Here's a graph of coal output and employment from 1950 to 2011, as a percentage of the figures in 1950...
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| Maggie Thatcher - destroying Britain's coalmines?? |
The source data, from the UK government data giving coal statistics since 1850, can be found here...
A deeper discussion on the data can also be found here...
What does it tell us? Well, there was certainly a decline in Maggie Thatcher's time. However, under both Wilson and Macmillan, it is clear that there was a much steeper decline. Under Harold Wilson in the 60s, 80% more miners lost their jobs each year. Yet how often do we hear that Wilson destroyed Britain's coal industry?
More positively, at the end of the Thatcher era, around 3/4 of coal was produced (of the figure in 1979), by around 1/4 of the miners. Which equates to around 3 times more coal produced, and hence 3 times higher productivity, per miner. 3 times less miners to do the same job, and be supported by the UK taxpayer... In any private industry, this would be hailed as a fantastic success... so why is there no acknowledgement of this in the case of evaluating Thatcher's reign as prime minister??
