Megan Owen

My dear Stephen, How lovely to see you marking the sixtieth. One of the darkest days in our history, etched in the memory of the nation, a community of such strength. All true. And all of it happening to somebody else. Here is the part your tribute left in the drawer. The tribunal found the Coal Board wholly to blame and said the disaster "could and should have been prevented". The Coal Board then demanded £250,000 from the disaster fund to clear the tip that killed them. The fund, raised by public donation for the families, handed over £150,000. Your party's government applied the pressure, in secret. George Thomas objected, then folded, and leaned on the trustees until they folded too. The Charity Commission sat on its hands. Nobody was prosecuted. It took thirty years to give it back. In July 1997 Ron Davies, your party's first Welsh Secretary of that spell, returned the £150,000 without interest and without inflation, and conceded the demand should never have been made. So yes. Remembering is lovely. Your lot billed the bereaved for clearing the mine's own tip. Twenty three likes. Five retweets. And looking more like your father every year. Do carry on, pet.