Richard Hawley wrote:
we need to invest in our children and take care of our sick and elderly and make sure our environment is a good one in which to grow
You are right, that is what happened. Seamus Milne's The Enemy Within details what they did to the miners in an almost unbelievable way.
I used to work in a bar in the miners strike and the boss used to let a couple of coppers in the back for a pint and a pie (if you've ever seen those scenes in Craig Cash's Early Doors, it was really like that) and we'd have to serve them. They were a nice pair of old boys and I'd sit and have a fag with them. One of them told me that there was a file on me in the cop shop – I helped run the local miners support group – and that I should look out for myself. The staggering thing was, I was 17, 5ft 2in, and had never been in trouble with the police before. Don't know if it was true but, in light of what's come out since, it made me think.
I listened to that Clegg student thing on Radio 4 this morning and I thought they give him a real good run for his money. Over the past few weeks, I've gone from being morbidly miserable about the whole cuts thing to a bit heartened. 145 people have joined the union at my work alone in the last month and some of them have put my misery to shame by how brilliantly they're standing up for their services. I did a meeting of home helps whose jobs were going last week and the manager barely escaped with his life! Hell hath no fury like middle aged East End women scorned and this gang of public school shite would do well to learn that.
I just think we all have to ignore the bullshit being spewed out in the papers and on TV and get off our arses and have a go. x