The Miners Strike

[splott parker]

This is such a crass comment.
The bottom line is, yes it's about economics.
Remember that in South Wales, a good proportion of miners were men who had moved from the West Country to find work and for years were paid better that farm workers. Sure, the owners made money, but the miners earned a living too - better than they had.
Out of work miners after the strike were helped financially. They weren't left entirely in the lurch.
And your mindset is entirely anti-Thatcher.
I didn't and don't support her, but I know that much of this trouble was stirred up by Scargill and his red cohorts who had their own agenda and used their union members as pawns in their political game. How much of the woes of the miners and their families can be laid at Scargill's door?

You’re concentrating on the miners and their families when it’s wiser to look at the bigger picture of the effect on the whole area not just the pit communities. The crucial sentence in Sludge’s post that you were replying to is ‘When areas rely heavily on industry, the removal of that industry should be gradual and other employment provided’. Thatcher and her cohorts didn’t want this, they wanted an already crowded existing labour pool to be flooded to overflow. Resulting in wages stagnating or even dropping in real terms due to establishment’s mantra of ‘take it or leave it’. The things that woman done to this country and the aftermath which still resonates to this day was unforgivable.

[Once U shop, U can't stop]

The crucial sentence in Sludge’s post that you were replying to is ‘When areas rely heavily on industry, the removal of that industry should be gradual and other employent provided’. Thatcher and her cohorts didn’t want this, they wanted an already crowded existing labour pool to be flooded to overflow..

You may believe this; you may want to believe this. Show us your proof for this assertion.

My memory of this time (as someone who lived through it) is that the country staggered through one strike after another called by the militant leaders of trade unions of coal miners and postmen (to name but two). We had to cope with continual disruption including loss of power for chunks of time which disrupted industry, lost the country millions in trade and made life a misery for ordinary folk. Not least OAPs who were living at the top of tower blocks when the power went off. People who were not enduring the 1970s/80s have little conception of what life was like in those days - and none of it was down to them. It was collateral damage largely caused deliberately by militant unions.

As one Blog put it:

"SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN BRITAIN
The 1970’s, a decade of strikes, including postal workers, miners and dustmen which ended with the ‘winter of Discontent’ when ITV went off air for five months. A three-day week launched in 1972 to save on electricity because of the miners strike."

Something had to be done to resolve this situation. A few powerful individuals were holding the country to ransom - and it wasn't the government.

[the other bob wilson]

You may believe this; you may want to believe this. Show us your proof for this assertion.

My memory of this time (as someone who lived through it) is that the country staggered through one strike after another called by the militant leaders of trade unions of coal miners and postmen (to name but two). We had to cope with continual disruption including loss of power for chunks of time which disrupted industry, lost the country millions in trade and made life a misery for ordinary folk. Not least OAPs who were living at the top of tower blocks when the power went off. People who were not enduring the 1970s/80s have little conception of what life was like in those days - and none of it was down to them. It was collateral damage largely caused deliberately by militant unions.

As one Blog put it:

"SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN BRITAIN
The 1970’s, a decade of strikes, including postal workers, miners and dustmen which ended with the ‘winter of Discontent’ when ITV went off air for five months. A three-day week launched in 1972 to save on electricity because of the miners strike."

Something had to be done to resolve this situation. A few powerful individuals were holding the country to ransom - and it wasn't the government.

The Thatcher government were elected in 1979, the miners strike was five years later and things had been changing in terms of union power just as the eighties were beginning. To give two examples, I can remember unions being banned in GCHQ in 1980 I think it was on the ludicrous grounds that membership of a union would somehow make you less patriotic and more likely to sell state secrets.

In 1981, I spent a couple of nights picketing outside Companies House to try and persuade the drivers of the postal vans delivering mail to turn around. It was an all night job because the vans could come at any time, but we still had fairly regular checks by the police to make sure there were no more than six of us as per the recently passed laws on picketing.

You’re talking as if the seventies and eighties were the same when it comes to union power, they weren’t, they were completely different. Scargill was a throwback to the seventies, but the odds were well in favour of the Government and police in 1984 because of the laws that had come in years earlier to curb union power (which I agree had got too much).

Ten years or so before the last miners strike, Heath had called an election where the question he asked was “who governs Britain?”, was it him and his Government or the unions. Heath lost, but if there had been the same election held in 84/85 under the who governs Britain banner, the answer would have been very different. The country had changed and the Government had legislated to make sure it couldn’t happen again.

There was no need for Thatcher to behave the way she did after what was an inevitable victory over the miners, but magnanimity was never something she possessed.

[splott parker]

You may believe this; you may want to believe this. Show us your proof for this assertion.

I explained the the flooding of the labour market situation in my initial post on this thread. I don’t think proof is needed when the fact was that thousands of men & women were made jobless. What did you think they did? Went on a long holiday?

[the other bob wilson]

I explained the the flooding of the labour market situation in my initial post on this thread. I don’t think proof is needed when the fact was that thousands of men & women were made jobless. What did you think they did? Went on a long holiday?

They got on their bikes.

[Once U shop, U can't stop]

They got on their bikes.

But only after describing the English cricket test team in detail.....