>My understanding is that Thatcher closed down coal because production was uneconomical and she didn't want government coffers propping it up. Your use of the word "attack" is emotionally charged, as if Thatcher was just doing it for evil lulz.

I don't think she was doing for "evil lulz" but it was clearly an attack, the government developed the "Ridley Plan" some years before to prevent and curtail the power of organised labour in the UK. The motivation for this was the capitulation of the Heath Government to the NUM in 1972 and the fear of the use of strike action as a military weapon by the Soviet Union - the British Unions had extensive ties to the Soviets. The industry wasn't uneconomic but the installation and development of subsidized oil and nuclear plants and the willingness of the British to import coal made uncompetitive. There was a prospect of another 50 or 70 years of deepmined coal for Britain - a highly undesirable prospect, but there is an alternative universe in which the NUM won and we would be trying to deal with this now.