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    #26
    Most obnoxious politician ever

    My understanding that it was published in 1962, and Wilson didn't take power until 1964.

    Yes but the cuts were implemented over several years. Most of them under a Labour government that accelerated the cuts rather than stopping them as promised. They did, however, reject Beeching's second report, which promised even more devastating closures.

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      #27
      Most obnoxious politician ever

      Yeah, that's what I thought. The abandoned railway station that I grew up in:

      http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/s/smallford/index.shtml

      Closed in 1969.

      You can see my bedroom window in the third picture down (seeing as how they're so damn precious about it).

      (It's the house on the right, next to the greenhouses)

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        #28
        Most obnoxious politician ever

        Cool (though the photo's been blocked.) I always wanted to live in a converted railway station.

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          #29
          Most obnoxious politician ever

          They converted the main platform into a weighbridge and the station yard into a scrap metal yard. We lived in the station master's house and my dad's office was the ticket office. It closed in 1998. My parents still have the clocking in clock from the ticket office in the front room - it's the only thing that I have specifically requested in their will.

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            #30
            Most obnoxious politician ever

            Callaghan - that oily heap of shit

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              #31
              Most obnoxious politician ever

              I have the same 1974-onwards list to choose from

              Heath - incompetent
              Senile Wilson - incompetent, senile
              Callaghan - incompetent
              Thatcher - evil c*nt
              Major - incompetent, far too happy to perpetuate the iniquities Thatcher started
              Blair - lying, warmongering scumbag
              Brown - incompetent

              It's not a glorious list, is it?

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                #32
                Most obnoxious politician ever

                I didn't know Beeching did a second report. Here's Wikiepdia:

                In 1964, Dr Beeching issued a second, less well-known, report "The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes",[11] widely known as "Beeching II", which went even further than the first report. The report singled out lines that were believed to be worthy of continued large-scale investment.

                Essentially, it proposed all lines other than inter-city routes and important commuter lines around cities had little future and should close. The map on the right shows that if the report had been implemented, the railway would have been cut to 7,000 miles (11,260 km), leaving Britain with little more than a skeletal system. Several parts of the country, including much of Wales, Northern Scotland, Yorkshire, East Anglia and the South West of England, would have been left largely devoid of railways. The entire East Coast Main Line north of Newcastle was included for closure, which would have left the West Coast route via Carlisle as England's only rail link with Glasgow and Edinburgh and what little would be left of the Scottish rail network beyond.

                The report was seen as a step too far and was rejected by the Labour government. Dr Beeching himself resigned in 1965. Although politicians were responsible for rail closures, Dr Beeching's name has become synonymous with them ever since.
                There was the Serpell Report in the early 80s which proposed a number of options, including the infamous "Option A":

                # Option A was a "commercial" network, in which the railways as a whole would make a profit. This scenario would have seen the route mileage reduced by 84%, and annual passenger-miles reduced by 56%. The only main lines left would have been London-Bristol/Cardiff, London-Birmingham-Liverpool/Manchester-Glasgow/Edinburgh, and London-Leeds/Newcastle. Some major commuter lines in the southeast would have been retained; all other lines would have disappeared completely. The passenger sector would still make a small loss, but this would be offset by profits from the freight sector.

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                  #33
                  Most obnoxious politician ever

                  So you regard Chirac as OK on the basis of Iraq?

                  The more I read about Wilson, the less impressed I am with him. The vacuousness of his "white heat" stuff and shameless things like implementing Beeching cuts- having of course campaigned against them. Indeed he closed some lines (eg Oxford-Cambridge) that Beeching hadn't suggested.
                  Chirac was under nowhere near the same amount of pressure as Wilson was. Was he actually under any pressure at all? Remember how zealously anti-Communist the Americans were at the time and on what scale they were fighting the war, remember that this was barely twenty years after the end of WW2 and the relationship between Britain and America was partly based on the notion they were seen to have "bailed us out".

                  That's another argument but Wilson refusing to send troops to Vietnam had massive implications of the relationship between the two countries. There's no such relationship between America and France.

                  Going back to the scale - America lost 40,000 troops. It's safe to assume given the nature of the war and the number of troops America would have eventually expected Britain to deploy British losses would have been in the thousands, possibly five figures.

                  How many troops would the French have even deployed in the Middle East?

                  I don't think you can compare the actions of the two.

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                    #34
                    Most obnoxious politician ever

                    I was born in '63, so my list is:

                    Douglas-Home
                    Wilson
                    Heath
                    Callaghan
                    Thatcher
                    Major
                    Blair
                    Brown

                    I hated Thatcher with a passion for the entirety of her period in office.

                    From reading John Campbell's superb and highly acclaimed two-volume biography of her, I still see some very unpleasant aspects to her character, including amongst others small-mindedness, a massive lack of sympathy or empathy with those from outside her background, philistinism, prejudice and support for capital punishment.

                    I think she made some very bad decisions on some specific issues (e.g. the appallingly unfair and politically suicidal poll tax).

                    And more generally her reforms had a pernicious effect on many aspects of British society and culture.

                    But looking at things in the round, and given the fundamental nation-changing importance of her fight against deeply entrenched but misguided consensus to push through her policies and rescue the country from what would have been terminal commercial and economic decline and her contribution to restoring Britain's standing internationally, I think that overall she is the greatest PM we've had in my lifetime by a long way.

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                      #35
                      Most obnoxious politician ever

                      twohundredpercent wrote:
                      http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/s/smallford/index.shtml
                      BTW that's the greatest site on the entire internet... hauntology dot com! I notice they haven't got the two lines that Julia Bradbury's done on BBC4 though.

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                        #36
                        Most obnoxious politician ever

                        Harry, what did the pressure v Wilson entail?

                        I've just learned Beeching also proposed the single tracking that messes up journeys from the two lines I use most in Gloucs/Worcs. Heaven forbid that towns the size of Gloucester, Cheltenham and Worcester (123000, 110000 and 94000 populations respectively) have proper tracks going towards the south east.

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                          #37
                          Most obnoxious politician ever

                          But looking at things in the round, and given the fundamental nation-changing importance of her fight against deeply entrenched but misguided consensus to push through her policies and rescue the country from what would have been terminal commercial and economic decline and her contribution to restoring Britain's standing internationally, I think that overall she is the greatest PM we've had in my lifetime by a long way.

                          I'd agree with that if all of us had to suffer equal deprivations to make her reforms work, but we didn't. Huge swathes of the UK (usually the bits that didn't vote Tory) were stripped of their industries and simply left to rot.

                          And her swingeing NHS cuts in Scotland shortened the lives of two of my grandparents, so as far as I'm concerned the bitch can burn in hell.

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                            #38
                            Most obnoxious politician ever

                            You don't know him yet, but this cunt has a great future ahead of him. You could tell that he was always going to be a tory candidate because he always trips that "I want to grind a pintglass in your face" reflex, even when you're at your most mellow. Look at how smug he is. I wish I could find the picture of him with margaret Thatcher.

                            in Ireland we have This guy

                            Elected on the basis of his father's selfless public service (his dad, an indian, is the GP for Blanchardstown) Leo likes to shit on the public sector, oh and he doesn't think much of immigrants. He's a real pull the ladder up behind you knobend. He is part of the lunatic fringe of Fine Gael that thinks that Irish politics could be improved if only we became more like the Neo-conservative fringe of the Republican party. He is the single most arrogant person I've ever met, and that takes some doing. Unfortunately Fine Gael is such a talent free collection of walking cabbages, that if they ever get to power, Leo is likely to walk into a cabinet position, without the slightest difficulty, despite being entirely unsuitable, and ideologically extreme.

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                              #39
                              Most obnoxious politician ever

                              Among all the other bad stuff, notably unemployment, I'm not sure NHS spending was that bad under Thatcher. "Real terms" is a dubious expression but even factoring in the ageing population, slightly higher wage costs and the prices paid by the NHS for drugs etc, it did rise by about 1.5% per year. I wonder how long Brown/Cameron will match that for.

                              Clearly other EU countries increased it by much more than that, but that isn't the same as cuts.

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                                #40
                                Most obnoxious politician ever

                                Fuck me, that bloke of Colm's is shit. Check out his one on how Cameron's actually done so much in life. Apparently he invented CCTV.

                                He's so bad, I'm warming to some of the people responding to him.

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                                  #41
                                  Most obnoxious politician ever

                                  it did rise by about 1.5% per year

                                  I don't doubt that figure is true across the UK as whole, but it certainly wasn't the case in Glasgow and Ayrshire; hospitals disappeared at a dizzying rate, and of the ones that remained, I saw the likes of Glasgow Royal, Stobhill, Crosshouse and Monklands being run into the ground.

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                                    #42
                                    Most obnoxious politician ever

                                    Tubby Isaacs wrote:
                                    Harry, what did the pressure v Wilson entail?
                                    The British economy was in hock to the Treasury at the start of the conflict, the sterling was in frequent crisis (crises?) and had been bailed out by the US treasury, although that in itself was done largely because a mass devaluation of the pound would have a negative effect on the dollar.

                                    A number of LBJ's closest advisors were advocating withdrawal of support for the pound unless Britain stepped up its military presence "East of Suez", obviously a thinly veiled reference to Vietnam. Later on in the same year - 65 I think - this went further and another senior advisor to LBJ, McGeorge Bundy, who was immensely powerful and apparently the hawk of hawks at that time (though he later regretted his influence in the escalatiion of the war) said something along the lines of "it's a nonsense to support the pound when there is no British flag in Vietnam".

                                    Of course if the Americans had withdrawn support for the pound it would have been catastrophic for Wilson. To be fair to LBJ, who was furious that he didn't have UK support, this wasn't an option he pursued not least because he felt that if it came out that Britain had in effect been blackmailed into joining the war, it would have heavily damaged America's reputation and standing in the West.

                                    Arguably on that basis it was never that likely, but it was a backdrop and Wilson obviously had a lot to lose.

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                                      #43
                                      Most obnoxious politician ever

                                      And I am the Life wrote:
                                      [quote]You don't know him yet, but this cunt has a great future ahead of him.

                                      Thanks for putting that up. I'd never even heard of that bloke, who is indeed a cunt.

                                      Political correctness gone mad, the biased liberal media, the silent (he means racist) majority, Islingtonista's (wonder where he lives - he is a barrister after all), Britain ruled by Europe - it's all here!

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                                        #44
                                        Most obnoxious politician ever

                                        I have a great story about him that I mightn't necessarily print here, because even though I know it's 100% true, I doubt the person who told me the story would rush to my defence if I was being sued.

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                                          #45
                                          Most obnoxious politician ever

                                          This is my fear with the Nu-modern Tories - that never mind the whole Cameron mood music covering common-or-garden tories, there's serious fruitloops wingnuts like that prick who really do venerate the neo-cons.

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                                            #46
                                            Most obnoxious politician ever

                                            Colm, I think I need a PM on this subject.

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                                              #47
                                              Most obnoxious politician ever

                                              i will do, but it'll be probably after the weekend. I have a mind to lose, and a birthday to celebrate. Please remind me.

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                                                #48
                                                Most obnoxious politician ever

                                                I will do.

                                                Terrifying indeed. It's not just that these people are there but they seem to be regarded as "thinking Tories". As ever, the Tory party can't tell the difference between ideology and principles.

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                                                  #49
                                                  Most obnoxious politician ever

                                                  Beating E10 to it, and pinching his words.

                                                  Baroness Warsi- "shrill, hectoring and mental" on Question Time last night. Dispatched by Roy Hattersley like Andy Flower putting away a bad ball off my bowling.

                                                  She fluffed even the easiest of right wing shots. "Sex education for 5 year olds" gave some scope (if a bit of stretch about what was proposed) but she went into one about "don't mess with my kids", like a bad parent laying into a social worker.

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