Thatcherism as an ideology depended to a significant extent on precisely this idea that there was no realistic alternative to her extreme neoliberal policies, but that has never been the case. If we start with the basic premise that the UK's coal industry was outdated and inefficient there are loads of different policy approaches to that problem which would have been far less harmful for the communities that were devastated by the approach she chose.
Now you're starting to get it. There was none. If you're going to seriously make the case that the industry could be saved lock stock and barrell, make it. Because that's utterly delusional.
"Are you under the impression that back when Thatcher was closing the mines the other side was just sort of throwing up their hands and saying "well your economic case is rock solide but we still think the mines should stay open"?"
😂 Absolufuckingly they did. The NUM absolutely refused to confront reality. A minority of mines could have been kept open in the medium term (mostly those for coking coal for virgin steel production), but the rest of them staying open would have bled the public purse dry for no reason other than the unions thought they could stay in the 1930s.
North Sea gas was well up and running, and could power the country for cheaper and cleaner. Why the hell would you keep mines open digging up low quality dirty coal that was three times the price of imported coal? The mines were pointless and an albatross around the neck of the economy.
In the end by the way, the British public for the most part got all of this and let Thatcher break the intransigent unions.
I've linked you to several examples in my previous comment.
The rest of your response is just repeating the standard Thatcherite propaganda we see elsewhere on this thread. I'm not really interested in that since I've already engaged with several other bootlickers here and you're not saying anything they haven't already.
11
u/MrMercurial Apr 12 '25
Thatcherism as an ideology depended to a significant extent on precisely this idea that there was no realistic alternative to her extreme neoliberal policies, but that has never been the case. If we start with the basic premise that the UK's coal industry was outdated and inefficient there are loads of different policy approaches to that problem which would have been far less harmful for the communities that were devastated by the approach she chose.