The Battle of Orgreave

As somebody who remembers the Miners strike, I agree there's no need for a public enquiry.

Nobody died (miraculously given the violence on both sides) nobody was convicted, the police were ultimately trying to prevent miners from stopping others from working, the NUM had a clear agenda of bringing down the government not saving the miners.

An interesting point from the press I read earlier....

No purpose would have been served by revisiting this story 30 years later, other than to rewrite the history of the period in order to justify the actions of the NUM. Ironically, in 1984 Mr Scargill could count Labour’s current leaders among his supporters, but not those who ran the party at the time. The Left wants to redefine events such as Orgreave to perpetuate a sense of grievance with the end of state socialism in the Eighties.
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Pretty much nails it for me.
 
Yeah, well neither side was blameless, but at the time it was chaos. We need to know what actually went on regardless of who comes out worse.

It would make government and unions more transparent and accountable.
 
I was 10. My step father was a miner. I remember days of not having food to eat. Having to go to soup kitchens. Receiving parcels from miners in germany/poland etc at Christmas. Going coal picking to keep the house warm. Horrible times

Lots of local mining towns/villages are still recovering. Whole communities torn apart.

Yes, army regulars volunteered, put blacks and whites over their greens and then tore into overall peaceful pickets. Goading starving miners with wads of overtime money.

Some of the replies here make me sick.
 
zom247 said:
It is irrational to you and I but some people just cannot let anything go. When I go home you can still feel the resentment towards the Conservatives and SYP for what happened during that period. It's also why no one there will ever vote for a Conservative no matter how bad the other parties are. All we've done is hold on to our negativity and passed it down to our children who now pass it down to theirs (Northern Ireland anyone?).
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And in that comment you nail the reason why such investigations are pointless. Minds are made up, all it will do is waste money and give more reasons for people to hold irrational thoughts towards an entity that is not what it was over 30 years ago.

I also lived in a mining community at the time this was happening and had friends who's family worked in the mines but not all down the pit, some of them in the IT organisation etc. and not all of them supported action and were very badly intimidated, even by other friends fathers! It was clear it was a battle, 2 sides intent on winning and frankly the Government won the war, for that is what it was. You had people using miners to manipulate a bigger agenda, both sides did wrong, but it was over 30 years ago, time to move on. No one comes out of this with glory but you take on someone like Thatcher at the growing height of her powers and she will crush you.

That is leadership and though many didn't agree with her, hated her (all which I get) there is no questions the gauntlet was laid down and she took it and smashed the miners. She won 3 elections so no matter what miners think the rest of the country didn't think that same thing or else she would have been out next election. The fact she wasn't tells you all you need to do, the majority of the country was not with the miners.
 
Yeah and look how that worked out. Miners were just the first and easiest targets. Ship building, most of it gone. Steel works going the same way. It was a fight against the unions and the miners the poor sods caught in the middle.

Many of the mines were/are still viable
 
Having personally dealt with unions...I can understand why they'd want to fight against them.
 
Suicidal Ferret said:
Yeah and look how that worked out. Miners were just the first and easiest targets. Ship building, most of it gone. Steel works going the same way. It was a fight against the unions and the miners the poor sods caught in the middle.

Many of the mines were/are still viable
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There is not a cat in hells chance that an industry so cost heavy and prevalent should or could have been kept going like it was, coal was not the fuel of the future. Unions in the 70's and 80's had tried to hold this country to ransom, had had a big part in the downfall of productivity and because of this damaged inward investment preventing the evolution and modernisation of modern manufacturing, together with some terrible management. They had to be stopped and the miners were simply the catalyst as I said, but many of them were convinced it was all about them, sadly, when they were pawns in a game. It's this fact that means most of the country simply don't care anymore about miners because many of them see them as a cause of our problems, not a group of stand up boys and girls trying to look after all our interests.

If you think there is a viable business there, why don't you form a group and prove it, re-open a mine and give it a go and good luck to you. But you know what, I suspect you will soon realise that thinking and doing are very different things. I live 6 miles from a coal power station, it was shut down 4 months back, 3 years ahead of plan and I believe that leaves 9. Coal is not something that you can sustain a large industry on, it's something from our past and profitable business, sadly, is not built on looking after the blokes who worked really hard for centuries to keep the world alight, its built on profit.
 
as many have pointed out its funny how labour did nothing for 13 years and now a few of them are stamping their feet, well i say let them have an inquiry. but also include what the labour party and unions got up to but id bet labour would demand that it was only to do with the police as if everything else was opened up it would take to long yadda yadda yadda.
 
It's not about money its about the truth being told. The government knew some of the collieries were viable in terms of coal production. But penny pinched and bought imported coal, when surely it was better to keep hundreds of thousands in employment and not destroy communities and lives.

Can't sustain industry on coal? Tell that to China and India. Who are now using the coal they would previously sold to the government for a steal. It's just not fashionable.

When oil is gone and the renewable sources can't cope. Coal will suddenly be back on the agenda. Except there will be no one with the skills to get to it.
 
Suicidal Ferret said:
Can't sustain industry on coal? Tell that to China and India. Who are now using the coal they would previously sold to the government for a steal. It's just not fashionable.
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Yeah, because the cost of labour and standard of living is comparable. You're living in the past to be brutally honest.
 
Suicidal Ferret said:
I was 10. My step father was a miner. I remember days of not having food to eat. Having to go to soup kitchens. Receiving parcels from miners in germany/poland etc at Christmas. Going coal picking to keep the house warm. Horrible times

Lots of local mining towns/villages are still recovering. Whole communities torn apart.

Yes, army regulars volunteered, put blacks and whites over their greens and then tore into overall peaceful pickets. Goading starving miners with wads of overtime money.

Some of the replies here make me sick.
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And the whole country rememebrs having no heating or electric for cooking appliances to cook food on.

'The Three-Day Week was one of several measures introduced in the United Kingdom by the Conservative Government to conserve electricity, the generation of which was severely restricted owing to industrial action by coal miners. '
 
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