Just watched Arthur Scargill, Age 86 now, making a speech at a commemoration event to mark 40 years of the strike. He is in great shape for his age. As sharp as ever. He says he was a socialist and marxist when he left school to work in the pit at age 15 and he remains so now and will always be. Of course his father was also a Marxist miner. There have also been some quite interesting retrospective documentaries marking the anniversary on various TV channels. What a complete terrrrwwwatt that Silver Birch man was and still is. Absolutely laps up the publicity and no thoughts about what happened to the coal industry thanks to his valiant intervention. Proud like a peacock talking about being whisked to Maggie's den for high tea as a thankyou. He also has no thoughts on how he was used like cannon fodder. Manipulated by this sinister right wing propagandist, acted as a 'front' for the court case (prosecuted by the best and most highly paid from secret funds) barristers to hobble tjr union by stealing all its assets. An absolute disgrace of a man. Someone said if that strike had been won, we wouldn't have zero hours contracts today. He's right. Dutch Elm and his diseased treacherous ignoble actions played a big part in that. I curse him from afar. I'd be interested to know people's thoughts on the following points:- 1. Scargill says the strike could have been won if continued and that the vote to return was wrong. He says the situation in the power stations was getting critical. I'm not so sure. The return to work was getting like a flood and it was sad to see very proud and dignified men who had suffered for a year be more or less forced back by pressures of desperate families etc. Also unfortunately there was never any sign of power cuts. We used to run round the station every evening at 6pm to turn on every light and electrical appliance and flush all the toilets, but not even a flicker from the power. (Sad smiley) 2. The strike could have and pretty much was resolved FIVE times over the year but Thatcher intervened to stop it, because she wanted to whupp the miners. Scargill says this is in her memoirs. I don't know I haven't and will not read them. It seems like the sort of thing she'd do though. Make the wives and kids suffer you know.. 3. Orgreave was orchestrated and a chance to give the miners a bloody good hiding - this one I do believe. Roadblocks on the motorways and nobody allowed to picket for ages and then suddenly and mysteriously they allow, nay encourage, pickets to come to Orgreave where there happens to be a whole flippin army of paramilitary style cops with riot gear, dogs and horses. The film of the time clearly shows what happened. Absolutely out of control and very fortunate it wasn't a slaughter. Absolutely smashing people over the head with truncheons and trampling them in horse charges. It was like the light dragoons slaughtering the peasants revolt in history or something. State power on naked display. 4. The miners are international working class heroes - that is true enough. There was pretty big international support for the miners throughout the strike and they are still remembered today as heroes by many. Today I feel a little guilty watching these documentaries that I should have done more. I was NUR at that time and we had the triple alliance supposedly. Us, the miners and the docks. If one came out we were all supposed to come out and we should have. The dockers did fack all. They were hopeless. We did what we could. The miners hung 'picket line' signs from over bridges and the drivers wouldn't pass. We lost loads of depots after the strike as a punishment and 1 coal train became 350 thundering filthy lorries instead. At one point we on BR had a dispute over a payrise and threatened a strike. But immediately the railway caved in and gave us a bigger rise. Most unusual. Hmmmm. Then later they printed the govt letter in the mirror telling the BR board to buy us off with whatever so we didn't team up with the miners. Our NUR leadership let us down. We should have come out. The dockers let us down even more. Tossssers. Those scabby bastads driving those lorries (T&G many of them too) also let us down. What a different country it could have been now if that strike had been won.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that we would have had no zero hours contracts, the country would have been different etc etc. 40 years is an awfully long time and, while it might have toppled Thatcher, I strongly suspect that neoliberalism would have reared its head at some stage down the line, albeit perhaps not so soon. I'm sure 3 is true and quite probably 2 as well. Not so sure about 1; I can see why Scargill would think this but I am sure you are right that many miners had no choice but to go back to work. It feels like a lifetime ago, doesn't it?
I think this is right, in that the Blair/Brown Government was just as into those types of reforms, albeit able to manage them better with the unions. What I think it did do was largely defeat the ability of the trade union movement to resist the economic vandalism that was to follow. We now get almost all of our ordinary cars from abroad (not true of France, Germany or Spain), we have little shipbuilding or steel production etc. This has been a loss to all of us. We have never invested in the transition of workers from demand to demand, leading to widespread social problems and insecurity. Clive is correct about the dirty tricks and the politics that went along with defeating the strike. They echoed the lack of care small communities are usually dealt with. At the time I was wholly behind the miners even though I recognised it wasn’t a job I especially wanted people to carry on doing. But it was all there was in some places. Cannot be reversed now, because coal should largely be left in the ground, but like most things in the UK the transition was way too harsh.
I have no doubt points 2 & 3 are correct. I think the biggest strategic error Scargill made was not to call a national ballot early on when it seemed clear there was almost total support. Not doing so allowed the government & its coal board cypher to portray the strike as undemocratic & representing only extremist views. It also led almost directly to the split within the Nottinghamshire coalfields which was a weak point the government could use to its advantage. In the final analysis, I think the fundamental issue would have come down to how to manage a controlled reduction in the mining industry without the catastrophic and unnecessary effects of the policy of almost immediate closures, with no concern for the welfare of the local communities.
The heinous behaviour by Thatcher wasn't necessarily winding down the mines, or even closing ones that were still profitable. It was simply not caring what would happen to the communities that were almost entirely based around mining. The Conservative Government didn't give a shiny fat one what happened to the miners or their families or the businesses that relied on them. There was no idea or vision about what would come next. Call centres and warehouse work, pedalling around delivering people's lunch, even on zero hours contracts, has replaced mining. I'm sure not too many people like the idea of their children and grandchildren working down mines breathing in horrible dust all day. Mining as a way of life was not going to last. But crushing the miners was not about the mines or the coal industry or Britain's energy policy, it about ensuring the working class got nothing out of it and replacing one type of hard, poor-quality work with another type of poor-quality work. Mining but in a Burtons suit.
I saw Scargill address a crowd at a fund raiser for striking miners held outside the old GLC building. He reminded me of Hitler in his oratory style. I felt a bit of a fraud because I couldn't give a 5h1t about the miners and was only there to see The Smiths who played after Comrade Arthur had finished whipping the crowd into a frenzy
I was only a child when the miners' strike was on but this is my take on it. More mines had been closed under the previous Labour government then what were planned by the Torys in the mid-1980s The mines that were due to close were loss making Thatcher, to her credit, was one of the first world leaders to recognise that greener alternative energy was required and phasing out coal was part of the solution By the 1980s fewer houses had coal fires (I do remember seeing the coal trucks in that decade), trains were no longer run on steam, there was a lower demand for coal than there had been 20 years earlier In the 1970s it was not right that unions could hold governments (irrespective of colour of tie) to ransom and could bring governments down, this was undemocratic When a union wanted to strike they could just walk out with a show of hands and unions were very adept at threatening people to join them. Thatcher did make legislation to make (a) strike ballots a requirement and (b) banned rent-a-mob union heavies from causing havoc at other locations (flying pickets). Scargill brought about an illegal strike, but he knew he was outflanked by Thatcher who had spent two years building up a stockpile of coal, some of which was cheaper coal sourced from Poland, Scargill failed to admit that he was outmanoeuvred and went ahead with/continued the strike a lot longer than he needed to. Also he started the strike at the wrong time of year, the beginning of spring when coal and energy usage is less than the winter meant he was never going to win. Scargill dug his heals in and some of the responsibility for the fallout should rest on his shoulders. Where Thatcher went wrong was that at the time she was encouraging people to buy their council houses, that government grants and help should have been put in place to replace the lost jobs from mining, both those at the coal face and also local businesses that relied on custom from those in the industry. Who would want to buy a home in a mining village without a mine, or without alternative employment? So Thatcher is directly responsible for screwing up the communities where there was a void left by closures. It's all very well saying that people/communities are responsible for themselves, but ripping the soul out of those communities without What's left of the NUM had been (don't know if still the case) paying rent on Scargill's flat in London and there had been a series of court cases about 10 years ago between him and the union. Ultimately Scargill outplayed his hand and was soundly beaten by Thatcher, Scargill ought to take responsibility for the accelerated demise of the coal mining industry in this country, without the 84/85 strikes I think that the change would have been more gentle and fewer communities would have been affected in one hit. That's not to say that it would have made a huge difference to the timing of the closure of the last coal powered power stations in the UK, which is down to one on standby, which is due to close for good this coming September.
I was at a thing this week hosted by Sheffield University's Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in Rotherham. Astonishing facilities surrounded and supported by some very big names (Boeing, ABB, McClaren etc.) . The host was very keen to point out that it wasn't just part of the University - a big part of it's remit was to train apprentices (from the age of 16) so that had to build accommodation for them on-site for safeguarding reasons. The hosts were very keen to point out that over 50% of what they did was to train apprentices for the booming/nascent UK hi-tech engineering sector. At a breakout session I pointed out that I surprised to see , both the number of employers next to the site and the number of EU plaques pointing out who funded the building work. The host pointed out that the AMRC was actually on the site of the Orgreave works and the EU funding was given to build well-paying jobs in the local community. The hosts pointed out that there are vastly more people employed at the AMRC that ever were at the coke works (even accounting for the fact that there's also a lot of housing and associated development) and the wage/skills levels of those employed now are much, much higher than at "the plant". There were a couple of 'old sweats' on the staff and there were very dismissive of working practices/conditions of the good old days. Rotherham voted 67.9% leave.
They did. And they still have that fantastic facility that you seem to describe as thriving outside of the EU. Thank you for that very clear piece of good news. Where did the EU funding for the project funding come from by the way? The UK? Of course it did. Do you really see that story, no matter how positive it is regarding the EU (and to be fair, it is) as reflecting poorly on Brexit? Can't see it myself. They voted leave for their own good reasons. Contempt for them, where it isn't due, seems to lack class.
I was in Dodworth on Saturday, with friends. Had a good day. Still means a lot to them. A few old colliery songs were sung in the evening. I don't join in, because I don't feel that it is my place, as a southerner who never worked anywhere near a mine, to emote those hardships. Great songs though, and good people.
We've just been doing a team de-brief about this 'thing' and one of my colleagues related a chilling/promising bit of the spiel (which I had forgotten fearing I misheard it) given by one of our hosts - some of the young apprentices starting there were the first in two generations to bring a wage into the family home...
