Johnny is right. There were more sides to that story than Kinnock had faces.

Some forces brought their pet animals with them. The Met and Merseyside being two particular examples. Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire had the admirable attitude of having to work alongside mining communities afterwards.

My point is that points of view are one thing, but agreeing with romantic inflamed lyrics written to make money out of misery means you are ripe for being challenged.

A cleverly written song and thanks for reminding us who has to protect society from those who would use other than the ballot box to change it. He wrote some clever songs that nobody can deny were needed too, but it's one thing having a pop at political ideology, it's another to cleave apart communities.

But by the same token, real people read these threads Jim. Real people who are offended when armchair socialists use the word scab with no idea at all what they speak of. Decent people who rely on the police to protect society shake their heads when people think it is clever to believe the inflammatory shit McColl was capable of. As we see here, police and ex miners read these threads.

People on the whole are more sophisticated now and don't fall for polarised chip on shoulder claptrap. History, song and grinning idiots don't change society, rational arguments do. The songs of McColl are all good history and romance, but like the songs Christy Moore and The Clancy Brothers sang, a good song doesn't make a good idea. Celebrating murdering criminals was never my cup of tea. Neither is vilifying honest working people.

Whilst the mounted bobby was "about to" do whatever you want to read into that rather well known photograph, I would like to point out that a bloke called Michael Smith, dead now so can't defend himself, used to brag about how many thistles he could stuff up police horse's arses, and how he dragged a policeman off his horse and put him in hospital. No "about to" speculation there.

The local police protected us when we went back, and for that, decent society is grateful.