> Bazzer Smith wrote:

>> "mentalguy2008" googlemail.com> wrote in message
>> news:T8Fnk.19957$Z24.2567@newsfe19.ams2...

>>> "mert1639" herald.ox.ac.uk> wrote in message
>>> news:g7n5qt$hp6$1@frank-exchange-of-views.oucs.ox.ac.uk...

>>>> "Bazzer Smith" invalid.net> wrote in message
>>>> news:UEEnk.17706$GP7.2433@newsfe23.ams2...

>>>>> With 5 million unemployed and sky high oil prices
>>>>> why don't we open up all the pits Thatcher closed down
>>>>> in her class war and kill two birds with one stone?

>>>> I wouldn't be at all supprised if this happened in my life time.
>>>> With a poor international security situation and lack of interest in
>>>> green power sources I can see a future for coal. I'm not sure,
>>>> however, that we'd get many miners in the UK now though. We may
>>>> well have to import them from abroad.
>>>>

>>> Will the Labour MP's and supporters expect Gordon Brown to run mines
>>> at a loss, like they expected Thatcher to?

>>
>> They were never run at a loss, who pays for the 5 million unemployed?
>> Sliced bread?

>
> The mines were run at an enormous loss to the taxpayer (which some call
> "subsidy").
>
> Part of the whole dispute which ran from the early 1970s to the later
> 1980s was this understated debate about just how big the loss should be
> allowed to get. There were some who thought it quite proper that the
> industry should lose money hand over fist - and who spoke out
> vociferously in support of even bigger losses (among other things).