“Sure Thatcher closed all the mines and put workers out of a

Comment on Liberal Democrats to Win The General Election! by David.

“Sure Thatcher closed all the mines and put workers out of a job but she was looking to the future.”

Closing the pits per se when they aren’t profitable has some merit from a strictly business perspective, BUT when the people working in those pits are given no replacement industry, closing pits is not looking to the future as it destroyed entire communities and cost the tax payer heavily in benefit payments.

Had the Conservatives had a long term plan for the country instead of leaving it to market forces and hoping everything will be alright, they would have attracted new industries to Britain, then it wouldn’t have been such an awful thing to do, but Thatcherism is a “your on your own mate” politics with caring a commodity Tories can not afford to have!

As it was it would have made far more sense long term to indirectly subsidise the pits (tax breaks for example) and slowly close them so an entire industry wasn’t destroyed pretty much over night.

This would have protected communities from the destruction they suffered under Thatcher and protect hard working men from languishing on the dole because all they knew in life was hard, manual labor down a pit and trying to find a new reasonable pay job in Thatchers no minimum wage, no workers rights sweatshop Britain with 5 million unemployed is not a simple case of “getting on your bike” to find work.

Looking to the future is what Labour are doing now (though I admit a bit late in the day). They are trying to get 50% of our young people in education or training so we as a nation are ready for the 21st century industries, the green industries that are set to revolutionise the world and Labour wants Britain at the forefront of those new industries.

Historical the Conservatives leave business to market forces. Market forces does not work well with new virgining industries, we need to be the innovators not the followers and that takes government intervention to promote those industries through education and training of a new workforce with the required skills and offering businesses in those new industries a good reason to setup shop in Britain.

13 years isn’t nearly enough time to turn around the damage the Tories did to a generation of young people. Consider 5-10 years just to get infrastructure (capital investment) and legislation in place and a further 10 years to actually educate and train a new generation of workers in these new industries before real change is noticeable.

If the Tories get back in much of the hard work will be lost :-(

David