My, that all sounds very bleak. Whisper who dares but there might be just a few of those affected who consider Mrs T had done them a favour. I speak as one who was caught slap bang in the middle of the miners dispute and it was very nasty indeed. Miner v Miner and families torn asunder is not a memory I cherish.
Well, the strike was terrible, and it will be generations before the wounds heal, but from the reaction of all the miners I knew none would say taking away their livelihood and forcing their communities into poverty was a favour
Certainly if you go to places like the villages around Barnsley you see the effects still today! The issue then was the speed of closure, there was no time really to build alternative employment and the schemes put into place window dressing. I wonder if the mines had mainly been around the Chiltern Hills and across the Thames Valley if the policies on closure would have been the same??
Anyway, the subject is one of renewable energy and should we use the reserves? I am in the camp of lets at least sink some shafts and begin some mining in the richest and lowest cost of these fields, such as Evesham area and build a modern coal fired Power Station to at least offset the costs of developing renewable energy?