Was Scargill right?
 

At the time of Britains miners strike Scargill was widely lambasted in parliament and the media for claiming there was a secret plan to close over 70pits.
Thatcher and MacGregor both insisted repeatedly that the only plan was to close 20 pits which were not profitable.
Events after the strike did lend some weight to Scargills claims.

Cabinet papers newly released under the 30 year rule do seem to show that he was 100% correct on that issue. And that the politicians calling him a crazed fantasist over the claims knew them to be true.

Yes Arthur was right and it as all come out in the wash that Thatcher and MacGregor where a pair of evil lying bastards along with the rest of Tory scum cabinet at the time.

As a former coal miner myself the current government should apologize for what that lying heartless evil bitch said, or didn't say depends on which way you look at it.

YES 100% CASE CLOSED


Now thats get down to booting this lot of evil twisted stinking rotten filthy perverted swine out of office and run them out of the UK.

Come up with a decent alternative to the current sham government and maybe. . .

Maggie only did what she did so BLiar couldn't do it.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn of some complicity in it all by some labour politicians, any union that can bring a government down is also a threat to them as well, I would never trust a politician to speak the truth which ever party they belong to. :stare:

Indeed, but what struck me is the memo stating that no more written records should be kept of their plan for economic devastation of whole communities in Britain.
To me that tops last years cabinet papers revelations about abandoning entire major cities and leaving them to rot because they had voted for the "wrong" party, as at least that plan in her warped ideological crusade was not carried through.

Scargill was left wing and Thatcher was right wing. Conservatives and Unions have never got on. Arthur was right and it would not matter at the time if the Thatcher new this, they were at war, and there was only ever going to be one outcome.

Well said.

Ditto - but the intransigence on both sides didn't help, either.

Mike.:hmmm:

Maggie won...the lady was not for turning :know:

Ah, but did she? She ended up being hoisted by her own petard after all.

Good point, did she? She ended up with lots of huge extra expenditure in the very areas she wanted to cut costs in, and of course she was hoisted by her own party when they realised she genuinely was crazy.

Yep, but it either took a long time to do or they took a time to either realise or find Major.

One easily overlooked fact is that 290 pits closed under Harold Wilson, 130 more than did under Maggie.

Took them long enough to get the collective balls to do it I'd say, knowing that she'd have them cut off if it went wrong. Although I think the whole Poll Tax debacle was the final straw for the Thatcher camels back.


In regards to numbers of mines closed, I don't think anyone, except perhaps Scargill in one of his more eccentric moments, thought that the mines could stay open indefinitely but it was the way that Thatcher took the future of the mines and arranged it into a trap that the Unions ran head first into and were utterly destroyed.