Orgreave

iseverynamegone · June 2015

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.

thermionic · June 2015

I have strong memories of that time, coming home from school in the winter and watching the news, couldn't understand why the police were attacking miners. It seemed to go on for weeks. And the miners' wives organising food distribution because people had no money.

Conveniently, most of the police implicated have retired by now...

NervousJohn · June 2015

Not just Yorkshire. I grew up 5 miles from Bilston Glen. My grandfather sank the main shaft in the late 50s and my father worked there briefly in the 60s. Although he got a job in the council shortly after that. I was 13 during the miners strike and can remember seeing the picket lines and the pitched battles on the news. My friends suffering as their families made do on strike pay. And the remoteness of the government informed my politics from then on.

chillidoggy · June 2015

My brother in law was a copper at the time, he loved the miner's strike. He made an absolute fortune in overtime, and bought himself a new fridge, washing machine and a nice new car, too.

iseverynamegone · June 2015

Wonderful. Can you tell him to fuck the fuck off from me . =D>

chillidoggy · June 2015

I would, but he retired to the Bahamas a while ago.

SimpleSimon · June 2015

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...........!!

iseverynamegone · June 2015

Let's hope he took the troll horse he rode in on as well then.:-)

I did have some sympathy for the local police trying to do a job in their own Community. But using the police from all parts like the army pretty much destroyed all sense of respect anyone had for the police in our communities.

As far those filth who stood their taunting miners wives and kids with £20 notes and the like , congratulations fellas. Real men.

=D>

Nunogilberto · June 2015

I'm very interested in the Miners' Strike, living as I do in the South Wales Valleys - you don't have to look too far for a reminder of the coal history here.

I was only 2/3 when the strike was on, but everything I've seen and read from the time suggests that the police were as heavy handed as you'd expect from Thatcher era Britain.

Plus, as it's South Yorkshire Police we're talking about, their track record is awful - the cover up in the wake of Hillsborough was fucking atrocious...

Emp_Fab · June 2015

I regularly visit the valleys. They still haven't come close to recovering from all the job losses. The alcohol and drugs problems up there are terrible now. I remember driving past the heavily police escorted scab convoys taking coal to the power stations and the steelworks.

DarnWeight · October 2016

A stitch-up, pure and simple. The police were essentially acting as paramilitaries in a concerted attempt by the ruling government to quash legal strike action and public demonstration. It stinks.

hywelg · October 2016

Just remember people the miners were intent on overthrowing a democratically elected government. And they were prepared to use force to achieve that aim. That force was aimed at closing the coking plant to lorries both coming and going.
There were very many other instances where miners were using force to prevent free movement of both people and goods.

Scargill was an idiot blinded by his own extreme leftwing views. If he had been less of a demagogue he could quite easily have won his battle, but losing the Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, South Derbyshire and Warwickshire miners support because he didn't believe in democracy was crucial.

Let's remember what the miners were striking for. A blanket ban on closing even the most uneconomic mines, demanding that the UK taxpayers subsidise continued coal production thus saddling UK industry with huge energy bills that would have crippled the country for decades. The strike actually hastened the decline and ultimate closure of 95% of UK coal production. If we had had a sensible response by the NUM, we would still have had significant, modernised coal production.

The miners got what they deserved, pick a fight you cannot win, start throwing your weight about and trying to intimidate people, don't expect sympathy when you get a black eye. Its just left wing propaganda now trying to make the Miners out as the injured parties, they were more than capable and willing to giving as good as they got.

In retrospect Thatcher would have been quite within her rights to have called in the troops, democracy was under attack by agents supported by the likes of Libya, Cuba and USSR.

To those who lament the loss of the coal mines, I bet you never worked in one!....

iseverynamegone · October 2016

^scab

Blaendulais · October 2016

hywelg said:

The miners got what they deserved, pick a fight you cannot win, start throwing your weight about and trying to intimidate people, don't expect sympathy when you get a black eye. Its just left wing propaganda now trying to make the Miners out as the injured parties, they were more than capable and willing to giving as good as they got.

To those who lament the loss of the coal mines, I bet you never worked in one!....

Fuck off. My Dad did and I fucking starved.

DarnWeight · October 2016

hywelg said:

Just remember people the miners were intent on overthrowing a democratically elected government. And they were prepared to use force to achieve that aim. That force was aimed at closing the coking plant to lorries both coming and going.
There were very many other instances where miners were using force to prevent free movement of both people and goods.

Scargill was an idiot blinded by his own extreme leftwing views. If he had been less of a demagogue he could quite easily have won his battle, but losing the Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, South Derbyshire and Warwickshire miners support because he didn't believe in democracy was crucial.

Let's remember what the miners were striking for. A blanket ban on closing even the most uneconomic mines, demanding that the UK taxpayers subsidise continued coal production thus saddling UK industry with huge energy bills that would have crippled the country for decades. The strike actually hastened the decline and ultimate closure of 95% of UK coal production. If we had had a sensible response by the NUM, we would still have had significant, modernised coal production.

The miners got what they deserved, pick a fight you cannot win, start throwing your weight about and trying to intimidate people, don't expect sympathy when you get a black eye. Its just left wing propaganda now trying to make the Miners out as the injured parties, they were more than capable and willing to giving as good as they got.

In retrospect Thatcher would have been quite within her rights to have called in the troops, democracy was under attack by agents supported by the likes of Libya, Cuba and USSR.

To those who lament the loss of the coal mines, I bet you never worked in one!....

Far too much smearing, media-bias and dirty-politicking around the whys and wherefores of the strike to address everything there, but just remember Thatcher's agenda (aided by Ian McGregor) was to actively goad the unions into industrial action when the coal reserves were high, and then break them at whatever cost. Personally, I expect better from an elected government.

There's lots out there about some of the shenanigans of that period. Here's a good one...

http://sabotagetimes.com/life/5-common-myths-about-arthur-scargill-that-simply-arent-true

Either way, this enquiry would have been dealing with a single well-documented incident, and not the strike as a whole, so any findings would (I would hope) have pointed out failings and/or criminality on either side. Public servants are there to be scrutinised, so the whole "nothing-to-learn-from-this" schtick smacks of pure chicanery, and a desire to shore up reputations.

hywelg · October 2016

So you believe all industries should be supported by all tax payers for ever? Or should those that are uneconomic be allowed to close. I dont recall many Flecthers still being in business. Or farriers, or coopers. Get real and stop pretending that the miners fight with reality was in some way glamorous, or heroic. It wasn't. It was an attempt by a Union which had too much power to reverse a decision by a democratically elected government and suopported by the majority of the country.

Nostalgia for the union power of the 60's and 70's is somewhat misguided. I can remember the powercuts and docks being on strike, the car industry on its knees.

The fact you, @Blaendulais, starved was because your Dad was on strike. It wasn't heroic, it was flying in the face of commonsense. The mines were fucked, many of them producing coal at over £60 a tonne when the price at the docks for imported coal was around £20. They were all the more fucked because they were shut for the duration of the strike. If you've never worked underground you wouldn't know why, but its not like openeing a factory door and turning the power back on. The miners lost, simply because their cause was NOT just. They wanted a blank cheque and the country were in no mood to give it to them.

hywelg · October 2016

iseverynamegone said:

^scab

That was the standard uneducated response of the left.

iseverynamegone · October 2016

That's shown me then.

hywelg · October 2016

iseverynamegone said:

That's shown me then.

Well give me a good reason to have kept uneconomic pits open at the taxpayers expense (and it would have been a HUGE expense). Scargill said he wasn't going to allow a single pit to close and called the strike on that basis. British Coal had a list of 20 to close. If he had been as canny as Joe Gormley he might have negotiated a deal and we might still have had 30-40 pits still working. But even then the writing is on the wall for coal in general...

You can't live in the world of 50 years ago. Things change.

Fretwired · October 2016

As I recall Labour closed more pits than the Tories and whilst I was studying in the early 70s you had the usual round strikes every winter - dockers, miners, power workers, ship yard workers, car workers, petrol tanker drivers .. always on strike. No lighting or heating for the elderly .. the unions couldn't give a stuff for most working people. The winter of discontent ..

The police overreacted big time and I knew a few from round here who'd be in the pubs boasting about what went on (my local was near the county police HQ so a lot of pubs were full of coppers) - they went for the aggro .. it's well documented so I can't see that anything would be gained from an enquiry.

Budgie · October 2016

PMQs should be entertaining this week!

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