I had the luxury - like most on here - of witnessing the unions abusing their privilege and duty to workers they represent in the 1970s. It was they who gave us the three day week, blackouts, the collapse of the Heath government, the strong-arming of the Callaghan administration into the dismal Winter of Discontent. It was they who gave us Thatcher, it was they who corrupted the Labour Party with militants and extended her reign just like Corbyn has given us Johnson and his bulletproof grip on power now.
Scargill was socialism's last death rattle and unfortunately it took a lot of unfortunate, grafting, decent individuals with it. He was a vainglorious, hypocritical, deluded bastard who failed in his duty to achieve universal consensus to strike, and as said, then went on to weaponise those people he claimed to represent in a civil war against the tory government and it's enforcement methods. The mining industry was a sucking black hole of economic doom, and had been for decades. He tried to use those people for political gain, not for their rights to keep working in an industry which was finished. And he failed ... and failed those poor fuckers whose lives he impoverished and wrecked. He also finished the union movement too. Reform was badly needed and inevitable.
So aligning our dismal failures against a far better football team is pathetic. Dragging deep-seated hatreds and misconceived opinions forward is similarly daft, especially when the outcomes of Thatcher's period in power saw the country stabilise and grow and eventually shift track from loss making manufacturing to profitable services. And before people start, we would be nowhere with regard competitive advantage if we'd continued in the manufacturing industries of the past. Coal, for example, was 25% more expensive than overseas sources and the steel industry, something very close to all our hearts, was being outstripped on every front by Scandinavian and far eastern imports.
pommpey
