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Digging Deeper: Revelations from the Great Miners' Strike
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be the first to commentPosted by Kevin McCaighy
2014 has so far been a year of commemoration of state-sponsored remembrance on what the Coalition Government wants the public to believe is a consensus-based reflection on the centenary of World War One.
When the Labour MP Tristram Hunt said recently that “history is where the great battles of public life are now being fought", he was correct. But one area that has been conspicuous by its absence from the public forum is the 30th anniversary of the great Miners' Strike of 1984/85.
Barring some less than informative headlines generated by the release of Cabinet documents under the thirty year rule and one less than satisfactory late night documentary on ITV (Stuart Ramsay's 'The Miners' Strike and Me'), the national broadcast media has turned its back on some of the most incendiary revelations to ever have been released to the public. The documents that were released categorically dismantle many deeply held assumptions about the strike, bring so many new issues to the surface that have received no answers from those in a position to do so, and most chillingly of all, confirm what most of those who were on the side of the miners in the first feared all along.
“Settling Scores: The Media, The Police & The Miners' Strike" is a collection of essays published by the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, a group set up in 1979 who, in their words, “wanted to resist the power of the corporate press and campaign for real independence and accountability of the media". Compiled by Granville Williams, a longtime activist and member of the CPBF Council, the book offers a diverse range of voices often left out of the narrative: industrial correspondents like Paul Routledge and Tony Harcup, men who covered the strike for both local independent and national press, NUJ workers, print workers, and last but not least, miners themselves. The chapter by former miner Ray Riley is one of the most harrowing of the assembled essays, covering as it does his personal experiences on the picket line at the Orgreave coking plant and a wider examination of the vicious and brutal Police tactics deployed not just that day but throughout the strike itself. But by far the most devastating chapter is by Nicholas Jones, former industrial correspondent for the BBC. In “The Cabinet Papers: Misinformation and cover-ups", Jones forensically analyses the contents of the papers released in January and lays bare the damning evidence of collusion and secrecy between the National Coal Board and the Thatcher government before, during and after the strike.
“Cabinet records for 1985 show have revealed that within a month of becoming Chairman (of the NCB), (Ian) MacGregor was advising the government that he intended to close as many as 75 pits with the loss of 64,000 jobs…Margaret Thatcher ordered there should be total secrecy about the existence of Macgregor's personal target for closures…So effective was the subsequent cover-up within Whitehall that Macgregor's 75 pit closure list was never mentioned again in the cabinet papers nor was it ever referred to during the year long pit strike."
The President of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill, has been vilified for decades as the man who led his “army" into a battle with an opponent who couldn't be beaten, whose methods were dubious at best and sinister at worst – a man whose aims and ideas had been wholly and utterly defeated. Yet every word he said (and has said since) with regard to the NCB and Tory government's pit closure plan were 100% true;
“Scargill had claimed as far back as November 1982 that the NCB had prepared a closure hit list. Public confirmation of its existence would have allowed the NUM president to have accused MacGregor and Thatcher of having been caught lying to the miners and to the country."
In one fell swoop, the release of a tiny handful of documents has exposed the venal deceptions and the truly destructive nature of the Thatcher government once and for all. Whatever side you take on the issue of the strike – its validity, the nature of what state deployed in response to it, and the media's total capitulation to that narrative – the fact that people at the highest economic and political levels opposed to the miners and their many supporters consistently lied through their teeth in order to defeat the strongest union in the country should deal the final deathblow to whatever still remains of the Thatcher “legacy". That alone is reason enough to rank the revelations of the Cabinet papers alongside those of Edward Snowden as the most shocking and disturbing of recent times.
In his chapter entitled “Thirty Years On", Granville Williams recounts being asked by a local radio DJ: 'Why are you bothered about all this? Move on, it all happened thirty years ago'. The families of miners assaulted, arrested and blacklisted after the strike, those who are represented by the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign might beg to differ with that gentlemen, not to mention the families of those who died at Hillsborough in 1989, a disaster which has finally been given the inquest it deserves, with the conduct of South Yorkshire Police at its very heart – the same force that presided over the infamous “Battle of Orgreave" of the 18th June 1984, which in 2012 referred itself to the IPCC over its conduct and tactics on that day. Williams concludes:
“There is a sense now that, after 30 years, the strike and the sacrifices which the miners, their families and communities endured, and the principled defence of jobs and communities were part of a bigger battle, but one that it was right to fight.'
Kevin McCaighy speaks to the editor of “Settling Scores", Granville Williams:
What was the spur for getting the book “Settling Scores" together in the first place?
As I explain in the intro to “Settling Scores" the initial spur for producing the book was a conversation with Nick Jones, BBC Radio Industrial Correspondent during the miners' strike. I have known Nick for many years and he phoned me up early in November 2013 to let me know about his findings from researching the Cabinet papers due to be released in January 2014. I thought they were extremely explosive and I was very enthusiastic. Initially I thought about producing a pamphlet but gradually the idea developed that there was scope for an edited
collection. I phoned round a number of people who gave me positive responses and also some interesting ideas. Also crucially they committed to a tight deadline which meant the book went from idea to publication in four months.
How has the book been received by people who were involved in the
strike, and more pertinently, by those actively opposed the strike?
The book has had a good reception. The Durham Miners' Association for example has purchased 20 copies and at events connected with the 30th anniversary of the strike people have complimented me on the book. Also journalists like Donald Macintyre and Barrie Clement (former industrial correspondents) have cited the book in articles about the strike in 'The Journalist' and 'New Statesmen'. Paul Routledge also gave it a positive review in 'Tribune'. We also got some great publicity through the online magazine 'Coldtype' It is produced out of Canada by Tony Sutton. To be honest I haven't come across any negative comments about the book. Presumably people hostile to the strike either don't read books supporting the strike or don't bother to review them.
What impact do you think the revelations in the Cabinet Papers have had on those who affected by these once secret meetings?
I think the revelations about the actual number of pits planned for closure being exactly as predicted by Arthur Scargill back in 1984 was a key one. Also the deliberate deception by the government and NCB chair Ian Macgregor who lied about the plans. The other fact revealed was the day-to-day involvement of Margaret Thatcher in the strike. Of course there is some satisfaction for those involved in the epic industrial struggle finding out these facts now but as we face the end of deep mined coal production with the planned closure of Kellingley and Thoresby collieries the real crime was the government's actions in 1984-85 and in 1993 to close the pits without thinking about the devastating consequences for the affected communities. We are still living with those consequences.
How widely available is “Settling Scores"? Has the book made much impact in the wider media?
Not widely enough. We took a principled deliberate decision not to use Amazon - both for “Settling Scores'' and the recent book “Big Media and Internet Titans". People can buy it online or through a number of independent booksellers: e.g. News from Nowhere, Liverpool; Bookmarks, London; Five Leaves, Nottingham. We have also had some coverage in other trade union journals for the book - USDAW and ASLEF for example.
At the book launch Nicholas Jones mentioned that there are more papers being released this month. Will there be a follow up publication by the CPBF about them?
Nick has just emailed me to say that the Cabinet Papers won't be released as we anticipated. The reason for the delay seems to be that No.10 is running additional checks on National Archives' releases – and telescoping the thirty year rule into a twenty year rule has caused problems. Likely publication date for the 1985 papers is now September/October. However we are still going ahead with the meeting with Nick at Wortley Hall on 16 August during the South Yorkshire Festival on how the government manipulated the return to work figures during the strike. We will obviously be talking to Nick about how best to use the information he gleans from the Cabinet papers. We will probably do a special feature on the CPBF website and promote it widely as well as covering it in 'Free Press'.
“Settling Scores" is available for £6.99 from the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom
https://archive.cpbf.org.uk/body.php?subject=books&id=3042&f=1
DATELINE: 20 October, 2014
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