Did the coal mines return a profit and was it cheaper to import coal ?

That's the problem with this lot tho,you could stick a red rosette on a baboon and they'd still vote for it ,times have changed but not for this lot

Talking of rosettes on baboon, just how well is Boris doing these days.
There are plenty of "true blue" Tories that would vote for the proverbial stuffed pig in a blue jacket.

Wakefield turning blue has shown that the generation has been reached that does not have a hard-wired memory of closing the coal mines. As soon as the heartlands reached the tipping point of being too young to specifically remember their core industries going (Its the same up in the North East just different industries), then their conservative instincts were there to exploit.

The lost labour wall are not going to suddenly have an epiphany and come back to Labour anytime soon. I don't have any sense that they regret their Conservative votes to any meaningful degree. However, as I've mentioned before there is a growing dissatisfaction with Johnson among his core traditional voters who feel, ironically, neglected and forgotten. Some of them will be going Liberal Democrat.

You may be right but, when inflation starts to rise and taxes also increase to pay for the pandemic, all those who were drawn in by the "levelling up" promise, will realise that they were sold (another) pup.
In the meantime It's up to Labour to sort themselves out and come up with some policies that have some appeal to the masses and not just bang on about those on benefits.
Of course "we" have to protect the poorest members of society but, there needs to be some "hope" for everyone.

The one certainty is that, should interest rates start to move, coupled with some tax increases, there will be a hell of a lot of people that feel the squeeze.

The national debt has pretty much doubled since 2007 and it will need to be brought down to a lower level.
Again, should interest rates rise, it will take some controlling.

People weren't drawn in by a leveling up promise ,itv was about Brexit and labours stance on it ,oh and that clown Corbyn and his shadow cabinet full of gompers

Not on this thread though eh

Think the lib dems could gain support but they need another Charles Kennedy type as leader ,somebody who can get their message across,the tories need a credible opposition which ain't coming from Labour anytime soon

Think the lib dems could gain support but they need another Charles Kennedy type as leader ,somebody who can get their message across,the tories need a credible opposition which ain't coming from Labour anytime soon

And could anybody answer my question about the coal mines ,did they return a profit and was it cheaper to import coal

The UK did import "cheaper" coal from Poland for a while and yes, some mines were profitable.
However, mining was seen as an essential core industry, an idea that went out of the window in the Thatcher era, when everything became about "the market".
Promises of cheaper, water, gas, electricity and the nationalised industries were all sold off for a quick buck.
How has this worked out ?

I agree we should never have sold the silverware, the working man made money from buying and then selling the shares, it helped to win her another term ,in my opinion we are paying a big price because of Thatcherism ,one the country will never recover from, it gave birth to the underclass

Might be wrong here but wasn't they sold off because they were all running at a massive loss aided by the unions.

There was certainly a desire to break the power that the Unions had and privatization of the utilities was seen as an effective way of doing so and it's fair to say that the policy was very effective in reducing the power of the Unions.

The loss making issue was a little less straight forward.

If government wants to cap prices for certain utilities, they would certainly have to "help" by increasing their financial input or, show a loss on the balance sheet.

Some of the price increases that we are seeing at the moment on gas/electric, would have very likely been "subsidised" under public ownership, something with just doesn't happen in the private sector.

Some would argue that the utilities were sold "on the cheap" to help curb the Unions and that many are now making hefty profits for overseas companies and on the face of it, that seems crazy.
Has privatisation been good or bad, well, I suppose it depends on your politics and who knows whether our bills would have been higher or lower under the previous regimes.
It was certainly simpler back in the day and you didn't have to worry about shopping around, exit clauses etc and you knw exactly who to contact when there was a problem

Scargill turned down an offer from Thatcher to invest £800 million (a Kings ransom in the early 80s) in viable pits. He turned it down because "not 1 pit will shut". A ridiculous position to take and designed to provoke confrontation.
A lot of people think it was Thatcher that engineered the strike. IMHO I think it was Scargill, he wanted to bring down an elected Tory government, just like his cronies did with Heath.

Scargill thought that Union power would win the day. He was wrong.

Scargill was right, he just went about it the wrong way.

Scargill thought the whole union movement would support the miners and cause a general strike - he was wrong and the writing was on the wall when Callaghan lost the election a big part of which was a desire of the general public to stop all the needless striking. Scargill lived in his own little commie bubble - sadly for all the members.

Unfortunately union members are just expendable collateral in the political struggle.

Interesting fact I would appreciate a source for that as never heard that before ?

Rubbish at that sort of stuff. Found an article about macregor in the guardian but it's scant on details. I'll keep trying but I saw it on a TV documentary and I'll try to find it.

And the country is a better place with weaker unions.

I took time out to attend Maggies Funeral. A great leader for the country at home and on the world stage.

Well at least Mark Thatcher, her despicable offspring , made billions out of her eco ness lol.

Closesest she got to eco is now, fertilising nettles

, all she’s fit for

It's funny because I've seen no end of right wing muppets moaning about poor wages and working conditions during the current staffing crisis. The morons have got what they deserve. Crap jobs with crap conditions paying crap money, and in competition with immigrants who are happy to do the job for even less. "Suck it up", as they say.

"Great Leader" Mmmmm, well, the casualties from her determination to smash the NUM (and Unions in general) left a hell of a lot of people "Up North" out of work with many places taking the next 30+ years to recover.

The only reason I can think of for attending her funeral would be to make sure she was in the box

Would that be her determination to smash the Num and the Steel industry and the rest of the state controlled industries that threatened to bring down the government of the day with they're outlandish demands and they're determination to hold the country to ransom, that is indeed very poor fare from her, what's the saying, do unto them before they do it to you, and lets not forget the rest of the working class what would have had to pay for all that because they weren't fortunate enough to have the same membership as all the bully boys, or indeed no union at all, job's for the boys but at what and whose expense