Britain in the 1970s - "Them Was Rotten Days"

A brief look at Britain during the 1970s. With chronic economic decline giving the United Kingdom the unenviable title "The Sick Man of Europe" and the public rapidly losing patience with the disasterous governments of Edward Heath and James Callaghan, many in Britain believed thier country's best days were long since over.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Britain
• Politics
• 1970s
• Edward
• Heath
• James
• Callaghan
• Conservatives
• Labour
• Clockwork
• Orange
• Bloody
• Sunday
• Three
• Day
• Week
• Conservatism
• Socialism
• Andrew
• Marr
• BBC
• Documentary

[Tokopol]

this is fucking rubbish, the oil crisis wasnt callagans or heaths fault and they did the best possible job coping with it and kept industry from being gutted. if they chose callaghan in 79 they wouldnt be tearing out our shipyards and selling them piece-by-piece to asia today

[vadermarvel]

I agree with you the old bitch had no right selling government assets. Thats called stealing from the people.

[UnitedBritannia]

@vadermarvel I'm always fascinated by this overly emotional argument. It's often banded it about when people discuss privatisation. But I've never had an answer to this simple question - what on earth did a working-class family in the poorer parts of the country ever gain from a nationalized Airline, telephone, electricity or gas company?

[UnitedBritannia]

@vadermarvel The answer is that they gained absoloutley nothing! All of the nationalized industries were unresponsive to the needs of their customers, offered a sub-par service, were overly expensive and contributed to the need for higher taxes because they relied on state-subsidy rather than private enterprise. B.A. became one of the most successful Airlines in the world after privatisation, BT a world leader in communications. These are brilliant success stories - not something to weep over!

[UnitedBritannia]

@Tokopol The record of history disagrees with you. Are you seriously arguing that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with Britain's economic model in the post-war period and that it was simply a serious of unfortunate events that led this country to the point of absolute despair at the end of the 1970's? Is that really what you're arguing? And do you really think that Britain alone could have halted the forces of globalization? Are you an apologist for the worst excesses of Socialist Britain?

[Spiderwebsider]

The economy might have been rubbish, but there's more to life than the economy. As far as I'm concerned, life was way better in the 1970s than in all the decades that followed. End of story! In fact I'd trade all the BMWs. plasmas, and all the other gadgets to go back there. Life was simpler and more fun, there was no PC nor self-appointed guardians of public safety, and the music was fantastic, creative, and played by incredibly talented musicians on real instruments.

All in all a great decade

[TheJaaysog]

@Tokopol dont swear, no need

[KungfuCow5]

@snowfield667 Britain hasn't been a world power for about 70 years.