1984 Miners Strike.....

[DangerUXD]

They went on strike at the start of spring after giving the governement enough warning to stock pile coal. So the miners suffered a lot of hardship and the strike had 0 effect on power generation. So why do they hate Mrs Thatcher, surely it was the stupidity of their own leader, Mr Scargill that is to blame for all their problems for no actual benefit at all. Into the valley of death Scargill forced his troops, of course he stayed behind on full pay from the Union! I cannot see for the life of me how any miner can blame MrsT. Is there an objective thought between them?

[TheRtHonSec]

The problem was the way Thatcher re-acted. It was spiteful and vindictiveness. People wanted to have jobs and not have their communities broken up. Thatcher deliberately threw millions of people on the dole and neglected them on the basis that it wouldn't cost the Tories any votes. She deliberately set out to cause hardship to millions. The Tories said she had a large mandate from the country to do that, but she would never have got in power if anyone had known what was really going to happen. It was the classic case of say one thing on the campaign trail, and do the complete opposite when in power.

[Old_Geezer]

Mr. Scargill was guilty of lack of foresight. Presumably he felt all this overtime for his members was a good thing. But it was Thatcher & MacGregor who achieved the closure of viable mines and the hardship and destruction of communities in doing so. Scargill didn't push that agenda, he could only find a best course of action once he realised the situation he and his members were in. And that was not to 'roll over and die'. To try to push blame for the closures like that, is very cynical.

[DangerUXD]

Yes but surely they where bright enough to see it was suicide? Previous strikes had been done following an overtime ban leading up to winter then all out at winter meaning minimum strike time needed to acheive the goal. Did Scargill even read the standard play book?

[Brenden]

Have just posted on "another excuse for lawlessness" that Mr Scargill is till occupying a home (paid for out of union funds) and laughing all the way to the bank.

[Baldric]

If I remember rightly Scargill didn't even call a vote because he couldn't be sure of getting the support he needed.

[Old_Geezer]

And doing nothing when it hit the fan wasn't going to be 'suicide' ? All one could hope for at that point was sufficient public support for the underdog to win. But at least we seem to have accepted Mrs. Thatcher was the cause, and Scargill merely inept at coping with the political maneuvering that led to it.

[youngmafbog]

The problem is that many mines were not viable and certainly would not be today.

I agree, more should have been done to encourage new work into the communities and Scargill should have taken this tack. But he wanted a fight with Thatcher. He lost, mainly through his own stupitidy but probably also because he had nothing to blame.

What I cant get my head round is why these people blame Thatcher for wrecking the community but ignore the fact Blar/Brown for 13 years ignored them too, choosing instead to build 'multi cultural' Britain and wreck the economy.

They also choose to ignore the fact the UK was the sick man of Europe caused by over powerful Unions.(These were the days of closed shops; remember them? - join the Union or no job). Thatcher dealt with that and it was very noticeable Blair/Brown were in no hurry to change it.

As for WHETHER Thatcher would have got in if people knew, I suspect she would. Middle England were sick of the country being wrecked by a weak labour Government and it is Middle England that chooses a Government not the 'working man' or the 'Tory toff'.

[DangerUXD]

At this time the Underdog was not the NUM they'd already had many sucessful strikes for ever more unreasonable claims. Anyway I would have thought that there would be some miners with enough intelligence to look a bit closer to home for the cause of their problems but no they followed like lemings over the cliff.

[mushroom25]

Brendan, Mr Scargill is not living rent-free.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20303797

[murraymints]

I agree....scargill has to accept responsibility for much of the strife caused...I lived in a mining community my dad an ncb official..I saw what damage the flying pickets and organised troublemakers did...it was orchestrated by the union activists...not Mrs T...

[McMouse]

Still don't know why the NUM didn't call for a voter on strike action.

[murraymints]

I know personally lots of the local miners were disgusted by the degeneration in public support caused by the violent clashes and hysteria whipped up by activists using people that had no involvement in their dispute..

[Old_Geezer]

In the same breath one can say the strike was doomed and yet claim the NUM were not the underdog as well ? I'm unsure that follows. I can believe those who were not keen to strike will have grievances at how they were forced to support anyway, but it seems to me by the time a strike was called the situation was no longer under union control, and some folk felt they were now forced to do what needed to be done. All troops to the barricades, as it were. Any sign of weakness would have immediately destroyed any chance of avoiding closures: a case of the intended end being used to justify the means. The fact that it didn't work out for them not being something they could assume beforehand.

[Old_Geezer]

I think "desperation" was the word I was searching for.

[sir.prize]

Remember, it wasn't only the miners that Maggie 'screwed'. She wrecked the lives of many in the printing industry too. Half of all the tax breaks brought in during Thatcher's 11 years in office went to the top 10%.

She sold the 'family' silver by privatising state-run utilities such as British Gas, British Telecom, following by electricity and airlines.

Wicked woman.

[tonyav]

Don't forget the Steel industry Sir p.

[Brenden]

Although I liked her I think selling our utilities was a big big mistake, they should have been kept state run.

[jake-the-peg]

The idea that the collieries were uneconomic is just the propaganda that was put about at the time.

The truth of the matter was that there was a strategic choice made to go with foreign gas generation in power stations because the Government were frightened of the leverage that miners had over electricity generation after the power cuts of the Heath era.

We're still living with that decision as it affected our energy security and need to buy large amounts of gas from places like Russia.

True sticking with coal would not have been without cost as efficiencies would have needed to be sought with working methods and technology and it's not exactly environmentally nice either.

But the decision was strategic - at the time the strike was based on the claim that the Government wanted to shut down the whole mining industry and ministers denied this and claimed it was Arthur Scargill attempting to consolidate his power.

With the benefit of hindsight we can see that he was absolutely right and all the pits were shut down in short order

[Gromit]

They went on strike because there was a programme to close 90% of the mines and they thought that was a bad idea.

We now dependent on Argentina, a country that is nearly at war with us for most of the 45 million tonnes of coal we import.

[mushroom25]

Gromit, the breakdown of UK coal imports for last year is shown here
http://www.ukcoal.com/why-coal/need-for-coal/world-coal-statistics
the total figure shown matches your own, but not the source country.

Where does it say "Argentina" on that list? Are UK Coal suppressing the truth? If so, why would they do that?