On Saturday 24 January, Channel Four broadcast a documentary about the miners’
strike. This channel is supposed to be the embodiment of serious TV journalism.
But anyone who tuned in looking for an objective account of the strike was
doomed to be disappointed. This was positively the worst example of gutter
journalism one could hope to experience. The purpose of this documentary was not
to clarify what happened but to blacken the memory of the striking miners and
mislead the present generation by a combination of lies, falsifications and
trivialisation.
The reasons for this are quite clear. It is never enough for the ruling class
to defeat the working class. It is necessary to obliterate the very memory of
the historical struggles of the workers, to insult their memory, to spit on
their achievements, and to brainwash the new generations in the servile idea
that "struggle does not pay". This is no accident. After a long period of quiet,
things are beginning to stir on the industrial front in Britain. The
establishment is trying to prevent the spread of militancy and is using the
anniversary of the miners’ strike to achieve this end. The content of the
programme seems to be the past, but it is really concerned with the present and
the future.
The miners’ strike was an epic year long struggle that transformed the lives
and psychology of thousands of working class people. But in the whole programme
one would look in vain for a true representation of the astonishing heroism of
the miners and their families. Only the role of the miners’ wives was hinted at,
and then only in a very partial and niggardly fashion.
This was indeed a war – a war between the classes that polarised the whole of
British society. In this war, contrary to the one-sided and false presentation
of Channel Four, all the aggression came from the government. The miners were
not the aggressors but the victims. Their "crime" – for which they can never be
forgiven by the ruling class and its hired prostitutes in the media – was
that they dared to fight back, and they nearly won.
A serious documentary is supposed to give equal weight to the views of both
sides of the argument. This was indeed the promise made in the publicity that
announced the programme. The blurb stated: "This extraordinary, feature-length
documentary uses extensive archive footage and the recollections of an
eclectic mix of key players from both camps." Yet in the space of two
(interminable) hours, the few miners who were graciously permitted to put in a
token appearance were mainly restricted to anecdotal trivia, relating to their
experiences with (guess who?) the students and the middle class. This was a
self-evident ploy to disguise the overwhelming and blatant bias of the programme
as a whole. No doubt these miners gave a far fuller picture of what the strike
was really about, but the producers preferred to edit this out to fit in to
their own agenda. Indeed, at no time did the makers of the programme make any
attempt to explain the real reasons behind the strike. The voice of the miners,
their families and communities, was almost completely silenced.
From the word go the commentary was heavily loaded against the miners, the
working class and the trade union movement in general. The opening gambit
already prepared us for what was in store:
"This is the story of the moment that an old Britain died and a new one was
born," we were duly informed. "In the 1980s, Britain stood on the brink of
massive change. The Thatcher revolution was well and truly underway and the era
of the ‘yuppy’ was arriving."
And indeed this was a programme of the yuppies, by the yuppies, and 100
percent for the yuppies.
Those of us who can remember the period in question rubbed our eyes in
astonished disbelief as the sleek, self-satisfied TV presenters went on to
describe these years as follows:
"It was a vibrant, fluid, controversial time of change." That much cannot be
denied. It was very much a change for the worse as far as the great majority of
the British people were concerned: a period of massive unemployment, the closure
of mines and factories, and the slashing of social spending on health, housing
and education. In a word, the period when a formerly relatively civilised
country turned into a free market shambles, when a small minority made fortunes
from speculation while British manufacturing industry was decimated by the
so-called Thatcher revolution, of which the makers of this programme are so
proud.
In March 1984, the government announced plans to close 20 coal mines, with
the loss of 20,000 jobs. In response, the NUM led the workers out on strike. In
other words, the strike was a defensive action to protect jobs and mining
communities, and not at all a conspiracy by the NUM leaders to carry out a
socialist revolution in Britain. This point was made only once in the programme
(after all, even a Channel Four documentary must bear some slight resemblance to
the facts), but then promptly forgotten. For the remainder of the programme, the
whole emphasis was placed on the "theory" of the Red conspiracy and the evil
machinations of Arthur Scargill.
The only "explanation" for the strike was that it was the work of an evil
genius – the NUM leader Arthur Scargill. Here a scientific analysis of history
is replaced by the conspiracy theory that is the essential characteristic of the
police mentality. Scargill was portrayed as a Marxist determined to overthrow
the state. The thousands of miners who followed him in this sinister enterprise
were therefore – it was strongly implied – so many ignorant sheep.
According to this "analysis", Scargill deliberately engineered the strike for
political purposes. Throughout the programme he, and the other NUM leaders, were
subjected to a torrent of abuse, lies and venomous slander. Yet at no time was
the object of this slander given the chance of defending himself.
We are by no means uncritical of the tactics pursued by Arthur Scargill in
this strike. Undoubtedly, certain errors were made, which had a negative effect
on the outcome. In particular, the refusal to hold a national ballot was a
serious blunder. If the NUM had held a ballot and campaigned for a strike, they
would have got an overwhelming endorsement. It is highly unlikely that areas
that voted against strike action would have broken the strike, as happened in
Nottingham. The split in the miners’ ranks undermined the strike from the
beginning and was its Achilles’ heel.
But the tactical mistakes made by the NUM leadership do not alter the fact
that the strike itself was a hundred percent justified. The Tories merely used
the split in the NUM for their own cynical purposes. They had no interest in the
Nottingham miners, any more than any other section of the miners. The programme
presents the Nottingham miners as the victims, but in fact, if anyone was duped
and cynically used, it was them.
The miners’ strike was not an aggressive act by the NUM, nor was it part of
any plot to overthrow capitalism, as the documentary repeatedly implies. As a
matter of fact, if the makers of the documentary had paid the slightest
attention to the facts, they would know that the miners’ strike was deliberately
provoked by Thatcher. It was a naked act of class aggression, deliberately
worked out by the Tories with the cold cruelty that has always characterised the
British ruling class.
There was more than one reason for this offensive by the ruling class. In
part, it was an act of revenge on the part of the ruling class for the defeat
inflicted on the Tory government of Edward Heath by the miners. Having defeated
Argentina in the Falklands war, Thatcher now turned her attention to what she
saw as "the enemy within". In order to crush the trade unions it was first
necessary to crush the strongest and most militant section of the Labour
Movement, the miners.
From another point of view, the conflict between the miners and the
government reflected the objective crisis of British capitalism, which suffered
from a long-term decline. In the past Britain was the workshop of the world. Its
industries ruled supreme in the markets of the world. No more! Over the past 20
years, British manufacturing industry has been largely destroyed. It has been
reduced to the status of a parasitic rentier economy, based on services,
banking, tourism and speculation. The basis of this transformation was laid
under Thatcher.
This parasitism was elevated to the status of a semi-mystical creed in the
Thatcher years. The wholesale slaughter of Britain’s industrial base is
presented as something highly desirable and progressive. In reality, in the long
run it spells only disaster, decline and decay. Those ignorant and narrow-minded
elements who praise Thatcher for her work in destroying Britain (Tony Blair
figures prominently in the ranks of her admirers) present this
counter-revolution as a "revolution". They worship Thatcher because they have
been allowed to enrich themselves – partly through that looting of the state
that is known as privatisation. They dance merrily round the wreckage of Britain’s
former might with the same zeal with which the emperor Nero fiddled as Rome
burned.
Naturally, these "yuppies" (who, as we all know represent the "real" Britain,
as opposed to people who work for a living) were lavishly over-represented in
this documentary. It was supposed to be about miners, but instead was all about
the gold diggers of the City of London. We were treated to the profound
political philosophy of the likes of (Tory) Mathew Parris and the (Tory) former
editor of the Sun and the (Tory) ex-Minister Peter Walker, one after the other,
as they queued up to pour their buckets of slop over the defeated miners.
Then, to balance things up, we were given the opinions of the former Labour
leader (Yesterday’s Man) Neil Kinnock, who, for the few people who remember him,
always gave a first-rate imitation of a Tory. Scraping the barrel, the makers of
the programme, who found no time to interview Arthur Scargill, found plenty of
time to allow this pathetic has-been to indulge in his favourite pastime of
sticking the knife into the back of the working class. He appeared no fewer than
three times, dripping bile and spite, to attack Scargill and the strikers.
An inordinate amount of time was given over to the leader of the
strikebreaking so-called Union of Democratic Mineworkers, Neil Greatrex, to
voice his opinions. Channel Four presented this individual as an honest miner
only relating his own experience.
His explanation of his own role as a strikebreaker was given a personal,
supposedly ‘principled’ gloss. Yet there was no mention of the now infamous Roy
Link, or the other founders of the UDM, their secret meetings with top Tory and
big business backers. The attempt to split the National Union of Mineworkers and
the creation of the UDM was part and parcel of the Tories’ strategy from the
outset.
No thanks to Channel Four we know a little more about Greatrex than we would
learn from his own account. Last year he received a pay package worth £151,536
according to a recent report in The Western Mail newspaper. Yet only £11,856
came from the small UDM’s own national account. The rest came from a quite
astonishing source. Miners all over Britain will be sickened to discover that
"hundreds of ex-miners in Wales may have had their compensation claims
processed by a company called Vendside, without realising it is owned by the UDM.
Vendside has received millions of pounds in fees from the Department of Trade
and Industry." (The Western Mail 12/01/04) It would seem that it was not
just the Met police officers whose bank balances profitted from fighting against
the striking miners.
Yes, Britain was at war at that time – and the makers of the programme made
no secret of which side they were on in that war. They found time to interview
all manner of middle class nonentities, former students, who (surprise,
surprise) in their comfortable old age, have suddenly discovered the joys of the
free market economy and can permit themselves the luxury of spitting on their
own radical past. This was perhaps the most nauseating aspect of a generally
nauseating programme.
The glittering prize of the free market – so runs the legend – was nearly
obliterated by the "dinosaurs" of the NUM and their middle class student allies,
pitted against the forces of progress, in the form of the Thatcher government.
These scriptwriters really deserve an Oscar for inventiveness. Their ability to
tell blatant lies without even blinking is truly admirable! The fact is that the
miners had the support of the overwhelming majority of the British people, and
in particular the working class and the Labour Movement. The success or failure
of the strike depended on the latter. The role of the students was very welcome
but quite peripheral at the time. Therefore, the opinions of a few aging
ex-students 20 years later is of no interest to anyone, except other aging
ex-students who produce bad documentaries for Channel Four.
Apostacy is never a particularly endearing phenomenon. But the spectacle of
these middle class "lovies" sneering at the miners and their student allies was
stomach-churning stuff. Personally speaking, I never had much time for student
radicals when I was at university, recognising it to be so much petty bourgeois
froth. The French have a phrase for this: "jusqu’a 30 ans, revolutionaire –
depuis canaille!" (Up to 30, a revolutionary – after that, a swine). And what a
parade of swine was shown to us last Saturday night!
Twenty years later, they all agree wholeheartedly that the miners’ strike was
a waste of time. That is the common view of former "left" students, as well as
former (and current) Tory ones. As at the close of George Orwell’s Animal farm,
one could not distinguish the humans from the pigs. "Oh yes, we are all pigs
now! And very contented ones, too."
Particularly disgusting was the (mercifully brief) appearance of that
clapped-out "comedian" Alexei Sayle, now sunk in a well-deserved oblivion, but
who previously gave himself airs as a "left" (complete with Liverpool accent).
Now he informs us that, at the time of the miners’ strike, "people were fed up
with workers going on strike". Having inserted their snouts firmly in the
pig-sty, all these creatures are fighting to defend their vested interests,
their grubstake, their meal ticket. If that means trampling underfoot the ideas
and principles of a misspent youth, then so be it!
You see, the "Thatcher revolution" was all going splendidly: out of date
factories were being closed, wasteful social spending on unnecessary items like
schools, hospitals and unemployment benefit was being trimmed back, and a
climate was being created in which the enterprise culture could flourish, so
that the new class of yuppies could spread their wings like beautiful
butterflies. And then, to spoil it all "in the midst of it all came the miners’
strike".
In this conflict, the ruling class mobilised the full force of the state to
crush the strike. Rarely in British history has such brutality been used against
the Labour Movement. The programme is compelled to show just a small part of the
monstrous state terrorism used to defeat the strike, the curtailment of
democratic rights that people in Britain used to regard as normal. But the aim
of the programme was to minimise and trivialise the state repression. The
following comment sums this up:
"Extreme tactics were adopted by each side, and the early
confrontations and skirmishes soon began to escalate, culminating in the
violent, pitched battles of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire." (our emphasis)
This is the usual trick of lying hypocrites: to say that violence was used
but it was used by both sides. This is cheap sophistry. The forces of the
British state are vast. The whole might of this repressive apparatus was
mobilized to intimidate, harass and provoke the miners. The latter, as we have
said, were engaged in a defensive action to protect the livelihood of their
families. In this struggle, all the cards were stacked against them. That there
were some elements of violence was inevitable. But that was nothing compared to
the vicious, planned and deliberate repression of the state, where whole mining
villages were occupied by police drafted in from other areas like a foreign
occupation force. The mass arrests, the beatings and the repression of whole
communities – none of this is clearly expressed in this programme.
The viciousness of the police – especially the hired thugs of the London
Metropolitan Police (the "Met") who were sent north to fight the miners – was
expressed by Scargill’s former wife, who explains how the miners and their wives
were surrounded by the police and pushed into a small circle from which it was
impossible to escape. "They were very nasty to us," she recalled, "though we
were not nasty to them."
The government could not rely on the local police, who would have been
sympathetic to the miners, and so, in effect, set up a kind of British FBI – a
national police force, which was illegal. One of the most revealing parts of the
programme was when it showed interviews of officers of the Met, who openly
displayed their arrogant attitude to the miners and their communities. They
spoke with contempt of the North, as if it was a foreign country they had been
sent to occupy. The attitude of these latter-day Praetorian guards was
instructive. One of them – a sergeant – gloated about the huge amounts of money
he earned for this dirty work: he was able to buy a flat, "a better car", and
holidays in Spain – and all for cracking a few heads up north – money for old
rope!
From a Marxist point of view, the real value of a strike lies in the lessons
the workers draw from it. The miners were defeated, but for those who passed
through this gigantic school of the class struggler, the lessons will be forever
burnt on their consciousness. Those workers will never forget the cold
ruthlessness of the ruling class and the Tories. They will regard with disgust
the admiration of Thatcher expressed by Tony Blair. They will remember the
conduct of the police, the judiciary, the press and the other supposedly "impartial"
agents of the capitalist state that stood exposed so glaringly in the light of
the struggle.
After 20 years the lessons of the miners strike have still to be fully
digested by the British Labour Movement. As time goes on, memories fade and
lessons forgotten. It is therefore all the more necessary to remind ourselves –
and remind others – of the real lessons of this titanic class battle. In war,
and in the class struggle, it is better to fight and be defeated than to slink
away from the struggle and surrender ignominiously. The miners fought with the
greatest heroism. They lost, but that was not their fault. In the moment of
truth they were left in the lurch by the leaders of the TUC and Labour Party.
The whole working class paid a heavy price for that betrayal.
Now, 20 years later, the likes of Neil Kinnock crawl out of the woodwork to
spread their little bit of poison over the memory of the miners strike and thus
cover up their own betrayal. The British working class has no time for people
whose only interest in the Labour Movement is as a vehicle of personal advancement
and lucrative jobs in Brussels while the entire South Wales coalfield – like the
other coalfields of Britain – has been shut down throwing thousands onto the
scrapheap. Neil Kinnock ought to hang his head in shame, but we doubt if he even
knows the meaning of the word.
For our part, we celebrate the memory of this extraordinary class battle,
which is a shining example to the new generation of workers. Yes, Britain was at
war, and the war has not ended. The miners’ strike was just another battle in
this war. There will be other – even more decisive – battles in the future. The enemies
of the working class wish to bury the memory of the miners’ strike so that the
new generation will not learn anything from it. The Marxists – who played an
active part in the miners’ strike – will not allow this to happen. Against all
the lies, distortion and venom, we will defend the memory of this epic struggle
and pass on the great lessons to the new generation that is destined to carry on
the fight to a victorious conclusion.
January 26, 2004
