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> The people on the right at that time (UK 1966) didn't hang as they were of an effectively protected capitalist caste with no regulation to hold them to accoun

> The people on the right at that time (UK 1966) didn't hang as they were of an effectively protected capitalist caste with no regulation to hold them to account. Which people are you referring to? Since the National Coal Board was running the mine, I wouldn't have expected capitalists to be to blame, and the Labour party were in power at the time of the disaster. I'm not very familiar with this, so may be missing something.

defrost 3y ago
> Since the National Coal Board was running the mine, I wouldn't have expected capitalists to be to blame, and the Labour party were in power at the time of the disaster. Look at what people and organisations do and not what they call themselves; Coal reserves were nationalised during the war in 1942 and placed under the control of the Coal Commission, but the mining industry remained in private hands. So UK centralised control of divying up resources, mine owners running the operations (and the usual UK historic overlap between capitalists and Peers with seats in the house of Lords, etc.) Straight out of the gate, the NCB was headed up by Lord Hyndley [1] as chairman (director of the Bank of England between 1931-1945, managing director of Powell Duffryn Ltd, collieries, 1931-1946). NCB actions in the early days were to maximise returns using public funds for improvements that benefitted private owners with little improvement in safety or working conditons: the NCB spent more than £550 million on major improvements and new sinkings, much of it to mechanise the coal-getting process underground and by 1957 Britain's collieries were producing cheaper coal than anywhere in Europe. The next chairman was nominally a socialist, trade unionists, man of the people etc. but that rapidly proved to be on paper and for show - born from merchants and placed as an official in the Allied Workers union more as a representative of shopkeepers than shopworkers, he proved to be the ideal paper tiger to head the NCB Alfred Robens, later elevated to Baron Robens of Woldingham, loved the trappings of power and oversaw policy implementations that originated from mine owners and government policy before his tenure; substantial cuts in the mining industry and neglect of spoil heaps, things that lead directly to the Aberfan disaster. And that was the the first two tenures of the NCB - nominally running coal for "the benefit of the people", actually running coal to maximise throughput and profits for owners. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hindley,_1st_Viscount_Hyndley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hindley,_1st_Viscount_Hyn... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Robens,_Baron_Robens_of_Woldingham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Robens,_Baron_Robens_of... Those responsible, then, include all the mine owners with a footprint in the House of Lords, all the various enablers on the committees that set policy for the NCB ala Yes, Minister, the founding chairman, and the second chairman who was parachuted with gifts into an established front.
- penteract 3y ago
  Thanks for providing more detail, I'm happy to agree that some of the characters were very dubious, but I think you're misreading some parts regarding whether the NCB owned the mines: > Coal reserves were nationalised during the war in 1942 and placed under the control of the Coal Commission, but the mining industry remained in private hands. This quote is in the background section of the Wikipedia article - the NCB was formed 4 years later and "took over the United Kingdom's collieries on 'vesting day', 1 January 1947" as described. The legislation (in particular the first subsections of each of [1] and [2]) support this, the previous owners were compensated, but did not own the coal mines after the vesting day. [1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/9-10/59/section/5/enacted https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/9-10/59/section/5/... [2] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/9-10/59/schedule/FIRST/enacted https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/9-10/59/schedule/F...
  - defrost 3y ago
    > I think you're misreading some parts regarding whether the NCB owned the mines Fair point, I'm Australian and very second hand to the fine detail. On the flip side, I'm > 60 and have been around mining most of my life, working in, geophysical exploration and mapping, global mineral intelligence for markets, etc. and I remain deeply skeptical about underlying realities of control versus appearances. The UK NCB, from many snippets of conversations with various UK people on both sides of politics, (including some off record comments from Alistair McAlpine, Thatcher's political party treasurer) funneled a great deal of money by various means back to the usual suspects .. the former owners of the coal fields .. now cashed up "coal experts" that continued to profit by providing "services" and "advice" to the NCB. I think we can agree that the actions of the NCB in prioritising resource extraction over mine safety led to several mine disasters including this big one at hand. I'm claiming that while the NCB was on paper some kind of peoples ownership of coal, it was still essentially being run from behind the scenes by the same class of people that once owned the coal, who still profited from the policy decisions they pushed through, etc. etc. I admit I missed the detail about the transfer of ownership but I'm unsurprised, it's a not uncommon pattern and one that has been roundly satirised in UK media such as Private Eye and Yes, Minister. I still lay the blame for such disasters at the feet of those on committees making actual policy and decisions for the NCB .. and from what I can read that does trace back to Lords, bankers, and their proxies.

defrost 3y ago

> Since the National Coal Board was running the mine, I wouldn't have expected capitalists to be to blame, and the Labour party were in power at the time of the disaster. Look at what people and organisations do and not what they call themselves; Coal reserves were nationalised during the war in 1942 and placed under the control of the Coal Commission, but the mining industry remained in private hands. So UK centralised control of divying up resources, mine owners running the operations (and the usual UK historic overlap between capitalists and Peers with seats in the house of Lords, etc.) Straight out of the gate, the NCB was headed up by Lord Hyndley [1] as chairman (director of the Bank of England between 1931-1945, managing director of Powell Duffryn Ltd, collieries, 1931-1946). NCB actions in the early days were to maximise returns using public funds for improvements that benefitted private owners with little improvement in safety or working conditons: the NCB spent more than £550 million on major improvements and new sinkings, much of it to mechanise the coal-getting process underground and by 1957 Britain's collieries were producing cheaper coal than anywhere in Europe. The next chairman was nominally a socialist, trade unionists, man of the people etc. but that rapidly proved to be on paper and for show - born from merchants and placed as an official in the Allied Workers union more as a representative of shopkeepers than shopworkers, he proved to be the ideal paper tiger to head the NCB Alfred Robens, later elevated to Baron Robens of Woldingham, loved the trappings of power and oversaw policy implementations that originated from mine owners and government policy before his tenure; substantial cuts in the mining industry and neglect of spoil heaps, things that lead directly to the Aberfan disaster. And that was the the first two tenures of the NCB - nominally running coal for "the benefit of the people", actually running coal to maximise throughput and profits for owners. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hindley,_1st_Viscount_Hyndley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hindley,_1st_Viscount_Hyn... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Robens,_Baron_Robens_of_Woldingham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Robens,_Baron_Robens_of... Those responsible, then, include all the mine owners with a footprint in the House of Lords, all the various enablers on the committees that set policy for the NCB ala Yes, Minister, the founding chairman, and the second chairman who was parachuted with gifts into an established front.

penteract 3y ago
Thanks for providing more detail, I'm happy to agree that some of the characters were very dubious, but I think you're misreading some parts regarding whether the NCB owned the mines: > Coal reserves were nationalised during the war in 1942 and placed under the control of the Coal Commission, but the mining industry remained in private hands. This quote is in the background section of the Wikipedia article - the NCB was formed 4 years later and "took over the United Kingdom's collieries on 'vesting day', 1 January 1947" as described. The legislation (in particular the first subsections of each of [1] and [2]) support this, the previous owners were compensated, but did not own the coal mines after the vesting day. [1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/9-10/59/section/5/enacted https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/9-10/59/section/5/... [2] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/9-10/59/schedule/FIRST/enacted https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/9-10/59/schedule/F...
- defrost 3y ago
  > I think you're misreading some parts regarding whether the NCB owned the mines Fair point, I'm Australian and very second hand to the fine detail. On the flip side, I'm > 60 and have been around mining most of my life, working in, geophysical exploration and mapping, global mineral intelligence for markets, etc. and I remain deeply skeptical about underlying realities of control versus appearances. The UK NCB, from many snippets of conversations with various UK people on both sides of politics, (including some off record comments from Alistair McAlpine, Thatcher's political party treasurer) funneled a great deal of money by various means back to the usual suspects .. the former owners of the coal fields .. now cashed up "coal experts" that continued to profit by providing "services" and "advice" to the NCB. I think we can agree that the actions of the NCB in prioritising resource extraction over mine safety led to several mine disasters including this big one at hand. I'm claiming that while the NCB was on paper some kind of peoples ownership of coal, it was still essentially being run from behind the scenes by the same class of people that once owned the coal, who still profited from the policy decisions they pushed through, etc. etc. I admit I missed the detail about the transfer of ownership but I'm unsurprised, it's a not uncommon pattern and one that has been roundly satirised in UK media such as Private Eye and Yes, Minister. I still lay the blame for such disasters at the feet of those on committees making actual policy and decisions for the NCB .. and from what I can read that does trace back to Lords, bankers, and their proxies.