Domino

trying to be pragmatic over this, so assume they will be altering the landing corridor but a large "no fly zone" will have adverse effect on other destinations such as Stansted which is accessed by London overflys.
Also assuming some of the military flight path allocations will be used.

all leave stopped in the one squadron of aircraft the RAF has left, no AWACS available, all Nimrods scrapped within weeks of the order (seemed like undue haste), presumably inflight refueling over the North Sea.

Dick Dasterdly

I thought they planned on dropping many of them off at Sarfend, out the way of the city, though I think it's to be classed as yet another London airport, making how many now I do not know.

Domino

well as its owned and operated by Eddie Stobart's all the illegal immigrants will be able to get a place in the trailer park

stuboy

tex_ritter

It would have been nice to see a more even distribution, Birmingham is central and contrary to urban myth or just ignorance its not 'little India' and and has its fair share of culture. Some going to South Wales would have been good too, no industry left and of course no coal mines of any great value after Thatcher and her Tory henchmen destroyed mining in the UK.

Still, at least we are hosting the event and I'm looking forward to it...lets hope we don't let the side down and organise well

Domino

with loads of family originating from the valleys and mining over the past century or so.........
how did Thatcher and her Tory hencemen destroy mining in the UK when most of the mines have been clapped out since 1940, only kept going with Bevan Boys.
If you wanted today to go down a mine, over 1000ft down and a 3mile hike after you got there to the face, you would find that what was available was poor quality and not financially viable, even if you used illegals and ex sovbloc labour at below NMW.

Face up to it, coal isnt an inexhaustable resource, and non of your crypto labour\communist claptrap will be able to bring back "the good old days" of backbreaking labour for little money (in the early days), where life was cheap - for the owners, no matter how many you killed there was always another lot prepared to step to the mark the following day.

the problem was that communist Scargill couldnt see any further than the nose on the end of his face. So long as he had his union paid for house, chauffeur driven car, union paid for shiny suits, and his grubby paws on the "donations" Russia sent over via their Mining Unions which never got into the NUM.
The NUM was so brutal with miners who had worked at closed mines, they were refused access to the clubs, or charged higher prices as non-members.
They could have taken a part in retraining that labour force in newer technology than a man with a pick, and done some good for the valleys.

Please, go away and seriously rethink your attitudes on this. mining was good, very good for this country. Just that the people who had a responsibility in the unions let their people down - seriously. The NUM even took a % on the recent compensation fund, not once but twice: from the member and also from the solicitors. Thats really standing up for your people isnt it.

Rant over....
rgds

bil

How was mining good for the country if what you said in red is true? The Unions did operate closed shops and use bad practice, but as I've said before, the answer to bad practice in the mines wasn't to close mines and destroy the unions. The trick would have been to restore good practice.

UK mines were some of the best in the world, and we were so good at it, that had we not subsidised nuclear, but had subsidised coal like the Germans did, we would have been able to ship it to australia, pay them 10 quid a ton to take it off our hands, and still turn a profit.

Many of the tories determined to close the mines and make us dependant on opencast mines in other countries had shares in those companies. Didn't stop them from voting on it, oh dear me no.

At the last count we had enough accessible coal reserves to last us a thousand years.

Domino

if only we could get to it bil,
look at the mine that is about 5 miles out to sea under the North Sea.

the fluffy bunny lobbyists wouldnt like all that nice grass to be dug up you know.

as to the rest of it, well life is too short to keep argueing about it, in the same way as we kept on with steam engines because of the work for the pits whilst everyone else was going electric.
but all that is off thread

Dick Dasterdly

...and all very true.

Fact, Scargill was simply using the miners as pawns to play politics.

Never mind he came out of it quite nicely thank you very much and the last I heard he was still trying to milk the Union funds dry.

Fact, More pits were closed and communities wrecked under Labour than under the Tories,.....so strange that is rarely mentioned.

I still know ex miners in my own area who accept that getting out of the pits was probably the best thing that happened to them, otherwise they might not have been alive and so healthy today.

I have been down pits and I have a fair understanding of how bad it was down there in my own region and I have watched numerous miners gasping their last breaths due to silicosis and die painful deaths way before their time.

I was also guest at an NUM conference one year and witnessed just how little the Unions bosses cared about those who were paying for them to live a life of luxury.

Please put another record on, as the Scargill/Thatcher one is a total fallacy and long ago worn out, yet sadly so many continue to try playing it without ever being involved or having the faintest clue what it was all about.

bil

C'mon guys.

Scargill was a prick, but there were a lot of lies told about him. I don't know how the mine closures went under Labour, but I'd point out that they had just as much to fear from the miners as did the tories, and probably took the short term route to cheap coal from foreign opencast, not caring about the other costs, ie miners on the dole, and destitute areas up north, where coal was the only real source of money.

Coal WAS effectively an inexhaustable resource, with known reserves (this was back in Scargill's time) of over a thousand year's worth. I bet it's more now.

Silicosis was a problem, but once again, baby, bathwater; bathwater, baby.

Dick Dasterdly

Here we go again, whatever happened to the London Olympics.?
If we started a thread about life on other planets it would more than likely get back to Maggie v Scargill.

Just to correct you bil, unlike the Tories, Labour had nothing to fear in the North from all the pits they closed, as I've said before they could put everyone on the dole and a donkey up for office yet folk would still roll up and vote it in.
You appear to treat the silicosis issue very lightly, however if you'd lived amongst it and witnessed it numerous times every day, maybe you'd take it a little more seriously.

IMHO, No job is worth a persons life and a very cruel death to boot.

HBG

The East End is as safe as it's always been, for the locals. The Bangladeshis are safe in Stepney, the Jamaicans are safe in Hackney and the Asians are safe in Manor Park.

Talking about the Yank's security, they would be better off staying around the White House to protect Obama. Two days ago he was having a quiet fag in his private quarters when some nutter with an AK47 managed to fire several bullets into the walls.

Still on the subject of security for the games, a couple of years ago the assistant commissioner for the Met, responsible for the Olympics security, was a Paki, Tariq something, and his deputy was a bent commander, an Iranian, Disai something. MI5 were having kittens and managed to get rid of them.

They should worry about the new guy in charge. He comes from Sheffield.

bil

Well, I didn't bring it up, and if you were so concerned about changing the thread, why weigh in?

What I was referring to was the fact that the miners' union was a potential threat to Labour too, and they couldn't be seen being pro NUM..

Now, do point out where I treated silicosis lightly? I didn't treat it at all. I said that closing the mines because of silicosis was ridiculous. Safe working practice can eliminate the problem. After all, we can work with asbestos with effectively no risk.

tex_ritter

"Face up to it, coal isnt an inexhaustable resource, and non of your crypto labour\communist claptrap will be able to bring back "the good old days" of backbreaking labour for little money (in the early days), where life was cheap - for the owners, no matter how many you killed there was always another lot prepared to step to the mark the following day."



As it happens I too had family (in laws) who worked underground (My wife is a Merthyr girl, went to School in Crawshay's old house, Cyfarthfa Castle.), an awful job but it was work where there is now none. Villages and small towns with second generation unemployed and with little hope of things improving. After a day in the mines they would be too tired to get smashed on drink and drugs both of which are common pastimes these days. Life on the dole does not stretch to big TV's and foreign holidays as many think, substance abuse is often funded by crime.

There are in fact millions of tons of coal but its cheaper to get it off the backs of the poor buggers in places like Poland and Vietnam. What would have been cheaper, subsidise the mines or pay benefits for several generations to people whose self esteem is not exactly high in many cases. I truly detest Thatcher with every pore of my body. While open cast mining is growing its hardly labour intensive.

Labour\communist? me? You got that one wrong chum, I suppose if analysed I'd be a left wing Tory or right wing Labour. I've no time for Arthur, come to that a lot of miners didn't either and the unions needed to be bought in line but Thatcher killed off whole communities and an industry, shame she has dementia now and can never feel the guilt that should haunt her every waking moment.

I remember talking to some Danish and Norwegian business men back in the 90's and the topic of mine closure came up. They asked what the ex miners did now and I said they do nothing, no work. They were baffled as to how a government would shut down an industry without making sure the workers had jobs to go to, it would not have happened in their countries they told me, the UK lost a lot of brownie points that evening.

I've done pretty well for myself but doubt my children will have the opportunities I did

bil

Hard to add to that.