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Leamington Letters #64: History to the defeated

4/1/2014

11 Comments

 
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One of the rituals of New Year that I look forward to is not the announcement of the award of assorted gongs to people one has never heard of or to people who have earned millions and donated some of it to whichever party is currently in government.

It is the release of those cabinet and government documents that have been kept secret under the 30 year rule; in this case, the assorted stuff from 1984.

1984 was the year of the miners’ strike, which split the country pretty much down the middle. Or rather, the government’s response split the country.

It was class warfare. Raw in tooth and claw. It lasted from March 1984 to March 1985 and although some miners had returned to work earlier, ministers later admitted that they had lied about the numbers involved in order to destroy the morale of those still striking.

Thirty years later, we now know that this was by no means the only lie told by the Thatcherite Tories of the time.

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Now we know that their total dismissal of Scargill’s belief that there was a hidden agenda of pit closures was unjustified. Not only that but it had been discussed in a secret meeting, attended by only seven people, the minutes of which were not to be made public, but which agreed that 75 pits were to be closed with the loss of 64,000 jobs.

Whole communities were to be destroyed. Families were to be thrown into poverty.  Two-thirds of Welsh miners would become redundant. One third of those in Scotland would lose their jobs, together with half in the north-east, half in south Yorkshire and almost half in the south Midlands. In Kent, not a single job would remain.

You will not be surprised to learn that final paragraph of the document read: "It was agreed that no record of this meeting should be circulated."

A subsequent document, penned by a senior civil servant, argued the same small group should meet regularly in future, but that there should be "nothing in writing which clarifies the understandings about strategy which exist between Mr MacGregor (Ian MacGregor, the chairman of the Coal Board) and the secretary of state for energy".
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Today, I doubt whether any of this surprises us. And it wouldn’t have surprised me at the time – most of us were convinced that this strategy was in place and that the objective was to destroy the organised working class.

But we are thirty years on, and the proof that we were right then is irrelevant. 

“History to the defeated
May say alas but cannot help or pardon”.

It will come as no consolation to those families throughout the mining community of Britain that they were right. They, and the movement, was destroyed. And it was destroyed in no small measure by working class people, the police constables who surrendered their principles in order to gain unprecedented overtime and who relished the legalised punch-ups.

I know this because my brother-in-law at the time was a traffic policeman. One day, in the middle of the dispute, he brought round to see us a brother officer, who regaled us with stories of beatings up and how much he had earned and what he was going to spend it on: video players and Majorca, as I recall.

He was confused. My accent, my home and the wine I was serving made him assume that I was on his, and Thatcher’s, side. I was not. And the defeat of the NUM, and the recent disclosures that the union was right all along, confirms my instinctive loathing for Thatcher’s strategy and those who supported it.

They are still denying that meeting, and what was discussed and agreed, despite the fact that the minutes are, finally, in the public domain.

Their guilt is manifest. And we cannot help or pardon; we can only say alas.


Today from the everysmith vault: EP2 from the Pixies, four great new songs, released today.I commend it to you.

11 Comments
Allan
4/1/2014 10:01:26

Great start to the new year. And spot on. Thanks.

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Paul
4/1/2014 14:07:43

What is revealing is the lack of public outcry when these documents were revealed. No-one was surprised, as you say. But no-one seemed to care.

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Rod
4/1/2014 14:17:00

Significant that Cameron has nothing to say. He will get in loved with domestic disputes in Chelsea, but when these appalling disclosures are made, he is unavailable for comment. We need an enquiry into the way in which they tried to mislead us.

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Sean
8/1/2014 03:06:51

He is too busy commenting on the behaviour of Luis Suarez/ Nigella Lawson et al to have time for thinking about stuff like this. Give the guy a break.

Joe
4/1/2014 17:09:51

It was a turning point and the insistence of the government that Scargill was inventing the closures to justify the strike helped to keep major media on its side. Cynical? Of course. But what do you expect?

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Marg link
5/1/2014 02:41:53

I remember it well. I worked as a probation officer in Nottinghamshire and was shocked by the sight of police with riot shields in a mining village. Families were divided; many never reconciled. The men and women were decent, hardworking people and it was undeserved.

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Jack
5/1/2014 14:12:31

With you absolutely on this. 30 years for the truth to come out. By which time it is too late. The Iraq enquiry, also too late, will be interesting.

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Ellie
6/1/2014 05:06:03

What is certainly true is that the working class movement were defeated. Not just a battle, but the war. One can attribute all the disgraceful activities of the banks and the city to the loss of confidence in the unions and the old Labour Party. It was a huge catastrophe for the country and it will take a crisis of similar proportions to rectify it.

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anthea link
6/1/2014 14:15:57

Very good to read you giving this release such deserved attention; no surprise, of course, but still analysis and comment are vital.

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Sean
8/1/2014 03:03:41

Nothing surprises me about that government. The epitome of Tory arrogance, smugness and disconnection. Utterly bereft of feeling. A bunch of sociopaths. 5 years later the abomination of the Hillsborough cover up was to come.
As for the Pixies. Hoorah.

Reply
Nick Spencer
9/1/2014 02:43:09

Vindication of Scargill's warning of the Thatcherite intent to close the pits and destroy the NUM in order to pave the way for a major shift in the relationship of Capital to Labour. This was essential for them to push through the Neoliberal agenda which still holds sway. The documents also reveal how scared the Tories were by the Dock Strike which, had it continued, would have scuppered their plans.

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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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