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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Scargill

63 replies

BMW6 · 17/04/2013 23:50

Arthur Scargill loses battle to have union meet costs of London flat

Whatever happened to him?

OP posts:

Original poster

BMW6 · 17/04/2013 23:55

Given his history I expected him to be interviewed this week, but I've seen nothing. Anyone able to enlighten?

OP posts:

HoHoHoNoYouDont · 17/04/2013 23:57

Apparently when a friend of his text him 'Thatcher dead' he responded with 'Scargill alive'

He was the comb-over king

b4bunnies · 17/04/2013 23:59

odious little wretch. he was right about the government having a plan to close the mines, though.

stepawayfromthescreen · 18/04/2013 00:03

HE caused FAR more misery to the miners than Thatcher ever did

LessMissAbs · 18/04/2013 00:03

I always thought he was a pawn, but nevertheless it seems a shame if he is to lose his home because his cronies have abandoned him in his old age.

b4bunnies · 18/04/2013 00:05

HE caused FAR more misery to the miners than Thatcher ever did
that is the truth.

b4bunnies · 18/04/2013 00:06

no it isn't a shame about his accommodation. he's living off the workers!

Toadinthehole · 18/04/2013 01:40

My parents nicknamed the creeper growing over their shed roof "the Arthur Scargill".

One night, during a gale it blew off.

Kytti · 18/04/2013 03:43

Arthur Scargill did not cause more misery to the miners than Thatcher. What a stupid, ignorant thing to say. If more people had listened to him, perhaps Britain wouldn't be in the flipping mess it is today.

(Fumes and leaves.)

TheRealFellatio · 18/04/2013 03:46

What do you mean by that Kytti?

Fargo86 · 18/04/2013 04:10

Absolute rubbish Kytti.

TheRealFellatio · 18/04/2013 04:14

Well I am not going to denounce it rubbish until she has explained exactly what she means about 'listening' to him.

Lottashakingoinon · 18/04/2013 06:53

As regards Thatcher, he made a point of not commenting BMW6 (or so I read).

If that's the case it seems to me like a sound policy since whatever he said would have been used to score political points by one side or the other. In fact even his not saying anything seems to have raised eyebrows in some circles!

HollyBerryBush · 18/04/2013 06:59

It was Scargill that crippled the country. Scargill that had links with Libya and the USSR. The man should swing as a traitor. It was Scargill that caused the entire downfall of governments in the 70's.

Horrible little man.

If scargill was the great saviour of British industry - why does no one vote for him and his funny little political party (the name of which escapes me?)

KenDoddsDadsDog · 18/04/2013 07:06

His wife was on Sky News and said some really vile things. Made a show of herself.

Lottashakingoinon · 18/04/2013 07:13

His wife was on Sky News and said some really vile things. Made a show of herself.

Yeah it was non specific knee jerk borderline spiteful comments like this he was probably hoping to avoid. Should have stopped her from doing it (joke!)

Disclaimer: didn't see the interview with Ms Scargill. Apologies if she genuinely did 'make a show of herself' --but I think that's probably a very subjective assessment!

KenDoddsDadsDog · 18/04/2013 07:20

His ex wife I think now. Probably seeing as they aren't on the NUM gravy train any more.
Of course it's a bloody subjective assessment seeing as I was watching it. I don't need your apologies about my opinion.

Smudging · 18/04/2013 07:22

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Lottashakingoinon · 18/04/2013 07:23

I wasn't offering apologies about your opinion...I was offering them about mine coming from a place when I wasn't wholly in a position to comment! Was about to say sorry again, but not sure that I dare!

KenDoddsDadsDog · 18/04/2013 07:25

Yeah, George Osbourne was like tiny tears. I didn't see any of the coverage apart from the late news - why was he so upset ?

BlackeyedSusan · 18/04/2013 07:40

he called an illegal stike, hence the NUM and UDM split. there as a lot of violence towards the udm miners as well as police v's num. it as not as clear cut as some would like you to think.

niceguy2 · 18/04/2013 08:38

In my opinion Arthur Scargill should take the responsibility for the suffering of the miners during the strikes.

Before the strikes he was asked how much support he felt the taxpayer should provide to loss making mines. His reply was that the support should be "limitless". I couldn't think of a more ridiculous reply if I tried.

It was him who illegally took the miners out on a strike to try & bring the government down (like trade unions did back then if they didn't get their way).

I read somewhere that had the strike been legal then the miners family would have been entitled to some state support as was the rules in those days.

If the miners had not gone on strike then the govt would have been forced to close the mines down in an orderly fashion, pay redundancy pay then whatever unemployment and training benefits were due at the time. But because they were on strike, they got nothing.

Scargill did not exactly encourage his members to protest peacefully. All the blame was directed at the police yet where was the restraint from the miners?

And the cruel irony is that during the winter, it was the miners who couldn't afford to heat their homes because they were on strike and not receiving pay.

If you read his page on wiki, Scargill had links with the USSR and was a member of the young communist league.

More recently it has become apparent that he's been living at the expense of the NUM despite not being their leader since 2002. Eight years later the NUM told him to sod off yet he still felt entitled to live in a flat paid for by the union to the tune of £34k.

Typical communist in my opinion. Everyone should be equal except he is more equal than others.

In my opinion, the fact that Thatcher is blamed for the miners strike is a tragedy of truth over spin.

Ilovegeorgeclooney · 18/04/2013 08:51

But Thatcher is to blame for the policy that put unemployed miners onto disability benefits to keep them off unemployment figures. A policy that has led to the benefit culture that is causing so much difficulty to the country now.

Rosa · 18/04/2013 08:55

In my opinion, the fact that Thatcher is blamed for the miners strike is a tragedy of truth over spin.

Well said....

As for Scargill living out of the NUM pockets think of where that money could ahve been spent ..ON THE MINERS !

CarpeVinum · 18/04/2013 08:55

perhaps Britain wouldn't be in the flipping mess it is today

It would be in something like the state Italy is in.

I was one of Thatchers children, who had the misfortune to suddenly be the "scummy" offspring of a "scummy" single mother, managed to get on the wrong side of all policies to the extent I ended up homeless (as in actual on the streets and having to squat as the only alternative to sleeping on a pavement again) and dealing with hostile immigration officers due to the love of life (then) being a nasty "furrin". Oh, and more than half of my family worked for Viners for the majority of their working life, and then didn't when the steel industy went tits up.

So I had pretty fixed ideas about who was right and who was wrong and what things would look like if she hadn't happened.

Until I came here to Italy, and now, I'm far less sure that the outcome of a weak Thatcher and a strong Scargil would have resulted in something other than a manged, but relentless decline.

It was a hard, horrible, dark, painful time that left me with not a few scars. I still today can't have empty cupboards. I knee jerk buy tins and wood becuase I have a profpind fear of being persistantly cold and hungrey again. However there is no shortage of cold and hungrey people here, who can't find work for love nor money. Unfortunatly this country is not in a postion to bounce back from this crisis to the same degree that the UK is.

It is possible that a Thatcher-esque painful happening in the early 80s would have off set future pain we see here today. And maybe the earlier bitter pill would have meant the country wasn't having to stuff bottlefulls of acrid "medicine" today.

It's bad enough that every single thing I do with my child is aimed at giving him a future outside of southern Europe. Come hell or high water he will be gping to uni or other higher ed in the UK or somehwere like the Netherlands, becuase the hope here is more of less gone. I think the country is now running on fumes and once Monti is put of the picture the usual chaos will reign and the slow decline will just speed up.

So...I dunno, I'm finding that seeing things as part of a larger landscape casts doubt over my previously unchalleneged convictions. Which is an uncomfortable process given how deeply held they are....were ?

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