No work in Workington

When I arranged to spend a few days in the Lake District as part of a Demos reseach project I am working on, I did not expect Workington. Pretty and quaint it is not. By the sea, it must have been a pleasant place some time ago, and I had a lovely jog by the sea (past this statue). But the high street is one of the saddest I have ever seen. When Thatcher closed down the inefficient mines, she didn't think of what the people who worked in them would do. After the major industry closed down, the asset stripping began. Stranded in a remote rural location, the people have not recovered. I can't help thinking that while the mines may not have been inefficient, it was perhaps more wasteful to close them down before thinking of an alternative. For if the mines were subsidised then, the people are more subsidised now. And a life lived on benefits is not a happy life. As the contractors in my hotel remarked, "this place has had the arse torn out of it."