The National Union of Miner’s own website says:
Throughout the 1960s, with a Labour Government in office from 1964, the pit closure programme accelerated; it decimated the industry. During this period, nearly 300 more pits were closed, and the total workforce slumped from over 750,000 in the late 1950s down to 320,000 by 1968. In many parts of Britain, miners now became known as industrial gypsies as pit closures forced them to move from coalfield to coalfield in search of secure jobs.They were victims of madhouse economics.
From what I’ve heard so far the BBC’s coverage of Orgreave is the usual one-sided affair that we’ve come to expect whenever the ‘Tories’ and the Police are involved…the BBC liking neither.
It’s been a day of tall tales about the police being a political army and of innocent miners who just wanted to work and the ‘enemy within’.
That of course is nonsense and the BBC should be challenging the miners who they bring on to say their piece rather than indulging their lies….and the ‘enemy within’ was Thatcher’s term, not for the miners, but for the NUM leadership which was to lead them to destruction….as much an enemy to the miners themselves as to the country.
Let’s be clear..there was no mandate for the strike. Scargill forced it upon the miners after a ballot rejected the call to strike.
Scargill was using the miners as sacrificial pawns in his political battle to destroy the government…Scargill was ‘political’ not the police and miners suffered more from violence from other miners as they tried to intimidate them to stop work than they did from the police. Scargill thought he should be running the country….helpfully part funded as the NUM was by the Soviets.
The labour movement had the best opportunity in 50 years to transform not merely an industrial situation and win an important battle for workers in struggle, but an opportunity to change the government of the day. Arthur Scargill
Scargill led the miners into poverty and ruin for his own purposes which had nothing to do with keeping mines open.
As for jobs, firstly Labour closed more pits than the Tories, second there is no right to a job for life, and the miners were offered extremely generous redundancy terms, far better than other industries received, which they rejected.
I must tell you that what we have got is an attempt to substitute the rule of the mob for the rule of law, and it must not succeed. It must not succeed. There are those who are using violence and intimidation to impose their will on others who do not want it. The rule of law must prevail over the rule of the mob.
– The then Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
We’ve looked at this subject several times and the BBC always presents the miners as victims, not of Scargill and his manipulation and trickery but of the police and Thatcher.
Labour ‘Decimated’ The Coal Industry…says NUM
Not So Minor Miner Facts
Played In A Miner Key
That’s just what the left does, it blames its own failures and corruptions on other people then has the nerve to claim that it’s everyone else’s fault for not listening. The same’s happening in America where history is being completely rewritten. Most Americans currently in education would not know that the Republicans ended slavery, the Democrat party played a major part in creating the KKK, and Martin Luther King was a conservative.
During the miners strike in the 1980’s I was in A&E at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield.
A man was brought in with the worst facial injuries you could ever imagine, literally every bone in his face was broken and his face was swollen to twice it’s normal size.
He was a striking miner that decided to return to work and was set upon by other striking miners one night. They held him down and repeatedly smashed his face into the kerb stone for being a “scab”.
Forgive me for not feeling too aggrieved for all those innocent Orgreave victims.
Well the BBC made it quite clear on tonight’s News at Ten that they think there should be an inquiry. A very one-sided report.
The thing that baffles me is, why now? Why not between 1997 and 2010 when Labour were in power?
probably cos Labour/friends secrets would come out.
Seems the BBC has stirred into bandwagon mode again.
Looking at the comments, BBC trending may need to invoke HRC protocols again, with full HYS override
you have to love the irony. The bBC which promotes the view that we stop burning coal as per its
Global warmingClimate change agenda. (Remember the Himalayan Glaciers crap) is still pushing the boat about how Maggie was a bitch for closing down all the coal mines. As pointed out above err actually Labour closed more down, but hey why spoil a good lie, which the left love to band out:Maggie wanted a war in the Falklands: Err no she didn’t
Maggie robbed children of their milk: Err no she didn’t (She actually fought for and won the right for younger children to keep their milk allowance.
To blame Margaret Thatcher for today’s problems is to misunderstand history
Oh and the facts on coal mines as closed down by Labour and the conservatives:
These are the figures for the sharply declining number of coal mines open each year under those Labour Governments.
1964 545
1965 .. 504
1966 .. 442
1967 .. 406
1968 .. 330
1969 .. 304
1974 .. 250
1975 .. 241
1976 .. 239
1977 .. 231
1978 .. 223
1979 .. 219
Total closed under Labour: 3934
These are the figures for the Thatcher years:
1979 .. 219
1980 .. 213
1981 .. 200
1982 .. 191
1983 .. 170
1984 .. 169
1985 .. 133
1986 .. 110
1987 .. 94
1988 .. 86
1989 .. 73
1990 .. 65
Total closed under the Tories: 1723
Pounce that’s very interesting. I remember my late father, who although not a miner had worked as a coal stoker in a factory, saying the miners should have been on their knees thanking almighty God they never had to go down a pit again.
Just heard on LBC
“I was withsocialist worker at the time, loads of my mates went to Orgreave. The thing was they saw the strike as a means to starting the social revolution, so were doing things like throwing bricks at the police.”
I am in the adjacent region so have over the years met many people claiming that there was something straight like undercover soldiers being in with the police.
It is possible that the strong police action that day, sent a message that police were no longer going to put up with the nonsense and so diminished future violences from the miners.
Remember that secondary picketing etc was part of that but became illegal a few years after. So a new Orgreave wouldn’t have happened.
As someone whose great-Aunt knew Scargill personally (because my great-grandad was a well-respected NUM official and Methodist lay preacher), I can categorically say that Scargill was, and still is, a political looney! Not my view, but the view of my great-Aunt who I remember saying, ‘He’s a lovely man, but when I see him on the telly, well, he’s just bonkers!’
And as someone who witnessed violence on the picket line at Gedling colliery on the outskirts of Nottingham in 1984 (must have been only weeks or days before Orgreave), it was obvious that outsiders (flying pickets?) had come to cause trouble.
Bear in mind that a good proportion of miners in Nottinghamshire were actually from Scotland (ex-oil rig workers) and had no appetite for striking. Lump that together with the more demographically diverse industrial landscape of the north midlands (in contrast to South Yorkshire) and the choices that that gave to those living in Nottinghamshire and more southern areas when embarking on a career.
No, Orgreave was about South Yorkshire miners and Scargill’s home turf. Sod all the other miners who were happy with their lot. Ignore all those Scottish economic migrants and those whose pits are just a short bus journey away from a nice office or retail job in a city such as Nottingham, Derby or Leicester – or even Birmingham if you lived in Tamworth.
Scargill was fighting a self-centred battle. His thoughts seldom strayed much further than Barnsley.
On PM we had incredible pro enquiry/pro miner bias. It got so bad as to become funny when the leader of the Justice for Orgreave pressure group said one of the most blatant failures of the police was their failure to stop the flying pickets congregating at Orgreave in the first place. He went on to claim that it was part of a government plot to surround a large group of miners and for the police to mount a preplanned attack on them. All of thiese outrageous claims were uncontested by Mr Mair. The BBC said they had invited a Home Office spokesman but that non was available. They obviously made no other attempt to provide the other side of the story. Which , for those to young to remember , was that the NUM called a strike without a mandate to do so and most miners went on strike. The whole purpose of the strike was to topple the democratically elected government led by Lady Thatcher, just as they had brought down the Heath government some years earlier. But Lady T was ready for them and preserved democracy in our country by defeating the crazed Marxist Scargill and his violent pickets in a bitter year long struggle.
The BBC will resort to any lies and deceits to blacken the name of Lady T and we can expectthem to hand a platform to the Orgreave Justice group repeatedly over the coming months no matter how outrageous the claims become. No doubt the C of E , Guardian and the usual liberal left ragbag will join in. It also provides Labour with a much needed vehicle to win back support in its former heartlands.
Those flying pickets at Orgreave in 1984 got exactly the Justice they deserved on the day, whether it was a planned operation by the police or not , the police deserve our thanks.
Having watched Andy Burnham yesterday on the BBC and listening to Michael Mansfield this morning on the Today programme, it is obvious that there are those feeding the flames of Orgreave to raise their own profile (AB) or to make a lot of money (MM). What a shame that the interviewer on the Today programme didn’t ask Mr Mansfield, if they got an enquiry, whether he and his chambers would work for the enquiry pro bono.
But the whole ethos of demanding an enquiry is so typical of the Left. “We want one – no matter what it costs – and I will stamp my foot (BBC included) if I don’t get what I want.”
I don’t think I like Amber Rudd, but in this instance I am with her 100% of the way.
The terrible beauty of the idiot left is just HOW stupid they are.
How every idiot wind and gesture they desire today for Toadys crib shit will-very soon-come back to bite them.
Not in their own circle of hell mind, but down here where we walk dogs, visit libraries and go to church.
The two killers-Hancock and Shankland-surely would rather we NOT bring this one back.
Is Kim Howells ready for the shitstorm to come?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3435161.stm
And it WON`T be patsy grief mong-in-chief Michale Mansfield QC, nor Patsy Montague asking the questions.
I`d have thought burning evidence before a murder trial is pretty serious, and maybe THAT`S the enquiry we ought to be having.
Or maybe Labours role in the Aberfan tragedy up the valley?.
Not REALLY got to the bottom of that have we?
And that ghastly crew of Kinnocke, Howells and the roles of other Labour boyos at that time may be worth a look too!
As I say-the Idiot Left with their rose tinted idiot lanterns.
But we`re ready for them.
And the turtle-turning by the BBC in 84/5( where they backed the side only that embedded them on that day, so it seemed to us) is worth a look.
BBC.Labour, Scargill.David Wilkie. Lord Robens. George Thomas. Howells, Willis and Kinnock, Gadhaffi and Kosygin.
I see fun ahead if they persist.
And all to tack a carapace onto Labours blown bandwagon until the next news spin cycle.
Hubby liked my phrase “schizophrenic tumbleweed” today…
Suits me.
How do the loony left equate closing all those mines with our improved green performance re climate change averrals from the Green?
Haven`t the EU been happy with the end of coal? Any chance of us seeing Caroline Lucas in the Rhondda debating the imperative to remove coal mining and burning?
To save the planet.
No, course not. Schizoid tumbleweed again.
My cousin was a policeman during the miners strikes and was hit on the head with a brick and was hospitalised for 3 weeks. He was never quite the same person afterwards and started drinking, which he had rarely done before. He was pensioned out of the police early through ill health brought about by flash backs, nervousness and too much alcohol. He died a few months ago age 61.
Personally I don’t see what an inquiry will achieve, we have recently had the Chilcot report that cost millions and proved nothing, like many other reports.
I was hoping this government would get to grips with the Biased BBC, but I will not be holding my breath.
John Bull, very sorry to hear about your cousin. When I lived in Yorkshire I got talking to a man in a pub who claimed to have been a Notts policeman and had been involved in the defence against the miners in his county. He said, though, that the police shipped in re-enforcements from South Yorks to help them. He claimed that these Yorkshire police were way more aggressive against the miners than the Notts ones.
However, I remember clearly that the miners were the instigators of the violence and that the police only responded when they had to. If the South Yorks police were over enthusiastic in their response then I think that, although they should maybe have done it better, their response is totally understandable when they were being bombarded and charged at in the way they were. What made it worse was the lies of the Trots organising the violence were being supported by many MPs from the Labour and Liberal parties, and supported by many on the BBC.
I do believe, though, that the South Yorks police can be over-zealous as I witnessed it a couple of times in the eighties at Hillsborough when they seemed to be pulling out fans who appeared to be doing not much wrong. It’s the sort of action that could have caused crowd trouble rather than prevented it.
BBC is one biassed player.
The other is Google and Facebook.
It is almost a habit to google when one wants some info. But the US election has shown a consistent, deliberate and planned bias of Google against Trump,and for Clinton.
I’m going to switch from google to other search software.
The Best Search Engines of 2016!
https://www.lifewire.com/best-search-engines-2483352
And also use Google to search for “best search engines other then Google”. But ignore its offerings.
I remember watching the conflicts on the BBC and was struck by the one sided reporting at the time. The BBC must have had footage of the violent intimidation carried out by the striking miners and their attacks on the police. The only footage that they showed was what they considered to be over reaction by the police.
Of course it is the same now when their are disturbances and riots. No footage of the thugs breaking into shops and offices looting and destroying. The BBC claim impartiality to withhold evidence of illegal behavior and identification of the perpetrators.
I was struck by the same thing.
The thing that I remember most, was being utterly shocked to see miners (or anarchists amongst their number) physically attack and beat policemen. It was something that I’d never seen before but it was there, in my country, happening in front of our eye, there for all to see.
BUT not now. That footage seems to have been disappeared, to be replaced on the BBC News with police charges on horseback and truncheon wielding policemen. Whatever did the BBC do with the footage of the miners’ thuggery?
The Police dealt effectively and without loss of life with what amounted to an insurrection supported by communist thugs. What more is there to say?
Laura ‘Don’t worry your pretty empty head, dear, and run the story’ K has tweeted:
And of course this is now wall to wall from Global Tripe to the BBC.
Most comments suggest Andy and his PR squeeze are not exactly trusted, bar one:
Sam Hendry @SamHendry5
@bbclaurak Thanks Laura, for the nice interview with Jeremy and updating us on the Orgreave.
There are various accents that grate at the best of times, but when allied to a politician trying to squeeze a saveloy of sincerity through a sparrow’s cloaca of credibility, Burnham’s rivals even L’Abbott in full bluster.
The BBC is so keen on historical inquiries, maybe they fancy campaigning for Balen to be released or one about Savile that is not held by a very forgetful friend of very forgetful senior executives?
Or Mid Staffs?
Andy ‘Div 2 football manager soundalike’ Burnham.
Can never take him seriously.
‘Former Health Secretaries Andy Burnham and Alan Johnson ignored 81 requests for a public inquiry into Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust in the two years after it was first warned of poor NHS care, it has emerged.’
I rarely swear in public but on this occasion I will make an exception Burnham is a fucking hypocritical bastard.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9875660/Mid-Staffs-Labour-Government-ignored-MP-requests-for-public-inquiry-into-deaths.html
“Laura ‘Don’t worry your pretty empty head”
My first thought was “Are you sure?”, then I realised that you didn’t put a comma after pretty so you must be saying it’s pretty empty, rather than pretty and empty. Fair dos.
Torn between ‘that is so what I meant’ and ‘ta for the editorial assist, dude’.
Honestly I had better ‘fess up to the latter.
I was only having a jest with you. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, somebody else on here recently called her “Eye candy”.
Strange how the BBC can get so excited over the involvement of South Yorks Police except when it comes to the really serious shit i.e. ignoring the pleas of child victims of Muslim paedophile rape gangs for 10 years.
I’ll bet the amount of airtime spent on dissecting Orgreave is already 10 times the coverage given to Rotherham and all the other towns and cities where tens of thousands of the most vulnerable white girls have been drugged, beaten and gang-raped (AND it continues….).
But then what else can we expect from the Buggering up Britain Campaign.
Hillsborough inquiries all over and the BBC see Orgreave as their next campaign.
How many were killed during the Battle of Orgreave? How many were raped? Where’s the perspective? When was it?