Today was the start of the Great Miners’ Strike of 1984/85.
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butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Lawson said at the time in the commons that the cost of coal strike was a 'worthwhile investment for the good of the nation.'
DRINK?
bummed by karmachameleon
What was the fuss about?... All these goverment haters needing a big friendly government to keep them employed even if the industry they were in was losing millions? Mining, steel and any other British 'industry' were on their last legs when Thatcher came to power.
The 3 day week and all that malarky All Maggie did was close those antiquated practices and drag this country kicking and screaming into the modern age. So people lost jobs? Shit happens. We used to have over 500,000 blacksmiths in this country...but guess what? We don't travel on horses anymore. Are you upset about their demise? Thought not. So work it out...Would you shut the internet down to keep libraries open?
The miners were holding every working man and his family to ransom every year demanding above-inflation wage rises, which of course was ramping inflation and alternative fuel prices up, and leaving old people unable to keep themselves warm. Thatcher was forced to choose the lesser of the 2 evils by importing coal at 1/5th of the price from Australia. They got what they deserved the f*cking smug, blackmailing greedy c*nts
Thatcher was a visionary. Closed down 100's of polluting coal mines in the 80's despite protests and violent demonstrations. Now the descendents of those 'liberals' that protested against pit closures are now protesting against coal. 'Coal not Dole' the badges said back then. I just saw a sticker on a lampost that said 'Say no to Coal'. F*cking idiots. One day all will understand that Thatcher was the greatest leader this nation, if not Europe, has ever seen.
The 3 day week and all that malarky All Maggie did was close those antiquated practices and drag this country kicking and screaming into the modern age. So people lost jobs? Shit happens. We used to have over 500,000 blacksmiths in this country...but guess what? We don't travel on horses anymore. Are you upset about their demise? Thought not. So work it out...Would you shut the internet down to keep libraries open?
The miners were holding every working man and his family to ransom every year demanding above-inflation wage rises, which of course was ramping inflation and alternative fuel prices up, and leaving old people unable to keep themselves warm. Thatcher was forced to choose the lesser of the 2 evils by importing coal at 1/5th of the price from Australia. They got what they deserved the f*cking smug, blackmailing greedy c*nts
Thatcher was a visionary. Closed down 100's of polluting coal mines in the 80's despite protests and violent demonstrations. Now the descendents of those 'liberals' that protested against pit closures are now protesting against coal. 'Coal not Dole' the badges said back then. I just saw a sticker on a lampost that said 'Say no to Coal'. F*cking idiots. One day all will understand that Thatcher was the greatest leader this nation, if not Europe, has ever seen.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Well done on finally managing to learn how do a paragraph drink - and it only took 6 years to learn. Valuable skill that.
dylanredefined
Not a house elf a tiger
Seems pretty much what I remeber people happy to give money to support miners not so keen on Scargill.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Drink, dunno where to start here apart from fuck right off.
Mebbe's I'll get my head round this paragraph shit one of these fine days
dennisr
the acceptable face
And giving that money was 'supporting the miners' - without any expressed concern about tactics.
In between being up on the lines (Lancashire and Wales) - I was on the dole and with 4-5 mates (all of us 15-17) stood with buckets collecting from daylight to dusk. We raised - literally - thousands with ease (the biggest problem was the coppers trying to stop us - arrest us for collecting etc) - and that wasn't in some 'prole stronghold' it was in Portsmouth and Leigh Park/Havant in Hampshire. The money want to Wales which was our designated support area. the idea 'the majority opposed the miners' is bollocks.
dennisr
the acceptable face
oh the irony - look at the banking system now, muppet
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
One of my abiding memories is attacking some specky kid at 6th form college, ripping the 'Coal not Dole' stickers off his coat and sticking them on his glasses.
The thing that always stuck me was that most of Scargill's problems (legal and otherwise) came from the refusal to hold a national ballot. If he'd done this and won it the outcome could have been very different.
The thing that always stuck me was that most of Scargill's problems (legal and otherwise) came from the refusal to hold a national ballot. If he'd done this and won it the outcome could have been very different.
dennisr
the acceptable face
From some Facebok site John Kowal***k (Leeds) wrote:
"I remember it well because i was a striking miner i worked at Fryston pit in castleford a good close knit pit where the men stuck together & fought for what they believed in . I had only returned back to mining in 1983 & was living in Sherburn in Elmet i got married in feb 84 & the strike started in march . I & most of the miners were good law abiding lads fighting to save our jobs & communities but after been brutalised by the police on the picket line shafted by dss who refused to give us a penny & vilified by the press who manipulated the tv coverage . We lived on Russian food parcels & the odd road kill we had no fuel to keep us warm in the winter so went out cutting trees & we survived . Its 25 years on & i dont regret anything in fact i would do the same again but what makes me so angry is seeing the coal trains bringing in the 46 ml tons all imported ?"
"I remember it well because i was a striking miner i worked at Fryston pit in castleford a good close knit pit where the men stuck together & fought for what they believed in . I had only returned back to mining in 1983 & was living in Sherburn in Elmet i got married in feb 84 & the strike started in march . I & most of the miners were good law abiding lads fighting to save our jobs & communities but after been brutalised by the police on the picket line shafted by dss who refused to give us a penny & vilified by the press who manipulated the tv coverage . We lived on Russian food parcels & the odd road kill we had no fuel to keep us warm in the winter so went out cutting trees & we survived . Its 25 years on & i dont regret anything in fact i would do the same again but what makes me so angry is seeing the coal trains bringing in the 46 ml tons all imported ?"
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Cheers for that, a bit late, but there loads of my rellies that'd be saying for themselves if they were about, I'll just say it for them
dennisr
the acceptable face
Wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference once the strike started - a less spineless bunch of traitors - Blubber Willis and Kinnock - running the TUC and LP could of. That was the best weopon the Tories had.
dennisr
the acceptable face
*embarressed*
no need for any thanks.
walking back with the miners at Mardy with the banner (? - i think it was Mardy) at the end of the strike we had tears coming down our faces along with many of the pitmen. its was a bitter moment. taught me all i really need to know.
i remember the 'miners against the poll tax' leaning forward and charging into the police at trafalgar square a few year later. a wee bit of compensation
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Care to present any evidence that proves your claim (besides headlines from Tory papers, obviously)?
The mines most certainly weren't on their "last legs", that's for certain. Are you aware that it actually cost more for coal to be shipped in from Chile and Convictland for power generation, than it did to mine it here?
See, it's not as simple as a profit/loss account, you have to reveal all the hidden costs too
Who caused the three-day week, hmmm?
No, that's not "all she did", as anyone who is familiar with the era knows. She and her cronies engineered the destruction of our manufacturing base which, granted, had some holes in it, but which could have on the whole remained profitable. What Thatcher did was destroy it in order to create the conditions for a service economy with as little transition as possible, to minimise the effect on capital. Not on people, but on capital.
Did all the blacksmiths get thrown out of employment at once, or was it actually a progressive diminution of numbers over the course of 3-4 decades?
Your comparison of what Thatcher was responsible for over a decade with the gradual reduction in numbers of blacksmiths is irrelevant.
You understand economic processes so poorly I'm tempted to ask whether you have a B.A. in Economics. You also appear to have missed several external factors that influenced inflation far more heavily than pay claims.
By the way, have a hunt around the net and compare the gross and net price of Aussie and Chilean coal, i.e. at the mine head and as delivered. The facts kind of burn a hole in the "cheaper foreign coal" myth.
Won't happen, because most people aren't idiots.Thatcher was a visionary. Closed down 100's of polluting coal mines in the 80's despite protests and violent demonstrations. Now the descendents of those 'liberals' that protested against pit closures are now protesting against coal. 'Coal not Dole' the badges said back then. I just saw a sticker on a lampost that said 'Say no to Coal'. F*cking idiots. One day all will understand that Thatcher was the greatest leader this nation, if not Europe, has ever seen.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
*embarressed*
no need for any thanks.
walking back with the miners at Mardy with the banner (? - i think it was Mardy) at the end of the strike we had tears coming down our faces along with many of the pitmen. its was a bitter moment. taught me all i really need to know.
i remember the 'miners against the poll tax' leaning forward and charging into the police at trafalgar square a few year later. a wee bit of compensation
Didn't want to embarass you. Was just worth a mention, like
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
How can you call them scabs when they weren't balloted about strike action?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I suggest that you make efforts to learn about the internal federal structure of the NUM before you continue repeating tory propoganda so neutrally.
we ( brighton NUM support group) were in kent ( betteshanger i think .. Derek Thompson later 'Charlie' of Casualty, was acting in The grden of England ) the night before the strike ended .. after the play the miners chanted simply 'we're not going back .. we're not going back' and the next morning they voted not to go back for another 3 days .. ditto tears all round!
just found this .. "Using the voices of miners and their families, along with NUM minutes and archives, 'Sixty Years of Struggle' tells the story of Betteshanger’s proud history standing up for workers’ rights."
http://www.word-power.co.uk/books/60-years-of-struggle-I9780955755002/
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Found an intersting video - All Out! Dancing in Dulais about some people from the London LGSM group who went down to the Dulais:
rubbish .. i totally accept that the area action that the miners choose to do was fine within the NUM constitution but they could have carried that on AND had a national ballot which they would have won ..
the thing with ballots is IF you lose them it shows you have NOT won the arguement .. that a whole range fo bureucrats supportted NOT having a national ballot shows more abut the bureaucracy than the tactical advantage a win in anational ballot would have given in shutting down the midlands
long article by scargill in guardian today
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/07/arthur-scargill-miners-strike
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/07/arthur-scargill-miners-strike
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
Excuse me? Even the NUM website agrees with this version of events...
"In the large Notts coalfield, however, miners (with 5,000 honourable exceptions) tragically refused to give this support; some of their leaders argued that a ballot should have been held, ignoring the fact that in 1981 Notts miners had supported a national unofficial strike against closures without any ballot vote."
hi BA thats good but why start in july?
i knew a few of the London LGSM when i moved to london in 85 .. yes inspiring stuff
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
With what version of events exactly? That a national ballot wasn't called. yes and?
I notice that you handily cut out the preceding paragrpah that highted why the federal structure fo the NUM is crucially important here, in line with my post:
Now, have another go. But you'll need a far firmer grasp of what happened than desperate after the fact googling.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Because that's as far back as the database i was using went to. I'll come back to it and fill it out from another sourcewhen i get a chance. (Not today though - i've had enough of that for now!)
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
So the Nottingham coal miners didn't support the strike. How does that make them scabs if the strike was, as you say, agreed on a local, rather than national level?
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