But there seems to be very little comment on the Labour party's apparent good faith in refusing to water down their election promises in order to get into bed with the Libdems.
So much for Gordon Browns supposed clinging on to power whatever the cost
Well bully for Labour, they stuck with their principles. The same principles that see them now in the political wilderness. The same principles that now have Britain in a state of near bankruptcy.
A party void of ideas and now any power at all.
A party that frankly looks finished as they are now third in the power stakes.
Brown knew his time was up the day after the election, it was only a matter of time before he quit or was pushed.
Miliband looks set to win the title of Labour leader, good luck to him.....he will need all the luck he can get.
Never can accuse Labour of not sticking to principles, even though they have been hugely blinkered ones!
To be fair here, I have to say it is only right, that the party that gained the most votes, was given the opportunity to form the new goverrnment as they have. Gordan Brown however did not cling onto power. In fact quite the opposite. He was asked by Mr Clegg to hold on whilst he negotiated. In the end Gordan Brown was on the phone to Mr Clegg who asked for another 24 hours. Mr Brown told him, enough is enough, I'm off to see the queen, so you best sort it out in the next hour. This is soon to shown in a documenty" the last few hours" to be shown on BBC1. There was preview on Radio 5 other day.
The big question here, really is how come David Cameron was on the goal line, with the ball at his feet, yet still couldn't get the ball all the way over the line to score. The government was suppossed to be the most unpopular goverment since Thather with an inept leader, presideing over the deepest recession in decades. yet he still couldn't get a majority ????
28.4% of the workforce was the last count of union members.
Since not many people in small employers are members of unions, and since most of the manufacturing is done abroad, I consider that quite reasonable in these times.
The unions are also physically larger due to amalgamation.
The largest employer in the country also has the largest amount of union members: The government.
Almost all medium/large employers have agreements with unions....
Although that doesn't stop many (particularly in the construction/construction-engineering industry) from paying others to illegally gather, hold and disseminate information about union members and other employees (to the employers extreme financial cost ).
Most small employers are also small-time criminals (vat/tax fraud...H&S offences etc)
The thing is I did see a libdem representative saying the reason talks with labour had broken down was their refusal to compromise their core promises.
Oh and the pits....if it wasn't just idiot spite why were productive profitable pits closed ?
Simples Blue only Scargill then decided ( when there was no secret ballot )to take the Government on.
His intention was not to try and save the pits or the members jobs, but to defeat Thatcher at ANY cost.
He cared only for his own selfish way, and because of that stance miners were pitted against each other....Father against Son on many occasions.
Thatchers Government were not going to be brought down like Heaths was.
Scargill was eventually seen for what he was, a nasty spiteful pathetic man, whose personnel vendetta against Thatcher cost him and more importantly his members, their jobs ands their future.
Have I gone off topic? Appologies to the op if I have.
blue,
depends how you look at these things. This area had 6 pits. Littleton colliery was the most productive in europe !! They were all closed by Thatcher. Hundreds of people on the dole....lives shattered...families torn apart. So lets firstly say more to it, that just being viable.
Now the fact was there was cheaper coal at that time avilable from Poland. This is becasue, they were not part of the EU at the time, and so paid very poor wages to their workers, and also the polish government subsidised the cost. Their view being, it was cheaper to subsidise the coal, than to put hunderds of people out of work, and pay hem unemployment benefit !!
Now thats not to say, Scargill was an angel. But he warned that there wasn't just a list of 15 pits to be closed, but that every one would be. People poured scorn on that at the time. History shows he was actually correct.
Fact is....the miners strike helped to bring down Ted Heath's tory government in the 70's. Mrs Thatcher was getting her own back.I call that spite myself. But at what human cost.
Maybe this a little close to home for me, but its an example of what happens. My brother 35 at the time, worked down the pit, from the day he left school at 16. He lost his job, when the pit was closed. He felt a failure ; because he could no longer provide for his family he felt he no longer was of use. He tried to get a job, but he had no skill base. 6 monthes later he committed suicide, leaving a family and 3 kids. Thats the human cost !!!
A brilliant artical....read and enjoy and then reflect on the truth.
" When the government announced its plan in March 1984 to close 20 pits with the loss of 20,000 jobs, Arthur Scargill, the Marxist NUM president, brought 56,000 Yorkshire miners out on strike. Ignoring calls for a national ballot, he then called upon his 180,000 members, who worked 170 pits, to down tools. Overnight, communities were divided. In Nottinghamshire the miners ignored his call. Mr Scargill's response was to send in the flying pickets. What followed was a year-long bloody confrontation: striking miner against working miner, picket against police ".
Of course Scargill did not have his own secret agendas....my arse
Excellent post by Dean, one that was written from the heart and doesn't show bitterness despite his loss.
The human element to econmics and politics is often forgotten and masked over by those trying to score political points.
That post in itself says more about the destruction of not just an industry but communities and families than any link to the Murdoch press could.
