Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

'Lost', 'left'.

It ended.

An historical fact. With reasons as varied as the loss of the captive markets in the countries of the British Empire, cheaper workforces abroad, entry into the E.U., Thatcher's fight with ther unions, and her vision of us as a service, rather than an industrisalised nation, people in this country demanding less expensive consumer durables, regardless of where they were manufactured. The reasons are many fold.

Supply and demand.

Perhaps an 'outsider', a public school educated lawyer from Lytham, is just what Hyndburn needs. Though I look forward to her convincing me of that.

Time will see.

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

We actually spoke about some of these issues tonight in the car, on the way home from seeing 'And Did Those Feet', a play set in Bolton in 1923, just after the Great War, and before the General Strike.

There were 600 mills, or associated textile firms in Bolton, equally as numerous as this area

An area where there was jobs for all, in the past.

Fed up with one, you'd start at the next on Monday.

Full employment doesn't hide the fact that the majority of people were too poor to send for a doctor, and many people died, because they couldn't afford medicine.

You may have had a job, but that meant you were paying rent to live in relative poverty. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, no money to put coal on the fire, if you also wanted to put bread on the table.

A job, but no paid leave, or holidays, even unpaid time off.

A job, but with no rights or benefits if you were too old or sick to work, or the bosses just didn't need you. You were given your marching orders, and the next lot started on your old shift.

We might have lived in an area where there were a thousand dark, Satanic mills, and jobs a plenty, but lets not get misty eyed about the past.

There were jobs for all, but the lives of the vast majority of people who had those jobs, was hellish. I know because like so many, my family were those workers.

Somethings change for the better, some things for the worse, but change can never be halted.

Some change is definitely for the better, because having 'Shaking Palsy', as it was then known, eighty years ago I'd have been up in Queen's Park Workhouse.

Time will tell if any one politican will have an impact on the job market in Hyndburn.

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

Personally I'd rather see addressed the problem of the feckless generation of idle loafers, who've 'chosen' a life without work.

You can have a factory full of vacancies, but if people aren't prepared to work there, because they'll be 'worse off', that needs changing.

The biggest problem is making some people see that working for a living, and contributing to a system, and society, and feeling worthy, is a better option.

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

Perhaps the Conservatives want to change their leaflet deliverers ?
The one around my end doesnt seem to know how to cross a road, nearly flattened her like a pancake.

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

Will disagree with you on a couple of points , if people were living in such misery and explotation in the "bad old days" how do you explain the rise of the seaside resorts like Blackpool, Morcambe etc. in Lancashire and other similar resorts along the Yorksire coast , these weren't built just for the "Bosses" they were designed and built around the same time the building boom of terraced streets in the Mill towns for the skilled working masses.

Re. the "poverty" of the housing stock at the time , I'm thinking most of the Mill workers who were drawn to work in the cotton towns appreciated the chance to live in a terraced house with an outside lavatory (most probably a tippler type) much better than the one room mud hovels most of the migrating mill workers who came from in Scotland and Ireland ,and looking back took a damn sight more pride in them than they do today,
I'm thinking if you look back through various threads which mention the older Big Houses(Villas/Mansions) where the big bad nasty bosses lived you can see that in Accrington many were in areas adjacent and abutting terraced streets , which seems a bit more democratic to what we see today .

My own opinion is the "rot" started in the days after WW2 , British industry carried on using the same old crap machinery and methods as had been in use from the turn of the century , example ...Germany had to re-build its entire steel industry , what hadn't been bombed was shipped east as reparations to the Russians , so what did the enlightened British politicians do ... they sold the Germans brand new steel plants ,built in antiquated British plants , then wondered why the German industry was more efficient than the British, same thing happened with other industries, post-war politicians cut the throats of the British workers to "create" the social society we see the results of today. ;)

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

Where she comes from may be a problem. Her current policy she says is to slash funding (including Hyndburn) to get the deficit down. Hyndburn receives a huge amount of Government funding and a lot of jobs will be affected, let alone reductions in schools, hospitals, housing, the Council etc.. I understand these issues and prefer Gordon Brown's managed reduction whilst fighting for the place I live.

Greg Pope MP has had a Labour Government pumping money in to Hyndburn.

There are significant employers in Hyndburn. The Globe employs around 800 people. We do seem to have relied on Blackburn, Whitebirk area and Shadsworth to name to new areas of growth. However there is Senator and Huncoat. This is hardly a replacement for Rists etc.. and all the others that have gone.

Employment is one of top priorities.

Ms Buckley has said her priorities are her leaders (David Cameron's), not Hyndburns. For me it is the other way around.

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

...and I'll counter disagree right back, even though I'm still half a sleep.

;)

Re: the seaside resorts.
Besides mentioning the date Bolton won the first F.A. Cup at Wembley, I was refering to a time pre-workers rights, and before holiday entitlements were given, which directly gave rise to the resorts on the coast.

Housing. The phrase used was 'relative poverty', meaning our housing needs are much higher today, than then. With many of us still living in the housing stock that was built for those workers, but we now benefit from bathrooms, central heating/running hot water, and don't have to break the ice on t'tippler, when we need to spend a winter penny.

If you think life today isn't better than it was for our great-great grandparents, you're living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

'They were poor....but they were happy.'

Utter balderdash.

You can't be truly happy, when at the back of your mind there's the fact that if you've no work, for whatever reason, your children will starve.

This is not the case in the U.K. today.

We also talked in the car about Bullough's making the machines for places like India, who were then in direct competition to Lancashire's cotton mills, which is similar to you comment about Germany. If England hadn't supplied those countries, someone else would. There would still have been overseas competition, who could under-cut Britain because of a cheaper workforce.

Now I really must go and see if there's any coal left in t'coal 'ole, so I can light a fire, after I've been down the yard t'smallest house, then I can have a cuppa for my breakfast.

:D

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

'The changes Thatcher set in motion between coming to power and 1985 were profound, altering much of the economic and cultural landscape of Britain. She wished to slash the power of the trade unions, cut back the role of the state in business, reduce the role of manufacturing industry in the British economy, and create a more entrepreneurial culture. She also aimed to cut back the welfare state, as she thought the British people had become overreliant on the state, but she did not achieve much in this direction. Exacerbated by the global recession of the early 1980s, her policies initially caused large-scale unemployment, especially in the industrial heartlands of northern England, and increased wealth inequalities.'
Online Encyclopedia and Dictionary - Margaret Thatcher

This area benefited when we were an industrialised, manufacturing nation, because of the weather, and cotton is easier to work when it's damp.

The new service industries that are supposed to have replaced them, can be located anywhere in the U.K. Which is probably why Lord Tebbit said people had to 'get on their bikes', to go and find a job where the work was.

Unlike the past, there is no special physical advantage to siting new businesses in this area, rather than anywhere else. Other than we have a concentrated work force, relatively affording housing, and pretty countryside on our doorstep, and some companies have been founded, or relocated here, to provide people with work, because of those reasons.

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

Don't you see though, Bernie, we're actually trying to help her in our own humble way? As Garinda says, all publicity is good publicity, and we're trying to give her a public face. Let's be honest, as she appears to be getting very little support from the local Tories, she needs all the help she can get! :)

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

Form Cheshire :D

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

The alternative 'managed' reduction is what? Spending hundreds of billions of pounds of taxpayers money paying high interest rates to bankers because government has spent beyond its means. The interest payments alone dwarf the entire schools budget. It's predicted to be double that of defence spending, while we're at war. It's a disgrace. We need to get the deficit down quickly so we can start paying back our vast amounts of debt.

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

Hear Hear, the Labour recipe for everything is first borrow two eggs:rolleyes:

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

Jaysay, as Bernie says...
Anyway, I'm only taking this job on, because you won't help her. It's a thankless task, but somebody's got to do it. ;)

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

'Lord Myners said: “This morning’s ill thought-out Tory briefing has all the hallmarks of a plan made up on the hoof'

“This kind of tax on bankers needs to be international. As the Chancellor has made clear, the UK-only bank tax the Tories want is a sure-fire way of encouraging a banking exit from the UK - raising costs to borrowers, damaging Britain’s competitiveness and costing tens of thousands of jobs across the country.'

“The Tories keep getting the big judgments wrong.'
David Cameron announces bank tax plan - Times Online

Well the City don't seem to have much faith in the Conservative's economic credibility.

Re: Conservative candidate named.
 

And a damn site less in Labours