Miners Strike 1984: The Battle for Britain
- Thread starter WeeGord
- Start date
r00fie1
Well-known member
And all because the miners wanted to save their jobs and communities
boroboy6872
Well-known member
Dishing out "Rule of Law", whilst being anonymous and unaccountable
South Yorkshire Police corruption working alongside Metropolitan Police corruption
Even after the trials collapsed in 85 SYP still carried on as per the norm.
4 years later there will have still been active serving police who were at Orgreave who would have been at Hillsborough
Unaccountable again
Thatcher gave them that, the power to beat and kill working class people. To break the Unions, to put hard working hands against hard working hands in tight knit communities, the miners, the steelworkers, the print unions, the football fan.
People died because of her hatred of that unity.
Evil, evil woman and she liked to bare witness to her evil hand
Not sure if she visited the pit villages/towns after the miners strike where so many lives where ruined, but she certainly went to see for herself what she oversaw at Hillsborough and she certainly came to Teesside to make sure she`d erased steelworking.
BobUpnDown
Well-known member
not watched the series - however always thought it was an ideological dispute (conflict) by the two 'leaders' & badly handled by both.
Thatcher didn't care - at all - about people or communities just about her ideology & legacy.. Scargill was a front, he used his union position to benefit himself & his power to make his followers do as he wanted.. one used the police & army the other miners to fight their battle..
Mining was obliterated rather than managed reduction & entire communities were just left with no future.. & that was all on Thatcher..
Thatcher didn't care - at all - about people or communities just about her ideology & legacy.. Scargill was a front, he used his union position to benefit himself & his power to make his followers do as he wanted.. one used the police & army the other miners to fight their battle..
Mining was obliterated rather than managed reduction & entire communities were just left with no future.. & that was all on Thatcher..
HarryVegas
Well-known member
Watch it.
tonybiriyani
Well-known member
I used to work with a fella from Easington who was a miner at this time.
He was telling me about the strikes, the police, flying pickets etc.
They used to set off by coach for different pits, and were always trying to avoid the police knowing that they'd be stopped from going anywhere further.
On the day of Orgreave the police made no attempt to stop them , and were basically waving them through as they got closer, then directed them to a field/ open land.
They all ended up at one of this field, the police all gathering at the other end.
The police eventually charged them, behind the miners was some woodland, a lot tried to escape through there, police with dogs were in there forcing miners back out into the oncoming police.
No wonder their hatred exists to this day.
He was telling me about the strikes, the police, flying pickets etc.
They used to set off by coach for different pits, and were always trying to avoid the police knowing that they'd be stopped from going anywhere further.
On the day of Orgreave the police made no attempt to stop them , and were basically waving them through as they got closer, then directed them to a field/ open land.
They all ended up at one of this field, the police all gathering at the other end.
The police eventually charged them, behind the miners was some woodland, a lot tried to escape through there, police with dogs were in there forcing miners back out into the oncoming police.
No wonder their hatred exists to this day.
Alan_Breck
Well-known member
Similarly, I worked on the design, manufacture and construction team of the the Redcar 14m diameter blast furnace and was there on the day of "blow-in" in October 1979. In 2009 it was blown-out, "mothballed", after only 30 years of production and remember Vera Baird doing absolutely nothing to fight the closure from Corus, who purchased the facility from British Steel in 2003. It's gradual decline, resurrection by SSI and eventual permanent closure and demolition was inevitable. The same is happening now at Scunthorpe and Port Talbot, and also happened at Ravenscraig in 1992 due to a falling demand for steel and cheap imports from China and Brazil et al. Iron and steel making on Teesside is part of our DNA and watching Thompson Demolition do their job, bringing the blast furnace down, was heart-breaking and affected the local communities massively. Again, this industry closure could have been done in a more organised, timely, and caring manner and a similar documentary could be made regarding Teesside.
#UTB
#UTB
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HolgateCorner
Well-known member
It was straightforward wasn’t it?
Thatcher wanted to close the mining communities down without a plan B (other than ‘the market’)- and did so.
Scargill was leader of the NUM, read between the lines of Thatchers bullshxt, and opposed it. History proved him right.
Laughing
Well-known member
The idealogy of stripping the unions of their power aside, should we really send human beings down pits in the earth? Probably not. It was done in a particularly evil way, but the rest of the country stood by and watched it happen. Not enough people cared enough.
Fast forward to today and nothing much had changed. The tory regime since 2010 have changed their approach, but their goals are the same. A sizeable chunk of the population don't care enough to do anything about it. It's not a difficult argument to make that the current tory party are guilty for more death and destruction than Thatcher ever was. It just isn't televised nightly on the news.
Fast forward to today and nothing much had changed. The tory regime since 2010 have changed their approach, but their goals are the same. A sizeable chunk of the population don't care enough to do anything about it. It's not a difficult argument to make that the current tory party are guilty for more death and destruction than Thatcher ever was. It just isn't televised nightly on the news.
Doncaster Boro
Active member
Living in South Yorkshire,I can appreciate the bad blood that still exists down here. It runs very deep.
r00fie1
Well-known member
The plans to take on the unions were started in as early as 1976. Having witnessed the ‘74 miners action it became apparent to break the unions the NUM would have to be destroyed first.
So she together with Airey Neave and various others in the establishment set about making plans. What many people don’t realise the extent to which this was an operation of the state.
Government, including collusion from the Labour Party. The police willingly became an arm of the state, the intelligence services and uncle Tom Cobley and all.
Things were never the same again afterwards.
I was living in Kent at the time, not that far from the coal mines, and was involved in the miners support groups in the Kent coalfield
So she together with Airey Neave and various others in the establishment set about making plans. What many people don’t realise the extent to which this was an operation of the state.
Government, including collusion from the Labour Party. The police willingly became an arm of the state, the intelligence services and uncle Tom Cobley and all.
Things were never the same again afterwards.
I was living in Kent at the time, not that far from the coal mines, and was involved in the miners support groups in the Kent coalfield
r00fie1
Well-known member
I remember Coppers were preventing Kent Miners from travelling north and the same for the Yorkshire miners travelling south to support fellow miners.
I think the lads found ways round it, but it was a police state tactic
HolgateCorner
Well-known member
The country has never been the same, the conditions which led to Brexit were rooted in the aftermath of the miners strike.
r00fie1
Well-known member
There was a former poster on here, [no longer with us bless him], was delighted when UDM President Neil Greatrex died. [Greatrex was the one backed by Thatcher and the NCB to divide the miners and organise the scabs in Leicestershire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire]. Greatrex and UDM Secretary Mick Stevens were sent to prison for four years, stealing over £150,000 from the fund for sick miners in their “union”. Peter Heathfield, General Secretary of the NUM, was fingered by British Intelligence and acted as a fifth columnist for Thatcher and the NCB: deliberately sabotaging the NUM from within, helping to proliferate the lies about Libyan and Russian money to back the strike. He fled to France when his cover was blown. He was another “enemy within” - a state plant in the NUM. It was a dirty strike and Thatcher used every means to destroy the NUM, including blackmail, encouraging working miners to report on strikers and infiltration of Union branches to pre-empt and undermine actions and pickets. Miners families and homes were attacked, phones were tapped, for miners exercising their democratic rights.
Wilder Times
Active member
I worked with 2 brothers who haven't spoken to their other brother since '84, their father's final wish was "Don't let that scab come to my funeral"
Redwurzel
Well-known member
The Miners Strike certainly was a political fight on how the country should be run.
During the period 1945-1979 there was a form of consensus on how the UK was ran to try and maximise utility for the vast majority of the population. We had decent public services, low levels of unemployment, no food banks. Private industry was generally allowed to function how it wanted. People complained tax was too high, that the UK was a bit dreary, lost its Empire, that it was falling behind, had too many strikes, was class ridden. that it had limited economic opportunities.
Thatcher thought the way forward was to privatise and follow more the mid 20th century model US model of running a country primarily based on capitalism i.e. no subsidies to Nationalised industries to provide extra employment or to help regions left behind, little welfare payments. So if a mine was not profitable it was closed down. The social consequences had no interest for her or wider economic consequences. Not only that but she wanted the market for coal to be like trading a commodity. So UK coal fired power stations could enter contracts with coal producers around the World. In the early 1980s coal could be bought more cheaply from say the Eastern Bloc of Europe than the agreed UK price. Taking imported coal would reduce the economics of many UK mines, but boost the profitability of UK Electricity Generators such as the later privatised National Power.
As it has turned out the US model of capitalism is vanishing in the US as the US Government in the last 20 years has given enormous subsidies to many of its industries to produce their products and services in the US - Oil, Gas, Motor Vehicles, Semiconductors, Steel, Aircraft etc. Other products such as Online services are massive monoply style businesses such as Google, Meta, Apple who extract massive profits from theor users say by selling their privacy and data.
Strangely coal is no longer the cheap commodity it once was, from information given on here its price has mutiplied 8 times since the 1980s, while oil has only risen 2.5 times. No wonder someone wants to open a new coal mine in Cumbria.
During the period 1945-1979 there was a form of consensus on how the UK was ran to try and maximise utility for the vast majority of the population. We had decent public services, low levels of unemployment, no food banks. Private industry was generally allowed to function how it wanted. People complained tax was too high, that the UK was a bit dreary, lost its Empire, that it was falling behind, had too many strikes, was class ridden. that it had limited economic opportunities.
Thatcher thought the way forward was to privatise and follow more the mid 20th century model US model of running a country primarily based on capitalism i.e. no subsidies to Nationalised industries to provide extra employment or to help regions left behind, little welfare payments. So if a mine was not profitable it was closed down. The social consequences had no interest for her or wider economic consequences. Not only that but she wanted the market for coal to be like trading a commodity. So UK coal fired power stations could enter contracts with coal producers around the World. In the early 1980s coal could be bought more cheaply from say the Eastern Bloc of Europe than the agreed UK price. Taking imported coal would reduce the economics of many UK mines, but boost the profitability of UK Electricity Generators such as the later privatised National Power.
As it has turned out the US model of capitalism is vanishing in the US as the US Government in the last 20 years has given enormous subsidies to many of its industries to produce their products and services in the US - Oil, Gas, Motor Vehicles, Semiconductors, Steel, Aircraft etc. Other products such as Online services are massive monoply style businesses such as Google, Meta, Apple who extract massive profits from theor users say by selling their privacy and data.
Strangely coal is no longer the cheap commodity it once was, from information given on here its price has mutiplied 8 times since the 1980s, while oil has only risen 2.5 times. No wonder someone wants to open a new coal mine in Cumbria.
One of the first things she did upon becoming PM was to give the Police and Army a biggish pay rise.
A lot of us thought when that happened….”It was going to hit the fan”
The first time they know your name. A political file is opened, and it never goes away
Being interviewed about a work permit in a solid social democratic country. I had a witness, a well known journalist, and lawyer with me. The cop pulled out a thick file, opened it and asked “When was the last time you saw Rxxxx Axxxx”
The lawyer stopped the interview took me outside asked if I had something he needed to know. Later that day, midnight in fact, I answered the door to two very well dressed gentlemen
who suggested it might be a good idea if I left the country within 24 hours.
Checked with my friend the witness who checked with the lawyer. Both said. Go!
I had not been involved in any politics or groups whilst there, and had no profile at all.
It was down to what was in the file.
BTW my friend was hassled so much he ended up going to Switzerland, met a girl got married
and still lives there hassle free.
Neither of us had ever been charged with any offence at all. Not even a parking ticket.
It’s probably even worse now.
Remember. Just because you get to vote for a limited choice every 5 years.
Doesn’t make it a Democracy.