Is it time we gave the miners thing a rest?

[Mr_Squirrel]

The difference is that the mining dispute was not caused by economic reasons but was an attack to avenge Heaths defeat. Pure vengeance.Nothing else. The mining industry was admittedly in decline but thatcher used the power of the state to destroy the mines and the men who worked them.

 

Thats not strictly true. (I point out that im no Thatcher fan either)

 

I once wrote elsewhere a very long explanation of the reasons behind this very subject.. but shall condense it slightly here.

 

Coal and British mines:

Coal was the fuel of the time and not for the future. British mines were for the most part, Victorian relics... dangerous and very costly to run. They needed more manpower than machinery. The 'new' litigation culture that reared its ugly head in the early 80's also added extra running costs to the mines... Miners injured in accidents and who suffered serious health complaints sought (Maybe rightly) compensation for their injuries/declining health.

By comparison, Foreign mines (Polish etc) were modern 'high production' mines that produced much more coal than British mines for less physical manpower.. added to the fact that their overheads were much lower meant that imported coal proved a much cheaper alternative than British produced coal.

 

Lifestyle:

From the Victorian era right up until the late 70's early 80's... Coal was the main source of fuel for British homes and major industry. However, Coal was quickly ditched by the public and industry in favor of cheaper, more reliable Gas fuel for heating and powering the furnaces... The people of Britain decided that Gas central heating was preferable to lighting a coal fire and they also didnt need to store the fuel themselves, the same was to be said for the Foundries.

This meant that more coal was being produced than could be sold and bearing in mind that foreign coal was much cheaper than British coal, there was no point in trying to sell it abroad.... Coal had exceeded its sell by date.

 

Politics:

Enter Thatcher and her desire to 'clean Britain up' and Arthur Scargill's deep seated hatred of said woman.

Thatcher realised that coal was an expensive folly of a commodity (lets face it, if you had a choice of buying a loaf of bread, exactly the same as the one you are eating now for less than 1/3 the price... which would you buy?) and she set about the closing of the 'low production' Pits... an extreme decision for sure but essential nonetheless. This would put many thousands of miners out of work and on the dole (costing the taxpayer) but was a cheaper alternative to keeping the pits open and loosing revenue, as such, generous redundancy packages were waiting.. Enter Scargill...

Scargill (Who hated Thatcher with a passion) realised that the closure of the pits (although inevitable and he knew it) would mean the end of the NUM and the end of a job for himself. He seized the opportunity to discredit Thatcher and embarked on a pointless (for the Miners) journey to 'save the miners jobs'. Scargill knew he had lost before he had started but continued anyway to sell the miners a false dream that he could beat Thatcher and save the day. He convinced them to strike and fight (physically) even though he knew that the pits days were numbered. Believe in him they did and NUM membership figures quadrupled overnight (lining his pockets) Strike they did, going without food, going without paying the bills, going without xmas presents for their children, living a living hell for over two years they did and all this time, Scargill used their beliefs to try and 'rubbish' Thatcher for his own ends and used their money (Membership subs) to build a mansion for himself in Barnsley (Treelands at a cost of over 100k in 1985) while his loyal members suffered in poverty.

 

If Scargill had wanted the best for his members, he should have said to them right from the start "Look lads, its the end for coal in this country.. hold your heads up, work until the end, get as much overtime as you can and i will push for the best redundancy packages ever awarded to any man.. be proud, you have every reason to be proud and the country has every reason to be proud of you"

But he didnt, he took the members for all he could and blamed Thatcher for it... the man was a Judas to his own members and sadly, many still believe it was Thatcher who screwed them.

 

I still feel for the miners of that time and whenever i see Scargill, i cant help but think of what he took from those people and i dont feel that he should ever be forgiven for it.

[artisan]

Thats not strictly true. (I point out that im no Thatcher fan either)

 

.

 

I have cut out the diatribe as it is just above.

We are now dependent on fuel from abroad.

Thanks to Thatcher we have none of our own, at all, in any way.

We have no coal, even thought the country sits on it.

We have no gas, as she used it all up, selling it abroad.

We have no oil, as he sold all that also.

 

She left us with nothing.

 

No government can repair what she did.

We are on the downward way to a third world country, because of that traitorous cow.

[Wildcat]

The stated aim of the strike was not to protect jobs but to bring down the government. In that respect their efforts to overturn democracy and bring in a left wing dictatorship did make them the enemey within.

 

Let's not forget, the NUM started the whole thing. If there had been no strike and the miners simply done as their bosses told them, there would still be a mining industry in Britain today.

 

Fantasy history. You know if you don't know what you are talking about then talking rubbish only makes you look stupid, but then I don't think anyone reading your posting history is under any illusions about that anyway.

 

The Tories planned the whole thing in the Ridley Plan, their intention was revenge and to destroy the unions, the industry and the communities.

 

The strike started at Cortonwood with the announced closure of a recently refurbished and one of the most profitable pits in the coalfield. The act was intended to provoke a reaction from the miner's and that is what they got. The NUM leadership knew full well the timing was wrong and not in their favour, the overtime bans had not prevented the stockpiling of coal. The Tories, followed the Ridley plan to the letter they chose and timed their battlefield, provoking an inevitable response... a response led by the miner's themselves, not by Scargill or the union leadership they were passengers to the events that unfolded.

 

It was a heroic battle, that pitted ordinary working people against the state. One that was lost not just for the miner's and their communities but by everyone in society. It is that attack that has paved the way for the empoverishment of working people subsequently with the value of wages declining from nearly 65% of GDP in the mid-1970s to 55% today.

 

We should not forget the year the state waged a war against its own communities, nor should we forget what we lost.

[Mr_Squirrel]

I have cut out the diatribe as it is just above.

We are now dependent on fuel from abroad.

Thanks to Thatcher we have none of our own, at all, in any way.

We have no coal, even thought the country sits on it.

We have no gas, as she used it all up, selling it abroad.

We have no oil, as he sold all that also.

 

She left us with nothing.

 

No government can repair what she did.

We are on the downward way to a third world country, because of that traitorous cow.

 

But the subject here is COAL Artisan... not Thatcher.

 

Despite any hatred you have for that woman, coal is the subject of the thread and no matter how much you (or anybody else) protests, the fact remains that coal power is a redundant source of fuel.

 

Ships no longer run on coal, they use Diesel.

Trains no longer run on coal, They use Diesel or Electric.

Industry (what left there is) no longer runs on coal, It uses Gas.

Electricity generation is switching from coal to alternative powers, Gas Nuclear and reusable.

Civilian sources no longer use coal, they use mainly Gas and are quickly developing reusable fuels (Solar)

 

Coal, no matter how much one protests, was finished long before Thatcher closed the pits. We cannot mine it and use it ourselves on the scale it once was nor export it for a profit as foreign mines can supply it much cheaper.

 

Like it or not, thats life, progress, the way it is and no one individual (Thatcher) or political party was to blame... just the way life constantly changes and moves on.

The only involvement a political party (Or individual) had on the end of the British Coal trade was the realisation of the end and the hammering of the nail into the coffin.

[penno]

I agree that Scargills strategy was naive at best but I dont see him as the evil person that you portray. It was a case of the Irresistable Force versus the Immovable object and neither was going to budge.It was never going to be a fair fight anyway with the police,intelligence services and army if required. The Tory strategy of splitting the Notts miners away is well practiced method of divide and rule and they are doing it today. You see messages on these boards attacking the scroungers [or thatchers children] who take there example from the scroungers at the the top i.e bankers,non doms,those who disguise income as capital gains etc. Why not deal with the top end first?. Dont forget that thatcher took us away from using our own fuel by shutting the pits in such a hurry and put us straight into the loving arms of our arab friends. If Scargill was strategically naive she was strategically idiotic. She use to try and emulate Churchill in some ways but where he united the nation she divided it.

[Mr_Squirrel]

Im not suggesting that Scargill was intentionally 'Evil'... merely that he saw a window of opportunity and took it.

 

Scargill sees the end of the pits and knows there is bugger all he can do about it.

Scargill sees the opportunity to rubbish Thatcher and takes it.

Scargill knows that without the pits, he has no income so takes the opportunity to line his own pockets in the process no matter where the money comes from.

 

Basically, Scargill feathers his own nest and attempts to further his own political career by waging war against his adversary in a blaze of publicity...

 

Isnt that what all politicians do?

[Wildcat]

Im not suggesting that Scargill was intentionally 'Evil'... merely that he saw a window of opportunity and took it.

 

Scargill sees the end of the pits and knows there is bugger all he can do about it.

Scargill sees the opportunity to rubbish Thatcher and takes it.

Scargill knows that without the pits, he has no income so takes the opportunity to line his own pockets in the process no matter where the money comes from.

 

Basically, Scargill feathers his own nest and attempts to further his own political career by waging war against his adversary in a blaze of publicity...

 

Isnt that what all politicians do?

 

It is also a false history on a false premiss.

 

There is a role for coal today just as there was then in powerstations generating electricity. We squandered gas in power stations when we should have reserved it for domestic use. We are now having to ship in gas from the baltic states, had we kept our coal industry and not squandered our gas resources we would still be self sufficient in energy and we would be billions of pound richer.

 

Scargill is a distraction, he did the best he could, and history has proved he understated what was happening. It is Thatcher that provoked the dispute and it was the miners themselves that reacted and took up the fight and fought heroically for their communities.

[penno]

Im not suggesting that Scargill was intentionally 'Evil'... merely that he saw a window of opportunity and took it.

 

Scargill sees the end of the pits and knows there is bugger all he can do about it.

Scargill sees the opportunity to rubbish Thatcher and takes it.

Scargill knows that without the pits, he has no income so takes the opportunity to line his own pockets in the process no matter where the money comes from.

 

Basically, Scargill feathers his own nest and attempts to further his own political career by waging war against his adversary in a blaze of publicity...

 

Isnt that what all politicians do?

 

Whether what you are saying about Scargill is true or not I dont see him that way at all. I just think he was dogmatic and so was she. The mining industry was contracting but she wanted rid of it quickly for revenge and also because it was nationalised her buddies couldnt make money out of it. This all changed when we had to use oil. Where do you think thatchers son got his money from. Not from working.

[Guest]

Thats not strictly true. (I point out that im no Thatcher fan either)

 

I once wrote elsewhere a very long explanation of the reasons behind this very subject.. but shall condense it slightly here.

 

Lifestyle:

From the Victorian era right up until the late 70's early 80's... Coal was the main source of fuel for British homes and major industry. However, Coal was quickly ditched by the public and industry in favor of cheaper, more reliable Gas fuel for heating and powering the furnaces... The people of Britain decided that Gas central heating was preferable to lighting a coal fire and they also didnt need to store the fuel themselves, the same was to be said for the Foundries.

This meant that more coal was being produced than could be sold and bearing in mind that foreign coal was much cheaper than British coal, there was no point in trying to sell it abroad.... Coal had exceeded its sell by date.

 

 

Sorry, but this is simply your own interpretation of the subject (especially the political paragraph) rather than proven fact.

 

In the paragraph I have highlighted, you omitted to say that, when we started using gas in favour of coal, we at first, used coal gas which was actually made from British coal so the coal was still being used but at the gas producing plants instead of in the home. A lot of coal was also used to produce smokeless fuel at coking plants and this continued to be used until well after the change to natural (North Sea) gas, both in industry and the home after domestic coal use declined.

 

The biggest drop in coal use was the result of British Railways moving onto diesel & electric powered locomotives and even then, the electric power was mostly produced by coal fired power stations.

It is because electricity production needed coal that a miners strike could result in power cuts and bring the country to a halt, and why Thatcher had the foresight, before the final big miner's strike, to stockpile many months supply of coal in order to nullify the strikes effects.

Coal was a precious and much needed commodity and had certainly NOT exceeded it's sell by date!

 

Foreign coal was cheaper, simply because it was produced by very cheap labour and was also subsidised by the foreign governments so that we would use theirs instead of our own - they knew that after we had closed our pits, they could then put the price up and we would be a captive market. Thatcher, in the tradition of most of our governments, took the short term view and cared not, where our fuel would come from when the gas fields ran dry and our pits had closed.

 

Fuel for both power and motive use is too important (especially from a National Security point of view) to be regarded as just another business and, if it has to be subsidised - so be it. We are still paying subsidies for the railways even after privatisation and rightly so. These services are absolutely vital to the National well being but Thatcher was determined to beat the miners even if it left us with no power at a later date (which it did) - this is why we are now dependant on foreign supplies and forced to pay the price, whatever the cost. If a third world war was to start, we would be unable to sustain our services & industry.

[Mr_Squirrel]

It is also a false history on a false premiss.

 

There is a role for coal today just as there was then in powerstations generating electricity. We squandered gas in power stations when we should have reserved it for domestic use. We are now having to ship in gas from the baltic states, had we kept our coal industry and not squandered our gas resources we would still be self sufficient in energy and we would be billions of pound richer.

 

Scargill is a distraction, he did the best he could, and history has proved he understated what was happening. It is Thatcher that provoked the dispute and it was the miners themselves that reacted and took up the fight and fought heroically for their communities.

 

It isnt a false premiss at all.

 

Both industry and civilian started the switch from coal to gas long before the miners dispute rendering coal virtually obsolete overnight.

Gas was much cheaper, cleaner, easier to regulate and had no need for storage.

Again, i point out that foreign coal was also much cheaper to import at almost a 1/3 of the cost and again, i defy anybody with common sense to buy the same product (no matter what it is) for 3x the price as you can buy elsewhere.. Its basic economics.

 

Of the above points, there can be no dispute as all the facts are available to support it should you choose to look them up.

I also point out that Scargill made himself very wealthy out of the miners misery, again that can be researched should you wish to do so.

 

I dont deny that the miners fought heroically and more power to them for doing so but nonetheless, it was a futile fight for all the reasons i have stated previously.