B4 Thatcher took on the coal miners, she had already decided to shut coal mines & switch to North Sea Oil as energy source, in which the UK had a large share.

She quietly arranged 4 power plants 2 be built in pvt. Sector, & then changed coal miners in a contest of wills.

The coal miners & the public were never told about the decision in favour of North Sea Oil. Public at large thought that was an open question 4 a distant future. Thatcher waged an ideological battle with coal miners who owned the Labour Party . The outcome was predetermined.

So great ideological debates raged in the public sphere about free enterprise vs public sector, privatisation of coal mines, capitalism vs socialism etc. This cacophony of debate was a ruse to cover the fact the power plants, all gas based & hence very quickly built were readied.

Thatcher herself played the deception beautifully until it was clear that the power plants would be up & ready in time & ample gas supplies had been secured. Then, only then, coal miners were told, UK didn’t need any coal, forget about mines & their strike melted away.

Thatcher was true to her word. 90% of the coal mines on strike were never reopened. UK had stopped using coal 4 energy generation. The coal miners, who could have blocked the power plants, didn’t know they were coming.

Thatcher became an ideological champion.

It suited everybody to project her victory as ideological. But the true story is that of North Sea Oil offering her the opportunity to shut down coal mines. To win, she downplayed the availability of gas, & bumped up the time line for gas based plants for the public.

Moral of the story:

Reforms are not an ideological debate conducted in TV studios. They are a very practical project, where you know what you have to do, every step of the way, to get it done.

If the detailed homework is not done, you have another demonetisation like disaster.

4 my reformist friends on the right, there is another lesson. The true valued added by Thatchers war with coal miners was technological - the enhanced efficiency that came from substituting expensive coal by cheap North Sea Gas that was practically free.

They were real gains.

These real gains by switching from expensive coal, that was expensive because of high labour costs, to cheap almost free gas, were used by Thatcher to sell the virtues of privatisation of a swathe of assets that Govt was saddled with but where gains were far into future.

So the lesson is look for solid gains in productivity that come from switching resources or application of new technologies. Those are the real gains you can use to sell other reforms.

Just trying to sell ideology is a mug’s game. You can’t sell reforms @gurdarshan style.