the homeless are lucky...

[Sue Denim..]

for the record' date=' John Major was only voted into power because people had gotten tired of Thatcher [/quote']

For a joke politician, John Major did give us 3 important things,

The first peace agreement in Northern Ireland

The Channel Tunnel

The National Lottery.

Sue

[Flossie T Sheep]

For a joke politician' date=' John Major did give us 3 important things,

The first peace agreement in Northern Ireland

The Channel Tunnel

The National Lottery.

Sue[/quote']

i think the only reason the I.R.A decided to sign a peace agreement cos that avatar of the grey, the doyen of the monochrome John Major was just too dull, dreary and boring to assasssinate, he seemed to assassinate his own character rather easily without any help, i have seen more life in an open grave than John Major;)

[Guest allsystemsfail]

What's wrong with Thatcher? She sorted this country out then the Torries chucked her out basically and Major and Blair came and ruined it all.

She sorted out the country? lol

The Tories threw her out coz of her unbending support of the poll tax. They saw her as a liability - one they need shot of.

[Guest allsystemsfail]

I don't know - I'm of the opinion that Thatcher was a great leader for England' date=' but a disasterous leader of the United Kingdom.

Destroying the Belgrano, that was no different to any of the other atrocities committed by the British over the years, from the bombing of Dresden to both Bloody Sundays.

Poll Tax, again, great idea for the English, but imposing it on Scotland a year early was just typical English arrogance.

Miners strikes? The Tories crushed the Trades Unions, some of whom had immense power - and personally, I'm glad that they did. I have no place in my heart for unions, some of whom seem to exist solely to make life miserable for businesses - and okay, they do have a place, Thatcher reduced their role to what it should be.

All in all, history will remeber her unkindly - but in all fairness, she would've made a great leader of an independent England.[/quote']

The poll tax a great idea? Sure, for those who were set to benefit. Unfortunately, for most, it would mean much higher bills. It was an extremely unfair tax, taxing people and not property.

You're glad that miners were left without work, communities destroyed?

Trade unions were set up not to make things difficult for business, but to defend the rights of ordinary working men and women - to see that they were treated fairly. Good in theory, but in practice the unions are no better than the fucking bosses.

[Cloud]

i think the only reason the I.R.A decided to sign a peace agreement cos that avatar of the grey' date=' the doyen of the monochrome John Major was just too dull, dreary and boring to assasssinate, he seemed to assassinate his own character rather easily without any help, i have seen more life in an open grave than John Major;)[/quote']

Haha, they did actually try - they launched a mortar attack on Downing Street, mostly missing, but one did blow up the garden

Major apparently dived under a table...

But yeah...all these people saying that Thatcher was a bad thing - she did stablise the country, which after the nonsense of the 70's was a damn good thing. As for crushing the miners and particularly Scargill, well...wouldn't you want to crush that idiotic stalinist twat?

[Larsen B]

If I could be bothered i would quote everything Hobbes has said in this thread and say "Agreed." But I couldn't be.

[HummerOfIntenseEvil]

True story:

When I was young and easily bought into the crap I read in papers and saw on TV' date=' I was of the impression most homeless people were "coming it". One mild Saturday afternoon a friend and I decided a sporting game of Quasar would be good for the constitution, however, a dark, urine-soaked shadow was soon to sully our day...

As we made our way past "Boots: The Chemist" out of the shadows slithered one of the "Homeless" I had been taught to hate and fear. He looked Irish, or possibly Eastern European and I could feel him psychically probe my pockets for change as he loomed over us.

"Any...Spare...change...for..a...cuppa...tea, son" it hissed. TEA? TEA?! More like heroin cigarettes or a needleful of magic mushrooms! White Lightning or Grant's Vodka!

I mustered every courageous cell in my body. "Begone!" I shouted, "Back, back to whence thou came, knave!"

And away it did sneak, melting into the shadows like an Ice-cream Mars Bar melts into the pavement after that middling stage where it looks really like runny dog shit. I had saw through it's web of foul lies and deceit and cast it into the depths in which it belonged...

...until I saw the same dude drinking tea in a Burger King later that day on his own. Yes, I was a fucking arsehole, wasn't I?[/quote']

Haha! But you were young and therefore easily scared. Or something.

I've never read too much into what the papers say about the homeless, I let my own experiences with them decide how I feel about them. Unfortunately, I've had too many bad experiences with beggers, not least that bitch who used to be seen around town every friday and saturday night with her bullshit story about needing to get back to Glasgow.

Funnily enough, I've never seen her since the time I shouted "FUCK OFF" right in her face. Now she was definitely dodgy.

Then there was the guy who me and a mate had given a fair amount of money to when drunk a few times. When I saw him getting into a taxi once I thought "that's it, I'm never giving money to a Homeless ever again."

[Cloud]

The poll tax a great idea? Sure' date=' for those who were set to benefit. Unfortunately, for most, it would mean much higher bills. It was an extremely unfair tax, taxing people and not property.[/quote']

It's not as if the replacement is much fairer though - I wonder what the reaction to the poll tax would've been if it wasn't implemented completely unfairly at the minute.

You're glad that miners were left without work' date=' communities destroyed?[/quote']

It's the effect of a capitalist society - a society that allows people to retrain what they do. Of course I wasn't glad, but in the long run, the destruction of miner communities has saved us more than it cost us.

Trade unions were set up not to make things difficult for business, but to defend the rights of ordinary working men and women - to see that they were treated fairly. Good in theory, but in practice the unions are no better than the fucking bosses.

I agree completely.

[Mr. Tristen]

Maybe if you'd experienced some genuine hardship' date=' you wouldn't post such nonsense.[/quote']

Or maybe he has. Cynical outlooks tend to come from people who've seen more than their fair share of problems.

[Guest tv tanned]

Destroying the Belgrano' date=' that was no different to any of the other atrocities committed by the British over the years, from the bombing of Dresden to both Bloody Sundays.[/quote']

Neither of the examples you mention are linked to Maggie. Hence why I singled out The Belgrano.

There's a litany of shitty things we have done in our history, but that doesn't make it OK to do them.

[Moshulu Rob]

As much as I despise Thatcher and everything she stood for, I don't think you can blame her for the Belgrano. War is shit, and the only rule is to kill them before they kill you. I would of ordered it sunk too.

Bloody Sunday is entirely the politicians fault, you can't blame the Para's, the government spends years and thousands of pounds teaching them to be killers and then all of a sudden expects them to become policemen. Kind of like a farmer putting a fox in charge of guarding the chicken pen. When the chickens get eaten it's the farmers fault not the fox's.

And I think in the circumstances Dresden is probably defensible too.

[Guest tv tanned]

Even in ajust war, as WW2, a war crime is still a war crime regardless of who is behind it, or what their motives are.

[Cloud]

As much as I despise Thatcher and everything she stood for' date=' I don't think you can blame her for the Belgrano. War is shit, and the only rule is to kill them before they kill you. I would of ordered it sunk too.[/quote']

We were in a war at the day, since when has someone sailing away meant you can't blow up the fucker? I really, really wonder what would've happened if a less strong willed leader had been in control at the time..would we have bothered to defend the falklands?

Bloody Sunday is entirely the politicians fault, you can't blame the Para's, the government spends years and thousands of pounds teaching them to be killers and then all of a sudden expects them to become policemen. Kind of like a farmer putting a fox in charge of guarding the chicken pen. When the chickens get eaten it's the farmers fault not the fox's.

I love that analogy, it's probably the best way i've ever heard it described.

[Doc]

Poll Tax' date=' again, great idea for the English, but imposing it on Scotland a year early was just typical English arrogance.

l[/quote']

Erm..actually the idea for imposing the poll tax a year earlier in Scotland was put forward by a Fife councillor, from Dunfermline I believe.

[Hog]

IMHO, I reckon that Its quite easy to drag yourself out of homelessness. Its not easy if you are homeless with a heroin addiction. A lot of the genuine homeless people in Aberdeen are either addicts or people with a disability.

[Doc]

you sound like you were too young to actually understand how shit a country Britain was to live in during her time in power but yeah she was a lovely woman she was;)

she used riot police to intimidate and attack people striking for better rates of pay' date=' she also removed the unions so people were forced to accept what they were being given and go back to work. she removed many industries that were costing the government money so ultimately that meant people losing their jobs and deregulating public-owned utilities and services like British Telecom and British Gas and privatising them so that meant that fatcats could hike up their prices to use these services they now owned and line their own fucking pockets! don't believe me?, then go look up the name Geoffrey Robinson and find out for yourself

there was also a lot of unemployment around that time as well and especially around the area i came from, people were barely scraping by on the social security money they were getting, she never seemed to truly give a shit about the people who were out of work, her government was only ever about removing anyone opposing her decisions and making the rich get richer by reducing income tax for the people earning higher incomes and then on top of that, she goes and introduces the poll tax, a tax that was last imposed way back in the fucking Dark Ages!, that one explained a lot about her mentality, i was surprised she didn't impose decisions to start beheading people in the Tower Of London or hanging people at Traitor's Gate sometimes, not only content with making the working classes pay income taxes that continued to rise every single year, she goes and introduces another tax as well!

yeah she really sorted out everything

for the record, John Major was only voted into power because people had gotten tired of Thatcher and Tony Blair only got voted in because people were tired of Britain being ruled by Conservatives for the best part of 20 years, and it doesn't matter who got voted in either because its the same set of rules that are applied but under a different coloured banner;)[/quote']

Sounds like you were too young to remember the previous labour government.

Workers on a three day week. All public services on strike. rubbish and rats in the street, the dead stacking up. Massive unemployment. The government neutered by the unions. Power cuts for hours several times a weeks. Gas and fuel shortages. OAPs dying of the cold. Cops on strike. Looting. Mega high taxation.

Maggie was an arse, but living under her government was 100 times better than what was before.

[Mr. Tristen]

IMHO' date=' I reckon that Its quite easy to drag yourself out of homelessness. Its not easy if you are homeless with a heroin addiction. A lot of the genuine homeless people in Aberdeen are either addicts or people with a disability.[/quote']

I agree. I wrote a huge big long essay several years back which I once posted here about exactly how to live as a homeless person... really wish I can find it...

To deal with the addiction though, as far as I'm concerned any type of substance abuse is nothing to feel sorry for. At the end of the day that person chose that path in their life and are ultimately responsible for the way it turns out. Theres not an ounce of sympathy here.

[Guest tv tanned]

We were in a war at the day' date=' since when has someone sailing away meant you can't blow up the fucker? I really, really wonder what would've happened if a less strong willed leader had been in control at the time..would we have bothered to defend the falklands? [/quote']

Just a fucking minute MR Revisionist...

We had withdrawn large amounts of our strategic capability from the Southern Atlantic

We were selling off half our naval fleet

To all intents and purposes we never gave a shite about the Falklands until Galtieri lost the plot and invaded before we inevitably gave them up due to their strategic importance being ever reduced.

To suggest Maggie felt them to be of massive importance and therefore was a strong leader is bollocks.

She went as far as she could to encourage Galtieri without saying 'I don't give a shit about those fucking islands'

[Flossie T Sheep]

Sounds like you were too young to remember the previous labour government.

Workers on a three day week. All public services on strike. rubbish and rats in the street' date=' the dead stacking up. Massive unemployment. The government neutered by the unions. Power cuts for hours several times a weeks. Gas and fuel shortages. OAPs dying of the cold. Cops on strike. Looting. Mega high taxation.

Maggie was an arse, but living under her government was 100 times better than what was before.[/quote']

i was answering a post about Margaret Thatcher, not James Callaghan although i would say it was probably worse when he was around.

it certainly wasn't any good if you had rubbish that needed collecting or graves needing to be dug to stick dead people in them

[Dan G]

at least the ones in the uk. okay' date=' so we got bad weather, but i'd rather be homeless here than in other places such as ethiopia. where people literally starve to death. now heres a thought.[/quote']

To be honest that makes about as much sense as saying a man who's first child has just died is lucky, because at least his second child is still alive.

[NARC]

This one could go down alongside Marie Antoinette's 'Let them eat cake' in the history of silly things to say about the less fortunate...

She actually didn't mean that in the way everyone thinks...i think she had been informed that the only thing left to eat at that point in the revolution was indeed cake. Seriously!

[Doc]

i was answering a post about Margaret Thatcher' date=' not James Callaghan although i would say it was probably worse when he was around.

it certainly wasn't any good if you had rubbish that needed collecting or graves needing to be dug to stick dead people in them [/quote']

Or a job to go to for more than 3 days a week or electricity to cook with.

[Guest Jake Wifebeater]

After finishing this heartwarming rendition' date=' he called his girlfriend from his Nokia camera phone, told her to order a pizza, put his earphones on and hailed down a taxi bound for his tax free council flat which they'd recieved ahead of everyone in the list after she got pregnant. They'd have a busy day tomorrow - they both had to collect their "jobseeker's allowance".[/quote']

Might be a good idea to get some experience of the real world before you start typing out nasty, poisonous, hate-fuelled bile from the safety of your computer desk. I'll give you a personal example here, son. My partner is now seven months pregnant. Yeah, I know that's her fucking fault, what a selfish fucking bitch for willing a foetus into the womb, eh? I met her when she was in the early stages of pregnancy, and she did her level best to warn me off and put me off her. It didn't work, I persisted and we fell in love. I invited her to come and live with me. I work part-time and am unable to support us both, so it was time to apply for some benefits. Jobseeker's Allowance? Nope. No company is gonna take on someone who will soon fuck off and take maternity leave and so drain the precious fucking profits, are they? So, we thought we would wait until she had eleven weeks to go before giving birth, when she would be able to request Income Support on account of my Council Tax sky-rocketing and also that she needed to start buying items for the child on the way. Guess what? Nope again! Because it is assumed that my income is going towards her upkeep, she gets nothing! So, I'd be VERY fucking interested to know where you get your bigoted, hateful shit from, because it seems to me that if you had ANY fucking experience with regard to applying for state benefits, which they make you jump through burning hoops and crawl on your belly like a fucking DOG for, you'd know better than to spout the ignorant, ill-informed shite that I quoted above. Enjoy reading the fucking Daily Mail, do you?

[bryn]

POINT:the homeless in the uk are pretty lucky(thread title). brutal but simple.

Thats a shit point. Everyone in Britain is better off than their relative counterparts in Africa. The average wage here is higher. Employment is higher. Britain is a stable place. No-one needs you to tell them, everyone saw blue peter appeals when they were younger.

[Doc]

Might be a good idea to get some experience of the real world before you start typing out nasty' date=' poisonous, hate-fuelled bile from the safety of your computer desk. I'll give you a personal example here, son. My partner is now seven months pregnant. Yeah, I know that's her fucking fault, what a selfish fucking bitch for willing a foetus into the womb, eh? I met her when she was in the early stages of pregnancy, and she did her level best to warn me off and put me off her. It didn't work, I persisted and we fell in love. I invited her to come and live with me. I work part-time and am unable to support us both, so it was time to apply for some benefits. Jobseeker's Allowance? Nope. No company is gonna take on someone who will soon fuck off and take maternity leave and so drain the precious fucking profits, are they? So, we thought we would wait until she had eleven weeks to go before giving birth, when she would be able to request Income Support on account of my Council Tax sky-rocketing and also that she needed to start buying items for the child on the way. Guess what? Nope again! Because it is assumed that my income is going towards her upkeep, she gets nothing! So, I'd be VERY fucking interested to know where you get your bigoted, hateful shit from, because it seems to me that if you had ANY fucking experience with regard to applying for state benefits, which they make you jump through burning hoops and crawl on your belly like a fucking DOG for, you'd know better than to spout the ignorant, ill-informed shite that I quoted above. Enjoy reading the fucking Daily Mail, do you?[/quote']

That is a terrible state of affairs. Could you not like "chuck her out" then the council would be obliged to house her and give her income support.

I hope it all works out for you.