And “Finger right on the button” was my opinion, Nigel. No need to write ‘War and Peace’, that’s the speciality of others on the forum.

FWIW, the difference between pit-closures during Wilson’s tenure and those of the Thatcher years is the matter of intent and purpose - in the case of the Wilson closures, the intent was to make the coal industry operate more efficiently and thereby ensure its continuation, whereas Thatcher’s intent - as Attila pointed out correctly in his piece - was to break the trade-unions, emasculate worker-power, and destroy the industry. It was a vicious, politically-driven, ideological enterprise, and a major part of the Tory Class-war of that period.