Democracy

[Jim Brady]

I would say over half of the right to buy homes are now in the hands of landlords charging exorbitant rents.Many people that had the right to buy had pound notes dangled in front of them after five years.Sell the home to property dealers have a few bob in your pocket and rent it from them,they charged a small rent initialy but soon increased it forcing the previous owner out,once having done that charged new tenants coming in sky high rents.Apart from all that the council got rid of the direct labour force,bricklayers ,joiners,electricians,paviers and painters all lost their jobs.
I seen the brutality on the picket line and not so long ago I heard a seaman talking on our local radio he is a strong union man.He went up to the picket line to support the miners before he knew it he was in the back of a transit van which had the police livery but inside it had the arrows and the words Property Of The MOD.So Maggie did bring in the army.
Regards.
Jim.B.

Right-to-buy housing shame: Third of ex-council homes now owned by rich landlords including family of ex-Tory minister Ian Gow - Mirror Online

[Captain Kong]

On " union thuggery " I wish you had witnessed the thuggery of Maggie's private army of police during the miners strike.

That was NOT a miners Strike Louis.
It was a bunch of Thugs hired by Scargill.
The Strike was illegal because they did not have a Ballot. My brother was a Miner at that time and a lot of my mates were.
I come from a mining community, I once worked in the Pit as a Lad before going to sea. They did not want to go on strike, They had no need to go on strike, They had the Best working conditions of any Industry, and they were the Best paid workers of any Industry.
They were forced out on strike, They were threatened with violence, they threatened to harm their children and their wives . They smashed up my brother`s car and smashed the windows of his house. Some Miners were killed by Scargill`s Thugs and Renta Mob. They would stand on bridges and drop concrete blocks on their cars and some were killed that way.
So Do Not Talk a Load Of Political Left Wing Commie, Trots, Marxist, Crap. You obviously believe all the rubbish and lies put out by the Scargills Mob.. I get angry over that, I saw what was happening, and the way Scargill closed down the Industry.
He refused to let the Maintenance Teams to go down and keep the mines open. The roofs caved in, burying Millions of pounds of machinery, the mines flooded, and they were totally useless.
That is what closed the Mines. Scargill , who is still living the life of a Millionaire, In a Mansion owned by the Union, a Chauffeured car owned and paid for by the Union, and a luxury apartment in London owned by the Union, [ miners]
So do not tell me what happened in the Miners "strike" it affected my family. The Brother lost his very well paid Job with all kinds of benefits that went with it because of that bastard Scargill.
Brian

[Ivan Cloherty]

Sinners and Saints : from what I'm reading it seems that it was only Tories living in Council houses who purchased them when given the opportunity, because no one who voted Labour would ever think of buying their Council house when given the opportunity. Presumably it stands to reason therefore that all current rogue private landlords are Tories because there are no rogue Labour landlords, what a wonderful world we live in.

[Jim Brady]

I know Arthur Scargill lives in a flat owned by the union Brian but where is this mansion,interested to know.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[Captain Kong]

He had a Union mansion near Barnsley, as well as the rented Flat in the Barbican in London. That was paid for by the Union for £34,000 a year,
He was thrown out of the NUM in the end, so I am not too sure now if he lost his Mansion . [Just getting up to date],
He was a Communist Party Member as was his father, and they are all dedicated to the fall of British Industry so then they could then create a Communist State here.
So he still lives the good life on a massive Pension.
He must be the most destructive Union man in history, destroying the very Industry he was supposed to protect for his members.
Harold Wilson closed more coal mines than were closed under Thatcher. Wilson `a good Socialist` closed down 290 coal mines with the loss of many thousands of jobs.
I notice that Labour voters tend to ignore the Destruction of British Industry by Harold Wilson. He closed far more than coal mines, All the British Textile industry was closed down as well, and all the machinery dismantled and shipped out to India and all places east. Hundreds of thousands more jobs lost. Just in Bolton alone over 20,000 textile jobs in the Cotton Industry were lost.
I cannot understand why people have this tunnel vision of what is really going on.
So stop following Labour or Conservative, just understand what is really happening instead of following a certain dogma. They are all, of every Political party, No good guys to follow in Politics.
A lot of fellas I know, say `I vote Labour cos me Dad voted Labour and his Dad before him`. That is no way to vote for anyone.

[Louis the fly]

All I can say to Brian's rant is I stood on the picket lines with the miners and was proud to do so.

[Keith Tindell]

I can remember driving through, or maybe on the by-pass about 25 years ago at Sheffield, and seeing the wasteland that was once the Sheffield steel industry, and being horrified at the vast expanse of decimated factories, and thinking of all the jobs that were lost. I dont know which section of government caused that to happen. I think that the IT world has caused the biggest loss of jobs, who posts letters now?, most contact is by email. The only time i really post a letter is when it is very important, and then i can have recorded delivery. They are even saying that robots are going to take over everything, even sex robots, Jesus, women will be redundant, the robots can do the dishes and the washing etc, mind you whos going to keep the bed warm ??, nothing beats being in the lee of bum island. KT

[Captain Kong]

Did you threaten any miners with violence Louis?? Did you smash any windows and cars ?
I do not know where you where but it was certainly not nice and clean cut in the Lancashire Coal Fields, and if you were not a Miner, was not that Secondary picketing?? Can you tell me Why were the Miners on Strike???
Putting their well paid jobs on the line and then losing them because of Scargill refusing to allow any maintenance. and if your Picketing Prevented the Maintenance Teams from going down to keep the mines open then you are part of the reasons the mines closed and throwing thousands of Miners out of a job.
I guess that really is Something to be Proud of, putting your fellow workers on the Dole.
Brian

[gray_marian]

#174, His home in Barnsley, South Yorkshire Jim, below is an excerpt from the BBC News & Daily Mail 15th Jan 2014 regarding the Flat:

"Arthur Scargill branded a 'hypocrite' after trying to get £1.5m London flat through Right to Buy laws of bitter foe Margaret Thatcher
Ex-National Union of Miners leader tried to buy Barbican flat in 1993
Right to Buy was introduced by Thatcher government in 1980
Scargill's bid was rejected and last year he lost right to stay in flat rent-free


Miners' leader Arthur Scargill was accused of hypocrisy last night after it emerged he tried to buy his London council flat by exploiting one of Margaret Thatcher’s flagship policies.

The former National Union of Mineworkers president applied for the £1million property at a knock-down price in 1993 under the Right To Buy scheme.

But the Left-winger was turned down because the Barbican flat was not his primary residence.Mr Scargill, who led the doomed miners’ strike against the Thatcher government’s pit closures in 1984, failed to mention in the paperwork that he did not pay the rent – the NUM paid £34,000 a year to the Corporation of London for it.

The revelations, in a BBC1 Inside Out documentary, follow a court case last year in which the 76-year-old firebrand lost the right to stay in the flat for life at the union’s expense.

During the hearing it emerged that from 1991 to 2008 the NUM’s executive committee did not know it was paying the rent.

Mr Scargill, who has been shunned by many former allies as a result of the legal battle over his perks, told the BBC that had he succeeded in buying the council flat – at a potential discount of up to 50 per cent – he would have transferred its ownership to the union. But NUM general secretary Chris Kitchen rejected this explanation. He said he was shocked by Mr Scargill’s attempt to ‘feather his nest’ and said that members had been betrayed by their former leader.

‘I can’t believe that the man I now know as Arthur Scargill would have given away a million-pound flat,’ he said, adding that Mr Scargill had misled the union into paying for the flat in the first place and had no right to it in his contract.Mr Scargill tried to take advantage of one of the flagship policies of his old foe.

Right to Buy, introduced in 1980, was at first criticised for reducing housing stock but it allowed millions to own a home for the first time and increased social mobility.

It allowed tenants to buy a council-owned property with a discount of up to 50 per cent on its market value.

Mr Scargill's application emerged in legal papers relating to last year’s court case in which Mr Scargill lost the right to stay in his London flat for life at the expense of the NUM.

NUM general secretary Chris Kitchen told the BBC: ‘The fact that Scargill tried to use Thatcher's right-to-buy scheme is bad enough, but there is no evidence it would have been signed over to the NUM for the benefit of the members.’



Former Scargill loyalist Jimmy Kelly, a miner at the Edlington Main pit near Doncaster in the 1980s, added: ‘It's so hypocritical it's unreal. It was Thatcher's legislation, actually giving council tenants the right to buy their own houses.

‘I think if it had been made public before then there'd have been a huge outcry. I think people would be astounded by knowing that."

[Captain Kong]

All four Strikes that Scargill called were all illegal, there was no Votes by the Miners for the Strikes.