As the civilised world revelled in the news that the 33 Chilean miners have been delivered safely from their 700m subterranean hell after 70 days, reports are coming in that one person is not at all pleased.
Insiders claimed that ex-British Premier Margaret Thatcher, reportedly suffering from terminal ‘forgetfulness’ muttered that she couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, because as far as she was concerned, there shouldn’t even be any miners because she destroyed them all in 1985.
“Not so,” said International miner’s leader Bora Hole. “Mining is still alive and kicking, despite Thatcher’s attempts to strangle it at source in the UK. It’s gone on in other countries for decades, the difference being that some nations support their workers – who after all are the backbone of any national economy – whilst others prefer the financial sector as a source of national income. We all know where that particular strategy left us.”
“Yeah, right in the mire,” said a passerby with a Yorkshire accent who overheard the conversation. “It’s all well and good all these London-based fairies deciding the future of our country based on Thatcherism – but may I be so kind as to remind you that the British Empire was built on industrialisation – not paper shuffling and number crunching. Wallies, the lot of ’em.”
Apparently yesterday was Thatcher’s 85th birthday – eclipsed totally by a mining rescue operation in Chile – funny old World; wonder what Pinochet thinks of it all.