‘Government must plan a dignified future for the displaced workers of today’

• IF, as it seems widely believed, the Covid-19 pandemic is going to leave our society grappling with seismic changes in our economic and social lives, I hope we can learn from past failures which produced generations of misery.

When, for example, it was decided to dispense with our coal industry, its labour force was treated as the enemy within and hammered into submission.

The consequences are still to be found among the grandchildren of those workers to this day – in near-derelict hopeless settlements where once-were thriving mining towns with proud citizens.

Government must plan a dignified future for the displaced workers of today or face an enduring legacy of dysfunction and despair.

CT MARKS,
NW1