Nice to see Boris Johnson praising the closure of all the mines by Mrs Thatcher and having a laugh about it…
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58117044
I know it’s a BBC link, so many won’t believe it, it is available on other sources.
No idea what this got to do with driving, but for all those Kier take the knee pieces of [fb], they might want to talk to the ex miners inplaces other than Wales which is frankly a victim of its own complaints.
I live in an area built on coal and most of the miners I talk to were delighted with the closures. Nice big redundancy payments, many got cheap deals on nice houses (not old terraces) and all used their skills to get other jobs. Apart from those who died at 60 from lung diseases due to mining.
Aa a side note, most also didn’t vote to go on strike - infact here they had to ship people in from the NE to picket and those are seriously hated round here. If old Arthur turned up here, I doubt he’d leave alive and it wouldn’t just be the miners lynching him! (Assuming the old ■■■■ is still around).
Couldn’t give a crap about the whole climate change bollox, but Maggie accidently improved a lot of people’s lives better than Kier and his nuts.
Very contentious issue.
I was raised in a pit village outside Newcastle. My parents used to own the local shop which was busy because of the pit. Then the pit closed, the shop died, bankruptcy for my parents followed and we had to move away and set up somewhere else in the country. Turns out we left not a lot behind in the end as the place went to the dogs and lives were ruined.
So yeah, really funny stuff Boris. Right laugh out loud stuff
Darkside:
Nice to see Boris Johnson praising the closure of all the mines by Mrs Thatcher and having a laugh about it…bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58117044
I know it’s a BBC link, so many won’t believe it, it is available on other sources.
Thatcher closed 115 mines in two terms
Harold Wilson closed 253 mines in two terms
Just saying
claretmatt:
Darkside:
Nice to see Boris Johnson praising the closure of all the mines by Mrs Thatcher and having a laugh about it…bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58117044
I know it’s a BBC link, so many won’t believe it, it is available on other sources.
Thatcher closed 115 mines in two terms
Harold Wilson closed 253 mines in two terms
Just saying
Zzzzz just saying you know nothing,back in Wilson’s day,pits were closed,jobs were available elsewhere in NCB or transfer of skills into alternative employment,Thatcher’s closures were based on spite,and massive chip on shoulder against working class due to the stigma of her family being ‘in trade’ amongst Tory toffs
Plenty of ex miners did well,short term,but the areas have by n large been left to fall into decline,equally by local labour councillors who prioritise their own areas,pet projects,main problem,politicians in general,funny how Blair,literally never looked back after he left Trimdon
toonsy:
Very contentious issue.I was raised in a pit village outside Newcastle. My parents used to own the local shop which was busy because of the pit. Then the pit closed, the shop died, bankruptcy for my parents followed and we had to move away and set up somewhere else in the country. Turns out we left not a lot behind in the end as the place went to the dogs and lives were ruined.
So yeah, really funny stuff Boris. Right laugh out loud stuff
I was brought up in a Yorkshire mining village there were four pits all within a ten mile radius,all ended up shut and the area never recovered.
Knew some good men that worked them mines(grandfather included) and the community spirit and camaraderie was fantastic,I had the upmost respect for them boys….
As already been said Wilson (Labour the so called party for the working man) closed the bulk of the pits Thatcher only completed the job. Where I live there must have been at least 15 pits within 15 miles radius they have either been redeveloped for trading estates / retail parks or housing. The village pit closed in the 60`s well before Thatcher and the last one closed recently because of an underground fire and it was not viable to save it being so far down. A large majority have adapted and found alternative jobs outside the tight knit mining community,and mining is now the distant past and reminisced by the retired in the pub over a pint at lunch time.
Not that this topic has anything to do with Transport but its here so I am having my tupennorth worth
Yep a classic foot in gob Boris moment.
I’m sure it was a joke in his own mind, I’m confident he meant no harm, also in his own (misguided) mind and sense of humour, but the impact because of the still open wounds in the subject matter did not occur to him…epic fail Boris.
You would have thought he would have learned the brain in gear thing after the repercussions and lost votes in Merseyside and surrounding areas after his even less funny Hillsborough comment. 
I also have a lot of respect for the generations of miners, my own Granda was one, he often told me horror stories of life down there, but tbf although Boris’s comments could have been better laid out, it is irrefutably right what he says about climate effects due to coal mine closure improving…but he could have put it way better with a bit of tact.
I moved to Yorkshire just after the strike ended, and from another mining area of the country, so was able to see first hand the devastating effect on Thatchers policy. My ex wife’s family were born and brought up in Grimethorpe, (Or Grimley if you know what I am talking about) and watching once proud working class men, reduced to basically begging, was a horrible sight.
I don’t think Boris’s comments were meant to offend, but the effects of the actions in 84, are still felt across Yorkshire communities today, and perhaps he should have put his brain in gear first before opening his trap.
Ken.
Only been down a pit once and that was at the National Mining Museum, pleased I didn’t have to do it for a living, although I have carried plenty of the B@=?/ stuff on my back and tipped into peoples coal houses and bunkers.
We did have a lad work for us who had been down the pit for about fifteen years, until it closed, he reckoned delivering coal was harder work than mining it but at least it was done in the daylight.
One day when working a very low seam he crawled in ten yards but had to crawl back out again as his shovel was the wrong way round and he didn’t have room to turn it over !!
I think you have to ask yourself if you would like to see a return to scenes like these.
When I go to the local hospital for my regular lung function test, check ups and CO2 readings I meet many people carrying oxygen cylinders, being pushed in wheelchairs with an air pump with constant pressure face mask and wonder why Maggie didn’t close the pits even earlier.
Just a thought
But could you not say coal was, or is, our most reliable form of energy,
We must be standing on millions of tons of the stuff (or just a couple of miles off shore) and the process for turning it into energy is well tried and tested.
The two main problems are that it has to mined by someone or something and according to the experts it is the dirtiest from of energy.
Tyneside
Imagine if the miners had won. What a monster would of been created. Where would we be now?
I was brought up in a Yorkshire mining village, Thurnscoe not too far from Grimethorpe (Grimley in Brassed Off) in the 1970s /80s and could not have wished for a happier childhood. It was a pre H & S heaven, chasing after the retired pit ponies in the fields, wading in the ditch waters, long summers running through the fields and snow that came down as black as soot in the winter. I feel robbed, robbed of my heritage thankyou very much Mrs Thatcher! My father, my uncles, my grandfather, his father and so on and so on all went underground and the closest I got was by visiting the National Mining Musuem. When I return to the area its rough, the pits employed directly and in directly 1000s of people, everybody knew everybody and you had pretty much a job for life when you left school. I do not fully know the wrongs and rights of the 1984 strike I was 11 years old and had a splendid time chopping trees down on the railway embankments and getting chased by British Rail Police. One of my school friends died digging for bits of coal on the railway embankments google Darren Holmes and Goldthorpe. I do remember my dad saying that no matter what Maltby was a Superpit and would not close as it still had reserves for over 30 years underground he was wrong it did close. Entire families and communities were devastated and will probably never recover. I lost my grandfather to pneumonia and dust on the lungs cant remember the name of it now, when they did the post mortem 50% of his lungs were filled with coal dust. it was a hard life back in the day and more tonnes of coal were probably dug in any of the at least 15 pubs in our village than were ever dug underground. The Govt had to win at whatever the cost and maybe they did maybe they didnt funny how a lot of the paperwork has been classified for over 100 years more than likely to make sure nobody is around to bring a case. I am so proud of my elders and will remain so, perhaps if the Union leaders had not been paid off the Nottinghamshire Miners would have striked and the story could have been very different. With modern technology coal can be cleaner and UK coal is finest coal in the world
I think losing the coal mines was a good thing.
Coal is on its way out. Sure Thatcher did not close the pits to help climate change but they needed to go.
No doubt in a few decades or less we will be facing the same moment when we are just not needed anymore due to automation. 
As much as I personally dislike it, it makes sense for the government if it can work effectively.
Thatcher’s actions were pure vindictive.She didn’t have time for the working classes anyway but was eager for revenge after the Miners defeated the Heath government.She deliberately stockpiled 2 years supply of coal knowing that the country could manage 2 years without coal and longer than a miner could manage without a wage or strike pay.She invited support from Notts miners and dumped on them too.
and then there was the steel industry.Ditto.Even now there are those in my area who would like to dig up Thatcher to make sure she’s dead.