WOW! Nice work if you can get it. The Trough beckons again

[MOCAŠ]

And then you get people slagging off Gordon Brown for selling off the gold reserves cheaply; it's all he had left to sell, the Tories had sold everything else off!

Sounds like you're saying that if the Conservatives hadn't undertaken privatisation, New Labour would have done so anyway?

 

[Gollom]

Sounds like you're saying that if the Conservatives hadn't undertaken privatisation, New Labour would have done so anyway?

Blair does say in his biography that some decisions Thatcher made were a product of the age and he would not have neccesarily made different ones. Does not way which ones though!

BTW - loving this thread. PLEASE can we not get all emotional and spoil it like so many others?

 

[Dryce]

I gather from your earlier posts that you're Scottish, I don't know if you live near any former pit towns/villages but there's not much left now. That also goes for the other industries they destroyed, like the steelworks etc.

I don't let the emotions of having been brought up in Yorkshire and moving to Scotland and being employed by a company whose major customer was the NCB cloud my judgement.

The situation by the late 70s was that we had a nationalised coal industry that was not only uneconomic but whose primary union was strong enough to keep it that way regardless of the burden to the rest of the UK.

Similarly we had a steel industry that was uneconomic.

And we had overmanned railways.

That all needed to change. Normally politicians don't have the guts or force of will to do that. In 1979 one arrived who did.

You can look at what-ifs. What if the situation had been dealt with earlier starting in the late sixties? What if the situation had been left to fester into the late eighties? What if the NUM had been rather less dogmatic?

I don't think anyone can be left unaffected by seeing the residential landscape that is left a major works or mine was closed. There are plenty.

But the question is simple. Why on earth do you pay more to extract coal or make steel than you can actually sell it for? And moreover why was that situation sustained for so long?

Who gets blamed when there is conflict? I blame the NUM leadership fair and square for 1984. Having managed to cow governments into submission during the 70s and even the early eighties it no longer knew how to negotiate when the other party had no more room left to acquiesce.

It's not the only union to have dug itself into that hole. (A more recent example on a smaller scale is the BA cabin crew dispute). And it's not just unions that do this.

What happened in the early 80s wasn't a result of the 1979 election. It went further back than that. Things don't happen as suddently as history likes to tell it. They build up over time like a sandpile which then gets too high and part collapses suddenly as an extra few grains are added.

 

[MOCAŠ]

BTW - loving this thread. PLEASE can we not get all emotional and spoil it like so many others?

It certainly didn't waste any time in going off-topic (although I suppose it is in the off-topic section...)

 

[Gollom]

It certainly didn't waste any time in going off-topic (although I suppose it is in the off-topic section...)

At least the subjects are related this time!!! :bannana:

 

[Deleted member 37751]

Sounds like you're saying that if the Conservatives hadn't undertaken privatisation, New Labour would have done so anyway?

I believe so.

'New Labour' were 'Tory-Lite' and that's what bemused the Conservatives for so long. We now have a Tory-led government that's 'New Labour-Lite' in a bizarre turnaround....

 

[Dryce]

Sounds like you're saying that if the Conservatives hadn't undertaken privatisation, New Labour would have done so anyway?

But New Labour is sort of like the god-child of the Margaret Thatcher.

In the 90s the reference point that Labour used to anchor its politics was moved. Knock on from the 1992 election. There's another huge 'what if' in there as to what would have been the outcome if Labour had won that election. Not just for the Labour party - which I think would be a very different animal today but also for the UK.

 

[Dryce]

I believe so.

'New Labour' were 'Tory-Lite' and that's what bemused the Conservatives for so long. We now have a Tory-led government that's 'New Labour-Lite' in a bizarre turnaround....

The government in power moulds the opposition .....

Scary.

 

[Red C220]

Yeah this is quite interesting. I'm 42, so not really old enough (or interested at the time) to really understand what went on with the miners issue.

I liked Thatcher though, she was a character and she had character. She stuck to her convictions, some right, some wrong and she dealt with the European bureaucrats in a way no one seems able to do these days.

When she came into power, the country was in a state and it needed someone strong to sort it out. Like her not - she did that as much as was possible.

Quite frankly we'd do with someone with her get up and go now to sort out the utter mess we're in.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

I don't let the emotions of having been brought up in Yorkshire and moving to Scotland and being employed by a company whose major customer was the NCB cloud my judgement.

The situation by the late 70s was that we had a nationalised coal industry that was not only uneconomic but whose primary union was strong enough to keep it that way regardless of the burden to the rest of the UK.

Similarly we had a steel industry that was uneconomic.

And we had overmanned railways.

That all needed to change. Normally politicians don't have the guts or force of will to do that. In 1979 one arrived who did.

You can look at what-ifs. What if the situation had been dealt with earlier starting in the late sixties? What if the situation had been left to fester into the late eighties? What if the NUM had been rather less dogmatic?

I don't think anyone can be left unaffected by seeing the residential landscape that is left a major works or mine was closed. There are plenty.

But the question is simple. Why on earth do you pay more to extract coal or make steel than you can actually sell it for? And moreover why was that situation sustained for so long?

Who gets blamed when there is conflict? I blame the NUM leadership fair and square for 1984. Having managed to cow governments into submission during the 70s and even the early eighties it no longer knew how to negotiate when the other party had no more room left to acquiesce.

It's not the only union to have dug itself into that hole. (A more recent example on a smaller scale is the BA cabin crew dispute). And it's not just unions that do this.

What happened in the early 80s wasn't a result of the 1979 election. It went further back than that. Things don't happen as suddently as history likes to tell it. They build up over time like a sandpile which then gets too high and part collapses suddenly as an extra few grains are added.

I agree that it's seen as lunacy to supplement a loss-making industry, but wasn't there another way round it all? Is it not also social destruction to just close all our manufacturing and mining without a plan with what to do with all the people you're putting out of work?

Put them on the dole until the figures can't be massaged anymore and then put them on the sick? What sort of a plan is that?

 

[Scott_F]

I think that Scargill and his politicised peers in the NUM contributed mightily to the whole morass.

The NUM had detached itself from the economics of its industry. My recollection is that Scargill made it clear that it was unacceptable for any pit to be shut down for economic reasons.

Basically a union put itself in the position where it put its members' livelihoods ahead of common sense at the expense of the UK tax payer and UK economy.

It faced down a strongly led government that was motivated not just to deal with the economic aspect but the political aspect - not just with regard to the coal industry but also to face down its peer unions.

And as to the electorate. They didn't rise in support of the NUM. They may not have been happy with the outcome - but not so unhappy with it that they were willing to protest sufficiently or vote sufficiently to change the government's course or demand that tax payers' money be used to prop it up.

The irony I suspect is that a weaker union might have achieved a better outcome.

You and I have been over this ground before.

Whilst the NUM was foolish to call a strike in the Spring, without a vote and without the support of all members, the fact is that the Government and the NCB blatantly lied when they denied the extent of the pit closure program that was planned. The UDM miners, who were told that the NUM were talking rubbish and that their jobs were safe as long they kept working, would certainly have joined the strike had they known what was really being planned.

Change was necessary, destroying the industry and all the communities that it supported was not.

Despite what you say, the strike was linked to the Government’s program of privatisation. Yes they wanted to break the power and influence of the unions, but they also needed to virtually close down the coal industry. Their biggest customer was the power industry and that was soon to be privatised. Once freed from their obligations to buy from the NCB, they could buy cheaper coal from abroad.

Had the terms of the privatisation compelled the power generation companies to continue to buy UK coal, they could still have made vast profits and we wouldn't be spending billions to keep whole communities on benefits for the rest of their lives.

Let's face it, it's not like the “Big Six” couldn't afford to take the hit when paying a bit extra for UK coal. Instead, we find ourselves being fleeced by these same companies whilst they buy coal from places like Russia and China where thousands of miners die each year. But hey, the coal is cheap.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

But New Labour is sort of like the god-child of the Margaret Thatcher.

In the 90s the reference point that Labour used to anchor its politics was moved. Knock on from the 1992 election. There's another huge 'what if' in there as to what would have been the outcome if Labour had won that election. Not just for the Labour party - which I think would be a very different animal today but also for the UK.

The biggest 'what-if' is the death of John Smith.