Was Nationalising coal Labour's biggest ever mistake?

[Louis MacNeice]

The population watched the strike on telly, not from the picket lines. They endorsed the Thatcher project at elections in advance of the strike and after it had been defeated.

I'm at a loss to understand how politicians can engineer changes in attitude: they seek to persuade, and they can create a legislative framework, but they can't force attitudes to change. After all, those same politicians engineered the conditions for a change in local government finance only a very few years later. The poll tax campaign showed that the people weren't prepared to be engineered like that.

Newbie - the population didn't endorse the Thatcher project; just enough of the population supported the Tories for a variety of reasons (e.g. reductions in higher rates of income tax, discounted council house sales, discounted share issues).

As for your question about how politicians can engineer changes in attitude; well you go on to answer your question. By changing the law they can very effectively encourage some attitudes (accumulation of personal wealth) and discourage others (acting in social and industrial solidarity). Of course their are no guarantees that this will work always and every where, as your poll tax example shows; but it doesn't have to. So long as just enough (42% of those voting) find sufficient of the legislative changes and their consequences sufficiently attractive to offset any misgivings they may have, then hey presto you win the GE lottery and get the chance at another go.

As to what we can learn from the shift in union support between Heath and Thatcher; well one set of explanations would be on the macro-level both in terms of economic change (e.g. the exhaustion of the post-war boom) and political commitment (e.g. the collapse of the social democratic consensus). So there's no going back Keynesian deficit budgeting or tri-partied strategic planning; they were historically specific solutions which afforded the working class some very real benefits, but which wouldn't deliver in Today's changed circumstances.

Louis Mac

 

[newbie]

Newbie - the population didn't endorse the Thatcher project; just enough of the population supported the Tories for a variety of reasons (e.g. reductions in higher rates of income tax, discounted council house sales, discounted share issues).

because the totality of the project- seen as transferring control and wealth from the state to the individual- chimed with changing public expectations.

As for your question about how politicians can engineer changes in attitude; well you go on to answer your question. By changing the law they can very effectively encourage some attitudes (accumulation of personal wealth) and discourage others (acting in social and industrial solidarity). Of course their are no guarantees that this will work always and every where, as your poll tax example shows; but it doesn't have to.

Ok, politicians can push at doors, opening those with working hinges, failing on the ones where resistance is too great. Skillful pols know which is which: something about the 'art of the possible'. They wouldn't have been able to do what they did if they didn't have public support.

So long as just enough (42% of those voting) find sufficient of the legislative changes and their consequences sufficiently attractive to offset any misgivings they may have, then hey presto you win the GE lottery and get the chance at another go.

Of course general elections are flawed, but they're all we've got to judge by, and explaining away every inconvenient result by dismissing the process is less than convincing. A more convincing argument is that there was no credible opposition, but that was because the LP was tearing itself to pieces over precisely the question of attitude to nationalisation and trades unions. The outcome of that battle doesn't lend itself supporting a view that the election results didn't reflect changing attitudes.

As to what we can learn from the shift in union support between Heath and Thatcher; well one set of explanations would be on the macro-level both in terms of economic change (e.g. the exhaustion of the post-war boom) and political commitment (e.g. the collapse of the social democratic consensus). So there's no going back Keynesian deficit budgeting or tri-partied strategic planning; they were historically specific solutions which afforded the working class some very real benefits, but which wouldn't deliver in Today's changed circumstances.

Louis Mac

That's pretty much what I said further up the thread- I'm always pleased to agree with you




I'm going to have to go shortly and probably won't have a chance to get back to this until after the weekend, so apologies in advance.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Newbie - I'll just do a quick come back on the support for the Thatcher project notion. I'm becoming more and more convinced that interest and support for anything coherent enough to be described as a political project is confined to fans of politics. Joining up the dots between policies to make some big picture is not neccessary when deciding where to put your cross; identifying/being told about a small number of headline policies is sufficient. That these policies can be actually contradictory doesn't matter; a classic example of this being Thatcher's promise to bear down on public spending at the same time as promoting industrial 'rationalisation' which saw a huge hike in public expenditure on benefits (obviously re-arranging public spending doesn't sound quite as go getting though).

Cheers and have a good weekend - Louis Mac

 

[sihhi]

Ok, politicians can push at doors, opening those with working hinges, failing on the ones where resistance is too great. Skillful pols know which is which: something about the 'art of the possible'. They wouldn't have been able to do what they did if they didn't have public support..

Politicians like Thatcher as you yrself describe are skilful- they will 'give alittle' in the short-term with one hand "an end to the inconvenience of strikes" "more money for you with lower taxes" and take much more with the other in the long-term concentrating wealth in the rich.

 

[Rich Lyon]

if you think control consists only of the ability to stop something

Don't be sloppy. I've said that being able to stop something is sufficient to be able to control it. This logic mangling is emerging as an endearing (if rather bemusing) characteristic of yours.

I understand why you need to try and divert our attention away from the murder and intimidation that accompanied the strikes (you haven't, and we'll get to that shortly). But I'm not sure why you need to pretend that the practice of general and sympathy strikes didn't augment NUM power to the extent that they had, de facto, the ability to invoke a national emergency at will. I presume you are trying somehow to decouple the actions of the NUM from the disproportionate chaos they produced. You haven't.

the NUM has no monopoly of the use of force and compared to the state it was a feather weight novice

Striking miners orphaned four children by killing a taxi driver for taking miners to work. The NUM is on record as having destroyed the records documenting the killers activities. Other miners are recorded expressing regret that it wasn't the miners themselves that were killed. A government minister and former NUM official is on record as believing that many other striking miners were capable and willing to commit murder.

Let us remember the cause of this particular strike and the ultimate reason for this murder: the desire to be relieved of the effort of finding new employment, an activity many of us have performed many times in our lives.

You need to tread carefully here, Ms Mac. In what possible way does a monopoly or otherwise diminish the immorality of the behaviour of those who murdered, or of those who wished that others had been murdered? Are you asserting that murder was somehow justified? If not, are you asserting that any outcome arrived at through violence and murder would have had any moral legitimacy? If not, in what way can you contest the ultimate defeat of the miners?

You've moved on from the red scare miners, to the monstrous miners; I'm sure you could put your vivid imagination to better use.

Yawn. I feel like I'm being gummed to death. The only consolation is watching poor Isambard here playing Quasimodo to your Esmerelda.

As for the idea that the nation acted against the NUM you're wrong again

Is this where you are going to invoke the tawdry "Establishment rewriting history" card? I also lived through that period. I do clearly recall the events as depicted in The Guardian (that bastion of Establishment thinking):

The killing was one of the turning points in the strike, and devastating for the public's opinion of the striking miners.

- I was a member of the public who's opinion was turned, and remained turned ever since. I also remember the rubbish rotting in the streets, my uncle not getting buried for a while, etc.

We got fed up with selfish people abusing powers we trusted them with. Deal with it.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

if you think control consists only of the ability to stop something

Don't be sloppy. I've said that being able to stop something is sufficient to be able to control it. This logic mangling is emerging as an endearing (if rather bemusing) characteristic of yours.

I understand why you need to try and divert our attention away from the murder and intimidation that accompanied the strikes (you haven't, and we'll get to that shortly). But I'm not sure why you need to pretend that the practice of general and sympathy strikes didn't augment NUM power to the extent that they had, de facto, the ability to invoke a national emergency at will. I presume you are trying somehow to decouple the actions of the NUM from the disproportionate chaos they produced. You haven't.

the NUM has no monopoly of the use of force and compared to the state it was a feather weight novice

Striking miners orphaned four children by killing a taxi driver for taking miners to work. The NUM is on record as having destroyed the records documenting the killers activities. Other miners are recorded expressing regret that it wasn't the miners themselves that were killed. A government minister and former NUM official is on record as believing that many other striking miners were capable and willing to commit murder.

Let us remember the cause of this particular strike and the ultimate reason for this murder: the desire to be relieved of the effort of finding new employment, an activity many of us have performed many times in our lives.

You need to tread carefully here, Ms Mac. In what possible way does a monopoly or otherwise diminish the immorality of the behaviour of those who murdered, or of those who wished that others had been murdered? Are you asserting that murder was somehow justified? If not, are you asserting that any outcome arrived at through violence and murder would have had any moral legitimacy? If not, in what way can you contest the ultimate defeat of the miners?

You've moved on from the red scare miners, to the monstrous miners; I'm sure you could put your vivid imagination to better use.

Yawn. I feel like I'm being gummed to death. The only consolation is watching poor Isambard here playing Quasimodo to your Esmerelda.

As for the idea that the nation acted against the NUM you're wrong again

Is this where you are going to invoke the tawdry "Establishment rewriting history" card? I also lived through that period. I do clearly recall the events as depicted in The Guardian (that bastion of Establishment thinking): - I was a member of the public who's opinion was turned, and remained turned ever since. I also remember the rubbish rotting in the streets, my uncle not getting buried for a while, etc.

We got fed up with selfish people abusing powers we trusted them with. Deal with it.

But as I've pointed out being able to stop something - in the case an industry lest we forget - is not sufficient to control it; your simple repetition doesn't make it so.

I have made no attempt to divert attention away from the question of violence; what i have attempted to do is to provide a context for that violence. It is telling though not suprising that you make no mention of the miners killed while picketting nor those who died while attempting to keep themselves and their families warm. But why should you they are monsters and aliens (not part of the nation) afterall. Incidentally what do you make of all those fellow trade unionists and others who supported them; dupes, cowards or just plain greedy...remember there were an awful lot of them?

You might also want to ask yourself why you feel the need to universalise your experience and perception of the NUM and their actions to the whole nation when this is so obviously not the case? What is it you are really scared of ?

Just one more thing for the moment, go back and read your last post; it contains one very glaring error which has nothing to do with the disputes under discussion, but which speaks volumes about your inability to read and comprehend.

Louis Mac