O/T The Price Of Coal 1977 BBC Drama

[rolymiller]

Its a good life if you can get it Exile...

[villamiller]

To be fair ,I started my working life as an apprentice fitter at maltby colliery .... and to be honest I loved it ...it was the best apprenticeship available ..the work ethic was unbelievable....commradery,team work and the vision of the management was in fact unbelievable .....some of the engineering that was undertaking underground was in fact breathtaking ....british coal as it were then were far in front of many industries now ....set me up for life .....and I thank british coal for that .........
And the pension is also good

[Brin]

To be fair ,I started my working life as an apprentice fitter at maltby colliery .... and to be honest I loved it ...it was the best apprenticeship available ..the work ethic was unbelievable....commradery,team work and the vision of the management was in fact unbelievable .....some of the engineering that was undertaking underground was in fact breathtaking ....british coal as it were then were far in front of many industries now ....set me up for life .....and I thank british coal for that .........
And the pension is also good

Save a bit to pay me out on the goals prediction thingy at the end of the season

Do you want to drop me a pound again to see if we can't bag the 50/50 again?

[KerrAvon]

Your take is, as ever, an error ridden ignorant pro tory biased piece of bull, you have no idea, none whatsoever the feelings before the strike, after the strike, in between the strike, or about people's feelings in general, you're a very linear, sad individual in my opinion.

"Whatever they achieved" wow, what a blase don't give a crap attitude you have, some of the finest people this country has ever produced have been from the trade union and labour movement, with achievements to envy of the world, achievements you and your tory cohorts are steadily stripping away, shame on you, shame on anyone who could possibly vote for the vindictive tory party which has no concern for ordinary folk, none. Working class people voting for them are just like turkeys at xmas.....

Ok, so your brown coal allegation was made up. Would you now like to point out where I wouldn't accept that we have to act now on climate change? I recall trying to explain to Roly several times that we need to act rather than simply make bland statements about ways that we could act. He thought it 'fascist' of me to do so.

I understand that you still have strong feelings about the miners strike, but we are more than thirty years on and we ought to be able to have a rational and objective discussion about it.

Can you tell me where my assessment was error ridden? Can we agree on these basic facts:

1. The constitution of the NUM regulated the relationship between that union and its members. The members paid their subs and we're entitled to the benefits of membership in return.
2. The NUM constitution provided that a national strike could be called only after a secret ballot of the entire membership.
3. No national ballot was held. At the time Scargill said that he wasn't willing to have the fate of threatened pits determined by workers in 'safe' areas. Writing since, Ken Livingstone says that Scargill was scared that the membership might have rejected a national ballot, which may be the same thing.
4. In the absence of a national ballot, the strike was not a national strike, resulting in the absence of the solidarity that was required to turn the lights of.
5. In other words, in the absence of a national ballot, some areas continued to work, making 'victory' impossible.
6. The NUM tried to prevent the miners who chose to work from doing so by arranging extensive picketing - thus setting miner against miner - working man against working man.
7. The picketing failed resulting in the dispute turning into a water of attrition that the strikers could never win but, as animal points out it still ran long after that would have been apparent.
8. Working miners had to take the NUM to court to stop it misapplying funds.

I'm happy to hear an alternative interpretation. For my part, I would simply observe that something had gone badly wrong in a union that denied it's members their rights, set working man against working man and left members needing to take the union to court to prevent their funds from being misappropriated. Who needs Victorian management attitudes and behaviours when a union behaves like that?

[KerrAvon]

Well I'll start with Bevan the brains behind the NHS and the envy of the world. A keen Trade Unionist in his time. No, but hang on, we can't count that because Kerr wont use it and his pals are determined to pull it apart anyway...

Ok. Bevan. Are you talking about the whole man or are you going to be doing an airbrush job on the inconvenient bits? The first bit to go would have to be his support for Oswald Mosely's 'Mosely Memorandum'. Curiously the use of protectionist tarrifs proposed in the memorandum would strike a chord with Trump supporters today. The next bit to be brushed out would have to be his strong opposition to the rearmament program put in place by Chamberlain in response to the growing threat from Hitler. One can only assume that Bevan saw no risk there.

As for the NHS and Welfare State, Bevan only worked on that as a politician, not a union man, so I don't really see it's relevance. It's like a Tory listing Margaret Thatcher as a great chemist or barrister.

Perhaps most importantly, can Bevan said to be the brains behind the NHS given that it was first proposed by the Tory MP, Henry Willink in 1944 with the publication of the White Paper entitled 'A National Health Service'? In other words, Bevan didn't even come up with the name...

Who have you got as number two?

[rolymiller]

See there's no cases to work on again kerr. You really do have a cushy number or do you have a number at all?. Our lass grumbles about me being on here all the time but at least i have an excuse with being retired. its difficult to see how you can spend so much time on here but yet hold down such a supposedly stressful/ time consuming job. Exile had this about right.I think you have been conning us all along with your so called profession and fair play to you because you have had us fooled. You are no more a lawyer than I am the prime minister. A kempo style tactic hiding behind a supposedly high powered job is a good way to give your views respectability.

The"I am not a tory" stuff is also nonsense. Not once do you criticise Tory policies instead just laying into Labour policies. it just doesn't add up at all. You are probably not even a millers fan either because you rarely comment on them either.

Whenever anybody asks any searching questions of you, you come out with the "I am not going to tell you because that is my right". Its a sort of shield, not exposing your underbelly because you know that would leave you open to attack. It's a clever trick but people on here are not fooled. You really are not worth debating with and ignoring what you put on here would be a better option for MMadsters like we do with IBS. Hmm IBS? Now there's a thought...

[KerrAvon]

Ok. I'm going for Dave Spart as number two. Kept me laughing for years.

[great_fire]

NHS "the envy of the world"

Really?

Worst health system in western europe in actuality.

[rolymiller]

It probably is now because its been wrecked.

[animallittle3]

NHS "the envy of the world"

Really?

Worst health system in western europe in actuality.

It's not the envy of the world fire but you are very disrespectful to call it the worst health system in western europe .

Disrespectful to the staff who perform bloody miracles to treat you working within the current climate .

You might want to research how much health care costs you in the US and what you get for your buck , you'll need to find 5k out of your income every year to have any kind of decent treatment .

In fact there's nothing to stop you funding your own healthcare in this country if you believe the service is so poor , you have that choice .

Low tax economies come with strings attached fire .