UK History Question: Privatization vs Nationalization of Mining

[Wildcat]

You see you are still pulling totally meaningless figures out of thin air hoping to fool people. Cheapest deep mined coal... what's that got to do with anything?.

 

Power stations burn coal. It doesn't matter whether it is deep mined or if it grows on trees. They buy the stuff that is best value. Plucking at straws just proves the point. Like you said " Deep mined coal". If you have to dig holes a mile underground and then try to extract the stuff it is always going to be more expensive than easily accessed deposits. The problem is that by paying over the market rate for deep mined coal you hamstring every other businessin the country.

 

I am assuming that you work in the public sector where such things as competing in the international market place are unknown to you.

 

By your own economic arguments, if deep mined coal was more expensive no one would do it.

 

You don't just right off an industry and communities because you can get it a little cheaper elsewhere. At least not without factoring the costs of doing so, costs like the the billions of capital written off, the machinery Heseltime buried in the ground, at least £4billion thrown away, the £11 billion in redundancy payments. Then there is the unemployment benefits paid out assuming the 284,000 coal industry employees who lost their jobs remained unemployed for an average 1.5 years around £9 billion.

 

Had Thatcher stuck with the Plan for Coal and a negotiated reduction in Coal output, like happened in Germany. These costs, the costs to communities, and the £6billion lost as a direct result of the strike itself would have left us as a country billions of pounds richer and without trashing the mining communities. And before you say a negotiated settlement was impossible, just look at the scale of reductions in the years preceding the strike.

 

As I said before the strike wasn't about economics. Cortonwood was producing coal £6 a tonne cheaper than Hatfield that remained economic until recently. Even John Redwood admits they were closing economic pits, and the example of Tower Colliery proves him right.

 

The miner's strike was a fruition of the Ridley Plan, a planned attack by the Conservative Govt who stockpiled their coal in preperation and started the strike with the provocation of the announcement of the clossure of Cortonwood, knowing full well how that would be understood and the inevitable result of a wildcat strike spreading across most of Yorkshire and ultimately bringing the rest of the country out too. Despite all the Tories careful planning, the miners heroism could have won. Unfortunately, they didn't and we all suffer the consequences of that today.

[emma royd]

By your own economic arguments, if deep mined coal was more expensive no one would do it.

 

You don't just right off an industry and communities because you can get it a little cheaper elsewhere.

 

It seems they do. If all the non economic pits closed before 1997 it is odd then that a Labour Government allowed 2/3 of the remaining pits to close during their term of office. A report a couple of years ago suggested the closure of every remaining pit in the UK by 2015.

During the miners strike the miners were like sheep following a maniac like Scargill. He had no interest in the miners welfare just his own political ambitions. It was utter stupidity because by 1979 the miners were well paid. If they hadn't tried once again to hold the country to ransom politicians might have been more willing to pay over the odds for coal. As it was they simply demostrated that British coal was not only expensive, but also left the government and country beholding to a communist moron intent on bringing down the British establishment. I seem to think that deliberate power cuts went out of fashion around the same time

[Wildcat]

It seems they do. If all the non economic pits closed before 1997 it is odd then that a Labour Government allowed 2/3 of the remaining pits to close during their term of office. A report a couple of years ago suggested the closure of every remaining pit in the UK by 2015.

During the miners strike the miners were like sheep following a maniac like Scargill. He had no interest in the miners welfare just his own political ambitions. It was utter stupidity because by 1979 the miners were well paid. If they hadn't tried once again to hold the country to ransom politicians might have been more willing to pay over the odds for coal. As it was they simply demostrated that British coal was not only expensive, but also left the government and country beholding to a communist moron intent on bringing down the British establishment. I seem to think that deliberate power cuts went out of fashion around the same time

 

As already explained they went on strike because of a deliberate provocation, the announcement of the clossure of Cortonwood, recently refurbished producing coal £6 a tonne cheaper than Hatfield Colliery that was economic for 20 more years. It had nothing to do with pay, it was about Thatcher taking revenge, the Ridley Plan made that clear, as does looking back at the outcome of nearly 300,000 miners being made redundant in the following years costing the coutry billions of pounds. Absolutely nothing to do with wages or pay. 1974 was about wages, the period immediately after that saw a negotiated reduction in uneconomic pits, a plan that could have progressed to everyones benefit. But the Tories wanted their revenge and to break the union. Destroying communities and the lives of 300,000 miners and their families.

[emma royd]

As already explained they went on strike because of a deliberate provocation, the announcement of the clossure of Cortonwood, recently refurbished producing coal £6 a tonne cheaper than Hatfield Colliery that was economic for 20 more years. It had nothing to do with pay, it was about Thatcher taking revenge, the Ridley Plan made that clear, as does looking back at the outcome of nearly 300,000 miners being made redundant in the following years costing the coutry billions of pounds. Absolutely nothing to do with wages or pay. 1974 was about wages, the period immediately after that saw a negotiated reduction in uneconomic pits, a plan that could have progressed to everyones benefit. But the Tories wanted their revenge and to break the union. Destroying communities and the lives of 300,000 miners and their families.

 

No that is just your interpretation of events, and judging by your previous postings, simply politically motivated.

Most independant sources would suggest that Arthur Scargill has a mission to bring down the democratically elected Consevative Government, and was looking for any excuse for an all out strike. He led the miners like lambs to the slaughter.

TBH, it was probably the best thing that could have happened because the country's power generation was transformed away from being at the mercy of agitators like Scargill. All of a sudden the lights stopped going out at regular intervals.

 

Scargill Legacy... nearly 300,000 miners being made redundant in the following years

[Wildcat]

No that is just your interpretation of events, and judging by your previous postings, simply politically motivated.

Most independant sources would suggest that Arthur Scargill has a mission to bring down the democratically elected Consevative Government, and was looking for any excuse for an all out strike. He led the miners like lambs to the slaughter.

TBH, it was probably the best thing that could have happened because the country's power generation was transformed away from being at the mercy of agitators like Scargill. All of a sudden the lights stopped going out at regular intervals.

 

Scargill Legacy... nearly 300,000 miners being made redundant in the following years

 

A reading of history that is a complete fallacy, and to be honest one I have never seen expressed before even in the right wing media. (Edit: Apart from Upinwath a few months ago when he was off on a bizarre rant.)

 

Scargill had no involvement in the start of the strike. The strike began by walk outs across Yorkshire as a result of the announced clossure of Cortonwood. At the EGM where the decision was made to call all Regions out, Scargill spoke merely for unity and the respecting of picket lines. He did not speak in favour of the strike. The decisions to strike were made by miners themselves.

 

Everyone including Scargill knew the timing was wrong, coal supplies built up and it was spring when fuel demand is low and will remain so until the cold weather starts again in the Autumn. The NCB timed their provocation knowing the inevitable result would be Yorkshire and then mines all over would spontaneously walk out when they heard what was going down and what it meant. A clear gauntlet that no one is safe, and economics is no longer a justification in the clossure programme.

 

As for "All of a sudden the lights stopped going out at regular intervals." The Miners had national strikes in 1984, 1974 and 72 the next historic national strike was in 1926. That is not the example of a particularly militant union. They were a strong union, because they more or less ran the pits themselves, such was the nature of their work. But they weren't strike happy it took a lot of provocation to get them out.

 

Scargill was not on a mission to bring down the Govt, although I am sure he would have liked to see them go... he was a victim of circumstance caught up in events the Tories and NCB put in motion... all planned in advance in the Ridley plan.

[emma royd]

A reading of history that is a complete fallacy, and to be honest one I have never seen expressed before even in the right wing media.

 

Scargill had no involvement in the start of the strike. The strike began by walk outs across Yorkshire as a result of the announced clossure of Cortonwood. At the EGM where the decision was made to call all Regions out, Scargill spoke merely for unity and the respecting of picket lines. He did not speak in favour of the strike. The decisions to strike were made by miners themselves.

 

 

Perhaps you just need to widen your circle of chosen reading matter instead of relying on the Stalinist press.

Perhaps a little lighter reading such as Neil Kinnock's version of events would help you out. Do you remember Neil Kinnock. He was the then leader of the Labour Party and the person Scargill was trying to make Prime Minister.

 

Scargill can't even blame the rank and file of the miners. They weren't even allowed a ballot so your claim "The decisions to strike were made by miners themselves" is a pretty shallow claim.

[Wildcat]

Perhaps you just need to widen your circle of chosen reading matter instead of relying on the Stalinist press.

Perhaps a little lighter reading such as Neil Kinnock's version of events would help you out. Do you remember Neil Kinnock. He was the then leader of the Labour Party and the person Scargill was trying to make Prime Minister.

 

Scargill can't even blame the rank and file of the miners. They weren't even allowed a ballot so your claim "The decisions to strike were made by miners themselves" is a pretty shallow claim.

 

Mmmm you don't want to get me started on Kinnock

 

Scargill never stopped there being a national ballot, that was the decision made at the EGM of delegates where Scargill made a neutral speech expressing no opinion either way. He can't be blamed for that decision.... because it was made by the miner's themselves through their delegates.

[emma royd]

Mmmm you don't want to get me started on Kinnock

 

Scargill never stopped there being a national ballot, that was the decision made at the EGM of delegates where Scargill made a neutral speech expressing no opinion either way. He can't be blamed for that decision.... because it was made by the miner's themselves through their delegates.

 

That isn't what history records.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8550787.stm

 

The strike brought the NUM, led by its president Arthur Scargill, into conflict with Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government.

 

Mr McKay is still strongly critical of the leadership of Mr Scargill, particularly his refusal to hold a national ballot for strike action.

 

 

 

The rest is pretty damning as well.

 

 

Of course there is also the court case brought by some miners against the NUM for NOT HOLDING A STRIKE BALLOT. Scargill himself was fined £1000 for his refusal to hold a ballot.

[Mr Prime]

Which only priced British coal even further out of the market place. The point is that without illegal subsidies British coal couldn't compete in a free market. The miners wages were being largely paid for out of other people's taxes. In the circumstances expecting large pay rises wasn't smart regardless of where they pay scale lined up with other industries.

The worst thing about the whole episode is that subsidies to the mining industry simply increased costs to every other industry in the country, making them less competitive with overseas producers. It is probably a contributory factor to why many of our other industries found it was cheaper to move abroad.

 

Illegal subsidies? In 15 years of studying industrial relations and the miners in particular it's the first time I've heard this. Are you attempting to apply current law to the 70's and 80's?

[Mr Prime]

The history of the miners strike is so wildly varied based upon opinion and distortion over fact much of the time. One thing is for sure, the NUM President Scargill never had any need to use his vote. Simple as that. Yes he had wanted a strike for years but far from being the puppet master he was carried along on the wave from below that started at Cortonwood, not the NUM HQ.

 

The court case was a joke and showed naked bias by the judiciary who let's face it had no sympathy for commoners. The strike was also legal in Scotland, something many don't know as their views are England centred despite many of the mines being in Scotland.