Orgreave

WezV

Fretwired said:

so I can't see that anything would be gained from an enquiry.

It's a convienient distraction from dealing with current issues.

I wonder if enquiries give anything accept kudos for the politicians that call for them.  There doesn't seem to be any requirement for them to actually achieve anything once they start.  People want answers... even if they already know them

Evilmags

Scargill did more to destroy the mines than anyone else. Thank fuck he lost that strike. 

Budgie

None of the above excuses the excessive force from the police though. The fuckers did the same to the traveller convoy in 85 I think too. Really over the top strongarm policing.

Chalky

Scargill's Army tried to bring down the government for nobody's benefit but his own. The miners weren't turning up to protect their families, they were turning up, mob-handed and mob-minded, to have a fight with the police.

cruxiform

Mob mentality was adopted by the Met. Their remit made them believe there were no consequences for their behaviour so they battered the miners without any thoughts of retribution. They've got away with it too, especially after today's news. Whether or not you agree with Thatcher's rationale for it, it was brutality in the true sense of the word. As a nation we've  condemned other countries for similar offences. You couldn't make it up.

Chalky

My ex-wife's father was one of the first Met coppers sent up to police the strikes. He told me how shit-scared he was to see the size of the mob of miners and how the miners made it clear what they were going to do to the coppers. He'd never experienced anything like that premeditated violent attitude towards the police, despite being a copper in central London since the late 1950's. He was familiar with gangs of football supporters who might try it on in the heat of the moment, but to see a mob of miners baying for blood for an hour before it all kicked off was something else. Making out the coppers started with a heavy hand is bollocks - Scargill whipped up the mob of miners to the point where they would fight anybody, even members of their own bloody family!

Comparisons with Hillsborough are sickening. Hillsborough victims were totally innocent. The mob of miners were not.

Fretwired

cruxiform said:

Mob mentality was adopted by the Met. Their remit made them believe there were no consequences for their behaviour so they battered the miners without any thoughts of retribution. They've got away with it too, especially after today's news. Whether or not you agree with Thatcher's rationale for it, it was brutality in the true sense of the word. As a nation we've  condemned other countries for similar offences. You couldn't make it up.

Oh come on .. there were 6,000 coppers at Orgrave and most were from the north. Yes there were Met officers but are you seriously telling me the Met police were the only ones beating people up. And the miners were deliberately winding the police up. And Scargill's arrest was staged by the union and South Yorkshire police.

mellowsun

I remember being a kid in the 70s, constant power cuts, winter of discontent the whole local car park was piled 30ft high with rubbish bags, my dad was often on strike (worked for a London council) over pointless stuff.

Can't imagine why anyone is nostalgic for when the unions held the country to ransom.

Everyone has a right to withdraw labour of course. But I've never understood the 'scab' stuff - everyone has a right to choose whether to work or not.

Also never understood the idolisation of Scargill. His actions destroyed the mining industry and he went on to bankrupt his own union by insisting they continue to pay for his Barbican flat. The hypocrisy was sickening.

Snap

SimpleSimon said:

iseverynamegone said:

If the rozzers had rode down bankers like that there would have been an enquiry that day . I know it's a long time ago and may seem like Nothing to folk who were not 14 at the time and living in Yorkshire but the South Yorkshire police and all the other force that Maggie paid to be bussed in week after week can fuck the fuck off.

the right people havent forgot but its an important part of our recent cultural history and should not be forgotten. Funny cos me and the kids nowadays have family bike rides on what was the Orgreave site. I was saying to the wife the other day that they should erect a proper memorial, they have built houses, a pub and a business park on what was Orgreave- now known as Waverley. Maggie, the Tories and her cohorts are still making money out of the downfall of the working class...........!!

SO is that twat Scargill

Snap

The best pits in the UK were the most productive in the world. They were state of the art. They couldn't have been more efficient. The problem was globalisation. The government faced many decisions and some they made were good, some bad.

One thing missing from the argument was the social impact of ending mining. The question of how important to the fabric of the country, the communities, was the mining sector. There was no plan to fill the void left by it, so whole communities were cast in the bin.

Scargill & Thatcher were the two worst personalities to have on either side of the divide. Two egotists set head to head. All logic went down the tubes.

Scargill has shown his true colours since, on several occassions. A horrible man.

Fretwired

Snap said:

The best pits in the UK were the most productive in the world. They were state of the art. They couldn't have been more efficient. The problem was globalisation. The government faced many decisions and some they made were good, some bad.

One thing missing from the argument was the social impact of ending mining. The question of how important to the fabric of the country, the communities, was the mining sector. There was no plan to fill the void left by it, so whole communities were cast in the bin.

Scargill & Thatcher were the two worst personalities to have on either side of the divide. Two egotists set head to head. All logic went down the tubes.

Scargill has shown his true colours since, on several occassions. A horrible man.

Mining was in decline (the UK was switching over to gas) .. Thatcher won because she was able to buy cheap Polish coal (so much for European workers solidarity) and the power and transport unions didn't support the miners so the lights stayed on. The NUM then split and the era of union dominance was at an end.

Thatcher's crime was to leave working class communities which depended on mining to rot instead of investing money in retraining and helping new businesses setup.

DarnWeight

Fretwired said:

Thatcher's crime was to leave working class communities which depended on mining to rot instead of investing money in retraining and helping new businesses setup.

This x1,000,000.  Her under-the-counter application of Incapacity Benefit to keep unemployed miners (and the like) off the official unemployment figures is the source of the "Broken Britain" welfare culture the Tories have been so keen to vilify ever since.  

crunchman

This is worth reading:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-37831034

For me these are the key paragraphs:

In her letter she said policing had changed sufficiently since Orgreave to mean an inquiry was not merited.

She also argued that any review would be hampered by the passage of time, that some of those involved had died and that - in terms of accountability - most officers whose conduct might be examined were no longer employed by the police.

She's right that policing today isn't what it was then so it won't lead to any meaningful changes in policing going forwards - which would be the main reason for an enquiry.  The culture of South Yorkshire police in that era has already been exposed by the Hillsborough enquiry/inquest so an enquiry will not tell us anything we don't already know there.  I doubt there would be any reasonable likelihood of any criminal convictions coming out of it either so holding an enquiry is just going to cost (tens of) millions of pounds of tax payers money that would be better spent elsewhere.

There were issues on both sides.  As stated above, Scargill wanted to bring down the government.  The intimidation that the NUM was involved in was completely wrong.  The lack of democracy in the NUM was a major problem.  On the other hand, South Yorkshire police were dreadful but we know that already from the Hillsborough enquiry.  As also seen from Hillsborough, the establishment would back the police even when they were in the wrong.  We know this already.  While I am sure there was wrongdoing on both sides, an enquiry won't give us any useful new information.

Evilmags

It would just be simpler to admit that the police in the 80s were a bit more heavy handed and leave it at that. Scargill deliberately picked the fight amd he then lost it. The UK is vastly better off as a result. 

fretmeister

The families are considering going for Judicial Review.

I love JR proceedings. It really exposes politician's ignorance of the law they claim to uphold.

Still, she won't ever beat Grayling's record of 48 straight losses at JR.

crunchman

fretmeister said:

The families are considering going for Judicial Review.

I love JR proceedings. It really exposes politician's ignorance of the law they claim to uphold.

Still, she won't ever beat Grayling's record of 48 straight losses at JR.

They are just wasting taxpayers money on lawyers fees.  See my post above.  An enquiry will tell us nothing meaningful.

hywelg

Snap said:

The best pits in the UK were the most productive in the world. They were state of the art. They couldn't have been more efficient. 

Citation required since you are quite, quite wrong. Only in  recent years following the radical modernisation started in the late 80's did they become competitive, but I don't believe they ever matched the output per manshift that Australian and American deep mines achieved. 

Back in the time.of the strike British deep coalmines were woefully inefficient. Even after they lost the strike, the NUM were vehemently against the introduction of modern methods of roof support practised in Australian deep mines and tried very hard to prevent modernisation. Those changes allowed the introduction of much more efficient longwall retreat working which would eventually lead to the final six or so pits becoming highly efficient before being beaten by geology. 

Snap

Evilmags said:

The UK is vastly better off as a result. 

Not true. Parts of the UK are distinctly worse off. S Yorks, N Notts for starters: the now ex mining communities were thriving when the pits were open. Now, they have big areas of deprivation and hopelessness. They have been economic vaccuums since the pits shut and for a lot of these communities, too little has been done to plug the gap.

Social wellbeing is complex and is about more than just UK PLC's balance sheet.

I am not a socialist ( I dont think it works at all), but I most certainly am not a Thatcherite capitialist. I do think that the state has some degree of responsibility for underpinning and securing society though. Part of that for me is providing certain basic provisions and utilities. There is a fine line (IMO) between subsidy and support of society. In the dase of manufacturing, I think more could have been done by way of goverment support. The reason I say this is I believe in the attitude that government can do things to protect the way our society works, and has a degree of duty to do that. THey are custodians of the country, operating on our behalf (they sometimes forget this).

Part of that custodian role is to protect, nurture even, our communities. If a community is reliant on a manufacturing industry, then I believe that the government has a duty to support that. For this reason, I feel that more could have been done to make British coal more competitive. With hindsight, too much was at stake to make it a mission to destroy the unions (and I don'tlike unions btw). The cost was too high and I don't think the UK has done well out of it really.

hywelg

Snap said:

Not true. Parts of the UK are distinctly worse off. S Yorks, N Notts for starters: the now ex mining communities were thriving when the pits were open. Now, they have big areas of deprivation and hopelessness. They have been economic vaccuums since the pits shut and for a lot of these communities, too little has been done to plug the gap.

So what did you expect to happen? Mining is an extractive industry, when you've burnt it its gone. Forever..... No amount of nostalgia is going to bring the reserves back. When the pits are worked out, they shut. Its a fact of life. Now the fact that the pits were closed during the strike did far more to kill the industry and the communities than would have been the case had we had an orderly shut down of the coal industry.

And you cannot blame Tory voters for the demise of the industry, the NUM had seen off one Conservative government (Heath) so the NUM had it coming, but were to stupid to realise that the fight was theirs to lose.  Thatcher simply applied common sense economics to the situation. Did the coal industry serve the country or did the country serve the coal industry?

rainer2859

Ironic that it took until 2012 for the NUM to relieve King Arthur of his £1.5 million grace and favour apartment...some socialist!