The Soviets? 
You mean there was some sort of underground connection between labour unions and the Soviet military?
But, I see what you mean, maybe. The populace doesn’t need guns to make it hell for the government. Or, the weapons can come from outside. I just wasn’t expecting the USSR to be a probable source. (Left open for a Python response)
The Soviets funded numerous trade unions. If they took up arms, then arms would be supplied too.
Remember weapons can be improvised too.
I’m pretty sure that the sum total of soviet funding in the UK in the 70’ and 80’s was paying for the Morning Star, a newspaper which absolutely no one read.
Something to look up, I guess.
A number of reasons.
The unions provided a lot of funding for the Labour Party, who were in government at the time.
Also, they had ‘block voting’ within the Labour Party, where whatever the union decided, the union could place a single vote at the conferences to influence policy, but the number of union members (of whom a significant minority would actually be dissenters) would be counted.
Furthermore, many of the UK’s industries at the time were state industries - to the point of having a Minister assigned to them, answerable to Parliament. Thus if the car - or whatever - workers’ union decided to go on strike, then this was a direct assault on government.
This was a ridiculous state of affairs. IIRC many unions’ stated aim, and I’ve heard Scargill say it, was to bring down the status quo and replace it with an entirely socialist state.
I despise Thatcher, but I do acknowledge that breaking the unions’ power was one of the greatest achievements of her regime.
BTW, Soviet funding? You’re in tinfoil territory now.
Hey, its just what I heard, I’ll refute it if its false, no worries.
Actually, when I did a paper round, there was a guy in my village who used to get it every morning. His sons claimed he just read it “to see what the opposition thought”. Despite this, he didn’t get any right-wing papers for balance. He was probably the only subscriber.
I used to read it every morning before I delivered it (when I wasn’t peeping at page 3 of the Sun). Total and utter Soviet crap.
Plenty of misconceptions here, lets start with this.
Somewhat misleading, what actually ocurred was that the whole of the NUM had balloted about 18 months previously, and when Scargill made noises about calling the union out on the basis of that result, which was positive for strike action, the newly formed ‘Union of Democratic Mineworkers’ said they wanted another ballot which Scargill refused.
Now most of the other miners union regions wanted Scargill to reballot stating that they would still get the majority needed and that it wouldn’t then split the union, but actually the union rulebook did support Scargill’s position - Scargill did always stick to the rules, whatever others might think of him, but sometimes it’s better to also look at strategy.
In fact the UDM ballot was not properly constituted at all, because there was no provision for the NUM to have a ‘Union within a Union’ which is what the UDM really was, and that ballot by UDM members cannot be called valid as far as the NUM is concerned, how could it possibly be the case, no union on earth would allow an organisation to exist seperately but within its own ranks.
(UDM - whose funding and resources have not been properly explained but certain aspects are know to have involved UK secret agencies)
I notice lots of attention paid to the entity known as ‘The Yorkshire Miners’, but the truth is that before Thatcher there were plenty of militant miners in Kent, Scotland and perhaps even moreso in Wales. Some of those mining districts of the NUM had already been wiped out almost, their mines shut down because the Yorkshire mines were far more productive, the Nottinghamshire miners tonnage of coal delivered was really not that significant a part of total production, and Scargill must have thought that their overall impact would be fairly small.
As for Owlstretchingtimes allegations of the unions controlling things in the '70’s, well this is disengenuous to say the least because you are not looking at the reason behind the militancy of the unions, and these were primarily economic factors.
I also notice something else, although the unions get all the blame, the reality is that a few months prior to the NUM strike, Thatcher completely rolled over in the face of the power workers wage demands, had she not done so they could have utterly wiped her out, it was this Union that kept the UK running, it is not true at all to say Unions abused their strength unless you significantly qualify that.
No government could have effectively managed the massive oil price hike in 1973, and this is what destroyed Heaths government when it took measures to try control things.
The oil price hike upped interest rates worldwide, wiped out UK export markets in the US and caused a terrible recession here in the UK, we were actually fortunate in the sense that our power grid is mostly coal based, otherwise it could have been much worse.
The result was inflation, mortgage rates went up, and workers demanded pay rises to try keep pace, this is what led to union militancy.
When the next Labour party administration arrived, it too was met with another oil price hike, and we hadn’t pulled ourselves around from the first one, and this is truly what led to all that strike action.
Never forget just how deeply unpopular the Thatcher regime was just prior to the Falklands war, they were set to be virtually wiped completely out of parliament, this is not an exageration.
Don’t forget either that the Falklands war itself was very convenient, it actually need not have happened at all, we had the means to prevent it, and we had done so on at least three previous occasions, I was on one of those three previous missions, but then you never hear about the 1977 Falklands war, because that was the mission I was on(sounds a bit grand that - but I was in the RN at the time and my ship, along with others, was sent down there to discourage the Argies)
Since we had established a working pattern of deterrance which had worked three times previous, and since Maggie certainly had to know about this threat and what actually worked, you really have to wonder why she did nothing about it, it doesn’t take a genius to work it out.
As for Soviet funding, this was far more significant in the CND movement, sadly Labour allied itself to a policy of unilateral disarmament which was completely counter to NATO, and US policy, I would not say that there was some shenannigans going on within secret service ranks, because I dont have any evidence, but somehow the way the media lined up against Labour and this includes the BBC I wonder, certainly Unilateralism did make the Labour party unelectable.
The destruction of heavy industry, such as mining, steel shipbuilding etc has been a disaster for the UK, even now our unemployment rates are grossly understated, and we have replaced skilled well paid work with a call centre economy.
What Thatcher did was to target a particular section of the vote, far more narrowly than had been done previously, and without regard at all for the concerns of those who lived in areas likely to vote against her, thus the southeast did very well out of her, and the industrial north was royally screwed.
It was perhaps the poll tax that pushed the UK closest to the edge, that ‘riot’ in Trafalgar Square was provoked, it simply would not do to have ordinary people gaining some kind of momentum and organisation, it had to be tarnished, and provoking a riot was the way to do it.
You also might remember the prison riot at Strangeways in Manchester, this ocurred literaley a day after Trafalgar Square poll tax protest.
Now that prison riot put the poll tax protest off the front pages, and the opinion forming discussion shows switched interest as well, result was that the poll tax issue didnt get the public airing at a most critical time.
I can tell you a few things about how that prison riot was managed, even how it came about, since I have met both prisoners and riot control officers who were involved, there is a story to be told, and it is not pretty either.
I’ve always had the impression Owly works somewhere within the correctional system and may have come across some of the things I have.
Casdave, I read your post with interest albeit with not a little scepticism. In the previous Falkland incidents (including the one you were involved in in 1977), did the Argentines also invade and occupy the islands?
Since you come from Castleford (for those not familiar with Britain it was a mining area), I’m curious to know if you ever worked in the industry yourself?
As an aside, I can confirm this. I was at the protest and subsequent riot. There were regular coppers policing the march, and the atmosphere was great. The Police Federation opposed the Poll Tax, and the marchers knew this, and were giving the police the thumbs up. All smiles.
As people were filing up Whitehall, they tended to stop at the entrance to Downing Street to hurl abuse, or sit down, and so on. After about five minutes, they’d get bored and carry on into Trafalgar Square. This had been going on for two or three hours without incident. Then, without warning, a riot squad came out of nowhere and bore down on the Downing Street protestors with nightsticks, busting heads. An instant riot was sparked.
Then, bizarrely, the police pushed the riot into Trafalgar Square, where 150,000 people were peacefully protesting, rather than away from the main protest. As the riot reached the crowd in the square, the police sealed off all the exit roads with mounted police, baton charges, and vans. (At this point I climbed up a lamp post, nearly crapping myself.) A guaranteed conflagration - metaphorical and real - someone set fire to a building.
I don’t think it’s a conspiracy theory to suggest that it was engineered. Obviously there were violent elements in the crowd - I saw anarchists carrying motorcycle helmets at the beginning of the march - but the riot squad definitely gave them what they wanted.
Casdave, your analysis seems to be defending Scargill to some extent, but you have left out the fact that he took the government on at a time when the coal reserves were at a very high level. In my opinion, his actions were largely driven by ego. Quite likely his executive should share the blame, but the result was leadership akin to those generals who sent their men over the top to get machine gunned. Like all leaders, he still ate well and had a nice coal fire at home.
A lot of the history of the late 70s and early 80s are based on perceptions and perhaps even myths. These would vary with geography,political leaning and class.
Where I come from there was a belief, strongly held, that the unions were far too powerful. The power workers, miners and transport unions were percieved to be far too mighty.
Here’s a memory test: See if these phrases have any resonance with you:
“Red Robbo”
“Beer and Sandwiches”
“ACAS”
“Get your tanks off my lawn”
“demarcation dispute”
“Block vote”
“SOGAT and wapping”
“pay differential”
“composite motion”
Don’t forget that the TUC Conference was carried live on BBC1, in the days when there wasn’t normally any telly in the afternoons. It was considered that important.
Btw casdave I’m a banker (not rhyming slang), but I have several members of my family in the prison service so I hear a lot of things including what I think you are alluding to.
On the subject of the Morning Star; My starter wife (before I got the hang of it) used to write the Art Criticism for the Star - they never ever paid her on time.
Roger
Ref the Falklands.
The islands themselves are miles from anywhere, as you will be aware, and supply to them has always been expensive as a result.
The Argentines, whatever the merits or otherwise of their claim to those islands(and they are pretty much ‘otherwise’ by the way) they were under the distinct impression that we wanted to offload them, for logistical reasons, for political reasons, for any reasons that they could dream of, and so they read the runes of British policy in the way they wanted to believe.
HMS Endurance was the RN ice patrol ship down there, there had actually been two of them, can’t remember the name of the other, and although they mostly carried out survey work, they were seen as being part of UK military presence in the area, and thus part of UK will to defend it.
All ships come to the end of their useful lives, Endurance sister ship was scrapped and not replaced, and you need two ships available just to ensure one will be on station at all times.
Replacement was considered as being an expensive option, eventually it came to the turn of HMS Endurance to be decommisioned.
The Argentines interpreted this, along with Falkland islanders increasing dependance upon Argentina for supply, as indicative of the fact that the UK had no real interest in the islands.
To this interpretation the Argentine developed plans to land and take the islands.
Now Argentina as a society at the upper levels is actually very very Anglophile, they aspire to our country house life, and we have generally had close ties with them, from polo playing professionals and ponies, to selling them subs, aircraft carriers, aircraft and very large amounts of officer training for their army and their pilots.
The result is that certain agencies have recruited from among those trainees and they report back on affairs in Argentina.
When Argentina made plans to take the Falklands, we knew where, when and with what resources it was to be achieved, and to provide deterrant RN warships were sent down there n a number of occasions.
The time I was sent down was on ‘Operation Journeyman’, which comprised two frigates, one nuclear powered hunter killer sub and half a dozen Royal Fleet Auxilliary ships which were equipped with a war complement of helicopters(helicopters are very significant resources in maritime warfare so dont underestimate what the presence of extra ones means)
This happened in 1977-78 over the turn of the year, and the result was that there was no war.
Years later and on TV and Dr David Owen is being interviewed by Brian Walden on some political show, in this Owen stated that he had actually sent us down there for this mission(it was hardly known in public), he detailed why and how the UK had come by the information, and he then revealed that ships had been sent down to the Falklands on two previous occasions.
You will note there was no war.
Roll onward to 1982, the Thatcher regime is about to be wiped off the face of the electoral map, what Maggie needs is something to unite the country and distract attention from her abysmal economic policies that saw unemployment more than double.
Is it concievable that the sources of information that had prevented war on three previous occasions had suddnely dried up ?
Lord Carrington didn’t think so since he resigned on the strength of his failings to ‘appreciate the information’, do you think an imminent threat of war would not be brought before the head of the administration ?
Nope, no way, much too naiive, so why was no action taken, all that was needed was to send two or three ships down there, its not like the warning came too late, it takes months of planning, even a couple of years, it then takes months more to gather the material together before you can mount an operation such as Argentina planned, and it take purchasing decisions in the international arms markets to acquire the necessary material, some of which we actually supplied.
So Roger, you tell me, why was there no war until 1982 ? and why didnt Maggie act when she learned of Argentine plans ?
I do live in Castleford, but actually I’m from Leeds, its just that house prices dropped round here and allowed me to buy in, I ain’t no miner.
Waccoe
I suppose you could read that I’m defending Scargill, the truth is that Scargill had the entire media arraigned against him, he could not possibly have a good reputation as his character was systematically destroyed, the only impression that most of the UK will have of him has come from that heavily biased media.
When Maggie was elected, it was understood that she would break the miners, right from day one, Scargill knew it, the whole country knew it.
He came up with a list that was taken from leaked documents form the National Coal Board and that list detailed which pits were to be closed.
Pits have always had to close when their reserves were no longer economic to exploit, but this list detailed pits that still had many decades of production left.
Accounting rules were changed so that it would appear that pits were losong money, assets were included that were totally unrealisable, and artificially high values placed upon them.
From those unrealistic valuations a notion of a return upon investment was made, which again was not only unrealistic, it was above what the returns on other heavy industry around the world would realisticly expect.
The investments were also not true investments, just becuase a pit is valued at £1.4billions this does not mean that amount of money was spent in its construction, and of course this fact was never made clear to the general public which does not really have much grasp of accountancy anyway.
If a pit is projected to make £400 millions as a reasonable return on valuation and it ‘only’ makes £100milions, well hey presto ! an instant £300 millions loss to the public purse, mulitply this by lots and lots of pits and the impression is that coal is heavily subsidised.
Also, when comparing investment performance in any industry, you also need to take into account what your competitors are doing, and wether you are meeting industry expectations, and the truth is what Scargill always said, that other countries actually subsidised their coal production far more and UK deep mined coal was very nearly the cheapest in the world once other nations subsidies had been taken out.
All this looks likes a defence of Scargill, it isnt though, because the thing he totally failed to understand is that in a democracy, you cannot have one group of workers repeatedly bringing down governments, and its this behaviour by miners, and to some extent other unions that meant they had to be controlled or broken.
Scargill knew what the battleground rules would be, he was a very poor strategist though, perhaps too arrogant in his power.
The miners fate was sealed way before he took office, he just played the part of public hate figure, and he fulfilled the role well.
It does not matter one jot which person had led the miners, once they had brought down a government for a second time, and had twisted government policy for so long, they had to be brought down.
Owly
You hear a lot of what I allude to, including the way certain prisoners were gathered together into Strangeways ?
As you may or may not know, trouble makers are kept away from each other in prison, in differant jails or at least in indefferant accommadation units, it took months for them all to land in Strangeways, against what any security manager would recommend, now why would that happen?
I’ve met one or two prisoners who were there, and plenty more who claim they were but are just liars, its easy to read prisoner records and verify things.
Do you know about the timing of orders not to retake Strangeways when riot control staff were in place ? Do you know about where those orders originated ?
…and can you surmise why those orders were given ?
Jjimm
Look at the pro-hunt violence recently, it really would not do to have lots of middle class folk voicing their protest in a civilised way, they might gain some kind of momentum…nothing changes does it.
Maybe those pro-hunt folk will understand recent political history, from police inspired riots at Orgreave(and the BBC doctoring of their recording of events - for which they were censured in court) to the anti-capitalism protests, to the police led riots in Trafalgar Square which you mention.
I somehow doubt it, folk tend to have a myopic overview of things.
Re the Falklands:
All of what you say is true, in as far as it goes. However I prefer to think of this as an almighty cock-up rather than conspiracy.
The Galtieri junta (and predecessors) would periodically sabre rattle about the islands to deflect attention from how buggered-up their regime was. The Spanish used to do the same over Gibraltar under Franco (and still do from time to time).
We stopped taking them seriously. That’s where we went wrong. Do you really think that HMS endurance with it’s 12 marines and one gun would have deterred the Argentinians? They didn’t leave when we came over the horizon with Aircraft Carriers and the Brigade of Guards after all.
Re Scargill: He played a bad hand badly. He could have salvaged something from the strike - but his own egotism and muleheadedness (is that a cromulent word?) made him stick it out to the last and to abject surrender. And yes he was in the pay of the Russians (via Libya). I’m glad he and his kind have gone.
Am I alone in being reasonably happy that we live in a country where coal mining isn’t something that we want our young men to go into? It’s filthy, health destroying work. Let some other poor sod do it.
As to Strangeways: Again I have been told of mismanagement on a masive scale, and also of political interference to stop it before it got as out of control as it did. I have also been told that two rival drug cartels were housed on the same wing, which made trouble inevitable. I have nothing but hearsay on this though.
No, of course not. What an absurd question.
We are talking about the same UK are we? Airbase One, just off France? To even say with tongue in cheek hyperbole that the limited civil disobedience of the Poll Tax protesters can be considered civil war of any type is stretching the term beyond any utility.
Jeez Lord Fontelroy, don’t get your knickers in a twist. I was asking if it was a possibility in order to correct some historical reference in a game am making.
What might be a better question is - How close was a Coup D’Etat in the early to mid 70s? Not very in reality I think - but a LOT closer than a civil war.