Distant Voices by John Pilger Page B

matters is that they are seen to be vying for ‘business’, trying to catch the eye of a passing Nissan man, offering everything on the cheap, especially labour.
    By any measure of economics, there is no logic to this: it is purely doctrinaire. This is demonstrated by the Government’s refusal to allow £7,500,000 in European Community money to go to east Durham simply because it would break the ideological embargo on allowing local authorities to decide how to spend resources. Easington District Council has been allowed to spend just £600,000, about enough to fill in holes and paint the lamp posts.
    There is no shortage of studies that conclude the obvious: that the cost of providing alternative employment is far greater than any subsidy to, or investment in, the mining industry. The coal reserves are there; British Coal continues to suppress the results of its bore-drilling off the Durham coast, having admitted that ‘the information is commercially valuable’. 44 Reports by McCloskey Coal Information Services and experts at Durham and Newcastle universities show that the retention of both Easington and Vane Tempest pits makes economic sense. 45 In one of its own glossy brochures, British Coal describes Easington as ‘one of the North-east’s underseasuper pits’, which two years running produced a million tons of coal in record time. 46
    Of course, all this is irrelevant to the aims of privatisation, the spirit of which is expressed in a series of national newspaper advertisements. There is a photograph of a miner, Arnie Makinson, who is lauded as ‘one of Britain’s most successful businessmen’. The caption reads, ‘Meet Arnie . . . a member of a workforce that’s more than doubled productivity in just five years. He may not be Sir John Harvey-Jones but, as far as we’re concerned, he’s got as much to offer. We’re tapping the richest seam of all – the hidden talents of our workforce.’ 47
    Mr Makinson has his arms folded. So you cannot see that one hand is mutilated. Last year he lost the little and index fingers of his right hand in a terrible accident at Stillingfleet Colliery in Yorkshire during the week that Stillingfleet set out to break the European production record, and succeeded. Mr Makinson was working at the coal-face and his hand was so badly crushed that it seemed amputation might be necessary on the spot. Although he has to undergo more surgery, he has returned to work at the coal-face. If he joined other injured men at the pithead, he would be paid considerably less. ‘One of Britain’s most successful businessmen’ is still awaiting compensation.
    Under privatisation, the British coal industry is to be sold off in order to ‘compete’ in a home market that is about to be decimated by the importation of cheap foreign coal. In the meantime, pits that produce the cheapest coal in Europe are to be closed. Fewer pits will mean big profits – profits at the expense of the future. Some people are about to get very rich indeed.
    Last July, the miners’ parliamentary group – all of them ex-miners – met the board of British Coal. Their secretary, Dennis Skinner, asked each board member to answer one question: ‘If this industry is privatised, will you give a guarantee that you personally will not benefit from the new set-up?’
    â€˜I got an immediate response from the deputy chairman, Ken Moses,’ Skinner told me. ‘He shouted that he wouldn’tgive any bloody guarantee. “Not me, Skinner!” he said. After that the chairman, Neil Clarke, said, “Nobody must answer that question,” and he led them out the door.’
    According to Arthur Scargill, if all the 31 pits eventually go, the number of unemployed in those industries tied to coal will be 70,000. ‘If there is anyone who thinks that this is about the mining industry,’ he has said