# The BBC narrative of the 1970's



## ItWillNeverWork (Apr 23, 2012)

I'm watching BBC 2 at the minute, and they are broadcasting a programme about the 1970's. You all know the angle that they are coming at it from - everything was shit, 3 day week, the miners were getting all uppity and 'holding the country to ransome'. Blah, blah, fucking blah.

Am I wrong to be highly mistrustful of this mantra that is constantly on the TV about how gloomy everything was back then? Is it all just an attempt to convince me that the neoliberal revolution was brilliant? It feels that way - a load of posh BBC twats moaning on about unions. Please educate a whipper-snapper who was only born in the 80's about what it was really like.


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## marty21 (Apr 23, 2012)

everything was shit, 3 day week, uppity miners


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## goldenecitrone (Apr 23, 2012)

I had no job, no money, hardly any education and little knowledge of the world outside my immediate environment. Things improved after I left primary school though.


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## Struwwelpeter (Apr 23, 2012)

Well they've just done a bit about the birth of the Green movement, so it wasn't all bad wallpaper and strikes. 

However, at the age of 7 blackouts were fun, as were purple cords.  I always wanted a Raleigh Chopper but didn't get one. I remember asking my Dad what Saigon meant and I knew that Heath was the prime minister but that was the limit of my knowledge.  In the late 70s I naively thought that it would be good to have a woman prime minister.  Had I been a little more politically aware I might have looked a little deeper. 

I don't remember the 1980s being an improvement.  I didn't get optimistic until the late 80s early 90s (end of apartheid and the iron curtain) but that didn't last...


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## Zabo (Apr 23, 2012)

Once again the BBC excel at making a feeble attempt at disguising (a) cuts (b) lack of imagination by using old stock footage instead of spending/wasting money on new innovative programmes.

Same with all the Shakespeare shit. Over and over and over. Whatever happened to "Play Of The Month" when we used to get exciting new writers as well as the classics from all over the world?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/2012/04/shakespeare-season-qa.shtml

Put me in charge of commissioning and the first thing I'd have on would be Dario Fo's _Accidental Death Of An Anarchist. _Next would be a re-working of Tony Harrison's plays.


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## Hollis (Apr 23, 2012)

If its the Domonic Sandbrook programme - then I've generally got alot of time for him.. the first episode wasn't gloomy in the least - cheap wine, foreign holidays, and home owning. Albeit his interpretation of the miners settlement in 1972 may not be univerally agreed upon round here.


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## Kaka Tim (Apr 23, 2012)

Haven't seen this weeks but I found last weeks really annoying.
his schtick seem to be that 'we' all became more aspirational and individaulistic in the 70s - paving the way for the aspiraional, individualistic culture that we have now and that was emobidied by thatcher.
But he does't see the differnce between collective aspiration and individual aspiration - arguing that scargil was 'almost thatcherite' because the miners were going on strike becasue they'd got all aspirational and wanted more pay (so they could buy blue nun and go on a package tour to spain).
Its still interesting, but his perspective is shallow, liberal, ahistorical tosh.


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## elbows (Apr 23, 2012)

There is a thread about episode 1 here, I hope it will continue to discuss subsequent episodes:

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/the-70s.291980/

That thread got off to a slow start as the 70s in general rather than the program ended up being the focus of many early posts, but once some people had seen the program we started to get some feedback, largely negative 

I get so brain-fuddled watching it squish so many events and issues into a short space of time, that I've not been able to being to post my thoughts on how it handled particular things.


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## Kaka Tim (Apr 23, 2012)

Although the story of heath getting pwned by the miners is always gives one a warm glow.


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## danny la rouge (Apr 23, 2012)

Hollis said:


> Albeit his interpretation of the miners settlement in 1972 may not be univerally agreed upon round here.


No, because he's right wing and anti-union.

_Here it is, [dramatic pause] Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun.[Look at camera] Look to the future it's..._ 

Oh shut your face, you twat.


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## Kaka Tim (Apr 23, 2012)

Didn't know there was already a thread. This programmes been pissing me off since I saw it the other day - glad to see Im not alone in thinking he's full of shite.


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## elbows (Apr 23, 2012)

And the shite he is full of is perfect for u75 to hate on, for a multitude of good reasons.

He must have been even less subtle about his views this week as the first thing my mum said about this weeks episode was 'he really hates the miners'.


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## Hollis (Apr 23, 2012)

I'm not sure it came across that he did hate the miners though.  He pointed out that they'd fallen behind wage settlements in other industries and wanted to play catch up.

I like the way he pulls out some some underlying cultural themes rather than just focussing on events and class warfare.


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## UrbaneFox (Apr 24, 2012)

Hollis said:


> If its the Domonic Sandbrook programme - then I've generally got alot of time for him.. the first episode wasn't gloomy in the least - cheap wine, foreign holidays, and home owning. Albeit his interpretation of the miners settlement in 1972 may not be univerally agreed upon round here.


 
Too much "We all wanted to go on package tours holiday to Spain" stuff. "Our aspirations" (as evidenced by the lifestyle cack on the Conveyor Belt. And a few Jews, in National dress, were shown just as the talk turned to crazy property prices.

Too lazy a programme, I think.


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## JimW (Apr 24, 2012)

Saw the article trailing this and it started by mentioning it was a time when most people were better off than at any other, so thought maybe we'd get a different take for once, but sure enough followed it up with the same old mantra about the unions etc so haven't bothered watching. Did you see this bit in the LRB a while back, reviewing a book that points out plenty of people enjoyed the time off during the three day week, 'boom in sales at fishing tackle shops' etc : http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n16/ian-jack/downhill-from-here


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## clicker (Apr 24, 2012)

My 70's were defined by my ever changing modes of transport....tricyle, roller skates, space hopper, chopper.........all interspersed with many a 2p ride on the bus, although I still hopped my fare whenever possible and with the old routemasters the possibilities were many, albeit risking life and limb by jumping on and off moving buses for  twopence made the arrowroot biscuit and chocolate tool that the ill gotten dosh procured, taste even sweeter than their pre nanny state e numbers allowed.
I saw a bit of the programme....the punk/reggae bit....the footage of the miners strike was maybe what prompted me to wander away from the telly....old footage, lazily used and seen now for quite literally decades.


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## jusali (Apr 24, 2012)

I liked it....


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## butchersapron (Apr 24, 2012)

I think John Humphreys should be paid more.


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## SaskiaJayne (Apr 24, 2012)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Am I wrong to be highly mistrustful of this mantra that is constantly on the TV about how gloomy everything was back then? Is it all just an attempt to convince me that the neoliberal revolution was brilliant? It feels that way - a load of posh BBC twats moaning on about unions. Please educate a whipper-snapper who was only born in the 80's about what it was really like.


Tbh, the 70s wern't that shit if you were a teenager, there was always some crap job available to earn money & dole money was easy get, plenty signed on & worked cash in hand on building sites, farms etc, you could get away with all that then if you wern't completely stupid. There was drugs, there was sex, the music was great, you didn't have to run smartphones & tablets, you only had to buy LPs, later on there were cassettes to record them borrowed from friends(music theft is not new)Cider was about 20p for a big plastic bottle, Old Holborn was about 25p half ounce & if you wanted to be height of fashion you just sewed coloured darts into your Levis, tyedyed a grandadvest & wore cheap desert boots, what was not to like?


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## marty21 (Apr 24, 2012)

I got my first part-time job in the 70s, 1978, 66p an hour


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## QueenOfGoths (Apr 24, 2012)

Zabo said:


> Once again the BBC excel at making a feeble attempt at disguising (a) cuts (b) lack of imagination by using old stock footage instead of spending/wasting money on new innovative programmes.
> 
> Same with all the Shakespeare shit. Over and over and over. Whatever happened to "Play Of The Month" when we used to get exciting new writers as well as the classics from all over the world?
> 
> ...


Yes but that is part of the Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival which does include other things than just Shakespeare, even on the BBC! 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/olympiad/
http://www.london2012.com/cultural-olympiad

Though I agree it would be nice to have something like Play of the Month back


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## fizzerbird (Apr 24, 2012)

I got my first Saturday job in '77 working in a shop in Bristol which sold Punk clothes 

I can deffo remember all the power cuts too. Think I may have been too young to realise the seriousness of Miners strike and IRA stuff but was deffo aware of it. I can also remember fag machines and chocolate machines outside the shops


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## nino_savatte (Apr 24, 2012)

Struwwelpeter said:


> Well they've just done a bit about the birth of the Green movement, so it wasn't all bad wallpaper and strikes.
> 
> However, at the age of 7 blackouts were fun, as were purple cords. I always wanted a Raleigh Chopper but didn't get one. I remember asking my Dad what Saigon meant and I knew that Heath was the prime minister but that was the limit of my knowledge. In the late 70s I naively thought that it would be good to have a woman prime minister. Had I been a little more politically aware I might have looked a little deeper.
> 
> I don't remember the 1980s being an improvement. I didn't get optimistic until the late 80s early 90s (end of apartheid and the iron curtain) but that didn't last...


The one thing he didn't mention was Teddy Goldsmith's involvement in PEOPLE and the early Green movement.


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## nino_savatte (Apr 24, 2012)

marty21 said:


> I got my first part-time job in the 70s, 1978, 66p an hour


My first full-time job paid £55 a week, working 12 hour shifts in a plastic bag/film factory in Letchworth. I lasted a month before I jacked it in.


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## treelover (Apr 24, 2012)

Didn't he say that Saltley Gate was a seminal moment not for Scargills victory, but for the tories being determined 'not to be held  to ransom' again and to be prepared, which led directly to the Ridely plan....


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## marty21 (Apr 24, 2012)

fizzerbird said:


> I got my first Saturday job in '77 working in a shop in Bristol which sold Punk clothes
> 
> I can deffo remember all the power cuts too. Think I may have been too young to realise the seriousness of Miners strike and IRA stuff but was deffo aware of it. I can also remember fag machines and chocolate machines outside the shops


 I remember the IRA stuff because the Police came around in 74 after the IRA bombed the Corridor in Bath - they seemed to be visiting any mouthy paddies -  I was 9 and we were shoved upstairs by mum while 2 men in long rain coats spoke to my dad - (I assume they were police) 3 years later Dad was blasting out Irish Rebel songs when there was a Silver Jublilee street party near our house


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## Idris2002 (Apr 24, 2012)

marty21 said:


> I remember the IRA stuff because the Police came around in 74 after the IRA bombed the Corridor in Bath - they seemed to be visiting any mouthy paddies -  I was 9 and we were shoved upstairs by mum while 2 men in long rain coats spoke to my dad - (I assume they were police) 3 years later Dad was blasting out Irish Rebel songs when there was a Silver Jublilee street party near our house


 
We moved to Canada because my Da didn't want to work for the "Brits" after Bloody Sunday. And I had quite a good 1970s in the land of the moose-shaggers. Then my idiot parents fell for the propaganda that everything had now changed for the better back in the old country. . .


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## Lo Siento. (Apr 24, 2012)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> I'm watching BBC 2 at the minute, and they are broadcasting a programme about the 1970's. You all know the angle that they are coming at it from - everything was shit, 3 day week, the miners were getting all uppity and 'holding the country to ransome'. Blah, blah, fucking blah.
> 
> Am I wrong to be highly mistrustful of this mantra that is constantly on the TV about how gloomy everything was back then? Is it all just an attempt to convince me that the neoliberal revolution was brilliant? It feels that way - a load of posh BBC twats moaning on about unions. Please educate a whipper-snapper who was only born in the 80's about what it was really like.


Real wages rose 10% over the 1970s, average annual GDP growth was higher than the 90s and 00s, not that much lower than the the oil and financial speculation filled '80s, unemployment has never subsequently been as low as even the highest rate in that decade (about 4.5%).

There was though a contraction in wealth inequality and the richest did lose a substantial share of the national wealth, so I can see how the bourgeoisie got all confused and thought we were in crisis.

(not to say the '70s was some kind of golden age or anything, but there's an ideological reason for considering it a near apocalypse)


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## Anudder Oik (Apr 24, 2012)

In the 70's irish jokes and racist jokes were the norm. Sliced white bread and Benny Hill were at their peak of popularity and the NF was on the rise, too. Music was horrible except when Punk burst thru and changed that part towards the end of the decade. People wore strange clothes, like 3 button waisters and patch pocket trousers, all flares. Football hooligans tied their scarves to their wrists and had long hair. Britain was well primitive back then but at least the Miners brought down a government.

The BBC can't complain, they should try taking a look at their own track record and attitude in the 70's. They institutionalised class snobbery. You mostly ever heard working class accents when they needed to portray criminals or layabouts.


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## articul8 (Apr 24, 2012)

Anudder Oik said:


> Music was horrible except when Punk burst thru


Err T-Rex, Bowie, Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music - horrible?


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## articul8 (Apr 24, 2012)

That plate of smash, tinned stewing steak and brussell sprouts reminded how boring food was back in the day (not the 70s - I was only 4 when it ended - but it reminded me of my mum's tough liver and onions, or leathery pork chops (sorry mum - you're a much better cook these days!) that we seemed to get a variant of every tea time.


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## Badgers (Apr 24, 2012)

Is it worth watching? 
I only got 5 years in the 70s.


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## _angel_ (Apr 24, 2012)

I'm surprised how little I noticed of anything. I was 7 when the seventies ended. I should remember *something* of national significance. But no, only things like school, friends etc. I seem to remember learning in school we had the first ever female prime minister but that's it. Can't remember 3 day week, power cuts or the hot summer of 1976!


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## Blagsta (Apr 24, 2012)

I have very very vague memories of power cuts, paraffin lamps and my dad going out to buy candles. I was born in 71 and most memories are of school, but I remember lots of NF graffiti, I thought it was weird for lots of Notts Forest fans to be living in west London!


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## Badgers (Apr 24, 2012)

We lived out in a village. Big garden, lots of fields and never strayed far from home. Never had television so current affairs never reached my tender years. Living near Aldershot we were well aware of the IRA with mirrors under cars on several occasions.


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## Frances Lengel (Apr 24, 2012)

articul8 said:


> That plate of smash, tinned stewing steak and brussell sprouts reminded how boring food was back in the day (not the 70s - I was only 4 when it ended - but it reminded me of my mum's tough liver and onions, or leathery pork chops (sorry mum - you're a much better cook these days!) that we seemed to get a variant of every tea time.


 
I'm not sure I go along with this "food was crap in them days" business. Pizza shops & kebab shops - There were hardly any in them days, but the ones that existed were nice. There's loads of them these days, but they're mostly crap.


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## Badgers (Apr 24, 2012)

_angel_ said:
			
		

> or the hot summer of 1976!



I don't remember it (being 1) but remember parents and their friends talking about it when weather came up. 

Storm of 87 was the biggest for most 30-40 year olds I guess. I slept through it despite half an Oak Tree landing outside my bedroom window. It was only half way to pick up my paper-round I realised something was amiss  we were without power for about 12 days. So was the school, so had a marvellous time


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## KeeperofDragons (Apr 24, 2012)

Mr Keeper & I got pissed off with the first episode particularly after his crack about Scargill and then the one about the Pythons being ex Oxbridge taking the mick out of the working class going on holidays abroad.  The program after about the music was far better.  So we've decided to give the tosh a miss & watch the music programs instead, pity it's only half hour though


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## JimW (Apr 24, 2012)

Lo Siento. said:


> Real wages rose 10% over the 1970s, average annual GDP growth was higher than the 90s and 00s, not that much lower than the the oil and financial speculation filled '80s, unemployment has never subsequently been as low as even the highest rate in that decade (about 4.5%).
> 
> There was though a contraction in wealth inequality and the richest did lose a substantial share of the national wealth, so I can see how the bourgeoisie got all confused and thought we were in crisis.
> 
> (not to say the '70s was some kind of golden age or anything, but there's an ideological reason for considering it a near apocalypse)


 
There's a graph from the Tax Justice bloke on another thread that expresses this another way, wages as % of GDP and 70s were of course the highest. Remember from that documentary The Great Estate on social housing that these was also a point early/mid 70s when 30% of the popn lived in council houses. But people with relatively decent wages in secure housing is of course a crisis for the nation.


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## audiotech (Apr 24, 2012)

I can state categorically that the 70's up to thatcher in '79 has been the best decade of my life so far. Heath being ousted from number 10 was the highlight, but there were many more memorable moments from that decade.

I also got to see, along with many other great bands, The Who (with Keith Moon and John Entwistle still alive) and The Sensational Alex Harvey band. i also came across the music of the New York Dolls during that era, which blew everything I'd heard up to that point (1973/4) out of the window.

The 80's was an onslaught against the working class, but unlike the 70's it was all defeats.

The 90's? A decade of greed (more so than any other) and ending with that fraud of Blairism

The noughties? Nothing to report so far.


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## danny la rouge (Apr 24, 2012)

audiotech said:


> The noughties? Nothing to report so far.


So far?  When does the evidence normally come in?


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## frogwoman (Apr 24, 2012)

the noughties have already ended. what's this decade called then?


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## newharper (Apr 24, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> the noughties have already ended. what's this decade called then?


Tenties?


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## peterkro (Apr 24, 2012)

World war 1 the reprise.


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## audiotech (Apr 25, 2012)

danny la rouge said:


> So far? When does the evidence normally come in?


 
When I can think of something to do with that period that had some significance in a progressive sense.


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## frogwoman (Apr 25, 2012)

audiotech said:


> When I can think of something to do with that period that had some significance.


 
9/11? the iraq war? there's load of stuff


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## audiotech (Apr 25, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> 9/11? the iraq war? there's load of stuff


 
See my edit.


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## danny la rouge (Apr 25, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> the noughties have already ended. what's this decade called then?


The Twenty-Tens.  (If we follow previous patterns.  Which we haven't, in a number of respects, since 2000).


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## DownwardDog (Apr 25, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> the noughties have already ended. what's this decade called then?


 
The Nadsats.


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## Plumdaff (Apr 25, 2012)

JimW said:


> There's a graph from the Tax Justice bloke on another thread that expresses this another way, wages as % of GDP and 70s were of course the highest. Remember from that documentary The Great Estate on social housing that these was also a point early/mid 70s when 30% of the popn lived in council houses. But people with relatively decent wages in secure housing is of course a crisis for the nation.


 
Andy Beckett's 1970s book (which I don't entirely agree with but a programme from him would be an interesting counterpoint to this one) "When The Lights Went Out" not only notes the above but the fact that Britons were both at their happiest and most equal in 1977. This clearly has required nearly 40 years of disinformation and attack in case we ever remember and demand those scandalous levels of fairness again (well, I say remember, I was born in '76).


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## JimW (Apr 25, 2012)

lagtbd said:


> Andy Beckett's 1970s book (which I don't entirely agree with but a programme from him would be an interesting counterpoint to this one) "When The Lights Went Out" not only notes the above but the fact that Britons were both at their happiest and most equal in 1977. This clearly has required nearly 40 years of disinformation and attack in case we ever remember and demand those scandalous levels of fairness again (well, I say remember, I was born in '76).


That's the book reviewed in the link in my first comment; not read it though - worth it even if you think it's got problems?


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## Idris2002 (Apr 25, 2012)

JimW said:


> That's the book reviewed in the link in my first comment; not read it though - worth it even if you think it's got problems?


 
I'd say there are problems with it, but it's worth a look on "good read" grounds alone.


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## Plumdaff (Apr 25, 2012)

What Idris2002 said. A very interesting read.


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## JimW (Apr 25, 2012)

Cheers both, will try an get a copy.


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## elbows (Apr 30, 2012)

The fucking presenter really went for it this week, British Leyland workers flexing their political muscles caused him to go rabid.

"Perhaps workers saluting their bosses south Korean style was a step too far" bwaaaahhh. And now the threat of the red menace, the militant leftwing leader taking over the country, and the response to this threat from the ex-military men and gents in the countryside.


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## elbows (Apr 30, 2012)

lol Walker couldn't even get his dog to carry the newspaper back to the house, if that was actually him in the footage.


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## Flanflinger (Apr 30, 2012)

The death of socialism in this country.


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## Blagsta (Apr 30, 2012)

Dominic Sandbrook solemnly reading the lyrics to The Pistol's God Save the Queen was hilarious.


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## elbows (Apr 30, 2012)

Blagsta said:


> Dominic Sandbrook solemnly reading the lyrics to The Pistol's God Save the Queen was hilarious.


 
Yes I was hugely entertained by the angst the punks caused him, cheered me right up.


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## marty21 (Apr 30, 2012)

the punk stuff was hilarious - I remember wanting to be a punk in 76/77, when I was 11/12, but by the time I was 13 people were already bored of punk, so I never did the punk thing


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## JHE (Apr 30, 2012)

I was surprised and slightly disappointed that the Bill Grundy interview of the Sex Pistols, which caused such a fuss at the time, was not used.


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## marty21 (Apr 30, 2012)

The football hooligan thing was interesting - coming from Bath, we didn't get a lot of footie violence in the 70s as you rarely got more than 1000 attendance at Twerton Park . The presenter had a theory that the crowds changed, that fathers and sons didn't go together, so there was less 'self government' of the fans - not sure about that.

I grew up in a non-football town - and my dad didn't take me to see football - coming from Ireland, there wasn't a tradition of going to see league football ,  I remember going to see Bristol Rovers in the mid 70s with someone else's Dad , I didn't go to many matches there - only really started going to see Football in the 80s when I moved to Swansea.


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## JHE (Apr 30, 2012)

I thought that theory about football hooliganism was very interesting and highly plausible, but there could be a lot of other factors, too.

A few possibilities:
* Maybe violence between rival football supporters had previously been ignored by the news media and Mr Plod 
* Greater prosperity allowed more people, including thugs, to travel to away games.  Thugs did so to meet their counterparts and fight
* The terraces - long gone now! - and the way supporters on the terraces were policed may have encouraged some lads to think the they were there to fight


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## TylerD (Apr 30, 2012)

elbows said:


> The fucking presenter really went for it this week, British Leyland workers flexing their political muscles caused him to go rabid.
> 
> "Perhaps workers saluting their bosses south Korean style was a step too far" bwaaaahhh. And now the threat of the red menace, the militant leftwing leader taking over the country, and the response to this threat from the ex-military men and gents in the countryside.



He really does bear the hallmarks of someone who is relying on secondhand accounts of the 1970s rather than someone who was "really there". He was born in 1974 and was six when the 1970s ended. I was born 10 years earlier and my insights into the 1960s would probably be about as profound as his recollections of the 1970s. What I can basically remember of the 1960s was playing tig in the school playground, hearing Yellow Submarine on the radio and hiding behind the settee when the Daleks were on TV (there are people who claim kids never did this, but my brother and I actually did). Apparently my parents woke me up in the middle of night to fetch me down to see the Apollo 11 moon landing but I don't remember it.


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## BlueSquareThing (Apr 30, 2012)

TylerD said:


> ...and hiding behind the settee when the Daleks were on TV (there are people who claim kids never did this, but my brother and I actually did).


So did me and my brother - although that was in the 70s.


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## audiotech (Apr 30, 2012)

JHE said:


> I thought that theory about football hooliganism was very interesting and highly plausible, but there could be a lot of other factors, too.
> 
> A few possibilities:
> * Maybe violence between rival football supporters had previously been ignored by the news media and Mr Plod
> ...


 
Remember this sometime later? I have a copy of the TUC report mentioned somewhere. Among others, a member of the WRP was involved and gaoled. The whole thing appeared a bit dodgy all told.


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## gosub (Apr 30, 2012)

TylerD said:


> He really does bear the hallmarks of someone who is relying on secondhand accounts of the 1970s rather than someone who was "really there". He was born in 1974 and was six when the 1970s ended. I was born 10 years earlier and my insights into the 1960s would probably be about as profound as his recollections of the 1970s. What I can basically remember of the 1960s was playing tig in the school playground, hearing Yellow Submarine on the radio and hiding behind the settee when the Daleks were on TV (there are people who claim kids never did this, but my brother and I actually did). Apparently my parents woke me up in the middle of night to fetch me down to see the Apollo 11 moon landing but I don't remember it.


Re  Daleks, was the fashion to have sofas freestanding in room rather than against wall. Made sofa hiding possible


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## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2012)

I can't believe he was only born in 1974. I thought he was in his 50s. Tories always look decades older than they are


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## TylerD (Apr 30, 2012)

gosub said:


> Re  Daleks, was the fashion to have sofas freestanding in room rather than against wall. Made sofa hiding possible


That, plus I remember our settee being high up enough that we could actually hide _under_ it. I think the person who said that was actually the early 70s is right though. It was definitely Pertwee era, I don't remember Troughton at all.

I do remember the early 1970s power cuts pretty well, it all seemed pretty exciting from a kid's perspective. I think Life On Mars captured the era pretty well, much more so than this twat has done so far.

Oh, and when Zebedee said "time for bed", it really was bedtime for me.


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## marty21 (Apr 30, 2012)

Pertwee was my first Dr Who as well


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## Badgers (Apr 30, 2012)

Baker here


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## Orang Utan (May 1, 2012)

I didn't watch Dr Who. It was silly. Think it was Baker thought I think


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## Badgers (May 1, 2012)

Orang Utan said:
			
		

> I didn't watch Dr Who. It was silly. Think it was Baker thought I think



Scarf?


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## clicker (May 1, 2012)

TylerD said:


> That, plus I remember our settee being high up enough that we could actually hide _under_ it. I think the person who said that was actually the early 70s is right though. It was definitely Pertwee era, I don't remember Troughton at all.
> 
> I do remember the early 1970s power cuts pretty well, it all seemed pretty exciting from a kid's perspective. I think Life On Mars captured the era pretty well, much more so than this twat has done so far.
> 
> Oh, and when Zebedee said "time for bed", it really was bedtime for me.


 

It was the cyber (?) men for me...guaranteed to have me scuttling behind the pvc and dralon monstrosity in seconds flat. On a wintry night the very opening music could get me half way there.

Power cuts....loved them, the only time I felt like we were the Ovaltiney family, all huddled around a candle reading the evening news .....well labouring over the picture crossword actually.

Zebedee was my nemesis too...I knew the bugger would spring up all merry and wise and for me too he meant the end of the day.


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## marty21 (May 1, 2012)

I used to watch Dr Who at a friend's place, as Dad didn't like it, and we had one telly, and no video recorder and it took ages for them to be repeated


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## Orang Utan (May 1, 2012)

Badgers said:


> Scarf?





Badgers said:


> Scarf?


Aye, and K-9


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## clicker (May 1, 2012)

I was scared of our gas cooker because of the opening titles of doctor who........the flames y'see.


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## TylerD (May 1, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> Aye, and K-9


K-9 was shit. Leela was pretty fit though.


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## audiotech (May 1, 2012)

Is it possible to leave all this Dr Who memorabilia to a convention, or specific thread and focus on more interesting factoids to do with the 70's?


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## Orang Utan (May 1, 2012)

Why? Let the thread roam free and meander where it takes us naturally. Don't be precious


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## clicker (May 1, 2012)

No one disses the time lord..............


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## TylerD (May 1, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> Why? Let the thread roam free and meander where it takes us naturally. Don't be precious


Nah, the Doctor Who tangent has probably run its course to be fair.

The 70s did seem profoundly shit to me, growing up in a Lancashire former mill town with declining prospects and a gratuitous level of racism. Blackburn had two Nazi councillors in the mid-1970s, one of them being a former NF leader (John Kingsley Read). Racism in East Lancs was so pervasive at the time that terms like "Paki shop" and "Chinky" (for a Chinese takeaway) were considered absolutely normal. At that time, Blackburn apparently had the highest number of racial attacks in the UK after London - quite an 'achievement' when you compare their relative populations.

The foreign holidays thing - we were too poor to go on those, our holidays consisted of camping in England or Wales (Tenby), usually when it was pissing down. It pissed down a lot in the 1970s, except for the summer of 1976. I do remember that summer well, it was absolutely baking and the soil was cracked like Death Valley everywhere. A slightly bizarre side effect of that extended heatwave was a massive invasion of ladybirds. There were so many of the little buggers that it was impossible to walk down the street without crushing them under your feet.

Musically, the decade was a very mixed bag. Someone asked earlier in the thread: "Err T-Rex, Bowie, Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music - horrible?" No, the glam rock era was one of the better aspects of the early 70s, although Roxy and Bowie were considered 'alternative' through most of the rest of the decade. The mid-70s were piss-awful musically. Google "Save Your Kisses For Me" by Brotherhood of Man and "Float On" by the aptly-named Floaters. TotP was full of such corporate shite at this point that it reminds me very much of the present day chart fodder. It was precisely because music of the mid-70s was so shit, combined with the feeling of declining prospects and "no future for you and me" that punk exploded in the way it did.

In terms of strikes, I do remember the lights going out (which, as I said earlier, seemed quite cool from a child's perspective) and TV coverage of men on picket lines chanting "Heath out!" and I also remember passing workers out of some factory on a wildcat strike on our school bus journey. The TV always portrayed strikes in a negative way. There was even a passing reference to them in a Fawlty Towers episode. Fawlty Towers was quite devastatingly funny when it first aired, I remember everyone repeating all the jokes from it in school the day after, especially the goose-stepping scene of course. Going back to slightly earlier in the 70s, everyone in the playground used to "run" in slow motion and repeat the sound effects of the Six Million Dollar Man. It was proper telly in those days.


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## Orang Utan (May 1, 2012)

See, that's the way to redirect instead of trying to control what others are discussing


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## Orang Utan (May 1, 2012)

Anyway, can't agree with your music analysis, what about soul, funk and disco? It was the pinnacle of musical creativity in many ways.


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## Orang Utan (May 1, 2012)

BTW did you see the programme? It had the clip from Fawlty Towers you were referring to


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## ItWillNeverWork (May 1, 2012)

TylerD said:


> everyone in the playground used to "run" in slow motion


 
That old chestnut never went out of fashion. I still do it now when I get the chance, and I'm nearly 30. Ahhh, the simple things in life.


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## TylerD (May 1, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> Anyway, can't agree with your music analysis, what about soul, funk and disco? It was the pinnacle of musical creativity in many ways.


Well, I was specifically talking about Top of the Pops there, which was mostly full of corporate shite at that time and I do remember my dad's quite entertaining running commentaries about just how bad it was (like most dads do). He did say there was going to be a rebellion against it sooner or later - and he turned out to be right.

There was certainly plenty going on with soul, funk and disco in hindsight but were they really mainstream in 1975-6? Saturday Night Fever was mainstream, of course, but that was a very anodyne version of disco.

No, I've not seen the actual programme yet as I don't have a TV any more. I'm checking it out on iplayer now.


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## ItWillNeverWork (May 1, 2012)

JHE said:


> I was surprised and slightly disappointed that the Bill Grundy interview of the Sex Pistols, which caused such a fuss at the time, was not used.




The music at the end of that show is the bit that tops it for me.


----------



## danny la rouge (May 1, 2012)

elbows said:


> The fucking presenter really went for it this week, British Leyland workers flexing their political muscles caused him to go rabid.
> 
> "Perhaps workers saluting their bosses south Korean style was a step too far" bwaaaahhh. And now the threat of the red menace, the militant leftwing leader taking over the country, and the response to this threat from the ex-military men and gents in the countryside.


Indeed. This was the most rabid and distorted episode yet.

An example of his misleading, selective use of "evidence": he said that in the original TV series, Survivors, "the bad guy was a rogue union boss". That's nonsense - there were three series of Survivors, and the union guy was only in one episode. The series explored different post-apocalyptic scenarios, often on a single episode per issue basis. Daft Dom gave the impression that the union guy was a Mortiarty-like megalomaniac throughout the run of the show, contributing to the story's menace. He was in fact a minor character, who was never seen again after that particular episode.

Like JHE, though, I did find the hooligan theory at least plausible. I haven't done enough of my own reading on the subject to decide how plausible, though. I don't follow football myself, and have never had any interest in football literature.  Did older men really stop going to matches?


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## _angel_ (May 1, 2012)

TylerD said:


> He really does bear the hallmarks of someone who is relying on secondhand accounts of the 1970s rather than someone who was "really there". He was born in 1974 and was six when the 1970s ended. I was born 10 years earlier and my insights into the 1960s would probably be about as profound as his recollections of the 1970s. What I can basically remember of the 1960s was playing tig in the school playground, hearing Yellow Submarine on the radio and hiding behind the settee when the Daleks were on TV (there are people who claim kids never did this, but my brother and I actually did). Apparently my parents woke me up in the middle of night to fetch me down to see the Apollo 11 moon landing but I don't remember it.


He is actually two years younger than me and I remember almost nothing of the seventies bar the hiding from the daleks thing that I do actually remember doing. That's it though!


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## TylerD (May 1, 2012)

Having now seen all three episodes to date on iplayer, I have to say the series isn't as bad as I thought it would be. His Tory bias does slip out from time to time but it does seem reasonably objective most of the time and, although it's still of necessity shaped by other people's accounts of the decade rather than his own experiences, he hasn't done too bad a job of it. Some of his analysis is peculiar, e.g. considering Scargill's militancy to be a form of Thatcherism (lol wut?), but that's only to be expected from a Tory Boy.

His hooligan theory makes some sense to me, as someone who doesn't follow football, but people who actually do follow it may have other ideas. It's probably partially true, although I suspect there were other factors behind it too. After all, weren't the themes of British youth tribalism and violence explored by Burgess in A Clockwork Orange before the 70s had even begun? At least he didn't rely on the old Tory standby of blaming 60s "permissiveness", single mothers etc.


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## elbows (May 1, 2012)

He might be even worse if he remembered the 70s properly, since its his political stance and style of making tv program that dictate the way this shit has turned out more than his lack of personal memory of the events. 

I've kept watching it because it might help me learn something about the way those lurking somewhere on the right like to describe the 1970's, not that we are short on knowledge of their opinions on this matter since their victories by the end of the decade and through the 1980's caused much prolonged trumpeting of their version of history.

I wait to see how much hang-wringing he feels the need to do about people making filthy market money in next weeks episode, dubious aspirations will be unleashed again Im sure.


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## ViolentPanda (May 1, 2012)

lagtbd said:


> Andy Beckett's 1970s book (which I don't entirely agree with but a programme from him would be an interesting counterpoint to this one) "When The Lights Went Out" not only notes the above but the fact that Britons were both at their happiest and most equal in 1977. This clearly has required nearly 40 years of disinformation and attack in case we ever remember and demand those scandalous levels of fairness again (well, I say remember, I was born in '76).


 
I've been saying for decades (and for the 9 years I've been on Urban) that most of the mainstream media accounts of the late '70s, and especially "the winter of discontent" actually run counter to the experience of most people (and as I was born in the early '60s, I remember the late '70s rather well), and that there wasn't, despite being represented as such, a mass strike by public sector workers, but rather lots of smaller strikes that sometimes coincided with others, and sometimes didn't. The mainstream account is pretty much "received wisdom" nowadays, and has become that because of the reasons you give.


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## ViolentPanda (May 1, 2012)

TylerD said:


> He really does bear the hallmarks of someone who is relying on secondhand accounts of the 1970s rather than someone who was "really there". He was born in 1974 and was six when the 1970s ended. I was born 10 years earlier and my insights into the 1960s would probably be about as profound as his recollections of the 1970s. What I can basically remember of the 1960s was playing tig in the school playground, hearing Yellow Submarine on the radio and hiding behind the settee when the Daleks were on TV (there are people who claim kids never did this, but my brother and I actually did). Apparently my parents woke me up in the middle of night to fetch me down to see the Apollo 11 moon landing but I don't remember it.


 
TBF, Sandbrook's narration/presentation is of a piece with the history books he writes - broad sweeps through recent history where he appears to form a (usually pro-establishment) opinion on events, and then carry it throughout the work.


----------



## nino_savatte (May 1, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> I've been saying for decades (and for the 9 years I've been on Urban) that most of the mainstream media accounts of the late '70s, and especially "the winter of discontent" actually run counter to the experience of most people (and as I was born in the early '60s, I remember the late '70s rather well), and that there wasn't, despite being represented as such, a mass strike by public sector workers, but rather lots of smaller strikes that sometimes coincided with others, and sometimes didn't. The mainstream account is pretty much "received wisdom" nowadays, and has become that because of the reasons you give.


Same here. I don't recall seeing rubbish being piled high on the streets of Bedford or Biggleswade. The whole "Winter of Discontent" bollocks was a media-driven event.


----------



## ymu (May 1, 2012)

I remember the summer of '76, and at least one brilliant winter where the snowdrifts were so deep we dug a network of caves in them. I remember the candles for the blackouts, and I remember finding out what strikes were all about.

I fell for the BBC line and said I thought it was bad that people were refusing to do their work. Then my gran explained that some people didn't get paid as much as other people and that this was the only way they could do anything about it.

Back then, support for strikes and empathy for the unemployed was normal. It's quite frightening how much things have changed.



JimW said:


> There's a graph from the Tax Justice bloke on another thread that expresses this another way, wages as % of GDP and 70s were of course the highest. Remember from that documentary The Great Estate on social housing that these was also a point early/mid 70s when 30% of the popn lived in council houses. But people with relatively decent wages in secure housing is of course a crisis for the nation.


 
Here's the graph:
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2011/12/05/theres-plenty-of-money-its-just-been-put-out-of-reach/




The big spike in the 1970s was GDP taking a dive in the big recession, rather than wages suddenly getting much higher and then lower in real terms. I think ItWillNeverWork fitted a better trend-line to this somewhere, pointing out that wages were fairly steady as a % of GDP until Thatcher and the neoliberals won the day. It would be nice to see a series that went back a century or so. It's a fair bet that we'd see something that mirrored this:


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## TylerD (May 1, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> TBF, Sandbrook's narration/presentation is of a piece with the history books he writes - broad sweeps through recent history where he appears to form a (usually pro-establishment) opinion on events, and then carry it throughout the work.


 
I'm not quite sure why he keeps banging on about Peterborough either.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 1, 2012)

TylerD said:


> I'm not quite sure why he keeps banging on about Peterborough either.


 
To be fair, it's a very easy place to loathe, and the '70s is when it did the whole "new town" thing. It's a much better exemplar (if you believe the social conservative narrative, anyway) of "all that's bad" in modernist architecture and social engineering than the likes of Basildon, where fairly decent infrastructure connections went hand in hand with the town's development. Peterborough, on the other hand, just sat there like a turd in the middle of a field.


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## marty21 (May 1, 2012)

The Civil Assistance thing was interesting - I don't remember hearing about them at the time (I wasn't reading much more than Shoot at the time) but I think there was genuine concern from Wilson that there might be a military coup in the mid 70s


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## ViolentPanda (May 1, 2012)

marty21 said:


> The Civil Assistance thing was interesting - I don't remember hearing about them at the time (I wasn't reading much more than Shoot at the time) but I think there was genuine concern from Wilson that there might be a military coup in the mid 70s


 
There was a whole basket-full (a hamper?) of dim rightwing former officer-types (including the arch-knobshine Sir David Stirling and wankers like the Freedom Association) who had their cadres of ex-forces (usually ex-National Service, but let's not quibble) supposedly ready to take up arms against the red hordes/Trotskyite enemies within/members of the labour party at the drop of a hat.
Wilson's worries about the Security Service engineering his overthrow were better founded than his concerns about a _coup_ coming from "down below".


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## nino_savatte (May 1, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> There was a whole basket-full (a hamper?) of dim rightwing former officer-types (including the arch-knobshine Sir David Stirling and wankers like the Freedom Association) who had their cadres of ex-forces (usually ex-National Service, but let's not quibble) supposedly ready to take up arms against the red hordes/Trotskyite enemies within/members of the labour party at the drop of a hat.
> Wilson's worries about the Security Service engineering his overthrow were better founded than his concerns about a _coup_ coming from "down below".


That'll be GB75.

Group 13?
http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/group_13.htm


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## butchersapron (May 1, 2012)

I wonder why union membership went up sharply in the decade during which _the country_ turned against the unions.


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## Lo Siento. (May 1, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> I wonder why union membership went up sharply in the decade during which _the country_ turned against the unions.


Because most of the country did nothing of the sort. Union approval numbers dropped from about 70% to 58%, briefly dropping below 50% directly after the winter of discontent but recovering soon after.


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## ymu (May 1, 2012)

Lo Siento. said:


> Because most of the country did nothing of the sort. Union approval numbers dropped from about 70% to 58%, briefly dropping below 50% directly after the winter of discontent but recovering soon after.


Think he's talking about what actually happened, not what pollsters claimed was happening:


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## Lo Siento. (May 1, 2012)

ymu said:


> Think he's talking about what actually happened, not what pollsters claimed was happening:


Yeah I know, answering a rhetorical question... but the 2 things are related... unions gained members by winning, in the process they lost the support of a section of the population whose tolerance of them was dependent on their causing no significant disruption. But that section by no means represented the majority of the population


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## Superdupastupor (May 1, 2012)

I wonder what caused the slump in the mid 20's- a bit of economic contraction then, general strike? Zinoviev affair, fall of Macdonald gov and bit of national red scare?


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## Lo Siento. (May 1, 2012)

Superdupastupor said:


> I wonder what caused the slump in the mid 20's- a bit of economic contraction then, general strike? Zinoviev affair, fall of Macdonald gov and bit of national red scare?


Engineering lockout in '22 is arguably the end of the post-WW1 militancy period...


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## ymu (May 1, 2012)

Lo Siento. said:


> Yeah I know, answering a rhetorical question... but the 2 things are related... unions gained members by winning, in the process they lost the support of a section of the population whose tolerance of them was dependent on their causing no significant disruption. But that section by no means represented the majority of the population


Was the decline in membership because people felt less positive about unionisation, or because changes in the legal framework + Tory privatisations made it much harder to join a union, and for unions to deliver benefits to their members?


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## marty21 (May 1, 2012)

lagtbd said:


> Andy Beckett's 1970s book (which I don't entirely agree with but a programme from him would be an interesting counterpoint to this one) "When The Lights Went Out" not only notes the above but the fact that Britons were both at their happiest and most equal in 1977. This clearly has required nearly 40 years of disinformation and attack in case we ever remember and demand those scandalous levels of fairness again (well, I say remember, I was born in '76).


I think Beckett posts on urban - can't remember his urban name atm


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## audiotech (May 1, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> I wonder why union membership went up sharply in the decade during which _the country_ turned against the unions.


 
"Selsdon Man".


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## Lo Siento. (May 1, 2012)

ymu said:


> Was the decline in membership because people felt less positive about unionisation, or because changes in the legal framework + Tory privatisations made it much harder to join a union, and for unions to deliver benefits to their members?


 
A mixture of the first one, third one and fourth one, the legal framework, for me, has been an issue in rebuilding the unions, but less so in their decline (which was largely self-inflicted)


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## Lo Siento. (May 1, 2012)

I'd say the legal framework of the 1971 Industrial Relations Act was at least as restrictive as the Thatcher legislation (large chunks of which were only implemented _after_ they'd defeated the miners, the steelworkers and the printers). It was defeated and dismantled because of the way union members and lay reps were able to organise at that time...


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## Mrs Magpie (May 1, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> There was a whole basket-full (a hamper?) of dim rightwing former officer-types (including the arch-knobshine Sir David Stirling and wankers like the Freedom Association) who had their cadres of ex-forces (usually ex-National Service, but let's not quibble) supposedly ready to take up arms against the red hordes/Trotskyite enemies within/members of the labour party at the drop of a hat.


I always imagined them being led into battle by Patrick Moore and a mobile xylophone. I never imagined then that the old bastard would still be with us today, chuntering on about Krauts.


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## youngian (May 1, 2012)

Sandbrooke is treading a well worn path of 70s chronicling and is offering no fresh perspective.
It is a fact that both unemployment and inflation were falling by the end of the 1970s, which was tricky policy to pull off and was replaced by a very easy one inthe early 80s; let mass unemployment rip in order to quell inflation. 
It meant agreeing to an incomes policy to restrain wages and despite the petty demarcation disputes of old style craft unions, there was a great deal of understanding of what the alternative would be. If Callaghan had gone to the polls before the grim winter of discontent he most likely of won.
In 1976, when Wilson saw the forecasts for North Sea oil extraction by the mid 80s, he said whoever wins the next election will winthe next two.


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## audiotech (May 1, 2012)

May Day made a bank holiday in 1978.


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## William of Walworth (May 1, 2012)

audiotech said:


> May Day made a bank holiday in 1978.


 
I'm surprised that's not been changed by now!


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## William of Walworth (May 1, 2012)

lagtbd said:
			
		

> Andy Beckett's 1970s book (which I don't entirely agree with but a programme from him would be an interesting counterpoint to this one) "When The Lights Went Out" not only notes the above but the fact that Britons were both at their happiest and most equal in 1977. This clearly has required nearly 40 years of disinformation and attack in case we ever remember and demand those scandalous levels of fairness again .... .


 
That's reminded me that I have that book upstairs, and proviodes a kick up my arse to actually read the bloody thing soon 



="marty21 said:


> I think Beckett posts on urban - can't remember his urban name atm


 
Srsly? Would love to know under what name he posts, if he does. I've respected him as a historian for a fair bit of time.


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## Spanky Longhorn (May 2, 2012)

William of Walworth said:


> That's reminded me that I have that book upstairs, and proviodes a kick up my arse to actually read the bloody thing soon
> 
> 
> 
> Srsly? Would love to know under what name he posts, if he does. I've respected him as a historian for a fair bit of time.


 
He's quartz


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## William of Walworth (May 2, 2012)

Really!?

Interesting ...


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## Hollis (May 2, 2012)

Chortle i'll agree with the right wing stance re unions, and a certain narrative, however i can't dish the whole programme on this basis.. The stuff on Equal pay and Equal opps was pretty fascinating,  ditto the novelty of football hooliganism.  Its a decent history programme, presenting some history probably fresh to mainstream media.. without too many gimmicks or too much presenter ego. (imo)


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## yield (May 2, 2012)

Someone on here wrote Crisis? What Crisis?: Britain in the 1970s. 

I keep meaning to get it.


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## Kaka Tim (May 3, 2012)

Just saw last mondays episode. Probably the laziest, most value laden and shallow of the lot.

He's seems to be strolling through well worn newsclips reciting the same old recived wisdom direct from 'tory history for dummies' - bully boy unions wrecking the economy, labour spending too much money resulting in healey having to go to the IMF blah blah.
He doesn't link anything up - the oil shock last week, britian in recession this week - yet they apparently happened in isolation.
No mention of the rise of the National front when talking about the military wing nuts plotting a coup.
No linking of the terrace violence with the riots, polticised street aggro, picket line violence and punk - a clear undercurrent of violence and conflict throughout those years.
Nauseating bit at the end about how the jubilee brought everyone together and how underneath we were all united - I'd say it was bit of surface escapsism that meant very little once the bunting had been put away.

Public school oxbridge tory simpleton - why do these cunts get to make these programmes?
We deserve better.


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## Pickman's model (May 3, 2012)

Kaka Tim said:


> Public school oxbridge tory simpleton - why do these cunts get to make these programmes?


don't know why you bothered asking a question you'd just answered.


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## treelover (May 3, 2012)

Michael Cockerell, as part of the BBC 70's season is doing one of his excellent documentaries , this time an analysis of four key personalities from the Seventies, James Goldsmith, Lord Longford, Sir Robert Mark(of Operation Countryman) and the former Nato Commander General Walter Walker, who K/T alludes to above, who with other military right wingers plotted a coup against Wilson, etc. I am a bit surprised he didn't choose 'Red Robbo' as a symbolic icon of the period...


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## treelover (May 3, 2012)

'At the end of the First World War Walker and his family moved back to Britain and he was sent to Blundell's School in Devon.[1] Even as a child Walker had a militaristic streak; in his memoirs _Fighting On_ he says he ordered the previously "idle, unpatriotic, unkempt" pupils into "showing the school what smartness on the parade ground meant". His teachers became alarmed at Walker's strict behaviour and tried to explain the difference between "driving" and "leading".[2]'

from Wikipedia, seems like a very balanced chap....


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## treelover (May 3, 2012)

'After the publication of this letter Walker claimed he received positive responses from Admiral of the Fleet Sir Varyl Begg, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor, a few British generals, ex-MPs, the Goon comedian Michael Bentine and the shipping industrialist Lord Cayzer.'

Blimey, i used to love Michael Bentine as a kid with those sandpits!


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## ItWillNeverWork (May 3, 2012)

Kaka Tim said:


> labour spending too much money resulting in healey having to go to the IMF blah blah.
> He doesn't link anything up - the oil shock last week, britian in recession this week - yet they apparently happened in isolation.


 
Yep. I facepalmed the TV when I heard the words 'profligate spending' used. It's too much of a cliche to bear. And what's worse, it's not even true; a slight blip upwards around the time of the oil crisis is all we see, and then it's back to life as normal. Profligate my arse.

Callaghan should have let the markets devalue the pound when they threw their (now familiar) strop. Just think how much British-made stuff we could have exported instead of going down the road of de-industrialisation.


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## ymu (May 3, 2012)

Bang on! And excellent graphage.


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## ItWillNeverWork (May 3, 2012)

ymu said:


> Bang on! And excellent graphage.


 
Why thank you.


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## nino_savatte (May 15, 2012)

Kaka Tim said:


> Just saw last mondays episode. Probably the laziest, most value laden and shallow of the lot.
> 
> He's seems to be strolling through well worn newsclips reciting the same old recived wisdom direct from 'tory history for dummies' - bully boy unions wrecking the economy, labour spending too much money resulting in healey having to go to the IMF blah blah.
> He doesn't link anything up - the oil shock last week, britian in recession this week - yet they apparently happened in isolation.
> ...


Yesterday's wasn't much better and you could see that he was building up for his Thatcherite crescendo in the second episode. He regurgitated some of the biggest myths ever created by the right-wing press: the unions were "too powerful" and caused the collapse of the economy (which was actually recovering in 1978) and the "Winter of Discontent" was universally felt throughout the country. No mention of Britain's incompetent directors and managers, who would take 3 hour lunch breaks and be driven back to the factory in their Jags/Daimlers by a chauffeur. Most of them ran companies into the ground.


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## _angel_ (May 15, 2012)

Yeah it was rubbish. Particularly the fact he bemoaned state owned industries including car manufacturing. Well at least we had some car manufacturing that wasn't owned by another country. Is there anything left.. Rolls Royce?


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## nino_savatte (May 15, 2012)

At least this country made stuff in the 1970's. What do we make now? Nothing much.


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## youngian (May 15, 2012)

Sandbrook reminded more and more of Chris Langham on People like Us with his endless hack cliches and contradictions.
So terrible was the 70s mighty talents like Rod Stewart left choiceless state owned Britain and we were forced to see the Specials; "even Thin Lizzy left for West Germany" he summarises. So non-British band goes to another high tax country. In the next sentence we hear about how Richard Branson went from debtor to mansion owning tycoon in 3 years thanks to the British pop business.

Then there was the working class turning their backs on the utopian planners whose disastorous housing, according to Sandbrook, they were all wanting to buy. And Labour of course didn't understand these aspirations to have foreign holidays so opposed council house sales. Nothing of course to do with simple economics of shortages lead to rising housing costs and having less money for foreign holidays and Rod Stewart records.

Of course the decade wasn't always pretty, none are, but best to stick to BBC4, who have done some terrific balanced and informative docs on North Sea oil, Delorean's Belfast project and a great history of post war housing.


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## youngian (May 15, 2012)

treelover said:


> Michael Cockerell, as part of the BBC 70's season is doing one of his excellent documentaries , this time an analysis of four key personalities from the Seventies, James Goldsmith, Lord Longford, Sir Robert Mark(of Operation Countryman) and the former Nato Commander General Walter Walker, who K/T alludes to above, who with other military right wingers plotted a coup against Wilson, etc. I am a bit surprised he didn't choose 'Red Robbo' as a symbolic icon of the period...


 
Gyles Brandreth's amusing description of Lord Longford's Danish fact finding trip did sound like a 70s British sex comedy.
Of the four characters Robart Mark's story was the most important and effective. Longford and Walker were fighting yesterdays battles and egomaniac windbag James Goldsmith was just fighting his own battles, very badly as well.


----------



## Giles (May 15, 2012)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> That old chestnut never went out of fashion. I still do it now when I get the chance, and I'm nearly 30. Ahhh, the simple things in life.


 
These days, if I seem to run anywhere in slow motion, making that "bionic" clicking/grinding sound, sadly, its not because I'm trying to emulate the "six million dollar man" any more....

Giles..


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## William of Walworth (May 15, 2012)

Blimey, last night's final episode was _particularly_ terrible wasn't it?  KT and nino have it nailed. Pissed me off even more than previous ones.

I've now had to lend my Andy Beckett book to a good pal who's off important-sick for a few weeks (I thought he'd appreciate some light reading to pass the housebound time  )

 But as soon as I get it back I'll simply have to read it properly (I only managed a couple of chapters before my copy went on its mission of mercy). Beckett will surely provide a far more palatable counterbalance to that blatantly Thatcherite shite from Sandbrook  ...


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## elbows (May 16, 2012)

I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the last one yet, since he was bad enough in the others and it was fairly clear what opportunities the end of the 70s would give him to be a dick. But I won't be able to resist watching it eventually Im sure.


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## peterkro (May 16, 2012)

It's on at the moment,utter utter shite.
"Ordinary families desire for more personal freedom" Cunt.


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## Steel Icarus (May 16, 2012)

William of Walworth said:


> Blimey, last night's final episode was _particularly_ terrible wasn't it?


 
It was the worst kind of one-eyed bollocks, yes. "Nasty, self-serving workers (who didn't represent all [decent] workers vs Mrs. Thatcher, who may have made one or two mistakes but was essentially a decent human being because she understood how telly works and that"


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## elbows (May 16, 2012)

Well with any luck the sorts of things he believes in will have come a cropper good and proper due to global economic events before he gets a chance to drool over the 80s


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## Puddy_Tat (May 16, 2012)

I have given him the benefit of the doubt so far, but the "what went wrong with council estates is the people they put there" and then some wittering about people being "deprived" of grammar schools tonight got me reaching for the remote...


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## toblerone3 (May 16, 2012)

The bit where he positively drools over a Thatcher party political broadcast from January 1979 is a little bit vomit-inducing.


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## frogwoman (May 16, 2012)

Puddy_Tat said:


> I have given him the benefit of the doubt so far, but the "what went wrong with council estates is the people they put there" and then some wittering about people being "deprived" of grammar schools tonight got me reaching for the remote...


 
Where were "the people they put there" meant to go then?


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## Puddy_Tat (May 16, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> Where were "the people they put there" meant to go then?


 
Dunno.

the "somewhere else" beloved of right wing types, I suppose...


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## The39thStep (May 16, 2012)

Saw this for the first time last night and at first thought it was a piss take. Never heard such blatant  biased subjective right wing waffle as a main narrative on a TV documentary before.

Wouldn't dismiss it though and I expect we will here bits of this repeated in 'informed' discussions on why we are where we are now.


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## DownwardDog (May 16, 2012)

treelover said:


> 'After the publication of this letter Walker claimed he received positive responses from Admiral of the Fleet Sir Varyl Begg, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor, a few British generals, ex-MPs, the Goon comedian Michael Bentine and the shipping industrialist Lord Cayzer.'
> 
> Blimey, i used to love Michael Bentine as a kid with those sandpits!


 
I think Bentine was possibly driven mental by his WW2 experiences: arrested while on stage with RSC for desertion, almost blinded by a bungled typhoid innoculation, present at the liberation of Belsen and working for Airey Neave in some shadowy intelligence outfit. .


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## nino_savatte (May 16, 2012)

S☼I said:


> It was the worst kind of one-eyed bollocks, yes. "Nasty, self-serving workers (who didn't represent all [decent] workers vs Mrs. Thatcher, who may have made one or two mistakes but was essentially a decent human being because she understood how telly works and that"


I mean, how dare workers demand better pay and conditions? How dare shipyard workers demand modern working conditions (shipbuilding in this country was stuck in the 1920's )? Sandbrook was just a snot-nosed little shit (who went to Malvern College) in short trousers in the 70's.


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## _angel_ (May 16, 2012)

The39thStep said:


> Saw this for the first time last night and at first thought it was a piss take. Never heard such blatant biased subjective right wing waffle as a main narrative on a TV documentary before.
> 
> Wouldn't dismiss it though and I expect we will here bits of this repeated in 'informed' discussions on why we are where we are now.


Has anyone else been watching the Town that Took on China on BBC 2 last night. Gives this programme a run for it's money.


nino_savatte said:


> I mean, how dare workers demand better pay and conditions? How dare shipyard workers demand modern working conditions (shipbuilding in this country was stuck in the 1920's )? Sandbrook was just a snot-nosed little shit (who went to Malvern College) in short trousers in the 70's.


Basically they pay the min wage for skilled machinists and dare to complain that about 1/3 workforce have left to get better paying jobs!


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## JimW (May 16, 2012)

_angel_ said:


> Has anyone else been watching the Town that Took on China on BBC 2 last night. Gives this programme a run for it's money...


I only read the synopsis but you could tell from that it was going to be appalling.


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## _angel_ (May 16, 2012)

JimW said:


> I only read the synopsis but you could tell from that it was going to be appalling.


It was even worse than I thought it was going to be. The Chinese staff who slept in the factory and only went home once a year were called "dedicated" rather than "exploited" or even "slaves" 
Then even more bizarrely the British staff who managed to find less stressful jobs for more money were treated in contempt by the managers. Wtf genuinely all the way through.


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## JimW (May 16, 2012)

_angel_ said:


> It was even worse than I thought it was going to be. The Chinese staff who slept in the factory and only went home once a year were called "dedicated" rather than "exploited" or even "slaves"
> Then even more bizarrely the British staff who managed to find less stressful jobs for more money were treated in contempt by the managers. Wtf genuinely all the way through.


Even the title was a giveaway, like the whole town was in it together. Glad I never bothered by the sounds of it.


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## sleaterkinney (May 21, 2012)

treelover said:


> Michael Cockerell, as part of the BBC 70's season is doing one of his excellent documentaries , this time an analysis of four key personalities from the Seventies, James Goldsmith, Lord Longford, Sir Robert Mark(of Operation Countryman) and the former Nato Commander General Walter Walker, who K/T alludes to above, who with other military right wingers plotted a coup against Wilson, etc. I am a bit surprised he didn't choose 'Red Robbo' as a symbolic icon of the period...


This is on now, it's fascinating stuff - the sandhurst lecturer who plays a neo-fascist in an Enemy Within war game and is now a Tory MP!


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## Kaka Tim (May 22, 2012)

^ Yeah jsut watched that myself. Really interesting.
The whole lord longford going to a live sex show in denmark with Giles Brandrith  was hilarious.
And wasn't jack Goldsmith a cunt?


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## goldenecitrone (May 22, 2012)

Welcome to northern Europe.


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## gosub (May 22, 2012)

Kaka Tim said:


> ^ Yeah jsut watched that myself. Really interesting.
> The whole lord longford going to a live sex show in denmark with Giles Brandrith  was hilarious.
> And wasn't jack Goldsmith a cunt?


Jimmy Golsmith was a cunt in many ways, though the media were a complete pain over Lucan and barking up the wrong tree .. In other ways was years ahead of his time enviromentalist from the 70s onwards, and predicted the problems with the EUro right down to Greece being the spark in the mid 90s and in the 90s railed against the 1%ers(of which he was one).. Had a genuine phobia of rubber bands, and so Private Eye always made sure there were loads on the bench during court proceedings 

Thought the NATO guy was interesting, though separately in the mid 70s the military did gear up for a take over, reckon it will be a while before those documents are released


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## butchersapron (May 22, 2012)

gosub said:


> Jimmy Golsmith was a cunt in many ways, though the media were a complete pain over Lucan and barking up the wrong tree .. In other ways was years ahead of his time enviromentalist from the 70s onwards, and predicted the problems with the EUro right down to Greece being the spark in the mid 90s and in the 90s railed against the 1%ers(of which he was one).. Had a genuine phobia of rubber bands, and so Private Eye always made sure there were loads on the bench during court proceedings
> 
> Thought the NATO guy was interesting, though separately in the mid 70s the military did gear up for a take over, reckon it will be a while before those documents are released


What were the actual predictions of this holy fool then?


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## gosub (May 22, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> What were the actual predictions of this holy fool then?


 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0333642244
Some of the stories about him, you wouldn't call him holy, but he definitely wasn't a fool  in either sense of the word


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## sleaterkinney (May 22, 2012)

gosub said:


> Thought the NATO guy was interesting, though separately in the mid 70s the military did gear up for a take over, reckon it will be a while before those documents are released


This is stuff the establishment are comfortable with you seeing so god knows what they are hiding....


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## butchersapron (May 22, 2012)

gosub said:


> http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0333642244
> Some of the stories about him, you wouldn't call him holy, but he definitely wasn't a fool in either sense of the word


No, i meant what were the predictions that you mention.


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## gosub (May 22, 2012)

sleaterkinney said:


> This is stuff the establishment are comfortable with you seeing so god knows what they are hiding....


My dad lost the rail warrant (for getting to the major docks he was supposed to run) they went mental.. My Dad supposed it was because they thought he was using it for free rail travel -more likely coz it is was evidence


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## gosub (May 22, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> No, i meant what were the predictions that you mention.


I'm 400miles from the copy I read what ten years ago though I might pick it up this weekend as I'm down for a wedding , and in the meantime if 1p seems too rich to satisfy your curiosity there's the synopsis and reviews through that link


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## butchersapron (May 22, 2012)

gosub said:


> I'm 400miles from the copy I read what ten years ago though I might pick it up this weekend as I'm down for a wedding , and in the meantime if 1p seems too rich to satisfy your curiosity there's the synopsis and reviews through that link


No, there's nothing in the reviews other than what you said. Don't bother digging it out ta, not worth the hassle. What is always worth the hassle is asking for evidence of great mens greatness though.


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## ViolentPanda (May 22, 2012)

gosub said:


> Jimmy Golsmith was a cunt in many ways, though the media were a complete pain over Lucan and barking up the wrong tree .. In other ways was years ahead of his time enviromentalist from the 70s onwards, and predicted the problems with the EUro right down to Greece being the spark in the mid 90s and in the 90s railed against the 1%ers(of which he was one).. Had a genuine phobia of rubber bands, and so Private Eye always made sure there were loads on the bench during court proceedings
> 
> Thought the NATO guy was interesting, though separately in the mid 70s the military did gear up for a take over, reckon it will be a while before those documents are released


 
Goldsmith was an utterly egocentric cunt who wasn't above conning governments if the payday was worth it. He put more people out of work than he ever hired because his _modus operandi_ was to swoop, buy and asset-strip. In some cases that included gutting pension funds. As for his having been right about a few things, Goldsmith was so fucking opinionated that if he hadn't been right about a couple of things, scientists would have had to investigate whether the "stopped clock" phenomenon was broken.


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## butchersapron (May 22, 2012)

And he helped Aspinall kill Lucan's nanny.


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## girasol (May 22, 2012)

The best thing about that programme has been reading this thread afterwards


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## nino_savatte (May 22, 2012)

gosub said:


> Jimmy Golsmith was a cunt in many ways, though the media were a complete pain over Lucan and barking up the wrong tree ..* In other ways was years ahead of his time enviromentalist from the 70s onwards*, and predicted the problems with the EUro right down to Greece being the spark in the mid 90s and in the 90s railed against the 1%ers(of which he was one).. Had a genuine phobia of rubber bands, and so Private Eye always made sure there were loads on the bench during court proceedings
> 
> Thought the NATO guy was interesting, though separately in the mid 70s the military did gear up for a take over, reckon it will be a while before those documents are released


 
Wrong Goldsmith. That's his brother, Teddy.


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## gosub (May 22, 2012)

nino_savatte said:


> Wrong Goldsmith. That's his brother, Teddy.


nope they were both into it, along with Aspinall


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## butchersapron (May 22, 2012)

Bang into it.


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## nino_savatte (May 22, 2012)

gosub said:


> nope they were both into it,


 
Most of what I've read is about Teddy, who helped inpsire the PEOPLE party. He also had some rather Malthusian views.


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## ViolentPanda (May 22, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> And he helped Aspinall kill Lucan's nanny.


 
I thought that was Bill Deedes during one of his Edward Hyde moments?


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## youngian (May 22, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Goldsmith was so fucking opinionated that if he hadn't been right about a couple of things, scientists would have had to investigate whether the "stopped clock" phenomenon was broken.


 
And used to stand on contradictory political platforms in France and the UK to tailor his audience. In France it was green/left anti EU pro protectionist platform and his UK Referendum Party indulged pre UKIP global neo-liberals. A windbag of the first order.


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## gosub (May 22, 2012)

referendum party only had ONE policy - a plebicite - it even had (some) supporters that would have voted YES  in that plebicite. Autre Europe, for which Jimmy was MEP in France was a better reflection of his political views


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## Quartz (May 23, 2012)

_angel_ said:


> Basically they pay the min wage for skilled machinists and dare to complain that about 1/3 workforce have left to get better paying jobs!


 
I remember seeing a similar program about a similar sweatshop in America - New York IIRC. Totally different attitude: yes, it was a sweatshop, but the workers were new immigrants getting their start in America, expected to be taking evening classes (may have been subsidised, I don't recall) so the factory shut in good time, and were expected to move on to better things within a few years if not sooner.


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## butchersapron (May 23, 2012)

gosub said:


> referendum party only had ONE policy - a plebicite - it even had (some) supporters that would have voted YES in that plebicite. Autre Europe, for which Jimmy was MEP in France was a better reflection of his political views


I like that desperate 'even'


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## gosub (May 23, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> I like that desperate 'even'


well most EUro fanatics are on only now coming round to the notion that it might be a good idea to have the public onside


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## Orang Utan (May 25, 2012)

Just got Andy Beckett's When The Lights Went Out from the library. Looks like a kind of riposte to the crap that Sandbrook spouts. Anyone read it?


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## Idris2002 (May 25, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> Just got Andy Beckett's When The Lights Went Out from the library. Looks like a kind of riposte to the crap that Sandbrook spouts. Anyone read it?


 
Yes, I have, and like I said above, it's worth reading. The emblematic chapter is where he cites somebody's account of visiting a shipyard in the middle of the decade. The union members on the shopfloor (do shipyards have shopfloors?) knew the world shipbuilding industry backwards and forwards, and had all the relevant data at their fingertips. The management who made the actual decisions, however, were a bunch of clueless chinless wonders. I suppose that was the unions fault as well.


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## DotCommunist (May 25, 2012)

dockyard Idriss, shipbuilders work in a dockyard, even if it is a dry one


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## Idris2002 (May 25, 2012)

DotCommunist said:


> dockyard Idriss, shipbuilders work in a dockyard, even if it is a dry one


 
I stand corrected.


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## Jeff Robinson (May 25, 2012)

on a related topic, newsnight misrepresent a woman receiving state support:

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/05/25/how-newsnight-demonised-a-benefits-single-mother/


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## ViolentPanda (May 25, 2012)

DotCommunist said:


> dockyard Idriss, shipbuilders work in a dockyard, even if it is a dry one


 
To be fair, where Idris is from, they do call them shipyards. You can't trust the Oirish to do anything right!


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## Idris2002 (May 25, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> To be fair, where Idris is from, they do call them shipyards. You can't trust the Oirish to do anything right!


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## nino_savatte (May 25, 2012)

Jeff Robinson said:


> on a related topic, newsnight misrepresent a woman receiving state support:
> 
> http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/05/25/how-newsnight-demonised-a-benefits-single-mother/


I saw that and sat there open-mouthed while Stratton proceeded to do the government's job for them. Left-wing BBC, my arse.


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## Jeff Robinson (May 25, 2012)

here's the video. What a disgrace:



Register your complaints:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/


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## articul8 (May 26, 2012)

I have made an official complaint.  We all should.


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## butchersapron (May 26, 2012)

I don't know if people are aware of this as it was added into the above link as an update but the oxbridge educated stratton actually asked her "Do you think you should have had your daughter" - of course that wasn't shown on the program.


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## Captain Hurrah (May 26, 2012)

Scumbag.  Stratton, that is.


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## butchersapron (May 26, 2012)

I wonder what sort of appalling home/family background could produce such casual ignorance and social bigotry?

Allegra - Private school and Oxbridge, partner James Forsyth - Winchester and Oxbridge.

Surely it's time to be honest, to ask ourselves would it be better if they'd never been born, can we - as a society - afford these people?


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## _angel_ (May 26, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> I don't know if people are aware of this as it was added into the above link as an update but the oxbridge educated stratton actually asked her "Do you think you should have had your daughter" - of course that wasn't shown on the program.


Did she actually say that?
We were talking about she might as well just said that her daughter's life was too expensive and she should have had an abortion.
Of course being put up for adoption would have played better.


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## articul8 (May 26, 2012)

If they'd stay at home with their parents rather than go to posh boarding schools, the latter wouldn't need support by the state via charitable status


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## butchersapron (May 26, 2012)

_angel_ said:


> Did she actually say that?
> We were talking about she might as well just said that her daughter's life was too expensive and she should have had an abortion.
> Of course being put up for adoption would have played better.


According to the woman interviewed she was yes.


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## _angel_ (May 26, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> According to the woman interviewed she was yes.


Bitch.


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## sihhi (Apr 9, 2013)

For anyone who cares this Sandbrook has been again paid by the BBC to produce this counterfactual for their Thatcher deluge.

"Margaret Thatcher's achievement, as many of her opponents now admit, was to blow away the stale winds of decline. At first, with unemployment soaring and the inner cities ablaze, she seemed certain to go down as a one-term fluke. But victory in the Falklands in 1982, when she risked her entire career on a desperate gamble to retake the islands from Argentina, changed her political image.

The lame duck had suddenly become Britannia incarnate - military success had won her the time she needed. And by the time she left office, Britain was unquestionably a more open, dynamic, entrepreneurial and colourful society than it had been in the 1970s.

Taxes were lower, strikes were down, productivity growth was much improved and far from fleeing Britain, as they had once threatened to do, foreign investors were now queuing to get in - a trend symbolised above all by Nissan's groundbreaking investment in the North East of England."

This is the bedrock assumption that the BBC is paying for.

"Indeed, there is a supreme irony in the fact that Thatcher, who loathed feminism, came to embody the extraordinary expansion in the horizons of Britain's women, which was arguably the single biggest social change of the 20th Century."

No doubt it is the biggest social change of the century but did Thatcher really _embody_ that expansion or did she embody a certain kind of ostensibly pro-women tokenism - given that every single cabinet of hers was entirely male.



JimW said:


> That's the book reviewed in the link in my first comment; not read it though - worth it even if you think it's got problems?


 
I've read it - it's essentially a long love letter for Old Labour, poo poos too much strike action - doesn't seem to understand what working in a car factory was actually like.


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## JimW (Apr 9, 2013)

sihhi said:


> For anyone who cares this Sandbrook has been again paid by the BBC to produce this counterfactual for their Thatcher deluge....


I'd read that not long since and missed it was the usual suspect, very much the same old, same old. I suppose with that sort of title-as-question you knew the answer was going to be she represented the inexorable tide of history/progress.
Thanks for the comment on that book, too.


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## sihhi (Apr 9, 2013)

JimW said:


> I'd read that not long since and missed it was the usual suspect, very much the same old, same old. I suppose with that sort of title-as-question you knew the answer was going to be she represented the inexorable tide of history/progress.
> Thanks for the comment on that book, too.


 
He is Malborough College - army connections within the family.


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## JimW (Apr 9, 2013)

Did you see the New Left Project's obit for Thatcher? Don't normally check their site out but was googling for something on Keith Joseph driving the turn to neoliberal ideology and it came up in the search. Thought it was a good piece: http://www.newleftproject.org/index...f_a_class_warrior_margaret_thatcher_1925_2013 Obviously more centred on her and her career but skewers some of the myths along the way.


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## Ax^ (Apr 10, 2013)

elbows said:


> Yes I was hugely entertained by the angst the punks caused him, cheered me right up.


 
check out his obit for Maggie


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## sihhi (Apr 11, 2013)

JimW said:


> Did you see the New Left Project's obit for Thatcher? Don't normally check their site out but was googling for something on Keith Joseph driving the turn to neoliberal ideology and it came up in the search. Thought it was a good piece: http://www.newleftproject.org/index...f_a_class_warrior_margaret_thatcher_1925_2013 Obviously more centred on her and her career but skewers some of the myths along the way.


 
Sorry been busy had a glance now seems fine - won't get anywhere near the mass media. Small point: manages to not mention Stepping Stones, the Ridley Report or Airey Neave. Instead William and Shirley Letwin who are important but not as major figures on the C.P.S. as say Alfred Sherman who also isn't mentioned.

"Thatcher came to lead the hard right faction of the Conservative Party" is sort of misleading.
The hard right are harder right than Thatcher - these people are associated with or members of the Monday Club, sympathetic and desperate to regain Powell, and have their core causes - reintroduction of death penalty for anyone conspiring in any terrorist plot, full military support for South Africa and Rhodesia, halt on immigration and beginning repatriation, leaving the EEEC immediately, rejecting cooperation with Ireland over tackling the IRA.

These people - around 30 or so in the Tories after Oct 1974 - probably see someone like 
John Biggs-Davison as their lead figure but they have no room for mobilisation, pragmatically they lend Thatcher their support but turn on her/oppose her certainly when she categorically announces she will support the EEC - and before that too in 1974 because she accepted in Heath's decision in 1972. Their magazines in 1975 and 1976 - hard to envision now - denounce Thatcher for being pro-European, too supportive of state welfare, too liberal to immigrants, too soft.
I think people like Norman Tebbit (a Monday Club member but younger) manage to reconcile them to Thatcher so that they don't show themselves up as 'bastards' too often in front of cameras.

This line I disagree "It was the wave of strikes during the winter of 1978/9 – the so called ‘Winter of Discontent’ – which would hand Thatcher her election victory." 
The Conservative victory was as a result of Labour non-voters in revolt at lingering recession and  unemployment - not the strikes.


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