OT - Miners Strikes 80s

glasshalffull said:
I know I will probably regret posting this without properly checking it all, but as I recall it there were no forces stationed there before the conflict only one patrol ship, which the Government had decided to withdraw anyway as part of defence cuts?
There were also ongoing talks involving the US that could have prevented military action until we sank the Belgrano, which was sailing away from our exclusion zone and appeared to be an act designed to make sure that a war would then take place?
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No prob, mate

There were Marines on the Falklands. The Belgrano was sunk a month after the Argentinians invaded. The Americans were unhelpful, and the French sold the Argies missiles.
 
Ragnarok said:
The leftwaffe on here would have handed it to the argies, paid them for the trouble, and probably thrown in the Isle of Man as a bonus. Traiters to this nation one and all as they dont believe in individual nations
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If you read the posts above, the Tories lost the Falklands by removing the local naval /research ship. Nowt to do with the left, but keep spinning your yarns. Yet another thing Thatcher screwed up, but still worshipped by some.
 
glasshalffull said:
I know I will probably regret posting this without properly checking it all, but as I recall it there were no forces stationed there before the conflict only one patrol ship, which the Government had decided to withdraw anyway as part of defence cuts?
There were also ongoing talks involving the US that could have prevented military action until we sank the Belgrano, which was sailing away from our exclusion zone and appeared to be an act designed to make sure that a war would then take place?
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First part about the one patrol ship is correct. However, the war was already on when we sank the Belgrano.
 
seasideone said:
FY8 - no need to call people things as that generally means your argument is invalid.

can you explain to me the following regardless......

If you have no ticket and you push into a ground, how are you not responsible at all even if it’s 0.000000001%? (I could keep going with the zeros but there is blame)


I know scousers who pushed in that day who say the same!!!

Reality is, the scousers are always the victims!
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And with that sentiment to you lose your credibility.
 
From what I remember they delayed sending the task force when tensions were high, in order to allow the invasion, then used the war to their advantage, despicable.
 
From memory I seem to recall the 1981 Nationality Bill didn’t include the Falkland Islanders as full British Nationals, but as British Dependent Territories Citizens, hardly thought about and seen as an inconvenience to Britain’s trade with South America over the years.
 
glasshalffull said:
I know I will probably regret posting this without properly checking it all, but as I recall it there were no forces stationed there before the conflict only one patrol ship, which the Government had decided to withdraw anyway as part of defence cuts?
There were also ongoing talks involving the US that could have prevented military action until we sank the Belgrano, which was sailing away from our exclusion zone and appeared to be an act designed to make sure that a war would then take place?
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Think there was a platoon of Marines, but it's recognised that the withdrawal of the Antarctic survey ship was seen as a sign by the junta.
 
I have just read all the above and would just make a few comments.

1) Harold Wilson closed far more uneconomic pits than Thatcher ever did.

2) Arthur Scargill was hell bent on bringing the government down but his megalomania was his undoing.He did not have the guts to hold a ballot before calling a strike which divided the country`s miners and the Nottingham miners chose to go back to work. Thatcher had seen what the NUM had done during the Heath government reducing the country to a three day week which Scargill revelled in.Thatcher knew she could not allow that to happen again and planned accordingly and thus fortunately she brought Scargill down and he subsequently fell out with and was taken to court by the NUM.

3) This country was almost shut down in the winter of discontent totally ignoring Callaghan and the Labour government`s pleas in the process in 1979.

4) Thatcher`s negotiating a reduction in our EU contribution has saved this country many billions of pounds over the years right up to the present .

5) I live in Sheffield and did so at the time of the Hillsborough disaster and there is no doubt the police were very culpable in their failed efforts at crowd control and subsequent many false statements they were instructed to make by senior officers however there were also many reports from local people about drunkenness of Liverpool fans and ticketless fans trying to get in. This seems to have been glossed over due to the tragedy of the many innocent fans who died.
 
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I'll say it again- the miners voted according to their rules and their executive had a mandate to call for a strike,which should have been respected by others especially the Nottingham miners who mistakenly thought their jobs would be safe.
The main cause of the political unrest pre Thatch was the lack of opportunity and subsequent wealth for ordinary people,along with poor working conditions,indifferent wages and poor management by a perceived elitist middle class.
Had we had a more open and selfless attitude to management in the 70s then we wouldn't have lost so much of our manufacturing base,such as the car industry,ship building and steel production.

Just a point on the miners;in Blackpool we had the Miners Home* which provided some relief for retired miners who's lungs were riddled with disease,in an industry where the management had failed to implement basic essential safety measures for generations.

*it was on Queens Prom for those who've given up on the Gold Coast to pursue a middle/upper class career elsewhere at our expense.
 
Plumbs said:
I'll say it again- the miners voted according to their rules and their executive had a mandate to call for a strike,which should have been respected by others especially the Nottingham miners who mistakenly thought their jobs would be safe.
The main cause of the political unrest pre Thatch was the lack of opportunity and subsequent wealth for ordinary people,along with poor working conditions,indifferent wages and poor management by a perceived elitist middle class.
Had we had a more open and selfless attitude to management in the 70s then we wouldn't have lost so much of our manufacturing base,such as the car industry,ship building and steel production.

Just a point on the miners;in Blackpool we had the Miners Home* which provided some relief for retired miners who's lungs were riddled with disease,in an industry where the management had failed to implement basic essential safety measures for generations.

*it was on Queens Prom for those who've given up on the Gold Coast to pursue a middle/upper class career elsewhere at our expense.
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Your summation is a totally biased, one sided and inaccurate misrepresentation of the situation in this country in the seventies and eighties .You mention the car industry. I lived in Birmingham when Red Robbo was notorious for taking the workers at British Leyland out almost every week on the flimsiest of excuses and I knew people who worked there and they were totally pissed off with union militancy constantly disrupting work and production.
The seventies that you complain about was incidentally mainly with a Labour govt in power as well as the sixties before it so all the failings were something they did little to rectify when they were in office.

I have just looked up the facts of the lack of a ballot for the miners strike which I now copy and paste.

www.adamsmith.org/blog/the-miners-strike-...

In 1984, to avoid another ballot defeat, the NUM executive voted 69-54 not to hold a ballot, but to have some areas strike and picket others to stop them mining.

That was what happened.
 
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1950`spoolfan said:
Your summation is a totally biased, one sided and inaccurate misrepresentation of the state of this country in the seventies and eighties .You mention the car industry. I lived in Birmingham when Red Robbo was notorious for taking the workers at British Leyland out almost every week on the flimsiest of excuses and I knew people who worked there and they were totally fed up with union militancy constantly disrupting production.
The seventies that you complain about was incidentally mainly a with a Labour govt in power as well as the sixties before it so all the failings were something they did little to rectify when they were in office.

I have just looked up the facts of the lack of a ballot for the miners strike which I now copy and paste.

www.adamsmith.org/blog/the-miners-strike-...

In 1984, to avoid another ballot defeat, the NUM executive voted 69-54 not to hold a ballot, but to have some areas strike and picket others to stop them mining.

That was what happened.
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The link doesnt work but the facts are that the miners took industrial action according to their rules-sorry but thats the fact (irrespective of whether those rules were right or wrong)
I agree that industrial relations brought about a militant breed but that was a reflection on poor management,where living standards were affected directly by what workers could/could not do. People have a basic right to try and improve their position whether its with a promotion of a wage rise to keep up with inflation,and its the job of government to allow that happen to all.
Other countries like the Swedes and Germans have gone on to maintain their car and other heavy industries and make it competitive with the world markets,and have established factories over here in the UK.
One or two have also maintained some sort of worthwhile fishing industry too but hey ho.

**an easy one there BRR for the old keepnet but any inferiority complex belongs to the guy who's trying to block my postings.If he simply asked me to not bother then I might just do that,rather than keep trying to load up my cookies to make it difficult (smiley)
 
The NUM rules were clearly bent and undemocratic which is no surprise and nor was the fact that Scargill who was otherwise on a loser in his efforts to get his members to fully support his strike, took advantage of them for his own twisted political ends which, as we can now clearly see,split his union and turned out to be a disaster for both him and all his members. A perfect illustration of why there was a desperate need for reform of the laws controlling trade unions which Thatcher wisely introduced and nearly 40 years later they still remain on the statute book even after 13 years of Labour government in the interim.

No doubt at a time when we were called the strike capital of Europe,Callaghan who himself had come up through the unions would have loved to have had that legislation in place when he was PM to avoid his and this country`s fate when he left office after being totally undermined by those very same unions!
 
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1950`spoolfan said:
The NUM rules were clearly bent and undemocratic which is no surprise and nor was the fact that Scargill who was otherwise on a loser in his efforts to get his members to fully support his strike, took advantage of them for his own twisted political ends which, as we can now clearly see,split his union and turned out to be a disaster for both him and all his members. A perfect illustration of why there was a desperate need for reform of the laws controlling trade unions which Thatcher wisely introduced and nearly 40 years later they still remain on the statute book even after 13 years of Labour government in the interim.

No doubt at a time when we were called the strike capital of Europe,Callaghan who himself had come up through the unions would have loved to have had that legislation in place when he was PM to avoid his and this country`s fate when he left office after being totally undermined by those very same unions!
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If Harold Wilson had had the confidence to implement his 'In Place of Strife' trades union reforms - instead of handing them to Barbara Castle with no support - then there would have been no anti-union platform for Thatcher.
It is also conveniently forgotten that the 1970s was the period of the narrowest gap between the haves and the have-nots. Labour, however, could not control the economy owing to the rampant inflation that followed OPEC's restriction of the oil supply in the wake of the Yom Kippur war.
 
nameless said:
Well yes ok but I think deeper analysis would show her support for being in Europe was conditional,and that might not have been conducive to staying in too much longer.
The Conservatives were in danger of being ripped wide open again which is why Cameron gave us all the Brexit vote,where essentially the EU was making life difficult for those seeking to profit from it.

Now where were we? 😜
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Cameron went to the polls as he'd promised Murdoch, fact.
 
Ragnarok said:
The leftwaffe on here would have handed it to the argies, paid them for the trouble, and probably thrown in the Isle of Man as a bonus. Traiters to this nation one and all as they dont believe in individual nations
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What the fuck have you been drinking?
 
So we have learnt the following from this thread....... plus a little more - quite varied!!!

1 Maggie was a policy genius 😻

2a Maggie didn’t invade the Falklands the Argies did - I know that may shock a few but it was not her fault!!!
2b The Argies were in political turmoil which is the real reason the Falklands where invaded - their dictator needed a distraction. No doubt the removal of the boat made it easier, but many brave Royal Marine tried to fight them off. So much so the Argies couldn’t believe how few there were.
2c Yes we sank the Belgrano as it was inside the exclusion zone - which has been debated more than whether the World Cup Final goal was over the line though!! HMS Conqueror is the only UK Nuclear powered submarine to publicly admit to sinking an enemies boat.
2d She put a task force together and took them back and rightly so!!!
2e MI6 bought all the exorcets available on the market and made them not work - then we sold them to the Argies.

3a Scargill was a tw.. who wanted to bring the government down who recently was still fighting the NUM so he could keep his free London flat.
3b The miners strike was never by majority vote
3c The unions had to be brought heel and were.
3d None of Maggie’s new union laws were repealed by labour.

4a The fans at Hillsborough DID have some sort to play in the terrible incident ithey were there without tickets trying to push in.
4b The police where terrible and should have had the book thrown at them

5 Neil Kinock later admitted most of Maggie’s policies were right and he would have kept them 😎

6 I am always right 👍

7 Do not to argue with point 6 as it doesn’t always stand up 😉
 
1950`spoolfan said:
Your summation is a totally biased, one sided and inaccurate misrepresentation of the situation in this country in the seventies and eighties .You mention the car industry. I lived in Birmingham when Red Robbo was notorious for taking the workers at British Leyland out almost every week on the flimsiest of excuses and I knew people who worked there and they were totally pissed off with union militancy constantly disrupting work and production.
The seventies that you complain about was incidentally mainly with a Labour govt in power as well as the sixties before it so all the failings were something they did little to rectify when they were in office.

I have just looked up the facts of the lack of a ballot for the miners strike which I now copy and paste.

www.adamsmith.org/blog/the-miners-strike-...

In 1984, to avoid another ballot defeat, the NUM executive voted 69-54 not to hold a ballot, but to have some areas strike and picket others to stop them mining.

That was what happened.
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I think it’s fair to say re British Leyland that the management were also culpable for playing the employees by conveniently causing walkouts when orders were low. They fell for it.
 
Sooty59 said:
I think it’s fair to say re British Leyland that the management were also culpable for playing the employees by conveniently causing walkouts when orders were low. They fell for it.
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That is something I have never heard before although BL management was clearly far from perfect.Have you any evidence to back up that claim?
 
The Belgrano "debate" never ceases to amaze me. Which direction it happened to be steaming in is hardly relevant - it's not as if they were out there on a pleasure cruise. They were enemy combatants who chose to put themselves in harm's way.

In any case, the upshot of that event was that the Argentine Navy stayed in port for the remainder of the conflict and left the Air Force to do the heavy lifting. How many British lives that saved rarely gets discussed - but it should.
 
1950`spoolfan said:
That is something I have never heard before although BL management was clearly far from perfect.Have you any evidence to back up that claim?
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It was something that was mentioned when I was on a shop stewards course in London over 30 years ago at least if my memory serves me right.
 
seasideone said:
So we have learnt the following from this thread....... plus a little more - quite varied!!!

1 Maggie was a policy genius 😻

2a Maggie didn’t invade the Falklands the Argies did - I know that may shock a few but it was not her fault!!!
2b The Argies were in political turmoil which is the real reason the Falklands where invaded - their dictator needed a distraction. No doubt the removal of the boat made it easier, but many brave Royal Marine tried to fight them off. So much so the Argies couldn’t believe how few there were.
2c Yes we sank the Belgrano as it was inside the exclusion zone - which has been debated more than whether the World Cup Final goal was over the line though!! HMS Conqueror is the only UK Nuclear powered submarine to publicly admit to sinking an enemies boat.
2d She put a task force together and took them back and rightly so!!!
2e MI6 bought all the exorcets available on the market and made them not work - then we sold them to the Argies.

3a Scargill was a tw.. who wanted to bring the government down who recently was still fighting the NUM so he could keep his free London flat.
3b The miners strike was never by majority vote
3c The unions had to be brought heel and were.
3d None of Maggie’s new union laws were repealed by labour.

4a The fans at Hillsborough DID have some sort to play in the terrible incident ithey were there without tickets trying to push in.
4b The police where terrible and should have had the book thrown at them

5 Neil Kinock later admitted most of Maggie’s policies were right and he would have kept them 😎

6 I am always right 👍

7 Do not to argue with point 6 as it doesn’t always stand up 😉
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There's some nonsense in there. 2e for starters. Tell that to the crew of Sheffield and the Atlantic Conveyor for starters. Oh, you can't. They're dead.
 
2e is correct.

They obviously had some already that worked. MI6 could only buy what was available to them on the black market.
 
I think from memory they only had five that worked. The French put an embargo on anymore being sold.

The sinking of the Sheffield and Atlantic
Conveyor were from the original five in stock.

In the background the french fixed several faulty units for them in Argentina, which was obviously against the embargo.

Never trust the French!!

The catalogue of errors that allowed either ship to be sunk is beyond belief, and the fact all helicopters being transported were packed in one supply boat was criminal.

We really didn’t help ourselves here from a logistics point of view.
 
I watched it and found it very interesting. I lived through those times so it brought back memories of news clips.

The police don’t come out of it very well. In later years we had the grooming gangs which they completely ignored. I can’t imagine their is much love lost.
 
Ragnarok said:
Thatcher was told to close the mines and move the UK to a service economy as the EU wanted the Eastern Block countries to do the mining as they joined. This is a fact and will be proven once certain documents are unclassified in 2030
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Miner's strike - 1984/5

Fall of Berlin wall - 1989

That is really some spectacular foresight. Or possibly one of the most hare-brained conspiracy theories ever. 🤔
 
seasideone said:
I think from memory they only had five that worked. The French put an embargo on anymore being sold.

The sinking of the Sheffield and Atlantic
Conveyor were from the original five in stock.

In the background the french fixed several faulty units for them in Argentina, which was obviously against the embargo.

Never trust the French!!

The catalogue of errors that allowed either ship to be sunk is beyond belief, and the fact all helicopters being transported were packed in one supply boat was criminal.

We really didn’t help ourselves here from a logistics point of view.
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Actually the French were actively supporting the UK in sabotaging Argentina efforts.

How France helped us win Falklands war, by John Nott

www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
 
Multiple pages about who caused what and whether Maggie was right. What I don’t see is any sort of explanation for why nearly 4 decades on, the communities wrecked by pit closures are still no closer to being regenerated.

Maybe it was the ‘right’ thing to do to tackle union power, but there’s more than an element of throwing the baby out with the bath water and that has caused untold deprivation to parts of northern England ever since. It’s also left the country reliant on imported energy; something I repeatedly get told is bad when the shale debate pops up.

Laud her all you want for fixing the ills of the country at a very specific time, but like so much of Thatcherite politics and policy it smacks of solving the short term at the expense of the bigger picture.
 
I live in clipstone a village 4 miles from Mansfield,Clipstone pit was one of the last pits to shut.. Early 2000's the headstocks (tallest in Europe) are still standing but as there protected by listed building status & in a terrible run down state their an eyesore now, Clipstone itself is a very deprived area now due to the pits shutting & lack of money being spent in the village etc.. I Haven't got any family who spent time down the pits but my wifes family were miners her grandad & uncle were divided by the strikes & didn't speak for ages after them
 
bollieboy said:
Actually the French were actively supporting the UK in sabotaging Argentina efforts.

How France helped us win Falklands war, by John Nott

www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
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I think you will find it came out later (than when that article was written in 2002) that although the French were helping, part of their government was not. They allowed a government backed company on the ground in Argentina fixing a couple of faulty Exorcet launchers.

I think that came out in 2012 under the 30 year rule.

Maggie was furious at the time and let the French know it - although I do not think it was public in 1982, but I may be wrong on the last bit.
 
straightatthewall said:
What I don’t see is any sort of explanation for why nearly 4 decades on, the communities wrecked by pit closures are still no closer to being regenerated.
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I do not agree with most of your post, but I think the above is a fair point.

I also think the Torys know this and hence their manifesto pledge (whether it happens or not now - who knows) to regenerate the North is the way forward.

Reality is if they do not - the red wall will probably be back!
 
seasideone said:
I do not agree with most of your post, but I think the above is a fair point.

I also think the Torys know this and hence their manifesto pledge (whether it happens or not now - who knows) to regenerate the North is the way forward.

Reality is if they do not - the red wall will probably be back!
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I also think it is a fair question, and given that Labour spent a lot of public money on activity that was supposed to address these issues, it is fair to point the finger at both parties.

New Deal for Communities in particular was an expensive, low output, high input, poorly managed and monitored fiasco that did very little for the communities it was designed to serve.

Up until now the Tories have done no better because they don't have any effective answers to what is a systemic problem that money alone can't solve.
 
The reason why there has been a lack of spending and re-investment is because most of that money has gone,taken out of the pot and pocketed for individual gain-just like the Utilities. Same with social housing where many bought their council houses and the money went elsewhere, eg the short sighted housing associations,some of which went bust after the profits had been trousered (like Windmill Housing for instance)

Thatch also implemented the policy of tax cuts and a reliance of indirect taxation (ie VAT) but that only works when folk are spending,and created a sprial with poorer areas and a reliance on state benefits. Until the electorate understand that we need a hike in the basic rate of income tax,and the richer parts of the community learn to take a little less then as a nation we're probably on a course that Greece found itself.

Until the Tories-especially Thatchers tenure-far too much was sold off and stripped away and the balance switched from (part) manufacturing to a reliance on a service industry,which is essentially the road to becoming a satellite state of major industrial powers.
Rather hypocritical now of the Tories to pitch their last election win as a plea for independence and self reliance,when in fact it takes us further down the other way.

"Buy British"...well we would if we could. Off now for a McDonalds (smiley)
 
Can’t disagree on the lack of action, but you only have to look at how parties are negatively defined to know that just as the Tories are defined as the nasty party that feather their ‘own’ bed, so Labour would have been slaughtered for using the magic money tree to invest in archaic ‘dinosaur’ industries. The other real issue is that once you scrap or privatise you make it nigh on impossible to take decisions that are socially motivated rather than commercially.

I work in an industry that’s jam packed with assets that are ludicrously uncompetitive in the global chemical sector, but governments keep them alive because they provide employment to a sizeable percentage of the population.

Is there a difference between that and giving banks huge loans at negligible interest rates or Government borrowing vast sums to create the magic money tree when it suits?

You’ll excuse me if I can’t help wondering why the goal posts change when the masters are in the shit but rules are rules when it’s the proles that stand to suffer...
 
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