[foreverwar]

Originally Posted by slowcoach

And don't forget that psychopath Norman Tebbit is still pulling the strings.

Thanks for making me smile................
Telegraph September 26 2007
Tebbit hits out at Tories and names Brown as Thatcher's natural heir

Telegraph February 29 2008
In a withering attack on David Cameron's party, the former Tory Chairman says it is wrong to trumpet the success of Mr Blair, whose record he dismantles

mmmm, "psychopath" says more about you than him, I am afraid - I don't actually remember him being cited for maiming or killing anyone...........

People's problem with Norm is that he is the antithesis of modern day politicians, in that he says what he means, and means what he says, rather than relying on spin.

A quote from one of his appearances on Question Time in Feb, 2007

Q: Which of your achievements of the 1980s are you most proud of?
A: Of all that I achieved in the 1980s - and that included the denationalisation of BT and creation of a competitive telecoms industry, and the campaign for Margaret Thatcher's third election victory in 1987 - the achievement of which I am most proud is the reform on the trades union law on which much of Britain's economic success over the last twenty years has been based.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s almost everyone agreed that no government could govern without the consent, even if not the approval, of the leadership of the trades unions.

The union bosses wielded huge power. Their veto of Prime Minister Harold Wilson's proposed reforms of industrial relations law led to his dismissal from office in 1970. Four years later, Prime Minister Edward Heath was bundled out of office by the miners' strike, having already been humiliated by the demolition of his Industrial Relations Act and the legal paraphernalia of the Industrial Relations Court. In 1979, Prime Minister James Callaghan was defeated, not so much by Margaret Thatcher, as buried under the vast piles of uncollected rubbish during the strikes of the Winter of Discontent. Britain had become the subject of sorrowful sympathy or utter contempt.

The question of the day was,¿ is Britain governable?". Everywhere they talked of "the British disease" whose symptoms included high inflation, low productivity, poor quality merchandise, incessant strikes, go-slows, blacklegs and work-to-rule disruptions. And mostly they believe the disease to be incurable.

On any measurement, the British record on industrial stoppages and restrictive practices was the worst in any major nation of the industrialised world. We suffered power cuts, sometimes organised and scheduled, sometimes out of the blue, which closed factories, offices, schools, and disrupted hospitals. Union leaders claimed the right to veto legislation which displeased them, whilst their hoodlums on the shop floor disrupted production at will. They even censored newspapers, refusing to print articles they disliked.

Most Conservative politicians believed that strike-happy shop floor workers were the problem, and that we had to do deals with "responsible" leaders to keep them at work. I took the opposite view and argued that the leaders used strikes as a way of increasing their power. They could close industry down - or if the government agreed to do as it was told, they could call the strikers off.

My legislation was based on giving shop-floor union members the right to fairly conducted pre-strike ballots, and the right to fair ballots to elect their leaders, and I ended the immunity of unions from being sued for damages, and I ended the immunity of unions from being sued for damages for unlawful acts. Ever since those reforms were made, Britain has enjoyed being amongst the best industrial relations in the advanced industrialised world. At election after election Labour threatened to repeal my legislation. They have not done so."

Lest we forget, eh?