The End of an Era Diaries 1980-90. This lack of support can be blamed on the leadership of Arthur Scargill; therefore, the leadership of Arthur Scargill is a more important factor in the failure of the miners strike in 1985. Marching to the Fault Line: The 1984 Miners Strike and the Battle for Industrial Britain. 100 0 _ a Arthur Scargill c British trade unionist (born 1938) 100 1 _ a Scargill, Arthur d (1938- ). [31] Campbell, John. The Institute for Workers' Control was formed in 1968, building on a series of conferences over several years, to act as a research and educational body, to encourage discussion and communication between workers' control groups and trade unions, and to publish important materials on industrial democracy and workers' control. Here you can choose which regional hub you wish to view, providing you with the most relevant information we have for your specific region. [18], Miners were split between those who supported the strike and those who opposed it (see Union of Democratic Mineworkers). If you have already uploaded the file then the name may be misspelled or it is in a different folder. RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f She even admitted to appointing Peter Walker as Secretary of State for Energy because of his negotiating skills and said he was also a skilled communicator, something in which I knew would be important if we were to retain public support in the coal strike[29]. On March 6, 1984, the National Coal Board announced its plan to cut the nation's coal output by 4 million tons, in an effort to stem a $340 million annual loss. Somerset: Routledge, 2018. The End of an Era Diaries 1980-90. BATTLE FOR BRITAIN; on the 25th Anniversary of the Miners Strike, NORMAN TEBBIT, Reveals Why He Believes Defeat Would Have Been the Death of Democracy.. This Mainstream media view holds that the strike failed because of Scargills extreme beliefs and bad decisions. The strict trade union laws have also been credited for the failure of the strike with Norman Tebbit, who introduced the trade union law reforms, saying because of my reforms, if these other unions had joined an illegal strike, the Coal Board could have asked the court to confiscate their funds[23]. Harpercollins Publishers, 2012. Thatcher disregarded how much of an impact the WAPC would have on the strike as many of the striking ladies figured out that if they went out picketing then they would less likely be targeted by police. My Style of Government: The Thatcher Years. That's what I believe". He mentions how the strikers overtime ban was biting deep into power-station coal stocks and goes on to say If it was allowed to continue until the autumn, managers warned, a twelve-week strike would be enough to put the countrys lights out[26]. [31] In addition, it was alleged that he had taken 1,000,000 of cash donated by the Soviet Union for the Welsh miners and placed it in a Dublin bank account for the "International Miners' Organisation", where it stayed until a year after the strike had finished. Arthur Scargill: We Could Surrender or Stand and Fight. The Guardian. This is unfair as after the NCB accidently announced pit closures, the strike gained momentum very quickly forcing Scargill to just go along with it. [42] Evans, Eric J. Thatcher and Thatcherism. Page 164. Either way, please contact your web host immediately. [35] The Truth of Nacods Shameful Sell-out. The Guardian. ", Gildart, Keith. Was this national or local? Page 150-152, [2] Campbell, John. That violence strengthened the stature of the Coal Board and the Thatcher government. EconBiz.Logger.logPageView(); He has contested two parliamentary elections. A5 format. This varies by browser, if you do not see a box on your page with a red X try right clicking on the page, then select View Page Info, and goto the Media Tab. Page 151. McIlroy, J. Before you do anything, it is suggested that you backup your website so that you can revert back to a previous version if something goes wrong. Page 345. John Campbell argues that It was the job of the police to protect the freedom to work, and the job of the government to support the police[37]. The appointment of Ian McGregor as head of the NCB can be seen as a failure on Thatchers behalf showing that the governments preparations were insufficient to cause the strike to fail. After looking at the evidence, I believe that the Marxist view is more valid than the Mainstream media view in the fact that it is clear that Thatcher and her government went above and beyond in order to bring down Scargill and the miners. Still the Enemy Within (2014). IMDb. His policy alienated most of the Nottinghamshire miners, undermined his position with the leaders of the trade union movement, hurt the union's reputation in British public opinion, and led to violence along the picket line. Page 57-59. [41] Campbell, John. "Goodbye to all that? He also represented the Barnsley Co-op at Cooperative congresses. # End WordPress. Without them the power stations, even with the mix of nuclear and oil and the careful stockpiling, might have begun to run short and the government would have been in deep trouble[43] Therefore, showing that the lack of support from the Nottinghamshire miners was a more important factor in the failure of the Miners strike than government preparations. There are those on the would-be left who will willingly attempt to defend people accused of rape, individuals who beat their partners, those who think there is vast Jewish conspiracy against Corbyn, and elements that think trans people are mentally ill. Scargill seems to have almost no one to advocate for him. Written authorization is required for the purchase of tea and coffee. jQuery(function() { Absolute nonsense on all accords above. The Myth of Workers' Control (booklet) Person/Body (Historic): Scargill, Arthur. In his diary he documents the battle at Orgreave on Monday 18th of June, 1984; Ive never seen so many of our lads altogether, it brought tears to my eyes[16]. ",email_success: "Message Sent",bulk_noitems_advice: "No items were selected. This included Norman Tebbits radical reforms[39] as put by Tony Benn, who was newly elected to the mining seat and a clear supporter of the 1984-85 Miners strike[40]. [18] Still the Enemy Within (2014). IMDb. Woods, Alan. Therefore, this portrays the feelings of the majority of the miners who were on strike as they realised that this lack of support could determine the outcome of the strike. In this example the file must be in public_html/example/Example/. Wilsher, Peter, Donald Macintyre, and Michael CE Jones, eds. Strike: When Britain Went to War. In Defence of Marxism. When you get a 404 error be sure to check the URL that you are attempting to use in your browser.This tells the server what resource it should attempt to request. Thatcher deliberately chose to make the miners who continued to work look like heroes and make the striking miners look like the public enemy. You've been found out. [14] The section under "staff procedures" details how Scargill monitored head office staff: Mr. Scargill's vendetta against Head Office staff has at times descended to the most puerile and paranoic [sic] levels. Scargill has so burnt his bridges with the NUM and the broad left of the labour movement that his name is never mentioned at Durham miners gala or at other miners strike commemorations. Margaret Thatcher even described McGregor as lacking in guile as he was used to dealing with financial difficulties and hard bargaining and had no experience with dealing with trade union leaders[25]. [45], For years the NUM had been paying 34,000 annual rent for the flat on Scargill's instructions, without the knowledge of NUM members or many senior officials; Scargill claimed the NUM should continue funding his flat for the rest of his life, and thereafter for any widow who survived him. [9] Scargill saw this strike as a turning point in the union's attitude to militancy.[10]. UK | Politics | Head to Head: The Miners Strike. BBC News. My Style of Government: The Thatcher Years. January 07, 2000. Page 346. : A Review of Literature on the 1984/5 Miners' Strike. [16] One branch of the NUM, at Annesley in Nottinghamshire, put forward a vote of no confidence in Scargill in autumn 1983 following his comments on these matters, but Scargill defeated this at a December meeting and won a vote of confidence instead. Nothing good about it. The movement faced a huge confrontation from the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, and the union was eventually defeated. "Goodbye to all that? London: Pan Books, an Imprint of Pan Macmillan, 2017. Test your website to make sure your changes were successfully saved. He had been a Communist and retained strong Marxist views and a penchant for denouncing anyone who disagreed with him as a traitor Scargill had indeed been elected by a vast margin and he set about turning the NUM's once moderate executive into a reliably militant group By adopting a position that no pits should be closed on economic grounds, even if the coal was exhausted more investment would always find more coal, and from his point of view, the losses were irrelevant he made sure confrontation would not be avoided. We've received widespread press coverage since 2003, Your UKEssays purchase is secure and we're rated 4.4/5 on reviews.co.uk. Because of Scargills actions, the strike was illegal, poorly supported and doomed to failure given the level of government preparations. You may need to scroll to find it. [19] Morgan, Kenneth O.Britain since 1945: The Peoples Peace. March 10, 2004. Arthur Wakefield, a striking miner, presents the Marxist view that the failure of the strike couldnt have been down to the lack of support and instead must have been due to other factors. In this example the image file must be in public_html/cgi-sys/images/. EconBiz.Logger.enable_visibilityState_tracking(); //-->, Unions on the board : an experiment in industrial democracy, Batstone, Eric, "Scargill" redirects here. However, In , He was right. This is because had the NUM come out nationally in favour of the strike, Nottinghamshire area would have won permission for its own ballot and remained at work. Scargill recalled how after becoming a miner, the poor working conditions and "people who should never have been working, having to work to live on that first day I promised myself I would try one day to get things changed". [25] Thatcher, Margaret. However, they have conflicting views on to what extent these preparations were made in order to bring down the unions. January 07, 2000. Scargill's first mistake was refusing to call a National Ballot . Accessed January 06, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/mar/07/arthur-scargill-miners-strike. Dont forget that Labours manifesto at Kinnocks last election included a policy of leaving the bloc, and who knows what t was under Corbyn. Arthur Scargill. This strengthens Milnes argument that the police brutality, authorised by Thatcher, was unjustified. However, the people that argue this are clear Thatcherites such as Shirley Letwin, John Campbell and even Thatcher herself who blamed Scargill for the violence at the picket line mass pickets led by Arthur Scargill forced the closure of the Saltley Coke Depot in Birmingham[44] contradicting this, Seumas Milne who takes a clear Marxist view that the standard fairy tale, still routinely recycled by media and politicians alike, has it that Scargill called the action in spring in a classic example of his poor generalship and tactical sense[45]. S.l. Vast majority of people work retail or asBarristersselling fancycoffee to people on the way to work in offices, most of them on single hour contracts working in retail parks or business parks built on the ground of old mine, steelworks and potteries that used to employ tens of thousands of men and now employ the best part of 100. [22][23], Many found Scargill inspiring; many others found him frankly scary. London: Fontana, 1992. [13] Still the Enemy Within (2014). IMDb. [37] The prosecution brought by the Certification Officer was rejected in July 1991 on the grounds that it would be inappropriate to use the material provided in confidence to Lightman's enquiry. The appointment of Ian McGregor as head of the NCB can also be argued as a factor in the failure of the strike as he was known to be notoriously formidable had no pity for the poor miners, and was determined to keep them working and living in conditions that no human being should be made to endure[24]. A household name in the seventies and eighties, it was easy to imagine the strike as a personal conflict between Scargill and his nemesis, Margaret Thatcher. After the miners' strike, Scargill was elected to lifetime presidency of the NUM by an overwhelming national majority, in a controversial election in which some[who?] So that was my initial introduction into socialism and into political militancy. The Labour Party was opposed to membership of the EU to begin with wasn't it, so what happened, are its current membership more enlightened. That is what we need to remember these days when we think of Scargill. Arthur Scargill emerged from semi-retirement from politics to speak at a meeting of the Communist Party of Britains wretched little pro-Brexit front organisation Leave Fight Transform (LeFT) in Brighton on 11 September, alongside Eddie Dempsey (the man who said Tommy Robinson supporters were right to hate the liberal left) and other assorted xenophobes, nationalists and social conservatives. Shankland's and Hancock's life sentences for murder were reduced to eight years for manslaughter on appeal. It is rather ironic that his view on the EEC was shared by Tjatcher, deep down, and it is a Tory Govt that has taken us out. Kim Howells discusses how Neil Kinnock argued that real power lay at the ballot box[4]. . The miners had already built up a fearsome reputation as the shock troops for organised labour and during his time as leader of the Yorkshire coalfield, Mr Scargill had rarely been out of the news. [8], Scargill was a leader of the unofficial strike in 1969, which began in Yorkshire and spread across the country. ", Old Labour party constiturion, Clause 4 part IV, Yorkshire Area of the National Union of Mineworkers, "Arthur Scargill joins Battle of Saltley Gate 40th anniversary celebration", "The Nottinghamshire Miners, The Union of Democratic Mineworkers and the 198485 Miners' Strike: Scabs or Scapegoats? He regularly attended Workers' Educational Association (WEA) classes and Co-operative Party educational programmes, and in 1962, undertook a three-year, part-time course at the University of Leeds, where he studied economics, industrial relations and social history. Darlington, "There is no alternative: Exploring the options in the 1984-5 miners' strike. Page 341. [6] Marr, Andrew. Scargill had condemned the killing at the time. Scargill opposed civilian nuclear power and, during the first Wilson ministry, became highly critical of the government's energy policy.