We are coming up to the 15th anniversary of the end of the miners' strike. This event, for me, will go down in history alongside 14/10/1066, 1/5/1707 and 15/9/1940 as crucial dates in the development of the Britain we are today.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the strike, it was the event where a democratic government turned and bared its teeth on its own people; when the Police Force was used in exactly the way that Hitler used the SS; when honest hard-working people were labelled "the enemy within".
Look around the battlefields of the world. You'll find miners everywhere, dressed temporarily in uniform. Fighting and dying for their country. Thousands upon thousands on the Somme, Paschendael, Ypres and a thousand other places. Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire lost countless men fighting to keep this country free and then they, their family and friends are called the enemy within.
Scargill? As it turns out, he was right.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the strike, it was the event where a democratic government turned and bared its teeth on its own people; when the Police Force was used in exactly the way that Hitler used the SS; when honest hard-working people were labelled "the enemy within".
Look around the battlefields of the world. You'll find miners everywhere, dressed temporarily in uniform. Fighting and dying for their country. Thousands upon thousands on the Somme, Paschendael, Ypres and a thousand other places. Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire lost countless men fighting to keep this country free and then they, their family and friends are called the enemy within.
Scargill? As it turns out, he was right.
1 comment:
I'm trying to figure out which one of those crucial dates is your actual birthdate. I give up, I can't narrow it down!
Anyway, a ''democratic government'' bared its teeth to Scargill. Was he democratically elected? Probably, but only by the miners. Did he believe in democracy? Was he trying to improve things for everyone, or just himself and his cronies?
On balance, I'd say that it's preferable to have the government in charge of a country as opposed to a Trade Union. Not perfect, just preferable.
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