So Arthur was right then...

[BillyStubbsTears]

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25549596

Doesn't excuse his egotistical idiocy in the way he ran the strike. But truth does tend to come out eventually. If this had been known at the time, the strike would have ended very differently.

Politics eh? Truth means nowt, it's how you control information that matters. Hey ho. Next on the list is for the truth to finally come out over what happened at Orgreave. If the IPCC finally get on with doing their job.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-24938267

[Colin C No.3]

It'll not happen in our lifetime.

You only have to look to Hillsboro to see how 'justice' can be hidden under a mass of lies, corrupt officials & self serving politicians.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Mods.

Apologies. Meant to post this in Off Topic. Feel free to move it.

[River Don]

Perhaps we can take a little heart from the fact that at the moment, with digital technology and the web it is a lot more difficult to control information.

[wilts rover]

Don, the flip side of that being that it is also difficult to control misinformation and false information, recent discussions on this forum being a case in point. But yes, I get what you mean.

Billy, do you really think the strike would have ended differently if the true government intentions had been known at the time? The country was tired of industrial conflict and not particuarly behind the miners, Thatcher was determined to smash them, it was more the way the strike was conducted, or should that be percieved to have been conducted, and controlled by the media, that led to the defeat, rather than what it was about?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts.

I am quite certain that the strike would have ended differently.

Firstly, there would have been a shift in public opinion (and that's not just idle thinking - look at what happened in the early 90s when the Major Govt tried to speed up the rate of pit closures). Thatcher was able to play the "unrealistic Loony Left" card because Scargill was easily painted as a being detached from reality. That was a crucial front in the public opinion battle. Picture now the case if that memo had been leaked, say in May 1984. Thatcher's Govt and the NCB demonstrated to be lying. Scargill's apparently wild claims of decimation of the industry proved to be spot on. The effect on public opinion would have been electrifying.

Secondly, there would have been an even more decisive shift in the opinion of the working miners. They were the patsies who bought the line that their jobs were safe. If they had known the true plans, and the strike had been closer to having 100% support, there would have been a much more rapid endgame.

It's fine to say that Thatcher was determined to smash the miners, but she simply would not have been able to do so if the strike had been solid. The country would have been at a standstill by Nov/Dec 84. The picture of Thatcher as inevitably victorious because of her resolve is one that is painted in retrospect. Had the strike been solid (and yes, of course Scargill was to blame for it not being) no amount of Thatcher resolve would have dug coal out of the ground.

[Filo]

And don't forget everyone, our present PM idolises Thatcher and models himself on the bitch

[wilts rover]

Billy

No sorry you are still not convincing me. I feel that the miners could have had a more positive outcome with the strike if it had been conducted differently and that memo is irrelevant. People knew that pits were going to close. They didnt know exactly how many it is true, but they sure as suspected it was more than the 20 announced.

Would the memo have stopped the UDM splitting? Or NACODS coming out? Or the road hauliers refusing to move coal? Or the major newspapers supporting the miners? But a different strategy to the strike would have.

The most interesting thing I have found from the papers released today is how advanced plans were to use the army to break the strike. Now that would have been interesting to see how well that was supported.

[glosterred]

I thought we all knew he was right when he said there were plans to close pits - it was the way he went about trying to prevent the closures that proved wrong.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts.

I suspect that the revelation that the Govt and NCB had been colluding in a cover up of a plan to cut the industry by nearly 50% would have tipped the balance in the NACODS vote. And as papers just released show, the Govt was terrified of NACODS coming out. They had plans for electricity rationing and a 3 day week in that eventuality.

Scargill claims that he saw the NCB plan in 83. But of course, no-one outside the union and their immediate supporters believed him.

RD. interesting point about the easier access to knowledge today. There's a fascinating aspect in the ongoing economic debate, in that senior academics are forsaking the old means of getting information out (peer reviewed journals) as being way to slow, cumbersome and prone to conscious or unconscious censorship by reviewers with axes to grind. Instead, they are publishing their findings immediately on blogs. The review comes in real-time by other experts picking arguments apart. Strong ideas survive the critique. Bad ones don't (in theory).

 It's a truly fascinating and epochal change. Throws 350 years of academic method out the window.

[Filo]

I'm sure if the scabs in Notts had realised that they would be betrayed by the bitch that used them the strike would have been 100% and many peoples lives wouldn't have been ruined by that vindictive cow and her henchmen!

[Sprotyrover]

The miners were doomed to failure Scargill played a poor Mussolini compared to Maggie's Adolf Hitler.

[Sprotyrover]

It was far more interesting to hear that NUM meeting minutes have shown that the only person in the NUM who was allowed to speak during negotiations with Ian McGregor was the Arch Looney himself.

[IC1967]

The article that you refer to states that he 'may' have been right, not that he was right. Anyway it doesn't matter if he was right or not. The coal board were closing 20 pits a year before so 70 over 3 years is not much of a difference. Scargill fell down because he was a power crazed lunatic that wanted to keep uneconomic pits open regardless.

Thatcher was right to smash the unions. They had far too much power and were ruining the country.

Another point. It is a good thing that we don't send as many men down the pits as we used to. The job is very dangerous and not good for the long term health of the workers. Working down the pits is like something from the era of the Industrial Revolution.

It seems a lot of you are quite happy for men to endure those terrible working conditions today. Would any of you be happy if your son came home one day after school and said he wanted to be a miner? No I didn't think you would be.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

I don't get involved in the miners strike - far before my time.

What I will say is what I always say, the less people that have to do that job the better in my eyes.  We had to move on from that, but from everything I always read it was done in such a shoddy way and those that lost out were the workers - that's the sad thing.  Both unions and politicians from all I've seen were quite as bad as each other.  Sadly both are symptematic of their trade - IE they couldn't give a monkeys about the people they represent.

[roversdude]

IC1967 - why do you consider going down the mine in such a Draconian way
By its nature yes it was dangerous but so is crossing the road if not done properly
I for one am proud of my mining heritage and enjoyed it
By the way BST if you ask anyone who went near a picket line they will tell you about how involved the army were

[BillyStubbsTears]

Roversdude

Aye. My cousin was at Yorkshire Main in the strike. He now works with an ex-soldier who has openly told him he was in the police lines. He tells me tales of "coppers" on the picket line in badly-fitting uniforms with no ID numbers.

It'll be fascinating to see if the truth about Orgreave comes out this year. The IPCC can only sit on it for so long, and the link with Hilldborough (culture of fabricating evidence in the SY police) makes it harder for it to be brushed away.