Arthur Scargill

[chrisp65]

That's got to be some sort of record hasn't it. A topic about Scargill,  then 11 posts until  Tories are Bastards

 

I got here as quick as I could.

Thatcher was an evil lying vindictive bullying wilful destroyer of lives.

However, on the plus side, she is still dead.

I have similar sentiment reserved for Scargill, but he was a much smaller player in a game of **** the masses.

[MakemineVanilla]

I suppose what we should be surprised at is that the Tories have so little respect for Scargill because everything he did for the miners during the struggle with Thatcher, was in pursuit of the creed of self-interest which is central to Conservative philosophy and Tory ideology.

 

Isn't greed supposed to be good, according to that philosophy, which has been allowed full freedom to bloom in the de-regulated financial sector after the big band?

 

Wasn't Scargill just pursuing the interests of the mine workers and their communities, so didn't it amount to the very same self-interest?

 

Shouldn't Scargill be praised for pursuing the same self-interest that has protected ancient professions like the law and protected the assets of people who have held those assets since the Norman invasion?

 

Or, is it the case that when the Tories talk of freedom, they actually only mean freedom for certain types of people and of a certain class?

 

It has to be admitted that they do give the impression that they have different rules for different classes, and what they actually mean is that certain classes should be tractable and obedient to facilitate the freedom of their class superiors.

 

Aren't land-owners and agribusinesses actually given massive subsidies to protect them against foreign food imports?

 

So how is the biggest portion of the EU budget which provides that protection considered a proper use of national resources but subsidising coal is a moral outrage?

 

How do they square that circle and avoid accusations of double-standards and hypocrisy?

 

Is it because the people who get the subsidy and the protectionism belong to a certain class of people and that other workers do not?

 

Are we to believe that Thatcher's barefaced lies, circumvention of the law, and her killings, make her morally comparable with someone who contemplated the legal purchase of a property?

 

It would certainly seem that she would be only one step removed from being accorded with divine right, if she were.

 

But some people seem to think she is.

Edited January 15, 2014 by MakemineVanilla

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

I've always had conflicted feelings toward pit closures. I sure as hell think mines are inhuman, and it is horrid work and no one should have to do it. I also understand that many did depend on that work, and many communities were built around the mines.

 

I don't think the latter outweighs the former.

[snowychap]

I've always had conflicted feelings toward pit closures. I sure as hell think mines are inhuman, and it is horrid work and no one should have to do it. I also understand that many did depend on that work, and many communities were built around the mines.

 

I don't think the latter outweighs the former.

You may not. Those communities who (as you accept) were directly affected by the pit closures and the subsequent decades of intractable unemployment may think otherwise.

[MakemineVanilla]

I've always had conflicted feelings toward pit closures. I sure as hell think mines are inhuman, and it is horrid work and no one should have to do it. I also understand that many did depend on that work, and many communities were built around the mines.

 

I don't think the latter outweighs the former.

 

It is the same with all heavy industry - incredibly dangerous work but the camaraderie, pride and earning a decent living, can give a lot of meaning to a life.

 

It is sad no matter where it is, whether it is Yorkshire or Duquesne PA.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Of course, there should have been strategies* in place to 'fill the gap' as it were, but instead they were paid off and left to rot in the name of the Market. That was/still is unforgivable.

 

*I don't know what. It is easy to say in hindsight.

[mockingbird_franklin]

That's got to be some sort of record hasn't it. A topic about Scargill,  then 11 posts until  Tories are Bastards

well if the cap fits, let them wear it. I'm more disposed to say most politicians for nearly half a century have been bastards, just some much more than others and most of the biggest bastards have been Tory party politicians

Edited January 15, 2014 by mockingbird_franklin

[drat01]

 

I've always had conflicted feelings toward pit closures. I sure as hell think mines are inhuman, and it is horrid work and no one should have to do it. I also understand that many did depend on that work, and many communities were built around the mines.

 

I don't think the latter outweighs the former.

You may not. Those communities who (as you accept) were directly affected by the pit closures and the subsequent decades of intractable unemployment may think otherwise.

 

and are still suffering to this day

[mockingbird_franklin]

Back to talking about the original post, where scargill went wrong was thinking too small, and as a politician, you and your family will always do better out of the legislation imposed if you are part of the regime imposing it, he should have taken an example from Charles Gow, son of the in situ housing minister (Ian Gow) at the schemes peak who has done very well indeed from it like many others and makes scargills attempts to profit from it look the small fry that it is.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/right-to-buy-housing-shame-third-ex-council-1743338

Edited January 16, 2014 by mockingbird_franklin

[PauloBarnesi]

Seems to me that Scargill ran his own union into the ground through his own personal agenda.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

That's got to be some sort of record hasn't it. A topic about Scargill, then 11 posts until Tories are Bastards

To be fair, Bicks implied the Tories were bastards and that Thatcher was a witch

Was, not is. She's dead.

[veloman]

I am awaiting, with interest, a book from a mate (also huge Villa fan) called 'The Enemy Within'. He assures me that this is quite 'revealing'. Anyone read this ?

[MakemineVanilla]

Seems to me that Scargill ran his own union into the ground through his own personal agenda.

 

That is a very popular Tory mantra but it is a denial of the actual truth.

 

Thatcher wanted to close British mines and import cheaper coal from abroad and had a hit-list of pits she planned to shut.

 

She lied to the public and denied this categorically but the papers were released recently which proved she was a liar.

 

In an attempt to break the strike she lied to the Nottingham miners and told them that they were safe and that they should defy the strike and keep on working, which they did.

 

When the battle had been won and the miners had been crushed the Nottingham mines were closed too: heaven forfend she had lied again.

 

So no amount of moderation could have brought about the happy ending.

 

Scargill had been right about the hit-list and with all dissent crushed the coal industry was closed down and the rest of the workforce rendered impotent.

 

The coal mines were also shut down in the Ruhr but as ever the German's avoided the class war, which the British continue to this day, and which the Tories, both blue and red, won.

 

Benefits Street is just the Duke of Cumberland putting the final boot in, after routing the peasants, for the sheer joy of it.

Edited January 16, 2014 by MakemineVanilla

[PauloBarnesi]

I am not talking about the miners strike. I am talking about all the financial benefits Scargill and friends took from the union. 

 

Doesn’t it seem strange that a Union that once had hundred of thousands of members, but now numbers thousands made large donation to an organisation set up by Scargill and friends and run in Paris which hasn’t produced accounts? Wouldn’t it be better that this money helped British miners, and ex-miners?

 

Where did all the donations from various sources end up? 

 

Did you watch the programme? Did you notice that the NUM ended up suing Scargill?

 

 

Why is it that both left and right can’t see the wrong within its heroes when they are found not to be perfect? 

[tonyh29]

 

 

Thatcher wanted to close British mines and import cheaper coal from abroad and had a hit-list of pits she planned to shut.

 

She lied to the public and denied this categorically but the papers were released recently which proved she was a liar.

 

 

 

Was it not the case that the mines had already been agreed to be closed ...  an extension of Wilson shutting down 211 mines between 1965 -1970  ( where is the VT Wilson hate btw ?)  .. surely  If both parties are doing it - it is industrial, based on economics, not political.

 

The papers didn't exactly  prove that as I recall  ... well put it another way  , if you read them with your red tinted glasses on they did  whereas if you read them with your blue tinted glasses on they didn't  ... it was clearly discussed and i'm being a bit vague as I only read the article in passing some time back but it was the follow up comments by someone who was there as much as the papers  ... discussion isn't the same as actually planning for it 

 

 

was it not also the case that Thatcher offered an incredibly expensive retraining and benefits package to all miners being made redundant and Scargill turned it down flat 

[PauloBarnesi]

Good old Harold. Never did anything wrong, apart from honour the Beatles. 

 

Have we got a single political leader in the 20th C & 21st C that we can all agree on? Possibly only Churchill in WWII?

[tonyh29]

Good old Harold. Never did anything wrong, apart from honour the Beatles. 

 

Have we got a single political leader in the 20th C & 21st C that we can all agree on? Possibly only Churchill in WWII?

The  alcoholic War Monger who caused Britans slump by returning us to the Gold standard   ?

 

I'm sure we can all agree on Brown being completely useless  , you'd be hard pressed to find anyone daft enough to defend him .... surely ??

[bickster]

Was it not the case that the mines had already been agreed to be closed ...

No it wasn't the case at all

EDIT: and an awful lot of Wilson's closures were actually exhausted seams, you can't mine what isn't there, not the case under the witch

[Jon]

 

Have we got a single political leader in the 20th C & 21st C that we can all agree on? Possibly only Churchill in WWII?

Churchill really was quite a vile man.

 

Good wartime leader perhaps, but other than that ..... nope.

[tonyh29]

 

Was it not the case that the mines had already been agreed to be closed ...

No it wasn't the case at all

EDIT: and an awful lot of Wilson's closures were actually exhausted seams, you can't mine what isn't there, not the case under the witch

 

 

As a consequence of the 1967 Fuel White Paper, it was expected that coal mining would have ended in Scotland, Wales and Durham by 1980. The number of jobs in the industry would contract from 387,000 in 1967 to 65,000 by 1980. 

 

At the start of the 1984 strike, there were still almost 200,000 miners.