OT: Farewell to UK coal

[dennis]

So you blame Scargill for all the working mens troubles! I think you are pushing it a bit far there but you may be right and everyone that works should hate the man.

But that has already been explained, the government had to reduce our dependency on coal or some other nut would have tried again.

It is the government responsibility to protect all its people unlike the greedy unions that only care about their members.

Scargill showed that the miners were a threat to the UK and they were dealt with as such.

[dennis]

It had nothing to do with wages, Scargill used the miners as a weapon against an elected government, the government did what was required to destroy that weapon the same as they would if any other group of workers tried to overthrow an elected government.

[dennis]

What principle are you saying Scargill had?

[Tim Watts]

It is the unions' job to care about their members...

[Chris Hogg]

Interesting. Thanks, Andy.

A couple of other related links. This one from The Register, re-states Zharkova's theory

and this is one referred to in that article .

[Chris Hogg]

Says Harry, that world-famous and acknowledged expert on the global climate and what controls it. ROTFLMAO!

[Adrian]

driven-by-double-dynamo

Pah. The Royal Astronomical Society... What would they know about the sun, compared to Our Harry?

zharkova/

So this is an astrophysicist and mathematician (Ukrainian, not Russian, anyway, but that's a minor difference, right?), who came over here in

1992 - 23 years ago, 17yrs after getting her first degree - as a senior Royal Society vistor, and has been researching and lecturing in the UK since.

Some "mad Russian", eh, Harry?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You think?

You can think what you like as it's non of your business. Unless a member of the NUM.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Trying to put words in another's mouth again dennis?

Might be better to talk some sense yourself first.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

So all the union legislation enacted afterwards was only applicable to the NUM, dennis?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Something many find it hard to understand.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It is up to an individual union to make its own policy. One might decide to protect all jobs at all costs. Another might look at its industry as a whole.

But it's pretty irrelevant anyway. Thatcher got her way and virtually abolished unions in practice. So we now have a low wage high employment country. With dreadful productivity. And a range of income from highest to lowest which reads more like a middle east sheikdom.

[Tim Streater]

Yes. And I'll make my own judgement about which one is doing a better, more honest job of looking after its members, instead of the interests of the union bosses (more members = more job security for these bosses).

A union, equally with the industry its members are engaged in, has no right to think it ought to exist for ever. Canals were the fastest mode of transport until the railways got going, then went into decline. Railways in their turn have been undone by road transport.

[bert]

In article , Davey writes

They were designed to run on the type of coal regionally available to that railway company. Created a few problems when engines were moved around following nationalisation.

[bert]

To take him back to his rent free London home no doubt.

[bert]

Yes. They did a lot better under his predecessor Joe Gormley and he wouldn't have led them into a fight they couldn't win.

[dennis]

And many fail to understand that that is the biggest problem with unions, they spread greed (and try to blame Maggie for it).

[dennis]

You said it, you even quoted it above. If Scargill hadn't done what he did the government couldn't have used it as an excuse to attack the unions could it?

I think you need to read what you write.

[dennis]

It becomes my business when they try to overthrow the government. It becomes my business when they intimidate others whether union members or not.

[dennis]

Why should they single out the miners, they showed that unions used intimidation and vote rigging and that all unions need to have laws to control their behaviour.