The reasons the mines closed were fundamentally economic but also because they had a union that felt it owed nothing to democracy. It rightfully had to be annihiliated. Any would be minners should look to their union leaders.

To be honest miners always moaned about how awful and danerous (although less so than the building industry of the time) the job was so they should be happy the pits closed and they and their kids have easier jobs.

12,000 approx redundancies under the Labour governments for miners.

How many under Thatcher.

If you are going to try to be clever using selective stats you should be more careful

If thats anecdotal then I believe you're wrong, I worked in the building industry in the 1970s and given the choice of being on a building site or down a mine I know which I'd prefer.

Being a miner and/or having a pit in your locality wasn't just about swinging an axe against a coal face though, in fact not many did that job - having a pit in your community meant a variety of jobs for (mainly) the male population and an opportunity for many young lads to have apprenticeships in many different trades, electricians, plumbing, bricklaying, hydraulics, ventilation, mechanical engineers, dozens of trades worked at every pit and not all of them underground - thats a huge gap to fill when you take it out of a community and when you replace a colliery with an industrial estate, pay the industries that move in to locate there and then find out that all of the jobs are for warehouse pickers (J41 Wakefield) then you've dealt those tradesmen a huge dis-service.

'Facts surrounding' does not appear to be a trendy consideration on this thread, given that the 'facts surrounding' the closure of pits under Margaret Thatcher included such examples as her original intention to close only 20 loss making mines, Arthur Scargill taking the miners out on illegal strikes, moving monies abroad, etc, etc. Those are examples of facts but they do not seem to be taken into consideration when discussing this topic so why should I take any 'facts surrounding' the closure of mines under Wilson into consideration?

I wasn't using selective stats. I was responding directly to a comment about the number of pit closures under Wilson with the number of pits closed under Wilson. How is that being selective?

ah, stats. the only ones i could find were these

rlhttp://www.ncm.org.uk/docs/collections-documents/statistics-in-mining.pdf?sfvrsn

when was wilson? 64-70? sodding hell, he obliterated the miners didn't he.

then you pick that period. the only person whoever gets blamed for destroying the miners, probably eating their babies too, is thatcher. yet when you actually look at the figures you have to ask why as there's others before her who went miles further than she ever did. i've come to the conclusion it's because she was a woman.

who's truth? yours? is this the same truth that says she also destroyed the manufacturing industry?

Up and at 'em today. Gonna be emotional. Didn't start off too well for me - my blue y-fronts don't fit me anymore.

Gonna cruise around Stockport in my blue VW Jetta with the windows wound down and The Notsensibles blasting out. Then back to my massive house for the TV fest.

Rest In Peace Maggie, the nation waves goodbye lovingly today.

Your conclusion, as usual, is wrong.

The answer to your question is, as has been pointed out several times, contained in the previous pages of this thread and we don't need to go over them again just because you fail to address them and because they don't suit your football supporter style of political blind allegiance.

Just simply absorb this - in the sheet of stats that you produced, removing all political traces and blame, the number of pits and of miners in this country has fallen over any time frame that you care to choose - read the preceding pages of this thread to discover why ...

Just to add balance.

Rot in Pieces you war mongering fascist cow.

The eulogising ends today.
Such a shame.

The good news is that overnight a hardwood stake was driven into her heart so she wont be coming back.

LOL - Francis Maude on TV this morning trying to force down the estimates of the cost of the funeral by explaining that you shouldn't factor in the cost of the 700 armed forces lining the route because "they are already on the payroll" and we'd have to pay their wages whether they stood there or not.

Yes Francis, because thats how accountancy works isn't it, "We shouldn't include the cost of these lathes and this factory because we'd have to pay for them even if we weren't producing all of these parts" - I look forward to all of the Premier League football clubs using the same theory when they refuse to pay their huge policing bills...

HOUSE!