The Miners' Strike and me... STV
Watching this on STV just now, think it maybe started half a hour earlier on ITV. Documentary marking the 30th anniversary of the 1984 Miners' Strike, with stories from both sides of the conflict. I can't believe it was 30 years ago:o remember coming home from school and seeing it on the tea-time news.
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I don't know what is sadder the film from 1984 or the present day interviews that show most people haven't learnt anything or forgotten anything ............
Yes, thats just what I was thinking, peoples opinions have stayed the same, or even hardend :(
Why is this sad?? They suffered horrendous & the things they feared came to pass. Their communities were destroyed, the effects can still be seen today.
I feel for them I hope theyve built good lives outside the mining industry.
I became a HGV driver not long after the strike and then worked in another industry that saw successive erosion of conditions and pay as the 'Neoliberal Dream' gathered pace...
Dads not speaking to sons, friends falling out...still continuing on today, people just as angry today as they were years ago, thats what i meant.
And now working class people are turning to UKIP who want to erode their rights even quicker.
Turkeys voting for Christmas.
I come from the same area and I remember seeing mothers, fathers and children having meals in quite a few local working mens clubs
I also remember seeing the same mothers and fathers going into the same local WMC every Friday and Sat night and comming out half cut after a good night out of bingo and a turn
Yes the generosity was amazing, even beer was donated.
Exactly the best way to get low pay and erode conditions is to import people who are willing to work for lower pay and poorer conditions to compete for a limited pool of jobs.
In the era up to the early 80s there was full employment. That's why the unions were strong, Fewer jobs and more migrants competing against locals mean worse conditions for all.
No one has done more to damage working people than New Labour!
They made their own beds when they backed Scargill in a highly political strike, acted with violence, and killed their own industry.
Well what they predicted turned out to be right.
And now we rely on foreign companies and governments to meet our energy needs - way to go!
Thanks to Scargill >:(
Unless you are intending to ignore all the international agreements as regards reductions in emissions then, for a country that has very little natural resources, that was going to happen irrespective.
I expected this type of remark, and yes there were some people on strike who managed to find the money to get drunk every weekend.
My family and I though along with the vast majority on strike couldn't even afford to turn on the heating.
Maybe the people you saw were being treated by friends and relatives - Either way it's been proven that shutting the coal industry down has benefited nobody, least of all people like you and me who are now paying through the nose for gas and electricity.
Exactly, just before the local elections last year UKIP removed their plans for the NHS.
From what I saw of it before that it involved wholesale privatisation of the NHS to fund massive expansion of the armed forces.
In this country the turkeys would even vote to bring Christmas forward......
Quite - and the level of redundancies, which the government and NCB lied about at the time, which have since been proven by the official documents that were made public last year.
So many people at the time believed Thatcher's lies. Tragic.
And of course it is worth remembering that the government of the day had planned beforehand for this strike anyway.
I see the usual attempts at re-writing history re-emerging ;-)
As for your last comment, after what happened in 1974, the Government wasn't as naïve as to believe that the miners wouldn't start a political strike again. Thank goodness Thatcher had the foresight to plan for what seemed inevitable. Thankfully we were well prepared to face the pressures of a strike which challenged our democracy.
Did you actually watch it? It turned out that everything that scargil said was true, they showed documents recently released under the 30 year rule that clearly showed that Thatcher had indeed intended to close over 70 pits, not because they were uneconomical but because the Tories, even before they won the 79 election had plans drawn up to destroy the British mining industry (I believe they intended to destroy all our heavy industries for the same reasons) as an act of revenge and spite for the bringing down of the Heath government, their intention was to destroy the power of the trades unions and the unity of the British working class,
They deliberately provoked the strike when everything was in place and ready, it was planned for with the meticulous preparation of a war against a foreign foe, with huge stockpiles of coal in place, the police were made ready and Scargill fell into their trap,
This was basically what Michael Heseltine was admitting, it's not the words of some hard left socialist, but from the mouth of a high ranking member of Thatcher's cabinet,
It was indeed an act of class war, a government setting out to deliberately attack it's own people, a treasonous act by a British government against it's own population,
The police had to pay out tens of thousands of pounds in compensation to their victims, men who had been brutally beaten many of them while in handcuffs,
and to this day they still refuse to hold a public enquiry into the police riot at the orgreve plant, even a high ranking police officer who was in change on the day admitted in his interview that some of the police "got out of hand" on the day.
everything that the miners said was the Tories intention DID happen, they were 100% right,
No wonder they will never forgive or forget, I don't blame them.
What have I posted that is factually incorrect then?
Perhaps, in order to break the stranglehold the unions of the 1970's held that such a "war" was thought to be required, hence its planning and execution. It was obvious there was only going to be one winner.
That was it. The government of the day declared war on the trade union movement, in the shape of the NUM.
In that respect the government was fighting a political battle of a Right wing state - whereas the miners were fighting for their livelihoods and the continued existence of their communities.