Police probe
Campaigners have welcomed the Scottish Government’s announcement of an independent review into the impact of policing during the 1984/85 miners’ strike.
What about the army personnel in police uniforms? I saw this for myself before the doubters reply.
Norry Colquhoun
Arthur Scargill and Mick Mcgaghey thought they could bring the government down. The miners wrecked their own livelihoods, by refusing to allow safety work to be carried out during the strike. Many pits couldn’t be reopened after the strike, so many lost their jobs, community, and their future. People vote MPS into parliament, we don’t need trade unions to try to remove the government of the day. Remember the Tories got in because, during Jim Callaghan’s premiership, bins weren’t collected, the dead weren’t being buried and there were other strikes.
Alun Thomas
A horrible time, people playing with others’ livelihoods for political gains. I hope it examines all sides of the conflicts. Miners weren’t getting money from the unions but were given minimal food handouts that couldn’t support anyone while leaders were running around with full bellies . Political “direction” forced on the police to ensure people were being prosecuted where normally discretion would have prevailed. Renta-mobs turning up to cause chaos and the Press further entrenching opinions, causing deeper and deeper divisions. But it will only be used to investigate the police and won’t take into account the full problems of the time.
Gordon Jackson
I’m from Edinburgh and there is a long history in my family of the men working as miners. I remember one of my cousins coming off the picket line to our house to get fed. He was a fully paidup member of the union but was not receiving any strike pay. He was so angry because each day bus loads of rabble rousers (who had never been near a mine in their lives, and whom he did not know) arrived to join the picket line. Arthur Scargill contributed hugely to the destruction of the mining industry, and is still living off the backs of hard-working miners in his grace and favour home.
Mary Perrins
Labour closed more pits than Thatcher.
Alan Inverarity
Maggie Thatcher had a lot to answer for too.
Christine Flynn
Good. It’s about time the miners got justice for Thatcher’s plans to smash the unions of ordinary hardworking people by attacking them on horses and striking anyone with batons.
Thomas Douglas Dickson
Very welcome news. I remember as a NALGO member within the Joint Trade Union Committee the amount of rough justice being dished out at that time. Many miners and their families were treated as if they were the enemy in a war.
The suffering was just awful, splitting communities with the scars of twisted justice. I like many others await the truth.
Peter Sargent