What a load of crap, any pit could be reopened if it was what was needed and profit making but it would not be so thats why its closed plus hardly good for the enviroment is it

It's cheaper to get it from other European countries. Apparently the last mining company going gives £1000 a shift to its workers, so it's no wonder.

Loyaulte..............................Is right re maintenance of mines. However, despite heavy investment coal mining was expensive and not very profitable.
Labour would have loved to do what Thatcher did but because the Unions had their balls in an iron grip could not do so.

Unfortunately in 1979 when the Conservatives won power again, the country was in an unbelievable mess: Horrendous financial state, in debt up to our ears with the IMF, the £ worth very little on World stage, hundreds & hundreds of corpses waiting to be buried, the streets littered with rubbish because of strikes. The Unions openly boasting they would bring the Government crashing down, public sector spending at record levels..................................sounds more like a job for Superman rather than a female Prime Minister. I feel dreadfully sorry for the miners, their families and communities but people need to look closer to home for someone to blame. If the Unions had not been taken over by totally left wing people with communist connections, then more right minded people in charge might have negotiated a better resolution.

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Currently 30% of the electricity we use is generated from coal-fired power stations and UK Coal supplies the fuel that makes 6% of the country’s electricity. This means that 70% of the coal used to generate the nation’s energy is imported from places such as Russia, South Africa and Colombia.

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We should get people on benefits into the mines, mine the coal and sell it to other countries.

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TOORS.....................We should get people on benefits into the mines, mine the coal and sell it to other countries.
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I trust this comment was tongue in cheek?

Mining is a highly skilled & not to forget a brave occupation.

The worst thing we ever did was to stop conscription, a period of discipline and character building was what some of our younger generation needed in the 70's & 80's!

comment by Genius Greaves (supporting Luís Andr&ea... (U1302) posted 40 minutes ago
TOORS.....................We should get people on benefits into the mines, mine the coal and sell it to other countries.
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I trust this comment was tongue in cheek?

Mining is a highly skilled & not to forget a brave occupation.

The worst thing we ever did was to stop conscription, a period of discipline and character building was what some of our younger generation needed in the 70's & 80's!
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Yeah, it was, however it would be a wake up call to them. Highly skilled jobs can be learned, with experience and the right support. There have been many government schemes to get people into work, this would be a great opportunity. I'm sure many would be even willing to do it and you wouldn't have to pay them £1000 a shift.

Conscription in the army you mean? That's a difficult one for me, I believe in free will but I do see the benefits of it for some people who are too lazy to do anything and need a life lesson early before it's too late.

Hey, let's do farming next

In all seriousness and vastly oversimplyfying things, it's all our faults. We want more things, we want them better, more quickly, and we want to pay less. This drives decisions that we later moan about and lead us to complain that life was so much better back in the day.

Now when those robots get savvy.........

Good chat, I'll leave you to it.

Genius - I am afraid that you are totally wrong with regards to the profitability of the pits as Thatcher & McGregor said that The Tower Colliery in Hirwaun was uneconomic yet the miners proved this theory wrong so please read the following article :-

http://www.gaianeconomics.org/tower.htm

Also please read this :-

http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Margaret-Thatcher-caused-devastation-won-t/story-18652511-detail/story.html#axzz2Q9TG0nPC

Surely havind read this information you will see that any Clown can shut things down putting people on the dole but our Industries needed investment.

Thatcher favoured the Banks & put 3.5M on the dole and she was a contributory element to The Banking Crisis in 2008 which cost the taxpayer billions !!

Chicken's River Dance_ (U1043) posted 1 day ago

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Why delete my comment, Numbers?

Chicken - A mere slip of the finger old boy !!

Numbers............................These are two out of how many? The problem with running an entire industry is that it ALL has to be profitable, not just a small part of it. I am delighted for these two colliery's and their workers & communities but it still does not change the whole dynamics of the UK Coal industry. It was becoming increasingly more costly producing than buying in. This is exactly what has happened to various market sectors in the UK, cheaper foreign imports mean less home products sold. It also diminishes our ability to export effectively too.

In parallel you could also see football heading down the same road, clubs unable to compete financially, cheaper to buy in than either produce young talent or buy home grown players. A vicious cycle really!

Your last comment re Thatcher contributing to The Banking Crisis is derisory & laughable.

How exactly did she do that? The Banking Crisis was caused by poor regulatory controls, sub prime mortgages, (mostly in the USA) and an ineffective government in the early 2000,s.....................................

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Farming has lost quite a bit of their subsidies over the past few years.............................................Aviation is now one of the most taxed industries & as for transport, the annual revenue raised from motorists alone is around £46billion with only about 10% of that going back into roads. The main subsidies have gone on the rail companies and Network Rail!

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Genius - I deal in the textile Industry and until recently China was relatively cheap for importing goods however increased wages & labour costs in China mean that there are cheaper options in the World however they will catch up with China.

When you talk about importing Coal cheaper from Poland you must realise that when we become dependant then costs will be raised look at our current Energy Bills and Oil back in the 70's when we were at the mercy of OPEC.

With regards to Thatcher being a contributory element to the 2008 Banking Crisis please read the following comments :-

By Richard Murphy Posted on APRIL 9 2013


I see no reason to celebrate the life of Margaret Thatcher. I offer sympathy to her family, of course, but we have to remember what Margaret Thatcher did for this country.

In one of her first moves on coming to office she delivered capital market liberalisation.

What that meant was that money was allowed to roam free around the world.

The tax haven boom began as a direct result. The assault of capital on democracy followed.

The shift of taxation from capital to labour became inevitable. The current crisis on corporate responsibility and tax is the direct consequence.

Then she delivered the ‘Big Bang’ in financial services in London, removing regulation, allowing integration, encouraging financialisation and putting growth at all costs without consideration of prudence at the heart of banking.

The 2008 banking crisis was the direct consequence.

The failures of HBOS, Lloyds, RBS, Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley can all be laid at her door.

And culturally she gave us greed. The ethical corruption of Barclays and so many other companies could not have happened without Thatcher.

In the process she showed indifference to unemployment and a contempt for people who worked for a living.

Unions may have needed reform; they never needed the Thatcher prescription. And we paid the price for her spite in the collapse of manufacturing as she squandered oil revenues on increasing the number claiming social security benefits from 2 million to 6 million. That was the price of her social engineering; the lack of engineering in our economy is another legacy. And she blighted large parts of the country in the process, delivering the now familiar bias to the South East.

In the pursuit of power, reward and control for a few at the price of the many Thatcher split Britain. She ruled for the 1%. For 99% her rule was a disaster.

Which means that one day, with the long lens of history, it may well be seen to have been so for the 1% too. But just not yet.

Tax Research UK

Thatcher’s Britain: it’s hard not to see the roots of the 2008 crash in the unshackling of the City two decades earlier

These are all reasoned comments.

We created the Industrial Revolution and Thatcher destroyed our manufacturing capability in the UK.

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Numbers


can you answer for me the reason why every time i see anti capatalist protests and anti monachy protests etc, nearly all the people involved look like sub humans who are totally unemployable and never done a days work in their lives

They all want something for nothing, have no respect for law and order or other people

Some of the people i have interviewed for jobs in the few yrs make me worry about the next generations coming through


No manners, lazy attitude to work etc etc


Labours Bitain was a broken Britain wish we could have maggie back tomorrow

The coal would have run out eventually anyway, so it only expedited the inevitable