SailOnSailor
Member
According to Johnson, closing the mines put us ahead of the game on combating climate change.
Thatcher Climate Warrior
- Thread starter SailOnSailor
- Start date
Johnny Vincents Motorbike
Well-known member
Aet290204
Well-known member
Got to laugh haven’t you.
Trouble is no one under the age of 45 remembers the miners strike.
Don’t shout at me please it’s only an opinion
Middlesbrough123
Well-known member
Trouble is coal cost more to get out the ground than it was worth wasn’t it ?
Ingleby_Flash
Well-known member
You are correct, there were in fact three strikes, one in 72 one in 74 and then the 84-85 strike. During the first strike the government set up the Wilberforce enquiry, this judged the miners should get a 30% pay rise.
The 84-85 strike destroyed families and split communities, it should never have happened, Scargill was wrong to call it when he did it and the Tories used it as an excuse to break the usions, regardless of the rights and wrongs. The owld feller was a miner in these periods and 84-85 was a terrible time for mine and many other families.
Ingleby_Flash
Well-known member
No, North East coal was very high quality anthracite which had a higher value and a good market due to its very high calorific value. Part of the excuse to close mines was the British Steel could buy coal cheaper abroad, which was true based on the quality of the coal they needed. It was said they refused to buy BRITISH coal and save British jobs. This called a lot of bitterness in the community.
The truth of it was revealed when Hesletine said (when strikers were being beaten by Thatcher’s police), ‘don’t forget these are the people that brought a conservative government down’ It was a war, sadly the miners were led into battle by Scargill.
Aet290204
Well-known member
As horrible a politician as she was, Thatcher did actually believe in the problems the world was facing because of climate change and speeches she made show she was fairly forward thinking in that regard. So maybe this is what Johnson is referring to.
Kudos to anyone who lived the reality of the miners strike. I watched it on the news from afar when I was 14. That was bad enough.
Kudos to anyone who lived the reality of the miners strike. I watched it on the news from afar when I was 14. That was bad enough.
Redwurzel
Well-known member
By 1984 a lot of the British mines were over 70 years old and the best seams were worked out or difficult to access. They were also quite deep so all in all quite expensive to run. The CEGB were the biggest customer and they guaranteed quite a good price for the mines, but there was pressure for them to buy cheaper imported coal and reduce electricity bills. Imported coal sometimes came from open cast mines or highly mechanised mines or mines in Communist Eastern Europe where the Governements there subsidised their coal. Thatcher hated the miners from their strikes in the the early 1970s and this was one of her motivations to close mines. Another was to withdraw any form of subsidy to the coal industry. To my knowledge she had no interest in environmental issues and I am not sure she even believed in global warming. She much preferred car travel to rail travel.
Aet290204
Well-known member
Margaret Thatcher: How PM legitimised green concerns
Why Margaret Thatcher did more than any major politician of her time to legitimise environmental concerns.
www.bbc.com
Smoginexile
Well-known member
Copy and paste from BBC article I just read.
"He is reported to have laughed and told reporters: "I thought that would get you going"
I thought politicians were supposed to be good with words.
He could have made the same point in a much less callous way.
He was visiting an offshore wind farm in Scotland.
Building and maintaining wind farms provides jobs and clean energy.
Yet he chose to use the opportunity to make a joke at the expense of those who suffered in the war the government had with the miners.
People from these communities may find work and build lives around this new industry. It should have been a good news story.
"He is reported to have laughed and told reporters: "I thought that would get you going"
I thought politicians were supposed to be good with words.
He could have made the same point in a much less callous way.
He was visiting an offshore wind farm in Scotland.
Building and maintaining wind farms provides jobs and clean energy.
Yet he chose to use the opportunity to make a joke at the expense of those who suffered in the war the government had with the miners.
People from these communities may find work and build lives around this new industry. It should have been a good news story.
bear66
Well-known member
Thatcher did have concern for environmental issues, which subsequent Tories tried to whitewash from history.
Link
Jonathon Porritt, head of Friends of the Earth in the late 1980s, recalled the galvanising effect she had on the green debate:
"Thatcher … did more than anyone in the last 60 years to put green issues on the national agenda. From 1987-88 when [she] started to talk about the ozone layer and acid rain and climate change, a lot of people who had said these issues were for the tree-hugging weirdos thought, 'ooh, it's Mrs Thatcher saying that, it must be serious'. She played a big part in the rise of green ideas by making it more accessible to large numbers of people".
ForssAwakens
Well-known member
It’s all well and good with hindsight saying thatcher has done helped the U.K. turn green. People will lap that up
let’s nit try and re write history though. These communities were destroyed, and it wasn’t to save the planet. These same communities who started voting Tory again.
if anything we started importing coal, which is obviously less green than using your own
let’s nit try and re write history though. These communities were destroyed, and it wasn’t to save the planet. These same communities who started voting Tory again.
if anything we started importing coal, which is obviously less green than using your own
bear66
Well-known member
She didn't help start the UK turn green but she did start a narrative that the rest of the world bought into in1992.
SmallTown
Well-known member
That’s the point. She didn’t: it’s a “joke” by “Boris” that’s right. The prime minister of the UK is now laughing at us openly.
festa5
Well-known member
It should be yet another own goal by our inept PM that alienates a lot of voters over 60 who "lent" him their vote to "get brexit done".
But of course unless the daily heil or the sun make a big deal out of it (and they won't) those voters will remain oblivious to the type of character he is and continue to think of him as "good old Boris" or similar.
But of course unless the daily heil or the sun make a big deal out of it (and they won't) those voters will remain oblivious to the type of character he is and continue to think of him as "good old Boris" or similar.