O/T The Price Of Coal 1977 BBC Drama

[Exiletyke]

Ffl
& nffo

[millmoormagic]

Could Thatcher have done more on climate change? Probably, but you have to bear in mind that the science was fairly new in 1989. In addition, you have to bear in mind that she was gone a year or so after giving the UN speech, as not being a very nice person caught up with her in the form of Geoffrey Howe. Perhaps she would have done more had she stayed in post. Trying to stay calm for ten seconds and trying to be objective in your response, had she survived the coup within the party and announced an accelerated pit closure programme to help to address climate change in say, the early 90s, would you have supported that or would you have denounced the science as a Tory trick and pushed for another strike?

On the question of doing more to address climate change, this site has recently seen a poster saying that he could easily do more, but declining to do so. I also noted your comments about pies on the 'Is football fixed' thread. Are the pies you enjoy climate friendly vegetarian ones?

The ‘bluff and bluster’ are figures coming from NCB accounts and from a Monopoly and Mergers Commission investigation into the coal industry. The industry was losing money hand over fist. That had to be addressed.

I agree that coal from South Africa would have been a concern given that country was an apartheid regime at the time, but Australia and America? Come on.

I agree that geological problems were not necessarily endless, but the Tories had nothing to do with the decision to close Maltby. It was owned at the time by Hargreaves Services Ltd, who had shelled out £21.7m for it in 2007. It wasn't an asset that they would lightly dispose off. Indeed, their share price took a serious kicking in the face of the problems:

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...ion-hitch.html

Your concerns that it could suit the Tories to cite geological problems bring me back to the question I asked earlier; if you think economic reasons were not behind the ending of the mining industry in the UK, what do you think was?

Shown yersen up again you intelligent person you....if the science was fairly new in 1989, it's pretty old now, wouldn't you say? In that case, how stupid is it of you to continue to supprt fracking, how irresponsibly stupid is that?

Secondly, you know if the science had been irrefutable, like it is right now(remember your support for fracking while you read this) and i still worked underground, i'd have quickly recognised that a responsible gov't would be strenuously looking for environmentally acceptable alternatives..and i'd have got out myself, and there's the difference between us, i can happily accept science and happy to move on, you're still stuck in your 1970's mindset of profit before planet, don't ever come at me with your condescending attitude to anyone who has the temerity to disagree with you, once again, you've proved yourself a pathetic hypocrite.

Ah, coming at me about pies now....you couldn't make it up....

You know that industry that was losing money over fist, and in a previous post mentioned £50M in subsidy, remind me agaiin, if you're so against subsidy, i suppose you were fully behind the reasons behind the subsidies for the banking industry, giving them money that far and above outweighs any amount gived to the coal industry........

You say 'come on' in regard to blood stained coal from the USA and Australia....i've previously told you, British mines were the safest in the world, because the union, US, wouldn't allow management to use dangerous practice....neither are(were) a patch on us in terms of safety....

[great_fire]

There's no economic argument for deep coal mining anymore when it can be imported far cheaper.

Same with manufacturing, China can produce everything cheaper so we buy everything from China, can't compete on labour costs.

Remember when all the cheap stuff came from Taiwan and Hong Kong? Their living standards went up and wages went up and so they couldn't produce goods cheap enough anymore and the PRC took over.

[gm_gm]

ragingpup

Please be really clear because I'm an idiot...

At last progress!

[millmoormagic]

There's no economic argument for deep coal mining anymore when it can be imported far cheaper.

Same with manufacturing, China can produce everything cheaper so we buy everything from China, can't compete on labour costs.

Remember when all the cheap stuff came from Taiwan and Hong Kong? Their living standards went up and wages went up and so they couldn't produce goods cheap enough anymore and the PRC took over.

There obviously is in China.....our penchant for buying coal (and anything else it seems)draped in blood continues, suppose you're happy with that, plainly...

Stop buying the Chinese shyte then.....typical of the hypocrites that are the tories...

[Exiletyke]

Could Thatcher have done more on climate change? Probably, but you have to bear in mind that the science was fairly new in 1989. In addition, you have to bear in mind that she was gone a year or so after giving the UN speech, as not being a very nice person caught up with her in the form of Geoffrey Howe. Perhaps she would have done more had she stayed in post. Trying to stay calm for ten seconds and trying to be objective in your response, had she survived the coup within the party and announced an accelerated pit closure programme to help to address climate change in say, the early 90s, would you have supported that or would you have denounced the science as a Tory trick and pushed for another strike?

On the question of doing more to address climate change, this site has recently seen a poster saying that he could easily do more, but declining to do so. I also noted your comments about pies on the 'Is football fixed' thread. Are the pies you enjoy climate friendly vegetarian ones?

The ‘bluff and bluster’ are figures coming from NCB accounts and from a Monopoly and Mergers Commission investigation into the coal industry. The industry was losing money hand over fist. That had to be addressed.

I agree that coal from South Africa would have been a concern given that country was an apartheid regime at the time, but Australia and America? Come on.

I agree that geological problems were not necessarily endless, but the Tories had nothing to do with the decision to close Maltby. It was owned at the time by Hargreaves Services Ltd, who had shelled out £21.7m for it in 2007. It wasn't an asset that they would lightly dispose off. Indeed, their share price took a serious kicking in the face of the problems:

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...ion-hitch.html

Your concerns that it could suit the Tories to cite geological problems bring me back to the question I asked earlier; if you think economic reasons were not behind the ending of the mining industry in the UK, what do you think was?

"Your concerns that it could suit the Tories to cite geological problems bring me back to the question I asked earlier; if you think economic reasons were not behind the ending of the mining industry in the UK, what do you think was?"



Vindictiveness, spite, revenge for the Heath defeat,Ideology, dislike of the working class,maintaining the status quo of those with power/wealth
They should do for starters

[ragingpup]

At last progress!

At least I admit it!

[animallittle3]

Just found this on YouTube from the 1972 strike centred around Clipstone Colliery near Mansfield .

It's a little fazy in parts but stick with it and take note of the irony 12 years later .

A real eye opener .



https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lx72L9PoxYI

[KerrAvon]

Shown yersen up again you intelligent person you....if the science was fairly new in 1989, it's pretty old now, wouldn't you say? In that case, how stupid is it of you to continue to supprt fracking, how irresponsibly stupid is that?

Secondly, you know if the science had been irrefutable, like it is right now(remember your support for fracking while you read this) and i still worked underground, i'd have quickly recognised that a responsible gov't would be strenuously looking for environmentally acceptable alternatives..and i'd have got out myself, and there's the difference between us, i can happily accept science and happy to move on, you're still stuck in your 1970's mindset of profit before planet, don't ever come at me with your condescending attitude to anyone who has the temerity to disagree with you, once again, you've proved yourself a pathetic hypocrite.

Ah, coming at me about pies now....you couldn't make it up....

You know that industry that was losing money over fist, and in a previous post mentioned £50M in subsidy, remind me agaiin, if you're so against subsidy, i suppose you were fully behind the reasons behind the subsidies for the banking industry, giving them money that far and above outweighs any amount gived to the coal industry........

You say 'come on' in regard to blood stained coal from the USA and Australia....i've previously told you, British mines were the safest in the world, because the union, US, wouldn't allow management to use dangerous practice....neither are(were) a patch on us in terms of safety....

You’ve certainly said that British mines were the safest in the world and I’m sure that you believe it, but do you have any comparative figures to demonstrate it?

You didn’t directly answer the question I asked about your likely response to the Tories had Thatcher used climate change as a justification for an accelerated mine closure programme in the 90s. I think we both know the answer though. At what point did the science become irrefutable for you?

I mentioned a £50m subsidy to coal customers not to switch to oil in 1980. I also mentioned that as coal became less and less able to cover its costs, NCB annual losses had grown to £875m per year - £2.3m per day – by 1982/83 with only two areas out of twelve showing a profit. The industry was a financial basket case requiring ever more taxpayers money to keep its head afloat and pay wages. As I said earlier, the question was then whether it should continue to be supported as some sort of expensive job creation scheme. I think we both know the answer to that too.

I see no comparison between the decision to end the NCB’s dependence on the tax payer and the decision to partially nationalise certain banks in response to the consequences of the credit crunch. Banking is an everyday requirement of business and individuals and allowing large sections of it to collapse would have created chaos. Without action, we would have been reduced to trade by barter. As I think I have mentioned above, I think that the decisions made by Brown and Darling were correct and timely. The better questions around the position that the banks found themselves in are whether regulators should ever have allowed them to become ‘too big to fail’ and over extended and whether enough action has been taken to avoid a repetition.

[KerrAvon]

@ raging Good things come to those who wait.

I’m not sure the figures that you copy and pasted help you that much. As the (Left leaning) think thank that you are quoting chose to use data from 1956 onwards, they are dealing with three periods of notional Labour government 1964 to 70, 1974 to 79 and 1997 to 2010.

As mentioned above, 1997 to 2010 has to be disregarded, as we are constantly told that it wasn’t ‘real’ Labour government and Blair has, in effect, been denounced as a counter-revolutionary. Of the remaining 11 years, Labour was, in effect, under the supervision of the IMF from 1976 to 1979 (they were required to slash their spending in response to the huge loan they needed from that body after the Left of the party had refused to agree to cuts). So you are talking about 8 years of ‘real’ Labour government in 53 years, with those 8 years ending in the need for the biggest loan that the IMF had ever given. Cool.

Turning to the new Labour policy of seizing 10% of every decent sized company, I would begin that I welcome any policy that tends to increase the ‘stake’ that workers have in the business that they work for. Such stakeholding can only help to encourage increased productivity, company performance and improved relationships between employer and employee. Employee share option schemes such as those described by animal have to be a good thing.

Unfortunately, what Labour has rolled out as a policy has nothing to do with worker ownership – it’s a part nationalisation. The supposed worker ownership element of the scheme is entirely illusory. The employees don’t own the shares, - they can’t dispose of them, they gain no benefit from a rise in share price, they don’t share in the risk of a fall in price and their supposed ‘ownership’ mysteriously evaporates when they leave the employment of the company.

Even the Guardian can see through the scheme (albeit they are polite and call it too complicated as opposed to a complete con-trick):

https://www.theguardian.com/business...hare-ownership

It’s a part nationalisation that is potentially very profitable to Mr McDonnell. The Guardian uses Lloyds Banking Group as an example, but I like Shell - the darling of the UK stock exchange. When McDonnell gets his hands on 10% of that company (irrespective of whether ownership is notionally vested in workers committees or whatever they will be called), he will get, on current performance, £1.2bn in dividends every year. Now let’s assume that the workers committee votes to give all of the 6500 UK Shell workers the maximum £500 pay-out. That means that McDonnell gets to trouser £1.1bn. Nice.

And, of course, the current owners of businesses will react to the idea of McDonnell seizing 10% of their capital. The current plan is that the 10% asset grab will apply to UK publically listed companies with 250 or more employees, so the obvious responses are to rebase outside the UK (shareholders have just defeated and attempt to rebase Unilever in the Netherlands – I think they might have a quick change of heart if McDonnell gets near their assets), take the company private (which means a deal more opacity about their finances) , or make sure that the company does not have more than 249 UK employees (go figure).

Within your post you stated I note that you haven't really mentioned how this scheme might improve productivity, focusing instead on a one dimensional tabloidic "they're hitting the rich" response.

I didn’t mention how the scheme might improve productivity because it won’t. How does partially nationalising a company and bunging its workers (from shop floor to boardroom) £500 per year do that? Was the fully nationalised coal industry a model of good performance and harmonious industrial relations?

As for hitting the rich, I am saddened that you are reduced to such a ridiculous comment. I have said nothing about hitting the rich. Who do you think owns the companies that are going to be part nationalised? I know that MMM thinks that they are whoilly owned by people living in the Bahamas (and some may be), but that bears no resemblance to the actual position. Many of the shares are held by institutional investors on behalf of pension schemes to provide growth and a returns for ordinary working people, rich and not rich. I note that you are in the public sector. Are you a member of a nice defined benefit scheme that isn’t dependent upon investment performance? Nice if you can get it.