Scargill may or may not have accelerated the closure of the mines, but this is academic, as The Wicked Witch, using Sir Keith Joseph's blueprint, planned on closing them anyway. Continental coal was much cheaper, and it was essential that she had the electricity industry using this cheap coal so that she could sell off the last of the family jewels, which she did in 1990, just 4-5 years after the strike. The tories sold almost all of our nationalised assets to generate billions of revenue, which covered up their disastrous management of the economy. Once all of these assets had been sold off, this mismanagement became clear, leading to the tories falling from Government in 1997, as the economy spiralled out of control.
It comes as no surprise that they have learned nothing from this, and have doubled the National Debt to 1.5 Trillion Pounds in he last 5 years - a level that has never been pondered before, far less reached! If only Maggie hadn't sold all the family jewels - they'd have been able to sell them now. The only weapon they have now is to blame the previous incumbents, but as we all know, this has been used rather too often, far too inaccurately, and more and more people are now understanding the results of the tory mismanagement.