Brassed Off! doesn't pull any fucking punches about the immediate effects of the pit closures. It doesn't shy away from the reality of people's lives, whereby the fate of the workers was either death by coal or death by poverty. And yes, people absolutely did kill themselves as a result. It wasn't done out of care for the workers' safety or health; it wasn't done for environmental reasons, they didn't gi a shit.

Cannot emphasise enough that the ramifications are still felt to this day. Of course it has. How could it not? You take towns and villages structured around mining, whose primary income as a region was mining, and expect the North to not be completely fucked when you stop mining, whilst providing the equivalence of pittance as compensation and doing sod all to improve the region afterwards? Fuck off. The influence mining had on large parts of the North can't be understated; even fucking now 30-40 years later. You feel that effect everywhere - everything's built on former mines, there's symbols of it everywhere, stories told by everyone over a certain age. Poor health, poverty, Westminster not gi ing two shits oh that sounds familiar.

If you're not British and you've heard about Thatcher's policies about closing the mines, primarily in the North of England, and want a film that explores it, watch Brassed Off!

If you're British but from a middle class background or live in the South of England or elsewhere where mining was nowhere near as prevalant an industry and you're wondering how the North could possibly still be as fucked as it is, watch Brassed Off!

If you've ever wondered why workers doing a job as dangerous as coal mining were so pissed at the Tories for closing the pits, watch Brassed Off!

ok so. it's literally 4 in the morning but I have a question about fridges

put ur answer and country and wealth status ig (?) in the tags if u want. idk

idk why I need to know this but I feel like having more freezer space and a separate fridge and freezer us uncommon? I could also be completely wrong, who knows

A comrade.

December 7, 2023 - Hundreds of UK union workers blockaded companies who sell weapons or parts for fighter jets that Israel uses for its genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people. Four factories were blockaded in Bournemouth, Lancashire, Brighton and Glasgow. Palestinian unions have asked for union workers across the world to use their power to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. Dock workers have recenty heeded this call for solidarity by blocking Israeli weapons shipments in several countries, inculding South Africa, Greece, Turkey, Belgium, and Italy. [video]

This is probably my last post on the whole “Liz is dead” situation but I want to talk about my great grandmother, who is currently 92 years old. When I was growing up, hell even now, she’d tell me a lot about her own stories, mostly about how terrifying life was under both the British Raj and Nizam rule (her side of my family is from Hyderabad - Google the Nizams and the Razakars if you’ve never heard about them, that’s a whole other thing of its own).

Something I remember very clearly is her telling me about this one song she was forced to sing in her school - she went to a Christian convent school - and the song was about the greatness of “George Prabhu and Mary Rani,” aka George V, Elizabeth II’s grandfather. Recently my mom was able to film her singing this song so that we could listen to the lyrics, which are originally in Telugu, and roughly translated it means “we’re singing in honor of George and Mary, who are the rulers of India and have brought great fortune to India, and we see them as our father and mother.”

This is just a really difficult reminder that when we’re talking about why Elizabeth II and the royal family don’t deserve our respect or condolences, many of us have very personal stories that run deep through our families. “But she was a mother, a grandmother, a person” and I don’t care because she and her family were in the business of dehumanizing and erasing the identities of millions of other mothers, other grandmothers, other PEOPLE. Why else would my great grandmother be forced to sing a song in their honor? “But she wasn’t responsible for India” fair enough, her darling grandfather had a great time doing that, but how about you go and talk to Kenya? Or anyone in Africa? Or the Caribbean? I’m sick and tired of being told to “not speak ill of the dead” when REALLY I and millions of others should be getting an apology from anyone who wants to “praise her legacy” and talk about how “revolutionary” she was.

edit: i got the george’s mixed up before. george v is elizabeth ii’s grandfather. george vi is her father.

Although not new, terms like ‘white working class’ have gained traction in recent years, serving at different turns as nostalgia, weapon, dog whistle, and obfuscation. The motives of its peddlers are clear: beneath the apparently benign, literal language, is a suggestion that white people (used interchangeably and incorrectly in this context with British men) have been disadvantaged by diversity and inclusion, that there is something unique about the experience of the white working class, and that this is a demographic which merits special treatment. To affix the word ‘white’ on the front of ‘working class’ is to posit that there is something distinct about the relationship between whiteness and class. And yet people of colour in the UK disproportionately live in poverty, most notably those of Black, Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent. When the economy crashed in the 1970s, the number of unemployed Black and Asian workers rose by 290 per cent, nearly three times as fast as the jobless total as a whole. People of colour have always been some of the most marginalised members of the working-class, at the sharpest end of societal and economic shocks. The ‘white working class’ narrative, then, serves no purpose other than to obscure where power lies, undermine liberatory politics, and reinstate the white male breadwinner as the default trade unionist and gatekeeper of the union.

Eve Livingston, Make Bosses Pay: Why We Need Unions

i actually adore the classism that is in so many wolfstar fics cos i grew up as a working class kid but i went to a middle class school and i got so badly bullied for the accent i had (particularly cos I'm northern) but also for having a battered school uniform cos it was second hand and i didn't always have lunch money when i was really young but onto my point so many wolfstar fics (off the top of my head mostly cadence and atyd) represented really well the gap between the rich and the poor in the uk cos it's so difficult honestly and i love the representation

btw my parents sorted themselves out when i was ab 13 so we were in a much better position then but yk it was still quite hard

USAmericans will literally live in a trailer working 3 jobs for $7 an hour surviving off gas station food and still call themselves ‘middle class.’

Here in the UK if you’re middle class you’re probably a neurosurgeon with a stable-barn and a mansion big enough to have its own name. US middle class is our working class.

Not got owt to say about it, just really fuckin weird innit. I’ve had a few USAmericans describe me as middle class and I’m like mate… I make half of what you do lol

EDIT: I have since been corrected on this!!! Please stop reblogging this without checking the notes first, I was quite wrong!!!

you have to go to uni otherwise your life will go nowhere why would you go to uni these days the trades are dying we need more people in the trades no no we don't want more women in the trades we need more doctors nurses teachers so you have to get a degree or multiple degrees why are you complaining about debt you chose to do this you have to get at LEAST a masters degree because bachelors are basically useless they're handing degrees out like sweets these days you shouldn't go to uni if you can't afford it you have to get good grades at a level to get anywhere wait you don't want to go to uni? then what the fuck do you expect from life? student loans are fine they're not like other debt the highest student loan debt is £230,000 you'll be repaying it for your whole life there are so many useless degrees they need to get rid of them STEM is the way to go why is art and literature and music so bad these days the top earners at unis are on six figure salaries your student loan interest will go up year on year and btw we are really looking for someone with a higher level of education for this entry level position

Every Worker!

"but how did people fall for the willy wonka experience scam when it was so obviously fake just looking at the site!" because it was deliberately targeted at working class families and people who generally don't have the best literacy and online situational deduction skills. billy coull and the other scammers were fully aware the AI pics would be a dead giveaway to most people, as experienced scammers they were likely counting on it.

its the same way email scammers use terrible grammar and spelling in their "african prince" or fake blackmail type scams, because the people who would be more likely to fall for it are also the most vulnerable, the most disadvantaged, and the least likely to be able to do anything about the situation after they've been scammed. scammers like these are also hoping the victim's embarrassment at being fleeced by something that was "obvious" in hindsight shuts them up.

also people who blame the victims of scams for "not being smart enough" are fucking rats btw 👍 hope this help

WTFFF I thought thirteen would be my new girl crush love of my life heart eyes wife you-came-after-twelve-you-must-be-better-than-they're-all-saying bbygirl and then I had to sit down and watch as she told a man who (if he were not a murderer, of course) literally every regeneration before her would've LOVED and FULLY SUPPORTED that "the systems aren't the problem. how people use and exploit the system, that's the problem. people like you" </33333 !?!?

On February 18th, 1981, a BBC headline announced something that would be unthinkable three years later, 'Thatcher Gives in to Miners'.

"…Mrs Thatcher's Conservative Government has withdrawn plans to close 23 pits in its first major u-turn since coming to power two years ago. President of the National Union of Mineworkers Joe Gormley is confident the government's intervention will avert the threatened national miners' strikes…"

After crisis talks in Whitehall between union leaders and Energy Secretary, David Howell, the government agreed to reduce coal imports from eight million to 5.5 million tons and to reinstate higher operating subsidies.

NUM President Joe Gormley stated that as a result of commitments given, he would not be recommending a strike despite overwhelming support for industrial action from within the union membership.

Not everyone was happy;

"…The next day the NUM told all miners to return to work after the executive voted to accept the concessions made by the government and coal board by 15 to 8, with one abstention. Some left-wing pits maintained unofficial stoppages and there were pickets outside the NUM headquarters in London…"

When the government confirmed an injection of 300 million pounds in industry support, the unofficial action was called off and rebel pits were operating again by 20th February. Just over a year later, Joe Gormley secured a 9.3 % pay rise for miners, and was replaced by Arthur Scargill as NUM President.

In a 2002 BBC documentary, a former Special Branch officer claimed that Joe Gormley was a security services informant during the 1970s, having become concerned over the increasing influence within the NUM of left-wing militants.

Arthur Scargill opined,

"…The history of our movement is littered with people in leadership positions who were either connected with Special Branch or connected with the State..."

Joe Gormley was awarded a Life Peerage in 1982, and passed away in 1993.

So now we have hospital appointments cancelled, funerals cancelled, no paid leave, protesters arrested, billions spent on a funeral. The monarchy still exists, why we still acting like the queen dying changes anything?

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