Margaret Thatcher

[JBR]

He's a Scot. He won't have a good word for any British PM but I assume you are referring to his pit closures

When I was teaching, I used to take my class to the local coal mine as was, now a museum.  Soon after retiring, I volunteered to help out at the mine with other school visits and found that quite rewarding.  Since then, my situation changed and I had to retire from my voluntary work there.  Since then, Marge and I have been back there to visit and they have made quite some improvements.  They are doing well today and I'd recommend a visit.
Lancshire Mining Museum, Astley Green, M29 7JB.  Check for opening days online:
https://lancashireminingmuseum.org/

[crabbyob]

OK here goes... Thatcher was a strong leader just as Hitler was, she ruled by fear... her first decission was to give the police and the Army the biggest raise they ever had... generous????? lol... covering her back... 
Wilson closed more pits than Thatcher????? how many miners did he sack???? he closed every mine that employed less than 100 men....and transferred them to larger mines... my pit at its height employed 4,000 men, and by closing that single pit she passed anything Wilson did..
she was never a fool, when she got her first ministry she looked towards Europe, which country had the strongest ecconomy???Germany by a country mile so she investigated how they managed that....she was shocked to find that Germany subsidised all their heavy industries... mining and steel, she pointed out to the Germans that this was against the rules of the European Union... Germany was shocked and appologised to her, but continued with the subsidies.. but the Lady would have non of it, she ignored the germans and showed that real polititions followed ALL the rules, and refused any subsidies to all our industries, which closed all our heavy industries, but the lady was not for turning, she sacked all the miners and put them on the dole. so lets say they all got £50 a week dole money......the Germans refused to give their miners dole money, instead they paid the dole money to the mining industry as a subsidy!!!! idiots... that was the stupidest thing Thatcher ever heard of... so she closed our mines and bought german coal!!!!... she was evil and should have been burned, but crap wont burn!!!! this country will never recover the damage she did... she replaced the jobs in Doncaster... we have five prisons and dozens of call centres...so to all her fans, what exactly is she famous for apart from starving the miners out????? i will wait...... even her own cabinet stabbed her in the back to get rid of her.... actually she was famous for something outside politics.... she was part of the team that invented Mr Softee ice cream....

[Ashy]

Yes I won't forget the miner's strike or what she did to Liverpool.  Having said that and putting bias aside, she was a strong PM, something we've lacked for years and years.

I suppose there's always a chance that, if she had continued, she might have concluded that de-industrialising had gone too far, and privatising was failing in some areas. Then again she might have got drunk and gone back to bed.

[GrannyMac]

I don't think South Yorks ever recovered fully from the strike.  I always felt for the underground workers, but where I lived there were a couple of managers from the NCB. They were early retired, on good pensions, they hadn't suffered like the miners.  No wonder UK coal was expensive.  

The miners fought for a decent wage, and given their jobs, they deserved it.  It was a pity there wasn't a better solution, and I understand why most really disliked the Thatcher government.  One of my younger friends is a Barnsley miner's daughter.  

[klondike]

The miners beat Heath and she knew that so it was very much a bare knuckle fight (well except the police they used truncheons etc.)  The biggest stupidity from Scargill was starting the strike in March when the stockpiles at power stations were probably taller than the cooling towers.

Thatcher was on the way down in popularity and saved by her determination in the Falklands war.

What was done was done. We have to move on with what we have. They are pouring most of that down the drain now. As I said earlier managed decline. Badly managed too.

[crabbyob]

yes looking back solves little, I am 85 if i had continued down the mine i doubt i would be sat here now...everyone thinks Scargill called the strike, a much sharper mind than his simply lit the touch-paper a stepped back, she held out the hoop and he dived thru followed by all of us,,,, the real criminals of the strike were the mine officials, they had a vote knowing that if the pits closed their pensions were as good as their wages, so for them it was a no brainer, they voted to stay in work, which allowed the scab pits to continue whereas if they had come out ever pit ceased production
lets see who else can i blame...lol.. the canteen ladies..lol... bless them they were out if their pit was out...yesterday was history and resolves nowt...but similar idiots are making even bigger mistakes with the migrants and keep opening new boxes of sticking plaster when its obvious only amputation will solve anything.. but thankfully its not a problem for me to worry about, goodluck to the younger element your gonna need it.

[klondike]

The coal is still there of course. Do you think it will ever be dug or does net zero mean it will be left for the next civilisation to rise after the current one is destroyed and falls?

[Ashy]

We may live to be part of that next civilisation. 

Crabby explained something very poignant. The Germans understood that paying people to do nothing meant that none of their productive ability could be used, and they understood that keeping industry going and developing was more sensible than handing it to others. 

Look at us now, we don't make our own cars, saucepans, cookers, police cars, electric plugs and sockets... you name it

and our current politicians are three trillion in debt and still destroying our ability to create wealth. They want foreigners to catch our fish, farmers to grow weeds, and the oil industry to go elsewhere whilst importing almost all manufactured goods.

[klondike]

We may live to be part of that next civilisation.

I was thinking more of extinction of the species than GB going bust. The earth has about a billion years of habitability left. You have to be very optimistic to think the universe won't be throwing some extinction level event this way during that billion years. It has several times in the past the most recent being the dinosaurs a mere 65 million years ago. Even without that far more species have gone extinct than are currently thriving and we may too for a reason that leaves most of the rest OK.