Disgust.
That was the reaction of former miner turned politician Jim McMahon to Boris Johnson’s ‘joke’ that Margaret Thatcher’s closure of mines were carried out for environmental reasons.
The Cumnock and New Cumnock councillor, who is depute leader of East Ayrshire Council, said that even the best part of four decades on from the Miners’ Strike, the communities still feel the pain that saw New Cumnock reduced to a shell of its former glory.
So the Prime Minister's quip to Scottish journalists that ‘thanks to Margaret Thatcher, who closed so many coal mines across the country, we had a big early start and we're now moving rapidly away from coal altogether’, was met with real anger.
Cllr McMahon, who was one of many who took part in and was arrested on the picket lines in 1984, said: “The contempt that he has treated the coal mining communities is beyond me.”
“I despised Margaret Thatcher and everything she stood for. Her policies saw the mining areas become industrial graveyards.
“Once you are a miner, you are always a miner. Thirty five years on since the pits closed and you still feel the impact.”
The SNP councillor, who is leading the move away from fossil fuel powered vehicle to environmentally friendly alternatives, said that he understands the shift from coal, but not the ruthless approach of the Thatcher government.
“I wouldn’t disagree that the way we are going forward is not correct,” he said. “For him to say she started this climate change initiative back in the 80s is absolutely disgraceful.
“No consideration is left for the people who are left behind.
“The insensitivity about what he deemed a joke is what makes it so appalling. I am talking about the demise of New Cumnock, whose population went from 9,000 down to 2,500.
“These were communities that thrived, where the foundations were coal.
“His colleagues must be in despair every time he is front of a camera, not knowing what he is going to say.
“He should come out and apologise. Absolutely 100 percent. It was an ill construed, ill thought of and abhorrent thing to come away with.”
But Cllr McMahon did wonder what Mrs Thatcher would think of the Digital Dairy project to be based at Cumnock’s Barony Campus, having infamously withdrawn free milk for young school pupils.
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