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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 t

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

> 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.