[DtheP47]

Originally Posted by accyman

most of thatchers attitude towards mining was sheer spite and a personal battle that she wanted to win at any cost

The demise of the pits rolled over from the Grunwick dispute of 1976 -78, yes violence and wrongdoing on both sides but the inescapable truth was the coal industry was terminal. The Tories learned from the lessons of Grunwick, Scargill never did.
Labour’s James Callaghan was so concerned that Scargill would try to escalate the dispute using thousands of flying pickets that he even asked the cabinet secretary to draw up a note reminding him of the lessons of the so-called battle of Saltley Gates in Birmingham, when flying mass pickets won a decisive victory during the 1972 miners' strike and helped to bring down Edward Heath's Conservative government.
The Tories learned from the lessons of Grunwick, Scargill never did.
Q: Where do you think the coal industry would be today without the intervention of the Thatcher years?