King Arthur Scargill

[Zeespark]

That is still being contested in the courts Onoff.

Andy Guinness

 

[Theorysparky]

all I will say is...

thanks Mr Scargill for the strikes,,,,,,, my dad was a copper att and made a mint travelling up every few weeks

it was amazing how many coppers paid their mortgages off, had new cars etc

look at it now with the teachers unions complaining about pensions etc  my daughter is in 6th form and just before the last one strike they had a debate about it and the teachers were crucified by the 6th formers !!!

 

[Technician]

One of the most heartbreaking stories on this theme that I ever

heard was the one about a shipyard in Teeside.

There was a dispute about a chalkmark on a piece of steel plate

and the union (there were several there at the time) pulled every

one out.  The yard had a full order book for years ahead.

Eventually a demolition team turned up and were told there was a

strike on.  The team bulldozed down the gates and cleared the entire

site.  The man responsible went to his grave believing that a great

victory had been won.

Another man I knew very well worked at another yard in the North East.

He was adamant that the unions were entirely responsible for ALL that

happened when they closed and ship construction and repair dwindled,

almost to nothing.

 

[Evans Electric]

Its a long sad story of power , control and personal politics .

Become shop steward and you'll be too busy to do any actual work .

The unions AND the managment finished off the Longbridge Car plant .  The Mini was their salvation in the '60s  but they sold them at a loss , the MK1  Mini was a piece of carp masquerading as a rust bucket  but everyone wanted one at the time .    It was a minature Morris Minor with a front wheel drive engine. .

OK the front wheel drive system was inovative and changed the design of modern cars , but the designer thought the motorist should have a spartan vehicle like  Hitler's  People Wagon   ( Volkswagen Beetle )  .  In 1960's Britain  the heater was optional ,  radio  ?  No chance !!    Door handles  a length of wire ......great long floppy gear shift ....  distributor  cap exposed to incomming rain through the front grille  and the floorpan edge was facing all the weather underneath  etc   . 

They were like a motorized wheelbarrow compared to the product resurrected by BMW  today.

 

[apprentice87]

The GOVERNMENT ruined british industry, nobody else...

"Unfortunately, an order for a huge crane ship built at the North Sands yard for I. T. M. of Middlesbrough was left without an owner when I. T. M. went into receivership. Ship orders were scarce in the 1980's and Europe was looking to reduce shipbuilding capacity in the EE C. The Superflex Ferry order the yard obtained hit major problems when buyers couldn't be found for all of them.
Heavy and mounting losses by British Shipbuilders Ltd. over the ten years since the nationalisation on 1st July 1977 had made the British Government unwilling to put any more public money into the state shipbuilding company. However, their privatisation strategy for British Shipbuilders Ltd. hinged on the fact that the European Economic Community (EEC) would only subsidise the privatisation on condition that North East Shipbuilders Ltd. was closed down. It seems that British and foreign interests were more than willing to buy the Sunderland yards and were astonished that the British Government insisted on closing them down instead of selling to private interests. It has since been alleged that Lord Young, Minister for the Department of Trade and Industry, made a secret deal with the EEC to save the ailing Govan Yard on the River Clyde by selling it to Norwegian buyers in return for the obliteration of the Sunderland shipbuilding capacity. This disgraceful deal was the subject of a television documentary about a year after the closure of the yards"

They lied about the miners [proven without doubt now the papers have been released under the 30 year rule] and they lied about the shipbuilding too.

They lie about everything in order to please their european paymasters, as this is where they all hope to seek employment LONG after they are unelectable here. [think kinnock and co...]

john..

 

[apprentice87]

More here...

The following newspaper extract sums up the mood at the time of closure;-
DECEMBER 12, 1988, saw the final ship to be built on the Wear slide down the slipway on a bitterly cold winters night. The chill which affected onlookers not only came from the plunging temperature but from the realisation that an industry, which had sustained Sunderland for centuries, had disappeared. Efforts continued to revive it and campaigners put up a spirited fight. Their hopes were raised repeatedly only to be dashed as time and time again progress became enmeshed in red tape stretched tightly between the European Commission in Brussels and Whitehall in London. It is true that the Sunderland shipyards were struggling to find orders before they closed. The world market for ships was a tough one and the Tory Government decided enough was enough and they were not going to help the Wearside industry any longer. The closure deal was put together by the European Commission and the British Government. It involved a £45million aid package to soften the blow for Sunderland and that meant that a ban - or moratorium - on shipbuilding had to be brought in. Euro-chiefs did not want to see millions of pounds of aid pumped into Wearside to compensate for the loss of a major industry, only to see it start up again a few years later. So unclear at times were the terms of the closure that it was not immediately apparent that the ban was to last for ten years. And so Sunderland resigned itself to the loss of the yards. Events moved quickly. At Southwick, which many still called the Austin & Pickersgill yard, a major auction of plant and equipment was held. Then the demolition squads moved in and the world-famous yard was levelled, crushing any vestiges of hope that it would ever turn steel into ships again. It vanished virtually overnight. The same fate awaited the North Sands yard. It was bulldozed and eventually housed a new university campus. That left only the Pallion yard intact, but, unable to build ships, it was effectively mothballed, frozen in time, a reminder of the glory days of shipbuilding. But its name also served as a rallying call for diehard shipyard campaigners who lived in hope that one day, perhaps, the industry would return. Taken over by an Anglo-Greek consortium and called Pallion Engineering, the yard has been maintained. But, as a fully operational shipyard, building ships, Pallion has slumbered. Shipbuilding on the Wear was, to all intents and purposes, forgotten.
Now it seems the Ferries which were eventually sold were a success as can be seen from this extract from a website;-
The Superflex-ferries featured a completely new and untraditional ferry design, that as time passed by proved to be a success. In 1990 the operation on Storebælt was taken over by Difko, and it was developed into a reliable and popular ferry service.
The Bank Line cargo liners gave many years of service and the Stena Offshore vessels are still hard at work even now and must have paid for themselves many times over. Even the Ex I.T.M. Crane Barge was put to great use in various parts of the world.
Now in 2008 it appears that owners are having to queue-up for new ships. New shipyards are being built in China and India and yet we had the most modern facility possibly in the whole world - and our own Government closed it down. The skills of the British shipyard workers were world famous and yet they were scattered to the four winds"

john...

 

[Sidewinder]

I could REALLY go off on a one, but, I will refrain from that!

Just one point, IMHO Politics, specifically representing the people, should be a second career.

No one should be allowed to run for public office unless, they have a clean criminal record, and have had a real job and career, they don't have to have been hugely successful, after all, one learns from ones mistakes, and if you have to struggle, to survive then you will have real empathy with the working man.

Career politicians should not be allowed, same as silver spoon politicians, local, regional, national, or international.

 

[Technician]

I would go with Sidewinder on this one;  Career politicians

have NO idea how other people live and work.  I think a lot

of the characters currently in Westminster failed in former

posts and were sacked as a consequence.  Wedgewood
Benn was one;  the family business would not have him.

 

[Steve3948]

There has only ever been one good politician and that was Enoch Powell, everything he said has come true  :innocent

 

[Sharpend]

Agree with Stevie on this one.

Didn't Prescott say something about going into politics as he was no good at anything else?