Bloody-minded Tory ministers tried yesterday to finish the job Thatcher started by refusing to save two of Britain's last three surviving deep coalmines.

Business Minister Michael Fallon offered a £10 million loan to UK Coal - but only to help close the Kellingley and Thoresby pits.

The 340 workers he has already condemned to the dole will walk out of their colliery gates for the last time next month in a throwback to scenes from the 1980s.

And they could be followed out by another 1,000 highly skilled staff within a year without a privately funded rescue package.

Just one deep pit will survive in Britain - worker-owned Hatfield - once the Tories' "managed closures" of the Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire mines are complete.

Despite ministers pledging last week to fight for the future of the mines, Mr Fallon revealed in a written statement yesterday morning there would be no support beyond the "wind-down period" to August 2015.

Mining remains a "risky business" that offers "no value for money," he wrote.

But that's "a load of crap," straight-talking Labour MP Dennis Skinner told the Commons.

During business questions he once again leapt to the defence of miners in the face of the nasty party's latest and perhaps fatal blow to Britain's coal communities.

Mr Skinner told the Tories they have made mining "one of the smallest businesses in Britain.

"There are three pits left - 1,300 miners are due to be sacked at two of those pits," he said.

"That will make it a minuscule, small business.

"And instead of helping those pits to stay open and give them tax breaks like they do the oil companies, what has this government done to the small business?

"Just stolen £700 million out of the mineworkers' pension fund this February. What a story to tell those miners.

"Come on, help them out," he bellowed at cruel coalition ministers.

Shadow energy minister Tom Greatrex also pressed ministers to find private investors for Kellingley and Thoresby before the first workers are sacked on May 23.

Coal unions will use the brief reprieve offered yesterday to continue their efforts to help attract outside cash.

But they warned that families and businesses will foot the bill if the Tories increase Britain's reliance on coal imports through their ideological refusal to invest in the industry.

Last year Britain was forced to import 54.5m tons of coal just to keep the lights on thanks to the Tory destruction of our coal industry.

National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire area official Chris Skidmore met members at the Kellingley pit yesterday.

"The men are depressed and confused and disappointed," he told the Morning Star.

"Forty per cent of electricity is generated from coal and they cannot understand why the British government would not want it to be British-mined coal, and why they would rather spend money to put them out of work than keep them in work."