It was not to keep them doing something which was totally unnecessary – coal and coal mining, a living, breathing industry, continue to be necessary in a way that aircraft carriers and the defence industry aren’t.

The latter carry the additional problem of actually paying to staff and maintain them, while paying to staff and maintain the mines yielded coal.

To say that providing alternative employment takes time is valid, but these companies would have to be broken up into their constituent parts anyway, so where’s the harm in looking into the skills of each individual, comparing this with a list of what projects the government has under way and spending the money not on some ridiculous defence projects but on something else?

You can’t really say we can’t do that, because neither you nor I have the relevant lists to hand. You may retort that I can’t really say we can – but the truth is, it’s utterly pointless to build aircraft carriers in a way that continuing to mine coal was never pointless, so we have to find a way.