Labour Leadership watch

Scargill was no match for Thatcher. He did what he thought best, though whether anyone could have stopped Thatcher is unlikely.

I'd forgotten about the steelworkers Nightowl

We will have to agree to disagree about Arthur Scargill, Trisher.
Close The Coalhouse Door, may have been a good play, but if we all continually live in the past, then we fail to move on with life.Nobody will die trapped underground, or of injuries, or miner's lung coughing their guts out, so working in a call centre has it's advantages.

Rr "If the unions had acted differently". Scargill was subsequently proved right about what was happening. The government of the time steadfastly refused to acknowledge the programme of closure they were planning, so what should the unions have done? If someone tells you something isn't being planned and you know it is how can you negotiate a deal with them? The first requirement of any agreement is honesty and it wasn't the unions who were lying through their teeth. Of course mining was a hard living, of course there were dreadful illnesses and injuries involved. But there was (and still is) a pride in the communities who supplied coal. The recent revival of the play "Close the Coalhouse Door" was greeted with great acclaim up here. Complete with its new ending of the men working in call centres.

As you say, Anya, the miners were proud hard men, who did a hard and dangerous job.It was a terrible time for them and their families.
if the unions had acted differently, especially Scargill, it may have been possible to work something out, or at least agree to a slower rate of closure.
The Government did need to break the massive power of the unions in Britain, and the miners were the pawns in the battle.The combination of the coal being less and less economic to mine, and the Governments determination to get to grips with the unions had that end result.
'Miner's Lung' was the most horrible condition, and spending half your life underground is no way to live.
Mill closures in Yorkshire ( wool) and Lancashire ( cotton) also had an impact on life in these towns and villages, but thankfully, life moves on and people adapt and move on too.

Well said Anya. I have tried to avoid the political threads because they always become personal and lead nowhere. However we all have our triggers and one of mine is the miners strike, and it's forerunner, the steel strike of 1980, now largely forgotten by history. That was remarkable because it was the first national steel strike since 1926 and was called by a union whose leadership was politically to the right and not traditionally militant. It was provoked by the government as part of their strategy to break the power of the unions, no matter how much hardship they caused to the workers in those industries, their families and communities. It was a practice run before they took on their old enemy, the miners. It is well documented, for anyone who cares to read and understand that we were not told the whole truth. Enough said.

I've kept out of the coal miners debate because I stated clearly earlier that I disagreed with what Thatcher did to the miners.
My credentials? My maternal grandfather, his father, brothers, uncles, cousins were all coalminers. My paternal grandmother's side too. I even received £282 compensation money for a relative who died from moners' lung - after the lawyers had taken their cut.
Firstly all the deep mine collieries have not closed, or if they have it is only this year.
The UK had plenty of coal left, though it was getting less economic to mine.
Secondly the miners were striking because they wanted their jobs. They were proud, hard men. They had to be to go down the pits. They fought hard to keep their livelihoods and their communities. When they were defeated, and yes it was for political ends, skills were lost, communities broken and impoverished.

Shall I say it more simply, since you seem determined to misinterpret or miss the point if anything I say?

The mines were closed. We still needed coal. We increased our imports to keep up with demand. We now import coal from countries where children as young as five are used as cheap labour to mine that coal. I do not think that is ethical. Of course it would be better if no one had to mine coal. But we have not arrived at that position yet. Do you have an answer to this problem rosesarered? Is it really better that we no longer have our own mines?

And you haven't been anywhere near a mine.

as Victor Meldrew used to regularly say " In the name of sanity! ........"

If you say so rosesarered. I cannot accept that imports of anything that put lives at risk are better than proper investment in our own industries.

I repeat again, Thatcher's decision to close the mines was completely political. She practised in 1981 on the steelworkers and won. She planned to take on the miners, prepared for a strike, and made sure she won again. Arthur Scargill made mistakes, but whatever he or anyone did they could never have won that fight.

I am not looking for an argument, but I don't think you really understand what happened. The analysis above is not mine, but that of many commentators with better credentials than me. Your analysis is the simplistic one the Tory press would have us believe.

Have you ever been anywhere near a mine, roses?

It wasn't my potted history, roses, but I will not bother you with telling you whose history it was. If you look, you will see it's in quotation marks.

I get worried that the OBR will be dismantled, Eloethan, even though it was set up by the Tories. They are not saying what the government wants them to say.

A coal industry here would mean men working in the pits again, you can bandy words about like 'well regulated' but it isn't you going down there to work all day is it?
Now that you have covered the world's coal mines, what about the South African diamond mines, then after that, there are sure to be lots of other things you can complain about, that have nothing to do with me, but am sure you will manage to find a link.Ye Gods, some people.

whitewave Thank you so much for pulling together all that detail regarding actual, rather than perceived, Conservative/Labour performance in government. What a shame that during the election the Labour Party caved in to the right wing narrative that it had been responsible for a financial crash that in fact hit almost all of Europe and the USA. Your breakdown certainly gave a pretty comprehensive overview of what has occurred over the last 45 years or so.

In the Autumn Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility predicted that spending on public services were heading for an 80 year low and that by 2019-2020 spending on public services would fall to 12.6% of GDP as compared to 21.2% in 2009-2010. That is a massive reduction. It is damaging - and will continue to damage - the health, safety and general wellbeing of vast numbers of children, elderly and disabled people and other vulnerable groups and will cause cause untold damage to our public institutions and services.

The massive reduction in the state's role as service provider means that either people that require help will be left to their own devices (which would, I think, as more and more people found themselves affected, turn out to be very unpopular) or the government (i.e. the taxpayer) will have to pay private companies to provide the services instead. Unless the service provided is much less comprehensive and of much poorer quality (i.e. provided by low paid, poorly trained, under staffed and demoralised workers), providing it privately will not be a cheaper option since shareholders require a return for their investment. The old argument about competition producing cheaper and more efficient services has not, as far as I can see, been borne out. The cost of energy, water, transport, elderly people's/children's residential care, nurseries, etc. etc. continues its relentless upward trajectory while performance/outcomes remain patchy at best and appalling at worst.

And do spare me your very flawed analysis too Nightowl,and I wouldn't take Djens potted history on any subject thanks.The mines were not merely political, that was only a part of it.Arthur Scargill made the closure of the mines a cert, they were already thought of as costing too much, but Scargill and his antics made it all happen sooner.He was not a beloved hero by any means.I cannot worry about all the jobs, dangerous or otherwise in the world at large.It seems you are determined to have an argument at all costs.

Not only men die to produce our coal, but children too, but I suppose that's ok because they're not British children

We import 96% of our steam coal from 3 countries - Russia, the USA, and Colombia

Wikipedia says:

"According to a 2013 U.S. Department of Labor report on the worst forms of child labor and labor conditions around the world, the Colombian mining industry has been known[by whom?] to employ underage children. The report indicated that Colombia's industrial sector employed 20% of the working children who were aged 5 to 14 years old.[18] However, and despite the government's participation in a "4-year, $9 million project to combat child labor and improve workplace health and safety in mining", children continue to engage in child labor. In fact, the Bureau of International Labor Affairs issued a List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor in December 2014 where Colombia was mentioned for its use of underage children in brick, coal, gold and emerald mining."

I think I would still prefer a productive, properly regulated British coal industry if that were possible, but of course it no longer is.

So it's ok for men in other countries to risk their lives to produce our coal as long as men in the UK don't have to do so rosesarered? I don't really accept that argument. Nor do I accept that the mines were closed because the costs were too high. I think durhamjen gave you the history leading to the Miners Strike above. The whole episode was a purely political move by Margaret Thatcher in her bid to break the unions and the miners in particular. The miners had no choice but to fight back but they never stood a chance of winning.By all means move on from discussing the mines but spare us your flawed analysis of what happened back then.

You would be much happier all round.

djen, you really must cease living in the past.

I have also gone on about the fact that people should pay the taxes they owe in whatever country they owe them.
The reason Boris Johnson wants to give up his US citizenship is because he would pay less tax in the UK than if he kept dual citizenship.
Are you really sticking up for Boris Johnson as against refugees?

So you haven't got any. You do not know any miners or pit villages. You just spout what you read in the Tory press.

DJen, you have banged on and on about the rights of immigrants, even citing your own family, many times.How terribly we treat them and so on.
Ironic or what.

credentials!

Shall we move on from mines?I think we have got all the mileage we can on this now.