Question about miners strike

[garlictwist]

I've just watched the channel 4 doc on the miners strikes. Very interesting as I wasn't around at the time and didn't know much about it.

What it didn't explain though was why they were striking in the first place - was it that they wanted more money? Or were the mines being closed?

And was this to do with the three day week and the power cuts?

Bullshit

sorry i wasn't aiming that at you, soupfiend
I just don't think people are inevitably and naturally individualistic

@soupfiend

It's quite fashionable to state that Thatcher was predominantly concerned with the economy and her social policy served that. The truth is she was very close to some rabidly right wing sociopolitical theorists, introduced to her by Reagan's advisors such as Olsen, March and Hart who were concerned with manipulating individuals actions and sense of agency. It's no coincidence that areas of government that had not previously been so closely aligned with ideology became so during her tenure - health and education were areas that she suggested could be directly affected by votes at an individual level. She also exploited the veil of ignorance concept by colluding with the media to convince folk to vote against their immediate interests. I don't know what her views on Brexit would have been, but she would have lauded the leave campaign tactics.

Well Im conflicted because as a social animal, it cant be right that humans would be prone to that. Im not sure I say inevitably and naturally individualistic, but it has attracted the public over the years, why is this?

Why is this all I seem to hear now, about someones exceptionalism and specialiness. Sorry to say, most people are not special, there is nothing special about you (the wider you), the more the focus is on how special and how you need to meet my needs and society needs to meet my needs, the less of a 'society' there is, its all back to front.

Perhaps Im just pissed off about it all but thats how it feels to me

Other countries arent all like this, so is it cultural,,,, who knows. But I do think it goes back further than her. Victorian times actually.

Coal was not “only needed for the steel industry.” Eelectricity generation was still almost entirely reliant on coal right up to the 90s. Oil was too expensive (eg the Isle of Grain oil-fired station was largely mothballed at the time) and there was not enough oil-fired capacity anyway. So that was just not true.

You really need to put that pay rise in context. Two things mattered, and we would expect them to be taken into account in any salary negotiations even now:

• major inflation in 1960s and 1970s. In real terms, miners' pay went up about 10% 1957-75. It had dropped significantly until 1974.

• much much higher technical demands on miners. They still worked in dangerous and difficult conditions, but with equipment needing far more training and expertise than previously.

Productivity targets increased throughout the 1970s, and were met. Wilson closed mines without significant controversy - nobody expected the industry to last forever. But Thatcher was willing to take a scorched earth approach and pursue a policy which cost Britain money in order to smash the unions.

@soupfiend I think she targeted greed more than anything. I think the “I’m special” narrative nowadays is far more driven by the narcissistic social media generation tbh. The “anything for likes” mindset is not healthy for anyone 😬

Hear hear!! She gives cunts a bad name.

In fact @ClematisRock even as late as 2012 coal generated 40% of UK electricity.

@soupfiend I get where you're coming from, I really do
its some combination of capitalism and social media
we should all go back to being hunter-gatherers - or like Douglas Adams said, maybe it was a mistake coming down from the trees

I find this hard to make sense of. The miners' strike was a national event and Wales and Northern England (in particular) acted in solidarity. It wasn't a Welsh-English dispute.

Lots of miners in Wales were Welsh, obviously, but there were plenty of English and Irish incomers. I live in a mining region. Most people I know here have mixed British and Irish heritages within a generation back from the 1980s. There is certainly anti-English feeling in Wales but I don't think 1984 was a flashpoint - except as concerned the police deployed here.

I also find it hard to imagine that children could conceal your identity. You'd have kept children away from public demonstration because of likely police violence.

I wonder if you and your little friends misunderstood things - it must have been a frightening and confusing time for you. At my age - six or so - I thought the strike was a war, and had it thoroughly mixed up in my head with plane crashes and Northern Ireland.

The police loved the miners strike.
They got paid well and were given free reign to beat people up.
The state paid thugs really hit the jackpot.

My db used to stand on the picket line with the miners. He was a 22 year old student who could run fast but he saw lots of miners getting hit by the police. And those scenes from Billy Elliott when the pickets run through peoples houses to escape he saw first hand.

I’m very proud of dd who wasn’t born until 1991 but grew up to hate Thatcher and the Tories.

Its the way Thatcher went about it. She went to war with the miners using the Police as her army devastating whole communities.
Have you seen the documentary? Particularly the Orgreave one ? Widescale corruption under her direction.

She certainly played to personal greed and individualism. Selling off Council Housing gave people the opportunity to buy their own home but left subsequent generations unable to find a secure home at all. Nationalised industries and utilities were sold off so some individuals could make money on stocks and shares - did it make them more efficient? Sewage in the rivers worse than ever so I don't think so. Multiple train and bus companies make travelling by public transport more expensive and more complicated - in other countries you turn up at the station and buy a ticket but here you have to weigh up the pros and cons of buying far in advance, the week before or at the last minute. I believe she said that any man aged 26 who travelled by bus was a failure!

People were attracted to her because of personal greed not the greater good. Like the lies that were told about Brexit benefits.

Either that didn't happen or the other children were playing an elaborate prank on you.

Your deluded if you think it didn't happen they literally threw bricks at my family because we were English 🙄

Because of the miners' strike?

Because Thatcher was simply evil and didn't give a toss about the miners families and the devastation caused by the closures.
I'm a Londoner so wasnt directly affected by the strikes but I remember helping my mum to buy and parcel up Christmas gifts to be sent to the miners' families.I was 13. I remember being upset that families were being forced into poverty because of that 'woman' (she's no woman in my eyes).
She was heartless.

The film Pride is great.

I also blame her for the housing crisis. Again, it hasn't affected me as I was in the fortunate position to buy at 23 but where is the social housing for those who need it? She sold it all off and now so many people are struggling as there isn't any social housing to access.

I was a union activist at the time and involved on the periphery of the strike. I've never forgotten one miner saying to me that no one would want his son down a pit if there was a viable alternative, but all that would happen if they lost is that communities would be left to rot with no hope, there would be no viable alternatives for them. Which is exactly what happened.

Thatcher wanted to break the unions and to Hell with the people who paid the price and the generations who are still paying the price.

The pits were the centre of the community, social clubs, football teams, and yes, even brass bands (good for the lungs) revolved around the colliery. Local businesses depended on it. Thatcher ripped the heart out of those towns and villages and they have never recovered. It was criminal

Where is the social housing for those who need it? She sold it all off ...

Not quite, @sawnotseen; there was still some left when Labour replaced the Tories, and they went right on selling it off too

And how odd that folk rarely mention those who insisted on the importance of social housing while on the waiting list, but then leapt to buy their own and so deprived others of the chance in the longer term

So much truth on this thread. Older posters remember what we lost.

You can only sell something once - and she sold the lot: energy, water, telecoms, trains, all the national industries; council housing; union protection; and she enabled the Murdoch press (in return for smashing the print workers). And now look.

Long term there are always improvements to be made and technology that moves on. But the way these things were done reshaped society for the next forty years and began the era of Tory siphoning of wealth from the people to a small cadre of cronies and overseas sponsors. We are all literally the poorer for it. There is a direct line from Thatcher’s privatisations to the ultra free market, outside the EU deregulation nonsense of Truss and Rees Mogg ( even if Thatcher was a fan of Europe, she started the ultra right wing march).

Vile woman and a curse on all her voters and enablers.

And how odd that folk rarely mention those who insisted on the importance of social housing while on the waiting list, but then leapt to buy their own and so deprived others of the chance in the longer term

Not really odd. One person takes one unit of housing out of the pot. The policy makers ruin the entire country. Not comparable.