Assisting The Electorate To Wake Up To The UK Government's Discrimination Against The People Of England.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Gordon Brown Blames The 1980s For Today...

Social mobility, which we heard so much about in the 1980s, has apparently stalled and according to Gordon Brown it's all down to the 1970s and 1980s and Margaret Thatcher:

"In the 1970s and 1980s, this rise in social mobility stalled. Skilled manufacturing jobs were lost. The opportunities for social mobility narrowed. Inequality and child poverty worsened.

"As unemployment rose to 3 million, the sons and daughters of many families missed out on many of the new educational opportunities that were being created.

"At a time when many of their fathers were hit by unemployment, many of the generation that some have called Thatcher's children - the lost generation - were sadly denied the chance to progress."

As a member of the "lost generation", and an ardent Labour supporter throughout the 1980s, I have a few thoughts on this.

There is no doubt that the latest angst from Gordon Brown is based upon statistics. Well, there are lies, damned lies and statistics as we all know.

I believe that the "lost generation" was not the so-called "Thatcher's Children" - it is the people of today. In the 1980s, politics engaged people's attention as I had never seen it before. Were you pro or anti-Thatcher? Cities burned, people marched, Spitting Image went for the jugular, yuppies made dosh - the decade was one long storm, replete with Red Wedge, shoulder pads and bizarre new technology.

It is useful to note that by the time Thatcher came to power in 1979, there were already a million and a half unemployed. Now, I wouldn't dream of defending her, even today, but there is no doubt in my mind that she believed her actions to be in the public interest - and that she had integrity. She was nothing if not straight forward.

In the 1980s, everybody was "into" the political scene, everybody had an opinion. Then came the long grey Major era of the 1990s, when, quite frankly, I believe everything flopped. People lost interest, became smug, fragmented and hypocritical. The 80s were bad. But we were all right now. That was the attitude. As conspicuous consumption becam non-conspicuous, we didn't go back to the material consumption levels of the early 1980s. We saw computers, mobile phones, fancy houses and fancy holidays as the norm.

So, what about the "under class"? Didn't the under class come about because of Thatcher? Let me share some of my 1970s childhood memories with you. We lived in a council house which had a 1950s prefabricated kitchen. There was mould growing up my bedroom wall. There was a very active prostitute living opposite us. The street was a ghetto, filled with people who were villains, on drugs or mentally ill and not equipped to be living in the "community".

There were several "ghetto" areas like this where I lived - in Cambridge, that great seat of learning. Many people were unemployed. Or unemployable.

Back to the 1990s, and by the time of the election of Tony Blair as PM in 1997, people were really living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. Labour was back! Only it wasn't Labour. It was New Labour. In my neighbourhood, the Social Services homes for the elderly were sold off. The local psychiatric hospital was reduced to three wards. The main building was sold off, becoming offices with the grand name "Capital Park". Care and medical staff were forced to sign secrecy clauses so that they could not expose the dreadful cutbacks taking place in the NHS - and other care services.

We began being watched by security cameras everywhere. Non-criminals began being placed on a DNA Database. Health apartheid and the West Lothian Question were writ large as the UK Government granted devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - creating a so-called "Celtic" elite.

Immigration became uncontrolled. People were (and are) coming here to do jobs that are so poorly paid they could barely afford to live. But don't voice any concerns about immigration levels. In the priggish 21st Century, that would make you a racist.

Then, Gordon Brown arrived. A non-elected PM, with no mandate to govern England. This man has lied and twisted in a way that Thatcher never did. He signed the Lisbon Treaty, despite promising a referendum; he went on with ratification of that Treaty, despite the fact that a legal challenge had been mounted and judgement was being awaited; he invited Thatcher to Downing Street and praised her to the skies.

But that stance doesn't suit him today.

The unemployment situation in the 1980s was dreadful. They were hard times for many. I sincerely believe that Thatcher was wrong.

But those days seem like the Teddy's Bear's Picnic compared to now and all the lying, self seeking and downright undemocratic politicians inhabiting the Government and the main opposition parties today.

The BBC clouds the issues - and joins the anti-80s theme, rewriting the past at every opportunity. Even several items of 1980s pop culture was exported to the absurdly hyped 1970s in the "I Love..." series. Nobody must have fond memories of the 1980s - in any way, shape or form, it seems.

Many people I speak to believe that the draconian laws threatening our civil liberties are necessary, that the dictatorship EU is a very good thing - very 1960s flower garden, that to denounce Gordon Brown for representing a Scots constituency unaffected by the majority of his legislation is "racist".

The 1980s generation were never a truly "lost generation". They were generally a very ebullient crowd. And there was chaos. From the riots early in the decade to the Acid House scene of 1988 and 1989, Thatcher had no reason to believe that the younger generation were "lost" or a walk over.

Nowadays, most youngsters I meet seem disinterested in politics. And they are treated as children for far longer. Now they are to be forced to stay at school until they are 18. Not a murmur do they make.

Are today's youth the truly "lost generation"? Perhaps, but I believe that the people of England are equally lost: ruled by non-accountable politicians, spied upon at every turn, and with the non-accountable EU project taking control of their lives more and more.

The complacency of the 1990s continues. The 80s are bad, We are good. We have nothing to protest about - well, as long as petrol prices stay down. You don't like the EU? Well, you're a little Englander, a racist.

Perhaps things are beginning to change. Slowly. But the perception of the "lost generation" of "Thatcher's children" is as nothing compared to the lost people of England today - already denied democratic rule and headed full tilt towards absolute dicatorship under the EU.

More here.

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