We have all been working in different number bases, perhaps without realising it. Sixty minutes to the hour, twenty four hours to the day, seven days to a week. Not to mention, thirty one, thirty, twenty eight, or twenty nine days a month every four years; with twelve months to a year. Despite the apparent complication, there seems to be no demand to decimalise time, or the calendar.

So using ounces, pounds, stones, inches, feet, yards, furlongs, miles, knots, and other imperial measures, was right all along.

The point of teaching the theory behind number bases in maths is important in explaining that although most things might be done using decimal, it is purely a convention, with no special mathematical or scientific distinction over any other base.

Steven

I remember very well as a young child, the misery her decisions brought to our household. As strong as we were it led to a lot of break up, and the loss of so much to us all. And my family wasn’t the only ones that got destroyed.

Really? I remember Labour’s three day week, power cuts, 26% inflation, IMF bailouts, union barons intimidating their members, and Jim Callaghan’s remark of “Crisis? What crisis?”, in his summation of the last years of his premiership. The damage done in the five Labour years, before Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, were immense.

Steven

I do notice with the media coverage on the passing of Baroness Thatcher That most of those who are celebrating with glee at her death appear to lifes social missfits or losers . I can only think that by their general comments & behaviour , that they would have been social missfits & losers nomatter who had been in power . Some people are using Ms Thatcher as a whipping boy for their own sad under achievement & miserable existence.

I wonder how proud Ed Miliband feels at seeing his core voters come out to play like that?

Steven

As for the rest of it – it wasn’t Margaret Thatcher who destroyed industry. It was the bosses who were complacent and the workers who thought their unions were all powerful. Together they destroyed our industry and it started long before Mrs Thatcher got into power but most people choose to forget that. Its great to blame one person for the demise of industry but the reality is that we didn’t buy our own products -so whether it was Triumph bikes -BL cars -Meccano or a wealth of other items the customer voted with its feet and bought abroad.

Yes, the decline started long before the nineteen eighties. I briefly worked in the motorcycle industry in 1972-73. At the beginning of the sixties the UK motorcycle industry was the largest in the world. However, by the time I got involved there it was obvious that it could not compete with its old products and chronic labour problems. I left for other opportunities. This was the right decision as by the end of the decade, UK motorcycle production and its industry had gone.

It is striking how much traction the myth that Thatcher caused industrial decline has had. Yet a simple look at British industry from the postwar period to 1979 does not make good reading. From a position of a wealth of higher tech leads and opportunities, radar, computers, electronics, aviation, medicine, machine tools, and chemicals, the postwar governments favoured the manual labour union dominated industries. If you wanted a job, it was most likely to be found in shipbuilding, steelworks, coalmining, dockyards, steam railways, and the utilities. The automotive industry, which could have offered both mass employment and higher quality engineering, was hobbled by government restrictions on raw materials and a preference for meeting the simpler needs of the export market.

It is no surprise that when Margaret Thatcher came to power she faced a formidable task in halting the decline and putting Britain back on the road to recovery.

As for the trivial matter of school milk, it was the Labour government who first abolished it for secondary schools, in about 1967.

Steven

Margaret Thatcher’s appeal was worldwide, with even former enemies acknowledging her.

Steven

Without Mrs Thatcher, we would never have been able to watch ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’ on television.

Without Mrs. Thatcher standing up to the Common Market, surely it would have been, “Jawohl, Mein Chancellor” for all of us.

Steven

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2305751/Margaret-Thatcher-dead-Former-prime-minister-dies-87-massive-stroke.html

Margaret Hilda Thatcher. Thank you for standing up against those who would do us harm. Sleep well, Iron Lady.

Steven

I actually believe that the deceased’s actions in curbing the power of the unions was benefical to Britain, however ordinary miners can hardly be described as benefiting from special priviledges.
They were struggling to maintain livelihoods.
Whether you agree with their cause, their leadership (or lack of) and the way they went about protesting, or not, your contempt for them speaks volumes about you…

The Labour dominated nineteen seventies ended with major bankruptcies, industrial chaos, 26% inflation, and a sclerotic state dominated industrial base. We were already struggling to maintain a living, but Mrs. Thatcher had to change all of that.

Surely the villain of this piece was Scargill? He got the miners into a politically motivated strike that they could not win. He made the mistake of underestimating Mrs. Thatcher and the will of the population not to be dominated by uncontrollable union barons. As I said before, the modern Labour party fully supports her legislation.

Steven