By Legerwood
If Mrs Thatcher had not existed then Labour would have had to invent her in order to hide their culpability in the demise of Scottish industry which started long before she became PM. Labour had two periods in power in the ’60s and ’70s but did not do anything to stop the closure of pits and shipyards or help the communities so badly affected by these closures.
At the time of nationalisation of the coal mines by the Attlee Gov there were 225 mines across Central Scotland. By the time Mrs Thatcher became PM in 1979 there were barely 20 mines left.
A similar picture with the shipyards. By the time they were nationalised by the Labour Gov in the late ’70s there were only 6 yards in Scotland to be nationalised – 4 on the Clyde, 1 in Dundee and 1 in Aberdeen.
The railways. Harold Wilson campaigned in the GE of 1963 against the Beeching cuts but once he became PM he continued with the cuts. Frequent strikes, increasing subsidies but no improvement in services saw passenger numbers decline steadily during the ’70s into the early ’80s. Mrs Thatcher & her Gov managed to turn that around and she did not want the railways privatised.
Labour in Scotland then spent the next 20 years where their campaigns boiled down to: ‘We’re no Mrs Thatcher. Gie’s yer vote’. It hollowed them out as a party such that when they gained power at Holyrood they had no idea what to do with it. They put their foot on the gas but the tank was empty.
As I said at the start Labour needed Mrs Thatcher to blame for something in which they were every bit as culpable.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
WE MUST USE THIS AND TERRIBLE POLICIES OF LABOUR TO CRUSH THE LIES AND DECEIT FOR SEVERAL LABOUR SO-CALLED LEADERS
THEY RUINED SCOTLAND
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KICK OUT LABOUR OR THEY WILL CRIPPLE SCOTLAND YET AGAIN
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Yes indeed – Thatcher merely accelerated the demise of labour intense industries, in no small measure influenced by her obsession with smashing the power of trade unions, turning once thriving communities into wasteland.
Witnessing the last train on the Paddy Line has come to be my permanent reminder of the myopia of London politicians, and emblematic of the decline of the UK – The damage done to south-west Scotland as result was immense, but as Father Ted might explain ‘small cows, Dougal….very far away’.
– Travel from abroad by public transport to visit my late dad became increasingly difficult as bus services were withdrawn – I could get to remote parts of the world more easily than Galloway, all because of a tick on a ledger in the 1960s…
I have not the slightest problem with modernisation, but not the UK political way of doing it, destroy first then blame somebody else…
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The Westminster Treasury took revenues and resources out of Scotland. Since 1928 and before. Hide the facts under the Official Secrets Act. All officialdom in Britain have to take an oath of allegiance to the Westminster parliament. From the civil service, to the Police to the politicians. That is how the Westminster Gov tries to keep control. Devolution 2000 changed some of the secrecy and opened up the playing field slightly. There is stronger opposition to the UK Gov, the corruption and lies.
Scotland voted Labour to keep the Tories out. Labour are just as bad. So now people vote SNP with a massive majority. More and more unionist politicians get voted out. The younger ones want less tradition and more equality. The internet. 1990’s. Devolution 2000. Independence to come. To make the world a better place.
Thatcher built Tilbury Docks. 26 mile container port. Closed all the business around the UK. Centralised transport though London S/E. Congestion. Nothing gets done. The corruption and lies at the heart of Westminster Gov destroying the economy.
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beecham shut the railways the north east of scotland north of aberdeen up to fraserburgh and a ross to elgin has nothing no rail lines at all so its crazy fast driving vans everywhere.Dundee pirt once owned by dundee city council is now owned by the teachers pension fund in Canada , can you see them investing in the port for the future or simply extracting as much profit as possible ? sucking the blood out it whilst keeping it barely alive thats their ploy , same as all nationalised industries that have been privatised.
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Was it not also the case that in the post War period alone especially in the high unemployment years that Labour in an act of abject betrayal were quite happy to see the mass exodus of Scots to the Midlands to fill up the acute skill shortages there and to shore up support for them to the detriment of Scotland.
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Really insightful article which demonstrates, via examples, clearly how Labour were obscured from much of the culpability of what you have highlighted so well …..as in the “in the demise of Scottish industry “.
We may attack Thatcher…and God knows she deserves it but some may forget Labour were not (and still are not) the saviours of the working man.
Great Article Legerwood.
NMRN
🙂
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