!.6 million at the end ? That was gained by manipulating the figures , by lots of means , including the useless YTS scheme etc etc

There are frequent accusations about manipulating figures and of course figures are always manipulated by both sides of the argument.

As for the YTS scheme like so many similar schemes up to the present day, they are always abused as there is seldom proper oversight.

I did actually try to get a YTS trainee, or YOP, I can't quite remember, we had an opportunity for a young person who if, after training, proved to be capable, to end up with a job but apparently we didn't qualify although I've no idea why not.

I remember the inflation of the 70s when, being self employed, I was lucky that my work increased sufficiently to keep pace although by 1980 I was no better off in real terms than I was in 1971 and I did have to do a lot more work for it so voting for a person who was determined to change things was an obvious course of action.

I also welcomed the poll tax, I saw my annual payment drop from £700 to £250, however I can see why it promoted so many objections.

One reason I suspect may be that, like shops did with decimalisation, councils used the opportunity to make disguised increases and another where those living in rented property received a demand for tax where previously the landlord was paying rates, said landlord getting a nice bonus not passed to the tenant in the form of a rent reduction.

If everything MT did was so bad, why haven't governments since made any changes, even the preventing of money gained from council house sales used to build more which I can't recollect anyone supporting, hasn't been reversed by real efforts to sufficiently increase the housing stock and which has largely contributed to today's benefit problems.

Sus law? From the 1979 Royal Commission efforts were a continuous process to deal with the problem of stop and search, unfortunately anti terrorist legislation is in danger of putting us back where we started if it hasn't already.