Sometimes the sites on this forum get me interested enough to comment and this thread is one of them.
The comments above seem to me to reflect the growing sense that politics has become tribal. There have been a number of interesting discussions on radio and in the newspapers expressing this view. It seems that people now believe that their side is the right side, and that the ‘others’ are totally wrong in their opinions. Compromise and give and take are now very dirty words, a situation I would suggest that has been brought about by ‘social media’.
I hold no candle for Tony Blair. He had his good points and his bad, and I think that most of us would fall into that category. However lets go back to before social media, to 1979 to 1990; the Thatcher years.
If some pretty silly decisions had not been made by the MoD, Treasury, and the Foreign Office, I think that it is unlikely the Falklands War would have happened.
In addition some interesting decisions made on exchange rates, and the way to spend the tax revenues from North Sea Oil resulted in the devastation of our industrial base. Sure union power needed to be curtailed, but something should also have been done about the appalling quality of management at the same time.
Now the reason that I mention all this, is that if I were to ask practically any of my friends and relatives in the north if Maggie should have got an honour after leaving office, then I have no doubt what the answer would have been. If there had been a petition available to ask if she should have got an honour on leaving office then I would suggest that there would have been a dam sight more that a million signatures on it, even if most of them would have been from people living north of Milton Keynes.
What I am trying to say, is live and let live. Have a bit of ‘give and take’ for the other side, and a bit less of ‘disgusted from Tunbridge Wells’.
My opinion on the honours system. Most of it should be scrapped. Buying Knighthoods and a seat in the House of Lords, getting Knighthoods as part of the job spec., stinks. By all means lets give out gongs for bravery but as for the rest.......
Last edited by staircase; 4th Jan 2022 at 09:43.