Oink

I'm a native Briton.

bats

Did you notice the state of the houses? Could the rundown local economy, Wikiipedia calls it a deprived area since the closure of the mine in the1980s, do you not think this might be a reason why she is hated?

I have no idea if all those people shown are vile, but I doubt it.

mikelincs

Goldthorpe always looked a down at heel place, even when the pit was working, used to pass through it regularly.

bats

So they really needed that pit then.

badab1ng

Hope they make the dancefloor big enough for us all.

Almost Canadian

Do you believe that Government has a duty to employ people?

bats

Why do you ask that?

Almost Canadian

Just a question. I didn't intend to offend.

Shard

Duty is perhaps the wrong word, but it may have an interest in doing so. It's hard to know what people in depressed northern towns are to do when there is insufficient private sector employment there, and they cannot afford the move or living in the South. I think mobility in Britain is more difficult than Canada, as people's family ties, identity and even accent are that much stronger. In that sense locating government offices in depressed areas and providing some base employment is preferable to letting towns degenerate.

Piff Poff

OK, so I'm reading a lot about the mines closing down and they didn't have to etc, I was born in '71 and I have honestly not paid much attention to politics and was too young at the time to even know what was really going on with the miners and pits closing, but surely if they were viable, some investor from somewhere would have stepped in and bought them and kept them going?

Shard

Yes that's the gist of it. The miners are a bit like the Luddites who objected to machines in textile mills instead of workers.

bats

The coal mines in Europe were heavily subsidised by governments, Germany, France, making Britissh Coal hard to export. Selling the pits was not part of the plan though, Thatcher had stockpiled fuel to keep the power stations going during the strike she wanted. Her target was to break the unions.

Piff Poff

So British pits were not a viable business then? Same as the decline in the textile industry, same as the steel industry, it would have cost (I assume) the government too much money in subsidies to make it worthwhile, unions or no unions.

GC44

+ another 1

JonboyE

Bats is right. It was never a pure economic issue with the pits. For right or wrong, Thatcher had decided that she was going to break union power and the miners were her chosen target. (Probably because, in Scargill, she had an equally willing combatant.)

Thatcher abandoned the notion that a Government governs for all the people. She knew she could get a majority with 40% of the vote, and that elections were generally decided by a few tens of thousands of people in a few marginal seats. As long as she kept these floating voters happy the rest din't matter.

As for the people of the working class north, they were never going to vote Tory. So **** them. And if they choose to dance on her grave I am not in the least surprised.