g hall

The problem is if it is easier and cheaper to get something from further away then by the very nature business and people will support it.
It is being sensible enough to recognise this and sort out alternatives before problems occur
Scargill got what he deserved
The Nottingham miners got screwed by Lord Heseltine of Bouffant

__________________
"That government is best which governs least."
"This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries".
"To be "matter of fact" about the world is to blunder into fantasy --and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful."

Jools

That was part of the thinking, but the EU considers coal to be a dirty fuel, and that was a factor in the decline of coal mining in continental Europe. There were plenty of environmental directives affecting the coal industry.

Thatcher just pre-empted the EU on pit closures.

ANGLO-STAFFS

OK, I am not rubishing UKIP's chances, as at the moment, with the present leadership and lack of direction I don't think they have any.
BUT if UKIP shuts up about the EU for a few years, concentrate on "local" issues, NHS, transport, jobs, immigration. Ignore the impact that the EU has on it, blame Labour, Tories, Lib Dem. Lets face it you would get more reaction from Joe Public if you blamed little green men. He/she could not give a t*** about EU directives.
Promise them clean hospitals, better schools and their bins emptied every week and they may show UKIP some respect.
Keep harping on about the EU and UKIP will contine in the same direction as now, down!

Phil Sheldon

Living in what was once a mining community I try and take a balanced view of pit closures.
The crux was that coal cost £32.00 per ton to mine. The contracts with the CEGB meant the NCB was paid £28.00 per ton. The road to ruin for mines and miners.
Having conceded to the NUM once, Mrs T. was determined to fight to the finish to end union dominance in industry once and for all. It is often forgotten that before the NUM called for a strike Mrs.T made sure coal from abroad was stockpiled at many major ports and power stations. Had Scargill been a General in the Army he would have been cashiered for failing to see the trap he walked in to. Masses of coal and a mild winter saw the NUM fail miserably in it's attempt to bring down the government.

On 12th March 1984, Arthur Scargill, president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), called a national strike against the pit closures. The decision to strike was technically illegal, as there had been no national ballot of NUM members, even though the Nottinghamshire and Midlands Coalfields for example, had called for a national ballot. Miners in Yorkshire and Kent were the first to go on strike, followed by miners in Scotland, South Wales and Durham. Britain was to witness a fierce, hard fought battle involving the government, police, press, and the NUM.

The Union of Democratic Mineworkers was partly the brainchild of Ian McGregor-Chmn of the CEGB-because he knew the Notts. miners were unhappy with Scargill and his failure to comply with Rule 41 of the NUM: A national ballot should have been called.

Sorry to go on a bit. Miners were given the most generous redundancy payments in industrial history-£1000.00 for every year of service. That reinforces one of my own beliefs; everything and everybody has a price.

Britannist

Mikeuk

Major was scum. You must be the one remaining member of his fan club.

That's assuming you aren't the worm himself.

Baron von Lotsov

I think Cameron will get the boot soon. He is about as idiotic as that Jonathan Porritt and not only that but he invites other Etonians to his inner circle like Zac Goldsmith. They are incapable of running anything since their life has been too easy. Thatcher was brought up in a grocery shop and knew about economics, indeed people who run them these days must be excellent economists to keep their head above water. Not so at Eton though. You just click your fingers and some spod will serve you with what you want. This kind of life breeds ignorance.

A typically ignorant thing to do was for our local Tory candidate, who is challenging the Lib dem seat which only has less than 1000 votes in it, was to go up in a helicopter to see for herself what the environment looked like from the air, in order to preach climate change at us. You couldn't make it up!

Britannist

The Conservative Party lost so many seats at the 1997 General Election under europhile Major that what was left was half a Tory Party, largely confined to the 'M25' part of the country. In trying to keep the UK in the Exchange Rate Mechanism (part of Major's plan to destroy our ancient Pound) interest rates shot up and a million people in the London/Home Counties area alone lost their jobs. Ten years of Blair's lies, defence cuts, higher taxes, record-breaking immigration and more British sovereign powers handed to the EU are the result of the europhiles in the Conservative Party having caused the party's defeat in 1997.