Dingdong wrote: ↑23 Nov 2022, 9:16am
Nearholmer wrote: ↑22 Nov 2022, 10:30pm
Do you remember the miner’s strike?
Yes I do. My family was involved in mining throughout this period. I've heard all the history, first hand. Hence my interest in it. The police (bussed in from Metropolitan London and other areas) were using extreme measures in an attempt to smash the NUM. Scargill's only mistake was to do away with his 'flying pickets ' strategy, which was very successful, for negotiations.
Imo the economic, political and multiple crisis mode that will unfold over this winter has the same potential for explosive civil unrest. Like I said upthread, there are several groups just waiting in the wings for things to kick off (Just Stop Oil for instance, a very competent, well organised group)
Like the riots of 2010, it only takes one spark to light the whole drum. I think the chances of getting to the spring without serious civil disobedience, is less than 50/50..
I believes the miner's strike was engineered by the Thatcher government and the city spivs in order to destroy the coal industry and make way for gas.
A stockpile of coal enabled the govenment to ride out the strike - unlike the hapless Ted Heath.
The dispute was about colliery closures - the government claimed (lied as it transpired) that four collieries were to be closed.
Scargill knew that over thirty collierys were in line for closure.
The tory government came into power with a campaign illustrated by a long queue of presumably unemployed persons with the slogan "Labour isn't working" - at the time there were a million unemployed - within the first term of the Thatcher government this had risen to three million as they weeded out the "sunset industries".
They changed the method of defining unemployment twenty seven times - eventually no one knew definitively how many unemployed there were.
I think it was Whtelaw who asked Thatcher early on in this campaign what would happen to the workers laid off.
She replied "they'll go on benefits"
