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@forumhostpb wrote:
You seem to entirely forget, as many including the BBC, do, that this was first and foremost a political strike.
The Soviet Union in all its glory was alive and fomenting trouble in the West. Scargill and co took their politics from Marxism, Trotskyism and all the other ‘isms’ of socialist revolutionaries. Ludicrous though it now sounds the editor of ‘The Miner’ ran off to East Germany as a political refugee!
It may be that the miners, or at least some of them, were lions, but they were led by Marxist donkeys. Socialist revolutionaries plan civil mayhem in order to take over governments – that’s how they work. It was no different in the UK. It was in effect a low key civil war for the political heart of the country.
There is the other side of the argument.
Bottom line is that Scargill “lost” and the NUM was finished as an effective trade union.
PB no I dont forget, Ive made a comment on here because I was there , and the year long strike will remain with me for the rest of my life. Say what you like but never rely on what the papers or the TV say best to listen to the frontliners .
I was there I was a miner i was on strike for a year. The government were ready, they manufactured the strike and they managed the media.
Remember the miner’s throwing “missiles” from a motorway bridge ? Never happened, at least not by miners it didnt.
Anyone see the picket lines with more police than strikers. There’s 300 years of coal under this island, coal which can be burned relatively cleanly using fluid bed technology for instance (invented in UK used in Scandinavia) your best alternative ? Nuclear power, cause the gas and oil will run out and alternative energy isnt a viable proposition.
Oh and why did we strike ? Non coal face worker, 5 day week, 1984, take home pay £95 (more at some collieries dependant on bonus) plus free fuel.The Nottinghamshire miners had been manipulated by the government also, told that their pits were safe from closure in 1984, they had been reluctant to join the strike. If any more proof of the governments intentions to completely split the organised miners in half and push them against each other was needed, then this was it, most of the Nottinghamshire pits were closed between 1985 and 1994.
Got what they deserved
@University of Glamorgan – History Research Dept. wrote:
Moscow Gold” and the 1984-85 miners’ strike
January 24, 2008
Researching relations between Britain and the former communist German Democratic Republic, historian Norman LaPorte has uncovered new evidence that ‘Moscow’s Gold’ – contrary to Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev’s assurances to Prime Minister Thatcher – helped fund the 1984/85 strike.
The documents make clear that miners’ leader Arthur Scargill was in contact with the East German ‘Free German Trade Union Federation’ (FDGB), which contributed a ‘high amount of foreign currency’ to a slush fund run through communist-led World Federation of Trade Unions. Scargill was assured by the East Germans that he had their ‘moral and material support’ in what his communist counterparts described as ‘a struggle that was, from the outset, political’.
Although Arthur Scargill made no secret of his pro-Soviet stance during the Cold War, these documents indicate that relations between the miners’ leader and East Bloc were much closer than previously thought.
Communists and former Communists who remained pro-Soviet were prominent in the miners’ leadership. Hitherto unused material details, for example, the visit of Scottish miners’ leader and veteran Communist Mick McGahey to East Berlin shortly after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. In a private discussion offering support for the suppression of the ‘Prague Spring’ by Soviet tanks, McGahey stated that, ‘Your problem is the construction of socialism; our problem is dying capitalism’.
One of the project’s most important findings was the extent of these contacts and connections between British trade union officials and the hard-line East Germany. By 1978, 24 members of the TUC‘s 44-man (there were no women members) General Council had ‘fraternal relations’ with their East German counterparts.
Whilst I understand that feelings run deep, as they did back then, the fact still remains that this strike WAS an attempt by communist inspired trade union leaders to attempt the overthrow of a democratically elected government.Mrs. Thatcher did what had to be done – nobody made those people go on strike; we are not talking about a famine or an earthquake or some such act of “God”. This was a deliberate rational considered decision, made by the NUM leaders, to try and bring down – or at least emasculate – an elected government.
Amongst all the anger and bitterness that clearly still remains …… have you ever REALLY stopped to think what would have happened had the miners ‘won’ their strike and the Governement fallen?????
*sratches head * reading what ive just read it seams to me that thatcher was more interested in defeating the unions and it shames me to say it if my experience in working on giant nuclear power stations all my life ,it worked , we are in unions yet we are walked all over , i admire the miners , steely , determined, grit , are words that spring into my mind , as for us nowdays , the word jellyfish is more appropiate.i wonder if how we are now is a direct result of what happened then
No.. Mrs Thatcher lied through her teeth about pit closures and the miners decided to strike not the union leadership. If the miners had won we’d have got decent pay and Maggie wouldnt have ripped the heart out of communities.
Not all miners were militant (in fact the majority werent) they didnt decide to go on strike for the hell of itdo u know if there are any good books about it pete , unbiaste
No idea and i’d imagine that’d be the main problem getting an unbiased view. All i know is my colliery wasn’t remotely militant and nobody i know voted to strike in an attempt to bring down any one. We wanted a better wage and job security. What happened to the Nottinghamshire miners shows Maggie in her true light
@tictax wrote:
*sratches head * reading what ive just read it seams to me that thatcher was more interested in defeating the unions and it shames me to say it if my experience in working on giant nuclear power stations all my life ,it worked , we are in unions yet we are walked all over , i admire the miners , steely , determined, grit , are words that spring into my mind , as for us nowdays , the word jellyfish is more appropiate.i wonder if how we are now is a direct result of what happened then
Possibly so Tictax Mrs Thatcher broke the Unions.
The miners were /are a breed on there own they came from close knit communities, helped each other in times of difficulties, went on holidays together to Miners Holiday camps, each village had a Miners welfare which was the centre of village life. Maybe the determination and grit was something to do with the conditions they worked in. The coal face being the worst ( I did get the opportunity to go down a pit )
I visit many ex mining villages and as Pete says the heart has been ripped out of them.rubyred wrote:
they dumped the majority of waste in Scotland..nah they dumped most it about 4 miles from my home @ drigg in west cumbria
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