dirtydog 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.
I don't agree with that interpretation.
The original proposal was to close mines that were uneconomic or, in some cases, worked out or very nearly so. The NUM decided to take on the government and oppose ANY closures, on principle, because the Socialist leadership of the NUM saw mines, and other industries, as jobs programs where employment was the issue and entirely unrelated to production. And they saw the propesed closures as a chance to take on Thatcher and the Tory government.
The war between the miners (or to be more accurate, SOME miners) and the government was political to the extent that the NUM leadership were working on the basis of their philosophy, and tothe extent that the government saw what happened last time and were determined not to make the same mistakes again.
And why shouldn't they? It is not the perogative of any union, or unions, to determine to bring down the elected government because they disagree with policy. If the NUM leadership wanted the country run a different way, they should have damn well stood for Parliament, got elected (if they could) and done things that way. Instead, they tried to use Union muscle to foist their political beliefs on the rest of the country.
Which brings up the point that there were significant portions of the mining community that did not support the NUM. The Nottinghamshire miners and the breakaway UDM come to mind. And
nowhere was the mining dispute more bitter than in Nottinghamshires villages where NUM pickets descended like locusts to intimidate their Nottinghamshire counterparts. It is STILL a rather sore subject in many of those villages today.
The proposals to close mines was FAR more limited that the closures that ended up happening. Why? Two main factors. Firstly, as soon as you stop maintaining mines, they tend to flood. Once they get past a certain point, the cost and practical difficulties involved in getting them back into production are prohibitive. A fair number of the mines that closed only closed because of Union action. They weren't scheduled for closure ... at least, not while they were productive and profitable.
But "profitable" brings up the second point. The cost of imported coal dropped, and that changed much of the economics. Whether there are political arguments for keeping a minimg industry going despite it being cheaper to import coal than dig it up here is another matter. But when you have a privatised power generation industry, and they can buy coal and import from abroad cheaper than they can get the home grown stuff, it's hard to argue they should continue to buy home grown stuff.
I don't accept that the government's actions were dictated by "revenge" for '74. But their actions were sure as hell taking that event into account, and Maggie learned lessons from it. And, after all, only an idiot would not have done so. So unlike '74, Maggie was ready for the NUM ..... though as I said before, only barely. It was, at a couple of points during the dispute, a VERY close run thing if stocks would hold out.
