miner strike

[pauln]

I don't believe it was the Government that destroyed the miners, it was Scargill not knowing when to quit that did that. You remember that he'd already brought down one Government (Ted Heath) in 1974 right?

 

Then we had labour in the mid late 70's inflation at 27% and the unions were at it again! Who that lived through it could forget the winter of discontent, power cuts, food shortages, hospital entrances blockaded and by the end of it even the bin men and grave diggers were on strike!!

 

Then the iron lady came in, swung her handbag at all of them and eventually the country was prosperous again. Ok it may have been painful at some points along the way but seriously, what other option was there?

 

Nope, she had her faults like all politicians but she saved this country from being flushed down the pan and there's no persuading me otherwise.

 

 

Looks like were on opposite sides of the line Mr Vista. She created the selfish me,me,me society. She destroyed this countries infrastructure (the family silver as Mc Millan described it) and as you say there's no persuading me otherwise. The most infamous pm of all time.

[Vista]

That's ok mate, the world would be a very dull place if we all saw things in the same light.

 

Plus you can't help being wrong

[mk1super]

What if Norway decided it wanted the Shetland islands?

 

Well thats easy to answer, they would turn it into a massive race track like Gatebil and roar around in cossie powered mk1/2 escorts scarying the sheep to death

 

Sounds great to me

[pauln]

That's ok mate, the world would be a very dull place if we all saw things in the same light.

 

Plus you can't help being wrong

 

Neither can you

[bigdaz27]

ok i agre with some of what your all saying but thatcher fooked the country and heres why yes vista your right the unions had to much power and they needed to be stoped but she sold every thing that was british to pay of debts ok good idea but what about the future if she would have spent a little money the tranins gas and mining and other industrys could have made money she didnt think about the miners at all in its hay day we had 186 mines in the uk producing over 130k tones of coal a year from 1984 to 1985 she closed 97 of them yes she had her resons but she put 27000 people on the rock and roll what about there families and there comunites she didnt think about it becouse she didnt care it didnt mater what the miners did thatcher was going to close them any way now in the uk we have 6 mines still open producing about 18k tones of coal a year and we buy in from other countys 45k tones a year think about that plus if you got anything with made in england on you new it was bloody good and thatcher took the lot of us and even the great out of great britain she only thought of the middle class and uper class the lower class could have fook all as far as she was concernd and Scargill was only in it to line his own pocket he walked away a very ritch man

[Fishtailparka]

Anything that said made in Britain on it usually broke or fell to bits.

Look how wonderful Ford cars were, they came out of the factory rusting.

A friend of mine bought an Escort brand new. Within 3 years it was so rotten it had to be scrapped.

Mk3 Cortinas dissolved before your eyes.

Triumph motorbikes, oil came out quicker than you could get it in.

British Leyland invented the Allegro. Need I say more?

 

 

In 1983 75% of British coal mines were losing money. Why keep them open anyway. Coal was much cheaper from abroad.

[accord83]

I was an AEU shop steward at 20. I was a copper at 22 and I was at the 'Battle for Orgreave' The first 3 days, we the Police, played football against the miners, and all had a good push and a shove when the trucks rolled in and out.

Then the mood changed, coaches full of radical rent a mob and students arrived, we, the Police, got paint stripper gel in bags was thrown at us, burning cars were rolled down the hill at us, we had bricks and broken drainage pipes thrown at us, this is all forgotten now, only footage of the the notorious mounted charges are shown. As a trade unionist it broke my heart to see the miners sold down the river by their leaders. I heard a quote " Arthur Scargill started the strike with a big union and a small house, but ended up with a small union and a big house". I saw miners on the bread line being given strike pay by a union rep driving an Jag XJS!! It was a shocking time, but it allowed me to save up for the deposit on my house, called Camelot, because it was made possble by the Knights of 'King Arthur'. Say what you want about Margaret Thatcher, Scargill appeared intent on bringing down the British Government, so she was being backed into a corner.

[pauln]

Anything that said made in Britain on it usually broke or fell to bits.

Look how wonderful Ford cars were, they came out of the factory rusting.

A friend of mine bought an Escort brand new. Within 3 years it was so rotten it had to be scrapped.

Mk3 Cortinas dissolved before your eyes.

Triumph motorbikes, oil came out quicker than you could get it in.

British Leyland invented the Allegro. Need I say more?

.

 

The Society of motor manufacturers and traders are trying to find ways to force us into new cars. If they made them like they used to they might be sucessful .

[bigdaz27]

i must be one of few things with made in england on it

[mk1super]

i must be one of few things with made in england on it

 

Cool my mate has "Return to sender"

[tt capri]

Well i live in what used to be a pit village and have done for all my life , i was 20 when the strike was on and my dad was on strike , i was working on the building sites , but as i had a firms van the cops used to stop me either leaving or coming back home as they thought i was transporting pickets to the colliery , i was bringing scrap wood home so people had a fire and picking the lads up at the beach banks as they carried sacks of coal off the beach , wether the strike was right or wrong , it's not my call but to this day they still will not speak to scabs under any circumstances , but even the profitable pits were shut down , they met every target that British Coal had , so brand new machinery was put into the colliery's , that was not needed to make them uneconomical , as my dad said as he was one of the last miners out of Easington Colliery , yes that's where Billy Elliot was filmed , the machines were left unused underground , millions of pounds abandonded , But it was'nt just the pit's that shut it changed so many villages , ruined a lot of peoples lives and i think that people are still paying the price of that strike

Sorry for waffling on time for a

[garyv6100e]

Several points for you guys , coal is looked upon as the the fuel of the devil just look at kings north planned power station so coal is dead

There has been to much emphasis placed on health and saftey and work place welfare which the union's fought for , even prior to this recession much off of our industry was uncompetive / over priced due to cheap unregulated forgien imports i have been visiting firms for the last 10 years that can not even by the material to make a product that a firm in china can make it for and ship over to the uk

don't get me wrong holiday pay / sick pay is needed but we opened the flood gates to excessive work place saftey with a complete lack of giving employee's responsibility for there own actions

[FredTransit]

^^^ well said, H&S has gone mad, and done more damage to industry than Margaret Thatcher ever did!

[Guest cortinamad-gonetoo]

ok i agre with some of what your all saying but thatcher fooked the country and heres why yes vista your right the unions had to much power and they needed to be stoped but she sold every thing that was british to pay of debts ok good idea but what about the future if she would have spent a little money the tranins gas and mining and other industrys could have made money she didnt think about the miners at all in its hay day we had 186 mines in the uk producing over 130k tones of coal a year from 1984 to 1985 she closed 97 of them yes she had her resons but she put 27000 people on the rock and roll what about there families and there comunites she didnt think about it becouse she didnt care it didnt mater what the miners did thatcher was going to close them any way now in the uk we have 6 mines still open producing about 18k tones of coal a year and we buy in from other countys 45k tones a year think about that plus if you got anything with made in england on you new it was bloody good and thatcher took the lot of us and even the great out of great britain she only thought of the middle class and uper class the lower class could have fook all as far as she was concernd and Scargill was only in it to line his own pocket he walked away a very ritch man

 

 

well said that man

[john123]

it must be why we are on such good wages and conditions in this country and not picked on by bosses just as well we rely on what companys want to give us

[emu]

Okay, Im just chucking in a few observations and points, because we all like a good mass debate.

 

I have to admit to not really knowing very much about the politics back then, but I have noticed a few things from this thread.

 

Of people who are slating Thatcher, how many of you were DIRECTLY affected by the events being discusser? Before anyone says "we all were because she was the PM", What I mean is were you or your families involved in the miners strikes (on either side), or the Falklands?

 

The reason I ask is because I find it quite interesting that, it seems that many people who were old enough to remember properly dont really seem to be slating Thatcher as much as those who were more considerably more interested at the time in playing on the swings and collecting conkers. That said, perhaps its just a north/south divide.

 

Over and over again on here we see comments such as "If I caught someone stealing my car id break their legs". " We never see " I'd sit the fella down, make him a cup of tea and have a chat with him, see if we could come to some arrangement about sharing my belongings"

 

Argentina invaded the Falklands. They didnt ask nicely if they could pop in and borrow the kettle. Thatchers Government and Armed Forces went and dealt with it. Isnt this the same thing as you and your garage, just on a much larger scale??

 

From what I can make out, Lots of people say how they would love to live in the seventies. But perhaps its all through rose tinted glasses. Union strikes, three day weeks, power blackouts, beige and orange geometric wallpaper. It doesnt sound that great TBH.

 

What did she do that people do appreciate her for?

 

 

Anyway, like I say, I dont know much abut it all.

[john123]

i was around in those times and she did teach us to be selfish look after no1 the times were bad for the miners and i do not think there was no way out but to fight to try and save there jobs which she was going to close down anyway its so nice to keep people in work in other countrys importing coal when we still have some of the best stuff right here the custom car scene was great in the 70s

[Vista]

i was around in those times and she did teach us to be selfish look after no1 the times were bad for the miners and i do not think there was no way out but to fight to try and save there jobs which she was going to close down anyway its so nice to keep people in work in other countrys importing coal when we still have some of the best stuff right here the custom car scene was great in the 70s

 

Sure the car scene was good, and manufacturers still made cars that most of us could fix and maintain ourselves. The music was pretty good too but lets face it, other than that the 70's was not a great decade, many of the reasons for which have already been stated.

 

Back to MT, she must have been pleasing some people for her to stay in power and lead the conservative party for 15 years, 11 of which were as PM.

 

Plus, all of those that own their own council houses or have bought and sold their council houses at great profit, owe it to Margaret Thatcher. Her main drive was to revitalise the British economy by ending state control of loss making nationalised companies that were all badly run by endless numbers of faceless bureaucrats and civil servants set up by the previous labour government (sounds familiar doesn't it). Huge organisations that were costing enormous sums to run and producing sweet FA for the expense. By 1982 her policies had reduced inflation from the rampant 18% left by the previous government down to 8.5%, by 1983 economic growth was strong and interest rates were at their lowest since 1970. Sure, unemployment went up initially but as many of these were job losses from now privatised but formerly loss making state funded industries, why should the tax payer have continually funded these organisations?

[Fishtailparka]

Maggie was Prime Minister in the eighties, not the seventies.

I started the decade (80's) with my first jump, and ended it with my son being born. Best years of my life, I had a whale of a time.

It was very fashionable to slate Maggie back then, and I never really understood why. Ben Elton built his whole career on slagging off Maggie, when in my opinion it was her that gave him the opportunity to do just that in the first place. She put this country on a very good footing in my opinion.

We were in a bit of a boom at that time. What do you think gave Harry Enfield the idea of his "Loadsamoney" character? There were real people acting in a very similar way to his character, money was flowing into a lot of peoples pockets.

You can't lay the blame for peoples selfish attitudes at Maggies door. How can a Prime Minister possibly do that? In the 70's people were hard up and struggling, that was what influenced the money grabbing ways of the 80's. They were able to earn a lot of money, and spent it with relish. Tha last boom that has just come to a crashing end was fuelled by easy credit, not easy earnings.

[Vista]

Maggie was Prime Minister in the eighties, not the seventies

 

She led the conservative party from 1975 and won the general election in 1979.

[81-cortina]

it was all a con............

thatcher destroyed the coal industry simply to destroy the unions that threatened her rule......

 

and the miners suffered..........

 

most mines made a profit but were deliberately over spent to appear to make a loss to justify its closure, as whats been already said.

they deliberatlely over spent on new machinery to show colliery making a loss, many required new equipment for years and never got it, all of a sudden they had new workshops, new weigh bridges new machinery and spare machinery lined up in the yards, items they neither needed or would ever use

I live right next door to the former NCB headquarters at TONDU in south wales and know many who worked there. and the same story was there,

they fitted out a brand new purpose built workshop there costing over £1,000,000 to build and kit out. spent a fortune on the laboratory for testing coal samples and within 6months it was closed and demolished within a short space of time, nothing ever replaced it...........

 

One particular colliery ive researched closed in the mid eighties, reason was uneconomical,(it had just been refitted with new equipment) when that colliery closed it had just been surveyed and had coal reserves for another 125 years of mining.

 

Thatcher was responsible for the destruction of our independance, if we ever (hope it never comes) have another war in this country we will fall as nearly everything is imported and we have lost valuable skills

 

A lot of people i know are now reverting back to coal heating, one of my firends has just spent £3500 having gas removed and chimney repaired and fitted coal heating........................

 

just my opinion dont take it personal anybody.................

[FredTransit]

What I can't get over is that we are sitting on coal sticks, yet import it from all over the world. How can that be cost effective? And what about that old chestnut, the environment? I don't mean using coal, I mean bringing it 1000s of miles to use it? I also hear that people are burning wood again as well as coal, cos they can't afford the heating bills.

[bigdaz27]

She only thought and acted for the middle class and upper class sector of the population, and took no consideration for the lower class section at all

[pauln]

Funny how you live through the same time but see it differently.

I never had the chance to buy and sell a council house for a huge profit. I had the choice of buy or rent from a private landlord. We decided to buy and under the tories huge interest rates most of my wages went on the mortgage, if Lamonts panic rate rise had come in the house would have gone.

The utilities were sold at well below their true value enabling the greedy to make huge profits (i could'nt buy share in my own firm I did'nt have the spare cash- see mortgage above). Following utility privitisation foreign companies have come and asset stripped on the way leaving utilities with worn out assets and no means of replacing them except to extort more money from the customer (but the shareholders come before the assets).

I don't see an economy boosted by an injection of cash from these sell offs, when the tories were finally kicked out there was just a huge hole that needed to be filled with money.

After labour got in and the interest rates dropped I could afford to more than just pay off the house and even in these uncertain times we are more secure moneywise than under the tories. Speak to you soon Vista.

[Vista]

Speak to you soon Vista.

 

Na, I've said my piece. Besides the last 12 years of labour mismanagement of the country and economy speaks for itself.