NeilG wrote:I didn't start the fire
...using British or Columbian coal?
I think the truth was somewhere in the middle. Scargill thought that he should be running the country and was more important than elected politicians. He was prepared to sacrifice his members to take on the government. Flip side, Thatcher didn't just want to beat the miners, she wanted to decimate them and their communities. Having broken them, she continued until she'd destroyed their very entity, taking with them the shops & pubs etc.
In my opinion, for the sake of democracy, Scargill had to lose but Thatcher had nothing but disdain for anyone who wasn't 'successful'. If you were poor, uneducated or ill she believed you deserved nothing. Probably the best politician of the 20th century...
but a complete and utter bitch.