You could not make this up.

Brown is really in trouble when the BBC NEWS PROGRAMMES are doing "MINERS STRIKE" specials to try and remind the public of the dispute.

Well - let me say right now that the MINERS STRIKE was positive for the UK. The closure of the pits created 25 years of sustained growth and prosperity. Now BROWN and the BBC try to turn the clock back to the 70s what do we see ? 3 Day weeks - wage cuts - unemployment - economic collapse......

Hopefully this news item will remind the public why they need to get Brown out of office and get a rudder for our country again.

I think it's known as marking an anniversary, BR.

BBC radio 4 talked to two people on their Today program. One was a miner who crossed the picket line. The other was Norman Tebbitt. They did invite Arthur Scargill but he declined. They did not act as voices for Labour.

Like various wars, it is history, and the media are simply observing the 25th anniversary.

Again, I think you are reading far too much into things.

I take gross exception to the suggestion that The Miners Strike was "positive" for the UK. It was bloody devastating as a whole because with it killing off the Unions, working class people now no longer have any powers and rights. It enabled their fat cat bosses to congratulate themselves with ridiculous wage increases whilst the workers got piss all and over time were gradually expected to work more hours and on Sundays. All that was thanks to the Miners Strike and all that was Positive? Why are we partly in the shit now? Because of fat cat bosses helping themselves.

Believe it or not - my Mum has been in the same job since 1982. She is actually getting LESS today than she was back then. She is almost destitute... her pay rises have been minimal and of course Tax forever gobbles up whatever extras are earned... if she does overtime, it all goes to the taxman. But her bosses have nice luxury villas abroad and all mod cons... she can't even afford to save up for a house.

So The Miners Strike improved everything did it? For middle classes and upwards, yes, of course it did... it gave them the powers and rights to use and abuse their workers. For everybody else, no.

The destruction of communities was something which should never have been done. But the MINERS STRIKE was not as big an issue as people actually make out. It was something which had been brewing since the 1970s when the Miners constantly went on strike. If you were alive then you will remember the power cuts and 3 day week because the MINERS themselves basically created the situation that occurred in the 1970s.

When one industry gets out of control - and Scargill was the real villain - then it needs to be sorted out.

I agree that the FAT BANKERS are the same as the Miners and need to be cut down. BROWN however is giving them more money.

The idea of CLASS is out of date. Those people who wish to dredge up history and apply it to modern living when it does not fit are disingenious. Hence the BBC has missed the point.

Why is 25 years since the start of a strike an anniversary that is getting so much coverage - by one corporation.....show me the OTHER places this is being covered ? I quickly went round all the media sites this morning and at 11a.m ONLY the BBC was making an anniversary of the strike.

Are we also going to have a POLL TAX RIOT anniversary ? under the BBC and New Labour ?

We seem to see our impartial national broadcaster acting as a PR organ for the ruling party. That is not healthy -and most people are aware that the BBC is pushing out propaganda daily for New Labour.

My real issues are not with the MINERS - who sadly are gone. I do suggest you listen to the MARTYN JOSEPH tracks about the MINERS ( he used to be on SONY ) to get the depth of the pain that the strike caused.

My issues are with a rich fat BBC who are pumping out news in order to back the New Labour worldview.

We all differ about the cause or effect of the Miners Strike. Most people will say it led to a period of unparalled growth and prosperity in the UK - others will say it reduced "workers rights" but I cant see any example of a RIGHT that it took away that was a fundamental human right. The UK is now signed up to the EU Working Charter which applies to all in the EU - how can that be worse than what existed in the 1970s in the UK ?

I agree with most of what Elliot says. However let us not forget the Trade Unions had held a succession of past government's to ransom. Thatcher's rule was with the Iron fist against them, but in turn she demonised the working classes and managed not only to catapult them into poverty (many ex-miners were told to get on their bikes and if all esle failed to start window cleaning rounds)but had them bludgeoned on live TV by the police which she used as her strike force.

It was despicable. The Tories at their most virile, most aggressive. Thatcher and her henchmen were brutal.

And let's not forget it was also Thatcher who began the love affair with everything American. No doubt in my mind she would have backed Dubya and the assault on Iraq in much the same way as Blair did.

If she hadn't been so agressive, so boorish, so arrogant, and at times inhumane she would probably have been the greatest PM of all time.

But she was all of those things.

There were positive outcomes of Thatcher's stance to the unions although the bad effect on the workforce was the downside. They really had no choice and risked being socially outcast or worse if they crossed the pickett line to work. In the 70's unions were powerful and obstructive to growth and, some say, were controlled by Communist Russian influence.
In the 80's we actually stood up to them - Rupert Murdock sacking all the printers and Bruce Gyngell locking out the overpaid technicians on TV-am (the Australians didnt stand for any nonsense!).

When businesses are losing money, people lose jobs. If an IT company loses money and sheds jobs, they don't start rioting. They just accept that is the nature of business. It should be the same for miners. It was uneconomical for the pits to stay open, therefore they have to close and lose jobs. I don't think that there are many people growing up in Wales thinking, "I wish those coal mines were still open, wouldn't it be nice to work there".

I'm sorry but I'm with Elliott Peters on this one BR. (I was there on the barricades in support-never been down a mine-too scarred !)

You can view it 2 ways-most certainly the eventuall outome was great prosperity-for a few but the decimation of vast communties and traditons was the beginning of a great slide and today we see the result. But like many things in an economy there are swings and roundabouts. What profit is made today is spent on filling tomorrow's jails.

Of course money was made while thouands lost their jobs and the next 2 generations were plunged into years of inactvity with devestating conclusions-kids on crack, local crime etc etc.

You either view society as a sort of co-op..you can slash workers at your business and naturally make bigger profits..you can hire more workers make less profit but if we all co-operate in that manner the economy grows. Eventually by bits and pieces we all get a little richer..there is room for entrepreneurs and clever busines types-and we end up with a co-hesive society (more or less).

The Miner's Strikes era was the beginning of the great experiment of Thatcherism/Reagonomics and the final score card isn't looking good. Their economic policies were experimental-and they have failed.

It doesn't mean something new shouldn't be tried but if you treat the vast bulk of people as incidental to your experiment..well I'm not too sure that that is really the purpose of politics.

2 things: the very idea that Brown should even toast the Miner's Strikes-he and the rogue Tony Boar were Thatherism on steroids. Both went further than she ever dreamed of.

Britain survived Thatcher and she possibly made some excellent and positive changes..I doubt the same can be said of Blair or Brown.

Arhtur Scargill..never a personaly likeable man... was really yesterday's George Galloway. Every attempt was made to fit Scargill up with all manner of false claims-from expensive holidays and homes bought with union funds, USSR pay-offs etc. None were proven and when all were proved false they made about page 34 in the tabloids-no magnifying glass suplied.

In the end he was an honourable bloke just staying true to his roots and as a union leader. I should think he would despise Nu Labour and their claims to an involvement with the Miner's cause.

I lived surrounded by mining communities in the 1980s, although I was not connected with that industry in any other way. I heard arguments on both sides. Scargill's main mistake was to deny the strikers a ballot. His second mistake was to assume that all of them would unite behind him. He split the union down the middle. One half held a ballot and went back to work. The other half followed Scargill and lost out big time.

Of course it's more complex, but that was the basic bones of it. If Scargill had been clever enough to use and exploit the system he might have had more success, but it's a fact that the demand for coal had fallen while the price of British coal had risen. Common sense dictated that the industry could not continue as it was, and that some pits had to close. As it happened, because of the strike, more pits were closed in my part of the world than had originally been intended.

It's still a very emotive issue with old mining families. Nobody likes change, and it was more about fighting change than anything else.

I seem to remember that in the 1990's we were even importing most of our coal from the likes of Germany because UK sourced coal was too expensive!

the cat is right about some of the tactics being wrong but that was on both sides. The real problem-the Thatcher governments attempted 'reforms' were idealogically driven and therein always lies the problem. Plus they were overseen by 'businessmen' who the Conservatives were in the grip of-and who have driven Nu Labour policy.

The miners quite correctly feared for their future. No miner genuinley wanted his kids to become miners as well but if that's all you know then of course they worry about future generations.

Give people nothing real in the place of change and they will fight tooth and nail to keep what they know. But 'divide & conquer' was a tactic that worked for Thatcher. We could debate forever about Scargill's tactics-his motives were genuine.

But-as surely we have seen in the past 12 months and as I have known all my life-you cannot trust corporations to set the running-we all lose in the end. Today's financial collapse was about 40 years in the making.

You always pay-they don't...as an individual you are prey to market forces but under Thatcherism/Blairism/Reaganism-big business isn't and when they fall apart-you bail them out and you keep on paying.

If we had real capitalism it would be OK.