What did maggie do?
- Thread starter dylanlewis2000
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I enjoyed every single bottle of mine 
not a nice bird then
I'm referring as to why it ground to a halt in the first place, I'm not suggesting we all go out a grab pick axes and rebuild all the mines. So my initial question still remains as to why it is viable in other MEDCS but not here - im curious as you seem to be knowledgable about the industry. For example in 2004 production here in Britian was ~25million tonnes but demand was ~60million, are we really as unself sufficiant as that? Why is demand only met by <50% internal production?VIRII said:
LINK
Australia manages to extract over 10 times more coal than here in Britian LINK - maybe Australian coal miners are badly paid? given that we import a large amount of coal from Australia and the USA I would like to know what sets aside British miners from that of their australian or american counterparts?
You see your reply to vanpeebles really annoyed me, because you made it sound like one day Britain woke up and no longer needed coal. And the only viable answer to this was to systematically rip the heart of 100s of northern communities - and leave in there place deep rooted social decay that is still very much apparent in many places today? All Because it was 'inevitable'?? For real?
Now my only real input on the debate of Margret Thatcher is that the conservative party is currently reeping what it sowed in the 1980s. However I reserve judgment as to whether the policies at that time affected the country for better or worse.
player said:
The nature of any fuel source or resource is that once used it is gone, done with , lost.
Therefore simple supply and demand economics show that suppy is always going to dwindle and with increasing populations demand is going to increase making coal useage and production in 2005 very different to in 1980.
Factor in simple little things like increased productivity, less manpower, much advanced machinery, increased demand , reduced supply and you have a different economic model.
As it happens my wifes Grandfather was a miner.
As for the ripping the heart out of northern communities emotive nonsense - do you buy from the cheapest source ? It was cheaper to import than to extract at the time - purely down to Union greed.
As I asked before if the OCUK employees went on strike and the rising labour cost made OCUK more expensive than the purple shirted ones where would YOU buy your bits ? So why should the entire country go down the pan to support the greed of a few industries ?
As for the cost of labour for US coal - perhaps their miners don't strike every other day, work more than 3 days a week and don't bring the country to a standstill if they don't get a 20% pay rise. This would make their labour cost per tonne far cheaper than ours was. This is economics not some bleeding heart sob story, it is the emotive garbage that dragged our country into the disaster that ensued in the first place.
Constant pay rises can not be sustained they are inflationary which of course leads to pay rises which in turn reduces our competitive edge. If you price yourself out of the market then do not bleat about it afterwards.
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Closing the mines was as much, if not more because of political rather than economic reasons. I remember a Tory minister in the final years of the Tory government (under Major IIRC) on Ch4 news - Heseltine possibly - saying (paraphrasing) "you have to remember, these people brought down a Conservative government" (referring to Heath 70-74). He was unapologetic that they had closed the mines at least partly for revenge.
It was a terribly short term move, based on the then lower price of North Sea gas, which of course has risen sharply in price in recent years as there isn't much left. We now import a huge amount of our energy from foreign countries, all because of the short term policies of Thatcher.
It was a terribly short term move, based on the then lower price of North Sea gas, which of course has risen sharply in price in recent years as there isn't much left. We now import a huge amount of our energy from foreign countries, all because of the short term policies of Thatcher.
Soldato
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i just dont think you understand the effect it all had, plus all the heavy engineering going, shipping etc. it wasnt just hard times, there was lots of suicides, broken marriages, broken homes. to me somethings are more important than money
vanpeebles said:
No I do understand the effect it had. I am an Engineer, whilst I have work in the military sector I would love to get my hands on some of the less explosive and heavier stuff like trains for example. My Grandfather himself was an Engineer. We all suffered as a result.
However the simple fact is that Unions could not be allowed to continue to bleed the country dry and it is sheer greed of those people that later came and bit them on the backside. If they had not tried to bleed the industries they worked in dry for every last penny that they could, if they had not encouraged half the UK out on strike, if they had not crippled the industries then the problem would never have existed.
The very people who suffered in the end are the very people who created the problem, they made their bed, they have to lie in it, the real shame is that they permanently destroyed that bed as well for the later generations of workers.
Soldato
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i just dont think its quite as easy and simple as blaming the unions, dont get me wrong. im not in favour of unions and im not a member of one either 
VIRII said:
If you accept that the closure of the mines was motivated by politics (to whatever degree) then we're in agreement I think. I've already acknowledged that union powers needed curbing, but in the specific case of the mines the government's judgement was coloured by wanting to get revenge for being ejected from power in 1974.
dirtydog said:
Our mined coal was more expensive than imported coal.
The coal union was the biggest "enemy".
The mine closure was not pure revenge, I do not believe that.
Killing the miners union could probably not have been achieved in any other way though short of killing the mines which were more expensive to mine than to simply import.
vanpeebles said:i just dont think its quite as easy and simple as blaming the unions, dont get me wrong. im not in favour of unions and im not a member of one either
I am afraid it is as simple as blaming the unions.
You witnessed the debacle of the catering union recently and the baggage workers coming out in sympathy and so on.
Imagine the whole country doing that week after week after week.
Permabanned
im greatful for what she did, wouldnt be where we are today without her.
im more concearned with maggies later efforts....
Pole tax,
housing crash,
and the small matter of £110 million she made of smuggling arms into iraq inside oil barrels 6 months before the gulf war started...
its strange how some scandels are well known but nothing ever comes of them, there just accepted for what they are :/
Pole tax,
housing crash,
and the small matter of £110 million she made of smuggling arms into iraq inside oil barrels 6 months before the gulf war started...
its strange how some scandels are well known but nothing ever comes of them, there just accepted for what they are :/
Man of Honour
VIRII said:
So massively inept management has no part to play then? I have news for you: you can't get a happy workforce to strike, and in general people want to work and enjoy their jobs. So if there is huge discontent in any workforce you have tou ask yourself why. The answer is easy: management. It's funny how they love to take the credit for the the workforce's efforts at production or whatever, but somehow the strikes are nothing to do with them.
M
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