Comments on: 25 Years Ago

By: mark

mark — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:42:14 +0000

why do you think they tried to get rid of all the unions?
i personally don’t side with unions in this light - if i don’t like the working conditions i signed up for i’ll look for another job.
you’ll probably find that a large proportion of those miners paid their union subs for years without ever thinking they’d be forced to walk out on the jobs they were quite happy in. then when they did eventually go back to work the industry was knackered.

By: paul canning

paul canning — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:37:04 +0000

I recall it as revenge by the Tories for how the miners had helped bring down the Heath government. I also remember different police forces had different reps - the Met’s was the worst. It was class war but it did have a couple of unintended, unpredicted good side effects.

One was reducing C02 emissions, another was the Labour Party in 85 adopting a comprehensive gay rights policy, against Kinnock’s opposition.

This was because of the lesbian and gay solidarity and work for the miners, the unions payed back at the following year’s party conference.

It was an amazing time. I can still remember well when we visited the Dulais Valley in South Wales (which we ‘twinned’ with and raised money for). There was a community van with a pink triangle on the side left as a legacy! After the strike they brought their lodge banner on the Pride march and loads of miners and their families came down.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:43:35 +0000

Depends on what you believe is fair mate, I come from a mining area, although not a mining family, and my old man to this day hates scargill as he tried to take the government of the day to the point when it was far cheaper to buy in than to produce.

Take that up a level would you as a consumer pay £100 for your shopping at xyz when you could pay £50 at abc, the only reality is free market, any person will get what they need for as little as they can, and would be stupid not to (certain ethical standards aside)

Personally I have little issue with her, I do not agree with much of what she did, but afer the 3 day week and cap in hand to the IMF of Callaghan I think it was a necessary evil. Personally I feel the current govermnent which has generated 30k of debt for ever man woman and chid in the country, taken us to ilegal wars and made most of criminals through passing badly thought out laws and legislation deserves my 30% proof urine splached on their graves at least as much.

We have a similar situation now, certain issues are presented by the media with a massive slant upon them, and this current government has probably passed more laws, against democracy then all previous. We now cannot protest in parliment square, take pictures of police, and have out own tax money used to lecture us on what we can eat and drink based on pure conjecture.

On a personal level “fair” has changed meaning, it means I pay x to use a certain facility wheras someone else pays x - y (of which I pay a proportion of y) is that fair? Again it all depends on slant and ideology.

If this scans badly I know you posted this on a time delay, and I replyed after one ot two sherberts.

By: JackP

JackP — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:19:55 +0000

Whoops. Corrected to ‘the police’. I admit I was saying the BBC showed bias, but they weren’t actually baton-charging the strikers, so far as I recall.

By: Andy Mabbett

Andy Mabbett — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:11:37 +0000

“the stone-throwing by the miners was actually a response to being repeatedly baton charged by the BBC.” Damn those baton-wielding media luvvies!