Thatcher

[gulliver1]

Boris is now claiming that Thatcher gave the U/K an early start in Climate Change, by closing the coal mines down..... Absolute rubbish coming from Boris as usual....
.......Thatcher took the miners on because she Hated Scargill and the working class.

[ToraToraTora]

It's TGL to you, she does deserve credit for chinning Scargill of course and yes pits were closed by the Tories but the real credit for closing pits must go to Labour.

[ToraToraTora]

...She took on the miners because unions were running the country and needed a good sound slapping down and boy did she do that wonderfully. Cheers MrsT for the memories. I loved the 80s the most wonderful decade.

[davebro]

I think most people hated Scargill!

[gulliver1]

12.43 OK have it your way "TGL" = "The Ghastly Lady".

[ToraToraTora]

I wondered what anti British lefty eejit would pick this story up, I suppose I should have known! PMSL!

[gulliver1]

Boris has done his usual chicken turn......(U Turn to the radicalised)....
He recognises the damage and huge impact and pain that closing the coal mines had, to communities across the UK.......( liar ).

[naomi24]

Gulliver, Labour closed far more mines than the Conservatives.

[Gromit]

It was a joke.

We replaced goal with gas for pwer generation, so it had no effect on our use of fossil fuel.

[Deskdiary]

Naomi at 1.49pm - it’s funny isn’t it, how that is an inconvenient truth whenever the mines are discussed, an inconvenient truth that it always ignored by those who spit their bile against Thatcher.

[Spicerack]

Mrs Thatcher weaponised the early global warming nonsense in her battle with the miners.
Common knowledge, innit?

[Untitled]

Thatcher was commendably among the earliest conservatives to warn about climate change though she did not remain in power for much longer after she did so… she had a science background and had a better grasp of the issue than most tories then or now (and her religious/social convictions did not prevent her from caring about the problem as they did with AIDS). When people like ymb say that support for green policies is non-tory then they are being dishonest… it is clearly possible to be a green tory:

https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107817

Closing our coal mines was undoubtedly a net positive for the environment because coal is a dirty resource… though it was done in extremely cruel and socially destructive way with little regard for the communities left behind… it is disingenuous to say that Labour closed more: Labour and Tories closed hundreds of pits over 1945-1979 but both did so gradually and carefully to reduce harm without removing he economic backbone of individual communities…Thatcher rapidly closed 115 in a few years and in such a manner that was absolutely devastating to places like Yorkshire…

Unfortunately i think humanity has let the environmental problem get so bad that we are about out of time for gentle solutions… the responses we’ll be forced to take to the climate issue will make Thatcherism look like a picnic.

[Gromit]

Thatcher was a Chemist and understood the science of global warming.
Not sure that was her motive in crushing the NUM though.

[jourdain2]

Boris was unwise to mention this. Emotions have been stirred that should have been left alone.

[emmie]

truth be told it was MacMIllan who closed most pits, but Labour came a close second. Or so i read recently.

[emmie]

The one who closed the most pits in one 6 year term from 1957 to 1963 was Harold Macmillan (Conservative) with 246, and ‘nobody noticed’, not even me until I researched the figures. Kellingley in North Yorkshire was the last deep mine in Britain and closed in December 2015 bringing to an end at least 1,000 years of underground coal mining.

[naomi24]

Emmie, labour closed more than the conservatives.

[10ClarionSt]

Thatcher was a despotical tyrant who deliberately ruined the manufacturing base of this country, to the benefit of her husbands cronies, and to the detrement of millions of people who she knew would face years and years of hardship. Some areas have never recovered. She should have been hanged in Parliament Square for treason. She did more harm to the industry of this country than Adolf Hitler ever did. But some people profited from it. They must have done, otherwise they wouldn't say she was of any use.

[dannyk13]

https://www.conservativehome.com/leftwatch/2013/04/wilson-closed-more-coal-mines-than-thatcher.html