Frank:
In the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, governments were obsessed with building up Gatwick as a hub for a private longhaul airline,
No.
In the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, governments were obsessed with not making any big strategic decisions that may effect their popularity at the next election. Thus successive governments have tinkered with transport policy, instead of grasping the bull (and the unions) by the horns.
Thats why we ended up with no high speed rail network.
That's why we ended up with no planned, clean-sheet airports.
Thats why we ended with no world-class London airport.
Thats why we ended up with our largest sea-port on a lonely stretch of coastline with no road or rail links. (and all the formerly big ports idle or closed).
The whole half century has been a complete shambles, because nobody in government had any vision, and nobody had any balls.
Frank:
Interesting analysis, it illustrates well the Thatcherite chickens are still coming home to roost. Regretably, there is no indication that the "neo-con" Thatcher-Blair hegemony is over.
Thatcher's chickens??? !! You mean Labour's chickens.
It was the Labour administrations that allowed the unions to get the whip hand in industry, and it was the unions who destroyed our manufacturing industry by their short-sighted wage claims (and to hell with the company) - long before Thatcher came to power.
It was Thatcher who put a halt to that, and put the country back on an even keel, where managers could once again manage. Her biggest failing was not doing more for the already ailing manufacturing sector, but by then the creed of world trade and open borders had taken root, and the result was further decimation of our industry.
Then we had Blair, and Blair did not give a stuff about the country. All he wanted was racial equality and multiculturalism, and the economy and industry could take a running jump as far as he was concerned. Indeed, the faster we came down to the level of Ethiopia, the faster he would achieve his racial equality goals (everyone to the lowest common denominator).
Never mind Charles I or James II, the biggest governmental traitor Britain has ever had was Blair. Absolutely nothing was done for the nation, in a full 12 years.
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