Arthur Scargill on the Right to Protest

The veteran of police violence in the miners strike '84/'85 defends Climate Campers rights

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News & Politics

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• arthur
• climatechange
• climatecmap
• grassroots
• police
• scargill
• visionontv

[MadMadGruff]

The simple fact is the miners strike was engineered by Margaret Thatcher and one or two of her closest allies, it was part of a grand design of social, political and economic change paid for with North sea Oil revenues and when that was not enough from the sale of the countries nationally owned assets. The sad part is that we are still paying for this now, each miners job lost equated to as many as 10 support jobs lost. She created a massive underclass, generations without hope. Shame on her.

[taxiride1]

Arthur Scargill should think about the right not to protest. A man who forced people out in strikes by intimidation and violence, who set brother against brother can hardly take any moral high ground. He should remember it wasn't just Thatcher who shut the mines but Scargill and Thatcher.

[32peartree]

For your information neither Thatcher or Scargill closed down the mining industry - it was Major and Hesletine. And the Nottingham miners were scabs and class traitors going all the way back to the 1927 general strike. The idiots always put their trust in the Tories instead of the NUM - thinking they would get special treatment from the ruling classes. Needless to say - they got betrayed - falling for the oldest trick in the book - Divide and conquer!

[taxiride1]

@MadMadGruff I don't have a chip on my shoulder about minimum wage. I was making a point that if you are going to pay minimum wage you need industry that provides it and coal mining didn't. There wasn't enough money generated from coal mining to provide the pay for miners since that coal had to compete on the market. If Thatcher engineered the miners strike then she was cleverer than I've ever given her credit for.

[MadMadGruff]

@taxiride1 MrJanesaddiction response was a perfectly good one. I do not understand your focus on the minimum wage you seem to have a chip on your shoulder about that, the UK was after all, not a great exporter of coal so there was really not much of point to make. After the strike ended the NUM were proved absolutely correct about the governments plans to end coal mining in the UK. Thatcher would see an end to union power no matter what the social and economic cost to the nation.

[taxiride1]

@MadMadGruff Then what about the minimum wage. You have Russia and the UK, and lets say Germany need to buy coal but who will they buy it off? The UK at double the cost to cover minimum wage or Russia at half the price since after socialism there was barely any wage? How would the UK compete with Russia on coal exports?

[MadMadGruff]

There are so many ignorant people here which is fine, after all if they were not around at the time of the miners strike or have not been well enough informed then they may well be so, but I ask them to dig around a little and seek the truth of it all instead of offering wild opinions that wil simply be offensive to those honest and hard working families who fought and suffered so much, not just for themselves but for thier friends, neighbours, colleagues, communities, industry and country

[sweet518]

The closing of industry and trade unions is the reason we have chavs now. Whereas back then the working class would go on to the mines etc, now they're only option is often enough the likes of McDonalds, no wonder they'd rather stick to the dole.

[porcupineprovocateur]

smug git at the end there. he's loving it. crafty bastard.