My dancing shoes are polished and waiting by the door….
Thatcher fought the NUM and others purely for her own ego and political beliefs(and that of her henchmen) not the good or betterment of the country.
Yes some of the strikers went beyond what they should have done, but so did the police in equal measure.
When you see the total destruction of pit villages, and the families within, and these villages are still like that now- you get a different perspective of the economic viability of the mines. As some one previously posted regarding the total meltdown in these communities – when the pits were thriving, everyone had a job waiting, there was no underclass of chavs who hang about all day drinking/getting stoned/getting up to no good-costing the economy billions, yes they may have been a few layabouts but it wasn’t an accepted way of life as it appears to be now.
So what would be the real cost of having a UK coal mining/power generating industry? Fair enough some pits were finished, but many more not, and there are still enormous reserves of coal available.
Similarly the ship yards were shut due to being uneconomical, they were forced to tender for work on a global marketplace that was awash with subsidised yards in Europe and beyond.
That’s my twopennith worth!
The normal Thatcher apologists seem to be missing from here