her and after and i dare say those to yet come.. there has never been a mainstream cabinet level politician who has been working for the good of the British people ever! they are all a mixture of narcissists, psychopaths, deviants, chancers and the criminally insane total vermin each and every one and i'm sure it's just the same in the US
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Two-HeadedBoy — 9 years ago(December 05, 2016 05:01 PM)
Just asking, on a similar subject - did anyone else pick up on that nod to Harold Wilson at the end? Toby's sitting there listening to Thatcher talk, and then puts a pipe in his mouth
That's how I saw it anyway. -
PoppyTransfusion — 9 years ago(December 10, 2016 02:12 PM)
The epilogue from Margaret Thatcher is Wheatley's wry spin on Ballard's story where, what Ballard satirises, came to pass with Thatcher. I'm afraid Kate's comments represent her viewpoint and not the truth of state in the UK then or now.
Laing's prologue:
Sometimes he found it hard to believe they were not living in a future that had already taken place
Ever tried, ever failed?
No matter.
Try again, fail again.
Fail better. -
Woodyanders — 2 years ago(September 22, 2023 12:13 AM)
It's more a metaphor or allegory on the social caste system in England where there's a fierce delineation between the haves and have nots.
You've seen Guy Standeven in something because the man was in everything.