I've just been told that it's Maggie Thatchers Birthday today.
There are two way you could celebrate today - You could celebrate how Barnet Councils Tories like to celebrate, by laying waste to public services :-
http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/reports/reportdetail.asp?ReportID=9713
Or you could celebrate the real good news today, with the rest of the billions of humanity. The release of the trapped miners. I think it's great that on the day of Margaret Thatchers Birthday, the whole planet is saluting brave miners, a profession that Thatcher declared war on. Living in North West London, I've met many critics of Arthur Scargill and the NUM. I've never met a single North Londoner who would, even for one second, consider mining as a career. I thank God for the rescue of these guys. Most days, the news is full of bad news, isn't it great that once, everyone survived and everyone is happy.
As they have emerged, isn't it remarkable how cool they look in their raybans.
It is indeed a day to celebrate, and wonderful to see the Chilean miners rescued in the face of so much difficulty. If you have, as we do - or did - any family connections with mining you know just how unlikely such a rescue is, and how frequently miners in this country used to lose their lives in similar disasters.The price of Margaret Thatcher's political vendetta against the mining industry was to deprive whole communities of the means of employment and many of those areas have never recovered. That said, the effects of some of the policies being proposed now by her successors, both locally and nationally,will have just as devasting a consequence on us all.
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