1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)

Subject: RE: Newark Notts UK
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 09:16 AM

This conversation sprung up in the middle of another thread that had nothing to do with a miners' strike. This is the point where that conversation (that has been moved to this thread) began:

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Subject: RE: Newark Notts UK From: Peter K (Fionn) - PM Date: 16 Dec 12 - 11:48 AM

Right on the nail Terry, old chum! Big Al is out of order. My immediate next-door neighbour, for instance, and most of his family in this Notts village stayed with the NUM (and consequently out) throughout the strike, when a vast majority in the village did not. That was a much bigger decision than for miners in Yorkshire and elsewhere. Likewise a tough call up the road in Ollerton, where the split was nearer 50/50, and one guy was killed.

I said "most," because an in-law of my neighbour became a general secretary of the breakaway union. It is no myth that the strike divided families, and in some cases it still does.

But yes, stand well back, Kendall!

Incidentally that same neighbour once sat on Peggy Seeger's knee, when his Geordie father's reminiscences were recorded for one of Ewan MacColl's radio ballads. (I think I have that ballad in MP3. If anyone wants a copy, send me your email by PM.)

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Al - IF Scargill had had the basic commonsense to do a bit of P R and then BALLOT the NUM , he would probably have got a vote in favour of the strike . The Notts N U M would then have supported what was , to them , an Unofficial strike . As it was , they were sold down the river along with the rest of the union .
I still cant decide wether Thatcher or Scargill were the worst in that episode .

Subject: RE: Newark Notts UK
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 11:48 AM

Right on the nail Terry, old chum! Big Al is out of order. My immediate next-door neighbour, for instance, and most of his family in this Notts village stayed with the NUM (and consequently out) throughout the strike, when a vast majority in the village did not. That was a much bigger decision than for miners in Yorkshire and elsewhere. Likewise a tough call up the road in Ollerton, where the split was nearer 50/50, and one guy was killed.

I said "most," because an in-law of my neighbour became a general secretary of the breakaway union. It is no myth that the strike divided families, and in some cases it still does.

But yes, stand well back, Kendall!

Incidentally that same neighbour once sat on Peggy Seeger's knee, when his Geordie father's reminiscences were recorded for one of Ewan MacColl's radio ballads. (I think I have that ballad in MP3. If anyone wants a copy, send me your email by PM.)

Subject: RE: Newark Notts UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 12:54 PM

no, the UDM were scabs, AND THEY WERE MAINLY MIDLANDS MINERS,that does not mean every midlands miner was a scab.
those that joined the UDM were, AND THEY DID THEMSELVES NO GOOD WHATSOEVER, where is the UDM now.and before anybody else berates Scargillhe was not a Thief, unlike this founder of the UDM

Greatrex was found guilty of 14 counts of theft at Nottingham Crown Court

A former Nottinghamshire union leader has been found guilty of stealing £150,000 from a miners' charity.

Neil Greatrex, 61, ex-president of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM) was found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court of 14 counts of theft.

Mick Stevens, 60, UDM general secretary, also charged with theft, was cleared by a jury of all 14 counts.

Greatrex was found guilty of stealing £148,628.83 from a miners' nursing home in Lincolnshire between 2000 and 2006.

Sentencing was adjourned until May but Greatrex was warned by the judge to expect a jail term.

During the trial, the court heard both Greatrex and Mr Stevens had been trustees of the charity and its subsidiary company Phoenix Nursing and Residential Home Ltd, and were able to sign cheques on its behalf.

It was alleged Greatrex billed the nursing home for improvement work actually being done on his and Mr Stevens' properties, including an £11,750 kitchen.
'Salary' justification

During the trial, Mr Stevens, from Rufford Park, Newark, said he signed a cheque for £36,000 for building work and general refurbishments which he believed were for the nursing home.
Phoenix Care Centre The court heard Greatrex billed the Phoenix care home for work carried out on his own house

He told the court he paid for improvements on his home by cash or through a separate company he and Greatrex ran.

He added that he would not have authorised any payment through the charity for work to his or Greatrex's properties.

Greatrex, from Stanley near Teversal, Nottinghamshire, told the court that the care home had paid for a new kitchen for his house but the money was taken in lieu of a salary.

"I believed I was entitled to a reasonable salary and expenses from the home for the work that I was doing for it," he said.

Greatrex added that all other payments for improvements to his home had been paid for in cash.
Custodial sentence

Judge, His Honour John Wait, told 61-year-old Greatrex: "You have been convicted of a series of serious frauds against union members who had placed their trust in you.

"I see only one possible sentence - to spell it out that is a prison sentence."

Judith Walker, chief crown prosecutor for CPS East Midlands, said: "Neil Greatrex was given stewardship of charitable funds for a cause close to the hearts of many in his community.

"Instead of honouring that trust, he abused his position and used funds meant for charity for improving his own home.

"Despite Neil Greatrex's claims that the invoices were genuine and that he was entitled to re-numeration as a director, having heard all the evidence the jury has decided that he is responsible for this catalogue of dishonesty and found him guilty of these deceitful and shameful actions."

Greatrex spent more than 20 years in the National Union of Mineworkers before forming the UDM in 1985. He said it was because he believed no-one was speaking out for Nottinghamshire miners, prompting a split between workers.

He was released on conditional bail to be sentenced at the end of May after reports have been prepared.
More on This Story
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    Union bosses 'took charity cash' 20 MARCH 2012, NOTTINGHAM
    Union leaders to face theft trial 12 SEPTEMBER 2011, NOTTINGHAM
    Union leaders deny charity theft 20 MAY 2011, NOTTINGHAM

Subject: RE: Newark Notts UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 01:00 PM

Leadfingers, you are uniformed, you ARE UNIFORMED about Scargill, but here is a bit of info about another NUM leader Joe Gormley,who was an admitted MI5 SPY., along withRayBuckton A.S.L E F.ormer NUM chief was police informer
Joe Gormley
Special Branch were told about possible strikes
Joe Gormley, former president of the National Union of Miners (NUM), was a Special Branch informant during the 1970s, a BBC investigation has revealed.

In a remarkably candid interview for the new BBC Two series True Spies, a former Special Branch officer claims that Mr Gormley passed on details of Arthur Scargill's and other miners' plans for industrial action in the early 1970s.

But, despite receiving warnings from the top of the union, MI5 and the government failed to head off the 1972 strike.

In fact, the Special Branch officer - referred to only as Alan - claims that MI5 told the government the strike would not happen, with devastating consequences for the leadership of the day.

Gormley 'feared militants'

Edward Heath's government was toppled in 1974, following mass industrial action, in what became known as the "Who Runs The Country" election.

The officer claims that Mr Gormley, a right-wing trade unionist, was increasingly concerned that the Far Left was gaining control of the union and agreed to talk to Special Branch.

Joe Gormley
Joe Gormley kept Special Branch informed
Alan told the programme: "The extreme left were getting the upper hand and were dictating the policy of the unions to some great extent, then we found ourselves actually going to unions and talking to the top union officials about what was going on.

"One of them would be Joe Gormley...certainly he was in a position of power and was in a position to furnish us with what we were looking for."

Scargill 'not surprised'

Alan added that Joe Gormley turned informer because "he loved his country. He was a patriot and he was very wary and worried about the growth of militancy within his own union".

But Arthur Scargill himself was not surprised by Mr Gormley's actions, saying: "The history of our movement is littered with people in leadership positions who were either connected with Special Branch or connected with the State."

Any self-respecting trade unionist should not co-operate in that way

Jack Dromey, TGWU
Joe Gormley, who died in 1993 and was president of the NUM until 1982, was not the only trades union leader to have links with the "Secret State".

True Spies reporter Peter Taylor discovered that Special Branch was talking to more than 20 senior trades union leaders during the early 1970s.

This revelation did not shock Mr Scargill either, who said he was only surprised that there were not even more spies within the unions.

But Jack Dromey, a senior official within the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU), condemned Mr Gormley's informer role as "shameful".

He said: "Any self-respecting trade unionist should not co-operate in that way with those regarding their members to be a threat to the state. [It is] outrageous."

Ford employees 'vetted'

Another Special Branch officer claims that Ford, which had a giant car manufacturing plant at Halewood on Merseyside, only agreed to invest there because of a suspected secret deal with MI5 and Special Branch.

Special Branch Officer Tony Robinson
Tony Robinson: 'It was important to monitor unions'
According to Former Special Branch officer Tony Robinson the entire workforce was routinely vetted.

He said: "My senior officer said: 'One of your responsibilities, Tony, is to make certain that the Ford factory is kept clean of subversives.'

"And part of the plan drawn up was to make certain that work would carry on smoothly at Ford without the expected Merseyside disease of strikes and layoffs."

He told the programme that every week Ford would secretly submit a list of the latest job applicants to the local Special Branch.

"We were expected to check these lists against our known subversives, and if any were seen on the list then strike a line through it," he said.

He added: "It was very, very important that the unions were monitored, and I, as a Special Branch officer, make no apologies for doing it as efficiently as I could.

Activist denied Ford job

"We're talking about thousands and thousands of families dependent on continued employment...you have a small group of subversives who can bring that factory to a stop, then I think the ends justify the means."

Reporter Peter Taylor also talked to Tom, a former trades union activist and Communist Party member, who was secretly vetted by Special Branch and denied a job at Ford's Halewood plant.

Tom is very bitter and says: "How can you be proud of Britain when there's things like that going on?"

Others are also outraged that Special Branch should have been able to vet employees.

Jack Dromey said: "The manufacture of Ford Capris is a wee bit different from the production of nuclear warheads. The idea that you blacklist somebody, because of their politics, from going in to make cars is crazy."

A Ford spokesman said: "We cannot confirm that Police Special Branch officers were involved in any way in the checking of job applicants or the alleged agreement with MI5."

Subject: RE: Newark Notts UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 01:02 PM

Greatrex spent more than 20 years in the National Union of Mineworkers before forming the UDM in 1985. He said it was because he believed no-one was speaking out for Nottinghamshire miners, prompting a split between workers."
of course he was feathering his own nest, but the english government were prepared to use him, to split the miners union.

Subject: RE: Newark Notts UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 02:11 PM

It was an executive decision, not the sole decision of arthur scargill.
[ read on]        
                                                        
        
1984: Scargill vetoes national ballot on strike
Miners' leader Arthur Scargill has ruled out a national ballot of miners on whether to continue their five-week strike.

The miners' dispute began on 6 March after the head of the National Coal Board, Ian McGregor, announced plans to cut production, the equivalent of 20 pits or 20,000 jobs.

Mr Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers called on miners to strike as they had done - successfully - in 1972 and 1974.

A veto on a national ballot marks a serious escalation of the dispute, as well as a growing rift between hardline unionists and moderates representing miners in the North West who want to work.

                
        This is yet another example of police state 1984
        
Arthur Scargill, NUM leader
The motion for a ballot had been pushed forward by Jack Jones, the Leicestershire leader.

During a meeting of the NUM national executive headquarters in Sheffield, Mr Scargill's decision was challenged. He had to leave the room and his deputy Mick McGahey chaired a debate among the 24 union members present.

The ruling was upheld by 13 votes to eight with three abstentions.

About 2,500 miners, some of whom had arrived in the early hours, cheered Mr Scargill when he addressed them using a loud-hailer from the eighth-floor window of the building.

He shouted down to the strikers, who were surrounded by 1,500 police officers from seven forces, "This is yet another example of police state 1984."

The situation turned ugly when some miners attacked and hurled verbal abuse at moderate union leaders leaving the meeting and members of the media. There were 53 arrests and and 11 officers were injured.

Mr Scargill later told a news conference the NUM was determined to continue "the fight against Thatcher and MacGregor on pit closures".

He said a national ballot would conflict with last month's executive decision to allow each area the chance to call individual strikes.

Instead of a ballot, a special delegates conference will be held on Thursday. One of its tasks will be to decide whether or not to accept a change in NUM rules that a simple majority would be accepted in a strike ballot instead of the current requirement of 55%.
   TERRY, it was an executive decision, not the sole decision of arthur scargill.
The ruling was upheld by 13 votes to eight with three abstentions.

Subject: RE: Newark Notts UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 02:17 PM

Backwoodsman.
I am attempting to state facts, Terry made an incorrect statement about Scargill, it was in fact an executive decision passed by 13 to 8, with 3 abstentions, now you have attempted to ridicule my name which is a shortened version of Richard,presumably because you do not like the correct version of the miners strike being publicised., that is childish and rude.

Subject: RE: Newark Notts UK
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman sans Cookie
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 02:27 PM

Dick, dont lecture me about 'rude'. It is rude to intrude on a thread and post long political diatribes which have no relevance to the purpose for which the thread was perfectly obviously started. The miners' strike was thirty years ago, and it has no connection with jacquic's visit to the UK, so there is no reason whatsoever for any of you to grind your political axes on this thread.

Kindly start your own thread and take your buddies with you, there's a good chap. You can bluster there.

Subject: RE: Newark Notts UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 02:36 PM

for the record.
if other people start bringing in the miners strike, and spouting incorrect facts about scargill or SCABS,
i am not going to stand by and let it pass unchecked,I stated that not all midlands miners were scabs, and that it was not Scargills decision, these are facts.
if other people dont wish to discuss the miners strike they should not bring it in here or make statements about Scargill.
i PREVIOUSLY contributed details about Carrington folk club.

Subject: RE: Newark Notts UK
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman sans Cookie
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 02:38 PM

Dick, thanks for confirming I was right.

Subject: RE: Newark Notts UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 02:42 PM

backwoodsman,
i find your post patronising,please do not tell me whether i can correct or contribute to posts.
Friends of mine suffered during the miners strike , i am not prepared to tolerate incorrect facts being put up here.
Furthermore, I have no idea who these other posters are that broughtthe miners strike into this thread, they are certainly no more my buddies than you are.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 03:24 AM

During a meeting of the NUM national executive headquarters in Sheffield, Mr Scargill's decision was challenged. He had to leave the room and his deputy Mick McGahey chaired a debate among the 24 union members present.

The ruling was upheld by 13 votes to eight with three abstentions.
Scargill did not even vote on it. Scargill did not even vote on it.
    it never ceases to amaze me how people can make controversial and inaccurate statements and not expect a response.
Backwoodsman, again you jump to conclusions , i have no idea who started the thread drift , certainly not a buddie of mine, now take your assumptions somewhere else.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 07:38 AM

GSS, your passion renders you almost incoherent. But I see here the classic signs of a locked mindset. You are determined to see only one side of a huge saga involving not one but many decisions, and seem utterly incapable of hearing anyone but yourself.

Many in the NUM had no time for Scargill and supported the strike only out of loyalty to the principle that a picket line should not be crossed. You pasted acres of text into an unrelated thread just to show us what we already know: that power corrupts. But instead of using Greatrex's behaviour to bismirch all UDM members, you might have given just a little bit of space to more contemporary events - specifically Scargill's disgusting avarice, as seen in his grubby litigation to screw his own union (now smaller than the National Association of Stable Lads) for every penny he can get.

Scargill's crass folly in agitating the NUM into a strike exactly when Thatcher wanted it - spring on the way; coal stocks at an all-time high - visited huge deprivation on thousands of his members, to the extent that 30 years later many are still feeling the effects. Yet Scargill thinks that even ten years after he retired, the union's remnants should be funding his City of London apartment; all the fuel he can burn at his other home in Barnsley; a £12,000 car allowance, and even - for Christ's sake - his phone bills. And he's been in the courts most of this year making sure he gets his just deserts.

Oh, you've picked a wonderful hero, GSS.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: jacqui.c
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 08:04 AM

Well said Peter - where is their 'champion' now? Living high while the rank and file still feel the effects. I always thought that the only person Scargill was concerned about was Scargill.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 08:48 AM

on the contrary he is not my hero , neither have i ever said so, i corrected a myth propogated by leadfingers, that scargill made the decision to strike he did not, a decision was taken by the executive without scargill, the decision was 13 votes to 8 with 3 abstentions.   
   stop putting words into my mouth,Scargill is not my hero,in fact I THINK THAT THE STRIKE WAS ILL TIMED.however I believe that people should have facts not fiction, and the fact is Scargill did not make the decision, it was taken by the executive, while he was out of the room.   
".Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: jacqui.c - PM
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 08:04 AM

Well said Peter - where is their 'champion' now? Living high while the rank and file still feel the effects. I always thought that the only person Scargill was concerned about was Scargill
   what is this crap, what proof have you got that he is living high?

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 08:51 AM

if anyone has set minds, its jacuic and peter k, making up crap that he is my hero, can you not read?
where have i ever said that he is my hero, you two are a couple of bigots.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 09:20 AM

On 25 August 2010, it was reported that Scargill had been told that he no longer qualified for membership of the NUM.]
Scargill successfully sued the union and won £13,000 in damages.
and this next article..
and here I am trying to take a balanced view, the important point is that his predecessors were allowed to keep their properties.
   Peter do you inveigh against them , no you bloddy well do not, which to my mind shows you have an axe to grind against Scargill.
I do not fell strongly about him either way, but i do believe in trying to be fair.
    Mineworkers' union still funding Scargill's London flat
Arthur Scargill Arthur Scargill was given use of the Barbican flat in 1982
Continue reading the main story        
Related Stories

    Scargill to address union meeting

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is to debate its continued funding for a London flat for former president Arthur Scargill, who retired in 2002.

Payments understood to run into tens of thousands of pounds a year have been made for rent and running costs on the apartment in the Barbican since 1982.

A motion calling for an investigation into the allowances is to go before the NUM conference later this month.

Mr Scargill said the union had agreed to make the payments until his death.

The former NUM president said all of his predecessors had been provided with a house bought by the union both during their time in office and in retirement.

"In my case they agreed I should rent a local authority flat during my period in office and following my retirement that would carry on until my death," he told BBC Radio Sheffield.
Continue reading the main story        
"Start Quote

    The motion is seeking to revisit whether it is still justified that he should have a property in London paid for by the union for... the rest of his life"

Chris Kitchen NUM general secretary

He dismissed the motion being put to the annual conference in Blackpool on 26 and 27 June as "complete nonsense".

"It is a smear story put about by elements of the NUM who have a different view to me about the direction the union should be going in," he said.

Mr Scargill was given use of the three-bedroom Barbican flat in 1982 when the NUM's headquarters were in London. The union, however, moved its head office to Sheffield the following year.

The motion has been approved for the conference agenda by the union's national executive committee (NEC).

It was tabled by the NUM's Scottish branch and seconded by members in south Wales.

NUM general secretary Chris Kitchen said if the union voted to continue the payments then they would continue, but he wanted to make sure they were approved by members.

"The motion is seeking to revisit whether it is still justified that he [Mr Scargill] should have a property in London paid for by the union for his exclusive use for the rest of his life," said Mr Kitchen.
Second home

Mr Scargill said: "Every one of my predecessors has been allowed to remain in their properties following retirement.

"There are many people who have two homes. I have a rented property which I shall cease to have when I die and a property which I bought with my own money in Yorkshire."

Further payments made by the union in respect of Mr Scargill's house in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, have been halted.

Mr Kitchen said he had been sent a letter by Mr Scargill's lawyers demanding those payments were reinstated.

Because they are the subject of legal action, the payments relating to the Barnsley property are not included in the motion to be discussed at the NUM conference.

Mr Kitchen said it was possible Mr Scargill might seek an injunction to prevent any discussion of his expenses at the conference.

"I believe the NEC would want to challenge that," he added.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 03:19 AM

the silence is deafening,
now jacqui c and peter k, before you start spouting your hatred of scargill , get your facts right,furthermore he is not a hero of mine.
   I do not see why he should be castigated any more than any of his predecessors for having a house that belongs to the NUM,or for using the same voting method as lord gormley [the regional committee], do you castigate Gormley [no, you dont[
   finally. you seem to conveniently forget that the decison was made by the miners executive without scargill EVEN BEING IN THE ROOM , 13 to 8, 3 abstentions, do you castigate the other union leaders, no,you do not.
You are a couple of uninformed, opinionated, posters who are not prepared to accept facts from an INDEPENDENT source such as the BBC

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Musket
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 03:58 AM

Just one small observation from a miner at the time who worked at a Yorkshire area put situated in Nottinghamshire...

Manton voted not to strike. I was at the ballot and voted not to strike and so did the huge majority of those there, despite the threats being handed out by men who did not work at our pit who had been "invited" and stalked around the room..

Our delegate informed the regional delegates conference that afternoon that Manton had voted to strike. (This eventually led to The NUM having its funds sequestrated, and rightly so.)

Once Manton Pit was declared safe for return, the apprentices were recalled. As I was studying for my AMEME (hons) my apprenticeship has been extended so I was recalled. My indenture did not allow me to strike, so the few thousand apprentices were effectively locked out. If I did not go back, I would have been sacked, and judging by what happened to two mates, they were and the union didn't lift a hypocritical finger. My wife received a note dropped through the letterbox, which I still have since the police returned it at the end of their enquiries, saying the writer knew what time she took our baby around to her mothers in a morning and they wouldn't want an accident to occur.

Scargill can rot in hell. All those romantic armchair socialists who think he is a working class hero (from his penthouse suite he fought to keep, using miners' funds) can rot alongside him. Because you know what? Idealists have a knack of backing the wrong horse, blinded by their own sanctimony.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 04:14 AM

Dick, you are quite right to say what you do.

Scargill was roundly out-manoeuvered by Thatcher, but she had the advantage of being able to change the law as she wished (which was why the sequestration of NUM funds, to the great benefit of the accountancy profession, was an exercise of lawful power) - and did - with the intention of smashing a potential opposing power - somewhat as she did with the GLC and with Thames TV.

Wikipedia states that Manton did support the strike - in terms "Manton Colliery was one of the few pits in the county to support the strike in 1984-5. David Peace's book GB84 refers to Manton, but mistakenly locates it in South Yorkshire. The colliery was on the South Yorkshire coalfield and supported the National Union of Mineworkers despite being in north Nottinghamshire and supported the strike while other pits in north Nottinghamshire did not".

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 04:31 AM

Richard,

I had relatives at Manton at the time and as Musket says, from their reports, the overwhelming result of the ballot was *against* the strike, despite intimidation. BUT the officials, for reasons best known to themselves, reported a ballot in favour....go figure!

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Musket
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 04:38 AM

Don't say it too loud Bridge.

The delegate was called John Scott. I was at the meeting.

You meanwhile was telling your solicitor colleagues how you were a one nation Tory.

Manton was back to 90% of all men by November 1984.

It can't have been a Nottinghamshire pit supporting the strike as a) geography is not relevant, it was a Yorkshire area pit and b) it voted not to strike in the first place.

c) If you need one. The goons who cam down threatening people had to come from Scargill's homeland as most local men had more sense.

Nice to see your loyalty to Wikipedia. I presume, like the bible, it will in future years be seen as the oracle, regardless of reality.

I love how every time I use the term armchair socialist, the next post is generally from you? Funny that.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 06:46 AM

Intimidation was a knife that cut both ways. I lived in the mining village of Selston in Nottinghamshire at the time. We had groups of coppers patrolling to protest the NUM members houses down our street.

I was working at the time with a drummer from Pontefract. Blokes who let it be known that they were thinking of going back got beat up in that neck of the woods.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Big Al whittle
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 06:56 AM

To be honest, I don't think we'll ever know the full story of the strike - there was so much misinformation round at the time - I doubt historians will ever get a handle on it.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 08:20 AM

none of theabove alters the fact that the decision was tasken by the executive , not scargill, who was not in the room. and here we have musket going on about scargill, why does he not rant on about mcgahey or the other miners leaders who made up the majority or the 3 that abstained, why?because he has an agenda. Musket ,
i am not a fan of Scargil[ i think the strike was ill timed, neither do i regard him as some convenient person to lump all the blame upon.
your posts exposes you as someone with a political agenda and someone with not much between your ears.
Gormley through regional committees introduced productivity schemes which enabled the government to stock pile coal, so that future strikes [like 1984,did not stand a chance of succeeding], lord gormley the special branch informer, sold his members down the river, more than once, the first time,byreporting on union mettings to the special branch, and the second time , by creating a precedent of voting through regional committees.
mrs thatcher was in the heath government that was defeated by the miners strike in 1972, she was determined to defeat the miners and in my opinion was looking for an excuse for a confrontation.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 08:22 AM

here in interesting view imo.

This month sees the twentieth anniversary of the start of the great miners' strike of 1984-85. In an abridged version of an article first carried in the summer 1995 edition of Militant International Review, the forerunner of Socialism Today, KEN SMITH looks back at a struggle which still impacts on political, social and economic developments today.

THE GREAT MINERS' strike of 1984-85 was the most significant post-war industrial dispute, leaving an indelible mark on virtually every subsequent industrial and political development.

The Tories later admitted that it cost nearly £6bn to win the dispute, which they saw as a political attempt to break the power of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). In the ten years following the end of the strike, the continued war against the miners cost a further £26bn in redundancy and benefit payments, keeping pits mothballed and lost revenue from coal.

Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet were desperate for victory and prepared to go to any lengths. For the first time in a post-war national strike the police were openly used as a political weapon. Agents provocateurs and spies were deployed and the state benefits system used to try and starve the miners back. Former Tory chancellor Nigel Lawson subsequently admitted that preparations for the strike were, "just like rearming to face the threat of Hitler in the 1930s". Evidence emerged – after the event – about the role of MI5, MI6, the CIA and ultra-right wingers like David Hart and Tim Bell, who advised Thatcher during the dispute.

Yet despite the extraordinary lengths the Tories went to, by October 1984, six months into the strike, the future of Thatcher's government hung in the balance. The proposed strike by the pit supervisors' union, NACODS, threatened to close down all working pits in the Midlands – when there were less than six weeks' coal stocks.

Former chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), Sir Walter Marshall, spelt out what this meant: "Our predictions showed on paper that Scargill would win certainly before Christmas. Margaret Thatcher got very worried about that… I felt she was wobbly and she was actually inclined to bring the troops in to move coal. All my guys [CEGB workers] would have gone on strike immediately". lan MacGregor, the Thatcher-appointed boss of the National Coal Board (NCB), was summoned to Downing Street. He recalls Thatcher's comments in his memoirs: "I'm very worried about it. You have to realise that the fate of this government is in your hands Mr MacGregor. You have got to solve this problem".

But, scandalously, the NACODS leaders did not implement their 80%-plus mandate for strike action and accepted a revised pit-closure review procedure, which predictably was never implemented. As a result, despite their heroism, the miners were left isolated and returned to work – defeated.

The miners' defeat, along with the economic upswing of the late 1980s, set in motion a complex and difficult period in Britain which resulted in a massive shift to the right at the top of the labour movement. Labour and trade union leaders meekly accepted anti-union legislation and generally abandoned any pretence of struggle against industrial run-down and privatisation.

The victors of the miners' dispute and their apologists in the labour movement attempted to portray the strike as a doomed, futile attempt to preserve a dying industry led by a tactically inept Arthur Scargill. Others on the left said that the strike showed that the Tory government and state forces were too strong to be taken on and defeated. But the evidence reveals a different, more complex picture.
Tories prepare for battle

THE MINING INDUSTRY sharply contracted after world war two. From 800-plus pits and 750,000 miners in 1947, the industry had declined to 190 pits and 240,000 miners by 1983. In the 1960s this decline was partly due to the emergence of gas and nuclear power and also the acceptance of pit closures by miners' leaders. In the boom years many miners were keen to get out of the pits into the ready supply of new jobs then available.

In the early 1970s this began to change. The then Tory prime minister, Ted Heath, took on the miners, but their 1974 victory brought down his government. The Tories, smarting from defeat, carefully planned their revenge with the Ridley Report, prepared by leading Thatcherite Nicholas Ridley, which came to light in The Economist in 1978. The report proposed a shift from dependence on coal, outlined how coal should be stockpiled for a long strike, and how enhanced police powers and anti-union laws should be introduced to shackle the unions – especially the NUM.

Following the defeat of the steelworkers' strike in 1980, attempts were made to close a number of pits, including Lewis Merthyr pit in South Wales. The South Wales miners immediately walked out and sent flying pickets to other coalfields. Within a day, a national coal strike was threatened, which the Tories would have certainly lost. Thatcher urged caution on her cabinet and the Tories backed down, but over the next three years they built up coal stocks at the pit heads and power stations.

In November 1983, after a secret closure hit-list of 49 pits was leaked, the miners implemented an overtime ban to reduce coal stocks, to make future industrial action more effective. But battle lines were being drawn in a way which indicated that the Tories would move sooner rather than later.

After their re-election in 1983, the Tories believed the balance of forces was moving in their favour. Two NUM ballots for action against pit closures had been defeated and the TUC failed to mount effective resistance to the anti-union laws during the Stockport Messenger dispute at the end of 1983.

This battle between Eddie Shah and the National Graphical Association (NGA) printers' union occurred at Shah's Warrington printworks when he introduced new technology. Big business backed Shah's attempts to break union power and funded his use of the new anti-union laws to take the NGA to court for organising 'secondary action'. The TUC had previously taken a congress decision to organise general strike action if any union was threatened with sequestration under the Tory laws. But when this first test came the TUC crumbled. This, probably more than anything else, gave the Tories the green light to attack the miners. As it turned out, the single most decisive factor in the miners' defeat was their complete abandonment by the Labour and TUC leaders, who refused to organise effective solidarity with the NUM.

Another factor, however, was developments within the NUM. Although Arthur Scargill had been elected as NUM president in 1981, two subsequent ballots for industrial action against pit closures had been defeated. It is an irony of history that until March 1993 there had never been a successful NUM ballot for industrial action against pit closures. All successful ballots had been on pay. One reason for this lay in the NUM's structure, which gave enormous power to area union officials. On issues like pay there was a national agreement, but pit closures affected some areas more than others. In the 1982 strike ballot over threatened Welsh pits, the Yorkshire area, which came out first in 1984, voted against. This caused some confusion and bitterness among South Wales miners at the start of the 1984-85 strike.

lan Isaac, a member of Militant (forerunner of the Socialist Party), who was lodge (branch) secretary of St John's NUM and a member of the South Wales NUM executive from 1983-87, has summed up (in an unpublished article) the unpreparedness of some of the left NUM leaders for struggle. lan notes that when the closure of Cortonwood colliery was announced, which sparked the 1984-85 strike, there "was a hesitancy on the part of South Wales miners to be seen yet again as the ones to come out first. They also remembered the lukewarm reception they had the previous year when attempting to convince Yorkshire and other traditionally militant areas to join them on strike against pit closures".

These ballot defeats and lack of action in the previous year caused some left NUM leaders to lack confidence in organising strike action. The South Wales NUM leadership was traditionally one of the most militant. But lan Isaac remembers that at the start of the strike he attended a meeting of the South Wales area executive where he and another left-winger argued, in the light of all pits and surface lodges now respecting picket lines after a shaky start, that "we should hold further mass meetings to vote on supporting those on strike and consolidate the mandate expressed by miners not crossing picket lines. This was argued against by a number of executive members including the president, Emlyn Williams, general secretary George Rees and vice-president Terry Thomas. They argued that it was too risky and what would happen if they voted against again? This was the expression of the kind of confidence that some leaders had in their members and this type of thinking would surface again over the arguments about a national ballot".

Notwithstanding the courage and determination that was shown by the NUM national leaders, Arthur Scargill and general secretary, Peter Heathfield, the beginning of the strike saw them caught off guard. Peter Heathfield had said only a few months before that he didn't think young miners would strike over pit closures. Many NUM leaders had the perspective of the overtime ban continuing until the winter of 1984 and then taking strike action.

Although both ballots for industrial action against pit closures had been defeated, there had been an increasing vote for action in all areas on the second ballot. Taking all these factors into consideration, the Tories, through their henchman MacGregor, probably thought that the time was right for a pre-emptive strike in March 1984.

There is some dispute among right-wing commentators about whether the Tories wanted the strike or not. Lawson has said that the cabinet did not think that the miners would strike then, given that it was approaching the end of winter and all the contingency plans the Tories had made. However, whether or not the Tories thought the miners would strike in response to their provocative list of pit closures, they obviously felt they were ready to face them down. Thatcher, unlike some of her ministers, had a clear political perspective about the strike and its implications for the ruling class. For her this was an industrial version of the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas war which had to be pursued to the bitter end – no matter what the cost.
The ballot issue

THATCHER MADE A political calculation that if the miners could be beaten it would clear the way for further attacks on the working class. Given what was thrown at them, could the miners have won? Right-wing critics, and some on the left, argue that the NUM's key mistake was not calling a ballot, which allowed the majority of miners in Nottingham and Leicester to continue working. The NUM had a long tradition of democracy and balloting but it was not always the case that ballots were held for industrial action. Particularly on the issue of pit closures, with some areas more affected than others, there was a genuine feeling among many miners that 'secure' areas like Nottingham should not be allowed to vote down strike action in other areas like Wales, Scotland and Yorkshire.

Militant maintained a united front with the miners during this period, since the lack of a ballot was being used by the right-wing to undermine the strike. But after the strike we pointed out that, because of the way the issue was used in the movement to cut across the miners' struggle, a ballot should have been called, especially after the rule change which allowed a 50% majority for strike action (instead of the previous 55%). A ballot then, six weeks into the strike, would have seen a clear national mandate for strike action.

This would have cut across all the arguments of the right wing and the then Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock. It could have cut off the Tory lifeline of coal supplies from the Midlands which was to prove crucial at a later stage of the strike. Despite this, the lack of a ballot did not defeat the miners. The main reason they lost was the role of the Labour and trade union leaders in not organising effective solidarity action – where the lack of a ballot was used as a 'get-out' clause.

A mistake was made by the NUM leadership in 1984 in not calling for a one-day general strike when the funds of the South Wales NUM, and later the national NUM, were sequestrated by the courts. This mistake was unfortunately repeated in October 1992 when the call for a 24-hour general strike to support the miners fight against the Major government's pit closure programme was left too late.

As the strike progressed other issues were raised about the effectiveness of mass picketing and the question of solidarity action being organised from below with other groups of workers. The miners' strike in 1972 saw the first use of flying pickets and mass pickets. The mass picket at Saltley Gate coke depot in Birmingham, led by Arthur Scargill, was decisive in winning the strike. At that time, the British ruling class was unprepared for such tactics. But by the 1984-85 strike, the bourgeoisie had prepared thoroughly on how to render the mass picketing tactics of the 1970s ineffective through the use of the police.

This was always a risky strategy. The Guardian in January 1995 reported that police officers felt "betrayed by the Thatcher government and badly led by some senior officers during the 1984-85 miners' strike, according to an official history of the Police Federation". The report goes on to say that "the Federation leaders and probably the great majority of chief officers would have been shocked had they discovered that there had been secret political collusion between MacGregor, Thatcher and others". It points out that the police National Reporting Centre, which co-ordinated police action during the strike, was set up on the instructions of central government and not at senior officers' request as was claimed at the time.

On organising solidarity action, the incapacity of the union leaders showed the need to build genuine Broad Lefts capable of transforming the unions. Even in the NUM, many of the left leaders, with a few exceptions, were found wanting. Had there been an open rank-and-file based Broad Left in the NUM before the strike started, especially involving people in Nottingham, then many aspects of the strike would have been markedly different and in the miners' favour.

Building Broad Lefts in the unions, especially the power workers, would have made solidarity action from below – bypassing the obstruction of the national union leaders – much easier to build. This would have had a crucial effect, as was shown in the few cases where it was achieved, in cutting off coal supplies to power stations and steelworks.
Right to fight

HAD THE MINERS won, then the whole course of history would have changed. Thatcher and her government would have resigned and most likely a Labour government would have come to power. The pit-closure plan would have been dropped and, under pressure from a confident working class, even a Kinnock Labour government would have had to carry through some measures in favour of the working class, perhaps being compelled to abolish the Tory anti-union laws. One of the principal reasons for Kinnock's attacks on the miners was his fear of a rising tide of militancy in the event of a miners' victory – he didn't want to see militancy pay.

That is not to say, however, that pessimistic conclusions should be drawn from the events of the strike. The miners' defeat was undoubtedly a setback for the whole labour movement but the fact that they fought so valiantly and the subsequent historical vindication of their stand shows they were right to struggle in the way they did.

The miners' strike politicised a generation of young socialists and produced a massive shift to the left in social attitudes, even if this was not immediately reflected in industrial or political struggle. Had the miners not struggled as they did under Arthur Scargill then the Tory pit-closure programme would have proceeded much more speedily and many other anti-working class measures would have been introduced earlier than they were.

But most importantly, the miners' strike brought out the willingness of working-class people to struggle to change society. New generations will return to the lessons of the strike to ensure they are better equipped to win their own industrial battles and succeed in the socialist struggle to change society.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Musket
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 08:57 AM

Schweik whatever.

I have no political agenda. I am not a member of any party and consider myself a floating voter who has yet to see the need to float towards the Tories, but in all respects, a floater.

I could blame "Gorballs Mick" or Ken Capstick, but I place the blame of a movement on the leaders. Without the drive and enthusiasm of Scargill to set the agenda towards his political raher than trade union goals, our overtime ban, which was resulting in dwindling stocks of coal, would have forced MacGregor to the table. (Acknowledged by both him and Thatcher afterwards and couldn't believe their luck when we had the flawed ballot when power stations still had ample supplies.) No, Scargill just wished to use us to force a political agenda, on the basis that the population at large wouldn't follow him if he stood for election for Westminster. (He did a few years ago and was humiliated...)

Your weird predications for what the world would have looked like if we had "won" can be summed up as follows;

2012. The pits are all shut, and yesterday's news that Maltby Pit is shutting would not be news because it would have been closed years ago. The (prior to war mongering) successes of New Labour in building sustainable public infrastructure would not have taken off and middle class people in Greece would be scratching their heads wondering what Europe could do about the economic crackpots in London and how much more do they need to bail themselves out??

I love how you call it a stand and waffle on about struggle. Working class and all that tosh?

Thankfully, the 21st century may not be perfect and the divide between rich and poor may not be closing, but today's students, tomorrow's leaders, have at least broken from the shackles of flat cap patronising.

There is no socialist struggle except in your head. We have a social democracy, regardless of the party in power and the will of the media to portray them in old fashioned descriptions.

I'd laugh my head off at you if I weren't so bitter about how my livelihood, community and family were portrayed as a pawn in a ridiculous game by comfortable patronising idiots.

You seem very quick to write glowing shit about miners, but the minute a miner joins in the debate, you seem quick to ridicule him. There's a load of arm chairs over there, go and sit in them with your like minded mates eh? There' a good chap.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 10:31 AM

Having known Michael McGahey pretty well, I can say unequivocally that he had no time at all for Scargill. But, as far as I know, he never spoke out against him, nor broke with him before and during the strike, though his intervention could have ended the nonsense there and then. His only disagreement with Scargill that became public was when he urged NUM/UDM rapprochement after the strike, and an end to the bitterness, on the basis that the industry was not big enough for two unions. Scargill wouldn't hear of it, but then he was never big enough to let common sense outweigh his bitterness.

Here's a bit more history, if anyone's interested.

Scargill first achieved national notoriety in 1970. A national ballot had fallen just short of the two-thirds majority then required under NUM rules. Rather than respect that outcome, Scargill - then NUM leader in Yorkshire - instigated wildcat strikes. The bar had been set ridiculously high, at a time when no other major union required any ballot at all, and was immediately revised down to 55 per cent.

Meanwhile National Coal Board chairman Lord Robens had been working to eradicate pit-head bargaining, whereby pay and conditions were negotiated at each of 600-plus individual collieries, sometimes pitching local workforces against each other. That had given Nottinghamshire miners the best rewards in the industry, thanks largely to the coalfield having the newest equipment and thickest coal seams. The switch to national pay structures required Notts miners to mark time while the rest of the industry caught up. As a result, the NUM - never previously strong - gained its biggest negotiating weapon: national collective bargaining. You could say it was Nottinghamshire's gift to the union.

Following the union's rules revision, members were balloted again in 1972. Fewer voted for a strike than in the previous ballot, but the required 55 per cent was narrowly exceeded. Many miners in Nottinghamshire had voted against, but in marked contrast with Scargill's earlier behaviour, every single one of them respected the outcome. The resulting strike was 100 per cent solid and led to the biggest settlement ever won through industrial action in the UK, then or now.

By 1984 Scargill was the national president. He had embarrassed himself with immediate calls for action - an overtime ban in Wales for instance - which attracted little support and achieved nothing. I'm sure it was those experiences that led him to wriggle out of a ballot for a national strike in 1984. And wriggle he did. Thanks to lightweight members of the national executive who had fallen under his spell and McGahey's unshakeable loyalty to the NUM and whoever was leading it, he got his way.

I was fortunate to count some on the left of the NUM leadership among my friends, including its leader in the militant Kent coalfield, Jack Dunn, and the former - and sadly late - general secretary Lawrence Daly. Likewise I have nothing but admiration for the NUM members in Nottinghamshire who stayed loyal. But I have always understood the position of those who refused to support a strike that had no mandate from the membership.

The result was a catastrophic episode for the trade-union movement, that divided families, and in my case divided me.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 12:19 PM

it is not my weird predication, it is the view point of a left wing political newspaper, you keep assuming that viewpoints that i put up are mine, it stated clearly it was the view of ken smith
" This month sees the twentieth anniversary of the start of the great miners' strike of 1984-85. In an abridged version of an article first carried in the summer 1995 edition of Militant International Review, the forerunner of Socialism Today, KEN SMITH looks back at a struggle which still impacts on political, social and economic developments today.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 01:04 PM

Yes - I was a one nation Tory. But I have learned how Thatcher and her heirs seek only to make the rich richer at the expense of the poor. You, on the other hand, support every right-wing cause and buy into every piece of right-wing propaganda. But that works for you because you joined the ranks of the oppressors - while I left them. That, IMHO, entitles me to sit in moral judgement.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 03:58 PM

these are not my words but from the guardian newspaper[ IS THAT LOUD AND CLEAR Musket, are you reading this ok. The Guardian home

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Hillsborough investigation should be extended to Orgreave, says NUM leader

Chris Kitchen calls for IPCC to widen investigation into alleged cover-up over framing of 95 picketing miners in 1984 strikes

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    David Conn        
    The Guardian, Sunday 21 October 2012 18.53 BST        

Miner Dispute Orgreave 1984
A picket injured during clashes with police at the Orgreave plant in 1984. The NUM is calling for investigations into South Yorkshire police cover-ups over framing of miners. Photograph: PA Archive/Press Association Ima

The police complaints watchdog is under pressure to widen its investigation into alleged fabrication of evidence by South Yorkshire officers in the 1980s as new allegations emerge of attempts to frame miners at the Orgreave coking plant clashes.

Chris Kitchen, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, said the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, should include in their examination of South Yorkshire police's post-Hillsborough "cover-up" the force's alleged framing of 95 miners for serious criminal offences after Orgreave.

"Many miners were subjected to malpractice during the strike by South Yorkshire police – and other forces," Kitchen told the Guardian. "I will be asking the NUM's national executive committee to consider complaining to the IPCC and DPP for the police operations at Orgreave and elsewhere during the strike to be investigated, now the details of what South Yorkshire police did at Hillsborough have been revealed."

At Orgreave in 1984, police officers on horseback and on foot were filmed beating picketing miners with truncheons, but South Yorkshire police claimed the miners had attacked them first, and prosecuted 95 men for riot and unlawful assembly, which carried potential life sentences. All 95 were acquitted after the prosecution case collapsed following revelations in court that police officers' statements had been dictated to them in order to establish evidence of a riot, and one officer's signature on a statement had been forged.

On Monday night, a BBC1 Inside Out documentary, to be broadcast in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, features a retired police inspector who was on duty at Orgreave, Norman Taylor, recalling that he and other officers had parts of their statements dictated to them. "I recall this policeman in plain clothes mentioning that he had a good idea of what had happened. And that there was a preamble to set the scene," Taylor told the programme. "He was reading from some paper, a paragraph or so. And he asked the people who were there to use that as their starting paragraph."

Taylor said the paragraph was "basically the time and date, the name of the place".

However, a barrister specialising in criminal trials, Mark George QC, analysed 40 police officers' Orgreave statements, and found that many contained identical descriptions of alleged disorder by the miners. To prove the offence of riot, the prosecution has to establish a scene of general disorder within which a defendant committed a particular act, for example throwing a stone, which would otherwise carry a much lesser charge.

George found that 34 officers' statements, supposed to have been compiled separately, used the identical phrase: "Periodically there was missile throwing from the back of the pickets."

One paragraph, of four full sentences, was identical word for word in 22 separate statements. It described an alleged charge by miners, including the phrase: "There was however a continual barrage of missiles."

Michael Mansfield QC, who defended three of the acquitted miners, described South Yorkshire police's evidence then as "the biggest frame-up ever". He is now acting for the Hillsborough Family Support Group, which has campaigned since the 1989 disaster for the South Yorkshire police officers responsible on the day – and those responsible for the scheme afterwards to blame the disaster on the fans, which Mansfield labels a cover-up – to be held accountable. "South Yorkshire police operated a culture of fabricating evidence with impunity, which was not reformed after Orgreave, and allowed to continue to Hillsborough five years later," Mansfield said. "The current investigations by the IPCC and DPP into the force's malpractice related to Hillsborough should include other malpractice by the same force at the time."

South Yorkshire police paid £425,000 in 1991 to settle civil actions brought by 39 miners for what happened at and after Orgreave, including for assault, wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution, but no police officer was ever disciplined for any misconduct. The operation and prosecutions were given unqualified backing, even after they collapsed, by the chief constable, Peter Wright. Last month, the Hillsborough Independent Panel's report revealed that Wright personally oversaw the South Yorkshire police operation to blame supporters for the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, including by briefing false stories to the media, and the wholesale changing of junior officers' statements.

The IPCC announced on 12 October that South Yorkshire police had referred its conduct at and after Hillsborough to the IPCC for possible misconduct and criminal offences, including perverting the course of justice and perjury. Starmer announced that he would examine all the evidence brought to him to consider whether criminal charges should be brought.

On the collapsed prosecutions after Orgreave, South Yorkshire police told the Guardian in a statement: "We note the NUM's intention and will await any decision from the IPCC. As always, SYP will co-operate fully with the IPCC in whatever it does. The force is not aware of any adverse comment about the [police] statements from the trial judge in the [Orgreave] case. If concerns existed then normal practice would have been for the judge to raise them at the time."

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 05:10 PM

Hear, hear!

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 03:03 AM

The point is also Ian, it wasn't just about the miners and trade unionism. Thatcher had stopped index linked allowances for the poor and disadvantaged in society. The strong miners union was quite rightly taking on a right wing government that was giving the poor a pasting. Those of us at the bottom of society were relying on you to fight our battles. We had no power - you threw away yours.

My wife and I worked throughout the 1870's until she got disabled. In that time, as well as paying huge amounts of VAT, tax on fuel, ground rent to the crown -we paid a third of my wages and half of my wifes wages at source. That was the deal - you pay a lot of tax, but when you get ill, you get taken care of. When we had to stop working, the allowances paid amounted to the wage of a newly qualified teacher. Thatcher welched on the deal and no government has since restored it.

The Notts UDM were not just betraying the mining industry, they were shitting on the poor. I know that's a bitter truth, and many UDM members can't live with it - but when they joined the baying to obey Thatchers diktats and call a ballot - that's what in effect what they were doing.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 06:26 AM

Why was it down to the coal industry to deal with Thatcher? It's just ludicrous to blame the UDM fo her excesses. Were you on strike yourself? (But yes, times sure were hard in the 1870s!)

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 06:50 AM

Quite so Al - Thatcherite beggar-my-neighbour stuff

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 07:18 AM

Parliamentary means weren't available. The SDP defectors had weakened the Labour Party. My parents were left wingers and rejoiced at the accession of Michael Foot and then Neil Kinnock - but most of us knew, those leaders rendered us unelectable.

The unions had pulled our chestnuts out of the fire in the 1970's when Heath lost the who governs Britain, so I can do what I bloody well like debate - defeated by the unions. We were hoping for a re-run of that.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 09:54 AM

"Scargill's crass folly in agitating the NUM into a strike exactly when Thatcher wanted it - spring on the way; coal stocks at an all-time high - visited huge deprivation on thousands of his members, to the extent that 30 years later many are still feeling the effects. Yet Scargill thinks that even ten years after he retired, the union's remnants should be funding his City of London apartment; all the fuel he can burn at his other home in Barnsley; a £12,000 car allowance, and even - for Christ's sake - his phone bills. And he's been in the courts most of this year making sure he gets his just deserts.

Oh, you've picked a wonderful hero, GSS." quote peter k.
you also said,"It's just ludicrous to blame the UDM for her excesses."
    yet, you seem quite happy to blame Scargill for everything.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 11:00 AM

No, GSS, I'm with what Leadfingers said at the start of all this: it was a toss-up who was worse between Thatcher and Scargill. (Well I'd say it was Thatcher, by a narrow margin, because there was so much else to lay against her besides union-bashing, like the "just rejoice" stuff etc.)

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: Musket
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 11:03 AM

Al, I like the idea of fighting inequality in general, I like the idea of pointing out the wrongs of right wing philosophy being enacted on society. My point was that if Scargill wanted to fight that, then go ahead. I just don't think it fair that by lying to the members, breaking union rules and forcing a strike at frankly the wrong time to ever win it, why I lost everything, (not easy being asked by a bailiff to choose between keeping the pram and the push chair..) in order to do "my bit" in a political war, as opposed to the legitimate aims of a trade union.

Bridge..

I didn't ask to deal with Thatcher. Neither did many of the 20,000 employed miners or the countless thousands who lost it by being in either allied industries or serving local mining communities. If anybody says the futile attempt to short circuit democracy was worth it, then you obviously have the luxury of conducting campaigns of war from your comfy arm chair. Fuck you my friend. Fuck you.

Instead of saying hear hear, try here here instead. Unless you were here here, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about and sound absurd. Your definition of right wing seems to be anybody who doesn't agree with your take on life. Considering you reckon that has been 360 deg. over the years, principled people would get dizzy trying to follow you.

Followed the ranks of the oppressors?? I'm the same as you and everybody else. Trying to do my bit and make my bit at the same time. All this class warfare tosh and bollocks, it is becoming tedious.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 08:13 AM

I agree with every word Ian. I dunno why Richard thinks you're an oppresser. The stakes were very high .....on oneside manufacturibg industry in England. I'm sorry you had a bad time. truly sorry.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 03:27 PM

Hi Al.

I have no idea really why I allowed myself to be drawn. I guess it was seeing revisionists getting respectability from mudcatters.

I have posted on this topic before but generally in all ways I tend to keep quiet. Bridge brought out the worst in me and for that I apologise to all for using my own experience in a thread on a site that is public. Funnily enough I tend to be a rather private bloke behind all the fun and games on these BS threads...

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: ollaimh
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 11:16 PM

musket you are being unfair to richard bridge. he's not an armchair socialist, he's an armchair socialite.

this thread has been a sad reminder. i was over there during the ted heath strike, an briefly for the eighties strike. having been a driller and blaster--we guys who go in before the miners--long before i went to university and became a lawyer, i have long been horrified by the treatment of miners in the uk, especially the occupational health and safety standards. when i was drilling and blasting we had tough work and lots of risk but we were hot house flowers compared to what the miners faced everyday over there. the safety standards looked eighteenth century to me. people who take such risks and power the nation deserved a lot better. hwoever the "city" boys run it all now.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: ollaimh
Date: 21 Dec 12 - 12:40 AM

i can't believe the bias of the police as reportd in the guardian article.ut then thats the uk. every power group closing ranks to destroy the little gains made by hard working people. i gotta say musket, i can't say how apaulled i was by the treatment of the poor a ploitical footballs. in canada we had some hard times and lost some bitter battles, but we made damn good money when we worked. i paid for two university degrees from five years of drilling and blasting. i doubt thats possible over there. its really heart breaking to see people have the opportunity for a decnt life destroyed for foolish politics that now we see the result. thatcher empowered the financial industry to run everything and deindustrialized much of the uk.

i remember well how bad it felt to loose a job and get laid off and have to go dwon the road looking for the next project, but at least we had other big projects to go to. over there i saw lots of hard working decnet people have their only realistic opportunities ruined, and they had few or no alternatives..

the only comparable thing i saw in canada was the nova scotia fishermans union organizing drive. there the fishermen were still share croppers in debt for life to the compamny store. in the late sixties the west coast fishermen's union saw this and came east to help organize a union. almost every power in society rose up to legally and mostly illegally destroy this union. people who were eligible for welfare were denied because they had family members in the union. police aressted organizers on trumped up charges--most never brought to trial. and company thugs with axe handles would beat any organizer who they found. i was a teen ager when i got the idealiatic bug and hitch hiked up the guyborough shore to hand out union pamphlets. was it ever an eye opener. many fishermen were barred for life. however canada is a big country and the west coast fishermens union got a lot of them work on the west coast--those who could move. and its a move like from london to moscow.

it's depressing to see the lack of social progress.

the real issue is the powerfull don't give a damn for those who risk health and lives everyday at work to produce the real wealth of the nations.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: ollaimh
Date: 21 Dec 12 - 12:56 AM

and i have to say i find it almost impossible to trust and fucking bastard who was ever a tory, of any kind.they bring their biases with them when they come to the left. they do it with subtlety so that often they are unaware they are doing it but when the chips are down they will stab you in the back as hard as they ever did from the front when they were tories.

i alway say anyone is welcome to join, but if you come from the right you're not fit to lead and should shut up and listen for about thirty years before you opine.

i see this as the problem with blairs labour party and candas ndp. we have social democrats who don't have any personal expierence with how life destroying these battles can be, and so they will engage in the same life destroying behavior as a"temporary " measure to achieve a short term objectives. they forget that the peoples whose lives are destroyed don't have a long term benefit. the comfortable middle class socialite socialists lose nothing and have no idea the human cost of their decisions.

well thats my depressing thoughts tonight. untill the eighties i thought we were making progress, too bad it was a mirage

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: selby
Date: 21 Dec 12 - 08:01 AM

Miners strike was in my opinion Lions led by a Donkey, he was set up by Thatcher to fail, but I believe she also used Scargill to defeat all unions,between them they destroy this country.
If the man and his acolytes could have seen the bigger picture a ballot would have brought the whole union movement into the fray.

I appreciate that there is a lot of deep feelings. the unfortunate thing is that when history judges them both, a lot of us will not be around to get the full picture.
Keith

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Dec 12 - 08:50 AM

Never trust a ginger tosser with a bad comb-over.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Dec 12 - 12:32 PM

backwoodsman, you just dont get anything do you, Scargill was only one of a majority of union leaders who wanted a strike, and he did not in fact, vote.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: ollaimh
Date: 21 Dec 12 - 02:11 PM

i realize some may find my remarks too much. but i don't want the tories in sheeps clothing among us to misundrstsnd my meaning.

i think of stan rogers song "the mary ellen carter" line

all you see is"smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go"

and from what i know of the scargill era i agree with good soldier s.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: ollaimh
Date: 21 Dec 12 - 04:24 PM

i also have to say that the atacks on scargill are a great example of the rigid class bigotry and hatred in the uk and canada. when a union leader makes a mistake or percieved mistake , however small, he's pilloried. thatcher for example hob nopbbed with criminals like conman black who committed felony obstruction of justice. his mistake was doing it in the jurisdction of american courts. he got away with it in canada and the uk. in fact the injunction he violated from an american judge was accompanied by a similar injunction from the canadian ontario ssecurities commission. right now they could charge him for the violation, they haven't, and they rarely do for the "goog people? from the upper classes. instead of trying him in a canadin court they let him back into this country , even after he rnounced his canadian citizenship.

and can you say rupert murderdock and his cell phone hacking goons. he was a key thatcher supporter. she was surroundd by greedy criminals of international stature, but that's ok because she's representing the right class. but a union leader--well we all know they deserve to be pilloried for an untied showlace

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 21 Dec 12 - 04:37 PM

Foot soldier.

He didn't vote then?

Thank you for that.

Your point about his role is what?

Interesting to see his court loss today wasn't about justice but because society has it in for him. Aw bless. His sense of his own importance knows no bounds.

I still have two bottles of cheap champagne. One called Arthur the other called Margaret.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Dec 12 - 05:56 PM

my point is that it was a decision of the miners executive 13 to 8, 3 abstentions , scargill did not vote, and yet you do not rail against the other 13 who voted to strike, or the 3 abstainers.
you are obsessed with Scargill, for you he is a useful scapegoat that you can heap all the blame on, that is pathetic,and childish
Whatever you say about Scargill, he was not reporting back on union meetings to the special branch like Gormley.
NO union leader should be reporting back on union meetings to either the special branch or MI5, THEY ARE PAID TO REPRESENT THE PEOPLE WHO ELECTED THEM.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 12:16 AM

GSS and Ollaimh = what you are not getting is that Backwoodsman and Musket are from the mmidlands and Scargill was from Yorkshire, which they think of a north. The differences are long seated and tribal, rather than purely rational. The Yorkshire flying pickets were regarded as unclean spirits from the northern wilderness. I can see how an outsider might realise that union means one, and if you split - you're both going to get walloped - but it wasn't seen like that in Notts.

Only a few years before the yorkshire miners were perceived as having 'sold down the river' the Derbyshire miners. And Notts and Derby are very close to each other. A miner from Eastwood in Notts. might work down the road at Loscoe pit in Derbyshire.

So there was needle there, and it has to be said, a certain feeling of chickens coming home to roost = particularly amondst many of the miners who thought their fathers and older brothers had been sold out in the Robens shake out

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 02:44 AM

the truth of the matter is that the mining industry has been sucessfully run down by successive English governments, it has not been run down by atrhur scargill.
it is a foolish policy because every country should attempt to be self sufficient with raw materials, rather than importing them.the mining industry is not a perfect solution to our fuel needs, but in my opinion the nuclear industry is worse.
Joe Gormley who was a union traitor, he betrayed union meetings to the special branch, deliberately started a system which bypassed union members right to vote allowing executive leaders to make decisions, he also institued productivity deals which ensured that his masters the UK GOVERNMENT had large stockpiles of coal, a factor which was to contribute to the 1984 miners strike failing.
the miners strike failed for a number of reasons, one of those reasons was the policies of the traitor joe gormley.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 03:18 AM

"backwoodsman, you just dont get anything do you, Scargill was only one of a majority of union leaders who wanted a strike, and he did not in fact, vote."

I won't even bother to dignify that tripe with an answer, other than to say that:-

a) the poster knows nothing about me, my background, my employment history, and has no way of knowing what I 'get' or don't 'get'. That's fine and how I like it.
b) no purpose is served by this kind of thread, not one miner's wrecked life will be repaired, no-one will be any happier as a result of it.
c) it was 28 years ago, the world has moved on, and the kind of "Yah-Boo" stuff we've seen here is pointless and much of it is just blustering, blathering argument-for-argument's-sake.

Time to get panties out of arse-cracks and move on.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 03:35 AM

Good points Al. Other than Manton was a Yorkshire pit, albeit a couple of miles over the border.   We did our training at Treeton and Orgreave etc and management posts were within the Yorkshire region. No wonder though that our pit was a flash point for many reasons.

Foot soldier.

I was chairman of a public body. We had an employee who caused anxiety and ended up struck off by his professional body. I apologised to our local population. Why? Corporateness rests with the figurehead leader.   I don't have a Scargill fixation. I recognise his position embodying the actions of those he led.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 04:21 AM

'the truth of the matter is that the mining industry has been sucessfully run down by successive English governments,'

don't you think GSS that the miners realised that? Nobody believed Tebbit's assurances that not a single miner would lose his job. Everyone knew HE was lying.

As for Ollaimh's points about safety standards being crap. Amongst the older miners who had worked pre nationalisation - the feeling was that things were better than before 1948 - as my father in law remarked -'in them days the whole place was held together by shot wire'....

The Notts miners felt they were in a closing down sale and they had to grab what they could while they could.

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Alpha
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 10:24 AM

Dont forget Notts miners voted on wether to strike or not,police prevented lots of Notts miners who supported the strike getting to thier pits.Only one pit (Moorgreen )voted to strike and the NCB immediatly said anyone at Moorgreen over 55 (if I remember correctly) could retire on £120 a week.One of the biggest problems in the Notts coalfield was what we refered to as the butcher,baker and candlestick brigade who had no real affiliation to the mining industry and only came into the mines after 1974 when wages became reasonable.Notts miners who were on strike attempted to redress the biased media by using a pirate radio station to inform the Notts miners who were working about what would happen if the strike was lost.The rest is history and what the radio station said became true.Do a search on Radio Arthur the miners pirate station and have a listen to the programmes that have survived

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 01:41 PM

Sorry this thread should drop to oblivion so I am perhaps wrong in perpetuating it.

The butcher baker and candle stick makers were miners.   Nothing more nothing less. Miners. Payed the same dues and hung their arses over the same belts for a shit.

Not sure of your point. I was harassed by police before I returned and afterwards too. Whoever said the police don't discriminate have got it wrong. All miners were the same to the boys in blue from Merseyside and The Met...

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Alpha
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 09:43 AM

Point I was making was that the general moan or excuse thats made is we didnt go on strike because there wasnt a national ballot,the b.c,cms had no sense of belonging.Just for your info I was one of the Notts miners who was on strike through out 1984/5 got arrested etc.I also was at Mansfield when the supposed riot took place (not)I actually went to the trial of the so called rioters at the Old Shire Hall at Nottingham and witnessed the Jury openly laughing at the police when they gave evidence,I turned up one day and for some reason or other the trial had been adjorned and the police where posing for pictures in the court.(no doubt in rediness for thetr victory in the prosecution which fortunatly didnt happen.)

Subject: RE: 1984 UK Miners Strike discussion (relocated)
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 02:56 PM

So they got bought off. Good luck to them. When I was managing director of a manufacturing company many years later I bought off many of our staff. If their convictions were sincere I would never have managed it.

Something I learned. Every rational person has a price. The trick is finding it.

Good night.