A hindsight speech, back 40 years ago when tensions were high and decisions had to be made, Labour abandoned the miners, and selectively cut the trade union umbilical cords when it suited them. Damaged beyond repair, paying the price today
It always made me wonder why so many especially in the north east kept telling themselves Labour cared about them, when they themselves shafted miners while blaming the tories publicly for it. Look today, Labour don’t even try to appeal to working class voters anymore, they try the suburbia vote. Long term I’d be stunned if the Woking class vote gave more than 25-30% of their vote to Labour based off of Labour new coalition of uni students, cities and most ethnic minorities. Don’t see how the old Labour voters of old fit into that.
Guff from Kinnock. Scargill didn't start the strike, it was already happening in Scotland and elsewhere. Basically, it was a time to decide where you stand, and Kinnock chose to stand with the enemies of the NUM.
Labour was too far left and too naive in 84. Scargill thought he could repeat the victory of unions in the 70s bringing the Tories down, but Thatcher was ready and had planned accordingly. The rest is history, and Kinnock recognised this, hence his stance back then.
And yet after 40 years of the Tories' spiv mate asset stripping the country and repeated financial crashes the British peasant just keeps sucking it up
I Would Say To Neil Kinnock This. Everything Arthur Scargill Said Came True And Instead Of Speaking About A National Ballot Why Didn’t Labour & TUC Come Out And Support The NUM At It’s Time Of Greatest Need.
Because it might not of came true if he had a ballot, he would've had the support of the Notts miners and the Labour party and would of been able to gain TUC support to allow other unions to strike in support, especially the steel unions and the transport unions.
What he says right at the end is for me the proof why Kinnock "was not available" to attend Baroness Thatcher's funeral. "Already planned to attend the funeral of a local councillor in Wales." was the official statement.
By 1984, Labour had lost the 1983 election, and was seen as too far left. Kinnock could not support Scargill because he was trying to move Labour more to the centre. Despite that, he was right not to help Scargill, who was a die-hard Marxist, and who had made the strike into a political action. Kinnock had the intelligence and vision not to help him.
Kinnock sold out the mine workers. It just sounds like pure cowardice from him. Scargill didn't need to make it political. Strikes are political. The Labour Party failed to stand up for the very people who created the Labour Party. (The Unions).
@@kb4903 Some of them would be, yes, technology would have moved on as he said. Mine work is a perfectly good job, what do you do little fella? Pontificate on the internet in the most deindustrialised, privatised, hyper financialised husk in the Western world?
As Kinnock said Thatcher never underestimate Scargill but Scargill underestimate Thatcher. She fought more dirtier than him and won because she had a plan already gave the miners a pay rise in 1981 Scargill thought yes in my pocket like heath . But every one said in her cabinet why do it . She said not strong enough he can wait and she built coal reserves up got the police to know where the flying pickets we're going on primitive computers but done the job . There was only ever going to be one winner . And what people over see is Scargill could and should could have got his members the best pay out deal ever in the trade union movement .yes whole communitys gone but least there house was paid off should have been . But went down the road of trying to bring Thatcher down and the government biggest mistake ever
Like or dislike margaret thatcher it matters not but she was a leader and thats what this country needed at the time ..i wish we had a leader today september 2023 in this country unfortunately we have not
Even all these years later Kinnock still waffles on without actually saying anything of substance. He was a disaster for the Labour party, a two time loser, and is still a disaster now.
He is gracious enough to admit himself that he was a failure in terms of elections - but he did gradually improve Labour's standing and laid a lot of the groundwork for the 1997 victory. The party he bequeathed to John Smith after the 1992 defeat was in far beter shape than the one he inherited from Michael Foot in 1983.
@@MarkHarrison733 I don't totally disagree with that, but I think it's an over-simplification. Labour was actually elected a number of times before 'abandoning socialism', as you put it, in 1995. The thing I admired about Kinnock was that he lived in the real world. After Foot, who was an honourable but naive man, he accepted that, if Labour were to become electable again, they would have to adapt to a changing world in which ordibary people had different aspirations for themselves and their families.That process inevitablly took a long time; Kinnock worked tirelessly and paved the way for later success, John Smith continued the work, and Blair made the decisive break. To be fair to him, Blair always acknowledged the debt he owed to Smith and Kinnock.
@@MarkHarrison733 Again, you have a point, but I think that's also an over-simplification. I suspect that many people simply thought that there had already been enough of a change in 1990, when Major replaced Thatcher, and were not quite ready to trust Labour and believe that the reforms Kinnock had made were genuine. Five more years of Tory government and the arrival of Blair on the scene certainly did the trick, though :-)
I worked in the Power Industry at the time of the miners Strike at a Coal Fired power Station. The Agecroft Pit across the road kept producing coal with only 30% of the staff. Output doubled. We had so much coal you couldn't see out of the windows. £46 per tonne. Australian Open Cast Low Sulphur Coal was £11/tonne delivered to Tilbury. Nationalised industry needed sorting
The strike was about jobs and community. Thatcher set out to break the unions and succeeded. It changed Britain irrevocably and for the worse. Every country with strong unions sees workers paid better wages, obviously. Without strong unions there is no-one to fight for them, which is one of the reasons why inequality has widened so dramatically in Britain, the most unequal country in Europe in 2023 except Bulgaria. Thatcher destroyed society no matter what her defenders like to pretend. Her project to transfer wealth from the majority to the rich was a runaway success on its own terms but the price paid by society has been incalculable. Privatisation has been a total disaster, with shareholder value driving business instead of quality of service. It is hugely ironic that the sewage issue is likely to cost the Tories dearly at the next election- it would not have happened if water had not been privatised. Even most Tory voters support re-nationalisation of the railways. Consumers have not benefitted from privatisation- higher prices have hit them in the pocket for decades. We have the highest rail fares in Europe and dreadful service.
@@eightiesmusic1984 Aussie coal was also cut from open cast mines..another thing if the industry needed to be run down..it could have been done in a planned long term way.
@@eightiesmusic1984 Right argument, wrong example to make the argument. Unionism can't save unprofitable or archaic industries, and Scargill's self-destructive nonsense was just as harmful to trade unionism as Thatcher. He didn't care about the miners, he was getting high on playing his games of revolutionary toy soldiers.
@@kailashpatel1706 Hard to talk about "long term" when imported coal was so much cheaper. Taxpayer money was being used to prop up a inefficient and unprofitable industry.
@@zippymufo9765 you need to grasp how poor investment in those industries (even one with rich coal seams across the UK) was undermining the industry's potential (South Wales had huge seams) even so at the time the British coal output was cheaper than in Europe but the nationalised industries had external polices pursued towards it which curtailed their potential
very interesting, I was in the 1984 strike as a BACM union member, as a Nightshift Undermanger. Kinock is correct in his analysis. To add detail confirming his appraisal of the support of other unions, I was present when NACODS, were working and the NUM were picking, and tried cohesion and had the opposite effect, because they had not had a ballot!
NACODS members voted by over 80% to join the strike, but their leaders accepted a deal to rescind this. The strike would probably have won had this vote been respected by the NACODS leadership
@@chasmac4055 Precisely. The strike was in the balance at this point and even the stockpiling of coal would not have been decisive if NACODS had gone on strike. Scargill was right in everything he said. It is absurd that his opponents always resort to generalisations and cliches to undermine him, such as ' he was a Marxist'. So what? Nothing wrong with being a Marxist- it was always seen as part of politics in many other countries. People are so immature in Britain. To my mind Scargill is a working class hero and history will vindicate him. It already has, really.
He's right what he says, especially about the disastrous decision not to have a ballot. However he didn't say that 30 years ago for fear of splitting the Labour Party.
The seaside industry was screwed in the sixties when the miners decided to spend their money in Benidorm instead of Blackpool. Then mines were screwed in the eighties when the few remaining B&Bs decided to use gas and not coal. WHAT GOES ROUND COMES ROUND.
@Dyn y Jawa Do you realise how idiotic your statement is? Are you seriously suggesting that seaside bed and breakfast lodging houses displaced 75 million tonnes of deep mined coal by 1985, on top of a 18 million tonnes from open cast? Really??
@@tracybeckett4107 What killed the mines was the environment and the fact that they did not want to use coal any longer. Unions, politicians should have come together with a plan to retrain the miners in other fields . But the fact that the Conservatives and the unions hated one another spelled the end for the mines. Also the NUM felt there was a chance to bring down Thatcher administration as they had with the Heath administration with the three day week and endless strikes . A very depressing state of affairs
Even if everything was true that this so called book, suggests, he still does not tell us of any other form of action that the miner's could have achieved
Aberfan was a disaster and Wales should have a statue of young children holding hands with a mother and father in Cardiff to remind them of what happened
They have a sculpture nearby aberfan called the aberfan angel. Exactly where the statue should be in the valley where the tragedy happened, not in Cardiff 40 minutes away.
Looking back on the death of the mining industry in Western Europe I wonder that if is would have been kept alive, maybe Ukraine would still be in peace today
@@ShahidKhan-ke8fe You are right in a sense. But I do believe that if the money for coal would have stayed in Britain, or Germany or elsewhere instead of going to Saudi Arabia we wouldnt have decidedly less problems including not enough funding for green energy
Dennis Skinner took down Neil Kinnock at a meeting to rapturous applause.
Skinner campaigned for Brexit.
Kinnock talks the talk but he was a weak leader and lost two elections
Still can't forgive NEW labour & BLAIR/ STARMER
A hindsight speech, back 40 years ago when tensions were high and decisions had to be made, Labour abandoned the miners, and selectively cut the trade union umbilical cords when it suited them. Damaged beyond repair, paying the price today
It always made me wonder why so many especially in the north east kept telling themselves Labour cared about them, when they themselves shafted miners while blaming the tories publicly for it. Look today, Labour don’t even try to appeal to working class voters anymore, they try the suburbia vote. Long term I’d be stunned if the Woking class vote gave more than 25-30% of their vote to Labour based off of Labour new coalition of uni students, cities and most ethnic minorities. Don’t see how the old Labour voters of old fit into that.
When he elected leader I though he would be an asset to the working class, changed my mind since
@19sept76 He is a corrupt EU politican.
A turncoat, sold us down the river
Windbag baron Kinnock.
For a failed 'statesman' to criticise a trade union leader is somewhat absurd.
Does being a trade union leader put a person above criticism?
@@CanadianMonarchist From a failed plastic socialist 'statesman' - yes.
@@CanadianMonarchist From a plastic socialist failed 'statesman' - yes!
@@CanadianMonarchist From a plastic socialist failed 'statesman' - yes!
@@CanadianMonarchist From a plastic socialist failed 'statesman' - yes!
You let us down hold your hands up .Afraid of thatcher
I just want to take you back through our British History as a young man of 28 yre of age and went onto today the Man i am!
Guff from Kinnock. Scargill didn't start the strike, it was already happening in Scotland and elsewhere. Basically, it was a time to decide where you stand, and Kinnock chose to stand with the enemies of the NUM.
Precisely. The lack of a ballot is a right wing excuse to delegitimise the strike.
Yes that Parasite Kinnock is now in the house of lords.
Kinnock help to kill the mining industry. Look at him and his wife milking the European Union in Brussels.
The 'engineer' of today's 'generic-politics' era - where it makes-no-odds whatsoever who you vote for!
Labour was too far left and too naive in 84. Scargill thought he could repeat the victory of unions in the 70s bringing the Tories down, but Thatcher was ready and had planned accordingly. The rest is history, and Kinnock recognised this, hence his stance back then.
And yet after 40 years of the Tories' spiv mate asset stripping the country and repeated financial crashes the British peasant just keeps sucking it up
Thatcher’s government gave in to miner’s demands just a couple of years before this
@@briandelaney9710 Only to avert a strike. The government was not ready in February 1981.
We're alright!
We're alrrriiiggghhhttt!
We're allllllrrrrrrriiiiiiggggghhhht!
Lord Kinnock betrayed the miners.
Baron Kinnock a anti working class Parasite.
I Would Say To Neil Kinnock This.
Everything Arthur Scargill Said Came True And Instead Of Speaking About A National Ballot Why Didn’t Labour & TUC Come Out And Support The NUM At It’s Time Of Greatest Need.
The strike was technically not legitimate.
Because it might not of came true if he had a ballot, he would've had the support of the Notts miners and the Labour party and would of been able to gain TUC support to allow other unions to strike in support, especially the steel unions and the transport unions.
@@johnnotrealname8168 Yes it was we had a vote in 1981 to strike if the gov closed any pits without consultation with the union.
because they were spineless.
@@andrewd6830 No it wasn't. Why do you think so many crossed the picket and kept working? They were angry that they never had the chance to vote.
What he says right at the end is for me the proof why Kinnock "was not available" to attend Baroness Thatcher's funeral. "Already planned to attend the funeral of a local councillor in Wales." was the official statement.
By 1984, Labour had lost the 1983 election, and was seen as too far left. Kinnock could not support Scargill because he was trying to move Labour more to the centre. Despite that, he was right not to help Scargill, who was a die-hard Marxist, and who had made the strike into a political action. Kinnock had the intelligence and vision not to help him.
Christopher Kealy you think that these mines would still be operational today? Mine work is a good job?
Supporting workers striking, too far left, apparently.
Kinnock sold out the mine workers. It just sounds like pure cowardice from him. Scargill didn't need to make it political. Strikes are political. The Labour Party failed to stand up for the very people who created the Labour Party. (The Unions).
@@kb4903 Some of them would be, yes, technology would have moved on as he said. Mine work is a perfectly good job, what do you do little fella? Pontificate on the internet in the most deindustrialised, privatised, hyper financialised husk in the Western world?
lapped up the EU Cream for the last 25 years as an also-ran. very nice
Kinnock a hideous Parasite now in the house of Frauds.
What book is he talking about?
As Kinnock said Thatcher never underestimate Scargill but Scargill underestimate Thatcher. She fought more dirtier than him and won because she had a plan already gave the miners a pay rise in 1981 Scargill thought yes in my pocket like heath . But every one said in her cabinet why do it . She said not strong enough he can wait and she built coal reserves up got the police to know where the flying pickets we're going on primitive computers but done the job . There was only ever going to be one winner . And what people over see is Scargill could and should could have got his members the best pay out deal ever in the trade union movement .yes whole communitys gone but least there house was paid off should have been . But went down the road of trying to bring Thatcher down and the government biggest mistake ever
@JamJam0189 Scargill did not have the resources to win.
Coal mining should have been phased out during the 1960s.
@JamJam0189 The coal industry in the UK had steadily declined from 1910 onwards.
Wilson closed twice as many coal mines as Thatcher did.
@JamJam0189 He's a Tory, what does he care? Thinks he's above a proper day's work
@@JamesRichards-mj9kw Lord Wilson.
@@AbandonEarth911 Wilson was a Soviet agent, like Foot and McGahey.
it nearly was by labour .....like all the railway lines , all labour
7:12 Just imagine a labour leader not backing the working man unbelievable????? Mr kinnock you are a let down to working people ...sorry lord kinnock
The strike was illegal.
@@JamesRichards-mj9kw no is was not
@@tezer3496 Look it up.
@@tezer3496 It was ruled illegal in September 1984.
@@JamesRichards-mj9kw wrong
Like or dislike margaret thatcher it matters not but she was a leader and thats what this country needed at the time ..i wish we had a leader today september 2023 in this country unfortunately we have not
Even all these years later Kinnock still waffles on without actually saying anything of substance. He was a disaster for the Labour party, a two time loser, and is still a disaster now.
What book is this? Just I’ve seen people say it’s atleast 3 different books
Kinnock a traitor to the working class.
Lame.
@@manaih5652 You silly arse.
Does saying, “Arthur Scargill was a bully who lived like Croesus while the miners starved” make someone a traitor to the working class?
They will always be in my 💓 those poor families
I dislike Kinnock thoroughly, but I am convinced of his observation.
Neil did well in the elections didn't he?
He is gracious enough to admit himself that he was a failure in terms of elections - but he did gradually improve Labour's standing and laid a lot of the groundwork for the 1997 victory. The party he bequeathed to John Smith after the 1992 defeat was in far beter shape than the one he inherited from Michael Foot in 1983.
@@lapponia77 Labour only became electable by abandoning socialism in 1995.
@@MarkHarrison733 I don't totally disagree with that, but I think it's an over-simplification. Labour was actually elected a number of times before 'abandoning socialism', as you put it, in 1995.
The thing I admired about Kinnock was that he lived in the real world. After Foot, who was an honourable but naive man, he accepted that, if Labour were to become electable again, they would have to adapt to a changing world in which ordibary people had different aspirations for themselves and their families.That process inevitablly took a long time; Kinnock worked tirelessly and paved the way for later success, John Smith continued the work, and Blair made the decisive break. To be fair to him, Blair always acknowledged the debt he owed to Smith and Kinnock.
@@lapponia77 Smith caused Labour to lose in 1992.
@@MarkHarrison733 Again, you have a point, but I think that's also an over-simplification. I suspect that many people simply thought that there had already been enough of a change in 1990, when Major replaced Thatcher, and were not quite ready to trust Labour and believe that the reforms Kinnock had made were genuine. Five more years of Tory government and the arrival of Blair on the scene certainly did the trick, though :-)
Kinnock the scab
So old now that I just remember Kinnock being interesting to listen to.
I worked in the Power Industry at the time of the miners Strike at a Coal Fired power Station. The Agecroft Pit across the road kept producing coal with only 30% of the staff. Output doubled. We had so much coal you couldn't see out of the windows. £46 per tonne. Australian Open Cast Low Sulphur Coal was £11/tonne delivered to Tilbury.
Nationalised industry needed sorting
The strike was about jobs and community. Thatcher set out to break the unions and succeeded. It changed Britain irrevocably and for the worse. Every country with strong unions sees workers paid better wages, obviously. Without strong unions there is no-one to fight for them, which is one of the reasons why inequality has widened so dramatically in Britain, the most unequal country in Europe in 2023 except Bulgaria. Thatcher destroyed society no matter what her defenders like to pretend. Her project to transfer wealth from the majority to the rich was a runaway success on its own terms but the price paid by society has been incalculable. Privatisation has been a total disaster, with shareholder value driving business instead of quality of service. It is hugely ironic that the sewage issue is likely to cost the Tories dearly at the next election- it would not have happened if water had not been privatised. Even most Tory voters support re-nationalisation of the railways. Consumers have not benefitted from privatisation- higher prices have hit them in the pocket for decades. We have the highest rail fares in Europe and dreadful service.
@@eightiesmusic1984 Aussie coal was also cut from open cast mines..another thing if the industry needed to be run down..it could have been done in a planned long term way.
@@eightiesmusic1984 Right argument, wrong example to make the argument. Unionism can't save unprofitable or archaic industries, and Scargill's self-destructive nonsense was just as harmful to trade unionism as Thatcher. He didn't care about the miners, he was getting high on playing his games of revolutionary toy soldiers.
@@kailashpatel1706 Hard to talk about "long term" when imported coal was so much cheaper. Taxpayer money was being used to prop up a inefficient and unprofitable industry.
@@zippymufo9765 you need to grasp how poor investment in those industries (even one with rich coal seams across the UK) was undermining the industry's potential (South Wales had huge seams) even so at the time the British coal output was cheaper than in Europe but the nationalised industries had
external polices pursued towards it which curtailed their potential
What book is he discussing??
Battle of Saltley Gate 1972, not 1974 as mistakenly stated here
very interesting, I was in the 1984 strike as a BACM union member, as a Nightshift Undermanger. Kinock is correct in his analysis. To add detail confirming his appraisal of the support of other unions, I was present when NACODS, were working and the NUM were picking, and tried cohesion and had the opposite effect, because they had not had a ballot!
Scab.
Tories in power 1979-2022
NACODS members voted by over 80% to join the strike, but their leaders accepted a deal to rescind this. The strike would probably have won had this vote been respected by the NACODS leadership
@@chasmac4055 Precisely. The strike was in the balance at this point and even the stockpiling of coal would not have been decisive if NACODS had gone on strike. Scargill was right in everything he said. It is absurd that his opponents always resort to generalisations and cliches to undermine him, such as ' he was a Marxist'. So what? Nothing wrong with being a Marxist- it was always seen as part of politics in many other countries. People are so immature in Britain. To my mind Scargill is a working class hero and history will vindicate him. It already has, really.
@@MrGoneTroppo 1979-2024 and 2024- if the red Tories form a government under Starmer.
Him and Scargill two of history's biggest failures !
The NUM elected Scargill as their leader. Surely, they deserved him as leader?
Don't worry. Surely the prick is dead by now??
Yes but he was the leader. Not the movement. That was what dictated Kinnock's stance.
Better than Lord Gormley, that parasite was a traitor and a government informant.
Turncoat.
Sara Smith too right . Turned his back on his own he disgusts me
well reasoned post
What's the Book ?
The Enemy Within by Seumas Milne
I think it’s Marching to the Fault Line: The 1984 Miners' Stirke and the Death of Industrial Britain
My dad was there 84 to 85 , and so Meny, but it comes down to fuel, they make wars for it , sorry if iam wrong ,
People wanted there rights maintained
take this rubbish and shove it . scargill and the num were as much to blame as thatcher
Scargill and Kinnock - bookends of ambition over pragmatism and achievement.
He's right what he says, especially about the disastrous decision not to have a ballot. However he didn't say that 30 years ago for fear of splitting the Labour Party.
Is his claim about coal being safe with carbon capture tehcnology in industry any truthful ans scientific???
Scargill destroyed the NUM by starting a fight he could not win.
Thatcher and the economics of capitalism destroyed the coal industry.
@@AbandonEarth911 Twice as many coal mines had closed under the Soviet agent Wilson.
@@AbandonEarth911 The coal industry in the UK had steadily declined since 1910.
Rubbish
@@tezer3496 Scargill did not have the resources to bring down the elected government.
This should be a must for them 💓
Has charmer outlived the lettuce 😂
The seaside industry was screwed in the sixties when the miners decided to spend their money in Benidorm instead of Blackpool. Then mines were screwed in the eighties when the few remaining B&Bs decided to use gas and not coal. WHAT GOES ROUND COMES ROUND.
@Dyn y Jawa
Do you realise how idiotic your statement is? Are you seriously suggesting that seaside bed and breakfast lodging houses displaced 75 million tonnes of deep mined coal by 1985, on top of a 18 million tonnes from open cast? Really??
@@tracybeckett4107
What killed the mines was the environment and the fact that they did not want to use coal any longer.
Unions, politicians should have come together with a plan to retrain the miners
in other fields .
But the fact that the Conservatives and the unions hated one another spelled the end for the mines.
Also the NUM felt there was a chance to bring down Thatcher administration as they had with the Heath administration with the three day week and endless strikes .
A very depressing state of affairs
what are you on about we didn't go to Spain only Scarborough, brid etc
@@richardboswell9306 do you no about punctuation no mate I don't fink u doo not never mind innit
Even if everything was true that this so called book, suggests, he still does not tell us of any other form of action that the miner's could have achieved
Funny Tories trying to sign off a new coal mine in Cumbria in 2022 lol
Labour will stop that.
Get on to Cardiff Council Mr
Aberfan was a disaster and Wales should have a statue of young children holding hands with a mother and father in Cardiff to remind them of what happened
They have a sculpture nearby aberfan called the aberfan angel. Exactly where the statue should be in the valley where the tragedy happened, not in Cardiff 40 minutes away.
@@thomasrenshaw7730 should still be mother father and children / Child as the statue but you have what you want as long as you are happy
Looking back on the death of the mining industry in Western Europe I wonder that if is would have been kept alive, maybe Ukraine would still be in peace today
the main reason coal had to go was the CO2 emissions target. There was no way you could have a coal industry that large and reduce CO2 emissions.
@@ShahidKhan-ke8fe You are right in a sense. But I do believe that if the money for coal would have stayed in Britain, or Germany or elsewhere instead of going to Saudi Arabia we wouldnt have decidedly less problems including not enough funding for green energy
Marching to the Fault Line by Francis Beckett and David Hencke (Constable)
Class traitor