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

[knocky1]

The Nottinghamshire Scabs played their part [MENTION=15909]OGH[/MENTION] libido.

 

[attila]

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.

 

[Elvis]

For those interested in this very important part of our recent history ' Marching To The Fault Line' by Francis Beckett and David Hencke is an essential read.

 

[knocky1]

Don't forget many stand up comics and poets rose to prominence at the time. Jeremy Hardy, Ben Elton, Atilla someone spring to mind. saw many good Miners Benefit gigs in London at the time.

 

[Soulman]

So I was born in '85 and have never really managed to piece the miners' strike together.

But it seems to me that a lot of people, my age and younger, have a great deal of antipathy to the Conservative's because of this time.

Seems like most people are agreed that the mines were loss making and so drained the government coffers in trying to keep them open. Seems like most people would say that Thatcher had 'bought' the Police, who were very heavy handed. I once dated a girl whose northern father delighted in tales of 'gravel rashing' miners in the north of England.

So my simplistic take on this is: shutting them down was the right way to go, but the mistake was demonizing the miners ('the enemy within') and a lack of interest in their future employment possibilities.

1) So, have I got this right? What am I missing?

2) Seems like there are a lot of young people who weren't around and have grown up in a completely different world who 'have never forgiven' the Tories for this period. When will the Tories slip loose from this association, if ever?

In 1984 when the miners strike was full on i was working in Doncaster. I spent 9 months on the refurb of the precinct. The shopping centre was empty, and i remember the desolation of the town.
I spoke to quite a few miners, brought a few pints for some, and listened as well. In fact our firm had a Christmas bash at Tadcaster colliery social club.
Cheshire Cat's take on the situation is near the mark. I think Scargill needed to be stopped, he was going to far.
Having said that, i talked to a couple of Geordie miners, their pit had been closed, they had been relocated to a pit that had just been updated and was supposedly the most advanced in the world. This pit had been making a loss for years, but in the two months after refurb it had made a profit, the pit was closed and had been on the hit list and a couple of billion was wasted on it's refurb.
The whole situation was a mess, apparently underneath ur soil we have the richest seams in the world.
A stronge political leader, a bit of an ego maniac in charge of the Union........the mining towns and it's people suffered.

 

[Chicken Run]

Was watching an episode of skint the other night with the father of one particular lay about suggesting it all went wrong in Merthyr when they closed the mine, my brother was earning £750 pw in the late 70's he mused, I'm not surprised they went bust.

 

[attila]

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'.

 

[OGH's Libido]

Was watching an episode of skint the other night with the father of one particular lay about suggesting it all went wrong in Merthyr when they closed the mine, my brother was earning £750 pw in the late 70's he mused, I'm not surprised they went bust.

I saw that too, and that is what got me thinking, particularly as it was shown in the run up to the election. I feel for these people, they are living on a Welsh mountain in the middle of nowhere 20+ years after it all closed down. But what can be done about it? As an aside, when the middle aged toilet cleaner (who'd just been made redundant by the council) read her CV out, it pretty much broke my heart! I'm currently looking for full time work too.

 

[atfc village]

David Wilkie RIP

 

[El Presidente]

But manufacturing never had a chance, right? The Chinese were opening up and others were getting it together around the world, we couldn't compete on prices etc. - wasn't it a case of good judgement?

They cope in Germany, despite higher wages there than here.

There has been a collective lack of investment in science, technology, engineering and maths in this country for a couple of generations now. Combine that with some pig headed union leadership on occasion and clueless industrial management, with the emphasis on short term returns and bonuses, and that's why manufacturing contributes just 8% of the workforce here compared to 30% in Germany.

If you want to read a good book about the strike, then GB84 by David Peace is brilliant, but disturbing.

 

[bobby baxter]

*cough* Labour closed more mines under James Callaghan than Thatcher *cough*

True..but, those that were closed were mines where it was elther totally uneconomic or dangerous or exhausted, closed following consultation and agreement with the union representing the miners.
What followed under Thatcher was completely different.

 

[beorhthelm]

So my simplistic take on this is: shutting them down was the right way to go, but the mistake was demonizing the miners ('the enemy within') and a lack of interest in their future employment possibilities.

thats a pretty sensible summary. the government didnt really think about what would happen after the mines shut down. i suppose they expected people to do what they always had, move on to find new work, like they had to the mines in the first place a few generations before. 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.

 

[Lenny Rider]

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.

All very entertaining John but an honest answer please, had Scargill defeated Thatcher, would this country now be in better position?

 

[jon12345]

This is quite an interesting documentary on the Miner's strike.

Especially for people under 30 It explains the strike but also shows what life was then.

Enjoy and make your own mind up:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/when-britain-went-to-war/on-demand/36247-001

 

[Questions]

In your opinion.......

Given the choice between Thatcher or Scargill calling the shots, I'd have taken Thatcher every time.

If it had been firing the shots.......then I agree , I'd have taken Thatcher every time.


Even the pits that had reached the productivity levels that Heseltine had set were still threatened with closure. It made no sense. Scargill was a pratt no doubt but look at all the other fights Thatcher picked with other unions. It was political. I'm glad the Notts miners got their comeuppance in the following years anyway.

 

[attila]

All very entertaining John but an honest answer please, had Scargill defeated Thatcher, would this country now be in better position?

'This country' is comprised of various strata with mutually exclusive interests, Ian. If the miners had won we would certainly be a much fairer and humane kind of society where manufacturing still happened and there were a **** of a lot less coffee shops and call centres. In my opinion a majority of people, including many who subjectively considered themselves opposed to the miners' struggle would, in objective economic and social terms, be in a far better place than they are now. Although maybe not in Worthing Hope all's good mate.

 

[Ernest]

When the miners won, money won not the people or society which has led us to where we are today, the haves sneering and gloating at those less fortunate then themselves

 

[alfredmizen]

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.

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.

 

[bobby baxter]

The problem with our manufacturing industries is with the unions this countries workers were overpaid for what they did for a number of years and were priced out of the market when the Chinese and others came into the game.

What do you base that assumption, that workers were overpaid, on?
Are you suggesting British workers workers should recieve the same pay as Chinese workers, £25 - £30 a month?

 

[attila]

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.

Yes I do. Get over it