12 Mar 2009 The 1984 Miners' Strike and the Death of Industrial Britain Lord Kinnock discusses the dramatic events of the miners strike and consider their lasting legacy on working Britain.
A hindsight speech, back 40 years ago when tensions were high and decisions had to be made, Labour abandoned the miners, and selectively cut the trade union umbilical cords when it suited them. Damaged beyond repair, paying the price today
Why? Coal is mined commercially in over 50 countries. 7,921 million metric tons (Mt) of coal were produced in 2019, a 70% increase over the 20 years since 1999.Coal production has grown fastest in Asia, while Europe has declined. Since 2011, world coal production has been stable, with decreases in Europe and US offset by increases from China, Indonesia and Australia. The big problem with closing down industries is job loses, a lack of jobs to replace them, working in the service industry like in retail on much lower wages was not the right replacement for former miner's. Mining was skilled decently paid job for the working class now well paid jobs in skilled roles like manfacturing jobs are few and far between, now it's all about low paid work in the service industry.
I know he did but, Thatcher did this to destroy the unions more widely and manfacturing in general, with no good paid jobs replaced, so skilled working class had to work in service industry or be unemployed in many cases, record unemployment by the mid 80's thanks to Thatcher. @@JamesRichards-mj9kw
Guff from Kinnock. Scargill didn't start the strike, it was already happening in Scotland and elsewhere. Basically, it was a time to decide where you stand, and Kinnock chose to stand with the enemies of the NUM.
The big problem with closing down industries is job loses, a lack of jobs to replace them, working in the service industry like in retail on much lower wages was not the right replacement for former miner's. Mining was skilled decently paid job for the working class now well paid jobs in skilled roles like manfacturing jobs are few and far between, now it's all about low paid work in the service industry.
Like or dislike margaret thatcher it matters not but she was a leader and thats what this country needed at the time ..i wish we had a leader today september 2023 in this country unfortunately we have not
I Would Say To Neil Kinnock This. Everything Arthur Scargill Said Came True And Instead Of Speaking About A National Ballot Why Didn’t Labour & TUC Come Out And Support The NUM At It’s Time Of Greatest Need.
Because it might not of came true if he had a ballot, he would've had the support of the Notts miners and the Labour party and would of been able to gain TUC support to allow other unions to strike in support, especially the steel unions and the transport unions.
As Kinnock said Thatcher never underestimate Scargill but Scargill underestimate Thatcher. She fought more dirtier than him and won because she had a plan already gave the miners a pay rise in 1981 Scargill thought yes in my pocket like heath . But every one said in her cabinet why do it . She said not strong enough he can wait and she built coal reserves up got the police to know where the flying pickets we're going on primitive computers but done the job . There was only ever going to be one winner . And what people over see is Scargill could and should could have got his members the best pay out deal ever in the trade union movement .yes whole communitys gone but least there house was paid off should have been . But went down the road of trying to bring Thatcher down and the government biggest mistake ever
From what I have read in the history books this is not true Thatcher wanted a confutation with the unions as the coal union was the strongest in the UK she choose them, upped police pay so they went harder on strikers and stockpiled coal to prepare, then announced coal mine closure and provoked them into acting, them aimed to use divide and rule tactics as Conservatives often do. Defeating this union meant she could easily defeat other unions which were weaker. Miners had skilled jobs those other jobs available for those who lost their jobs were mainly low paid jobs in the service industry and the likes of Meadowhall, poverty also increased during the 1980's
Labour was too far left and too naive in 84. Scargill thought he could repeat the victory of unions in the 70s bringing the Tories down, but Thatcher was ready and had planned accordingly. The rest is history, and Kinnock recognised this, hence his stance back then.
And yet after 40 years of the Tories' spiv mate asset stripping the country and repeated financial crashes the British peasant just keeps sucking it up
What he says right at the end is for me the proof why Kinnock "was not available" to attend Baroness Thatcher's funeral. "Already planned to attend the funeral of a local councillor in Wales." was the official statement.
I worked in the Power Industry at the time of the miners Strike at a Coal Fired power Station. The Agecroft Pit across the road kept producing coal with only 30% of the staff. Output doubled. We had so much coal you couldn't see out of the windows. £46 per tonne. Australian Open Cast Low Sulphur Coal was £11/tonne delivered to Tilbury. Nationalised industry needed sorting
The strike was about jobs and community. Thatcher set out to break the unions and succeeded. It changed Britain irrevocably and for the worse. Every country with strong unions sees workers paid better wages, obviously. Without strong unions there is no-one to fight for them, which is one of the reasons why inequality has widened so dramatically in Britain, the most unequal country in Europe in 2023 except Bulgaria. Thatcher destroyed society no matter what her defenders like to pretend. Her project to transfer wealth from the majority to the rich was a runaway success on its own terms but the price paid by society has been incalculable. Privatisation has been a total disaster, with shareholder value driving business instead of quality of service. It is hugely ironic that the sewage issue is likely to cost the Tories dearly at the next election- it would not have happened if water had not been privatised. Even most Tory voters support re-nationalisation of the railways. Consumers have not benefitted from privatisation- higher prices have hit them in the pocket for decades. We have the highest rail fares in Europe and dreadful service.
@@eightiesmusic1984 Aussie coal was also cut from open cast mines..another thing if the industry needed to be run down..it could have been done in a planned long term way.
@@eightiesmusic1984 Right argument, wrong example to make the argument. Unionism can't save unprofitable or archaic industries, and Scargill's self-destructive nonsense was just as harmful to trade unionism as Thatcher. He didn't care about the miners, he was getting high on playing his games of revolutionary toy soldiers.
@@kailashpatel1706 Hard to talk about "long term" when imported coal was so much cheaper. Taxpayer money was being used to prop up a inefficient and unprofitable industry.
@@zippymufo9765 you need to grasp how poor investment in those industries (even one with rich coal seams across the UK) was undermining the industry's potential (South Wales had huge seams) even so at the time the British coal output was cheaper than in Europe but the nationalised industries had external polices pursued towards it which curtailed their potential
By 1984, Labour had lost the 1983 election, and was seen as too far left. Kinnock could not support Scargill because he was trying to move Labour more to the centre. Despite that, he was right not to help Scargill, who was a die-hard Marxist, and who had made the strike into a political action. Kinnock had the intelligence and vision not to help him.
Kinnock sold out the mine workers. It just sounds like pure cowardice from him. Scargill didn't need to make it political. Strikes are political. The Labour Party failed to stand up for the very people who created the Labour Party. (The Unions).
@@kb4903 Some of them would be, yes, technology would have moved on as he said. Mine work is a perfectly good job, what do you do little fella? Pontificate on the internet in the most deindustrialised, privatised, hyper financialised husk in the Western world?
very interesting, I was in the 1984 strike as a BACM union member, as a Nightshift Undermanger. Kinock is correct in his analysis. To add detail confirming his appraisal of the support of other unions, I was present when NACODS, were working and the NUM were picking, and tried cohesion and had the opposite effect, because they had not had a ballot!
NACODS members voted by over 80% to join the strike, but their leaders accepted a deal to rescind this. The strike would probably have won had this vote been respected by the NACODS leadership
@@chasmac4055 Precisely. The strike was in the balance at this point and even the stockpiling of coal would not have been decisive if NACODS had gone on strike. Scargill was right in everything he said. It is absurd that his opponents always resort to generalisations and cliches to undermine him, such as ' he was a Marxist'. So what? Nothing wrong with being a Marxist- it was always seen as part of politics in many other countries. People are so immature in Britain. To my mind Scargill is a working class hero and history will vindicate him. It already has, really.
He is gracious enough to admit himself that he was a failure in terms of elections - but he did gradually improve Labour's standing and laid a lot of the groundwork for the 1997 victory. The party he bequeathed to John Smith after the 1992 defeat was in far beter shape than the one he inherited from Michael Foot in 1983.
@@MarkHarrison733 I don't totally disagree with that, but I think it's an over-simplification. Labour was actually elected a number of times before 'abandoning socialism', as you put it, in 1995. The thing I admired about Kinnock was that he lived in the real world. After Foot, who was an honourable but naive man, he accepted that, if Labour were to become electable again, they would have to adapt to a changing world in which ordibary people had different aspirations for themselves and their families.That process inevitablly took a long time; Kinnock worked tirelessly and paved the way for later success, John Smith continued the work, and Blair made the decisive break. To be fair to him, Blair always acknowledged the debt he owed to Smith and Kinnock.
@@MarkHarrison733 Again, you have a point, but I think that's also an over-simplification. I suspect that many people simply thought that there had already been enough of a change in 1990, when Major replaced Thatcher, and were not quite ready to trust Labour and believe that the reforms Kinnock had made were genuine. Five more years of Tory government and the arrival of Blair on the scene certainly did the trick, though :-)
Even all these years later Kinnock still waffles on without actually saying anything of substance. He was a disaster for the Labour party, a two time loser, and is still a disaster now.
He's right what he says, especially about the disastrous decision not to have a ballot. However he didn't say that 30 years ago for fear of splitting the Labour Party.
The seaside industry was screwed in the sixties when the miners decided to spend their money in Benidorm instead of Blackpool. Then mines were screwed in the eighties when the few remaining B&Bs decided to use gas and not coal. WHAT GOES ROUND COMES ROUND.
@Dyn y Jawa Do you realise how idiotic your statement is? Are you seriously suggesting that seaside bed and breakfast lodging houses displaced 75 million tonnes of deep mined coal by 1985, on top of a 18 million tonnes from open cast? Really??
@@tracybeckett4107 What killed the mines was the environment and the fact that they did not want to use coal any longer. Unions, politicians should have come together with a plan to retrain the miners in other fields . But the fact that the Conservatives and the unions hated one another spelled the end for the mines. Also the NUM felt there was a chance to bring down Thatcher administration as they had with the Heath administration with the three day week and endless strikes . A very depressing state of affairs
Aberfan was a disaster and Wales should have a statue of young children holding hands with a mother and father in Cardiff to remind them of what happened
They have a sculpture nearby aberfan called the aberfan angel. Exactly where the statue should be in the valley where the tragedy happened, not in Cardiff 40 minutes away.
Looking back on the death of the mining industry in Western Europe I wonder that if is would have been kept alive, maybe Ukraine would still be in peace today
@@ShahidKhan-ke8fe You are right in a sense. But I do believe that if the money for coal would have stayed in Britain, or Germany or elsewhere instead of going to Saudi Arabia we wouldnt have decidedly less problems including not enough funding for green energy
