C4 A Miners' Strike "revelations"

[Kromovaracun]

http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/thatcher-miners-official-papers-confirm-strikers-worst-suspicions/265

Could any ABers who were there at the time explain to me why this article has such a tone of outrage? It seems fairly obvious that the govt was opposing the Unions - by the time of the Miners' strike they had become extremely destructive.

Is this article clutching at straws to try and make us angry?

[jno]

I see no outrage? The word he uses is "shock" - that the government lied, that it was using the police force to further its political aims.

I've seen worse since - notably Cameron telling the courts to throw out the rule book after the riots. But that was at least public.

Everyone knew the government was taking on the unions. But there was a widespread assumption that it would be done openly and legitimately - not leaning on the police and courts.

[Zacs-Master]

Sorry Kromo but I'm not getting 'outrage'.

[Kromovaracun]

Oh. Perhaps I was wrong to use the word outrage.

Let's take shock then. I don't understand what's so shocking about what this guy found in the national archives.

[ChillDoubt]

So the government wanted to kill off a dying, wasteful industry 25 tears ago that my stepdad was employed in?
Not even vaguely shocked or angry.

[Zacs-Master]

One fact I was unaware of was brought to my attention by Look North was that Scargill drew up his own list of pits at risk of closure to unite the miners nationally. I think it was Paul Routledge.

[Zacs-Master]

Sorry....join the dots.

[ludwig]

// I don't understand what's so shocking about what this guy found in the national archives. //

That's because there isn't anything shocking about it. As government papers become public, there'll be plenty of journalists that want to make something outrageous out of it. Especially if they happen to hate the people that were in government at the time.

Be ready for lots of 'outrageous' revelations about Blair's notes preceding the Iraq invasion.

[Zeuhl]

If I remember right it's a nuance of positioning.

The government were adamant that it was a dispute between the national Coal Board who we're closing pits and the Unions who took industrial action and that the government had no agenda other than maintaining the 'rule of law'.

The archives confirm what was suspected by most (and I was a Conservative Party Member at the time) that the Party were sore about previous administrations being brought down by Unions and saw this as a showdown in which they could break a major Union and briefed the Police to go into it hard. I had a couple of friends in the Police at the time and they knew exactly what was expected of them and it wasn't just 'maintaining the Law'

[Gromit]

I have read it, and I do not agree it has a tone of outrage. Or that it is trying to make us angry. The archive hasn't really revealed anything we didn't know already. The miners knew there was a closure list of 75 pits which is why they went on strike. They knew the Government denials were lies. They knew the police had been politicised. In short, they knew their strike was justified.

These 'revelations' should not surprise anybody, they do not surprise me. The only people who might feel let down are those who believed the Government at the time. But contrary to the claim in the article, I don't think that many did. People knew the miners had brought down Heath, and Callaghan's winter of discontent was a recent memory, so it was plain to see the Thatcher Government were out to end that power and not to suffer the same fate. A lot of people supported that aim, so they were prepared to accept it was a war that the miners must not win.

The confirmation that the government denials at the time were false, and to a large extent the miners were right is not of much consequence. The miners were defeated, their power broken and subsequently the unions all but nullified is seen by many as a huge benefit for the country. The fact that tens of thousands lost their jobs was payback for following coomunist leaders and successively crippling the country over the previous two decades.

[ToraToraTora]

I think Gromit's second paragraph explains it well. This was a pivotal battle between union power and the governement of the day. The unions had been winning, Mrs T knew that to lose again would mean further slippage towards a socialist state. Fortunately for all of us, the Union in question was the NUM who's leader was it's greatest enemy and it's members blinded by the inability to see economic reality and an ovine tendency to follow a fool made it an easy win for the Governement. I'm not saying it's right but this was a war and we all know what the first casualty of that is.

[jomifl]

I suppose the miner's strike had nothing to do with Arthur Scargill's ambitions?

[mikey4444]

The Government of the time, via its henchman Ian MacGregor, repeatedly denied that there was a secret hit list of mine closures. These Cabinet papers now show that they lied and Scargill was right, at least on this point.

We have discussed this many times here on AB, and I suppose some people will never understand why the Miners strike was such a cathartic period. For the people that lived through it, these revelations are nothing new. But, in a similar way to another recent historical topic on AB, there are people who were not born at the time, that still need to be told the truth.

[naomi24]

//there are people who were not born at the time, that still need to be told the truth. //

I've posted this on a couple of other threads on the subject. This is the truth.

//From the beginning of the 20th century, the coal industry was in decline. This process intensified in the years following World War I, and again after World War II. In the two decades from 1950-1970 around a hundred North East coal mines were closed.[9] A common misconception is that Newcastle upon Tyne, and its suburbs was one of the areas affected most by the infamous mid-eighties strike. However, in reality, the vast majority of mines in that area were long since defunct by that time. In March 1968, the last pit in the Black Country closed and pit closures were a regular occurrence in many other areas.//

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_Kingdom

[emmie]

wasn't it Labour who closed more pits than the Tories, or is that an urban myth. Outraged, no, surprised no, sorry yes,
Chill your dad was there, and so had more knowledge one would expect of these turn of events, unlike us who weren't, or were alive then but not actively involved.

[emmie]

Naomi, beat me to it.

[ToraToraTora]

The governement lied mikey, yes, and really that ws the main mistake, they should just have come clean up front because it was clear that the mining industry needed pruning. I suppose, like all governments, they thought it better to hide the true agenda at least at the time. So yes on the subject of pit closures, Scargill was correct but really it was a no brainer economically. The problem is that, even now the miners involved seem to imagine that Scargill being correct was in some way a comfort when they suffered as they did for blindly following a fool.

[Kromovaracun]

"For the people that lived through it, these revelations are nothing new."

Well, that's kind of my point Mikey. I didn't live through it - but just about everything I've ever read about the Strike treats it as a standoff between government and union. So it seems like virtually nobody took the 'bystander' claim seriously....

[emmie]

we were the unfortunate bystanders in these disputes, strikes, i remember all too well the three day week, rubbish piling up, bodies unburied,
part of the week working by candlelight at work, because the power was off, as they say i kid you not. Not good times, never good.

[mushroom25]

during the 3-day week in february 1974, when edward heath raised the stakes and said to the electorate "who governs britain?" (and they answered "not you ted"), I remembered seeing a graffitied election slogan in London - "Vote for Ted - 4 Days in Bed".

[ToraToraTora]

That was a decade before the miners strike Emmie but tell that to the modern day Thatcher haters, they have no idea what she did for us, they have just been brainwashed by lefty teachers who hated her for exposing their flawed ideology.