The Downing Street Years, 1979-1990

PRELUDE

The 1983 general election result was the single most devastating defeat ever inflicted upon democratic socialism in Britain. After being defeated on a manifesto that was the most candid statement of socialist aims ever made in this country, the Left could never again credibly claim popular appeal for their programme of massive nationalization, hugely increased public spending, greater trade union power and unilateral nuclear disarmament. But there was also undemocratic socialism, and it too would need to be beaten. I had never had any doubt about the true aim of the hard Left: they were revolutionaries who sought to impose a Marxist system on Britain whatever the means and whatever the cost. Many of them made no effort to conceal their purpose. For them the institutions of democracy were no more than tiresome obstacles on the long march to a Marxist Utopia. While the electoral battle was still being fought their hands had been tied by the need to woo more moderate opinion, but in the aftermath of defeat they were free from constraint and thirsting for battle on their own terms.

The hard Left’s power was entrenched in three institutions: the Labour Party, local government and the trade unions. From all three bases they now proceeded to challenge our renewed mandate. Predictably, it was the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), led by its Marxist president, Arthur Scargill, who were destined to provide the shock troops for the Left’s attack. The intention was plain. Within a month of the 1983 election Mr Scargill was saying openly that he did not ‘accept that we are landed for the next four years with this Government’. And this would be an attack directed not only against the Government, but against anyone and anything standing in the way of the Left, including fellow miners and their families, the police, the courts, the rule of law and Parliament itself.

After the experience of the Conservative Government of 1970 — 74 I hardly doubted that one day we would have to face another miners’ strike. From the time of Mr Scargill’s election to the leadership of the NUM in 1981 I knew it. I had no desire for such a strike. There was no economic rationale for it. The National Coal Board (NCB), the Government and the great majority of miners wanted a thriving, successful, competitive coal industry. But history intertwined with myth seemed to have made coal mining in Britain a special case: it had become an industry where reason simply did not apply. Britain’s industrial revolution was to a large extent based on the easy availability of coal. At the industry’s height on the eve of the First World War it employed more than a million men to work over 3,000 mines. Production was 292 million tons. Thereafter decline was continuous, and relations between miners and owners frequently bitter. Conflict in the coal industry precipitated Britain’s only general strike in 1926. (Prefiguring later developments, the miners’ union split during the year-long coal strike that followed the general strike, and a separate union was set up in Nottinghamshire.) Successive governments between the wars found themselves dragged ever deeper into the task of rationalizing and regulating the industry, and in 1946 the post-war Labour Government finally nationalized it outright. By that time production was down to 187 million tons at 980 pits, with a workforce of just over 700,000.

Government now began setting targets for coal production and investment in a series of documents inaugurated by the ‘Plan for Coal’ in 1950. These consistently overestimated both the demand for coal and the prospects for improvements in productivity within the industry. The only targets that were met were those for investment. Public money was poured in, but two problems proved insoluble: overcapacity and union resistance to the closure of uneconomic pits. As the industry declined miners relied more and more on industrial muscle to keep themselves in work.

By the 1970s the coal mining industry had come to symbolize every thing that was wrong with Britain. In February 1972 mass pickets led by Arthur Scargill forced the closure of the Saltley Coke Depot in Birmingham by sheer weight of numbers. It was a frightening demonstration of the impotence of the police in the face of such disorder. The fall of Ted Heath’s Government after a general election precipitated by the 1973 — 4 miners’ strike lent substance to the myth that the NUM had the power to make or break British Governments, or at the very least the power to veto any policy threatening their interests by preventing coal getting to the power stations.

I have already described the threat of a miners’ strike which we faced in February 1981 and the way in which this was averted.[45] From then on it was really only a question of time. Would we be sufficiently prepared to win the fight when the inevitable challenge came? A milestone was reached when Mr Scargill won the union presidency at the end of 1981 and the power of the NUM and the fear it inspired came into the hands of those whose objectives were openly political.

It fell mainly to Nigel Lawson who became Secretary of State for Energy in September 1981 to build up — steadily and unprovocatively — the stocks of coal which would allow the country to endure a coal strike. We were to hear a lot of the word ‘endurance’ over the next few months. To maximize endurance it was vital that coal stocks be in place at the power stations and not at the pit heads, from which miners’ pickets could make movement impossible. But coal stocks were not the only element determining power station endurance. Some Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) power stations were oil fired. Ordinarily they were used only part of the time, to meet peak demand, but if needed they could be run continuously to help meet the ‘base load’ — that element of electricity demand that is more or less constant. ‘Oilburn’ was expensive, but would add significantly to the system’s ability to withstand a strike. An additional advantage was that oil supplies to the power stations were relatively secure. Nuclear-powered stations, providing about 14 per cent of supply, were mostly some distance away from the coal fields and of course their primary fuel supply was also secure. Over the next few years more Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGRs) would be coming on stream and would steadily reduce our dependence on coal-fired power. We were still building a cross-Channel link which would allow us to buy power from France, though we already had a link in operation between the English and Scottish systems (‘the Scottish interconnector’). We also did our best to encourage industry to hold more stocks.

Danger began to loom in the autumn of 1983. Peter Walker was now Secretary of State for Energy, a job to which I had appointed him after the general election in June. As he had shown at Agriculture in our first Parliament, he was a tough negotiator. He was also a skilled communicator, something which I knew would be important if we were to retain public support in the coal strike which the militants would some day force upon us. Peter regularly telephoned newspaper editors in person to put over our case. This was never my preferred way, but I recognized its effectiveness during the strike. Unfortunately, Peter Walker never really got on with Ian MacGregor, and this sometimes created tensions.

Ian MacGregor took over as Chairman of the NCB on 1 September. He had been an excellent Chairman of the British Steel Corporation, turning the Corporation around after the damaging three-month steel strike in 1980. If Britain’s coal industry was ever to become a successful business rather than a system of outdoor relief, he had the experience and determination to make this happen. Unlike the militant miners’ leaders, Ian MacGregor genuinely wanted to see a thriving coal industry making good use of investment, technology and human resources. Perhaps his greatest quality was courage. Within the NCB itself he often found himself surrounded by people who had made their careers in an atmosphere of appeasement and collaboration with the NUM and who greatly resented the changed atmosphere he brought with him. Yet it transpired that Ian MacGregor was strangely lacking in guile. He was quite used to dealing with financial difficulties and hard bargaining. But he had no experience of dealing with trade union leaders intent on using the process of negotiation to score political points. Time and again he and his colleagues were outmanoeuvred by Arthur Scargill and the NUM leadership. During the strike Peter Walker and I followed with constant anxiety every phase of the battle for public opinion. The NUM leadership used every device to distort the truth and misinform the public and their own members.

On Friday 21 October 1983 an NUM delegate conference voted for a ban on overtime in protest at the Board’s 5.2 per cent pay offer and at prospective pit closures. In itself, with coal stocks as high as they were, an overtime ban was unlikely to have much effect. It probably had an ulterior purpose: to increase tension among the miners and so make them more prepared for a strike when the NUM leadership thought that one could successfully be engineered. We always knew that it was pit closures that were more likely to ignite a strike than a dispute about pay. The case for closures on economic grounds remained overwhelming. Even Labour had acknowledged it: thirty-two pits had been closed under the Labour Government between 1974 and 1979. Mr Scargill, however, denied the economic case for closure. His line was that no pit should be closed unless it was physically exhausted. Indeed, he denied the existence of ‘uneconomic pits’: in his view a pit that made a loss — and there were many — simply required further investment. Called to give evidence before a Select Committee, he had been asked whether there was any level of loss that he would deem intolerable. He replied memorably: ‘As far as I am concerned, the loss is without limit.’

During the autumn and winter of 1983 — 4 Ian MacGregor formulated his plans. At that time manpower in the industry was 202,000. The Monopolies and Mergers Commission had produced a report into the coal industry in 1983 which showed that some 75 per cent of the pits were making a loss. Faced with this, Mr MacGregor began with the aim of bringing the industry to break-even point by 1988. In September 1983 he told Government that he intended to cut the workforce by some 64,000 over three years, reducing capacity by 25 million tons. There was, though, never any secret ‘hit list’ of pits due for closure: decisions as to which pits were to be closed would be made on a pit-by-pit basis under the existing colliery review procedure. He came back to us in December 1983 indicating that he had decided to accelerate the programme, aiming to cut the workforce by 44,000 over the next two years; to achieve this he urged us to extend the existing redundancy scheme to include miners under the age of fifty. The terms we agreed in January 1984 were extremely generous: £1,000 for each year of service, paid as a lump sum, the scheme to operate for two years only, so that a man who had been in the pits all his working life would get over £30,000. In the coming year, 1984 — 5, Mr MacGregor proposed 20,000 redundancies. We were confident that this figure could be achieved without anyone being forced to leave the industry against their will. Around twenty pits would close and annual capacity would be reduced by 4 million tons a year.

As discussions continued accusations began to fly about a ‘hit list’ of pits. The rhetoric of the NUM leadership took ever greater leave of reality — in particular, of the economic reality that the industry was receiving £1.3 billion of subsidies from the taxpayer in 1983 — 4. It sounded as if Mr Scargill was preparing to lead his troops into battle. At the end of February there was an early intimation of the violence which would characterize the strike when Ian MacGregor — then 70 years old — was knocked to the ground at a Northumberland colliery by demonstrating miners. I was shocked and wrote to convey my sympathy. Far worse was to come.

Obviously we realized that a strike was always possible, but we doubted whether it would happen before the end of 1984, when winter set in and the demand for coal was at its annual peak. To begin a strike in the spring would be the worst possible tactic for the NUM. But this was a point on which Mr Scargill misled his own members: in February he was making wild claims, saying that the CEGB had only eight weeks of coal stocks. In fact stocks were far higher — something that could have been deduced from figures in the public domain. However, the union had a tradition of balloting its members before strike action took place, and there was good reason to think that Mr Scargill would not get the necessary majority (55 per cent) to call a national strike at any point in the immediate future. Since he had become President the NUM membership had voted against strike action three times already. We could not have foreseen the desperate and self-destructive tactics he chose to adopt.

THE STRIKE BEGINS

On Thursday 1 March the NCB announced the closure of the Yorkshire colliery of Cortonwood. The announcement was not particularly well handled by the local NCB: the impression was given that the colliery review procedure was being by-passed, whereas in fact the NCB had had no such intention. But the executive of the radical Yorkshire area of the NUM — Mr Scargill’s home ground — announced a strike in protest at the decision, relying on a local ballot held two years previously to provide authority for their action.

Cortonwood may have triggered the strike, but it was not the cause. The truth is that once the NUM leadership had become determined to resist the closure of any pit on economic grounds the strike was inevitable, unless the NCB had been prepared to abdicate effective control of the industry. Even if Cortonwood had never happened, a meeting between the NCB and the mining unions on 6 March might have had the same result. Ian MacGregor outlined his plans for the coming year and confirmed the figure of twenty closures. The reaction from the NUM was swift. That same day the Scottish NUM called a strike from 12 March. Two days later, on Thursday 8 March, the national executive of the NUM met and gave official support to the Yorkshire and Scottish strikes.

Under rule 43 of the NUM constitution a national strike could only be called if the union held a national ballot and a majority of 55 per cent voted in favour. The militant majority on the executive doubted whether they could win such a national ballot, but they found a procedural way round the problem. Under rule 41 of the constitution, the national executive could give official sanction to strikes declared by the constituent areas that made up the union. If all the areas could be pushed into action individually, this would have the effect of a national strike without the need for a national ballot. If any proved difficult, pickets could be sent from striking areas to intimidate them into joining the dispute. This ruthless strategy very nearly worked. But in the end it proved to be a disaster for its authors.

The strike began on Monday 12 March. Over the following two weeks the brutal weight of the militants’ shock troops descended on the coal fields and for a moment it seemed as if rationality and decency would go under. At the beginning of the first day of the strike 83 pits were working and 81 were out. Ten of these, I was told, were not working due to heavy picketing rather than any positive desire to join the strike. By the end of the day the number of pits not working had risen to about 100. The police were fighting a losing battle to ensure that those who wished to work could do so. The Home Office — both ministers and officials — gave them the fullest support, but the situation worsened. On Tuesday morning the flying pickets again descended. On that day it so happened that I was due to see Ian MacGregor about the Channel Tunnel — a quite separate matter in which he had an interest. Peter Walker joined us afterwards and we discussed the situation in the coal fields. Mr MacGregor told me that he had applied for and obtained a civil injunction in the High Court against the NUM executive to restrain the use of flying pickets, using our new trade union law. However, his impression was that the police were failing to uphold the criminal law and that pickets had been able to prevent people going to work. The threat of violence had already resulted in the postponement of plans to hold a strike ballot in the Lancashire area. The Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire areas were due to vote on Thursday but there was a real danger that the vote would be frustrated or that intimidation would force miners to stay at home. I told him that I was dismayed at this news. It was a repetition of what had happened in Saltley in 1972. The criminal law had to be upheld. I said that helping those who wished to work was not enough: intimidation must be stopped.

I went straight out of this meeting and asked to speak to Leon Brittan. As luck would have it the next meeting that day had originally been called to discuss the issue of strikes in essential services, on which we had a manifesto commitment, and Leon and other relevant ministers were already on their way. At the meeting I repeated that we must uphold the criminal law as it related to picketing. Leon shared my unease at what was happening. His view was that the police already had all the powers they needed to deal with the problem, including the power to turn pickets back and to disperse them if they assembled in excessive numbers. He told us that he had made this position clear in public and would repeat the message. But, of course, there were tight constitutional limits on what he, as Home Secretary, could do to instruct the police on their duties. We agreed that Michael Havers would set out the legal position to the House. I was determined that the message should go out from government loud and clear: there would be no surrender to the mob and the right to go to work would be upheld.

Mass picketing continued. By Wednesday morning only twenty-nine pits were working normally. The police were by now drafting in officers from around the country to protect the miners who wanted to work: 3000 police officers from seventeen forces were involved. At this point in the dispute the violence centred on Nottinghamshire, where the flying pickets from Yorkshire were determined to secure a quick victory. However, the Nottinghamshire men went ahead with their ballot and the result that Friday showed 73 per cent against the strike. Area ballots the following day in the Midlands, the North-West and the North-East coalfields also gave heavy majorities against strike action. Altogether, of the 70,000 miners balloted, over 50,000 voted to work.

Early though it was, this was one of the turning points of the strike. The huge police operation was highly effective and together with the moral force of the ballot results it reversed the trend towards a shut down of the pits. The first, crucial battle had been won. On Monday morning the latest information was telephoned through to me in Brussels, where I was attending a European Council. Forty-four pits were now working, compared with just eleven on Friday. In the areas which had voted for a return to work the great majority of pits had gone back. The militants knew that if it had not been for the courage and competence of the police the result would have been very different and from now on they and their mouthpieces in the Labour Party began a campaign of vilification against them.

On the day the NUM executive met, I told Cabinet that I would set up a committee of ministers under my chairmanship to monitor the strike and to decide what action should be taken. Willie Whitelaw was a member, of course, and deputized for me when I could not be present, though this was rarely necessary. Peter Walker, as Energy Secretary, and Leon Brittan, as Home Secretary, were crucial figures. The Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, was directly concerned as the issue was of vital importance to the economy; he also brought to bear his experience as former Energy Secretary. Norman Tebbit (Trade and Industry), Tom King (Employment) and Nick Ridley (Transport), all had obvious contributions to make. We sought to minimize the impact of the strike on industry to prevent the strike spreading by sympathy action and to keep coal stocks moving by road and rail. In Scotland, George Younger had responsibility both for Scottish mining and for Scotland’s police. All these ministers or their deputies regularly attended. When issues of law arose the Attorney-General, Michael Havers, also joined us. The group met about once a week, though more frequently when conditions required it. In practice the large membership sometimes proved unwieldy and so Peter Walker and I made some important decisions in smaller meetings, called ad hoc to deal with developments as they arose, particularly when notice was short.

There was a wider question relating to the work of this committee, however: to determine the proper role of government in the strike. I repeatedly made it clear that prime responsibility for dealing with the strike lay with the managements of the NCB and those other nationalized industries involved (the CEGB, BSC and British Rail (BR)). They operated within financial and other constraints set by government and by statute. But so much was at stake that no responsible government could take a ‘hands-off’ attitude: the dispute threatened the country’s economic survival. Consequently, I tried to combine respect for their freedom of action with clear signals as to what would or would not be financially and politically acceptable. The Opposition never seemed to be able to make up their mind whether we were intervening too much or too little. Their uncertainty, combined with the successful outcome, suggests to me that perhaps we got the delicate balance about right.

The Government’s relationship with the police and the courts was an even more sensitive issue during the strike. Britain had no national police force: the police were organized into fifty-two local forces, each headed by a Chief Constable who had operational control. Authority was divided between the Home Secretary, local police authorities (made up of local councillors and magistrates) and Chief Constables. Inevitably during the miners’ strike this tripartite system of policing was put under considerable strain: challenges to the rule of law posed by violence on the scale that took place during this strike clearly needed to be dealt with, swiftly and efficiently, at national level. Accordingly, the National Reporting Centre (NRC) — originally set up in 1972 — was activated in Scotland Yard, allowing the police to pool intelligence and to co-ordinate assistance from one force to another under the ‘mutual aid’ provisions of the 1964 Police Act. However, the tripartite system survived a good deal better than the Labour Party’s hysterical denunciations might have suggested. Problems did arise in financing the extra police costs under this system, but these were resolved by steadily taking more and more of the burden on to the Exchequer.

Mob violence can only be defeated if the police have the complete moral and practical support of government. We made it clear that the politicians would not let them down. We had already given them the equipment and the training they would need, learning the lessons of the 1981 inner-city riots. More recently the police had shown themselves skilled in tackling violence masquerading as picketing when pickets from the National Graphical Association (NGA) had tried to close down Eddie Shah’s newspaper in Warrington in November 1983. On that occasion the police had made it clear that force of numbers would not be allowed to prevent people from going to work if they wished to do so. They had also for the first time made effective use of powers to prevent a breach of the peace by turning back pickets before they arrived at their destination.

Another prerequisite of effective policing is that the law should be clear. Early in the strike Michael Havers made a lucid statement in a written answer to the Commons, setting out the scope of police powers to deal with mass picketing, including the power (mentioned above) to turn back pickets on their way to the picket line when there are reasonable grounds to expect a breach of the peace. These common law powers long predated our trade union legislation, and were matters of criminal rather that civil law. In the second week of the strike the Kent NUM challenged those powers in court, but they lost the case. The prevention of large numbers of pickets assembling to intimidate those who wished to work would be vital to the outcome of the dispute.

The relationship between government and the courts was, if anything, more sensitive still. It is right that people should have been vigilant on this question. The independence of the judiciary is a matter of constitutional principle, though the administration of the courts falls properly within the sphere of government responsibilities. As the incidents of violence accumulated it became a real concern to us that so few of those charged had been brought to court and convicted. It is vital if the rule of law is to prevail that criminal actions as visible as those during the strike be punished quickly: people need to see that the law is working. A backlog of cases built up, stemming partly from the delaying tactics of offenders and their solicitors, partly from the obstruction of some magistrates in areas where there was sympathy with the strikers’ cause. The sheer number of cases also imposed a sudden strain on the system. In time we made available more buildings and professional stipendiary magistrates and the backlog began to be cleared. Stipendiary magistrates get through many more cases than their lay counterparts, but the Lord Chancellor could only respond to requests for help and had no power to make appointments unasked. Another problem was that policemen trying to defend themselves against hails of missiles and other assaults have little time to assemble detailed evidence. Cases were difficult to sustain. In the end all too many of the men of violence went unpunished.

By the last week of March the situation was fairly clear. The strike was unlikely to be over quickly. At the majority of pits Mr Scargill and his colleagues had a tight grip, which it would not be easy to break. But in our planning over the previous two years we had not allowed ourselves to assume that any coal would be mined during a strike, whereas in fact a substantial section of the industry was still working. If we could move this coal to the power stations then the prospects for endurance would be transformed. This calculation had an enormous impact on our strategy. We had to act so that at any one time we did not unite against us all the unions involved in the use and distribution of coal. This consideration meant that we all had to be very careful when and where the civil law was used and the NCB suspended — though it did not withdraw — its civil action.

Although Mr Scargill had been very anxious to avoid a ballot before the strike began, it was clear to us that he wanted to keep the possibility open. Indeed the following month an NUM Special Delegate Conference voted to reduce the majority required for a strike from 55 per cent to 50 per cent. Also at the beginning of the strike we had hopes that moderates on the NUM executive might succeed in forcing a ballot. This made it even more important to keep the balance of opinion among miners favourable to our cause because it seemed that much of the opposition to the strike came from miners angry not to have been allowed to vote. Would a ballot held during a strike, with emotions raised, produce a majority for or against Mr Scargill? I was not entirely sure.

The NUM leadership was desperate to prevent the movement of coal by rail, by road or by sea. Although at times during the dispute there were problems in the docks and they had some limited success in slowing rail traffic, the lorry drivers refused to be intimidated by the dockers or anyone else. Increasingly, and to a degree that we had not anticipated, road haulage firms were able to keep coal moving to the power stations and other main industrial customers. The steel workers had endured their own long and damaging strike and they were not keen to see plant destroyed and jobs lost in their own industry simply in order to demonstrate sympathy with the NUM — a union which had earlier shown remarkably little sympathy towards them. However, it was the power workers whose attitude was most crucial. If they struck, or acted in sympathy with the miners to prevent us moving to maximum oilburn, we would have had great difficulties. But their attitude was simply that they were not a party to the strike and that their job was to see that the people of Britain had light and power. Nor were their leaders prepared to be browbeaten by other trade union bosses into doing what they regarded as fundamentally wrong.

Everything turned on maximizing endurance. I received weekly reports from the Department of Energy setting out the position and I read them very carefully indeed. Early in the strike the power stations were consuming coal at the rate of about 1.7 million tons a week, though the net reduction in stocks was smaller because some deliveries were getting through. The CEGB estimated endurance at about six months but this assumed a build-up to maximum oilburn — that is, using oil-fired stations at full capacity — which had not yet begun. We had to judge when this should be set in train because it would certainly be described as provocative by the NUM leadership. We held off while there seemed a prospect that NUM moderates might force a ballot. However, I decided on Monday 26 March that this nettle must now be grasped.

Industrial stocks were, of course, much lower than those at the power stations: the cement industry was particularly vulnerable and important. But it was BSC whose problems were most immediate. Their integrated steel plants at Redcar and Scunthorpe would have to close in the next fortnight if supplies of coke and coal were not delivered and unloaded. Port Talbot, Ravenscraig and Llanwern had stocks sufficient for no more than three to five weeks. Not surprisingly, BSC was extremely concerned as the position changed from day to day.

This was the state of uncertainty as we ended the first month of the strike. Perhaps the only thing one could be sure of was Mr Scargill’s intentions. He wrote in the Morning Star on 28 March that ‘the NUM is engaged in a social and industrial Battle of Britain… what is urgently needed is the rapid and total mobilization of the Trade Union and Labour movement.’ It was still unclear whether he would get it.

The stalemate continued during April. There still seemed the possibility of a ballot for a national strike whose result no one could guess. In spite of continuing heavy picketing, there were some signs of a drift back to work, particularly in Lancashire — though it was only a drift. The leaders of the rail unions and the seamen promised to support the miners in their struggle: there were many declarations of this kind during the strike, but their members were less enthusiastic. The first court cases against the NUM began: two coke hauliers began legal action against the South Wales NUM picketing of Port Talbot steelworks.

From early in the dispute we were worried that the NCB was failing to put across its case, both to its own employees and to the general public. This was not something that government could do for them, though later (as will be seen) we pressed them to improve their presentation. But on the question of upholding the law it was our role to speak, and we did so vigorously. When I was interviewed on Panorama by Sir Robin Day on Monday 9 April I strongly defended the police handling of the dispute:

A few days later, the police were on a different front line. On 17 April WPC Yvonne Fletcher was killed by machine-gun fire from the Libyan Embassy in St James’s Square while policing a peaceful demonstration. The whole country was shocked. In spite of which, Mr Scargill was to open contacts with Libyan officials, and an NUM official even met Colonel Gaddafi in the hope of raising money to continue the strike. It was as if there was a preternatural alliance between these different forces of disorder.

A LONG SLOG

In May there were brief but revealing contacts between the NCB and the NUM leadership — the first since the strike began. The talks took place on Wednesday 23 May; I had a full report the next day. Mr Scargill would allow no one to speak for the NUM side but himself: the other members of his executive had clearly been told to keep quiet. The NCB had given two presentations, one on the marketing prospects of the coal industry and another on the physical condition of the pits, some of which were now in danger of becoming unworkable because of the strike. At the end of each presentation the NUM representatives declined to comment or to ask questions. Mr Scargill then made a prepared statement. He insisted that there could be no discussion of pit closures on grounds other than exhaustion — certainly no question of closing pits on economic grounds. Ian MacGregor made some brief remarks to the effect that he saw no purpose in continuing the meeting in the light of this, but nevertheless he suggested further talks between two senior members of the NCB and two senior representatives of the NUM. Mr Scargill again insisted that the withdrawal of all closure plans was a precondition for any talks. There the meeting ended. But at that point the NUM sprung a trap. They asked to be allowed to stay in the room in which the meeting had just taken place for a discussion among themselves. Ian MacGregor saw this as a perfectly innocent request and readily agreed. The NCB representatives left the room. But later we discovered that the NUM had managed to persuade the press that this was a ‘walkout’ by the NCB. Many people seized on the episode as evidence that Ian MacGregor was unwilling to talk. It was a classic example of the dangers of negotiating with people like Mr Scargill.

Week by week the strike grew more bitter. There was evidence that many miners were losing their early enthusiasm for it and questioning Mr Scargill’s forecasts of limited power station endurance. The NUM leadership responded by increasing the allowances they paid to pickets — they paid nothing at all to strikers who did not turn out to picket — recruiting non-miners to the task. There was a general escalation of the level of violence. Their tactic evidently was to achieve maximum surprise by concentrating large numbers of pickets at a particular pit at the shortest possible notice. Perhaps the most shocking scenes of violence were those which took place outside Orgreave Coke Works in an attempt to prevent coke convoys reaching the Scunthorpe steelworks. On Tuesday 29 May over 5,000 pickets engaged in violent clashes with the police. The police were pelted with all kinds of missiles, including bricks and darts, and sixty-nine people were injured. Thank goodness they at least had proper protective riot gear, I thought, as, like so many millions of others, I watched the terrible scenes on television.

Speaking in Banbury the next day I said:

Over the next three weeks there were further violent clashes at Orgreave, but the pickets never succeeded in halting the road convoys. The battles at Orgreave had an enormous impact and did a great deal to turn public opinion against the miners.

It was at about this time that we had the first clear evidence of large-scale intimidation in the mining villages. This problem grew steadily worse as th strike went on. Working miners were not the only targets: their wives and children were also at risk. The sheer viciousness of what was done provides a useful antidote to some of the more romantic talk about the spirit of the mining communities. In its very nature intimidation is extremely difficult for the police to combat, though as time went on officers in uniform and teams in plain clothes were specially deployed to tackle it.

There was a good deal of public criticism of the failure of the nationalized industries to use the civil remedies which our trade union laws had provided. As the violence continued and the problems of BSC in particular increased, the ministerial group frequently discussed whether to encourage the use of the civil law against the NUM and other unions involved in secondary action. Failure to take civil action against the unions and their funds put all the pressure on to the criminal law and onto the police whose duty it was to uphold it. It was also pointed out that, if successful, legal action against union funds would restrict their ability to finance mass pickets and to engage in unlawful action. People were saying openly that our trade union reforms were being discredited by the failure of the nationalized industries involved to use the legal remedies. Instinctively, I had a good deal of sympathy with this view, as did my advisers.

However, Peter Walker persuaded us that use of the civil law might alienate the support we had among working miners or moderate trade unionists. The chairmen of the BSC, NCB, BR and CEGB agreed with him, at least for the present: they met towards the end of June and decided that in all the circumstances this was not the time to apply for an injunction. Nor were the police convinced that civil action would make their job on the picket lines any easier. Of course, that did not prevent others — whether businessmen or working miners — making use of the new laws. The fact was that throughout this dispute there was much to be said for emphasizing the point that it was the basic criminal law of the country which was being flouted by the pickets and their leaders, rather than ‘Thatcher’s laws’.

Peter Walker’s argument won the day, and the NCB went on to win the strike. In a sense, therefore, the outcome justified the tactic. But could the same result have been achieved earlier through civil action leading, by way of the NUM’s defiance, to sequestration of union funds? Such ‘might-have-beens’ are always impossible to resolve. Looking back, however, we might reasonably have urged the nationalized industries to take action against the NUM and at an earlier stage. When the working miners actually did so on their own initiative — the best possible outcome but not something on which we should have relied — this put enormous pressure on Mr Scargill and severely circumscribed the ability of the NUM to keep the strike going. Since then, however, the use of ‘Thatcher’s laws’ has become standard in Britain’s industrial relations and the number of strikes and industrial disputes has plummetted.

Meanwhile, we kept a very close watch on the number of pits reopening and men working. In July and August many pits close to take their annual holidays and we had some hopes that there would be a large-scale return to work when the holiday period ended, though there were fears too that pits that had been working before the holidays would fail to reopen due to renewed efforts by the pickets. The cost of being on strike to miners and their families was one consideration in estimating what would happen. But perhaps psychology was more important. A really large return to work after the holiday might create its own momentum. For his part, Mr Scargill would try to persuade his troops that with autumn approaching there was hope of the NCB being forced to back down by a government unwilling to impose winter power cuts.

It was clearly very important that the NCB should do everything possible to get its case over to those tempted to give up the strike and return to work. On my recommendation, Tim Bell, who had given me so much good advice on presentation in the past, had begun to advise Ian MacGregor. There was certainly a powerful positive case to deploy: massive new investment was available for the pits under existing plans, though this was now being held up, and if work resumed there was the promised pay rise for miners to look forward to. There was also the negative side: pits might never reopen because of deterioration which occurred while the strike continued. Customers were being lost, probably permanently: no one in industry tempted by our subsidies to change from other fuels to coal was likely to have much faith in the reliability of coal supplies from now on. It would also have been possible to go ahead with pit closures on economic grounds while the strike was still on, and we debated this. But on balance the risk of alienating moderate miners was too great. We also had to consider whether to encourage more miners to take the uniquely generous redundancy terms on offer. There were two problems with respect to redundancy: first, even if large numbers of miners took up the offer, there was no guarantee that they would be from the pits we needed to close. And the savings lay in closing uneconomic pits. Second, there was a real risk that it was the moderate miners, sickened by the violence and intimidation, who would find redundancy most attractive, leaving the hardliners in a majority in particular areas or even nationally. So again we held fire.

July proved to be one of the most difficult months of the strike. On Monday 9 July almost out of the blue the TGWU called a national dock strike over a supposed breach of the National Dock Labour Scheme (NDLS). The NDLS had been established by the Attlee Government with the aim of eliminating casual labour in the docks. Based on statute, it operated in the majority of British ports, establishing a closed shop and giving the union extraordinary powers. The occasion for the strike was BSC’s use of contract labour to move iron ore by road from stockpiles in the docks at Immingham to the Scunthorpe steelworks. In fact, BSC were satisfied that neither the scheme nor local agreements had been breached. Under the scheme’s absurd provisions ‘shadow’ labour consisting of registered dock workers was required to stand and watch the work as it was being done by contractors. This had been complied with in the ‘normal way’. We hoped that the National Dock Labour Board, which included union representatives, would give an early ruling to this effect. But the TGWU leadership was strongly committed to supporting Mr Scargill and plainly welcomed the opportunity to call a strike.

We had already made an extensive study of the implications of a national dock strike in 1982. It seemed likely that the strike — which would probably only seriously affect those ports which were part of the NDLS — would have little direct impact on the outcome of the coal strike. We were not importing coal for the power stations, because it would have risked losing us the support of working miners. But a dock strike would have serious implications for BSC by disrupting its imports of coal and iron ore. Indeed, it looked as if a major motive for the strike had been the desire of the left-wing TGWU leadership to assist the miners by tightening their grip on the major steel plants, counteracting BSC’s success in by-passing secondary action on the railways by organizing road deliveries. The general effect on trade would be very serious — particularly on imports of food — though about a third of non-bulk cargo was carried by roll-on — roll-off ships (known as ‘RO-RO’), much of which was driver-accompanied and passed through ‘non-scheme’ ports such as Dover and Felixstowe. Everything would depend on how well the strike was supported and whether it was confined to the NDLS ports.

Our regular meetings of the ministerial group on coal now had to deal with two strikes rather than one. I told the group on the day after the dock strike began that it was vital to make a major effort to mobilize opinion over the next forty-eight hours. We should urge the port employers to adopt a resolute approach and use all available means to strengthen opposition to the strike among workers in industries likely to be damaged by it, and indeed among the public. It must be clearly demonstrated that the pretext for the strike was false and that those taking this action already enjoyed extraordinary privileges. We should make the point that it was estimated that 4,000 out of the 13,000 dockers registered under the NDLS were surplus to the requirements of the industry. Of course, this was not the right time to abolish the NDLS — in the middle of a coal strike — but we should aim for the present to solve the dispute without ruling out future change. We mobilized the Civil Contingencies Unit to prepare to meet the crisis but avoided proclaiming a state of emergency, which might have meant the use of troops. Any sign of overreaction to the dock strike would have given the miners and other union militants new heart. Our strategy had to be to end the dock strike as quickly as possible, so that the coal dispute could be played as long as was necessary.

The earliest indications were that the dock strike would prove extremely difficult. On Monday 16 July I met the General Council of British Shipping for lunch and I found them in defeatist mood. This was an instance of something I came to know well: employers were always advising me to be tough except in their own industry. They told me that the strike was of greater extent than anything they had seen before in the docks.

I had called an ad hoc ministerial meeting that evening to review the overall position and we ran though the options. We recognized that if picketing spread to ‘non-scheme’ ports there was a high probability that civil action would be taken against the TGWU, and that there would be a strong case for activating the NCB’s suspended injunction against the NUM. The conflict seemed to be on the verge of a significant escalation.

My recognition of the importance of presentation, however, did lead me to take a specific initiative, which was to set up a group of junior ministers from the departments concerned to co-ordinate government statements during the crisis, under the chairmanship of Tom King, then Employment Secretary. Peter Walker was not particularly pleased. He always liked to play his cards very close to his chest and although he did so with consummate skill there was a risk that one branch of government would lose confidence or lack proper information about what we were trying to do. In the end it was a great success: for once all of us in government contrived to sing the same song day after day.

In the event the dock strike proved far less of a problem than we had feared. Whatever the views of their leaders, the ordinary dockers were simply not prepared to support action which threatened their jobs: even those at the NDLS ports were less than enthusiastic, fearing that a strike would hasten the demise of the scheme itself. But the decisive role was played by the lorry drivers who had an even greater direct interest in getting goods through and were not prepared to be bullied and threatened. By 20 July the TGWU had no alternative but to call off the strike. It had lasted only ten days.

The end of the dock strike was only one of a number of important developments at this time. Following the fruitless meeting between the NCB and NUM on 23 May, talks had resumed at the beginning of July. Our hope was that they would end quickly and that the NCB would succeed this time in exposing the unreasonableness of Mr Scargill’s position. There would then be a chance that striking miners would realize that they had no hope of winning and a return to work would begin.

However, the talks had drifted on, and there were indications that the NCB was softening its negotiating position. One problem was that each new round of negotiations naturally discouraged a return to work: few would risk going back if a settlement seemed to be in the offing. More troubling still, there was a real danger that the talks would end by fudging the issue on the closure of uneconomic pits: a formula was being developed based upon the proposition that no pit should be closed if it was capable of being ‘beneficially developed’. The NCB was also prepared to give a commitment to keep open five named pits that the NUM had claimed were due for closure. We were very alarmed. Not only were there ambiguities in the detailed wording of the proposals, but (far worse) a settlement on these lines would have given Mr Scargill the chance to claim victory.

But on 18 July, two days before the end of the dock strike, negotiations collapsed. I have to say I was enormously relieved.

A week later we reached what was for me a very important moment in the history of the strike, though this was something very few people knew about at the time. On Wednesday 25 July I held a meeting in conditions of strict security to discuss power station endurance with Peter Walker and Sir Walter Marshall, Chairman of the CEGB. That very day Norman Tebbit had written to me expressing anxiety that time was not on our side in the coal strike. He had seen estimates of power station endurance that suggested stocks would be exhausted by mid-January: if this were so, he argued that we needed as soon as possible to consider measures to win the strike by the autumn, since he thought we could not afford to go on to the very brink of endurance.

I perfectly understood Norman’s concern and it was partly because I shared his instinctive distrust of the figures — and could not quite believe Peter Walker’s laid-back optimism — that I had asked for the meeting with Peter and Walter Marshall. The message I received at the meeting was extremely encouraging. Walter Marshall confirmed the position as Peter had previously described it. If supplies of coal from Nottinghamshire and other working areas to the power stations were maintained at the present level the safe date for endurance would be June 1985. In fact, the CEGB believed they could keep the power stations running until November 1985. He showed me a chart which demonstrated that coal, nuclear and oil generation taken together almost exactly matched the (lower) summertime demand. Indeed, if endurance could be extended into the spring of 1986 — which we might manage by getting more miners back to work for example — it would then be possible to go on into the following winter.

However, all these predictions were extremely sensitive to variations in the supply of coal from the Nottinghamshire pits. Walter Marshall stressed how important it was to maintain their output. Small improvements in supplies from these pits increased endurance dramatically: small shortfalls curtailed it equally dramatically. It would be essential to maintain transport from the Nottinghamshire pits and although road transport had made a great contribution, deliveries by rail could not be dispensed with. Enormous quantities of coal had to be moved, and pithead stockyards in many of the working pits were comparatively small — they had been built on the ‘merry-go-round’ system, by which trains ran directly to the power stations and back again on a daily basis. Accordingly, it was vital that we keep the rail unions working, if necessary at the price of concessions in pay talks.

Walter Marshall confirmed that importing coal for the power stations would be a mistake. This would annoy even the Nottinghamshire miners. It would be better to dedicate imports to industry and avoid getting the CEGB embroiled in the argument. Looking to the longer term, he also set out his programme for increasing endurance to at least twelve months rather than the six months provided for in the current plans. We never forgot the possibility of a second strike after the present one was finished.

The combination of Walter Marshall’s natural ebullience, his mastery of detail and the determination he showed to avoid power cuts raised my spirits enormously. Over the next couple of days I spoke individually to Norman Tebbit and several other colleagues to give them the message. We were all able to take our holidays in a better frame of mind than we would otherwise have done.

On Tuesday 31 July I spoke in a debate in the House of Commons on a Censure Motion which the Labour Party had been ill-advised enough to put down. The debate went far wider than the coal strike. But the strike was on everyone’s minds and inevitably it was the exchanges on this matter which caught the public attention. I did not mince my words:

I went on to deal with Neil Kinnock:

Answer came there none.

Neil Kinnock had succeeded Michael Foot as Leader of the Labour Party in October 1983. I faced him across the despatch box of the House of Commons for seven years. Like Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock was a gifted orator; but unlike Mr Foot he was no parliamentarian. His Commons performances were marred by verbosity, a failure to master facts and technical arguments and, above all, a lack of intellectual clarity. This last drawback reflected something deeper. Mr Kinnock was entirely a product of the modern Labour Party — left-wing, close to the unions, skilful at party management and political manipulation, basically convinced that Labour’s past defeats resulted from weaknesses of presentation rather than errors of policy. He regarded words — whether speeches or the texts of manifestos and policy documents — as a means of concealing his and the Labour Party’s socialism rather than of converting others to it. So he forcefully — and on occasion courageously — denounced Trotskyists and other left-wing troublemakers, not for their brutal tactics or their extreme revolutionary objectives but because they were an embarrassment to his and Labour’s ambitions. Being Leader of the Opposition, as I well remembered, is not an easy assignment. Leading the Labour Party in Opposition must be a nightmare. But I found it difficult to sympathize with Mr Kinnock. He was involved in what seemed to me a fundamentally discreditable enterprise, that of making himself and his party appear what they were not. The House of Commons and the electorate found him out. As Opposition Leader he was out of his depth. As Prime Minister he would have been sunk.

As we entered August we had some reason to hope that the worst of the strike was behind us. Arthur Scargill and the militants were becoming increasingly isolated and frustrated. The dock strike had collapsed. The Government’s attitude and the NCB’s stance were now generally perceived in a more sympathetic light. The Labour Party was in disarray. Although the return to work remained a trickle — about 500 during July — there was no sign of any weakening of determination at the working pits. Finally, on Tuesday 7 August two Yorkshire miners began a High Court action against the Yorkshire NUM for striking without a ballot. This proved to be a vital case and led eventually to the sequestration of the whole of the NUM’s assets.

One sign of the militants’ frustration was an increase in violence against working miners and their families. The situation appeared to be under control in Nottinghamshire, but things were getting worse in Derbyshire, partly because it was more deeply divided and also because it was closer to the Yorkshire coal fields from which the flying pickets largely came. Ian MacGregor was in touch with us in No. 10 and with the Home Office. He feared that such intimidation, appalling in itself, might also slow the return to work and could frighten miners currently working into staying away. The police thought that there might have been a change of tactics on the part of the NUM: frustrated by the failure of mass picketing, perhaps they were taking to guerilla warfare based on the intimidation of individuals and companies. The police stepped up their measures to protect the Derbyshire miners: ‘freephone’ lines to police stations were installed; detective squads set out to counter intimidation; and uniformed policemen patrolled the villages.

There was also the threat of another dock strike. A tense situation had developed at Hunterston, the deep-water port in Scotland which supplied BSC’s Ravenscraig plant. An important cargo of coal, of the kind necessary for Ravenscraig’s coke ovens, was aboard the bulk carrier Ostia, presently moored in Belfast Lough. BSC told us that if it were not landed quickly they would have to start to run down Ravenscraig. Steel furnaces cannot be shut down fully without irreversible damage and there was every likelihood that the whole plant would have to close for good if coal supplies were halted. As with the earlier dock strike, absurd restrictive practices were the pretext for the strike threat. The normal operation at Hunterston for BSC-destined cargo was divided between work done aboard ship by TGWU registered dockers and work done on-shore by members of the steel union, the ISTC. But 90 per cent of the cargo could be unloaded even without ‘trimming’. BSC wanted to use its employees to unload this coal, but the TGWU was likely to claim that such action was contrary to the National Dock Labour Board agreement in order to provoke a new docks dispute. BSC told us that they were prepared to go to court if the cargo could not be unloaded.

This was a very delicate question and Norman Tebbit stayed in close contact with BSC. The National Dock Labour Board was asked to offer a ruling but delayed and, finally, funked the issue altogether. BSC began the rundown of Ravenscraig on 17 August; they told us that unless the coal was landed by 23 — 4 August, their furnaces would have to be ‘banked’ on 28 — 9 August — that is, kept running at a minimum level, without production. Total closure would follow if coal supplies did not resume.

In the end, after putting off the decision as long as possible, BSC had its employees start unloading the Ostia on the morning of Thursday 23 August. Although BSC acted in conformity with a local port agreement of 1984, TGWU dockers immediately walked out and the union called a second national dock strike.

But in Scotland public opinion was strongly opposed to any action that threatened the future of Ravenscraig. So we had doubts whether the union could sustain a strike across the whole of Scotland, let alone in the United Kingdom as a whole. And we were right. This strike was to cause us much less worry than the first. Though to begin with the strike received considerable support from registered dockers, a majority of ports remained open. Finally, the TGWU called it off on 18 September.

On holiday in Switzerland and Austria between 9 and 27 August I followed the story of the Ostia by telex. In my absence, Peter Walker took effective charge of day-to-day policy in the coal strike. But a prime minister is never really on holiday. I found myself accompanied by the local ambassador, who had previously been one of my private secretaries, five ‘Garden Room girls’ on duty round the clock, a technician to superintend communications with Downing Street and the usual roster of detectives. Red boxes came through the ‘diplomatic bag’. The telex chattered constantly. At least one important decision was demanded of me by Willie Whitelaw over the telephone. Clarissa Eden once said that she sometimes felt that the Suez Canal flowed through her dining-room at No. 10. I sometimes thought at the end of the day that I would look out of the window and see a couple of Yorkshire miners striding down the Swiss slopes. And somehow neither the beautiful mountain scenery nor even my favourite reading — thrillers by Frederick Forsyth and John Le Carré — provided a distraction.

On my return I found the situation much as I had left it, though with one — as it was to turn out — fateful exception. There was a good deal of violence and intimidation still going on. By now 5,897 arrests had been made in the course of the dispute; there had been 1,039 convictions, the most severe sentence being nine months’ imprisonment. Stipendiary magistrates would sit for the first time in early September at Rotherham and Doncaster. Others were ready elsewhere. Labour’s Energy spokesman, Stan Orme, was trying to mediate in the coal strike, which served perhaps more to minimize Labour embarrassment than to bring the end of the dispute any closer. Robert Maxwell was also trying to muscle in. He announced in early September that he was holding himself ready to mediate, but the whole thing collapsed in recrimination before the two sides had even met. The NUM blamed the Government.

FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY?

The most serious development, however, had been a circular issued on 15 August by the NCB to members of the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers (NACODS). By law coal could only be mined in the presence of suitably qualified safety personnel — the great majority of whom were members of NACODS. In April, NACODS members voted to strike, but the margin was less than the two-thirds required by union rules. Up to mid-August the NCB had varied in its policy towards NACODS: in some areas members were being allowed to stay away from striking pits where no work was being done, in others they were being required to cross picket lines. The NCB circular now generalized the latter policy, threatening to withhold pay from NACODS members who refused to comply.

The NCB circular played into the hands of those leaders of NACODS, particularly its president, who were strongly sympathetic to the NUM. Here at last was an issue on which they could persuade their members to strike. It was easy to understand why the NCB acted as they did. But it was a major error, subsequently compounded by their failure to perceive the swing in favour of a strike among NACODS members, and it almost precipitated disaster.

September and October were always likely to be difficult months. The miners would be looking forward to the winter when demand for electricity was at its highest and power cuts most likely. At the TUC Conference in early September a majority of trade unions — strongly opposed by the electricity and power workers — pledged support for the miners, though in most cases they had no intention of giving it. When the forthright electricians’ leader Eric Hammond made a powerful speech pointing this out, he was heavily barracked for his pains. Neil Kinnock also spoke at the conference, coming as near as he ever did to outright condemnation of picket line violence, but without taking any action to expel from his party those who supported it. Meanwhile, Mr Scargill reaffirmed his view that there was no such thing as an uneconomic pit, only pits which had been starved of the necessary investment.

Negotiations between the NCB and the NUM were resumed on 9 September. As arguments continued about forms of words, it was difficult for the general public to work out precisely what separated the two parties. I was always concerned that Ian MacGregor and the NCB team would unwittingly give away basic principles for which the strike was being fought. In the July talks he had already moved from the principle of closing ‘uneconomic’ pits to the much more dubious concept of closing pits which could not be ‘beneficially developed’. Thankfully, Mr Scargill had not been prepared to adopt this ambiguous objective. Peter Walker and I felt throughout that Ian MacGregor did not fully comprehend the devious ruthlessness of the NUM leaders he was arguing with. He was a businessman, not a politician, and thought in terms of reasonableness and reaching a deal. I suspect that Mr MacGregor’s view was that once he got the miners back to work he would be able to restructure the industry as he wished, whatever the precise terms on which a settlement had been reached. The rest of us, from long experience, understood that Arthur Scargill and his friends would exploit a fudged formula and that we should be back where we started. It was crucial for the future of the industry and for the future of the country itself that the NUM’s claim that uneconomic pits should never be closed should be defeated, and be seen to be defeated, and the use of strikes for political purposes discredited once and for all.

It was also in September that I first met in person members of the ‘Miners’ Wives Back to Work Campaign’, whose representatives came to see me at 10 Downing Street. I was moved by the courage of these women, whose families were subject to the abuse and intimidation. They told me a great deal and confirmed some of my suspicions about the NCB’s handling of the strike. They said that the majority of miners still did not understand the full extent of the NCB’s pay offer and plans for investment: more needed to be done to put across the NCB’s case to striking miners, many of whom relied on the NUM for their information. They confirmed that while talks between the NCB and the NUM were going on, or were in prospect, it was extremely difficult to persuade men to return to work. They explained to me how small shops in the coalfields were being blackmailed into supplying food and goods for striking miners and withholding them from working miners. But perhaps the most shocking thing they had to say was that local NCB management in some areas were not anxious to promote a return to work and in one particular area were actively siding with the NUM to discourage it. In this overunionized industry I found that all too likely.

Of course, the vital thing for these women was that the NCB should do everything it could to protect miners who had led the return to work, if necessary transferring them to pits where there were fewer militants and giving them priority in applications for redundancies. I said that we would not let them down, and I think I kept my word. The whole country was in their debt.

One working miner’s wife, Mrs McGibbon from Kent, spoke at the Conservative Party Conference, describing the harrowing experiences which she and her family had undergone. The vile tactics of the strikers knew no limit. Even her small children were targets: they were told that their parents were going to be killed. Shortly after she had spoken the Morning Star published her address. A week later her home was attacked.

On 11 September the National Working Miners’ Committee was formed. This was an important development in the history of the working miners’ movement. I heard a good deal informally about what was happening on the ground through David Hart, a friend who was making great efforts to help the working miners. I was eager to learn everything I could.

On Wednesday 26 September I went to York. I visited the Minster, which had recently been struck by lightning and badly damaged in the fire which followed — divine punishment, some suggested, for the wayward theology of leading Anglican clerics. I also discussed with the Yorkshire police and local people the damage the strike was doing to the local community. At lunch with Conservative Party activists, some of those from Barnsley confirmed the impression that we had received throughout the strike: that the NCB’s publicity of its case was truly dreadful. There were, too, the accounts of intimidation with which I had become all too familiar. Nor could one doubt the economic hardship which Mr Scargill’s obduracy was imposing on his own supporters. I was told that miners were digging up rootcrops from the fields to feed themselves and their families.

One positive result of the visit was my meeting with Michael Eaton, Director of the NCB’s North Yorkshire area and the man who had developed the new pit at Selby.

I heard again in York, as I had from advisers previously, how effective he was. He has a wonderful soft Yorkshire voice and a good way of explaining things, so I suggested his appointment as a national spokesman to help improve NCB’s presentation. Mr Eaton did a fine job, though unfortunately his position was made difficult as a result of jealousy and obstruction elsewhere in the NCB’s ranks.

Meanwhile the threat from NACODS crept up on us. The leadership of NACODS was now clearly intent on a strike and announced that a strike ballot was to be held on 28 September. An agreement on the outstanding issues seemed within reach at one point but was repudiated by the union president on his return from holiday. At first the NCB was optimistic about the result of the ballot, but ominously as the days went by their assessments grew less and less hopeful. I had a meeting with Ian MacGregor and Peter Walker at Chequers on Sunday 23 September and we discussed what would happen if the two-thirds majority required for a strike was obtained. It was possible that NACODS might just use the result to put pressure on the NCB management to resolve their grievances. Alternatively, they might call a strike. We thought that in that event NACODS men in areas where the mines were working would themselves remain at work. But there was little chance of this happening in borderline areas like Derbyshire and it was clear that a NACODS strike would make it even more difficult to bring about a return to work by miners in the more militant areas. NACODS men were not the only NCB employees with the necessary safety qualifications. Many members of the British Association of Colliery Managers (BACM) were also qualified, but it would be difficult to persuade them to go underground and perform these tasks in the face of NACODS hostility. And while there were some NUM members who had passed the requisite examinations and were awaiting promotion to safety work grades, they too could provide only limited cover.

On Tuesday 25 September Peter Walker told the ministerial group on coal that it now looked likely that NACODS would vote for a strike. He was right: when the result came through on Friday we discovered that 82.5 per cent had voted in favour.

This was very bad news. Throughout the coal strike events swung unpredictably in one direction then another — suddenly things would move our way, then equally suddenly move against us — and I could never let myself feel confident about the final outcome.

Apart from the initial few days of the strike in March, this was the time when we felt most concern. Some in Whitehall feared that a bandwaggon might begin to roll in Mr Scargill’s favour. We could not know what effect the TUC resolution of support for the NUM would have. We were now approaching the autumn and the militants might gain new heart. And there was the threatened NACODS strike.

It was suggested to us that most members of NACODS had voted for a strike in order to strengthen their leadership’s negotiating hand and that the vote did not mean that a strike would inevitably take place. After the ballot the NACODS executive had announced a nine-day delay before industrial action would actually begin, lending some plausibility to this interpretation. But for most of the leadership itself the original dispute about crossing picket lines was a secondary matter; their real aim was to secure an end to the miners’ strike on the NUM’s terms. Our best chance of avoiding a strike by NACODS — or of minimizing its effects if one could not be avoided — would be to drive a wedge between the union leaders and their members. It was therefore vital that the NCB should be as conciliatory as possible on the points of substance.

The NCB and NACODS held talks on Monday 1 October. Agreement was reached on pay and on guidelines as regards crossing picket lines, the NCB withdrawing its circular of 15 August. The following day there were discussions on machinery for the review of pit closures and the possibility of some form of arbitration in cases of disagreement. This was to remain the most difficult question. No matter how elaborate the process of consultation, the NCB could not concede to a third party the right of ultimate decision over pit closures. This, although generally understood, was best not set out too starkly.

All this time we were faced with hostile outside comment and pressure. The Labour Party Conference wholeheartedly backed the NUM and condemned the police. Worst of all, perhaps, was Neil Kinnock’s speech in which, under pressure from the left wing and trade unions, he retreated from the tougher line he had taken at the TUC Conference. He took refuge in a general condemnation of violence which made no distinction between the use of violence with the aim of breaking the law and the use of force to uphold it. He even contrived to equate violence and intimidation with the social ills from which he claimed Britain was suffering: ‘the violence of despair… of long-term unemployment… loneliness, decay and ugliness’. No wonder that the Labour Party lost so much support in Nottinghamshire, where miners and their families knew what violence really was, even if the Leader of the Labour Party did not.

As always, the Conservative Party Conference followed straight on from Labour’s. Much of my time at Brighton was spent following as best I could the course of negotiations between the NUM and the NCB at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS). A delegation from NACODS was also present at ACAS, though not directly involved in the negotiations. It was clear that NACODS was trying to win terms for the NUM which would have allowed Mr Scargill to claim victory. NACODS leaders were making threats with this in mind, claiming that their members could not be restrained much longer from beginning their strike and so on. Tactics became at this stage of the greatest importance. The NCB tabled a paper which accepted an independent review body on pit closures and they committed themselves to give proper consideration to its views, though obviously they would retain the right to take management decisions. ACAS then put forward a variation on this which the NCB immediately accepted and the NUM promptly rejected. We were still not to know how NACODS would react. But for once the NCB had obtained an important tactical advantage in negotiations.

These discussions spanned our Party Conference. Leon Brittan and Peter Walker both delivered powerful defences of our position during it. But the event which dominated our thoughts at that time was the IRA bomb at the Grand Hotel which killed five of our friends and came near to killing me, members of the Cabinet and many others.[46]

Among the messages I received afterwards was one from Mrs Gandhi, whom I knew well and admired. Within three weeks she was the victim of a brutal assassination by two of her own bodyguards.

THE TIDE TURNS

Towards the end of October the situation changed sharply once again. Three events within a week were particularly hopeful for us and must have come as hammerblows to Mr Scargill. First, on Tuesday 24 October the NACODS executive agreed not to strike after all. Precisely what happened is unclear. In all probability the moderates on the executive convinced the hardliners that their members simply would not act as stooges for Mr Scargill.

Second, it was at this point that the civil law at last began to bite. I have already mentioned a case which had been brought against the NUM by two Yorkshire miners: the High Court had ruled in the two miners’ favour that the strike in Yorkshire could not be described as ‘official’. The NUM had ignored the ruling and as a result a writ had been served on an astonished Mr Scargill actually on the floor of the Labour Party Conference. On 10 October both he and the union had been found in contempt of court and fined £1,000 and £200,000 respectively. Mr Scargill’s fine was paid anonymously, but the NUM refused to pay and the High Court ordered its assets to be sequestrated. It soon became evident that the NUM had prepared for this event, but the financial pressure on the union was now intense and its ability to organize was greatly hampered.

Finally, on Sunday 28 October — only three days after the sequestration order — the Sunday Times revealed that an official of the NUM had visited Libya and made a personal appeal to Colonel Gaddafi for his support. This was astonishing news and even Mr Scargill’s friends were dismayed. At the beginning of October, Mr Scargill (travelling under an alias as ‘Mr Smith’) had visited Paris with his colleague Mr Roger Windsor to meet representatives of the French communist trade union, the CGT. Present at the meeting was a Libyan whom Mr Scargill later claimed to be a representative of Libyan trade unionists — a rare breed, in fact, since Colonel Gaddafi had dissolved all trade unions when he came to power in 1969. It seems likely that Colonel Gaddafi made a donation to the NUM, though the amount is uncertain. The sum of £150,000 has been suggested. Mr Windsor’s visit to Libya was a follow-up to the Paris meeting.

A further sum was certainly received from an equally unlikely source: the nonexistent ‘trade unions’ of Soviet-controlled Afghanistan. And in September reports had begun to surface that the NUM was receiving assistance from Soviet miners — a group whose members would have looked with envy on the freedoms, incomes and working conditions of their British equivalents. There was further confirmation in November. It was quite clear that these initiatives had the support of the Soviet Government. Otherwise the Soviet miners would not have had access to convertible currency. Our displeasure at this was made very clear to the Soviet Ambassador and I raised the matter with Mr Gorbachev when he visited Britain for the first time in December, who claimed to be unaware of it.[47]

All this did the NUM’s cause great harm, not least with other trade unionists. The British people have plenty of sympathy for someone fighting for his job, but very little for anyone who seeks help from foreign powers out to destroy his country’s freedom.

In November the ground continued to slip from under the NUM leadership. The NCB seized the moment to launch a drive to encourage the return to work. It was announced that miners who were back at work on Monday 19 November would qualify for a substantial Christmas bonus. The NCB mounted a direct mail campaign to draw the attention of striking miners to the offer. Combined with the growing disillusionment with Mr Scargill, this had an immediate effect. In the first week after the offer 2,203 miners returned to work, six times more than in the previous week. The most significant return to work was in North Derbyshire. Our strategy was to let this trend continue without trying to take any explicit political credit for it, which could have been counter-productive. I told ministers that the figures should be allowed to speak for themselves, but that we should continue to emphasize just how much was on offer. I was keen to bring it home to the public that, in spite of all Mr Scargill’s efforts, the trend was now firmly in the right direction.

Speaking at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet on Monday 12 November I said:

In fact, I remained in touch with representatives of the working miners. I was keen to see them but there appeared to be some rivalry between two groups: to have seen one without the other would have caused resentment and to have seen both together would have been undiplomatic. I accepted Peter Walker’s advice to this effect, but I told my Private Office that when the strike was over I would have representatives of all the working miners and their wives to No. 10 for a reception — which indeed I did. (I met some also at a private buffet hosted by Woodrow Wyatt at the end of March the following year.)

Like many others, I suspect, I had been impelled to reflect a great deal in the course of the strike on the threats to democracy. Back in July I had addressed an eve of recess meeting of the ‘22 Committee on the subject of the ‘enemy within’. The speech had attracted a good deal of hostile comment: critics had tried to distort my meaning by suggesting that the phrase was a reference to the miners at large rather than the minority of Marxist militants, as I had intended. I returned to the theme in the Carlton Lecture, which I delivered in the traditional home of Conservatism — the Carlton Club — on the evening of Monday 26 November. I was the second Carlton lecturer: the first had been Harold Macmillan, who had recently attacked our handling of the miners’ strike in a characteristically elegant maiden speech in the Lords. Of course, in contemplating the threat of anti-democratic extremism I had in mind not only the NUM leadership but also the terrorists, who had demonstrated their murderous intent at the Brighton Grand Hotel just weeks before. I reflected:

The return to work continued. But so did the violence. Violence and intimidation well away from the pitheads were more difficult for the police to prevent and required fewer people to perpetrate: consequently it was on such tactics that the militant miners now concentrated. There were many incidents. One that particularly struck me took place on Friday 23 November when Michael Fletcher, a working miner from Pontefract in Yorkshire, was attacked and beaten by a gang of miners in his own home. No fewer than nineteen men were arrested for the crime. Then a week later came one of the most appalling events of the strike: a three-foot concrete post was thrown from a motorway bridge onto a taxi carrying a South Wales miner to work. The driver, David Wilkie, was killed. I wondered whether there was any limit to the savagery of which these people were capable.

With the passing of the 19 November deadline for the Christmas bonus the return to work slowed somewhat. One of the wives of the working miners sent me a message explaining that there were two additional reasons. First, some striking miners who intended to go back to work would only return after Christmas, to avoid intimidation of their families over the holiday. Second, there was news of fresh talks being planned between the NUM and the NCB, and talks always had a negative effect on the movement back to work.

But further talks were difficult to avoid, although Mr Scargill’s intransigence would probably ensure that they went nowhere. Using Robert Maxwell as an intermediary, key figures in the TUC were anxious to find some way of concluding the strike which would allow Mr Scargill and the militants to save face. In fact, of course, it was only by ensuring that they lost face and were seen to be defeated and rejected by their own people that we could tame the militants. I suspect that some of the union leaders knew this. Certainly, some of them had reason to know it. Norman Willis, General Secretary of the TUC, had pursued a thoroughly honourable line throughout, unlike the leaders of the Labour Party. Earlier that month he had spoken at an NUM rally in South Wales. Attempts were made to shout him down when he condemned violence on the picket line and in a chilling moment, which I and millions of others watched on television, a noose was lowered from the ceiling and suspended just above his head.

David Basnett, General Secretary of the GMWU, and Ray Buckton, General Secretary of ASLEF, had a private meeting with Peter Walker in which they revealed their desire for the TUC to play a role. I considered how we should respond. On the one hand, the last thing I wanted was to bring the TUC into No. 10 in their old capacity as power brokers. On the other hand, a clumsy rebuff could alienate moderate opinion among the unions.

So Peter Walker and Tom King had a lengthy meeting with seven of the main union leaders on the evening of Wednesday 5 December. It was clear that none of the seven really had any idea how to end the strike. I discussed how to deal with the TUC initiative with Peter Walker and officials on the morning of Thursday 13 December at Downing Street. Apparently the TUC were proposing to put to the NUM and the NCB the idea of a return to work followed by discussion of a new Plan for Coal, the talks to have a time limit of perhaps eight to twelve weeks. The TUC wanted to know whether we would endorse this approach. Peter Walker saw some advantages in it. I was more conscious of the difficulties. There were three principles, I said, to which we must adhere. First, any talks on the future of the industry must take place after the return to work. Second, nothing should be agreed which would undercut the position of the working miners. Third, it was essential to prevent the NUM claiming that the programme of pit closures had been withdrawn or even that there would be no pit closures while talks continued. It should be clearly seen that the NCB was free to operate the existing colliery review procedure, as modified by the provisions of the agreement with NACODS. However, I agreed that Peter should meet the TUC on Friday morning to tell them that the Government would go along with their efforts to bring the strike to an end on the basis of a return to work followed by talks on the future of the industry. The colliery review procedure, modified by the NACODS agreement, would remain in place.

Peter and Tom met the TUC delegation the following day. Nothing came of the meeting. The TUC had no authority from Mr Scargill to negotiate and they concluded that no initiative to end the strike was now possible before Christmas.

As the year ended, our main objective was to encourage a further return to work from 7 January, the first working Monday in the New Year. Though the NCB’s bonus offer had expired, there was still a strong financial incentive for strikers to return to work in the near future because they would pay little, if any, income tax on their wages if they went back before the end of the tax year on 31 March. The great strategic prize would be to get more than 50 per cent of NUM members back to work: if we could secure that, it would be equivalent in practical and presentational terms to a vote in a national ballot to end the strike. This would require the return of a further 15,000 to work, which the NCB were busily preparing a new campaign of letters and press advertising to achieve.

It was also vital that the miners and the public at large should be told that there would be no power cuts that winter, contrary to Mr Scargill’s ever more desperate and incredible predictions. We held off making such an announcement until we could be absolutely certain, but finally on 29 December Peter Walker was able to issue a statement saying that he had been informed by the Chairman of the CEGB that at the level of coal production that had now been achieved there would be no power cuts during the whole of 1985.

THE STRIKE BEGINS TO CRUMBLE

The question now was what the effect of all this would be on the return to work in January. The rate of return was initially affected in some areas by bad weather, which also had some negative effects on the movement of coal. (I had been worried earlier that we would have a cold winter, but fortunately the weather was generally good.) But as January continued the rate of return increased. By the middle of the month there were almost 75,000 NUM members not on strike and the rate of return was running at about 2,500 a week. Plainly the end was near.

The pattern which seemed to be emerging was for working miners to establish a ‘bridgehead’ at a strike-bound pit: fifty or more of those most anxious to return would go in together, often on a Thursday or Friday when their action attracted least attention. After that things could move quite fast. The increase in production was bound to be slower than the rate of return to work, but the trend there was also clearly in the right direction.

The one thing which could be relied upon to slow down the progress was further negotiations: and so it proved. When news broke of ‘talks about talks’, which were arranged between the NCB and the NUM on Monday 21 January, the effect was to cut the rate of return to rather less than half that of the previous week.

Meanwhile, public attention increasingly focused on the attempts of the sequestrators to trace and recover NUM funds which had been transferred abroad. In early December further legal action by working miners had led to the removal of the NUM’s trustees and the appointment of an official receiver. These were, of course, principally questions for the courts. However, even with the full armoury of the law, there were such difficulties in tracing the funds that the sequestrators might not even have been able to cover their costs. Accordingly, Michael Havers told the Commons on Tuesday 11 December that the Government would indemnify them against the loss. We could not stand by and see the intention of the court frustrated. We were also involved in trying to ensure maximum co-operation from foreign governments — Ireland and Luxemburg — in whose jurisdictions the NUM had lodged its money. Towards the end of January some £5 million was recovered.

If the position of Mr Scargill looked hopeless, that of the Labour Party looked ridiculous. There was another Censure Debate in the House of Commons at this time in which I spoke for the Government. As on the previous occasion I challenged Mr Kinnock to tell us where he stood, even if belatedly:

The real question now was how and when would the strike end. In early February the numbers returning to work were again down because of the prospect of a resumption of talks. The TUC continued to seek to act as an intermediary between the NCB and the NUM. By this time, the NCB had rightly deduced that in negotiations they should put everything on paper so that there was less chance of the NUM leadership distorting it for their own tactical advantage. For his part, Mr Scargill continued to confirm in public that he would not agree to the closure of pits on economic grounds. Not surprisingly, working miners and their families were worried and perplexed by the continuing talk of negotiations. On Monday 4 February I wrote to the wife of a working miner to reassure her:

By this time, the NUM leadership could have no doubt about how far events had swung against them since the NACODS dispute the previous autumn. The NACODS leaders now began to press the NCB to resume negotiations and so assist the NUM. But, learning from past mistakes, the NCB avoided giving NACODS any excuse for a renewed threat of industrial action.

The TUC leaders also remained anxious to save the militants from humiliating defeat. But Mr Scargill clearly had no intention of budging: indeed he had already stated publicly that he would prefer a return to work without an agreement to acceptance of the NCB’s proposals. For its part, the NCB had told the TUC that there was no basis for negotiation on the terms still demanded by the NUM. I recognized that, although their motives were decidedly mixed, the TUC leaders and particularly the General Secretary had been acting in good faith. They must have realized by now that there was no possibility of doing business with Mr Scargill. Consequently, when a delegation from the TUC asked to see me, I agreed.

I met Norman Willis and other union leaders at No. 10 on the morning of Tuesday 19 February. Willie Whitelaw, Peter Walker and Tom King joined me on the Government side. The meeting was good natured. Norman Willis put as fair a construction on the NUM’s negotiating stance as anyone could. In reply I said that I appreciated the TUC’s efforts. I too wanted to see the strike settled as soon as possible. But this required a clear resolution of the central issues of the dispute. It was in no one’s interest to end the strike with an unclear formula: arguments about interpretation and accusations of bad faith could provide the basis for another dispute. I could not agree with Mr Willis that there was evidence of a significant shift in the NUM executive’s position. I gave an assurance that the NACODS agreement would be fully honoured and that I saw no difficulties about implementing it. An effective settlement of the dispute required clear understandings about procedures for closure, acknowledgement of the NCB’s right to manage and to make the final decisions, and an acknowledgement that the Board would take the economic performance of pits into account when those decisions were made.

THE END OF THE STRIKE

It was now evident to the miners and to the public that the TUC were neither willing nor able to stop events taking their course. Large numbers of miners were going back to work and the rate of return was increasing. On Wednesday 27 February the magic figure was reached: more than half the members of the NUM were now not on strike. On Sunday 3 March an NUM Delegates’ Conference voted for a return to work, against Mr Scargill’s advice, and over the next few days even the most militant areas returned. That Sunday I gave an interview to reporters outside No. 10. I was asked who if anyone had won. I replied:

And so the strike ended. It had lasted almost exactly a year. Even now we could not be sure that the militants would not find some new excuse to call a strike the following winter. So we took steps to rebuild coal and oil stocks and continued to watch events in the coal industry with the closest attention. I was particularly concerned about the dangers faced by the working miners and their families now that the spotlight had moved away from the pithead villages. In May I met Ian MacGregor to emphasize how vital it was that they should receive the necessary consideration and support.

As an industrial dispute the coal strike had been wholly unnecessary. The NUM’s position throughout the strike — that uneconomic pits could not be closed — was totally unreasonable. Never while I was Prime Minister did any other group make a similar demand, let alone strike for it. Only in a totalitarian state with a siege economy — with nationalization, the direction of labour and import barriers — could the coal industry have functioned, even for a time, irrespective of financial realities and the forces of competition. But for people like Mr Scargill these were desirable things. The impossibility of the NUM’s policy on pit closures is a further clue — as if public statements were not enough — to the real nature of the strike itself.

The strike certainly established the truth that the British coal industry could not remain immune to the economic forces which applied elsewhere in both the public and private sectors. In spite of heavy investment, British coal has proved unable to compete on world markets and as a result the British coal industry has now shrunk far more than any of us thought it would at the time of the strike.[48]

Yet the coal strike was always about far more than uneconomic pits. It was a political strike. And so its outcome had a significance far beyond the economic sphere. From 1972 to 1985 the conventional wisdom was that Britain could only be governed with the consent of the trade unions. No government could really resist, still less defeat, a major strike; in particular a strike by the miners’ union. Even as we were reforming trade union law and overcoming lesser disputes, such as the steel strike, many on the left and outside it continued to believe that the miners had the ultimate veto and would one day use it. That day had now come and gone. Our determination to resist a strike emboldened the ordinary trade unionist to defy the militants. What the strike’s defeat established was that Britain could not be made ungovernable by the Fascist Left. Marxists wanted to defy the law of the land in order to defy the laws of economics. They failed, and in doing so demonstrated just how mutually dependent the free economy and a free society really are. It is a lesson no one should forget.