Miners Strike

[Hornblower]

Judging from some of what I read on here I expect I will get buckets of abuse from the pro-tory mob for posting this. I am in the middle of reading David Peace's book GB84 which is all about the miners strike and have been looking at footage on Youtube. I came across this haunting piece, beautiful music and sobering images. I truly hate Thatcher for what she did to these people and how she completely destroyed the relationship between communities and the police in the pit areas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOVwewzTi-8&feature=fvwrel

 

[Gritt23]

Unfortunately for all of the Thatcher-haters she is not responsible for the geology of the country that meant we had already extracted as much coal from the ground as was economic to mine.

Will it be Alex Salmons fault if he is in charge of Scotland when the oil runs out?

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Unfortunately for all of the Thatcher-haters she is not responsible for the geology of the country that meant we had already extracted as much coal from the ground as was economic to mine.

Eh?

 

[El Presidente]

Judging from some of what I read on here I expect I will get buckets of abuse from the pro-tory mob for posting this. I am in the middle of reading David Peace's book GB84 which is all about the miners strike and have been looking at footage on Youtube. I came across this haunting piece, beautiful music and sobering images. I truly hate Thatcher for what she did to these people and how she completely destroyed the relationship between communities and the police in the pit areas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOVwewzTi-8&feature=fvwrel

All his books are very intense. This one was very disturbing but a fantastic read nonetheless.

 

[Kumquat]

Unfortunately for all of the Thatcher-haters she is not responsible for the geology of the country that meant we had already extracted as much coal from the ground as was economic to mine.

Will it be Alex Salmons fault if he is in charge of Scotland when the oil runs out?

The problem is not what she did, but the spped and how she did it. The mines were not as economically viable and cuts were inevitable, but the legacy exists today because Thatcher's Government failed miserably to help people retrain and learn new skills to access new jobs. Geoffrey Howe virtually admitted that they screwed up recently. As part of my job A few years back, I visite dmany of the old mining communities and they are riven with generational unemployment, kids being born into families who have never worked because mining was all they knew. The Last Labour Government tried to inject money into these regions to help them retrain and set up businesses and access jobs, but they also failed.

 

[BHAFC_Pandapops]

The problem is not what she did, but the spped and how she did it. The mines were not as economically viable and cuts were inevitable, but the legacy exists today because Thatcher's Government failed miserably to help people retrain and learn new skills to access new jobs. Geoffrey Howe virtually admitted that they screwed up recently. As part of my job A few years back, I visite dmany of the old mining communities and they are riven with generational unemployment, kids being born into families who have never worked because mining was all they knew. The Last Labour Government tried to inject money into these regions to help them retrain and set up businesses and access jobs, but they also failed.

agree, it it's done quickly, it gives a lot of people time to adjust.

 

[Beach Hut]

I suspect many more people hate blair for taking us into a war we should not be in

 

[Spiros]

Remind me - was it Thatcher who called the miners out on an unofficial and unballoted strike or was it Arthur Scargill? A lot of the unpleasantness was due to the actions of the strikers against those who wanted to carry on working because they had never had a chance to vote for or against the strike. Also Scargill was determined to bring down the (democratically elected) Tory governement because he didn't like it. Pit closures were just his excuse to get a strike going which he thought would bring the country to it's knees.

 

[Mellotron]

Cue 7 pages of "Thatcher destroyed/saved the country" - delete as appropriate.

Boring.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

Eh?

You didn't realise it was about geology then ?

 

[jakarta]

Eh?

I used to work in Widnes about a mile from Fiddlers Ferry power station which was built above a coal seam (Bold Colliery in St Helens I think).

It ended up using Venezulean coal shipped from half way across the world because it was cheaper!

You could argue that the Venezulean miners were probably woefully underpaid but thats Economics.

From my background I far rather deplore the wholesale destruction of the UK Car and Motorcycle Industry, which removed skilled engineering jobs, rather than the (on the whole) unskilled, dirty and dangerous Mining Industry.....

 

[sydney]

enoch powell.......hero to many...words ringing in ears etc.etc. history .....moving along...

 

[Beach Hut]

Cue 7 pages of "Thatcher destroyed/saved the country" - delete as appropriate.

Boring.

Agreed, another pointless discussion on Mrs T who was the greatest modern day leader

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I am in the middle of reading David Peace's book GB84 which is all about the miners strike

Tremendous book

 

[Hornblower]

Remind me - was it Thatcher who called the miners out on an unofficial and unballoted strike or was it Arthur Scargill? A lot of the unpleasantness was due to the actions of the strikers against those who wanted to carry on working because they had never had a chance to vote for or against the strike. Also Scargill was determined to bring down the (democratically elected) Tory governement because he didn't like it. Pit closures were just his excuse to get a strike going which he thought would bring the country to it's knees.

Ahh the sweet smell of innocent naivety......

The National Conference of the NUM had already approved the strike.

 

[teaboy]

Will it be Alex Salmons fault if he is in charge of Scotland when the oil runs out?

Did the coal run out then? Everywhere? Really? Did Scargill think a strike would create more coal?

 

[Nibble]

Unfortunately for all of the Thatcher-haters she is not responsible for the geology of the country that meant we had already extracted as much coal from the ground as was economic to mine.

Will it be Alex Salmons fault if he is in charge of Scotland when the oil runs out?

Totally incorrect, most mines were still perfectly capable of turning a profit

 

[keaton]

Hillsborough and Battle of Orgreave: one police force, two disgraces | Football | The Guardian

I read this earlier

 

[simmo]

I suspect many more people hate blair for taking us into a war we should not be in

Very true, especially the relatives of the 179 UK military personal whom died in Iraq as a direct result of Tony Blair's actions.

 

[Gritt23]

Totally incorrect, most mines were still perfectly capable of turning a profit

Easy to say, harder to prove.

Empirical evidence just doesn't seem to back that up though does it. Jakarta's post kind of sums it up, coal being shipped in from around teh World was cheaper, and often of better quality.

If there was still a profit to be made, how come no-one has bought up these old mines, re-opened them and cashed in? We hear plenty about non-renewable fuel sources being scarce, and the labour in these areas would be cheap because of the horrific levels of unemployment that many of these areas still suffer, so why has no-one ever mined these areas since?