If the Queen died

Are you mad!

Not only did she destory this country it was her and her party who destroyed ITV during her days in power.

Anyway, she'll be dead soon thank Christ!

Not for want of trying, the sad thing is politicians are damned either way - if they try and relate to young people they're accused of making idiots of themselves and being stupid - if they don't they're aloof and out of touch.



Government is a boring business, it involves coming to long thought out and debated answers to problems which don't always work. Politics (they are different) is a lot more fun but not very useful. The EU is actually moving the other way now, the Federal State of Europe which was seen as the ideal from the 50s to the 90s is now being replaced with the idea of co-operating nations, the new EU constitution will for the first time have a clause permitting members to leave if they want and will draw a line in the sand between national and European government and will actually return some powers to Westminster!



People get what they vote for. Most of our problems can be attributed back to 2 factors - between 1945-1979 the unions were allowed to get too powerful which made governing the country difficult, but this was preferable to the alternative IMHO which has lasted since 1979 which is where you have people voting for low taxes and expecting high qualities of service from public services which they can't get because of lack of money.


But getting better - most of the money paid into it for the first five years was spent on removing the debts NHS Trusts built up under John Major. Now the money is going into the NHS - for example a hospital which the Tories shut in 1997 is now being re-built and re-opened.


Here we're back to the low tax problem - when people voted for lower income tax they actually voted for more tax on indirect taxes such as fuel duty and VAT which rose from something like 8% in 1979 to 17.5% in 1997.


That's because no government has the guts to make transport it's first priority and spend some time, money and thought onto improving it - a shame as the transport system could quite easily be improved with a bit of thought and money.



Hitler didn't dream of the Euro - the Reichsmark was just introduced in the occupied nations because they were then under the government of the Reich and in fact most nations continued with their own currencies - there was just the availability of using Reichmarks, mostly designed to benefit German soldiers. Hitler didn't want just blond people to exist, he wanted the Aryan race to be dominant and believed that they were naturally dominant "ubermensch". FYI Jamie it was actually Churchill who proposed the European state as a way of avoiding another European war after World War Two.



From where I'm sitting he enjoys being the lapdog of the American government. Look, let's face it Blair was only hired because he could win votes - he was an electoral asset and now he's an electoral liabilty - the sooner Labour ditch him as leader and let someone proper take over the better. After 6 years now everyone is sick of the man - I don't think he has a bone of integrity or decency in him. Blair is the problem not the government.



The thing about the 80s was that if you did well, you did very well and if you didn't you did very badly. That's not a good way to run a country, there should at least be some idea that we're all in the same boat so let's try and make everyone's lives better. She made us into a joke in Europe which is why she was ditched. Europe makes up half our global trade, we can't just cut ourselves off from them and I dispute what America could offer us.


Wrong, the UK is America's longest standing ally - America doesn't have allies they honestly could not care what happens to this country - American foreign policy has always been about serving American interests not anyone elses.


Hardly, it's much more likely that most people will have knowledge of English as a first or second language. In 30 years we'll probably have voice translators which will instantly translate everything we say so language will make little difference then.



You shouldn't be so flippant - Hitler's dream was to create a thousand year Reich - the EU has not gassed any Jews, the EU has not rounded up people and had them shot, the EU does not operate a reign of terror. I don't like the European Union, I favour the original idea of a free trade area but people won't be convinced to anti-European arguments if all people do is go on about Hitler - it was over sixty years ago!

Jamez, are you a member of the UK Independance Party? You should be!

What is all this rubbish about us all having to speak German? Have you got any sort of evidence, information or even links to that statement?

And about Hitler's presence living on?

Have you been abroad?

Jamez views are perfectly alright as far as I'm concerned. At least when Maggie was in power there was some order, some decoram and she told the miners where to get off.

Wonder what they'll do when Thatch departs her mortal coil ?

Sorry to talk about the subject of the thread, but...

Just listened to the sound clips off the MHP website and God they're haunting.

I can remember seeing the clip of Nick Gowing (didn't know who he was then) announcing the death in the review of the year programme for 1997.

Hearing the audio again brings it right back. The way he said, "This is - er - BBC Television from London...", if I remember correctly, as he said, "...er...", he looked briefly to the desk, and you could see him thinking - oh my God, this is awful!

Do you think they'd still have to add the "from London" bit. In fact would they say BBC Television now? In the event of a similarly huge story breaking in the UK - or effecting the UK.

Would they just say, "This is the BBC"?

I remember hearing somebody at the BBC saying that they still are trying to work out how to balance it, because it is really going to be a tough one.

They cannot possibly go for completely reverential coverage because, of course, while half the country will shed a tear for the Iron Lady who in their view made this country great again, the other half will remember her as the person who put millions into poverty, destroyed the rights of the working people and took tea with a facist dictator.

Or, as the guy put it "Half the audience will want hours upon hours of non-stop mourning, while the other half will want 'Ding-Dong The Witch Is Dead'"

"This is BBC Television from London. It has been announced that Baroness Thatcher has died. Viewers who are sad, press the blue button. Viewers who are glad, press the red button."