The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Can't find a thread about this, and bearing in mind the impact it had on the country, I am surpised, but the miner's strike was started on 11th March 1984. 25 years ago yesterday..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/looknorthyorksl..._feature.shtml

Now, whether you agree with the Miners or Margaret Thatcher, you have to admit, that strike did have a massive impact and it did change the country.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Well you have to hand it to Maggie, if you're going to cripple several communities in one go, you do it properly or not at all.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Community and society are alien concepts to thatcherites. :mad:

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

And expecting deep coal mines to be profitable, efficient operations was an alien concept to Scargillites.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

With government aid and support (available to other industries at the time and subsequently) who knows how well the mining industry could have done.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

A full ballot of the miners would have helped the strike's legitimacy, imho.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

I agree although I don't think the outcome would have been different. It was a strike that was always going to be lost. The human cost was not important to Thatcher, she was hell bent on revenge for what the unions did to previous Tory administrations. Thatcher had the support of the press, especially the red tops, and hence the British public.

It's interesting that Scargill recently revealed that their had been strike deals agreed on 5 separate occasions and the first four were sabotaged by Thatcher.

They may will be flawed recollections but I wouldn't really be surprised if it was the case. I suspect that Thatcher knew she had won but wanted to make the victory final.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

With other countries happy to strip mine and completely destroy whole swathes of land there is no way this country could have remained competitive in pricing within the mining industry.
No one wants to strike and often there are legitimate reasons to strike but 25 years ago there was behaviour on both sides that when looked back on is shocking and saddening.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

I agree that's the case in our generation but with dwindling fossil fuel resources this wouldn't always have been the case. If cost hadn't been the only consideration, many of these mines could have been put on a care and maintenance basis and been financially viable in the future.

Some would actually be viable just now.

I'm sure future generations will look back at some of the decisions made in our time and be totally bewildered by them.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

There's still lots of coal in the UK. Problem now is though, where the pits once where are now industrial units or "eco" towns.

The cost to reopen many closed pits, at the moment, are to prohibitive. But the price of coal will go up. Everybody I know has ripped out, or is planning to rip out, their gas fires and are replacing them with open fires or stoves. So the demand may make it viable to reopen some pits.

In regards to the strike, the unions needed breaking. They had already destroyed the motor industry and had held the country to ransom in previous years with powercuts and blackouts a plenty.

I have no sympathy for the miners, had they held adult talks witht he government and accepted that change was necessary we might have had more of a coal industry than we do now.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

I remember the day clearly, as it was when I got married.
We went away, flew back to Manchester airport, up the M62, and the strikers were out on the bridges over the motorway with banners and placards.

The division between families was terrible.
We still know of a family who will have nothing to do with one of their sons, as he went back to work.
They called him a scab then, and last time we had the discussion about him, they still refered to him as that same word!
His brother who did stay out on strike though, has no hard feelings.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Our council is in the process of removing all the fire places from council properties - not that they were coal ones anyway, but we don't even have gas fires - where was the demand for coal? Of course mines would have to close. The government can't keep bailing out failing businesses out of some sort of pity, where would that lead us? :erm:

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

The demand for coal comes from power stations. Most of it now has to be imported. It would have cost the government of the day a miniscule amount to keep some pits on a care and maintenance basis, compared to the obscene amounts of money they have used to bail out the collapsed banking industry. :rolleyes:
There would have been no pity required. There were strong economic and social arguments for such a policy but they didn't fit in with the pure greed culture promoted by the Thatcherites.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

did the government at the time just assume that power stations would go nuclear or something then? how odd.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

I read an article in a national paper about three days ago, that the miners strike could have been sorted out quickly, but that old bag Thatcher, stopped the agreement several times.

The NCB and the miners agreed a settlement to stop the strike, but the old bag, blocked it, and that is why it went for so long. The good thing is that after so many years, there is a mining industry and it is going strong, and now is the time we need it.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Yes, and your namesake Mr Scargill was the voice of reason, who had no ill feelings towards the Tories.......

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Then, as now, discussion of this issue just descends into petty tribal squabbling. I'd say class warfare, but that's to ignore the fact that back then most of the working-class Press was against the strike.

The fact that families and communities are still divided over this and prepared to use petty, pathetic playground insults like 'scab' tells me all I need to know.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

ChrisCFT, l agree with what you are saying, when l read this article about this mine that is still going, It brought up the 'scab' problem, and how it has cut ties with members of families today, I can always remember, l was working in Wales at the time, and saw the Lorries full of coal coming towards the Severn Bridge, under police convoy, and it brought a lump to my throat.

The Mining Industry was brought to its knees by an old bag of a woman, who tore the heart out of the working industry as we know it, I am very proud of my father, who worked down the mines, and taught me right from wrong, and how respect others peoples views, and respect people as they are and too talk it over instead of fighting.

I fully support the mining folk, as they stood for what is right, sometimes they were wrong, but this is part of life, and you have to live with it.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

I don't imagine that David Wilkie's family will look back with anything other than utter contempt for some miners.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_David_Wilkie

reference for our younger readers

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

have to say i agree with chris on this.Even my father who was a deputy down the local pit said the pits weren't run very efficiently and something needed to be done
whether "maggies way"was the right way is a matter of opinion ,i agreed with alot of the changes she made to the country , and in SOME ways,NOT all i think we are better off
however i do think that now is right time to look at re-opening some of the pits,given the level of modern technology compared to 25yrs ago i think we could make a much better job of it

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Most if not all, abandoned pits can't be reopened without spending an unrealistically large amount of money and untried engineering. Once a pit is allowed to flood and fall into disrepair it's gone for good.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

If they decided to re -open the mines tomorrow, the mining families would all get together and dance with joy. And bring plenty of employment to those effected areas.

And with all the money this government and that governments before have waisted on new contraptions to create energy for the future, we have got that under the soil, we still import coal, so why not create our own.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

i agree that is the problem .It was very shortsighted of the gov. to allow this to happen some of the larger pits should have been maintained .I do remember it was a big political issue at the time (shortley after the strike and the pits started to close ) but as usual maggie got her way and had them closed instead of mothballed
maybe the gov. should look at long term spending over say 10-15yrs to re-open some of the larger ones or even sink new shafts in new fields ..if there are new fields to be found

---------- Post added at 21:20 ---------- Previous post was at 21:18 ----------

would the youth of today work down the pit?

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

I think the youths of today, Would go down the pit, it would give them an sight into the fact, that they are producing something.

The mining industry brought familes together, and with all the gear available, it would not be too long to produce the coal within a month and to meet health and safety needs.

Youths and say for example young lads and lasses who have been before the beak, could take an offer go and get trained to go down the pit and earn money and repay society or face other dull duties. You would be surpised at what incentives that would give them.:)

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

i would love to agree with you ,i think a month is a bit optomistic though,
seriously though i know it would be a huge challenge both financialy and in engineering but wouldn't it be great if a gov. decided to invest in re-opening pits
it could put us back on the world stage as far as engineering breakthroughs are concerned, it would be a huge challenge but well worth it to bring back some self esteem to this once great manufacturing nation
after all, you can't run a country on kebab shops and supermarkets

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

No, and you can't run it on an environmentally disastrous fuel like coal, either. Let's not forget that the carbon capture technology that has been postulated has never been shown to work on a commercial scale, let alone work profitably. It will be many years before we can hope to run coal-fired power stations that do not make a nasty big contribution to climate change.

We would be better off showing our engineering prowess as a nation by seeing how much wind and wave energy we can harness.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Yes, with you on that Chris. Unfortunately, successive governments have failed to invest in the home educated talent that could drive forward advances in the utilisation of wind, wave and even cleaner fossil fuel technology.

We're going to be stuck with fossil fuels as a major energy player for sometime to come. The fuel will have nearly run out before our leaders give other means of generating energy the priority it urgently merits.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Precisely, Thatcher would have just changed the law, to suit her agenda. Even if there had been an overwhelming majority, she would have declared it illegal and forced another until reached the result she wanted.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

a) The "evidence" is hearsay, supplied by Mr Scargill, not exactly an uninterested party in the dispute, who may have an interest in rewriting history to perhaps show him in a more favourable light. :dozey:

b) "changing the law to suit her agenda" - supposition, not fact - I beg to differ on your premise. Under that viewpoint, it would be equally as valid to state that even if Arthur Scargill had held a ballot and lost, he would still have held an illegal strike - it is too easy to rewrite history to support one side or the other of a viewpoint by changing facts.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Well she changed the law about picketing and the power of the police, to suit her agenda. Then, when she wasn't satisfied with that, she turned her attention the Trade Union Movement as a whole. She changed the law to ban many civil servants from joining a union, for example. I am sure there must be many on here, who remember more.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

I think we will be needing more than wind,wave and solar energy..and no coal fired or gas fired energy is not the only answer..putting our eggs in one basket is a poor idea...

I think the governments recent support for nuclear(and now improved designs) has to be another direction we should be pushing towards.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

and reduction in usage of energy. We've still got a long way to go on that..:(

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Ahem - 150 people at GCHQ is a new definition of "many" I hadn't come across before........;) (but the 14 staff shouldn't have been sacked).

A lot of the employees at Q are/were ex-forces, so weren't big Union fans (a lot of my ex-colleagues work(ed) there.

However, I personally think banning Unions at Q was wrong, and was pleased when they were re-instated in '97.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Mmm, secondary picketing, because that was a fair and democratic thing for disgruntled workers to do, wasn't it. :dozey:

I note Labour has not reversed that particular piece of Thatcher's trade union reform. They could have, of course; they have reversed other parts of it.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

See above post.

She still changed laws to suit her anti-union agenda, despite whether you consider them to be fair or not.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Yes, she did. Political parties have been changing the law to suit their agendas for as long as there have been political parties. This is not surprising, nor is it somehow underhand or criminal. It's what we elect them for, in fact.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Exactly.

I wonder what year it will be before some people stop blaming Maggie Thatcher/The conservative governments of the 70's/80's for all the ills of today/tomorrow. :rolleyes:

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

..and at that time she did have fairly substantial support from the British Public. The unions had pretty much abused their power for sometime before Thatcher came to power so union bashing was popular, especially those nasty miners who deprived our power stations of coal meaning we had to have power cuts.

IMHO Thatcher got personal and took it too far, destroying communities and families in the process.

She forced Scargill's hand at a time when she knew she had 5 aces.

---------- Post added at 12:15 ---------- Previous post was at 12:11 ----------

From the experience of when the public stopped blaming Labour and the Unions for the ills of the 70s, I would say it should stop around about the date of the next General election. ;)

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

And it wasn't personal/political with Arthur Scargill? ;)

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Hmmm, certainly political, not sure if it was personal, I think he'd have acted the same with any Conservative Prime Minister hell bent on destroying his beloved mining industry, and thereby his power base. ;)

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Well, it's no secret that she ordered power stations to stockpile coal for months beforehand. Actually I remember being on holiday during the strike and in a playground next to a railway, and a great big coal train going past. I was amazed that it was possible to fill a train with coal. In fact I ran to find my parents to tell them. I remember by dad saying we'd have to phone Arthur Scargill and warn him. :D

The thing is, it might sound extreme to us now but we are a generation that has, by and large, grown up without any concept of what it was like when the question of who actually ran the country was topical. The trade unions were very, very powerful and were making it difficult for the elected government to manage the country and the economy.

The NUM may have represented a large number of people but they were still a single-interest pressure group at the end of the day, and such organisations have no business hobbling the entire country and everyone else's interests just so they're alright Jack.

I would say that redressing the imbalance was a perfectly reasonable policy aim of Thatcher's government. It may well have been ruthless in its execution but I think those who claim she let it 'get personal' are simply buying into a convenient parody of the handbag-waving nasty woman. Nobody who gets into a personal grudge match is able to stay the course in the measured, determined way she did for the 12 months it took to break the strike.

The point about destroying communities and families is another myth I take issue with. The industry was dying. Thatcher was no more the destroyer than a doctor who turns of a life support machine is a murderer. She dealt the final blow, yes, but if she hadn't, it would have been a lingering death that would have brought the entire country down with it.

It's amazing, when you look around threads on this forum, how many people simply assume the next Government will be a Tory one. That's the kind of thinking Labour enjoyed going into the 1997 election. Sometimes prophesies become self-fulfilling. Let's hope so, anyway.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Because, of course, Arthur was elected by the people of the UK to bring down the government (again, trying to repeat his actions in the 70's with Heath)?

To quote the Labour Leader (Neil Kinnock) at the time -
"The strike was ruined the minute it was politicised and in the mind of Arthur Scargill it was always a political struggle. He fed himself the political illusion that as long as the miners were united they had the right to destabilise and overthrow the democratically elected government. The miners didn't deserve him, they deserved much, much better. My view is Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill deserved each other. But no-one else did."

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

The strike was broken a long time before the official 12 months. I can't speak for anybody else but I'm not buying into any parody you describe. I'm buying into the fact that the strike could have ended earlier. I give her credit where it's due, she prepared for the battle, she stockpiled coal, she got the red tops and police onside. Her victory was complete and decisive. The calculations had already been done before the strike was started. The victory was never in doubt. Prolonging the strike suggests to me personal and vindictive reasons.

I don't agree that the industry was dying. It certainly required to be significantly cored back but not to the butchering extent that transpired. Again, I think this was personal. It still isn't dead yet and could have survived as a larger viable industrly than it presently is.

I'm not sure why you think the destruction of families and communities is a myth, it happened. If you're suggesting it would have happened anyway you are probably right to some degree but not to the depth of bitterness that exists in many ex mining communities to this day.

On you're final point, I'm not assuming anything, it was a throwaway line in response to Julian's post. As unpopular as Brown and Labour are in some quarters I'm not convinced Cameron is the right man to gain the necessary support from the middle ground seats who determine who'll win the election.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

The strike ended when the NUM declared it ended and marched back to work. That was after 12 months. It may have been broken earlier than that, but the time it took for Scargill to realise he wasn't going to be allowed to act like a tinpot revolutionary isn't something that can be laid at Margaret Thatcher's door.

Deep mining in this country is something that is very, very difficult to do profitably when cheap, strip-mined coal can be brought in from elsewhere. A number of deep mines existed post-privatisation. Virtually all of them have now gone, even the ones that had undergone the modernisation that (ostensibly) was one of the things the miners objected to. On that basis I find it hard to agree to the conjecture that many of the mines that were closed pre-privatisation 'could have survived'.

I'm not saying that the destruction of families was a myth. I'm saying the notion that Thatcher is Destroyer of Families is a myth.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Well, he'd have had my vote.:D

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Officially the strike ended when the NUM declared it ended. The reality was different.

The way that energy prices fluctuate mothballed mines could have been cost effectively brought back into production. There has been quite a few recent periods when it has been cheaper to produce electricity using expensive imported coal than our own gas. Future generations will be cursing us when foreign powers are holding us to ransom for poorer quality coal than we have under our own feet.

Only last year UK coal were considering opening a pit that they mothballed only 2 or 3 years earlier. I can't remember if they did or not but I remember reading that the pit in question had less reserves than some pits that were closed and not mothballed over the past 20 years.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Lol shortsighted, more like the actions of a vengeful few who knew exactly what they were doing.

---------- Post added at 16:56 ---------- Previous post was at 16:51 ----------

Hold on Tory Boy :)

When the strike was called it was legal, the court of appeal even said so previously. If those in the so called 'safe pits' had listened and shown some unity we might still have a coal industry today, after all where are their safe jobs now? And of course there is also the question of whether they were forced into strike action by the government as well.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Are you for real?

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

They deserved much, much better from a Labour leader than you as well Neil, you might even have won the top job on the back of it

---------- Post added at 17:07 ---------- Previous post was at 17:06 ----------

No I am a figment of your imagination, run along and bother some one else if that's all you have to say

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Very funny. You know what I meant. Do you seriously believe there was any likely scenario whereby the miners could have won?

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Hard to say, perhaps they wouldn't have toppled the government, their tactics were working though, we were going through those reserves hoarded before the strike even began, had they had support from the dockers, steel workers and more importantly the Labour party itself it could have been different, Maggie herself said “We were in danger of losing everything,� the strike “could indeed have brought down the government.�

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Perhaps it was situation like the Battle of Britain, where they only had about a week to go before defeat.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

I think for the first time, l have to disagree with what has been said concerning the mining industry and the future.

We have under our feet, as they say, We have energy that is home produced, and the workforce that can make it work, we have the science that can produce a coal that can overtake all this wind crap that ruins our landscapes, What we have to look at is, we import coal, which must cost a bundle, we have mines that work at the moment and it profitable.

The mining industry was killed off, by an old bag who wanted to take on everyone, and she crippled this country, and she is resented by some people in this country, this country is always looking at ways for power in the future and spending money - your money- which sometimes goes to waste., and also opening up the mines again, you would reduce the unemployment overnight.:)

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

We have energy under our feet, and it is, undoubtedly, just about the most environmentally disastrous energy we could choose. The sulphur, I admit, we can nowadays deal with - only after decades of pouring acid rain on Scandinavia, mind you - but the carbon, we cannot. The technology to remove millions of tonnes of carbon from coal burned on a commercial scale simply does not exist.

As for wind power ruining our landscapes ... I invite you to take a trip up the valleys in South Wales if you want to see what coal mining does to landscapes. Or anywhere there used to be large-scale mining, for that matter. Massive artificial mountains of slag, I think we can do without.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Chris, with the upmost respect to you, each and every slagheap is a monument to the forefathers of a large section of our population.

I've never worked down a pit but I know how important they were to our nation. I know how our nation has benefited from the mining industry. I know how dangerous the conditions were. I know the long hours working men spent underground. I know what their reward was for that labour.

Think of the human cost that produced that slagheap and it may not seem so offensive to your eyes.

I actually find wind farms quite aesthetic.... to view from a distance, I wouldn't want one in moby.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

You know, if I were a betting man, I'd be prepared to put the farm on Arthur not having had monuments to anyone in particular in mind when he talked about destroying the landscape. I'm pretty sure he meant aesthetics, pure and simple. To which I reply, coal slag is far uglier. ;)

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

I couldn't possible comment on you comparing Arthur's beauty with that of a coal slag ;) You clearly have more intimate knowledge than I.

;) Arthur the coal under our feet wasn't home produced. We were still joined to Europe when all them dinosaurs popped it and most of them were French so really it's their coal if fair's fair.;)

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Leave it ahhht, you slaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaags!;)

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

i remember those times with fondness, no heating.no lighting .no work.no tea when i got home [no power] it wasn't easy being an arc welder in those days as the transformer was slightly dead most of the time , we all all had a real fondness for good ole king arthur and his mob ,holding the nation to ransom, we enjoyed being cold and huddled in the dark -the good old days without a doubt .

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

After a year of the strike there was coal stockpiled for another 18 months at least, even before you take imports into account.

Also, the government made sure that they weren't reliant on coal for power generation; they spent £hundreds of millions on getting the 60s nuclear power stations modernised and recommissioned pretty much anything that had ever generated power, even power stations that ran on airplane jet engines.

Thatcher saw what happened in the 70s with the miners strike then and learned from what happened. Whatever you think of her as a person, I can't think of many examples where she didn't learn from others' mistakes.

The miners had no hope of winning.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

I can just about remember the London smogs of a dim and distant childhood..Thank goodness we went to smokeless fuel..however we need even cleaner energy solutions now and coal doesn't seem an automatic choice any more..

Just as long as we investigate and spread our choices across many sources of power..That way no one can hold anyone to ransom.;)

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

That's what the press have always said, that they had no chance of winning, probably to put anyone else of trying, the fact is there were several times when they came close.

Don't believe to BS about the stockpiles either, there was a reason that the government forced their hand to striking when they did, don't you think they'd have prefered to strike at the end of summer rather than the begining of spring?

October 1984, six months into the strike, the future of Thatcher's government hung in the balance - when there were less than six weeks' coal stocks.

We weren't as reliant on coal you mean, our power stations were still in general coal based and our steel industry was entirely coal based.

The government weren't expecting the strike to last as long as it did, nor for them to be as organised, or do you think she was telling fibs when she said “We were in danger of losing everything,� the strike “could indeed have brought down the government.�

They expected a few months at most

Ten years after the strike Frank Ledger, the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) director of operations, recounted how they had only planned for a six-month strike and that the situation at this time was verging on the "catastrophic".

Former CEGB chairman Sir Walter Marshall spelt out what this meant: "Our predictions showed on paper that Scargill would win certainly before Christmas. Margaret Thatcher got very worried about that... I felt she was wobbly".

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Hi Cookie, I think what happened was, The Miners were on a hiding from the old bag, as she wanted to prove a point, and that she would not give in, what she eventually did, was kill a community of familes up and down the country, she brought havoc to this country that has never been seen before, The mining community were proud people, all the families went down the pit to earn a living, and give power to there country, we depended on the coal industry, l was very young then, but won't forget sitting there and thinking what my father would have said.

This country would have saved money becuase of coal, we now waste millions of pounds on trying to find ways of producing energy for the future, we the consumer are paying a fortune for energy from greedy companies that import from oversea's, whereas we have energy under our feet, and this can be produced very quickly, with the science we have today, And if l was driving down the road and saw her walking across the road, l wouldn't stop, she crippled this country, and l will never forget it.:)

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

The voice of reason once more proclaims forth............

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

I remember my father coming home one night during the strike to a freezing cold house and saying that's it no more. We had a gas fire installed within days and never used coal ever again.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

Germany has recently re-opened some of it's coal mines,and they're productive and very profitable indeed.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-54995358.html

Unlike some other countries of Europe, where a fading mining industry has led to a great decline in the mining equipment manufacturing sector, Germany has remained a world leader even though its underground mining sector has shrunk dramatically in recent years. Germany immediately springs to mind as a dominant world force in large hydraulic mining shovels and in the more specialised continuous mining equipment and conveyor systems used in its large opencast lignite mines.

Re: The Miner's Strike - 25 years ago yesterday..
 

She certainly delivered on her Assisi quote "where there is despair let us bring hope", the only problem being she got the words ass about face.
"Where there was hope she certainly brought despair", she was without doubt the most divisive PM we have ever had, thank god many of her own party came to realise this and knifed the old cow.