Re: Reid, Scargill and Janos...

"The coal industry in Britain was destroyed by the Thatcher government largely, as I understand it, because of the deal Mrs Thatcher struck with the rest of the Common Market to preserve the British nuclear industry."

Can you explain this -- I have not heard this before.

Even under a wholly planned economic system, the future of the mining industry in the UK (on a large scale) was quite limited. The problem is largely one of geology; with the exception of seams in Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, the seams are thin and deep. It is not possible to compete with coal from the shallow and thick seams of the USA and Australia (tens of metres in the US state of Wyoming).