Battle of Orgreave, 40 years ago today

[Draggletail]

3 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

Some would say the some of the Miners weren't actually Miners . 

There were people there in support of the strike that weren't Miners, who had an agender, yes.

[ECCOnoob]

10 hours ago, Anna B said:

Today is the 40 year anniversary of the Battle of Orgreave, arguably the turning point in the Miners' Strike, when the Thatcher government sent the Police in on horseback to break up a peaceful demonstration, which turned into carnage. 

 

I'm aware there are several debatable points in that sentence, so what do you think now, with the benefit of hindsight? Have we (and Sheffield) moved on, or have we moved backwards?

Were you there?

Did it change your opinions?

 

It certainly changed mine. I think that was the time I became aware that we were being spun a line, and all was not as it was being reported in the media. I became interested in politics for the first time and have been ever since.

Some people never recovered. It split familes with a rift that still hasn't healed even to this day. 

 

Yes, it certainly is debatable and I'm not  buying into this image of sweet and innocent miners either. 

The bully boy militant unions were just as bad if not worse than the government.  

 

Well it's about time to get on with "recovering" isn't it. One my biggest bugbears is two plus generations on still banging about damage by Thatcher and never recovering and being held back as some pathetic desperate excuse for their own clear failures. They need to take a long hard look at themselves.  

 

Vast amounts of people have moved on. Large amounts of these ex pit villages are entire new communities, totally transformed and dragged, kicking and screaming into the modern world. Other people have coped with the dramatic changing shift.  What's their excuse. 

 

It's like this whole recent development and demand for a public enquiry. Personally I think it just a load of electioneering designed to appease certain types.  Another multi-million pounds of taxpayer money on endless hearings, lawyers, witnesses, experts, consultants, clerical which is going to do nothing more than just create polarisation, upset and huge amounts of  speculation, I'll informed comment and hysterical and exaggerated press leading to sod all satisfactory conclusion for either side.  

 

We all know that not every police officer was diligently doing their duty to protect and serve exactly by the book....  We all know that not every miner was some hard-working salt of the earth innocent party being persecuted against by the big bad state. Quite a lot of them were bolshy, arrogant dinosaurs who refuse to accept change and their clearly dying industry as the world evolved into a global marketplace. We all know there were plenty of others thrown into the mix who were just looking for a good fight or to be the great disruptors or just have any opportunitiy to have a pop at the government. 

 

The whole thing was a dark sorry mess for all involved.  A blot on our history which of course can't be forgotten but at the same time shouldn't be endlessly and tediously brought up as if there is a clear moral high ground from one particular side. There isn't.

 

 

[Mkapaka]

6 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

 

Yes, it certainly is debatable and I'm not  buying into this image of sweet and innocent miners either. 

The bully boy militant unions were just as bad if not worse than the government.  

 

Well it's about time to get on with "recovering" isn't it. One my biggest bugbears is two plus generations on still banging about damage by Thatcher and never recovering and being held back as some pathetic desperate excuse for their own clear failures. They need to take a long hard look at themselves.  

 

Vast amounts of people have moved on. Large amounts of these ex pit villages are entire new communities, totally transformed and dragged, kicking and screaming into the modern world. Other people have coped with the dramatic changing shift.  What's their excuse. 

 

It's like this whole recent development and demand for a public enquiry. Personally I think it just a load of electioneering designed to appease certain types.  Another multi-million pounds of taxpayer money on endless hearings, lawyers, witnesses, experts, consultants, clerical which is going to do nothing more than just create polarisation, upset and huge amounts of  speculation, I'll informed comment and hysterical and exaggerated press leading to sod all satisfactory conclusion for either side.  

 

We all know that not every police officer was diligently doing their duty to protect and serve exactly by the book....  We all know that not every miner was some hard-working salt of the earth innocent party being persecuted against by the big bad state. Quite a lot of them were bolshy, arrogant dinosaurs who refuse to accept change and their clearly dying industry as the world evolved into a global marketplace. We all know there were plenty of others thrown into the mix who were just looking for a good fight or to be the great disruptors or just have any opportunitiy to have a pop at the government. 

 

The whole thing was a dark sorry mess for all involved.  A blot on our history which of course can't be forgotten but at the same time shouldn't be endlessly and tediously brought up as if there is a clear moral high ground from one particular side. There isn't.

 

 

 

 

what utter nonsense.

[peak4]

I wonder how may of the folk contributing to the forum generally, not just this thread, have read and understood The Ridley Plan.
This website version is easier to digest as it has been scanned and OCR'd from the original document
Final Report of the Policy Group on the Nationalised Industries

Read the whole document, but be sure not to skip over the final bit.
Confidential Annex — Countering the Political Threat 

A couple of excerpts

Secondly, we might try and provoke a battle in a non-vulnerable industry, where we can win, This is what happened when we won against the postal workers in 1971. We could win in industries like the Railways, B.L.M.C, the Civil Service and Steel. A victory on ground of our choosing would discourage an attack on more vulnerable ground......................

The most likely area is coal. Here we should seek to operate with the maximum quantity of stocks possible, particularly at the power stations. We should perhaps make such contingent plans as we can to import coal at short notice. We might be able to arrange for certain haulage companies to recruit in advance a core or lorry drivers to help us move coal where necessary. We should also install, dual coal/oil firing in all power stations, where practicable as quickly as possible.

Fifth, we must be prepared to deal with the problem of violent picketing. This again is a matter going beyond policy for nationalised industries. But it is also vital to our policy that on a future occasion we defeat violence in breach of the law on picketing. The only way to do this is to have a large, mobile squad of police who are equipped and prepared to uphold the law against the likes of the Saltley Coke-works mob.

It also seems a wise precaution to try and get some haulage companies to recruit some good non-union drivers who will be prepared to cross picket lines, with police protection. They could always be used in the crunch situation which usually determines the result of any such contest.

Conclusion
These five policies seem all that is available and if integrated and used wisely they provide a pretty strong defence — particularly when there no Incomes Poilicy against which to strike. They should enable us to hold the fort until the long term strategy of fragmentation can begin to work.

 

For those unfamiliar
40 years on from the miners' battle of Saltley Coke works   Business insider 2012

Jon Griffin marks next month’s 40th anniversary of a Birmingham industrial dispute which signalled the beginning of the end for Prime Minister Ted Heath.

It was a day that changed the course of UK history – and ultimately brought down the Government.

February 10, 1972, saw 30,000 Birmingham engineers walk out in support of the nationwide strike by the miners, the coal industry’s first national action since the General Strike of 1926.

 

When you've got your heads round The Ridley Plan, this  longish analysis of some backgrounds make interesting reading.

Thatcher’s civilising offensive: The Ridley Plan to decivilise the working class  Matt Clement University of Winchester
Abstract: Central to the agenda of the 1979 UK Government of Margaret Thatcher was the necessity to degrade the level of organisation and sense of well-being enjoyed by British Trade Union members. I argue that this represented a reversal of the civilising process – rather a civilising offensive conducted against one of the industrial classes, the working class, in order to strengthen the other, the bourgeoisie. This article discusses how this objective was realised, and evaluates its role in shaping the contemporary context.

 

[One bit which I'm not sure if anyone had mention whilst I was typing this, was the role some of  the media played in falsely shaping the narrative; certainly relevant to Orgreave.]

The media coverage of these events notoriously adjusted the audience view so it appeared as if the miners had charged the police – causing their civilised reaction to re-impose order – when in fact later enquiries proved police culpability for the violence that day (see Williams 2009).

This was just the most notorious episode in the controversial militaristic policing of the strike which involved the occupation of mining villages and the arresting of 11,312 people, of whom 5,653 were put on trial (Percy-Smith & Hilyard 1985: 345–54).

[hackey lad]

44 minutes ago, Draggletail said:

There were people there in support of the strike that weren't Miners, who had an agender, yes.

And were paid to be there 

[gaz 786]

15 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

And were paid to be there 

 

15 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

And were paid to be there 

 

15 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

And were paid to be there 

Heard they were students from sheffield. 

[peak4]

Following on from reading The Ridley Plan above; any serious commentator really does need to be aware of the content, this piece by Harry Patterson is also worth considering

Orgreave: “The fact is that it was a set-up and it worked brilliantly.”

There remains little doubt that the violence meted out to the miners was pre-planned, deliberate and sanctioned at the highest level of the South Yorkshire force. Miners, en route to the plant, were amazed to see signs directing them to convenient car parks, smiling officers helpfully pointing the way and guiding them in with no attempts whatsoever to dissuade or turn back the thousands of pickets who had heeded Scargill’s call. Such behaviour stood in contrast to the manner in which all police forces had handled flying pickets up to that point.

For the Nottinghamshire miners, their experiences confirmed suspicions that ‘The Battle of Orgreave’ was a set-up orchestrated by the police.

Years later, in a 1993 interview, Thatcher’s adviser and strike fixer David Hart would confirm  that view: “The coke was of no interest whatsoever. We didn’t need it. It was a set-up by us on a battle ground of our choosing .  The fact is that it was a set-up and it worked brilliantly.”

The fall-out from Orgreave was considerable although it would be many years before its full truth was revealed. TV viewers were treated to scenes of mobs of violent thugs hurling bricks and stones before embattled mounted police moved in to disperse the offenders.

Only it wasn’t like that at all. As Red Pepper reported, nearly thirty years after the event,

“When broadcasting footage of Orgreave, the BBC, incredibly, transposed the sequence of events, making it appear that police cavalry charges had been a defensive response to antagonism by stone-throwing pickets rather than an act of aggression.

Only in 1991 did the BBC issue an apology for this, claiming that its action footage had been “inadvertently reversed.” The publicly-funded, ‘neutral’ state broadcaster had reversed footage which, in its original form, showed cowering pickets with nowhere to run, desperately fending off charging police with whatever they had to hand.

Given the pre-digital era of 1984, with physical tape being used for filming, which required conscious human cutting, splicing and chopping for editing purposes, one can view the BBC’s claims of the footage being “inadvertently reversed” with a degree of contempt.

 

He is sceptical as to whether soldiers were used alongside police though
Did Thatcher Use Soldiers During the Miners’ Strike?  

We know that police spies, agents provocateurs, Special Branch officers and MI5 agents were all used to combat the strikers and evidence has emerged to confirm such actions. But of soldiers dressing in police uniform we have yet to see even a single shred of real proof.

Following the release of cabinet papers on January 3rd, 2014, we know that Thatcher was considering using the army in line with the recommendations made in the Ridley Plan, to move coal, breach picket lines and so on, but this would have been an overt action with armed forces in their own uniforms and acting with official state approval.

Of course, the use of soldiers dressed as police officers is certainly possible and one shouldn’t, for even a second, doubt that the Tories would have baulked at such a tactic had they deemed it necessary. There is no question that the prime minister would have ruled such a move either in or out based on any legal or ethical grounds; it would have been a purely tactical and strategic decision. But, personally, I don’t think it happened.

 

But we now know there were plans for other use(s) of the armed services
Thatcher had secret plan to use army at height of miners' strike   Guardian
Papers released to the National Archives reveal that in 1984 the prime minister made preparations to use troops to move coal to power stations 

The 1984 cabinet papers, released to the National Archives, show that Thatcher asked for contingency plans to be drawn up to use troops to move coal stocks, despite official government policy ruling out the use of service personnel. A plan involving the use of 4,500 service drivers and 1,650 tipper lorries was considered capable of moving 100 kilotonnes a day of coal to the power stations.

A separate contingency plan, codenamed Operation Halberd, to use troops in the event of a dock strike, had also been drawn up.

[hackey lad]

5 minutes ago, gaz 786 said:

 

 

Heard they were students from sheffield. 

I know two lads who where paid to be there . They weren't students . 

[Ridgewalk]

1 hour ago, Draggletail said:

There were people there in support of the strike that weren't Miners, who had an agender, yes.

It’s a pity more people didn’t mobilise to support the miners. Could’ve done with more solidarity. The police had their own backers namely the Conservative govt  with all the machinery of the state. Pity the TUC and Labour Party weren’t more supportive

[Ridgewalk]

1 hour ago, hackey lad said:

And were paid to be there 

I was paid £200 a day to be on the picket lines. Feel able to admit that now.