Real Heroes

Real Heroes

A bit of balance is needed I think. On this day that marks the passing of one of the most divisive figures in Great British history, it is only fair to present another viewpoint.

Working people, especially the miners, factory workers, ship builders and general rank and file built this country's infrastructure, its economic wealth, its society and its spirit over the course of several hundred years. A key part of this was the industrial revolution, started in the North of England, and built on Coal, the Coal industry, its miners and the technological revolution of steam power and then generated electricity.

Visit Newcastle upon Tyne, see the legacy of Vickers/Armstrong, visit Cragside to see the first hydro electric turbine generators. Home of the railways, steam engines, Artillery guns, tanks, marine innovations.

This legacy should have attracted investment from North Sea oil, the biggest windfall of the last century. That woman destroyed it, saying the manufacturing and production industries were 'dead' to be replaced by Services, the free market economy and particularly the Finance industry.

It is ironic that the biggest psychological 'hit' to Finance and Shareholding was through the collapse of the Northern Rock Bank and its 'Child of Thatcher' CEO Adam Applegarth. What sensible people now believe in the power of the markets, and private shareholding, when,in the North, the government used NR as an example and robbed the poor to pay the rich.

So, a blip today of Miners, a picture of Burt Hall, which was a building that housed the Trade Unions. Their aim? to produce a fairer society, ensure safe working conditions and provide welfare for the needy.

Adios Thatcher - let's now look forward to a new society where greed and selfishness are despised as opposed to idolised. Appreciate the miners for what they did for the country; they built our wealth. Don't deprecate them for striking and wanting a fair deal and investment in their industry for future sustainable energy supplies.

In a strange way, they were ahead of their time. Thatcher was behind - taking us back, back to the last century where powerful landowners (now known as landlords and foreign investors), Aristocrats (our new Posh Boy politicians and the legacy of Royalty), and Factory owners (Anonymous Corporate Executives) rule with absolute power.

There is little democracy, choice, autonomy or debate any more.

What a Legacy!