I don't think there is anything 'girly' about it Ditty. It was hard and there was the obvious 'crush the power of the unions' aspect to it. I do think we would still be where we are now regardless, possibly with a lot less resentment and bad memories though. 

We are in deepest shit right now. Whatever the cause.. blame the bankers if you feel inclined or blame Gordon Brown for setting up weak controlling measures. Either way we all 'owe' shed loads of wonga and one way or another, regardless of who gets into office, we will have to cough up in taxes, reduced public services and other restrictive measures until we have paid it all back.. It will hurt


Z.

BUY ALCOHOL!

Aye Xochi, and now we have the lovely Cameron saying we employ too many public sector workers here...so we are going to get shafted again it seems.  Joy!

Night Ducky!

 Of course! This is just a mere refresher course for BB!!! 

ッ.......................wadda y'know, it works ッ

It's going to seem funny watching to see if Sunderland call first now with boundary change...and not in Crowtree Leisure Centre

One of the papers (might have been the indy, can't remember) had timetable online.  Key seats and all that.  I might flip between Ch4 for the alternative night and BBC.

Can't disagree with you there Leccy. If it was  a gradual decline then it would have been easier to find alternatives but when it comes down to it if a city happens to exist and grow because it sat by a large river, next door to a heap of coal and/or iron ore and no one wants it anymore, at least not at those prices, it can be difficult to artificially create new jobs just because of where they happen to be needed without a huge investment. Economically ... shit happens


Z.

ah... see...   I may not be tory... but I am not a true socialist either...  New Labour... when it was working, I could handle.

I shy away from the militant tendancies...  and am not big on unions that cripple a business.

That leaves me as lib dem ...  

I am a floating voter.. no doubt.   But I could never vote Tory (even if Boris had been head man...  though I would have been more tempted if it had been Boris)...

I personally think that all the parties are lacking in ability & vision.  Between them... if they were inclined...  perhaps they could assemble a team of people fit to do the job.... but it will never happen, cos they are all about their own agendas... or their parties agendas.

How often does one party say "oh yes... well done on that" to another party...  they would rather ignore that it was a good thing and jeer about it.

They've all lost sight about what they should be doing, and who they serve.  If I had my way the house of commons would be the first thing to go....  and all that childish behaviour stopped.  No wonder young people don't want to vote... they can't believe adult behave worse than they did in their lack of disciplined classrooms! 

This is why people don't vote...   I am opting for the best of a bad bunch in my opinion... I will close my eyes and vote lib dem.

Ain't that the truth

Right . I need my beauty sleep... well that's the rest of the year gone

No doubt we will reconvene somewhere about the place and wave our respective swingometers tomorrow night..

Night


Z.

I think and I've heard it said before, today, that politicians have a far smaller effect on the real world than they would like to have us think

Night Night Z.... 

3 places to do it in tonight....

I guess I am gonna have to try the Ducky sleep pattern thing to keep up aren't I?

Not watching in HD on sky news?
 

The villages were/are harder hit than the towns Z.  I understand your point about artificially creating jobs but more effort really needed to be put into the younger ones, plus the boys in their mid teens who fully expected to follow their Dad's down the pits then the rug was pulled from under them.  There were no schemes in schools to prepare them for a vastly different future from what thety were expecting.

*shudders* It might be bad enough of a night as it is muf!

Ahahahahahah!   That's been doing my nut in  "At last, the election in full HD"

Oh yeah, at last, coz that's what we all care about, what we'd been waiting our whole lives for.  "Hey Hazel Blears has got a zit!" 

Night Z

Ahh Super, I'm trying to stay positive but...*sigh*

HD on a big screen.... 

how much more depressing could it get!

Lol
That's "Salford has a zit called.................." dear

The only person who has been at my door is the Labour party canvaser,I told them I was voting labour a few months ago,we had a by election after The Speaker resigned.Labour won the seat.I've had a BNP leaflet ,shredded and binned.An SNP leaflet,binned and a Lib Dem leaflet,binned.That's it.

Because of boundary changes, my constituency is now in a different town about 12 miles away. As a result there has been little political activity locally. The fight is betwwen Conservatives and Liberal Democrats with Labour as no-hopers. I've had 2 conservative leaflets, 2 liberal democrat leaflets, 1 UKIP newsletter, and nothing from labour. I work from home so am at home most of the time and can say that we have had no knocks at the door by canvassers.

awww

I'm still proper choked up and that this morning... I was too young at the time to remember what it was like (I suppose food parcels were exciting then, it was like a lucky dip ), but mam told me how hard it was... God knows how we would have survived without the kindness of others

Seeing as Bolton seats are important in this Election, I haven't had one knock on the door from any Party?????

I have had none of the parties canvassing at my door and not many leaflets have come through my letter box, I remembering sat thinking .. how odd never known that happen before in a General Election
I just thought what a lazy lot they all are

You could have some of mine Marge...I've had that many leaflets and letters hat theres probably a small forest somewhere with a bald patch.

I was too young to really understand it too Saz... I never knew a mining family...  only the people at the collection stand & what we saw on telly.  I can't wait to tell my mum about this conversation when I see her later today.


...strange old world... when decades on final peices of a story slot into place.

I know, it's weird isn't it Ditty I suppose it'll be nice for her to know that it really did make a difference to people I was thinking last night that it seemed odd that I'd never mentioned it before, but then I realised it doesn't really come up in conversation on the forum

...I think she'll be interested... and touched that you are touched...   we are the kids from those times. 

If my dad is around I know it will set him off...   and when I tell him about Leccys posts it'll make him sad (the bit about areas still not recovered from it)... in fact, I will have to beat a hasty retreat before he gets on his soapbox and starts marching up and down his (usually tory... though looking a bit lib dem atm) road .... screeching like a seller of Socialist Worker!

Gawd, you should get him on here posting with Leccy

Had our Labour MP at the door yesterday, I've not seen hide nor hair of any of the other candidates. We did have both tory and lib dems leaflets posted, bnp was delivered by hand and shredded before it touched the floor, in fact I'm sure there was a finger or two amongst that paper

we can but hope

Tons of leaflets, no visits. Did see the Labour lot in my street though. And an independent candidate drove past with a megaphone.
I fully understand the Tory candidate not being able to grace us (Cardiff South) with his presence though - the poor chap does live in Oxford, after all..

I totally forgot about the Bernardmobile!!

Our Tory Candidate did drive past our house... in a vehicle not that unsimilar to the Popes bullet proof sandwich van...  only Bernard wasn't sitting on a throne.  It was blaring something out of a megaphone... but I live at the main road end of a long road with lots of little roads coming off it...  cul de sac at the other end...

for some reason the bernardmobile did a three point turn in bus stop opposite my house & headed back onto the main road??

I've had tons and tons of leaflets through the letterbox and posted for the main three parties and one leaflet for the BNP but no sign of any candidates

The LibDem candidate used to be one of my local councillors and she was ineffectual with her job so I doubt she'd be much cop as an MP.  Incidentally her husband has put himself up for her old position (Keeping it in the family )  I have no idea who the Tory candidate is   he sends me lots of leaflets but he never seems to find time to come to Brum very often   and as for the labour candidate - it's Harriet Harperson's husband like he even knows where Birmingham is


Apparently The Greens are fielding a candidate but again heard nothing from them and it's just as well the BNP haven't knocked my door cos I'm spoiling for a fight

http://www.independent.co.uk/n...or-ever-1964467.html

I noticed last night that The Independent were terming this "The people's election!"
 I hadn't realised this to be the case. Mrs Joe and I had an enormous row the other day both accusing each other of misplacing Monty the Horse's postal vote.

My two surviving hamsters are devastated at not getting their say.

We've had leaflets/letters on a weekly basis for about 3 months from the Tories, a few leaflets from Labour and one solitary leaflet from the Lib Dem's and that's it.

It's been a Labour seat for a while here, so I'm probably going to vote Labour to help prevent the chance of a Tory steal (it is one of their targets according to the BBC), even though I'd been leaning towards going Lib Dem lately.

Ducky, I had a very pleasant young man at the door to ask if we had managed to vote for the Labour candidate. I said I had managed to vote - but not for his candidate. However Mr Yogi had.

Well.... I can happily report that the wet lettuce was the bloke running for the councillor job...  & we had an altogether sharper looking bloke running for the government one for the lib dems!