The tories were, predictably, against the miners at Tower Colliery buying their pit and keeping it open, on an ideological level because this was tantamount to socialism: running it for the common good rather than the profits of an owner. The last coal came out 24 years after Thatcher ordered it closed, the miners made it pay for them and their community. It was one in the eye for the tories, I expect they knew it was good coal and wanted to reopen it one day. They're reopening pits now.
@dhelmo The scrounging is going on at the top of the food chain mate, not the bottom. Corporations dodging taxes to the tune of around 7 billion a year, bankers getting bailed out for greed and mismanagement and still giving themselves multimillion bonuses while we get a VAT hike, unaffordable energy prices now the tories have taken the leash off, and billionaires squirreling money into offshore accounts to dodge tax.
Look upward, not down. The tories created the so-called benefits trap.
@bolloxinator Its not about political parties as you well know there are only 2 in contention all the time in most western societies.They are one and the same working for the Banking Elite....Its made to look like Democracy..Prime example Obama and his false promises..They tell you what you want to hear until you suffer and then..its too late
All you people attacking Thatcher and the Tories let off the real enemy, the Globalist financiers pulling the strings in both main parties. Their long term aim has always been to de-industrialize and hollow out the UK..it doesn't matter which puppets they use to do their dirty work., Thatcher, Blair, Cameron..the big decision makers are the faceless money men.
@aeronuk1 Yeh but the it was this bastard Thatcher and her tories that fucked british industry, so they get that extra special heartfelt and deserved hatred.
just a curious thought but what was the cost of runing the pits and redundancies, i doubt it was 350k a day surly downsizing the operation slowly allowing for voluntary redundancy, retirements and no new staffing whilst setting up new industry over say 3-5years would have been better. the young people who would have traditionally started down the mines do apprenticeships and a slow evolution takes place rather than a mass slaughter?
@MrJanesaddiction I would have sold the home and downsized, if that were not possible i'd have taken a council house. The family would only be split if you had an unsupporting one. The government sure had enough money to fork out for everyone on benefits, so there'd be no problem. People like you believe we are still an empire that spans the globe. NEWSFLASH, we're a tiny island abused by immigrants created by liberals you voted in
Some of these faggot "real men" killed themselves after the iron lady got them out of a job because a woman broke their fragile male ego. Don't tell their families that mining wasn't making any money though, for them it's easier to blame conservatives
@edd77 i presume your a southerner whos work in a warm comfy office every day of his life. when you lose your job, home, go backrupt, have no work to apply for, no retraining programmes available, are told 'to get on your bike', see your family and community being ripped apart and 25 years later the local economy still struggling because there was no investment then spout the lies. I've lived in towns were the one big employer gets shut down, it screws everyone and everything. your heartless
@petehall1985 The human side of things don't matter to a tory mate. It's all about "growth" and fucking figures to them. They say Thatcher left the economy "healthy" but I don't know who for. Not for us who lost our jobs, when they floggedoff or shut down all our industries. The money those yuppies and city slickers spent on cocaine and prositutes came from those selloffs, the price was paid by us and our communities.
Wiki Leeks pays due respect to ALL Miners - God bless
Contingency Plan for Gvmnt
Should the Iranians not feel partial to leeks, feed our sick and disabled loafers leek soup and send them in shouting "I'm made of uranium, catch me if you caaaan!"
Then both sides can have a go.
Let's hope that there are enough sick and disabled loafers in between you guys - in real life like, or I guess it's goodbye to the Iranians and goodbye to you!
I was 16 in 84 and just finishing school, i was due to start work as a miner when they went on strike. I never got the chance to after the strike, i would have loved to walk in the foot steps of my dad and his 5 bros,
I have good memories of 84/85 and the way people stuck together.
@jonbec90 i'm the daughter, granddaughter etc of miners. a proud and strong breed of men. i am fiercly proud of my roots and remember so well those dark days of 84/5. i had already left Kent for Cambridge in search of work by then but met so many amazing miners who walked from Kent to Nottingham. i will never forget the way we stuck together and i hope that we will again take to the streets, peacefully, to protest at the further destruction of our communities.
i had 12 months on strike with 2 brothers and my father and I know from my heart it was right just look around now we have nothing left in england for our kids it was all thrown away
The big problem was that Scargill under estimated Thatcher. He thought she would give in in a matter of days, a couple of weeks at the most. Thatcher on the other hand did not underetimate him.
put women and kids on the picket line the police were just waiting to fight the miners in the fuel strike they did it in south wales the poilce had to stand and stare because you can not baton charge women and kids not in this country yet
The closures of the pits and decimation of the coal industry was politically, not economically, motivated. The irony is, in a world of increasingly sarce resources, who would bet against the pits being re-opened in the near future? And by the way, Britain had many flaws in those days, but the economy was actually more productive than it is today. Now we're nothing but a country sinking in debt with an ever widening gap between rich and poor; the net result of thatcherite and New Labour polices.
I was one of the many Met cops who policed the strike and I agree; Maggie was not perfect and she decided enough was enough with the Unions calling the shots.
If Scargill had held a ballot I believe he would have won it, and the strike. It was brinkmanship, and Scargill lost the Mexican stand-off!!!
I worked in the pits for 20 years and was a miner during the 1984/85 strike and stuck it out till we all marched back.
We were fighting for our jobs 'villages towns and cities survival and all thatcher wanted was to smash all the unions and us.
all the talk about cheaper coal from abroad was bollocks look at the price now of coal gas electric the bastard tories started this mess and the labour party have carried on
Human life in the UK never had a price before the strike, now it does. It is the price of how low you can pay someone an hour to make you wealthy, what it costs to keep them alive in a hospital, what it costs to declare on a nation to steal their resources from under the very ground they walk on. The worst privatisation wasn't the docks, steel, airlines, oil, water, gas, electric, trains, or even the NHS if we don't all make a stand, it was the human soul.
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So, unless like me you have fibbed about your age, you are too young to even know anything about what you speak. Scargill had to be defeated for the good of this country. His type of none democratic unionism destroyed the manuufacturing base of this country. It is only down to the resilience of the entreprenuer that the country survived, but morons like you will always whinge about not having your share.
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Ah so now I get it, a chip on both shoulders, quite well balanced arent we. Jealous because I have someone in my bed while you only have your PC?What a sad little muppet!
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So, you obviously have this sort of experience then, this sort of depravity has to come from first hand knowledge! So, you like smoking posh dick do you? Are you one of those council estate rent boys?
you are an arsehole of the highest order i bet you were bullied at school the type of kid who everyone smacked because you were a fucking little oddity and a proper little snitch.
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Ah, it is a council estate dweller. What a sad little man! I bet it is hard being gay in such surroundings, is that why you hang around the gentlemen`s toilets?
you are a cocksucking little weirdo i think it is you who come from the council estate but then you sold your arse every day to tory mp's and then moved out and bought an apartment in a plush area near to all the gay mp's .i bet your arsehole is like the channel tunnel ya dirty little cunt.
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You cannot remember the three day week, or the fact that industry had to shut down at 1530 on those three days. Scargill and his miners held the country to ransom, they got what they wanted and brought down an elected government. That filth scum scargill had to be stopped and she did it. In 79 they threatened strike, she said give em what they want and stocakpile 2 years worth of coal! Then she made unballoted strikes illegal. Scargill didnt want that encoachment on his authority, he lost!
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So then the DUM statrted because scargill refused to accept the ballot. He called a strike and they democratically decided otherwise. Lets be very clear, the NUM closed the pits, not the Baroness. That 2 years of stockpile changed the map of the unions forever! No longer do the Unions dictate to a country and now a ballot must be taken before a strike. Oh and she killed the restrictive prcatices as well!!!! She is a hero to common sense and decency!
GRUMPYOLDBUG Mining and also my work is a good deal harder than yours i bet! what do you do push a mouse all day long?.
Anyone ever wondered what replaced all these millionsof tons of U.K. dug Coal?, it was all replaced with worst Polluting open cast Coal shipped in from Poland & Easten Europe dug out by 12-14 year old kids.
Denis Thatchers Dad owned/sold a Chemical Company and Thatcher was a Lawyer so were no 'friends of working class 'anyway.
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Ho get real, I have even seen the shop where the Baroness was born and its hardly middle or upper class. People like you make me laugh. You sit and whinge about mythical misdeeds instead of getting off your arses and bettering yourself. The NUM and Scargill were broken and that was good, they had held the country to ransom too often and had broken democracy too many times to be allowed to continue. And what manual job is it that you do? Were you a miner?
Wasted about 70 Billion that could have fixed the ailing NHS,Thatcher won yep, but all the rest of Society lost, Everyone who had a Mortgage or bought his Council House took Thatchers side thinking they were now 'middle class',us English are easily placated,thisis obvious, controlled by people who are well aboard the Gravy train,Ministers Magistrates Coppers they are all corrupt here and always will be as it makes them an easy livingm, as it has through History!.
We should of beaten them, now were told to expect to go to 3 an half million unemployed with no industry to pull us out,, what sort of people are running this country,, we should just get rid.
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New Labour, the Government of which NONE of the front benchers have ever had a real job! Old rules should apply, "you dont play the game, you cant make the rules". The "working class" whinging about the situation is funny, they put the buffoons of New Labour into office and now it has gone bad, they somehow want to blame a PM of 20 years ago! How about directing your venom on old lionel bliar!
You mean 'We' the now unorganised powerless masses?'or 'we' the overmortgaged who now have to become Government employed lackies to survive,IRA should have done a 'proper' job on that lot of selfish rich scum!..
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Yes you the powerless masses that just whinge instead of getting off your arses! Your comments about the Brighton bomb are extremely offensive. The only selfish are fools who think they are owed a living!
AAH the memorys come flooding back gettin me head kicked in at school even though all me family stayed out on strike the full term,never did understand that.Coppers getting there heads kicked in .Arson,dead taxi drivers,yep they were the days.Wish we could go back A.
She was re-elected because she appealed to the 'greed is good' in people. She appealed to the base instincts of the populace, and found it all too easy to divide and conquer the working class. I agree she wasn't the best but the people of Britain were culpable - it was not false pretences.
The British people weren't to blame for what happened or the descimation of British industry and the rape of the working class under the Tories or New Labour. Thacher never won more than 44% of the vote at any of her election victories which means that 56% didn't want her. It was the middle class people and aspirant people mainly in the south and affluent suburbs who voted Thatcher in.
@zzyzzx8 she will never be held accountable cause she is a neocon and none of them are held accountable only praised by the ignorant morons of this world. just like reagan or however you spell his name.
Watching these videos brings back sad memories of real men who suffered real indignities & tragic hardship. It will never leave me what i watched as a seventeen yr old albeit on a tv & i hope that i never have to watch the backbone of this country be treated so shamefully ever again. To take a mans job away is bad enough. But to strip whole communities of their livelihoods with no infrastructure put in place & to abandon them was truly despicable. "LIONS led by LAMBS."
Now thatcher/reagan/.. see what they have done. Hardcore capitalism without social state without any control can't work. It is a pity our ancestors lost this battle..
Have you noticed the two main headlines of news at the moment are Recession and 25 years of the Miners Strike. Seems we have made our point!!! The new Britain Maggie put in place of course was good while they had money stuffed bank accounts with loans but now its time to pay them back....ouch!! Now they know how we felt!! But difference is weve all stuck together and always will. Solidarity of the Miners is something that makes us Very Rich Indeed!
read "the enemy within" by seamus milne the TRUE story of the strike, how MI5 infiltrated the NUM, how the daily mirror conducted a campaign of lies, how the tories used the courts to steal the funds of workers, how soldiers disguised as police acted like thugs, how thatcher tried to starve the children of miners...
we are reaping the whirlwind of the evil bitch's politics today.
the scabs should be ashamed but are probably too thick . their feelings only extend to their next wank.
Thacher Britain..coal strikes..teachers strikes... hundred thousand men put on the scrap heap and she gets made a dame.. a state funeral for that witch is a joke and a total waste of money. If your way of life was threatened i feel we would all do the same
Also, eyewitness reports of coaches full of men in CAMO fatigues getting changed into dark clothes at motorway service stations on the days of mass pickets leaves only one conclusion. Stories of Metropolitan Police officers chasing terrified Miners through private homes in South Yorkshire, old women not knowing what or who the hell was invading their homes. The legacy of the Miners strike is heartbreaking, a capitalist government which put no value on labour won the day, and we're paying for it.
Wonderful images, makes you realise that if to settle with the Miners had cost £100M, Thatcher would have spent £500M to defeat them, add to that the evidence in the book "The Miners Strike-Loss without limit' by John Lloyd and Martin Adeney, that Government intervention made BBC film look as if the miners had thrown bottles and rocks at the Police, then the Police charged the Miners, whereas in actual fact, the Miners were charged by powerful Police forces first, then fought for dear life.
the unions have never had despite media contradictory talk ever had asay in british free trade.and inspite of unions since their concemption has any union had the right to withdraw its labour.This is what thatcher proved out to achieve,the final destruction of all workers unionised or not.And to my disbelief,she found allies in my own class,aSCAB,a person willing to give up his rights and all those that fought for them.SCAB way of covering an open woun temporalarly
The GEGB was absolutely wrong to use cheap foreign coal and dump our lads on the doal coz I've NEVER seen a miner or any of their supporters drive a foreign car or take a foreign holiday. OK I'm being sarcastic but you either believe in the free market economy or you don't. You can't have it both ways!!
The miners would never defeat Thatch because she had the people on her side. Check out the results of the elections (or do commies ignore such things). Scargill should have got the miners a fantastic redundancy cheque and for that he would have been a great workers rep but instead he used them for his own ego and fucked them up, but dont worry he lives all right in his bungalow at Hound Hill in Worsborough near Barnsley. Yep when I go by it every now and then I tell him what I think.
You don't know what your talking about. The miners were offered massive redundancy payments to sell their jobs and close pits. They rejected that and fought a principled battle for their industry and their communities.
The miners and their union leaders will be recorded in history as heroes.
angryyounghippo. We are all now still paying the price of thatchers rule. She sold off UK assetts on the cheap wasted the oil money. And she has given us generations of poverty and unemployment. AS was a twat, he played into her hands but she was evil.
She kept a long dole queue for all the usual reasons (keeping pay low etc)and paid for it with the oil revenues. Doll bill was £22 billion per annum, oil revenue the same figure.
1974 - Heath asks the question: Who runs Britain? Miners prove he doesn't and Heath loses.
1984 - Thatcher asks the question: Who runs Britain? Thatcher proves that the miners don't and that the days of unions pretending they do are over. Miners lose. New era of industrial relations begins.
Moral of story: Don't pick a fight with anyone tougher, better resourced and cleverer than you.
to hell with every one who who has a negative comment, you werent ther and toy didn,t have to suffer, so fuck the lot of you who is iggnorant enoght to think you tiny little brain could comprehend what we went through
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and if she was so unpopular why did the british public vote her in FOR THREE WHOLE TERMS?? Maybe you would care to answer that one.
Why the hell should this country be brought to its knees by mob rule by a dissenting minority? Did we fight hitler to be held at ransom by Mob rule?
btw, just a point for those who may wish me to crawl back under my stone, can you not provide rational and reasoned arguments instead of resorting to childish name calling and insults? Kind of reveals your ability!
The Tories were progressively wiped out in Scotland culminating in no (that's ZERO) seats! They've fought back since then - I think they have one (that's 1) now.
BTW The abuse you've got below is richly deserved. And, incidently, you appear to have started it.
ok maybe the iggoranent voted for her, bad move. but i lost my home , and mt childrens home because my husband and his collegues fought for the right of every british man to have a job
You are 'right' but inhuman, we miners were 'wrong', but completely human. You love money, I love my friends, comrades and family. The Tories who write here are right, the society we have is a dung heap of greed and vulgar egotism. I fought for solidarity and the human dignity of mutal community. They won, and so are 'right'-we lost and so are 'wrong'. 'We can get cheaper coal from racist South Africa' they said, where children worked in the pits! As long as its not yours I suppose.
People cause greed, not governments. Thatcher certainly didn't promote greed. Her whole philosophy was based upon monetarism, whereby the government controls the money supply to control inflation. Your beloved unions caused endemic inflation in British industry.
By this description (I don't call it an 'analysis'), governments are not 'people'. Also, if a phenomenon is 'endemic' it can't be externally 'caused'. Ponder thereon.
By the way, I am no lover of unions, I know the limitions of a trade union outlook. But I also know the hypocracy of monetarists who are forever telling others to restrict the money supply and be 'prudent' while fiddling the tax and financial system. I'd rather live among fools and 'idealists' than hypocrits and sadists.
Alas..., her son Mark, Aitken, Archer, Lord Brocket, Harvey Proctor, Shirley Porter, Colin Kiddell, Tom Spencer, Robert Richdale, Michael Griffiths, John Dainty, David Hart. I could go on, but that would be boring. The point I suppose, is that all these card carrying Tories professed to be free market monetarists and against state intervention. Check out their records, you can see why they don't want state interferance. No such thing as society, no need for a tax system to administer it, right?
well said brother i am from south wales and the valleys are still fucked to this day because of that fucking bitch thatcher.tories make me sick all they want to do is destroy the working man there is no more despicable bastards than the greedy middle and upper class bastards in this country today they are the worst kind of scum they would trample over a dying man to pick up his wallet.
you may fail to realise that I supported the miners causes. Yes, I am a conservative, but only as a realist, not an idealist.
The miners were in a sense unfortunate to get it in the neck after all the other striking groups that preceded them just as Thatcher was really gaining momentum.
And again, having seen documentaries where former miners were relocated to other industries, and their quality of life was immeasurably improved, David Jones and Joe Green died in vein.
Total bollocks. The NUM were responsible for beating the wives and children of the miners who refused to join the strike. The trotskites such as that Cunt Scargill were manipulating people for their own ends.
Market forces would have made all the miners redundant in several years anyway.
and you have not answered the point:
1. what would have happened had the winter of discontent continued into the 80s
2. Scargill and his minions got his way and brought this country to its knees
any one seen programmes on miners who became white collar workers? half the hours double the pay in office environment with good saefty standards and no dangerous environment dangerous hours and shite pay. They got jobs and realised Scabgill was full of shit. Capitalism needs a balance with socialism. My parents were communists and socialists for Labout during the 80s. now they support the BNP.
i'm a conservative with a smattering of socialism. But i hate middle class liberal democrat shits.
Angry, Young (and inexperienced) Hippo, you are a clown of the lowest order, you don't even start to understand.
The VAST majority of miners were thrown on the scrapheap of Thatchers alter. Our homes, families, villages and way of life were destroyed by this evil bitch.
You have the right to spout your garbage because people like David Jones and Joe Green died fighting for these rights, yet you defile these mens memory.
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Thatcher was a hero. anybody read "the Downing Street Years". Great Book. Socialism is a disease. You blame thatcher for your problems, but what would have happened if the winter of discontent 79 and Callaghan had continued? Britain would be dead on its knees. NUM were beating wives and children of people who opposed the strike. Scargill was a cunt. Thatcher had no choice but to be hardline. I don't like the fact she ordered the army dressed as police to beat miners, but UK had to change.
dragon lee. The legacy of Thatcher and the Tories. Sold off UK assetts on the cheap. Destroyed manufacturing industry. Wasted the North sea oil money on keeping millions unemployed. So unpopular that they led to riots up and down the country. Large scale and violent disturbances not seen for over a hundred years.
like i said before i lived though this hell in s wales it was horrible this countrys gone i was proud to be british but everything british is gone i work for royal mail but were being killed off slowly people are just ignorant ...
Dragonlee - and your point is ....have you read Mr Mcgregors book on the closing of the pits .... I think you should before you cast your mockery around here .... its all very discussing IMF and world banks ... read this book first it shows an even Bigger picture ...this argument still echoes in my pub now!
all you ignorant wankers on here who support thatcher should hang your heads in shame.that bitch ruined whole towns and to this day certain areas are still ruined.
Wrong. Arthur Scargill used the miners for political purposes. It was because of Scargill and the Unions that bodies were not getting buried, rubbish was piling up in the streets, old people were dying because they had no coal to heat their homes, despite the miners getting wage increase after wage increase. Scargill is to blame.
Your off your nut. Nobody but nobody ever "used" the NUM and miners for anything. You clearly know nothing about trades unions and miners and their communities in particular.
The miners were used by Scargill for political purposes. If you had independent thoughts you'd realise this. He brought down the Heath government, the Callaghan government, but Thatcher was to intelligent for him. Governments are elected by the population, Unions are elected by the workers, not the population.
Callaghan government? I was working at the time. Arthur was not at the forefront of what I assume you are referring to ie the so-called "winter of discontent".
Workers and their families are the huge majority of the population.
The NUM followed their rulebook and some areas of the federal NUM did vote. It wasn't the point however, the fight was for jobs and communities and solidarity was what was required. I don't expect you to understand that however. It's a gut instinct you either have or don't. Principled people have it.
Like I said, go and check the IMF, World Bank and OONS. It will verify everything I've said. If you can tolerate small font, lots of words and no pictures on your books, I suggest you read Milton Friedman's books. The miners and the unions as a whole had declared war on the country in the 70's. Union strikes had caused dead people to go unburied. Rubbish piled up the on the streets and 3 day weeks were called. That's the legacy of socialism in this country.
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With a communist and known Stalin admirer at the head of this union, you were misled from the start.
Remember how you used to chant "Arthur Scargill, Arthur Scargill, we'll support you evermore!".
Well, do you vote for his SLP now? Wait for the next SLP purge before you do. Arthur is knife-sharpening as we speak. Membership is down to two dozen, and falling.
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Good old Margaret Thatcher i hope she gets a well deserved State Funeral, what a magnificent Leader of our time. She brought the Great back into Great Britain.
Thatcher! Killed of this country's industry hence the massive balance of payments deficit; at the mercy of profiteering privatised energy companies while we sit on a thousand years of coal reserves. Started a war to get re-elected and tore the soul out of whole communities. All her policies were for the super rich at the expense of the rest of us.
State funeral or not there will be one almighty party all over. Just "Rejoice" at the thought.
She didn't start a war you bloody moron. Galtieri invaded the Falklands.
Her policies were not for the super rich. Selling council houses at 50% of their original value increased home ownership 22%. She cut income tax from 87% to 40%, and for the lower earners 40% to 22%. She gave small businesses grants to start up.
Your profile suggests you are an adolescent still wet behind the ears. Sure the Argentinian military junta (you'd probably have liked them). However Britain had just withdrawn its last supply ship a year or so before and while the Americans were trying to broker a diplomatic solution Thatcher personally ordered the torpedoing of the Belgrano (an outdated 40 years old ship) that was outside the "exclusion" area and steaming away from the Falklands/Malvinas. Thatcher wanted a war!
War is war. I wouldn't wait for an enemy ship to see what it's movements where. The general of the Belgrano admitted in later years that the sinking was justified. I prefer his opinion to yours
The farmers were crippled by the Industrial Revolution, but to progress, they had to be put out of work so the industrial revolution could happen, leading to a new modern age of machinery, and as you are using a computer, you can't sympathise with the Agarian workers. The mines had been grossly inefficient for decades, and for us to progress from an industrial economy to a service based economy, they needed to go. And since you are using a computer, you have no grounds to argue.
Service based economy? You mean selling burgers and the like. Creates no wealth just moves it around at best. The destruction of manufacturing and industries like mining are coming back to haunt this country. No wealth creation, unemployment and masses of social problems.
So why has our country gone from being the Sick Man of Europe to having the 4th strongest economy in the world? Unemployment fell to 1,600,000 after the miner's strike. Wages were going up because businesses were extremely efficient. Go and check the statistics instead of spouting crap you've read in the Socialist Worker.
Also, last time I heard Britain had fallen to 5th maybe 6th after China at least. The underlying position of the British economy is weak and it's due to the reasons I said before.
The economy is weak because Gordon Brown has undone the Thatcherite reforms. He has regulated the market with his Stalinist control methods. He has built his version of the economy on a wave of cheap credit and household debt, thus creating a massive housing and credit bubble, which has burst. If the Conservatives had been charge, this wouldn't have happened, as they were fiscally prudent and always saved money instead of spending it on everything they could think off.
That is just so much nonsense. Under New labour the "free" market has been allowed to rule supreme. That's the problem.
Their is nothing wrong with credit per se although personally I minimise it. The real reason is the frail nature of the economy and its susceptibility ti fluctuations. ie as I have said, the underlying problem is the lack of real wealth creation and the reliance on imports of things like energy and real goods.
Not it hasn't. Gordon Brown's budgets were increasingly Keynesian with every sucessive year. He introduced a minimum wage for God' sake, one of the most interfering methods in the market. Still avoiding the point on the Belgrano. Are you not man enough to admit you made a silly mistake?
Why should I even bother with you. I back up my arguments with statistics, your arguments are just bits of rhetoric and opinion. You deny that the General of the Belgrano admits it was justified to sink the ship, and when I provide the evidence to back up my point, you ignore it. Typical socialist.
Then you lack the ability to read. Check IMF statistics. Check the World Bank stats. Check the OONS. It verifies everything I have said. I am not going to debate with someone intellectually inferior to myself.
The Tories were renowned for their lies on unemployment figures. That figure you quote is those unemployed AND claiming benefit, Excludes those unemployed more than 6 months who has a spouse or other family member working and those on invalidity benefit.
The Rowntree Foundation estimated that the true figure of those out of work and wishing to work was over 7 millions.
The Rowntree Foundation is a left wing organisation, and so it will be biassed towards those pursuing a capitalist agenda. I notice you have not responded to the point on the Belgrano general.
Left wing? They may have a social conscience but they're hardly left wing.
What's his name to I check it out? What he says now is hardly the point anyway. The Conqueror sub Captain that sank the Belgrano said something akin to what I'm saying. ie the sinking was unnecessary and that was the act that began the war Thatcher wanted.
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The tories were, predictably, against the miners at Tower Colliery buying their pit and keeping it open, on an ideological level because this was tantamount to socialism: running it for the common good rather than the profits of an owner. The last coal came out 24 years after Thatcher ordered it closed, the miners made it pay for them and their community. It was one in the eye for the tories, I expect they knew it was good coal and wanted to reopen it one day. They're reopening pits now.
pezz12345 1 month ago 5
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all you spoon fed/dole scrongers dont know what we went through to bring our familys up, and what are you paying to heat your homes up now eh.
Thatcher is a twat full stop, the ira had the right idea back in 1994
dhelmo 2 months ago
@dhelmo The scrounging is going on at the top of the food chain mate, not the bottom. Corporations dodging taxes to the tune of around 7 billion a year, bankers getting bailed out for greed and mismanagement and still giving themselves multimillion bonuses while we get a VAT hike, unaffordable energy prices now the tories have taken the leash off, and billionaires squirreling money into offshore accounts to dodge tax.
Look upward, not down. The tories created the so-called benefits trap.
bolloxinator 1 month ago 13
@bolloxinator Its not about political parties as you well know there are only 2 in contention all the time in most western societies.They are one and the same working for the Banking Elite....Its made to look like Democracy..Prime example Obama and his false promises..They tell you what you want to hear until you suffer and then..its too late
WiseEarthMan 1 month ago
All you people attacking Thatcher and the Tories let off the real enemy, the Globalist financiers pulling the strings in both main parties. Their long term aim has always been to de-industrialize and hollow out the UK..it doesn't matter which puppets they use to do their dirty work., Thatcher, Blair, Cameron..the big decision makers are the faceless money men.
aeronuk1 4 months ago
@aeronuk1 Yeh but the it was this bastard Thatcher and her tories that fucked british industry, so they get that extra special heartfelt and deserved hatred.
London2272 1 month ago 11
i remember 1984 as if it was yesterday it was a time when nobody any thing but we stood together. It was wright to fight for our mines
julie95779 4 months ago 5
just a curious thought but what was the cost of runing the pits and redundancies, i doubt it was 350k a day surly downsizing the operation slowly allowing for voluntary redundancy, retirements and no new staffing whilst setting up new industry over say 3-5years would have been better. the young people who would have traditionally started down the mines do apprenticeships and a slow evolution takes place rather than a mass slaughter?
petehall1985 4 months ago 4
@MrJanesaddiction I would have sold the home and downsized, if that were not possible i'd have taken a council house. The family would only be split if you had an unsupporting one. The government sure had enough money to fork out for everyone on benefits, so there'd be no problem. People like you believe we are still an empire that spans the globe. NEWSFLASH, we're a tiny island abused by immigrants created by liberals you voted in
edd77 5 months ago
Some of these faggot "real men" killed themselves after the iron lady got them out of a job because a woman broke their fragile male ego. Don't tell their families that mining wasn't making any money though, for them it's easier to blame conservatives
edd77 5 months ago
@edd77 i presume your a southerner whos work in a warm comfy office every day of his life. when you lose your job, home, go backrupt, have no work to apply for, no retraining programmes available, are told 'to get on your bike', see your family and community being ripped apart and 25 years later the local economy still struggling because there was no investment then spout the lies. I've lived in towns were the one big employer gets shut down, it screws everyone and everything. your heartless
petehall1985 4 months ago 2
@petehall1985 The human side of things don't matter to a tory mate. It's all about "growth" and fucking figures to them. They say Thatcher left the economy "healthy" but I don't know who for. Not for us who lost our jobs, when they floggedoff or shut down all our industries. The money those yuppies and city slickers spent on cocaine and prositutes came from those selloffs, the price was paid by us and our communities.
pezz12345 1 month ago 4
police bastards the lot of em.
agaichapter25 9 months ago
i will be joining the long line of men waiting to piss on her grave when the bitch is trown into hell !
dave2806 11 months ago 5
Wiki Leeks pays due respect to ALL Miners - God bless
Contingency Plan for Gvmnt
Should the Iranians not feel partial to leeks, feed our sick and disabled loafers leek soup and send them in shouting "I'm made of uranium, catch me if you caaaan!"
Then both sides can have a go.
Let's hope that there are enough sick and disabled loafers in between you guys - in real life like, or I guess it's goodbye to the Iranians and goodbye to you!
Lord, I cannot help fantasising. Cleans my mind?
BritishSnail 1 year ago
I was 16 in 84 and just finishing school, i was due to start work as a miner when they went on strike. I never got the chance to after the strike, i would have loved to walk in the foot steps of my dad and his 5 bros,
I have good memories of 84/85 and the way people stuck together.
jonbec90 1 year ago 2
@jonbec90 i'm the daughter, granddaughter etc of miners. a proud and strong breed of men. i am fiercly proud of my roots and remember so well those dark days of 84/5. i had already left Kent for Cambridge in search of work by then but met so many amazing miners who walked from Kent to Nottingham. i will never forget the way we stuck together and i hope that we will again take to the streets, peacefully, to protest at the further destruction of our communities.
pinkithinks 1 year ago 2
i had 12 months on strike with 2 brothers and my father and I know from my heart it was right just look around now we have nothing left in england for our kids it was all thrown away
nogarange 1 year ago 2
@nogarange
yip Scotland is the same... I also was on strike through out 84/85...I was a coalminer and proud of it...
parsman11 1 year ago
The big problem was that Scargill under estimated Thatcher. He thought she would give in in a matter of days, a couple of weeks at the most. Thatcher on the other hand did not underetimate him.
madabbafan 1 year ago
check out ( john mccullagh "ill dance on your grave mrs thatcher".....on youtube or myspace,well worth a listen
LARRSON77 2 years ago
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Mark them as spam - as it is!
grummeper 2 years ago
Long live workers unity !!!
Death to the fascism, capitalism and racism !!!
workergirls 2 years ago 2
Also that Earthquake in Haiti will be remembered for it's greatness too.
StumblingNaked 2 years ago
Greatness in human suffering, definitely.
But it's not so much the Earthquake as what the imperialists have done to Haiti, both French and the Americans have destroyed that country!
It never had a chance.
It was the only successful slave revolt in history,and the Americans couldn't stand that.
Never mind that the US was able to buy Louisiana for song from Napoleon because of the Haitians' success.
wvprogressive1933 2 years ago 2
will someone put u[ a video honoring Joe and Dave!!
vivascargill 2 years ago
THATCHER IS A BITCH
rabbithog 2 years ago 3
and yes i did support the miners just look at the pit towns now no jobs coal not dole
bilbobagins1951 2 years ago
put women and kids on the picket line the police were just waiting to fight the miners in the fuel strike they did it in south wales the poilce had to stand and stare because you can not baton charge women and kids not in this country yet
bilbobagins1951 2 years ago
@bilbobagins1951
You can if they're at a football match or students. :(
VexedPumpkin 1 year ago
brown takes 1 million pounds a day from miners pension fund .
musgrave100 2 years ago
The closures of the pits and decimation of the coal industry was politically, not economically, motivated. The irony is, in a world of increasingly sarce resources, who would bet against the pits being re-opened in the near future? And by the way, Britain had many flaws in those days, but the economy was actually more productive than it is today. Now we're nothing but a country sinking in debt with an ever widening gap between rich and poor; the net result of thatcherite and New Labour polices.
Remster78 2 years ago 2
still having a party , when THATCHER dies
yorvik21 2 years ago 26
@yorvik21 go ahead,but she won the argument and smashed socialist policies for ever
suffern63 1 year ago
@suffern63 ...wrong...suggest you start watching your tv screen over the next 12 months........
agaichapter25 1 year ago
@yorvik21 not long now :-)))
pinkithinks 1 year ago
@pinkithinks you said that 2 months ago she is still alive!! or I should say IT is still alive
vivascargill 1 year ago
@yorvik21 im coming to that party!
rodfavra123 2 months ago 11
I was one of the many Met cops who policed the strike and I agree; Maggie was not perfect and she decided enough was enough with the Unions calling the shots.
If Scargill had held a ballot I believe he would have won it, and the strike. It was brinkmanship, and Scargill lost the Mexican stand-off!!!
eduardoisland 2 years ago
your behaviour was that of a scum bag then!
thailegend 2 years ago 2
demanding high wages?29 years underground and grafted for fuck all
wiganjoe 2 years ago
I worked in the pits for 20 years and was a miner during the 1984/85 strike and stuck it out till we all marched back.
We were fighting for our jobs 'villages towns and cities survival and all thatcher wanted was to smash all the unions and us.
all the talk about cheaper coal from abroad was bollocks look at the price now of coal gas electric the bastard tories started this mess and the labour party have carried on
k3dude 2 years ago 2
this party when thatcher dies, do we need to use ticketmaster? the music's haunting anybody know what it is?
shipbuilder10 2 years ago
i feel so sorry for the miners
trip3newton 2 years ago
Human life in the UK never had a price before the strike, now it does. It is the price of how low you can pay someone an hour to make you wealthy, what it costs to keep them alive in a hospital, what it costs to declare on a nation to steal their resources from under the very ground they walk on. The worst privatisation wasn't the docks, steel, airlines, oil, water, gas, electric, trains, or even the NHS if we don't all make a stand, it was the human soul.
Matpat112 2 years ago
Fucking Thatcher, dance on her grave when she croakes it wont be long now till the partys start boys!!!!!!!!!!!!
ferret3388 2 years ago 3
Let me know where the party is, I'll get the first round in then we all go and find her grave and shit on itf
williamastanier 2 years ago
Hell awaits thatcher. She had mine attacked for no reason other than a peaceful protest.
Miners just sat on the floor doing nothing apart from protesting. Only to get attacked by policemen.
I remember my grandads who worked down a pit together. I remember them both saying that we wanted to work and get paid fairly.
They were both delighted when thatcher came up with the pole tax. They new it was the end.
boldertits 2 years ago
Made SOMEONE a very pretty penny,which was probably the PRIMARY motivation to smash the N.U.M.
lancashirepolice 2 years ago
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So, unless like me you have fibbed about your age, you are too young to even know anything about what you speak. Scargill had to be defeated for the good of this country. His type of none democratic unionism destroyed the manuufacturing base of this country. It is only down to the resilience of the entreprenuer that the country survived, but morons like you will always whinge about not having your share.
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
get a life pal.
ninianbhoys 2 years ago
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Oh, I have a life, a very good life bolstered by the knowledge that the Baroness smote the union filth!
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
yeah sure you do mate thats why your on here talking bullshit 24 hrs a day.
ninianbhoys 2 years ago
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Seems to me, while I was in my bed, you were being that sad and lonely twat at his PC at 0100 on a Sunday morning!
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
in your bed with another man you queer cunt.
ninianbhoys 2 years ago
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Ah so now I get it, a chip on both shoulders, quite well balanced arent we. Jealous because I have someone in my bed while you only have your PC?What a sad little muppet!
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
so you admit it your a filthy little queer.typical tory fucking pervert probably hang around in toilets looking for cock ya drity little cunt.
ninianbhoys 2 years ago
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So, you obviously have this sort of experience then, this sort of depravity has to come from first hand knowledge! So, you like smoking posh dick do you? Are you one of those council estate rent boys?
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
you are an arsehole of the highest order i bet you were bullied at school the type of kid who everyone smacked because you were a fucking little oddity and a proper little snitch.
ninianbhoys 2 years ago
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That sounds like you have written your own bio for us! The class war is dead sonny, now get a job, get a life and fuck off, theres a good chap!
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
ya fucking boring cunt jog on .
ninianbhoys 2 years ago
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Ah, it is a council estate dweller. What a sad little man! I bet it is hard being gay in such surroundings, is that why you hang around the gentlemen`s toilets?
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
you are a cocksucking little weirdo i think it is you who come from the council estate but then you sold your arse every day to tory mp's and then moved out and bought an apartment in a plush area near to all the gay mp's .i bet your arsehole is like the channel tunnel ya dirty little cunt.
ninianbhoys 2 years ago
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Ah, the politics of envy! Dont ya love it! I suppose you are another whinging northerner!
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
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You cannot remember the three day week, or the fact that industry had to shut down at 1530 on those three days. Scargill and his miners held the country to ransom, they got what they wanted and brought down an elected government. That filth scum scargill had to be stopped and she did it. In 79 they threatened strike, she said give em what they want and stocakpile 2 years worth of coal! Then she made unballoted strikes illegal. Scargill didnt want that encoachment on his authority, he lost!
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
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So then the DUM statrted because scargill refused to accept the ballot. He called a strike and they democratically decided otherwise. Lets be very clear, the NUM closed the pits, not the Baroness. That 2 years of stockpile changed the map of the unions forever! No longer do the Unions dictate to a country and now a ballot must be taken before a strike. Oh and she killed the restrictive prcatices as well!!!! She is a hero to common sense and decency!
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
GRUMPYOLDBUG Mining and also my work is a good deal harder than yours i bet! what do you do push a mouse all day long?.
Anyone ever wondered what replaced all these millionsof tons of U.K. dug Coal?, it was all replaced with worst Polluting open cast Coal shipped in from Poland & Easten Europe dug out by 12-14 year old kids.
Denis Thatchers Dad owned/sold a Chemical Company and Thatcher was a Lawyer so were no 'friends of working class 'anyway.
lancashirepolice 2 years ago
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Ho get real, I have even seen the shop where the Baroness was born and its hardly middle or upper class. People like you make me laugh. You sit and whinge about mythical misdeeds instead of getting off your arses and bettering yourself. The NUM and Scargill were broken and that was good, they had held the country to ransom too often and had broken democracy too many times to be allowed to continue. And what manual job is it that you do? Were you a miner?
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
Wasted about 70 Billion that could have fixed the ailing NHS,Thatcher won yep, but all the rest of Society lost, Everyone who had a Mortgage or bought his Council House took Thatchers side thinking they were now 'middle class',us English are easily placated,thisis obvious, controlled by people who are well aboard the Gravy train,Ministers Magistrates Coppers they are all corrupt here and always will be as it makes them an easy livingm, as it has through History!.
lancashirepolice 2 years ago 2
We should of beaten them, now were told to expect to go to 3 an half million unemployed with no industry to pull us out,, what sort of people are running this country,, we should just get rid.
dynamo400 2 years ago 2
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New Labour, the Government of which NONE of the front benchers have ever had a real job! Old rules should apply, "you dont play the game, you cant make the rules". The "working class" whinging about the situation is funny, they put the buffoons of New Labour into office and now it has gone bad, they somehow want to blame a PM of 20 years ago! How about directing your venom on old lionel bliar!
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
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It was a wonderful time, it showed the unions that WE the masses were not going to stand for their filth any more. We beat the scum!
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
You mean 'We' the now unorganised powerless masses?'or 'we' the overmortgaged who now have to become Government employed lackies to survive,IRA should have done a 'proper' job on that lot of selfish rich scum!..
lancashirepolice 2 years ago
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Yes you the powerless masses that just whinge instead of getting off your arses! Your comments about the Brighton bomb are extremely offensive. The only selfish are fools who think they are owed a living!
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
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I would just add, the powerless masses have the same voting rights as me, a higher rate taxpayer.
grumpyoldbug 2 years ago
a higher rate bullshitter.
ninianbhoys 2 years ago
AAH the memorys come flooding back gettin me head kicked in at school even though all me family stayed out on strike the full term,never did understand that.Coppers getting there heads kicked in .Arson,dead taxi drivers,yep they were the days.Wish we could go back A.
codge2112 2 years ago
I would have loved to see the coppers take the miners on unarmed.
Wouldnt have stood a chance.
boldertits 2 years ago 2
Thatcher should've been tried for treason for what she did to miners, steelworkers and many more good honest working folk in the 80s.
Bitch got re-elected by false pretences.
Miners were the backbone on Britain. Thatcher was the arse-end.
zzyzzx8 2 years ago 21
She was re-elected because she appealed to the 'greed is good' in people. She appealed to the base instincts of the populace, and found it all too easy to divide and conquer the working class. I agree she wasn't the best but the people of Britain were culpable - it was not false pretences.
intercarrot 2 years ago 3
The British people weren't to blame for what happened or the descimation of British industry and the rape of the working class under the Tories or New Labour. Thacher never won more than 44% of the vote at any of her election victories which means that 56% didn't want her. It was the middle class people and aspirant people mainly in the south and affluent suburbs who voted Thatcher in.
mattrwsmith 2 years ago
@zzyzzx8 she will never be held accountable cause she is a neocon and none of them are held accountable only praised by the ignorant morons of this world. just like reagan or however you spell his name.
stercus2759 1 year ago 2
@zzyzzx8 False pretences?
usainlightning 9 months ago
Watching these videos brings back sad memories of real men who suffered real indignities & tragic hardship. It will never leave me what i watched as a seventeen yr old albeit on a tv & i hope that i never have to watch the backbone of this country be treated so shamefully ever again. To take a mans job away is bad enough. But to strip whole communities of their livelihoods with no infrastructure put in place & to abandon them was truly despicable. "LIONS led by LAMBS."
ukp571 2 years ago 3
Now thatcher/reagan/.. see what they have done. Hardcore capitalism without social state without any control can't work. It is a pity our ancestors lost this battle..
Red international greets from Austria!
nonameposter 2 years ago
We're reaping the policy of greed that Thatcher and her ilk encouraged, cheers Maggie
Ironic that she wept when she was ousted from No 10, not a nice feeling losing your job is it love
jwood36 2 years ago 4
Have you noticed the two main headlines of news at the moment are Recession and 25 years of the Miners Strike. Seems we have made our point!!! The new Britain Maggie put in place of course was good while they had money stuffed bank accounts with loans but now its time to pay them back....ouch!! Now they know how we felt!! But difference is weve all stuck together and always will. Solidarity of the Miners is something that makes us Very Rich Indeed!
ShianaJones 2 years ago
read "the enemy within" by seamus milne the TRUE story of the strike, how MI5 infiltrated the NUM, how the daily mirror conducted a campaign of lies, how the tories used the courts to steal the funds of workers, how soldiers disguised as police acted like thugs, how thatcher tried to starve the children of miners...
we are reaping the whirlwind of the evil bitch's politics today.
the scabs should be ashamed but are probably too thick . their feelings only extend to their next wank.
RAGtagBAG88 2 years ago 3
great comment mate everything you say is spot on.thatcherites and scabs are worthless peices of scum.big up to the south wales miners.
bigloubhoy 2 years ago 2
Heroes!
FellingPX 2 years ago 3
Thacher Britain..coal strikes..teachers strikes... hundred thousand men put on the scrap heap and she gets made a dame.. a state funeral for that witch is a joke and a total waste of money. If your way of life was threatened i feel we would all do the same
jgs36 2 years ago 3
it is.
SpreadingAwareness 2 years ago
Also, eyewitness reports of coaches full of men in CAMO fatigues getting changed into dark clothes at motorway service stations on the days of mass pickets leaves only one conclusion. Stories of Metropolitan Police officers chasing terrified Miners through private homes in South Yorkshire, old women not knowing what or who the hell was invading their homes. The legacy of the Miners strike is heartbreaking, a capitalist government which put no value on labour won the day, and we're paying for it.
PereKensal 2 years ago
Wonderful images, makes you realise that if to settle with the Miners had cost £100M, Thatcher would have spent £500M to defeat them, add to that the evidence in the book "The Miners Strike-Loss without limit' by John Lloyd and Martin Adeney, that Government intervention made BBC film look as if the miners had thrown bottles and rocks at the Police, then the Police charged the Miners, whereas in actual fact, the Miners were charged by powerful Police forces first, then fought for dear life.
PereKensal 2 years ago 2
the unions have never had despite media contradictory talk ever had asay in british free trade.and inspite of unions since their concemption has any union had the right to withdraw its labour.This is what thatcher proved out to achieve,the final destruction of all workers unionised or not.And to my disbelief,she found allies in my own class,aSCAB,a person willing to give up his rights and all those that fought for them.SCAB way of covering an open woun temporalarly
eatmypies 3 years ago
Divide communities like thatcher did and you end up with the trouble we have today compounded. DOG EAT DOG EAT DOG!
captaincavemaaaannn 2 years ago
The GEGB was absolutely wrong to use cheap foreign coal and dump our lads on the doal coz I've NEVER seen a miner or any of their supporters drive a foreign car or take a foreign holiday. OK I'm being sarcastic but you either believe in the free market economy or you don't. You can't have it both ways!!
dimgwalltameiben 3 years ago
I am fearful we will be seeing more of this type of thing in the current financial situation which has barely even begun in my opinion.
sugarraygras 3 years ago
miners union = bludger
powerfulsamoan 3 years ago
Thatchers revenge. The hauliers should be made to pay for this one day.
RashidDostum 3 years ago
everyone should come round your house and tell you what they think of you ya fucking scab cunt.
bigloubhoy 3 years ago
The miners would never defeat Thatch because she had the people on her side. Check out the results of the elections (or do commies ignore such things). Scargill should have got the miners a fantastic redundancy cheque and for that he would have been a great workers rep but instead he used them for his own ego and fucked them up, but dont worry he lives all right in his bungalow at Hound Hill in Worsborough near Barnsley. Yep when I go by it every now and then I tell him what I think.
deathtotheunions 3 years ago
You don't know what your talking about. The miners were offered massive redundancy payments to sell their jobs and close pits. They rejected that and fought a principled battle for their industry and their communities.
The miners and their union leaders will be recorded in history as heroes.
weemagicstane 2 years ago
They were heroes. That evil cow Thatcher deserves to rot in hell
williamastanier 2 years ago 2
angryyounghippo. We are all now still paying the price of thatchers rule. She sold off UK assetts on the cheap wasted the oil money. And she has given us generations of poverty and unemployment. AS was a twat, he played into her hands but she was evil.
rayyyyyy1 3 years ago
She kept a long dole queue for all the usual reasons (keeping pay low etc)and paid for it with the oil revenues. Doll bill was £22 billion per annum, oil revenue the same figure.
RashidDostum 3 years ago
it's either keeping wages low or bringing millions of foreign labour into the country!
antonjon1 3 years ago
1974 - Heath asks the question: Who runs Britain? Miners prove he doesn't and Heath loses.
1984 - Thatcher asks the question: Who runs Britain? Thatcher proves that the miners don't and that the days of unions pretending they do are over. Miners lose. New era of industrial relations begins.
Moral of story: Don't pick a fight with anyone tougher, better resourced and cleverer than you.
OldSetonian 3 years ago
to hell with every one who who has a negative comment, you werent ther and toy didn,t have to suffer, so fuck the lot of you who is iggnorant enoght to think you tiny little brain could comprehend what we went through
diannesara 3 years ago
I was there, but on the other side.
You should have binned Scargill when you had the chance and negotiated. Defeat would have been less catastrophic.
OldSetonian 3 years ago
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and if she was so unpopular why did the british public vote her in FOR THREE WHOLE TERMS?? Maybe you would care to answer that one.
Why the hell should this country be brought to its knees by mob rule by a dissenting minority? Did we fight hitler to be held at ransom by Mob rule?
btw, just a point for those who may wish me to crawl back under my stone, can you not provide rational and reasoned arguments instead of resorting to childish name calling and insults? Kind of reveals your ability!
angryyounghippo 3 years ago
The Tories were progressively wiped out in Scotland culminating in no (that's ZERO) seats! They've fought back since then - I think they have one (that's 1) now.
BTW The abuse you've got below is richly deserved. And, incidently, you appear to have started it.
Daisy12630 3 years ago
ok maybe the iggoranent voted for her, bad move. but i lost my home , and mt childrens home because my husband and his collegues fought for the right of every british man to have a job
diannesara 3 years ago
You have absolutely no fuckin idea what your on about.Knob!
cammyrhys 3 years ago
You are 'right' but inhuman, we miners were 'wrong', but completely human. You love money, I love my friends, comrades and family. The Tories who write here are right, the society we have is a dung heap of greed and vulgar egotism. I fought for solidarity and the human dignity of mutal community. They won, and so are 'right'-we lost and so are 'wrong'. 'We can get cheaper coal from racist South Africa' they said, where children worked in the pits! As long as its not yours I suppose.
VanKoren 3 years ago
People cause greed, not governments. Thatcher certainly didn't promote greed. Her whole philosophy was based upon monetarism, whereby the government controls the money supply to control inflation. Your beloved unions caused endemic inflation in British industry.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
By this description (I don't call it an 'analysis'), governments are not 'people'. Also, if a phenomenon is 'endemic' it can't be externally 'caused'. Ponder thereon.
By the way, I am no lover of unions, I know the limitions of a trade union outlook. But I also know the hypocracy of monetarists who are forever telling others to restrict the money supply and be 'prudent' while fiddling the tax and financial system. I'd rather live among fools and 'idealists' than hypocrits and sadists.
VanKoren 3 years ago
Thatcher didn't fiddle the tax system. She was very clear in expressing her views. Name a monetarist who fiddled the tax system
dragonlee90 3 years ago
Alas..., her son Mark, Aitken, Archer, Lord Brocket, Harvey Proctor, Shirley Porter, Colin Kiddell, Tom Spencer, Robert Richdale, Michael Griffiths, John Dainty, David Hart. I could go on, but that would be boring. The point I suppose, is that all these card carrying Tories professed to be free market monetarists and against state intervention. Check out their records, you can see why they don't want state interferance. No such thing as society, no need for a tax system to administer it, right?
VanKoren 3 years ago
well said brother i am from south wales and the valleys are still fucked to this day because of that fucking bitch thatcher.tories make me sick all they want to do is destroy the working man there is no more despicable bastards than the greedy middle and upper class bastards in this country today they are the worst kind of scum they would trample over a dying man to pick up his wallet.
bigloubhoy 3 years ago 3
you may fail to realise that I supported the miners causes. Yes, I am a conservative, but only as a realist, not an idealist.
The miners were in a sense unfortunate to get it in the neck after all the other striking groups that preceded them just as Thatcher was really gaining momentum.
And again, having seen documentaries where former miners were relocated to other industries, and their quality of life was immeasurably improved, David Jones and Joe Green died in vein.
angryyounghippo 3 years ago
Total bollocks. The NUM were responsible for beating the wives and children of the miners who refused to join the strike. The trotskites such as that Cunt Scargill were manipulating people for their own ends.
Market forces would have made all the miners redundant in several years anyway.
and you have not answered the point:
1. what would have happened had the winter of discontent continued into the 80s
2. Scargill and his minions got his way and brought this country to its knees
angryyounghippo 3 years ago
Thatcher can rot in hell and you can join her hippo you fool.
I bet your a Tory groupie...
andyaccies 3 years ago 5
any one seen programmes on miners who became white collar workers? half the hours double the pay in office environment with good saefty standards and no dangerous environment dangerous hours and shite pay. They got jobs and realised Scabgill was full of shit. Capitalism needs a balance with socialism. My parents were communists and socialists for Labout during the 80s. now they support the BNP.
i'm a conservative with a smattering of socialism. But i hate middle class liberal democrat shits.
angryyounghippo 3 years ago
Angry, Young (and inexperienced) Hippo, you are a clown of the lowest order, you don't even start to understand.
The VAST majority of miners were thrown on the scrapheap of Thatchers alter. Our homes, families, villages and way of life were destroyed by this evil bitch.
You have the right to spout your garbage because people like David Jones and Joe Green died fighting for these rights, yet you defile these mens memory.
Slink back into the hole from whence you crawled.
rabt1952 3 years ago 4
Unless you live in a mining town, you will never understand.
barryevanshire 3 years ago
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Thatcher was a hero. anybody read "the Downing Street Years". Great Book. Socialism is a disease. You blame thatcher for your problems, but what would have happened if the winter of discontent 79 and Callaghan had continued? Britain would be dead on its knees. NUM were beating wives and children of people who opposed the strike. Scargill was a cunt. Thatcher had no choice but to be hardline. I don't like the fact she ordered the army dressed as police to beat miners, but UK had to change.
angryyounghippo 3 years ago
dragon lee. The legacy of Thatcher and the Tories. Sold off UK assetts on the cheap. Destroyed manufacturing industry. Wasted the North sea oil money on keeping millions unemployed. So unpopular that they led to riots up and down the country. Large scale and violent disturbances not seen for over a hundred years.
rayyyyyy1 3 years ago 4
like i said before i lived though this hell in s wales it was horrible this countrys gone i was proud to be british but everything british is gone i work for royal mail but were being killed off slowly people are just ignorant ...
sparge2 3 years ago 2
Dragonlee - and your point is ....have you read Mr Mcgregors book on the closing of the pits .... I think you should before you cast your mockery around here .... its all very discussing IMF and world banks ... read this book first it shows an even Bigger picture ...this argument still echoes in my pub now!
manor71 3 years ago
all you ignorant wankers on here who support thatcher should hang your heads in shame.that bitch ruined whole towns and to this day certain areas are still ruined.
bigloubhoy 3 years ago 2
Wrong. Arthur Scargill used the miners for political purposes. It was because of Scargill and the Unions that bodies were not getting buried, rubbish was piling up in the streets, old people were dying because they had no coal to heat their homes, despite the miners getting wage increase after wage increase. Scargill is to blame.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
Your off your nut. Nobody but nobody ever "used" the NUM and miners for anything. You clearly know nothing about trades unions and miners and their communities in particular.
Daisy12630 3 years ago
Yes I do considering I come from a family of ex miners.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
If you were you would not talk crap like the miners being "used" by anyone.
Daisy12630 3 years ago
The miners were used by Scargill for political purposes. If you had independent thoughts you'd realise this. He brought down the Heath government, the Callaghan government, but Thatcher was to intelligent for him. Governments are elected by the population, Unions are elected by the workers, not the population.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
Joe Gormley was President of the NUM in 1974.
Callaghan government? I was working at the time. Arthur was not at the forefront of what I assume you are referring to ie the so-called "winter of discontent".
Workers and their families are the huge majority of the population.
Daisy12630 3 years ago
Not all of them are part of Unions. Scargill never allowed his members to vote, he just called the strike.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
Not true. Your regurgitating tabloid lies.
The NUM followed their rulebook and some areas of the federal NUM did vote. It wasn't the point however, the fight was for jobs and communities and solidarity was what was required. I don't expect you to understand that however. It's a gut instinct you either have or don't. Principled people have it.
Daisy12630 3 years ago 2
Like I said, go and check the IMF, World Bank and OONS. It will verify everything I've said. If you can tolerate small font, lots of words and no pictures on your books, I suggest you read Milton Friedman's books. The miners and the unions as a whole had declared war on the country in the 70's. Union strikes had caused dead people to go unburied. Rubbish piled up the on the streets and 3 day weeks were called. That's the legacy of socialism in this country.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
Aye, as a kid I remember the 3 day weeks and the power cuts fondly. Great fun they were.
However the legacy of socialism in this country is the welfare system and the NHS in particular.
Something every civilised person should be proud of.
Daisy12630 3 years ago
my pit is still running ,theyll alwayes need coal,hatfield main
svengorran 3 years ago
donny ?
satan0207 3 years ago
ye donny hatfields pits in stainforth,cant believe the comments ive read from some of these wankers on hear,
svengorran 3 years ago
fuck maggie thatcher,hope the bitch dies a horrible death
svengorran 3 years ago
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Well DONE our Margaret
Frigger100 3 years ago
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With a communist and known Stalin admirer at the head of this union, you were misled from the start.
Remember how you used to chant "Arthur Scargill, Arthur Scargill, we'll support you evermore!".
Well, do you vote for his SLP now? Wait for the next SLP purge before you do. Arthur is knife-sharpening as we speak. Membership is down to two dozen, and falling.
TroyaE117 3 years ago
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Good old Margaret Thatcher i hope she gets a well deserved State Funeral, what a magnificent Leader of our time. She brought the Great back into Great Britain.
Frigger100 3 years ago
Thatcher! Killed of this country's industry hence the massive balance of payments deficit; at the mercy of profiteering privatised energy companies while we sit on a thousand years of coal reserves. Started a war to get re-elected and tore the soul out of whole communities. All her policies were for the super rich at the expense of the rest of us.
State funeral or not there will be one almighty party all over. Just "Rejoice" at the thought.
Daisy12630 3 years ago 9
She didn't start a war you bloody moron. Galtieri invaded the Falklands.
Her policies were not for the super rich. Selling council houses at 50% of their original value increased home ownership 22%. She cut income tax from 87% to 40%, and for the lower earners 40% to 22%. She gave small businesses grants to start up.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
Your profile suggests you are an adolescent still wet behind the ears. Sure the Argentinian military junta (you'd probably have liked them). However Britain had just withdrawn its last supply ship a year or so before and while the Americans were trying to broker a diplomatic solution Thatcher personally ordered the torpedoing of the Belgrano (an outdated 40 years old ship) that was outside the "exclusion" area and steaming away from the Falklands/Malvinas. Thatcher wanted a war!
Daisy12630 3 years ago
War is war. I wouldn't wait for an enemy ship to see what it's movements where. The general of the Belgrano admitted in later years that the sinking was justified. I prefer his opinion to yours
dragonlee90 3 years ago
Generals are in the army, even in Argentina. Admirals and Captains are on ships.
Your making it up.
Daisy12630 3 years ago
The farmers were crippled by the Industrial Revolution, but to progress, they had to be put out of work so the industrial revolution could happen, leading to a new modern age of machinery, and as you are using a computer, you can't sympathise with the Agarian workers. The mines had been grossly inefficient for decades, and for us to progress from an industrial economy to a service based economy, they needed to go. And since you are using a computer, you have no grounds to argue.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
Service based economy? You mean selling burgers and the like. Creates no wealth just moves it around at best. The destruction of manufacturing and industries like mining are coming back to haunt this country. No wealth creation, unemployment and masses of social problems.
Daisy12630 3 years ago
So why has our country gone from being the Sick Man of Europe to having the 4th strongest economy in the world? Unemployment fell to 1,600,000 after the miner's strike. Wages were going up because businesses were extremely efficient. Go and check the statistics instead of spouting crap you've read in the Socialist Worker.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
As it turns out I don't read the SW.
Also, last time I heard Britain had fallen to 5th maybe 6th after China at least. The underlying position of the British economy is weak and it's due to the reasons I said before.
Daisy12630 3 years ago
The economy is weak because Gordon Brown has undone the Thatcherite reforms. He has regulated the market with his Stalinist control methods. He has built his version of the economy on a wave of cheap credit and household debt, thus creating a massive housing and credit bubble, which has burst. If the Conservatives had been charge, this wouldn't have happened, as they were fiscally prudent and always saved money instead of spending it on everything they could think off.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
That is just so much nonsense. Under New labour the "free" market has been allowed to rule supreme. That's the problem.
Their is nothing wrong with credit per se although personally I minimise it. The real reason is the frail nature of the economy and its susceptibility ti fluctuations. ie as I have said, the underlying problem is the lack of real wealth creation and the reliance on imports of things like energy and real goods.
Daisy12630 3 years ago 2
Not it hasn't. Gordon Brown's budgets were increasingly Keynesian with every sucessive year. He introduced a minimum wage for God' sake, one of the most interfering methods in the market. Still avoiding the point on the Belgrano. Are you not man enough to admit you made a silly mistake?
dragonlee90 3 years ago
I refer to my previous answer.
Daisy12630 3 years ago
Why should I even bother with you. I back up my arguments with statistics, your arguments are just bits of rhetoric and opinion. You deny that the General of the Belgrano admits it was justified to sink the ship, and when I provide the evidence to back up my point, you ignore it. Typical socialist.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
You haven't provided any evidence of your assertions. But I'm happy for you to bugger off.
Daisy12630 3 years ago
Then you lack the ability to read. Check IMF statistics. Check the World Bank stats. Check the OONS. It verifies everything I have said. I am not going to debate with someone intellectually inferior to myself.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
You check out your navel. So your intellectually superior you reckon? Very modest of you I must say.
Daisy12630 3 years ago
I'm not into false modesty, it's hypocritical, selfish, and completely false, like a stripper's breasts.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
Now isn't this comment prophetic! Witness the financial meltdown over the last couple of days.
weemagicstane 3 years ago
The Tories were renowned for their lies on unemployment figures. That figure you quote is those unemployed AND claiming benefit, Excludes those unemployed more than 6 months who has a spouse or other family member working and those on invalidity benefit.
The Rowntree Foundation estimated that the true figure of those out of work and wishing to work was over 7 millions.
Daisy12630 3 years ago
The Rowntree Foundation is a left wing organisation, and so it will be biassed towards those pursuing a capitalist agenda. I notice you have not responded to the point on the Belgrano general.
dragonlee90 3 years ago
Left wing? They may have a social conscience but they're hardly left wing.
What's his name to I check it out? What he says now is hardly the point anyway. The Conqueror sub Captain that sank the Belgrano said something akin to what I'm saying. ie the sinking was unnecessary and that was the act that began the war Thatcher wanted.
Daisy12630 3 years ago