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Post by tonyb on Nov 2, 2016 9:36:23 GMT
I am absolutely appalled at the decision to try to sweep what now looks like conspiracy to pervert the course of justice re the miners strike under the carpet. Talk about protecting the party and its sacred cows. I just wish there was a realistic way for ordinary people to bring criminal charges. Some high ranking police officers at the least are now seen to have tried to pervert justice and they are still being shielded by the May clan on what I think is a totally disingenuous pretext. 3 days after the announcement I am still spitting AND I refused to support the miners financially at that time. I wish I had now.
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Post by peterboat on Nov 2, 2016 11:26:04 GMT
My father was there, the miners do not have clean hands in this, people turned up to have a fight and a fight they got. My father did not like Scargill and did not support the strike as it did not have the backing of all the miners just the Yorkshire ones! Yes pits were going to be closed however all the mines surrounding orgreave were played out and every ton of coal produced cast more than it was worth. A lot if not the majority of the police on the lines were imported from other areas [our own bobby was still on the beat] and for a lot of the time the miners and police played football cricket even cards and all was peaceful. But on the day Arthur wanted to be arrested and he got his wish however to do that a lot of violence was planned and happened, who's fault is that? the miners who did it or the Police who had to stop it? Me this is better left to rest it will waste billions of pounds for nothing my father and most of the other miners that were there are dead, they for the most got early retirement and good pensions [dad had no need to work]. If you want to listen to a few bitter people do so but the media will always whip up something as Mrs May wont give them the details about Brexit so they are pissed off. People will come on here Like Carl he wasnt there so everything he knows is secondhand, my dad was and so was an ex who's husband was Scargills left hand man no good will come of this Tony believe me it will just dredge up things that are better left alone
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2016 11:36:10 GMT
Strikes me that an investigation may be a good thing to show how Scargill and his cohorts were trying to bring down a Democraticlly elected government
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Post by tonyb on Nov 2, 2016 11:51:02 GMT
My father was there, the miners do not have clean hands in this, people turned up to have a fight and a fight they got. My father did not like Scargill and did not support the strike as it did not have the backing of all the miners just the Yorkshire ones! Yes pits were going to be closed however all the mines surrounding orgreave were played out and every ton of coal produced cast more than it was worth. A lot if not the majority of the police on the lines were imported from other areas [our own bobby was still on the beat] and for a lot of the time the miners and police played football cricket even cards and all was peaceful. But on the day Arthur wanted to be arrested and he got his wish however to do that a lot of violence was planned and happened, who's fault is that? the miners who did it or the Police who had to stop it? Me this is better left to rest it will waste billions of pounds for nothing my father and most of the other miners that were there are dead, they for the most got early retirement and good pensions [dad had no need to work]. If you want to listen to a few bitter people do so but the media will always whip up something as Mrs May wont give them the details about Brexit so they are pissed off. People will come on here Like Carl he wasnt there so everything he knows is secondhand, my dad was and so was an ex who's husband was Scargills left hand man no good will come of this Tony believe me it will just dredge up things that are better left alone I am absolutely sure that you are right in much of this but what I can not accept is that ex policemen are now saying they were ordered to put certain phrases into their statements at that time. If this is true and at present we have no idea if it is or not then It needs exposing in some way. I think we have seen too much of this sort of thing and the establishment (whatever that is) seems very good at trying to ignore what looks very much like corruption to me. I am not interested in what the miners may or may not have been persuaded/coerced to do but I get very concerned when it looks as if the forces of law and order are acting in what looks like illegal ways. They might be colluding to get any one of us convicted if they think they can get away with it. They may also think they can take shortcuts. I see the same party looks as if it now does not want to look at potential bribes paid to police officers by journalists. As southerner what I do know is that my son did some of his PGEC teaching practice in an ex mining area and was appalled at how few families had people in work and this was many years after the strike. It seem to me that successive governments have a lot to answer for in this.
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Post by carlt on Nov 2, 2016 11:58:07 GMT
People will come on here Like Carl he wasnt there so everything he knows is secondhand, I was at Orgreave, Brodsworth, Markham Main, Hatfield and others standing on the picket line with my miner friends. My band did practically non-stop benefit gigs for the NUM (three members were miners and one a mining engineer). I was a student at the time and no, I wasn't a miner, but I was part of the mining town of Doncaster and was there. Not a lot of studying was done that year because I was busy fighting a doomed battle for the survival of my community. Were you? Oh and the pits of South Yorkshire were nowhere near worked out when they were closed. The violence I saw at Orgreave (first hand) was initiated by the police with their baton charges being seen as an appropriate response to slogan shouting. I would, however agree that the majority of violence was not perpetrated by South Yorkshire Police but officers from elsewhere being shipped in for the fight.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2016 12:03:30 GMT
I was there.
It was horrible but there were two in the fight, and fight it was.
Rog
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Post by carlt on Nov 2, 2016 12:10:17 GMT
I was there. It was horrible but there were two in the fight, and fight it was. Rog Yes there were two in the fight. One side was fighting for their livelihood, community and way of life. The other was on overtime.
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Post by Telemachus on Nov 2, 2016 12:19:13 GMT
Not trying to defend the police's dishonest and violent actions, but what happened re the mining industry happened for economic reasons and our move into a global economy. As I understand it UK coal wasn't economic due to labour costs. In the same way that shoes are now made in Cambodia etc. If you think the mining industry should have been state subsidised then first of all, why subsidise than industry and not all others, and secondly it's probably against EU rules on state subsidy. The mining industry was bound to collapse, it is only the way in which it was done that is in any doubt.
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Post by peterboat on Nov 2, 2016 12:30:45 GMT
People will come on here Like Carl he wasnt there so everything he knows is secondhand, I was at Orgreave, Brodsworth, Markham Main, Hatfield and others standing on the picket line with my miner friends. My band did practically non-stop benefit gigs for the NUM (three members were miners and one a mining engineer). I was a student at the time and no, I wasn't a miner, but I was part of the mining town of Doncaster and was there. Not a lot of studying was done that year because I was busy fighting a doomed battle for the survival of my community. Were you? Oh and the pits of South Yorkshire were nowhere near worked out when they were closed. The violence I saw at Orgreave (first hand) was initiated by the police with their baton charges being seen as an appropriate response to slogan shouting. I would, however agree that the majority of violence was not perpetrated by South Yorkshire Police but officers from elsewhere being shipped in for the fight. Clearly Carl you have not worked down the pit because if you had you would know they were done for My dad was working at great depth on small seams it was as he said dogs work and a waste of time and effort. All the collieries in that area were linked and all were played out miners wernt making bonus because the coal was crap and not enough could be dug, and for the most went to orgreave and beighton [brookhouse] to be turned into coke. On the day friends of mine went for the fight they were steel workers and couldnt give two monkeys about the strike it was all about a good rumble. If you know anything about the area you would know that if miners didnt have anyone else to fight they would fight each other!! In my youth I pasted 3 miners at the swan in Maltby [they picked on the wrong person I had done 2 years with the SAS by that point] As for the baton charge well what would you do if miners had been throwing bricks at you for ages? the same as we did in NI sort it before one of your mates got killed!
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Post by carlt on Nov 2, 2016 12:42:25 GMT
Clearly Carl you have not worked down the pit because if you had you would know they were done for Indeed I haven't...Then again neither have you. My best friends were miners or mining engineers so my sources are no more second hand than yours. As for the brick throwing yes there were a few troublemakers amongst the miners (some of them police plants...one of the problems of secondary picketing)but I saw no bricks thrown before the police started. In fact the police had started days before, driving down Doncaster High Street banging the sides of their vans with their truncheons shouting that while they were kicking the shit out of us on the picket lines their mates will be raping our wives and daughters. The atmosphere on the miners side of the line felt like fear (and anger), the atmosphere coming from the police line was one of scorn, loathing and fun. Scargill was wrong not to have a ballot but he was right about the intentions of the government.
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Post by peterboat on Nov 2, 2016 12:57:09 GMT
But I have been down my dads pit Carl a third of the shift was spent traveling to where the coal was and back again, it wasnt worth the bother my dads words and all the guys in the street that worked there. The only surprise to them was that it took that long to close them down as the product was so poor and expensive. My dad and others also lived in fear of other miners as they didnt want the strike but to not go to the picket line was to collect a brutal beating/broken windows nice gentle souls the pit moggies. I cant say what happened in Doncaster but our area had more pits than enough and I cant remember any hassles with the police
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Post by auntsally on Nov 2, 2016 13:06:35 GMT
Views on these matters will be pretty polarized depending on what your views of the plod are....
Were they there just to protect the coking plant, its workers and their rights, or were they there to enforce the government of the days stance against union 'power' (Mr A. Scargill et al)
Like many things in the great political debating rooms of hindsight those views you now hold will probably not change even if an inquiry was set up, so why 'waste' more millions of pounds from the public purse as whatever the result people on one side of the argument wont believe it's findings anyway.
An example may be the Chilcott job on Iraq....or the Hillsborough enquiry....Despite all the 'facts' etc many people still hold onto the opinions they held at the start.
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Post by bodger on Nov 2, 2016 13:07:19 GMT
why is the matter only being raised now?
it seems to be developing into a tory-labour conflict.
the Labour party was in power for many years, if the matter was so important why didn't they set up an inquiry when they had the chance?
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Post by carlt on Nov 2, 2016 13:16:58 GMT
But I have been down my dads pit Carl I too have been down several pits. I thought you were criticising me for not having worked down one. As I said, my knowledge and experience is no more second hand than yours. I believe we were both fortunate to have avoided working as a miner but I still see the legacy of the pits being closed and communities destroyed. There are 300 year's worth of coal reserves under our feet and perhaps if we had recognised its worth and invested in clean burn coal fired power stations and improving our pits so miners like your Dad didn't have to work down rabbit holes we wouldn't be reliant on Russian gas, Chinese and French nuclear, East European Coal and our whole energy network being run from Europe.
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Post by carlt on Nov 2, 2016 13:18:43 GMT
the Labour party was in power for many years, if the matter was so important why didn't they set up an inquiry when they had the chance? The labour Party has not been in power since before the strike. You may be referring to Tory Blair's Thatcherite "New Labour" party...a totally different beast.
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