Scargill Wasn't Lying Then.

[View From The Top]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25549596

[badgerx16]

Related story - what a surprise, Yorkshire Police fabricated evidence against miners.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25550053

[EastleighSoulBoy]

Just waiting for the Baroness Barmy frock kissers to climb aboard with their defence of the Finchley *****.

 

It has taken a long time but word is finally leaking or being released.

 

Two more years and then we might get more about Hillsborough.

[trousers]

Just waiting for the Baroness Barmy frock kissers to climb aboard with their defence of the Finchley *****.

 

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/archive/1984PREM19.asp

 

[pap]

So, government flogs nationalised utilities to pay for politically-motivated closure of the pits, one of the few natural resources we have.

 

I don't think you could f**k up energy security any more if you tried.

[trousers]

So, government flogs nationalised utilities to pay for politically-motivated closure of the pits, one of the few natural resources we have.

 

I don't think you could f**k up energy security any more if you tried.

 

http://lordpalmerston.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/the-miners-thatcher-vs-wilson/

[View From The Top]

http://lordpalmerston.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/the-miners-thatcher-vs-wilson/

 

Doesn't alter the fact that the government and coal board colluded to decimate the coal industry and lied about it over and over again.

 

Police and the state fabricated evidence against the strikers and then covered it up.

 

This is utterly unacceptable from ANY government of ANY colour.

[pap]

http://lordpalmerston.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/the-miners-thatcher-vs-wilson/

 

Like clockwork, the old Wilson vs Thatcher argument on pit closures.

 

Also like clockwork, the complete omission of any sort of context, like the full employment we had in the 1960s, the fact that a lot of people didn't fancy being miners and that a lack of manpower was the motivating reason behind many of the proposed pit closures.

 

Not really the same thing is it?

[trousers]

Holding back information as a negotiating tactic = lies

 

That's one way of looking at it.

[CB Saint]

In isolation the miners have a case to feel hard done by, however this was part of a wider strategy to break union power and I suspect the miners were selected because the govt believed that that was a battle they could win and that the NUM was led by an absolute pillock

[pap]

Holding back information as a negotiating tactic = lies

 

That's one way of looking at it.

 

This treatment of Wilson vs Thatcher pit closure is ignorant at best, or as you suggest, lying through omission. It's characteristic of the same lack of depth you'll find in most Conservative arguments.

[bridge too far]

Holding back information as a negotiating tactic = lies

 

That's one way of looking at it.

 

Yesterday, I watched an interview with the then Chairman of the Coal Board, Ian MacGregor. He was adamant, in that interview, that there would be no large scale closures. The number, 75, was put to him and he denied it.

 

To me, that is not 'holding back information'; that is lying.

[View From The Top]

Yesterday, I watched an interview with the then Chairman of the Coal Board, Ian MacGregor. He was adamant, in that interview, that there would be no large scale closures. The number, 75, was put to him and he denied it.

 

To me, that is not 'holding back information'; that is lying.

 

I saw that as well. Simply put, he lied.

[trousers]

Yesterday, I watched an interview with the then Chairman of the Coal Board, Ian MacGregor. He was adamant, in that interview, that there would be no large scale closures. The number, 75, was put to him and he denied it.

 

To me, that is not 'holding back information'; that is lying.

 

Ok, fair enough. If not revealing their ultimate intentions at that stage of the dispute helped defeat Scargill then I'm happy with it as a 'means to an end'.

Edited 4 January, 2014 by trousers

[JackFrost]

This treatment of Wilson vs Thatcher pit closure is ignorant at best, or as you suggest, lying through omission. It's characteristic of the same lack of depth you'll find in most Conservative arguments.

 

Considering you do nothing but post strong socialist opinions, omit facts that don't support your political viewpoint and seemingly supports every left-wing conspiracy theory under the sun. I really hope you posted that comment for a wind-up

 

You've posted 3 times on this thread and each time conveniently omitted the fact that the entire industry was losing money hand over fist and had been for years, and entire regions of the country (Black Country being one example) had their coal mines closed down long before Thatcher even came to power. You also seem to be implying that the coal industry in this country was sustainable. Long-term it wasn't even close to sustainable but on the flip side Thatcher got it all wrong when dealing with this issue. She needed to take an exquisite dentist's drill to the industry to protect the workers as much as possible, but instead she used a chainsaw. She wrecked many lives and I totally get the anger towards her, but sadly a lot of the anti-Thatcherites had this view that just because their local coal mine was profitable in the short term it meant this would go on forever.

 

I'd be more surprised if Thatcher/the police/coal board hadn't lied through their black teeth, considering those times. As Hillsborough have previously illustrated the murky goings on in the higher echelons of the government/police force back then were always going to draw public anger when find out and rightly so but it happened on both sides. Scargill wasn't exactly fussy who he got into bed with either.

[EastleighSoulBoy]

Considering you do nothing but post strong socialist opinions, omit facts that don't support your political viewpoint and seemingly supports every left-wing conspiracy theory under the sun. I really hope you posted that comment for a wind-up

 

You've posted 3 times on this thread and each time conveniently omitted the fact that the entire industry was losing money hand over fist and had been for years, and entire regions of the country (Black Country being one example) had their coal mines closed down long before Thatcher even came to power. You also seem to be implying that the coal industry in this country was sustainable. Long-term it wasn't even close to sustainable but on the flip side Thatcher got it all wrong when dealing with this issue. She needed to take an exquisite dentist's drill to the industry to protect the workers as much as possible, but instead she used a chainsaw. She wrecked many lives and I totally get the anger towards her, but sadly a lot of the anti-Thatcherites had this view that just because their local coal mine was profitable in the short term it meant this would go on forever.

 

I'd be more surprised if Thatcher/the police/coal board hadn't lied through their black teeth, considering those times. As Hillsborough have previously illustrated the murky goings on in the higher echelons of the government/police force back then were always going to draw public anger when find out and rightly so but it happened on both sides. Scargill wasn't exactly fussy who he got into bed with either.

 

A sane and balanced view. I think that if Scargill had called the strike totally correctly then even the scabs in Nottingham will have supported their colleagues. While working in Nottingham some years ago I got talking to quite a few ex miners and almost to a man they claimed that they were promised the earth for not striking and that their pits would be safe from the war of attrition being waged by both sides. When I asked but what about Hucknall, Beeston etc their heads dropped and wry smiles appeared. "McGregor and the ***** lied to us" they told me.

[Whitey Grandad]

Yesterday, I watched an interview with the then Chairman of the Coal Board, Ian MacGregor. He was adamant, in that interview, that there would be no large scale closures. The number, 75, was put to him and he denied it.

 

To me, that is not 'holding back information'; that is lying.

 

I saw that as well. Simply put, he lied.

 

Hold on there a moment... I'm no apologist for people who are no longer with us but what we have here is an appraisal from someone reporting what they think the position of Macgregor was at the time, at best it is hearsay and it would certainly not stand up in a court of law. The phrase here is 'had it in mind' and not 'has it in mind'. He may well have changed his point of view, but we shall never know. Whatever, the mining industry was always doomed and neither side seemed to be in the mood to compromise:

 

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/business/scargill-s-no-comment-duel-with-coal-chief-revealed-by-newly-released-papers-1-6349428

[View From The Top]

Hold on there a moment... I'm no apologist for people who are no longer with us but what we have here is an appraisal from someone reporting what they think the position of Macgregor was at the time, at best it is hearsay and it would certainly not stand up in a court of law. The phrase here is 'had it in mind' and not 'has it in mind'. He may well have changed his point of view, but we shall never know. Whatever, the mining industry was always doomed and neither side seemed to be in the mood to compromise:

 

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/business/scargill-s-no-comment-duel-with-coal-chief-revealed-by-newly-released-papers-1-6349428

 

In the interview I watched last night he was asked, quite simply, if there was a plan to close 70 pits. He said no. That was a blatant lie, supported by the government of the day.

[pap]

Considering you do nothing but post strong socialist opinions, omit facts that don't support your political viewpoint and seemingly supports every left-wing conspiracy theory under the sun. I really hope you posted that comment for a wind-up

 

You've posted 3 times on this thread and each time conveniently omitted the fact that the entire industry was losing money hand over fist and had been for years, and entire regions of the country (Black Country being one example) had their coal mines closed down long before Thatcher even came to power. You also seem to be implying that the coal industry in this country was sustainable. Long-term it wasn't even close to sustainable but on the flip side Thatcher got it all wrong when dealing with this issue. She needed to take an exquisite dentist's drill to the industry to protect the workers as much as possible, but instead she used a chainsaw. She wrecked many lives and I totally get the anger towards her, but sadly a lot of the anti-Thatcherites had this view that just because their local coal mine was profitable in the short term it meant this would go on forever.

 

I'd be more surprised if Thatcher/the police/coal board hadn't lied through their black teeth, considering those times. As Hillsborough have previously illustrated the murky goings on in the higher echelons of the government/police force back then were always going to draw public anger when find out and rightly so but it happened on both sides. Scargill wasn't exactly fussy who he got into bed with either.

 

I can understand closures on the basis of economic necessity, but that's not what happened. This was a successful attempt to curb union power by taking out the industry underneath it. Even if you jump on-board with trousers' "means to an end" justification, and many will, putting any natural resource beyond use is pure vandalism and demonstrates the short-sightedness and vindictiveness of that government, which we are all reaping now.

 

Further, Thatcher was prepared to spend big to achieve this. We've already covered the fact that Thatcher was prepared to sell the national furniture to finance the unemployment bill she'd bring about with these closures. What's lesser known is that in the months leading up to the confrontation, miners had all the overtime they could eat. Thatcher was stockpiling for the coming conflict. I'd be entirely unsurprised if she didn't agitate a lot of the problems to begin with; to make the problem insoluble by any other means. It was a pre-medititated strike, part vengeance for miners bringing a government to its knees before.

 

The southern coppers who travelled North to give hidings to the miners after many of their their northern counterparts refused to comply didn't exactly cover themselves in glory either.

[Barry Sanchez]

Should place this on her grave. Her memory will always be dirtied.

[Whitey Grandad]

In the interview I watched last night he was asked, quite simply, if there was a plan to close 70 pits. He said no. That was a blatant lie, supported by the government of the day.

 

There's a big difference between floating an opinion and a plan. The Cabinet papers would seem to indicate that it had not got anywhere near that stage.

[buctootim]

Pointless argument imo. Coal was mostly killed off by cheap North Sea gas. All Thatcher did was refuse to write the massive public subsidies cheques that might have allowed more coal mines to continue for a few more years until those subsidies were outlawed by EU and WTO rules on unfair competition.

[aintforever]

So, government flogs nationalised utilities to pay for politically-motivated closure of the pits, one of the few natural resources we have.

 

I don't think you could f**k up energy security any more if you tried.

 

We could alienate Scotland and lose North Sea oil?

[bridge too far]

Pointless argument imo. Coal was mostly killed off by cheap North Sea gas. All Thatcher did was refuse to write the massive public subsidies cheques that might have allowed more coal mines to continue for a few more years until those subsidies were outlawed by EU and WTO rules on unfair competition.

 

That's not the salient point of this thread though, is it. The discussion centres around the fact that, at the time, Scargill was accused of scaremongering when he patently wasn't.

[trousers]

That's not the salient point of this thread though, is it. The discussion centres around the fact that, at the time, Scargill was accused of scaremongering when he patently wasn't.

 

It's called politics.

 

Btw, how did Scargill know how many pits they were thinking of closing if it was only discussed in a 'secret' government meeting?

Edited 4 January, 2014 by trousers

[OldNick]

That's not the salient point of this thread though, is it. The discussion centres around the fact that, at the time, Scargill was accused of scaremongering when he patently wasn't.

at the ned of the day Scargills number 1 priority was the overthrow of the government. The amazing thing is that these papers were released so soon, normally such stuff would be lost for 50years or more

[EastleighSoulBoy]

at the ned of the day Scargills number 1 priority was the overthrow of the government. The amazing thing is that these papers were released so soon, normally such stuff would be lost for 50years or more

 

The government are probably releasing some bad news under cover of this very release.

[bridge too far]

at the ned of the day Scargills number 1 priority was the overthrow of the government. The amazing thing is that these papers were released so soon, normally such stuff would be lost for 50years or more

 

Nope - 30 years and some discussion about reducing it to 20 years

 

In the United Kingdom, the Public Records Act 1958 states that "Public records ....other than those to which members of the public have had access before their transfer ..., shall not be available for public inspection until they have been in existence for fifty years or such other period... as the Lord Chancellor may, ... for the time being prescribe as respects any particular class of public records":^[1] the closure period was reduced from fifty to thirty years by an amending act of 1967, passed during Harold Wilson's government. Among those who had repeatedly urged the scrapping of the fifty-year rule was the historian A.J.P. Taylor.

 

 

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

[bridge too far]

ESB has asked me to post this link - an interesting read

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-forgotten-mineworkers-of-the-garden-of-england-9037875.html

[angelman]

I always wonder why, if mining was such a worthy business to keep going (or that is how many seem to portray it), there was no management buy out.

[Whitey Grandad]

I always wonder why, if mining was such a worthy business to keep going (or that is how many seem to portray it), there was no management buy out.

 

Indeed. The coal's still there, albeit a bit wet.

[Saint George]

No management buyout and no interest private enterprise...Says all you need to know about the state of the coal mines slated for closure.....

 

Yet again, Thatcher made the tough calls and put the British tax payer first....exactly what good government should be doing.

[alpine_saint]

In isolation the miners have a case to feel hard done by, however this was part of a wider strategy to break union power and I suspect the miners were selected because the govt believed that that was a battle they could win and that the NUM was led by an absolute pillock

 

Not forgetting the fact that the leadership of the NUM had brought down the Heath government and felt they could do it to another democratically elected government they disagreed with.

 

The miner's cause was just, and the UK will live with the legacy of that battle for decades to come, but lets not forget that Scargill was an egotistical tw*t who refused to ballot. He did as much to ruin mining in the UK as the Thatcher government.

[JackFrost]

I can understand closures on the basis of economic necessity, but that's not what happened. This was a successful attempt to curb union power by taking out the industry underneath it. Even if you jump on-board with trousers' "means to an end" justification, and many will, putting any natural resource beyond use is pure vandalism and demonstrates the short-sightedness and vindictiveness of that government, which we are all reaping now.

 

Further, Thatcher was prepared to spend big to achieve this. We've already covered the fact that Thatcher was prepared to sell the national furniture to finance the unemployment bill she'd bring about with these closures. What's lesser known is that in the months leading up to the confrontation, miners had all the overtime they could eat. Thatcher was stockpiling for the coming conflict. I'd be entirely unsurprised if she didn't agitate a lot of the problems to begin with; to make the problem insoluble by any other means. It was a pre-medititated strike, part vengeance for miners bringing a government to its knees before.

 

The southern coppers who travelled North to give hidings to the miners after many of their their northern counterparts refused to comply didn't exactly cover themselves in glory either.

 

And there's probably a lot of truth in that but the issue was the unions needed curbing at that time. They had far too much power and there were strikes all over the place. Relatives of dead people couldn't even bury their loved ones at a time when the gravediggers were on strike. There is a place for unions but they need to be regulated and when Thatcher came to power they were out of control. With the miners the industry had to be massively downsized because it had turned into a financial black hole and Thatcher took the opportunity to severely damage the union power at that time.

 

In general striking should always be a last resort and unfortunately it has been resorted too far too quickly, and still is. In a lot of cases it is questionable to what it actually achieves and you will inevitably get "strikers" who merely jump on the bandwagon or see it has something that "beats working".

 

Take the recent NUT/UCU strikes, I sympathise with those teachers that are on the breadline and are struggling but when you get (by their own previous admission) £60k-£70k per annum university lecturers joining in and claiming their getting unfair pay for the sole reason that the deputy principle/principle are getting bigger pay rises than them you have to ask is that a good enough reason to deprive students of their education which they have already paid for.

[trousers]

No management buyout and no interest private enterprise...Says all you need to know about the state of the coal mines slated for closure.....

 

Yet again, Thatcher made the tough calls and put the British tax payer first....exactly what good government should be doing.

 

Indeed. Such a simple concept that many seem to find so baffling...

[bridge too far]

Most University lecturers earn somewhere between £36K and £45K according to the jobs advertised in the TES. A good coin, I grant you, but unless they have management responsibilities they don't earn the amount you've stated.

 

The recent NUT strikes are because Michael Gove refuses to meet with teacher union leaders to talk about pensions. The NUT has said many times that it would call off strikes if gove had the courtesy to talk to them. Generally, Secretaries of State negotiate with Trade Union leaders. But, of course, this is Gove we're talking about.

 

University Principals have recently been awarded an 8% increase and I imagine a lot of those at the coal face (see what I did there?) are upset about that because they have only been awarded 1% tops.

[latter day saint]

ESB has asked me to post this link - an interesting read

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-forgotten-mineworkers-of-the-garden-of-england-9037875.html

 

Thanks for that. I lived in Aylesham durring the miners strike,which was the village built to house the miners from the Snowden colliery. My dad was the manager of the Miners club so I got see lots of meeting & rallies ,a few of which Scargill attented. Even as an 8yr old I could see wot a ***t he was!

[View From The Top]

Indeed. Such a simple concept that many seem to find so baffling...

 

Of course, it had nothing to do with the Dash For Gas and the newly privatised British Gas. Remember that it would supply all our energy for at least 100 years and we'd have no need to import anything.

 

That worked out well.

[OldNick]

Of course, it had nothing to do with the Dash For Gas and the newly privatised British Gas. Remember that it would supply all our energy for at least 100 years and we'd have no need to import anything.

 

That worked out well.

Who did the research to tell the powers to be that? I am all for blaming politicians but a lot of the time they rely on experts

[View From The Top]

Who did the research to tell the powers to be that? I am all for blaming politicians but a lot of the time they rely on experts

 

Fair point but we all know that politicians, of all shades, use the experts and reports that support the position they wish to take.

 

We now import the vast majority of our coal and gas making us hostage to others. An insane position for an island of coal.

[EastleighSoulBoy]

Fair point but we all know that politicians, of all shades, use the experts and reports that support the position they wish to take.

 

We now import the vast majority of our coal and gas making us hostage to others. An insane position for an island of coal.

 

They only use the experts if it suits their agenda though. Lies, damned lies and statistics spring to mind.

 

here's a link I couldn't post yesterday: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/thatcher-miners-official-papers-confirm-strikers-worst-suspicions/265

[buctootim]

We now import the vast majority of our coal and gas making us hostage to others. An insane position for an island of coal.

 

Its not though. How many people want to give up their gas central heating and go back to one warm room, lugging in dirty buckets from the outside bunker to feed an open fire and and dodgy 'maybe hot water maybe not' back boiler? How many want higher electricity prices because the power stations are using more expensive domestic coal?

 

Digging coal from narrow tunnels in deep mines in the UK is a thing of the past in the UK, thank God. Consign it to the dustbin, along with Black Lung disease. UK coal production had been in decline since 1903 and Thatcher neither accelerated nor slowed that decline. People remember the miners strike for its confrontation and social division - the actual facts about coal mining are lost behind red mist.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/historical-coal-data-coal-production-availability-and-consumption-1853-to-2011

Edited 5 January, 2014 by buctootim

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

Its not though. How many people want to give up their gas central heating and go back to one warm room, lugging in dirty buckets from the outside bunker to feed an open fire and and dodgy 'maybe hot water maybe not' back boiler? How many want higher electricity prices because the power stations are using more expensive domestic coal?

 

 

I think you can run a modern central heating system of coal generated electricity so your first sentence is irrelevant. With regard to the cheaper gas generated electricity I'm guessing you haven't factored in the welfare payments made to the decimated communities affected by pit closures or the negative impact on the UK balance of payments of importing more and more energy?

[buctootim]

I think you can run a modern central heating system of coal generated electricity so your first sentence is irrelevant. With regard to the cheaper gas generated electricity I'm guessing you haven't factored in the welfare payments made to the decimated communities affected by pit closures or the negative impact on the UK balance of payments of importing more and more energy?

 

Electricity is three times the price per KW of gas - even using cheap imported coal. You think consumers will sign up for heating bills three times the price?

 

In the 1920s mining employed over 1 million people. By the time of the miners strike it was 139,000, when Thatcher left office it was 49,000 and today its 6,000. Are they Thatchers fault too? By all means demonise people, but do it on the basis off sound facts.

Edited 5 January, 2014 by buctootim

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

Have I demonised anyone?

[Batman]

Could you imagine the health and safety headache if we had mass employment down the mines

[Verbal]

Could you imagine the health and safety headache if we had mass employment down the mines

 

Quite easily, as it's by some way not the most dangerous job you could have. The most dangerous job is, and has been for a long time, a merchant seafarer, particularly in trawler fishing. A job in the military is quite dangerous too, although not as dangerous as painting and decorating.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4183312/Fishing-more-risky-than-joining-Army.html

[TopGun]

As someone who is involved directly in the proposal for the White Rose CCS Project in Yorkshire http://www.whiteroseccs.co.uk I think the shutting of the coalfields was a travesty. They were left to flood meaning that new technology available now that could have made them economically viable cannot be deployed to reopen them.

 

CCS would store 90% of CO2 emissions from the White Rose plant and other future coal power stations in aquifers under the North Sea in liquid form that is heavier than water so would remain at depth. Over hundreds of years the liquid CO2 would revert to a solid carboniferous rock form.

[Saint in Paradise]

The government are probably releasing some bad news under cover of this very release.

 

That the only destroyer available to protect the UK from those nasty Russians has broken down ?

Maybe it wasn't fully armed after all and some systems don't work correctly anyway ?

[Whitey Grandad]

Could you imagine the health and safety headache if we had mass employment down the mines

 

Fill the mines with Romanians?