Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[albitz]

Well,this should be the perfect excuse to unhitch them from the gravy train forthwith.

[Lazydocker]

Have taken my time thinking about this one

Thatcher made some very tough decisions. Like it or not, she did turn this country around and get it out of the poo it was in TBH, we could do with someone in power now who had half the balls she had

As for the actual subject matter... Disgusted is all I can actually manage without giving the swear filter a work out

[Marks DTM Calib]

I always find the discussions regarding privatisation and mine closures etc interesting yet nobody ever answers the question as to who is going to pay the subsidies to support them when in public ownership.

We get th same today, we cant cut this, that and the other....ok, so where is the cash coming from then, are we going to borrow more?

Hard decisions and to be honest the miners got what they deserved

[albitz]

I wouldnt say they got what they deserved tbh.They had a very strong culture of loyalty to their union,which in days gone by when they were virtually slaves was very admirable imo. It sprung from times when mine owners would be above ground,having a tally ho hunt on horseback around their country estates,while the miners were a mile underneath them,working in inhuman conditions,and very often being killed or maimed in the process. If they get to retirement age their respiratory system would probably be wrecked,so the retirement would be miserable and short.
The mine owners also owned the houses they lived in and would evict them if they dared complain about thier conditions.
To fight and win against that type of oppression is a great thing,and created the loyalty to the union and formed those very close communities that the indeustrial north was famous for.
Scargill used & abused that loyalty in the most cynical way and he should be reviled for it imo,but of course the left wont let that happen as it wouldnt fit their mindset. Instead they still try to portray him as a great general in the class war.
I would imagine it was very difficult for miners at the time to see the big picture,and those who did had a very hard time of it.
It tore families,friendships and communities apart.There was even a murder within a family over it iirc.
Scargill needed dealing with and the unions needed most of their power removing and forced to be reasonable representatives of their members aspirations,rather than class warriors who were going to overthrow the evil British capitalist state.
It would imo have been possible to retain a mining and heavy industrial base when that job was done. It would needed to have been privatised of course and made its way in the real commercial world,but there was no reason why that couldnt be done.It would have been better than shutting down the whole industry.
Thiscountry now imports large amounts of very expensive foreign coal because we dont have a mining industry,that didnt need to happen.
It may surprise you to know that Norman Tebbit also thinks along the same lines now. " The job had to be done,but in some respects we went too far" is what he said a couple of years ago.

[albitz]

Have taken my time thinking about this one

Thatcher made some very tough decisions. Like it or not, she did turn this country around and get it out of the poo it was in TBH, we could do with someone in power now who had half the balls she had As for the actual subject matter... Disgusted is all I can actually manage without giving the swear filter a work out

Absolutely,but such a person apparently no longer exists within the main parties

[stewart000]

I always find the discussions regarding privatisation and mine closures etc interesting yet nobody ever answers the question as to who is going to pay the subsidies to support them when in public ownership.

We get th same today, we cant cut this, that and the other....ok, so where is the cash coming from then, are we going to borrow more?

Hard decisions and to be honest the miners got what they deserved

where is the cash coming from you ask, if a Keynesian approach was used things would be much better. people are kept in work, yes maybe via subsidies, but those people are working, not on benefits, they are paying tax, and have money to spend, and that keeps more people employed, so fewer people on benefits.

[albitz]

Imo that approach will never lead to a healthy economy in the longer term.Jobs need to be real jobs which earn income for companies in the real commercial world.That approach has been used in recent years to justify the creation of approx 750,000 extra jobs in the public sector.The country cannot any longer afford to finance those jobs (including the pensions etc. that go along with them) and there is now an outcry because the task of culling them is underway.
The only answer is to stimulate genuine growth in the economy,and that is what we are sorely lacking at the moment. Hampered and hamstrung by the EU,and being led around in circles by a seemingly clueless chancellor.
The only positive in the situation is that we can be certain it would be a hell of a lot worse if the previous bunch of morons were still in the treasury.The situation wouldnt be any where near as bad if they hadnt wrecked the economy when they were in charge.

[Marks DTM Calib]

But way more expensive, a lot of these thinsg were subsidised to the order of 50% of cost and no matter how you look at it, that is not sustainable.

It gets worse when you consider ship building, we so can not compete with the likes of Brazil, China, India on cost and hence the result is no orders.

There comes a point where you have to face the reality that these industries have to go with the resulting job losses for things to move on or you end up paying for mines with no output and yards with no ships.

[Nick W]

Scargill used & abused that loyalty in the most cynical way and he should be reviled for it imo,but of course the left wont let that happen as it wouldnt fit their mindset. Instead they still try to portray him as a great general in the class war.
I would imagine it was very difficult for miners at the time to see the big picture,and those who did had a very hard time of it.
It tore families,friendships and communities apart.There was even a murder within a family over it iirc.
Scargill needed dealing with and the unions needed most of their power removing and forced to be reasonable representatives of their members aspirations,rather than class warriors who were going to overthrow the evil British capitalist state.

My Grandfather always claimed that once the unions started using their membership to work at politics, rather than use politics to work for their membership it was always going to end badly. And he was  a man who was heavily involved(albeit locally) in his union from the day he got home from the army in 1944 until the day he died in 1992, at which point he'd been retired for twenty years.

We cannot put all the blame for the wrecking of British industry on the unions though. For instance, a quick look at how BMC/BL/Austin Rover/Rover 'developed' it's obvious that the inept, incompetent management was equally culpable.

[Dishevelled Den]

Scargill used & abused that loyalty in the most cynical way and he should be reviled for it imo,but of course the left wont let that happen as it wouldnt fit their mindset. Instead they still try to portray him as a great general in the class war.
I would imagine it was very difficult for miners at the time to see the big picture,and those who did had a very hard time of it.
It tore families,friendships and communities apart.There was even a murder within a family over it iirc.
Scargill needed dealing with and the unions needed most of their power removing and forced to be reasonable representatives of their members aspirations,rather than class warriors who were going to overthrow the evil British capitalist state.

My Grandfather always claimed that once the unions started using their membership to work at politics, rather than use politics to work for their membership it was always going to end badly. And he was  a man who was heavily involved(albeit locally) in his union from the day he got home from the army in 1944 until the day he died in 1992, at which point he'd been retired for twenty years.

We cannot put all the blame for the wrecking of British industry on the unions though. For instance, a quick look at how BMC/BL/Austin Rover/Rover 'developed' it's obvious that the inept, incompetent management was equally culpable.

For instance, a quick look at how BMC/BL/Austin Rover/Rover 'developed' it's obvious that the inept, incompetent management was equally culpable

Yes, an important point Nick.