The British have no fight in them any more

by liamssoft | December 9, 2012 at 10:43 pm

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"Goodbye, Great Britain," a Wall Street Journal editorial concluded. "It was nice knowing you." Henry Kissinger told President Ford that Britain had sunk to "begging, borrowing and stealing". In his memoir Lucky George, the diplomat-turned-politician George Walden recalled talking to a leader of the French Communist party. Far from being pleased by the economic and political chaos in Britain, the communist was appalled. "It's not what we expect from you," shouted the supposed revolutionary. "The English are supposed to be an anchor of stability in democratic Europe."....Read more

When establishment commentators talked of the "crisis of the 70s", what they meant was that organised labour could restrict the powerful's freedom of movement.

With organised labour now emasculated, managers and owners can reward themselves without restraint and governments can stagger from blunder to blunder without a thought for those who must suffer the consequences.

Forty years on and we are in a different kind of crisis. A crisis brought by the elite rather than the masses. And the most frightening thing about it is that the elite is not frightened any more.

guardian.co.uk

THE SEEDS OF DISASTER

In the Seventies, as today, the roots of the crisis began with economic hubris turning to disaster.

Years of reckless spending and monetary incontinence came to an end on New Year's Day 1974, when Edward Heath's Conservative government imposed an unprecedented three-day week to cope with the aftermath of the OPEC oil shock and industrial action by the militant miners' union.

Factories and shops were limited to just three days of power, street lights were turned off and even television ended at10.30 every night.....Read more

dailymail.co.uk