Boris Johnson has been accused of laughing at lives being destroyed as the backlash to his joke about mine closures continued to become ever more furious on Friday.
Ex-miners, their family members and academics as well as a host of MPs and regional mayors all demanded the prime minister apologise after he made light of the misery caused by the shutting of pits in the 1980s.
One claimed the former Eton pupil was gaslighting an entire generation. Another said that Mr Johnson could not even imagine what we went through.
The Conservative leader was speaking in Scotland about the UKs need to reduce its fossil fuel reliance when he jested about the colliery closures.
Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, who closed so many coal mines across the country, we had a big early start and were now moving rapidly away from coal altogether, he laughed, before adding: I thought that would get you going.
The closure of mines under Mrs Thatcher saw almost 200,000 people, mainly in the north, the Midlands and Wales, made redundant over the space of a decade. It is widely seen to have sparked a generation of unemployment in the communities affected.
He talks about levelling up and understanding the north, and then he says something like this and its the mask slipping, said Mike Hawkins, a mental health support worker whose father John was an electrical engineer at the Haig Colliery in Whitehaven, Cumbria. It shows he has nothing but contempt for working people.
Talking about the devastation in Whitehaven itself, the Labour councillor added: People here had to scratch a living for years. Dad was one of the lucky ones because he managed to get work [at Sellafield nuclear power plant] pretty soon after but there were other people who never worked again after that. Thats what hes joking about. Hes laughing at lives being destroyed. Very funny, isnt it? Whether you think what happened was right or wrong, you still dont laugh about that.
Professor Katy Shaw, author of the 2012 book Mining the Meaning: Cultural Representations of the 1984-5 UK Miners Strike, said the gag was an attempt to abscond responsibility and narcissistically distance the Tories from the devastation the closures caused.
Any attempt to reframe what Thatchers government did to mining communities and moreover how and why they did it is the ultimate example of gaslighting an entire generation, she said.
The Northumbria University professor, who is herself the daughter of a miner, added: Joking about it speaks of a profound ignorance of the lived reality of the strike living on tins and hand-outs. The PM might forget but the north does not.
In a statement, Alan Mardghum, secretary of the Durham Miners Association, said: Johnson has again shown utter contempt for the people of former mining communities. The wilful annihilation of the coal industry caused social and economic devastation in our communities that is still felt to this day. It was an ideological assault It is no joke.
As the backlash grew, however, the prime minister appeared in no mood to apologise.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: The prime minister recognises the huge impact and pain closing coal mines had in communities across the UK. This government has an ambitious plan to tackle the critical issue of climate change, which includes reducing reliance on coal and other non-renewable energy sources.
During the visit the prime minister pointed to the huge progress already made in the UK transitioning away from coal and towards cleaner forms of energy, and our commitment to supporting people and industries on that transition.