[BB_Eye]

Originally Posted by Shasown

Lack of reinvestment made over the previous three or four decades, smaller wildcat strikes, secondary picketing, the NUM leadership pulling the miners out in support of other industries in dispute, all meant the NCB couldnt meet orders, so where were powers staions etc meant to buy coal to burn for electricity?

I dont know if you were around in the seventies, but the unions while helping bring about fantastic changes in health and safety, standards of living etc. also did a lot of damage to Britain's market economy.

Some valid points here. I am not old enough to remember the 1970's, but I live in an area that has suffered the consequences of the political upheaval of the 1980's. My town is a shadow of its former self. Most of its working class earned a living as labourers and mine workers. Their livelihood was taken away when their limited skills no longer served any purpose and the mines were forced to close down. Many are still unemployed and my own generation has had a far more difficult time climbing the social ladder than those their parents' age.

You may not believe it, but I don't see the Tory supporters or members as the villains of the late 70's, early 80's. People had their reasons for hating the unions and Thatcher was the only direct challenge to them. I just don't agree with the alternative she offered.

Thats the nature of the beast though isnt it? If its unviable do you continue to pump public money into supporting something that may be better off dying a death. Something has to give and at the time there were also problems with the Steel Industry, Motor Industry, Shipbuilding, Air Transport, Aircraft Building, the list goes on and on.

Protectionist policies that some political and union leaders advocated at the time would have simply drained the national economy, worse than Tony and Gordy have done over the last few years.

At the very least, we would have been self-sufficient and society wouldn't have been put in jeopardy by mass unemployment. Britain's tightly regulated, highly taxed economy should have been somewhat streamlined, not smashed altogether. Would we have become the fourth largest economy in the world (up until recently) if this had happened? Maybe not. Would life in Britain have been better than it has been for the past twenty years? I think so.