[Closed] Miners strike (quick question)

It wasn't about wage demands, it was about pit closures.

Yup - they went out after Thatcher vetoed the Govs review committee & demanded the closure of Corntonwood Colliery for her own political reasons rather than any economics.

I think some of the scabs got extra money but no one else did IIRC

Sorry no links, that claim could be true by newspaper standards though. Ie. compare a junior doctor with a miner on shift work and i'm sure the miner would earn much more.

I suspect this will run!

havent got the time to do the comparative analysis (dentist awaits! 🙁 ) but this should start you off

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1973/nov/27/coal-miners-pay

I've been reading up on it, as I really didn't know much about it and it is certainly interested, Scargill and the Govt. both seem to have been utter bastards, and the miners got the shitty end of the stick for their blind loyalty.

Still no proof on the wages thing, I suspect it was newspaper/BBC spin on what IanM said tho.

A very politicised strike by both sides. ostensibly from the union side it was about pit closures - nothing to do with money. Thatcher used it to destroy a strong union power base ( who may have overused their power in the past) History vindicated the miners union - when pit closures went far beyond what they were predicting.

Thatchers legacy is such stupidity as in Lothian - where there was a coal mine and a coal burning electricity plant linked by rail - a reasonably "green" solution. Instead we go coal brought in by boat from Poland which had a far higher sulphur content thus increasing pollution.

In the economic calculations about the cost of coal mined in Britain Thatcher did not include the costs of paying unemployment benefits to the 1/4 million folk added to the dole queues nor the increased environmental damage from using imported high sulphur coal.

A very nasty politicised strike where we all lost and no one gained apart from Thatcher who improved her political standing with the CBI

thatcher did it for no other reason than to put a end to the power of the working man.
the pits were and still are a more viable source of fuel than anything else.
this will be proved with the opening of many of them in years to come.
i for 1 will celebrate with a days holiday when the evil ****ing witch dies.

Looks like they might have been right, from those links average gross income for a miner seems to be around £32 (before any pay increases), whereas senior doctors/radiographers were on £33 pounds.

So any pay increase would put them on more than a Dr, however that appears to be because Thatcher was ****ing the NHS, rather than the miners being overpaid.

I recall Scargill claiming that coal could be mined and given away free and still make a profit if the same subsidies that were given to other forms of fuel where given to coal production.

I cant be sure of the source of these figures but a powerful argument.

i for 1 will celebrate with a days holiday when the evil ****ing witch dies.

+1

ton - you told me you were never nasty 😛

A few Elvis Costello supporters here!

ton - you told me you were never nasty

surfer ???
and for your info my dad was a miner at ackton hall featherstone.
most of the men there never broke the strike, he was one of them.
5 weeks after the strike finished he had a stressed induced heart attack which left him ****ed.

Elvis Costello wrote a song about dancing on her grave.

Lest you misunderstand, I support your position.

just out of interest Ton, what do you think of Scargill?

i for 1 will celebrate with a days holiday when the evil ****ing witch dies.

I'll be taking a full ****ing fortnight! And I suspect that it'll not be too far away into the future either.

Scargill? Possibly corrupt, bent some might say infinitely preferable to that old hag Maggie, and what she done to Sunderland and County Durham.

I still remember my old primary school head teacher telling us all how evil thatcher was(is), during our morning assembly.

just out of interest Ton, what do you think of Scargill?

rich, i think he was a good union leader who was prepared to do what his members voted for.
but above all he was right.
he predicted all along that thatcher wanted to destroy the industry.
at the start of the strike there were about 175 pits in the uk, at present there are about 10. and we now need more fuel to run the country than ever before.

My Uncle was a miner at Plank lane colliery Wigan till the day it shut. He lived in a council house and went on 1 holiday a year (a package trip to spain usually) never owned a new car and ended up struggling to pay his gas bill. So no I dont think he ever earned anything like what a doctor earned or was ever likely to.

As he spent the last 4 years of his life connected to an oxygen bottle and died prematurely of miners lung I think he f*cking well earned every penny he got

When the North sea runs out of gas and oil and we have to go begging to some megalomaniac russian for gas we might regret getting rid of all those profitable pits

rich, i think he was a good union leader who was prepared to do what his members voted for.
but above all he was right.
he predicted all along that thatcher wanted to destroy the industry.
at the start of the strike there were about 175 pits in the uk, at present there are about 10. and we now need more fuel to run the country than ever before.

Ton I agree with almost all you have said however I would argue that Thatcher simply wanted a fight with a trade union given the damage they had done to Edward Heath. The Miners unions were the first in line and she used them as an example.

i for 1 will celebrate with a days holiday when the evil ****ing witch dies.

+1

Me to I have a t-shirt ready with her picture on it and the phrase ding dong the witch is dead...my mate made it..he hates her I agree.... if they give here a stats funeral I predict a RIOT and see some of you there?

Well I hope I dont die too soon
I pray the lord my soul to save
Oh Ill be a good boy, Im trying so hard to behave
Because theres one thing I know, Id like to live
Long enough to savour
Thats when they finally put you in the ground
Ill stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.

Elvis not mincing his words

i also think a lot of the problems in the country started in the 80s.
prior to the strike the villages and towns in yorkshire/nottinghamshire/lancashire/whereever that had mines were very nice busy place, plenty of shops, pubs and other businesses.
go into one of these places now and see what they are like. the places are ruined, shops have gone, pubs gone, working mens clubs are gone.
also when i left school in 82 the drug culture was nowhere as near as it is now. these villages are rife with drug, and drug realted crime and not only with the younger end.
a lot of these places have no future and this has rubbed off on the people.
i think the country went bad under thatcher.

If the pits are that profitable why are they still closed?

surfer, that is what i meant.
kill the most powerfull union in the country and the rest will be a pushover.
and it worked, and for that i hope the woman burns in hell.

I thought one of the major issues was Scargill wasn't prepared to put the strike to a vote (as a reported 70% would have voted against it) as he knew he would lose it, thus making it an illegal strike and allowing Thatcher to do as she wished when trying to break it.

Also his attitude that no mines should shut, regardless of there profitability scuppered any deals which may have saved the majority of the mines in the long run.

Like I said, I am no expert, I am just trying to educate myself a bit on this subject.

As for the coal miners demanding more than Doctors, due to normal inflationary payrises amazingly thats true, however that has more to do with how terribly underpaid Doctors and Nurses were, rather than the miners being overpaid (one report indicates that a Clerical Admin could on average earn more than a 10 year qualified Dr/ Radiologist )

thisisnotaspoon
who mentioned profit.
and it was a political thing not a cost cutting thing.

thisisnotaspoon. Would you work down a pit, there's no way I would, neither would I let my son. I can't ever see them being re-opened, but I doubt theyd have shut so easily without thatcher.

You're argument could be applied to the banks of today, why don't we shut them down? simply because we need them. This country should be ran for the people who live here, not to simply make a profit

thisisnotaspoon:

Because they weren't just abandoned,they were destroyed so they could not be reopened.
Machinery removed or wrecked, drains blocked so the rock below would become unstable. Very political rather than just economic.

thisisnotaspoon
who mentioned profit.
and it was a political thing not a cost cutting thing.

The question is a good one. At the time we were told there were more than a 100yrs coal underground. Given the volatility of external providers of fuel why have some of them not been re-opened?

Like all the other trades. You stop bringing in the apprentices, you loose the skills. We probably couldn't build a ship on the Wear, using Sunderland labour if we tried now. Same with mining.

the timing of my post has crossed with others.

There was an interesting debate over the weekend between Evan Davies and Heseltine (?) where Davies made the point that the mines may not be around today however their gradual demise would have ensured that some of the worst effects of immediate closures may have been mitigated as people gradually moved aways and replacement industry was created.
The fact that it happened almost overnight almost certainly led to the social and economic issues Ton points to.

If the pits are that profitable why are they still closed?

What constitutes profit ? If the cost of keeping the next 3 generations on benefits, the cost of subsidiary business's going bust, the cost of extra healthcare resulting from increased poverty and the cost of decomissioning the mines is factored in, then the mines were incredibly profitable.

If anyone on this forum is totally unaware of the real cost of closing the coal mines, then I suggest that next time you take a trip to Glyncwrrg, take an hour to walk around town before you go ride your bikes.

thisisnotaspoon - Member
If the pits are that profitable why are they still closed?

Certainly not economics

TJs comment is spot on. Nobody won. At the time the belief was that the UK suffered from too restrictive labour practices. Thatcher forced the strike to break the strongest union. Scargill tried to lead a strike earlier as he saw this coming (doing his job for his members). By the time they went out it was too late. I still wonder if they had gone out 2 years before whether they would have won!

I still wonder if they had gone out 2 years before whether they would have won!

That's an interesting point. Two years prior, Thatcher was busy drowning Argentinians and certainly would have found it difficult killing people in two theatres. At the same time, it would have been seen in a lot of quarters as an unpatriotic act to destabalise a govt during what was ( ashamedly ) a popular war and a lot of popular support for the miners might have dissapeared.

More interesting would have been if the strike was 3 years earlier and had coincided with the 1981 summer of civil unrest. I doubt that she'd have stood for that and we'd have probably seen the army on our streets.

It does make it seem that we thankfully, live in pretty dull times.

Excellent article in the Independent this weekend:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/reunited-at-last-the-striker-and-the-scab-1639777.html

Thatcher believed that the working class had to be eliminated as a political force. The closure of the mines, destruction of our manufacturing industries and mass privatisation were all part of her agenda.

"There is no such thing as Society" is a quote that still makes me shudder, not because of it's ignorance and stupidity,but because it was the core belief of her philosophy.
I blame her for legitimising much of the greed and corruption in today's society.
The day she dies will be a happy one round here.

Both Thatcher and Scargill were motivated primarily by political motives. Neither had the welfare of the nation nor of the workers as their number one priority.

Unfortunately both were single-minded in their zeal and no compromise would ever have been likely between what were basically a hard-line Stalinist and an ultra right-wing Conservative. Scargill did as much damage to the trade union movement with his undemocratic decisions and ulterior motives as Thatcher did by her bloody-minded desire to crush them.

The country was a victim of circumstance. Two ideologically opposed personalities as opposite numbers in a dispute in which the arguments of profit, people and sustainability were immaterial compared to their political goals.

As has already been said, no one won.

Thatcher believed that the working class had to be eliminated as a political force. The closure of the mines, destruction of our manufacturing industries and mass privatisation were all part of her agenda.

end of my input.
this was not cost cutting or anything so constructive.
it was thatchers evil twisted way of bringing the working man and his most powerfull union to his knees.
evil, hatefull woman.
pity the i.r.a did not get her in brighton. and i truly believe that.

Seems to me the attitudes promoted by her and her chums have led pretty directly to where we are now. Put me down for the party!

pity the i.r.a did not get her in brighton. and i truly believe that.

I pity you.

For whatever reasons, even with the huge amount of power the traditional Labour supporting cities wield in General Elections she was democratically voted in (although never by a member of my family I must add).

To wish a democratically elected official (and no hung chads were involved) murdered by a terrorist organisation that has (still is) responsible for many murders within the UK and overseas of innocent civilians speaks volumes of your irrationality.

Yes you may feel strongly over her actions (as do I and I'm sure many others) but to wish her murdered by criminals?

Trail monkey, sorry memory bit fuzzy and haven't read any of the recent articles - yes 3 years earlier, but wasn't Scargills first call to strike 18 months or so before?

And also for me whilst this was all done in the name of a more "flexible workforce" the irony is at the same time Apprenticeships ended and no attempts were made to bring in any kind of decent management or industrial leadership training leaving our "captains of industry" no obvious way to develop their skills. These people are now in their 40s and our leaders! I always thought that incompetant management was as much to blame for the economic woes of the 70's / 80's as supposedly too powerful unions.

Oh and Vic I dont think Scargill was motivated by some grant soviet scheme. He was doing his job for his members.

Thatcher felt she had to crush [b]A[/b] union (just any union) to make the point that she wouldn't be held to the same extent as previous governments.

The NUM just happened to be next in line, and Scargill was perfectly happy to go to war over the point, to the extent that he refused to allow the strike to go to ballot for fear of losing it.

I can't say that Thatcher was right, far from, but equally I don't hold quite the same levels of vitriol for her that others do. That's their choice. But maybe the same people should also consider Scargill's role in this - he could have significantly changed the course of the strike if he'd acted differently too.

I didn't grow up in a mining area, but have friends who did and whose families did, and many of them will be equally happy when he goes.

Not sure it'll answer your questions but tonight (Monday 9th March 2100 - 2200, BBC4) there's a one hour documentary on the strike - [url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0078ntp ]clicky[/url]

"Documentary which captures the extraordinary passions unleashed by the 1984 miners' strike and examines how it changed Britain forever. Mining villages were consumed by violence and hatred as pickets fought running battles with police and striking and working miners were locked in confrontation.

With powerful interviews, evocative archive and dramatic reconstructions, the film follows the lives of five young miners from one village through a torrid but exciting year."

Also for an miners strike/adventure (climbing) combo would recommend Andy Cave's Learning to Breathe - [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Breathe-Andy-Cave/dp/009180034X ]clicky[/url]. Excellent book.

Thanks for the link, I will definitely watch that program.

From searching around it seems the tin foil hat brigade feel all this coverage of the strikes and the Police (and Armys) response might be being covered in detail at the moment to discourage protesters in the summer.

.... and the Police (and Armys) response.......

The British Army was never used alongside the Police during the Miners Strike.

It was considered at one point due to the huge amount of over-stretch the Police were suffering but the decision was made not to use the Army. Primarily the driving force for this decision was the fact that the bulk of the Army at the time were recruited from what were traditionally mining areas and there was a fear that deploying troops against 'their own' could cause decent among the ranks and possibly lead to a mutiny.

Just a quick post on some of the [url= http://www.election.demon.co.uk/ ]electoral statistics.[/url]
There's much been said in here implying that Maggie was despised, not just by the miners, but by a far wider constituency. At the time, that certainly wasnt reflected in the electoral results both before 1984 and after.

In 1979, Thatcher was voted into power with a relatively modest 11% parliamentary majority over the Labour opposition.

In the 1983 election, just 9 months before the miner's strike began, Thatcher was relected with a dramatically increased majority of 29% (61% vs 32%) on a manifesto that specifically pledged to [url= http://www.conservative-party.net/manifestos/1983/1983-conservative-manifesto.shtml ]set a better balance between trade unions and the rest of society[/url] and effect

Trade Union Reforms

Even in after the strike braking, in 1987 her majority was only cut to 23%.

She had a poltical mandate, from a very large electoral body. Whilst the deomcratic system is designed to protect the minority whilst carrying out the will of the majority, sometimes there's going to be losers, but you cant always blame the politicians who are hardwired to meet the desires of the majority of the electorate. The same accusations can be levied at Blair, voted in on a popular promise, and RE-ELECTED in 2005 despite a popular movement against the 2003 Iraq war decision.

Primarily the driving force for this decision was the fact that the bulk of the Army at the time were recruited from what were traditionally mining areas and there was a fear that deploying troops against 'their own' could cause decent among the ranks and possibly lead to a mutiny.

Just about sums up the whole ethos of her twisted regime. Wouldn't think twice about setting the army upon her own people, so long as they didn't turn round and set about her.

ton - I was kidding, and while I didn't grow up in a mining area I am not Thatcher's biggest fan, and I dread to think what would have happened to NI (where i grew up) had the IRA killed her.

Interesting article by Scargill himself in the Guardian on the weekend [url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/07/arthur-scargill-miners-strike ]here[/url], and just for balance, there's the comment section [url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/07/scargill-miners-strike-thatcher ]here[/url].

Like many people on this thread have said, it's not something I know a great deal about as I was a young child at the time but from what I can derive from all the information, there were mistakes made on both sides (perhaps an understatement) however it was a calculated effort on the government's part to tear apart an industry and a movement in order to regain the upper hand over the working classes. I strongly believe that this had the knock on effect of decimating general manufacturing and heavy industry in the uk, which has indirectly lead us to the point we're at today.

FWIW, I'm by no means a socialist (although from a socialist background) and I don't necessarily trust modern trades unions from my experiences with them. I do however believe that everyone has the right to work in a fair, safe and secure job for reasonable recompense, which is what that strike took away from so many people.

Christian

"There is no such thing as Society" is a quote that still makes me shudder, not because of it's ignorance and stupidity,but because it was the core belief of her philosophy.

Ah, the classic Thatcher mis quote.

If you take it in the context of a quesiton on woman's Hour about requests for government intervention, then it bears a different reading. Yes, it comes from the conservative tradition of self-help, but it was not - [i]in the context[/i] - intended to be a manifesto for greed.

And, in full, here it is:

[i]They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.[/i]

As for the suggestion that Thatcher was out to break the working man, I find that luaghable. I can quite understand that Thatcher wanted to break trade union power - even now, I am not sure we would like a return to the depths of the 70s, where unions held large parts our manufacturing base to ransom - and the NUM, with the equally arrogant and hard line Scargill.

However, the 1984 miners' strinke did not exist on its own, but it had context: [url] http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/6/newsid_4207000/4207111.stm [/url]. We had been here before, with the country reduced to a three day week as a result of the stand-off between Heath and the NUM.

The point is this: Thatcher was about power. And for her, the greatest threat to her power came from the unions. so, she set out to break them (NUM, GCHQ, etc.). And she did.

People are quite right that the social fall out from that is still felt today - although quite why Northerners think they are the only people affected, I'll never undertsand. There are many things she did right, and many things she did wrong, but assuming it was all one way traffic in 1984 is incorrect. She wielded her power bluntly - nowadays the imposition of power on each of us is rather more insidious.

In 1979, Thatcher was voted into power with a relatively modest 11% parliamentary majority over the Labour opposition.

In the 1983 election, just 9 months before the miner's strike began, Thatcher was relected with a dramatically increased majority of 29% (61% vs 32%) on a manifesto that specifically pledged to set a better balance between trade unions and the rest of society and effect

This is very misleading. The conservatives were very clever manipulators and employed all manner of tactics ie boundary changes, ex pat votes etc in order to increase their stranglehold. The reality is that the 79 govt were installed on gaining %42.44 of the public vote and re elected in 83 on %43.87. Hardly a massive swing in public opinion, especially given the so called feel good factor of the Falklands.

I think we're missing the small matter of using the police (mainly shipped in from the Met) to enforce political objectives rather than uphold the law.
No I'm not saying that the miners or other affiliated pickets were all choir boys but arresting or refusing access to areas of Derbyshire, East Nottinghamshire & South Yorkshire to journalists or anyone suspected of being journalists wasn't exactly comply with the law either.

trailmonkey - the difference between popular vote and parliamentary seats is even greater today:

[img] [/img]

whose been manipulating what then?

i aplogise for the statement i made regarding the i.r.a failing to kill thatcher. it was a stupid comment.
but i know loads of families personally that were devestated by the effects of the strike and it's further consequences.
i do believe that the woman ruined the counry.

Richie_B - The complaint that the police were there to enforce a political objectives rather than the law is a bit of a red herring.

The main reason the large amounts of police were brought in in the first place was to allow those who made a lawful decision to not go out on an (initially) illegal strike were not hindered in their lawful business. Whilst the decision with led to the flying pickets was political the police were upholding laws.

As an aside to that though, have the police ever truly operated free from politics? Who makes the laws?

trailmonkey, Thatcher was voted in in '79 with a popular vote of 44% to 37% Labour. In 1983 the popular vote admittedly fell slightly to 42%, but Labour's share fell off a cliff to 28%. In 1987 Labour had only recovered to 31% against Tories 42% again.

The first past the post system will always distort the parliamentary representation. Personally I am all for PR and an increase in single issue parties to create a more cooperative mode of government rather than the mudslinging combatative sort we have today.

Stoner, the object of my post wasn't to score party points but to highlight the innacuracy of citing parliamentry majority in relation to public votes cast. Your example only serves to confirm my standpoint.

BTW, the figures for the 2005 election are quite shocking. I had no idea that this govt were so unpopular even back then. A majority of 65 by gaining 35.19% of the vote. Mother of all democracies my ar$3.

ourmaninthenorth

I didn't mention 'The North'.
It would appear to be yourself with the greasy shoulder.

It's not a misquote. I am fully aware of when and where it was said and in what context.

It was purely designed to make the greedy feel less guilty about themselves. I see no ambiguity.

fair point tm. In which case the "difference" majority figures based on popular vote would have gone from:

11%, 29%, 23% to 7%, 14% and 12% for 1979, 1983 and 1987 respectively.

still a significant jump from '79 to '83.

I didn't mention 'The North'

You may not have but it is the usual next step in any discussion about the Miner's Strike in my ever-so-humble experience.

Its usually turns into North/Labour vs South/Tories and fails completely to take into account large parts of the North that have voted blue since the Tories were formed and large parts of the South (including a huge amount of that there London) that would only ever vote red as thats what they've always done. It also fails to take into account the large amount of Kentishmen and Men of Kent who lost their jobs when the many mines in Kent were closed after their huge support for the strike (Kentish miners were the only ones who voted to continue the strike at the end).

sootyandjim

Excellent point. Regionalism has no place in this discussion.
It's a divide and conquer tactic, designed to distract.

trailmonkey - Member

That's an interesting point. Two years prior, Thatcher was busy drowning Argentinians and certainly would have found it difficult killing people in two theatres.

A little controversial. I do remember miners killing people by chucking concrete blocks through the car though....

breatheeasy
i remember thatcher private bodyguard (the met) killing people by beating them to death with truncheons and trampling them with riot horses...
2 sides to every argument.

can't be bothered to post a big reply which i had in my head but... but we will be partying in the valleys when the witch finally takes the lift down to hell!

yes i am bitter and twisted but growing up seeing it first hand it's naturally effected me.

waihiboy
ditto mate...

It's a divide and conquer tactic, designed to distract.

Have a look at the references to the North in posts above.

There were plenty of collieries not in the North, and yet the concept of being a "working" man (or woman*) is something that appears more prevalent in the self-identified North. And, yet, the reality for those affected by the clsoure of coal mines is quite different - the spead of those whose life was concentrated around mining towns and villages does not exist solely in the North, as sootyandjim has righfully identified.

It's not a misquote. I am fully aware of when and where it was said and in what context.

In which case you will agree that it is nothing more than the standard - not particularly right wing - view that help comes first from the self and then to others. You appear to assume that the quote states that one should help oneself [i]at the expense of[/i] others, which to my mind (and including the context in which it was made) it does not.

Were Thatcher someone with the background of Alan Clark - or, latterly Cameron or Osborne - I might be more inclined to view her work as a person of privilege smashing the common man, but somehow I don't see that. Instead, I see it only as ego and power; and breaking the unions was, for the times, a real triumph of that (as was the Flaklands war, but we'll come onto that another time).

*No, we're not descending into Life of Brian here

ourmaninthenorth
70% of the men finished were from the yorkshire north nottingham coal field.

If the pits are that profitable why are they still closed?

Perhaps have a read about the Tower colliery. It was my Dad's local pit, although he never worked there. The pits are not being reopened because when they're not being maintained, they flood, collapse etc and it becomes terribly expensive to re-open them. It'll happen tho, and possibly not too far in the future.

Ah, Fatcha...

I for one, will stand side by side with Ton, and indeed the millions of others, who will surely rejoice when that evil, evil woman dies. I'm quite prepared to cheer, an celebrate, as the hearse goes by.

I would not wish any evil on another Human Being, under normal circumstances. But Thatcher forfeited her right to be treated as Human, by her actions. Yes, we did despair when she survived the Brighton Bombing.

Here in the East End, she was hated. In London, we had the Print Workers dispute at Wapping, where she used the Police as her private army, to help her mate Murdoch crush the strike. The strikers; men who would never work again. Men who lost their homes. Men who could no longer feed their children.

And we had various disputes at Ford's plant in Dagenham, which led to thousands losing heir jobs. Workers no longer protected by Unions, as Thatcher had changed the Laws.

We had Race Riots; fuelled by mass-unemployment, economic hardship and social dissatisfaction. Fuelled by greedy, selfish Thatcherite policies and ideals.

The Falklands; a completely avoidable and utterly pointless war, which claimed the lives of over 800 people. Hundreds of which died on a ship sailing AWAY from the exclusion zone. For why? So she could demonstrate British weapon making capabilities. Over 800 people died, so she could have a shop front for weapons of mass destruction.

Margaret Thatcher never cared about ordinary people. Never. She cared for the wealthy elite, and no-one else. 'I'm all right Jack- **** you', was her philosophy.

Britain has never had as evil a Prime Minister, surely. That woman crushed the Working People's ability to be part of the Democratic Process. Divide, and Rule, with an Iron Fist.

Good for this country? Anyone who defends her, or her government's actions, is seriously deluded. This nation is in the state it is in now, because of that woman, and her selfish, grabbing, uncaring policies. That's a fact. And no politician since has had the balls to reverse that situation.

I'll be there, as the cortege drives past.

And I'll raise a pint, all right.

A pint of milk.

Thatcher was actually drowning Argentineans? She gets about a bit.

Oh, you mean the Belgrano thing?

Couldn't the Argentinian government be as cupable if not more so in the deaths of all those sailors for sending a relic of WW2 against a navy armed with nuclear-powered hunter/killer submarines?

Oh now comes the 'Exclusion Zone' thing, something that only has standing under international law in the respect of neutral vessels, not those of belligerent states, even less so after the message sent via the Swiss Embassy to Argentina on the 23rd April which states,

In announcing the establishment of a Maritime Exclusion Zone around the Falkland Islands, Her Majesty's Government made it clear that this measure was without prejudice to the right of the United Kingdom to take whatever additional measures may be needed in the exercise of its right of self-defence under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. In this connection Her Majesty's Government now wishes to make clear that any approach on the part of Argentine warships, including submarines, naval auxiliaries or military aircraft, which could amount to a threat to interfere with the mission of British Forces in the South Atlantic will encounter the appropriate response. All Argentine aircraft, including civil aircraft engaged in surveillance of these British forces, will be regarded as hostile and are liable to be dealt with accordingly.

As Rear-Admiral Allara comander of the Belgrano task group i quoted on record "[i]After that message of 23 April, the entire South Atlantic was an operational theatre for both sides. We, as professionals, said it was just too bad that we lost the Belgrano.[/i]."

Blame Thatcher for many things but the sinking of the Belgrano, although regrettable (though not preventable by the Argentineans), was legal.

Anyway, thats slightly off thread.

Sooty; give it up, mate. Just admit the truth, which you know anyway.

The sinking of the Belgrano was in no way 'legal'.

Sooty; you seem like an intelligent person. Please, go and find some facts, seek the truth.

That woman was evil, mate. She cares for you, as much as she does for me. Or Ton. Or any other ordinary person in this nation.

Don't get me started on Pinochet...

Back to the original post for a moment, my step-dad earnt [b]£32k [/b]in his last year as a miner in 1988. So yes, they were earning a lot but it was a filthy, & dangerous job.

The stuff could be shipped 8k miles around the world & still be cheaper than the stuff dug out 10 miles away. So simple economics meant that something had to give eventually. The fact that it happened to be Thatcher who was PM at the time simply made the situation worse as she was no stranger to smashing the stranglehold of trade unions, & the manner in which the closure program was rolled out simply did the govt' no favours. She cut her teeth fighting the print unions I seem to remember.

As for the pits, the sad truth is that a good few were coming to the end of their natural lives anyway. But, a good few could have been perfectly viable ongoing concerns. They would have required some major reforms though, not least the disbanding of the NCB, who had allowed things to become so bad through poor management. Had they passed to private ownership then a good few 100k miners could have remained employed until they re-trained / found other work. The truth remained that there were far too many miners than the demand for coal needed.

ourmaninthenorth,

Taken in isolation, your point seems reasonable, especially to anyone too young to have been around at the time.

However, look at it in the context of her monetary policies, deregulation of the financial services industry, lack of support for any of the communities affected, tax reforms, educational policies etc, etc.
She believed in her free market,trickle-down dream. That's why she was so, so, dangerous.

Please don't attempt to justify her divisive right-wing fundamentalism as a power trip. She was far too intelligent for that.

We should never forget what this woman did, and anyone who attempts to rehabilitate her, for whatever reason, is helping to ensure that the same mistakes will be made twice in the same generation.

I take it you are a Southerner 'exiled' in the North?
Bitter is a drink mate, not a suggestion as to attitude.
Don't feel regionalism has any place in this discussion, but it does seem to bother you.

RB - Read Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. I did as part of my research for my BA in Military History dissertation. Whilst not the most riveting read it will provide many of the answers you so surely seek.

Other than that I'm not going to belittle what I've already stated as it is correct.

Hate Thatcher for whatever you like but the sinking of the Belgrano was legal in the eyes of international law and only those who have an axe to grind for other reasons over Thatcher and bitter, ex-Juntaist Argentineans perpetuate the myth that it was anything other than.

Whether she cares for me matters not one jott, I'm only correcting the often incorrectly stated comment that the sinking was illegal. Whether it was moral is a completely different matter of course.

[i]Her Majesty's Government now wishes to make clear that any approach on the part of Argentine warships, including submarines, naval auxiliaries or military aircraft, which could amount to a threat to interfere with the mission of British Forces in the South Atlantic will encounter the appropriate response[/i]

'approach' usually indicates motion towards, doesn't it?