The Enemy Within: Miner's strike and the Tories today

[Questions]

Reading the last verse of Atilla's poem though does remind me of how hypocritical it all is. The 'miners hold the country to ransom' and get battered but the bankers do what they did and carry on regardless without sufficient legislation even to this day put a in place.

Who's your friend ? Who you fighting For?

 

[jakarta]

no one liked the mines, hard work and everyone wanted their sons to do better for themselves, i have family that left Merthyr in the 30's to start farming to improve their lot. they'd be shut by now anyway as we move away from coal for energy, another factor that many chose to ignore on the subject.

I do love how a lot of people of a Brighton and Hove Albion Messageboard pontificate on the pros and cons of Coal Mining when I am sure they have never been down a pit in their lives (I have, 4 in total including a Portland Stone Mine in Dorset which is still open and I visit annually).

It was an absolutely horrible way to make your living, tens of thousands of miners were killed in accidents and tens of thousands more died of lung disease. It produced a filthy product which caused massive amounts of pollution and contributed to killing the general public via smogs.

A good mate of mine who does the same thing for a living as me comes from South Wales and learnt his trade working for the NCB. He lost an Uncle and a Great Uncle to Silicosis and he has absolutely no time for anyone who is nostalgic for the Industry.

How the communities were largely ignored post closures is another matter of course.....

 

[Machiavelli]

Coming, on my father's side, from mining stock, I would confess to not being objective about this. Broadly, I agree with Cheshire Cat's analysis. The hatred between the NUM (and its predecessors) and the Tory Party runs/ran deep, pre-dating even the 1972 and 1974 "victories" over a Conservative administration in which Thatcher was a minister. The General Strike of 1926 was essentially a battle between the miners, supported by the wider labour movement, and a Conservative government.

Working my way through David Kynaston's excellent series of books about post-war Britain, it is clear that the nationalisation of the mines (and indeed the railways, too) by the Labour Government of 1945-51 missed a tremendous opportunity to create a more consensually based approach to management. Subsequently, for the rest of the 50s through to the 70s, however, very rarely did any government, Labour or Conservative, fight too hard against miners' wage demands.

This, perhaps, had created unrealistic expectations and I think it is fair to say that Scargill misjudged the situation in 1983-84. It is also fair to say that the Thatcher government had to "break" the miners and was preparing to do so well in advance of the strike being called, eg, by stockpiling coal. Scargill was both a bad tactician and strategist, particularly in starting a miners strike in the spring rather than as winter set in. Whether the pits were uneconomic or not is hard to assess. For all every Conservative government's praise of the free market, all sorts of subsidies, overt and hidden, are given which make it very difficult, if not impossible, to asses the genuine economic state of enterprises.

The 1984-5 miners strike and the Wapping dispute (print workers) of 1986 were the death knell of organised labour as a political force in Britain. From that point of view, the free market at least won the battle. I would argue that everything that has followed, a country which is the fifth or sixth wealthiest in the world, but also has in excess of one million people reliant on foodbanks, for example, is a result of the defeat of organised labour. People must look to their own consciences as to whether or not they think that the misery and despair of maybe 20% of this country's population is a fair price to pay for the defeat of one trade union. I certainly don't.

I highly recommend the Kynaston trilogy (so far) - Austerity Britain, Family Britain, Modernity Britain.

You're quite right, Kynaston is the best historian of post-war Britain.

 

[Machiavelli]

I actually supported the miners and i picketed at Wapping where my dad was on strike for a year, but do you actually make a living from this juvenile crap ?? Its laughably bad especially the highlighted part.

And do you really think that there's no connection between the manner in which the police were let loose on mining communities, with the South Yorkshire constabulary to the fore, and the manner in which the South Yorkshire police covered-up what went on at Hillsborough and told a tissue of lies (which has subsequently been established in the Law Courts)?

 

[glasfryn]

it was always a surprise to me how many ex-miners I met in Wales who were still out of work or working in some shite job they hated who still instisted on voting tory.............totally mind boggling

 

[symyjym]

There comes a point where some industries are just too big for the government to subsidise and make efficient. There is no incentive for the workers to streamline production if they are happy to rely on, what was basically, state handouts. Every time they went on strike the government gave in to their demands, and that is not sustainable especially when it was cheaper to import.

On top of that, homes were being fitted with gas central heating so the demand was in decline on street level. We still use coal power stations though, and some mining communities took ownership and responsibility of the pits using entrepreneurial principles, changing the business model, and made them profitable, so that was an option that many didn’t grasp at the time.

It's a dirty fuel anyway and the less we use the better.

 

[glasfryn]

There comes a point where some industries are just too big for the government to subsidise and make efficient. There is no incentive for the workers to streamline production if they are happy to rely on, what was basically, state handouts. Every time they went on strike the government gave in to their demands, and that is not sustainable especially when it was cheaper to import.



On top of that, homes were being fitted with gas central heating so the demand was in decline on street level. We still use coal power stations though, and some mining communities took ownership and responsibility of the pits using entrepreneurial principles, changing the business model, and made them profitable, so that was an option that many didn’t grasp at the time.

It's a dirty fuel anyway and the less we use the better.

did'nt stop them buying out some banks when the got us all in the shite

 

[Machiavelli]

This is something that should be highlighted over and over again when the lefties spout on. Thatcher just continued what Laboir was already doing, for all the right reasons.

No, Thatcher's aim was not about closing down the mines for economic reasons. It was a political project. Organised labour was a significant obstacle to that political project and she set a trap which Scargill -- with his naive understanding of politics -- walked straight in to.

And something else needs mentioning: those out of work skyrocketed as a result of this political project; many of these were from the mining communities, who were kept off unemployment benefit -- as this would have illustrated the extent of unemployment -- and were put on disability and other related benefits. It wasn't New Labour that created the generations of those out of work (although they didn't confront it) in former industrial communities, it was Thatcher. See:

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/04/margaret-thatcher-in-six-graphs/

The rise in state spending under Thatcher was in no small part in the rise of those out-of-work benefits not categorised under unemployment. It is stated more clearly in this article:

http://www.scriptonitedaily.com/201...ess-left-out-of-uk-govt-unemployment-figures/

 

[alfredmizen]

And do you really think that there's no connection between the manner in which the police were let loose on mining communities, with the South Yorkshire constabulary to the fore, and the manner in which the South Yorkshire police covered-up what went on at Hillsborough and told a tissue of lies (which has subsequently been established in the Law Courts)?

Probably not ,the police have ALWAYS lied and covered up to protect themselves, whatever force has found themselves in the shit, do you really think thatcher smiled on hearing the news of the Hillsborough disaster ? a simple yes or no will do.

 

[alfredmizen]

Yes I do. Get over it

Im not bothered , just amazed that you can earn money from wolfie smith style dross like that.

 

[Chicken Run]

it was always a surprise to me how many ex-miners I met in Wales who were still out of work or working in some shite job they hated who still instisted on voting tory.............totally mind boggling

If you think mining wasn't a shite job then your blinkered. What made it palatable was the generous salary, way ahead I might add than most jobs of the time.

 

[symyjym]

did'nt stop them buying out some banks when the got us all in the shite

That's for a different thread, but if they didn't, their customers "us" would have lost all their savings. I am not too sure if they had much choice and were damned if they did, and damned if they didn't

 

[glasfryn]

If you think mining wasn't a shite job then your blinkered. What made it palatable was the generous salary, way ahead I might add than most jobs of the time.

Oh no you are right it was a shite job .........................but it was the only job in town
I went down a mine near Rotherham a long time ago ............never again

 

[Mr Bridger]

it was always a surprise to me how many ex-miners I met in Wales who were still out of work or working in some shite job they hated who still instisted on voting tory.............totally mind boggling

Because the alternative is even worse

 

[fataddick]

Let us not forget the other major protagonist, Mick McGahey. Leader of the Scottish miners and lifelong communist.

You use the word 'communist' like it's a bad thing, when it is of course the exact opposite - something that should be pretty obvious given the recent wholesale failure of capitalism (nationalising banks, ffs!).

Quite a lot of Cold War capitalism v communism ideology stuff at play in the Miner's Strike, and most socio-political conflicts of that era.

It's sad how the filmmakers completely wrote out the fact the gay activists depicted in the film 'Pride' were all Communist Party members (indeed, the leader was chair of the CP's youth wing) - their reasoning being that even 21st century American audiences are incapable of empathising with a 'commie' protagonist. *sigh*

 

[wellquickwoody]

NEVER FORGET
(Dedicated to the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign)

I remember my stepfather moaning
In the first strike in ’72
‘Miners holding the country to ransom…..’
I was fourteen. I thought about you.
You worked underground, often in danger.
Hewed the coal we depended upon.
He earned more checking tax forms in Brighton.
I knew then just whose side I was on.

I remember Kent pickets at Shoreham
When our port bosses shipped in scab coal.
By the time they were back twelve years later
A new anger burned deep in my soul.
You’d won once, but this time would be harder
For your foe was no bumbling Heath.
It was Thatcher, revenge her agenda.
A class warrior, armed to the teeth.

You were miners on strike for your future:
For your pits, your communities, ways.
We were punks, poets, anarchists, lesbians.
Theatre groups, Rastafarians, gays.
Different worlds in a rainbow alliance
Standing firm and determined to win.
And Thatcher lumped us all together:
Punk or miner. The enemy within.

As a poet, I crisscrossed the country
From Durham to Yorkshire to Kent
Doing benefits, arguing, learning.
Raising funds that were so quickly spent.
Playing a tiny role in that great battle
That you fought so hard and to the last.
A battle so proudly remembered
Now that thirty long years have passed.

I remember those pictures from Orgreave.
Police faces contorted with hate.
The communities brutalized, shattered
By the raw, naked power of the state.
If it took guns and tanks to defeat you
She’d have used guns and tanks on you too.
The veneer of democracy shattered.
The hired thugs of the privileged few.

After Orgreave came Wapping, then Hillsborough.
With the press and police on her side
Thatcher smiled as the printers were beaten
And those ninety six football fans died.
She had a quite open agenda
Summed up well when she famously said
That there’s no such thing as a society.
Don’t blame us for being glad that she’s dead.

Now the bankers destroy the economy
And the poor and the sick get the blame
And our once proud and strong labour movement
Is shackled, and timid, and tame
But this poet will always remember
All the brave men and women I met
We will carry on fighting for justice -

And we’ll never, no never, forget.

A good poet, a great Albion fan, but politically childish.

 

[golddene]

I cannot be arsed to read the whole thread but in my opinion Thatcher made it a personal crusade to destroy the miners rightly or wrongly, the economics I'm my opinion were that although heavily subsidised the mining industry was at least contributing to the economy, but by throwing all these folk out of work and then having to support every family to exist was complete and utter folly at least while in work these people were producing a saleable commodity and were supporting themselves, paying taxes, etc, etc, but the consequence of destroying the industry and putting whole communities on benefits was the economics of the asylum with Thatcher the mad evil psychiatrist. Just my opinion like!

 

[ThePompousPaladin]

The thing that i found most depressing was the misleading footage the BBC showed of the miners 'picnic'.

They first showed the miners 'rioting' they then second showed the police charging on horses. In reality it happened the other way around.
It was dramatic footage and swayed many people to the government's side of the argument. If the real footage of the day had been shown then maybe there would have been a different outcome to the strike.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-27893072

It goes to show how easy it is to manipulate people.

 

[wellquickwoody]

If we ever play Donny or Barnsley again, do a detour to Goldthorpe or any of the nearby pit villages. If Boro don't go up, likewise Easington. See what happened to those places, and many, many more. ....
UK miners produced some of the cheapest coal in Europe at the pithead. The reason some European coal was cheaper on the market is because other European countries' governments subsidised their coal industries far more than ours did, because they rightly saw the social aspect of closures as part of the overall picture, not just 'economics'.

See post 26.

 

[wellquickwoody]

'Thatcher smiled as the printers were beaten'

Too right she did, as an ex printer with hindsight, we were taking the pixx!

She did what was needed.