The 25 years since the Miners Strike Week has replayed a lot of 1984 memories.
1984 was the year I left home. It was the year I became of disciple of Mr Bragg; the year Rob Trent taught me that you have to pay for your shopping before spending your money in record shops. It was the year I moved to London via Southampton and Dorchester. Too many memories to mention here.
Looking back now, I’m reminded how angry I was with the Tories. They were well on the way to creating a fissure in the social landscape of Britain. The Miners Strike was just the audible backdrop to a bigger project.
And today, thinking about those days, I feel a tinge of the old anger again. I see that David Cameron apologised for his mistakes over the economy yesterday. Back in 1984 he would still have been boarding at Eton; cramming for his Oxford entrance exams.
If he was less of a flaky PR man and showed more guts, he should be apologising for his party’s role in wrecking the economy back then. Their dogmatic adherence to monetarism entrenched long term unemployment for a generation. They wrecked communities, the effects of which can arguably be still felt today.
11 comments ↓
Tom, I’m glad I taught somebody something!
Labour ceased having a social concience a long time back,probably pre 1997. Tony Blair went to Fetters and Oxford don’t forget,and loads of the government front bench were privately educated…. The class war thing was always phoney. Scargill closed the pits when he could have got a superb deal with 95percent of his demands met. Gordon Brown is now trying to close down the UK. We are a bankrupt nation now. The facts are there to see and history to acknowledge when our
grand childen finally pay off the debts. Have a nice day.
Itsfaircomment: If the banks had failed and you couldn’t get your money out, i bet you would be on here complaining that the government had not done anything!
1 Both Blair and Brown have consistently stated their admiration for Margaret Thatcher – either they are liars or you are hopelessly out of touch with your own leaders
2 You don’t know how to spell monetarism
Since you hate the Tories so much, can we assume you won’t be voting with them to privatise the Royal Mail?
Tom,
See below. Will you be in Parliament next week and voting for this Bill on behalf of the oldest and poorest of your constituents?
John Edwards
Dear John,
Please take a few minutes to email your MP about Fuel Poverty Bill debate on 20 March
I know you have already had an email from Warm Homes Group Chair and Labour MP Alan Simpson about this vitally important Bill.
As Head of Campaigns at the Association for the Conservation of Energy, I have been working closely with Alan and many other MPs and organisations on this Bill. But I’m also a Labour councillor – and I’m contacting you now wearing both my hats!
In my view – and I’m only slightly biased! – the Fuel Poverty Bill is the most important Private Member’s Bill to come before Parliament in many, many years. 5 million families in the UK are currently in “fuel poverty” – in other words, they can’t afford to heat their homes because they simply “leak heat”. A recent Help the Aged survey revealed the shocking fact that this winter over 3.5 million pensioners will be forced to live in only one room of their house. Another 1 million will be faced with the stark choice between heating and eating.
The Fuel Poverty Bill aims to stop this scandal. As it’s a Private Member’s Bill, MPs are not whipped to stay in the House to vote for it – and, on current estimates, we’re in the embarrassing position that there are far more Lib Dem and Tory MPs planning to be there than Labour MPs. As a Labour councillor, I think that’s really awful – and I also know the Lib Dems and Tories (in Parliament and in the country) are planning to create bad publicity for us out of it. Our 2001 and 2005 election manifestos put the eradication of fuel poverty at the top of our Labour agenda. It would be a tragedy – especially in these difficult financial times and after such a harsh winter – if we allowed the other Parties to steal this issue from us.
So, if you have a Labour MP – or you know one (or more) personally – please take a few moments to contact them today, urging them to be in the House next Friday to vote for the Fuel Poverty Bill. The Bill must succeed – and we must reclaim this agenda as our own.
Thanks very much indeed.
Jenny Holland.
***********************************************************
Jenny Holland,
Parliamentary Co-ordinator,
Association for the Conservation of Energy,
Westgate House,
2a Prebend Street,
London N1 8PT.
No-one really thinks Cameron actually meant it.
Well, I’m sure that straight after Labour apologise for destroying this country in the late 1970s then Cameron will be more than happy to discuss the 1980s with you.
Don’t think for a second that you can separate the effects of Thatcher’s government from the economic and social nightmare that preceeded it.
Tom, did you buy Soul Deep by The Council Collective? It was a bit rubbish but made it on Top of the Pops.
I think you may be wasting your time here, Tom.
The extreme right wing die-hards that speak on every subject for the Tories, haven’t quite twigged that they haven’t been in office since the last century because of the Miners. People cottoned on and booted them out for all eternity.
The meodernism under Dave’s crew, seem to beleive that being a bit anti Europe is the key and the way forward, but unlike his successful predecessors, Margaret and John (pro Europe to the core) he will never see inside No10 (unlike Margaret who comes to tea whenever she likes).
To not apologise for the near Civil War of unrest (Miners, Unions, pol tax etc etc..) and to be bordering isolation out of Europe is not what is required of an official opposition and I welcome the Liberals as this new Century’s rise to to the challenges this Country faces in the Global Economy.
Maybe the Tories should re apply in the 22nd Century.
Funny thing this, anyone who works with ex miners will know this, none of them are still paying mortgages, when they reach 50 they stop working overtime (or just stop working altogether.) No wonder the countriy is in the state it is. I suppose those of us that worked in the automotive industry, as was, don’t really count as We are not miners, the only people You lot are interested in. Can You imagine what kind of hellhole this would be if Gaddaffi’s mate had been allowed to win, ( Start A miners strike in March, brilliant! )
2nd rule of political engagement; Don’t dwell on the past or You’ll end up living in it.
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