[Closed] Orgreave

Did you expect anything else?

Saves some money though. Can be spent on other things.

No and injustice is always a cost saving...

I did hope but realistically it all goes a long way up the political world unlike Hillsborough.

It was only ever going to go one way. We've had the truth FINALLY about Hillsborough, when anyone with anything between their ears knew what the truth was anyway.

Same mob/militia! Same hatred of 'the workers'/scum. Same political agenda. Same tactics. Same old, same old.....

I think the government have let us have a lot more truth than they'd have ever have liked. They spent long enough covering it up.

Everyone knows what happened at Orgreave. Those in power certainly aren't going to let another Hillsborough Enquiry take place just to confirm it

[img] [/img]

*awaits the usual right-wing half-wits to turn up saying Thatcher had to do it, the police were all angels, blah, blah, blah......*

Disgraceful but predictable!

Never mind, we'll get a Public Enquiry when Corbyn is PM

"Not worth it as no one died" Not exactly what was said was it ?

The list gives the game away, the campaigners have turned it into a political anti-Thatcher issue. If that was really the case why no inquiry under 13 years of Labour ?

Strikers in large numbers turned up to make trouble, Police where prepared. When you look at the footage it's all rather tame, the French CRS would laugh their socks off at the responce.

I have put to one side my hatred of Thatcher and unlike brexit which had a lot of stupid people being told what to do by this very group it remains that a government can justify a lack of justice bases upon the premises no one died - it's been a miserable year

Everyone knows what happened at Orgreave.

Which is a pretty good reason not to waste any cash on an enquiry.

"Not worth it as no one died" Not exactly what was said was it ?

And as predicted here comes Jambalaya!
Don't know a lot about it all but reading BBC news, the campaigners were expecting an inquiry.

Never mind, we'll get a Public Enquiry when Corbyn is PM

Maybe Jezza should apologise on behalf of Labour for not having held a public inquiry whilst they where in Government ?

Bottom line is Labour can make this a manifesto commitment. I can't recall it ever having been so in the past.

Everyone knows what happened at Orgreave.
Which is a pretty good reason not to waste any cash on an enquiry.

Yes.... perish the thought that anyone in authority is ever held accountable for anything, Eh?

Jamba don't pass comment on things you only saw on the TV you just look like a ****

Don't know a lot about it all but reading BBC news, the campaigners were expecting an inquiry.

I watched the commons statement and the full interview session with the campaigners. Yes they believed after a meeting with Rudd a few months ago that it was only an issue of the type of the investigation which would be announced. That could be selective recollection though. As I said there is a very political angle here and it was not the families who made the claim.

Didn't they point out that not only had no one died, but nobody on either side was convicted either?

So Jamba where we're you during the miners strike - geographically, work education etc really interested...

That's right Ninfan as all the police evidence was manufactured

[quote=oldmanmtb ]Jamba don't pass comment on things you only saw on the TV you just look like a ****

Were you there ?

Not many coppers prosecuted for that crime...

Not Orgreave i was at Easington as an AUEW member (flying picket) and I got dragged out of a car on the A1 by the boys in blue..

Jamba don't pass comment on things you only saw on the TV you just look like a ****

I think that applies to just about everyone. 5000 miners and 5000 cops and the press were there. Everyone else is forming their opinion via second hand reports.

the French CRS would laugh their socks off at the responce.

That's ok then.

Well @oldman indeed I wasn't there so should no one comment who wasn't there ? Being at Uni at the time I've seen plenty of footage over the years, less serious than poll tax riots ?

Not interested in being the Pantomine Villain, just focus on getting it into the Labour Party manifesto. TBH I am surprised it wasn't debated at the 2016 Conference - not a priority for Corbyn ?

That's right Ninfan as all the police evidence was manufactured

So, let's say that there was a full inquiry, all the footage from the day was reexamined and there was evidence of criminal offences by both sides?

Would you support the prosecution of miners for offences on the day, now, some thirty odd years later? Or is it just the police who should be 'held to account'?

Be interested to see if you are applying equal standards.

What exactly do you suggest would be 'put right' by an inquiry when nobody died and nobody was convicted?

Disappointing but totally predictable.
Norman Tebbitt on radio earlier - miners, mob handed, out for trouble; police not aggressive, maintaining law & order etc.
Some years ago I had a discussion with an ex senior copper from South Yorkshire police who was involved at Orgreave '.......there was much cracking of skulls and fisticuffs.....'
Let's not forget that Peter Wright was chief constable when both Orgreave and Hillsborough happened; he was well regarded by Thatcher so......draw your own conclusions.
I believe that the endemic abuse of power (corruption anyone?) in South Yorkshire police over more than 40 years started in the Wright era and even now the stables have not been rinsed clean

Because the Police were acting as a militia, with the full backing of the government, to send out the message that you could have the shit beaten out of you, then arrested and stitched up with fabricated evidence, and that was all ok.

it just depends if you think that that kind of thing should be happening in a democracy, with impunity?

Obviously we know where the usual right wing cockwombles stand in that question....

You mean:

Because the [s]Police[/s] miners were acting as a militia, with the full backing of the [s]government[/s] unions, to send out the message that you could [s]have the shit beaten out of you[/s] violently intimidate other workers and hold the country to ransom, then [s]arrested and stitched up with fabricated evidence[/s] try and overthrow the democratically elected government of the day , and that was all ok.

it just depends if you think that that kind of thing should be happening in a democracy, with impunity?

Obviously we know where the usual [s]right[/s] left wing [s]cockwombles[/s] agitprops stand in that question....

Overthrowing governments?

Dear god 😆

Because the Police were acting as a militia, with the full backing of the government, to send out the message that you could have the shit beaten out of you, then arrested and stitched up with fabricated evidence, and that was all ok.

So. 5000 of Scargill's Revolutionary Army turn up to close down the plant on the way to shutting down the industry prior to overthrowing the government.

5000 state enforcers turn up to stop them.

There's a barney.

Injuries on both sides. The revolution fails.

And we need an enquiry why, exactly?

@Binners:

[i]"The strike was ruined the minute it was politicised, and in the mind of Arthur Scargill it was always a political struggle". "He gave himself the credit for the success of the 1974 strike, but that was much exaggerated. "He had the illusion that if the workers were united, they could destabilise, even overthrow a democratically elected government. That was the falsehood of Scargill's conclusion, and that is why I have always condemned him."[/i]

Kinnock 2009

tbh For once I'm going to agree with Jamba, waste of time and money. Far better things to spend it on than lawyers and Govt officials.

And this comes from a Yorkshireman where the coal strike and the corresponding reduction in mining has impacted friends/family, and I was around at the time.

You are Kelvin Mackenzie and I claim my entirely fabricated front page headline 😆

I'm curious as to why when Labour were in Gov they appear to have done little or nothing over it?

Happy to be proved wrong..

There were thugs on both sides; equally there were good guys on both sides.
@ninfan: can't disagree with Kinnock's analysis but Thatcher was lucky and Scargill was unlucky that Orgreave was in South Yorkshire which was chief constable Peter Wright's personal fiefdom - 'this is the north where we do what we want' is not attributed to Wright but could easily have been.

Scargill, confirming Kinnock's suspicions:

[i]"If Thatcher had lost," he told the Guardian yesterday, "the Tories would have dumped her as they did in 1990. Kinnock didn't see what Wilson did and even Foot did in 1981. If he had supported the strike openly and called on other workers to support it, I believe Thatcher would have fallen and Kinnock would have become prime minister.[/i]

Overthrowing governments?

I think they thought they could do what they had done to Heath. The winter of discontent was the final nail in the coffin for the unions and any public sympathy.

Perhaps you should also remember David Wilkie as an example of the levels of violence that the strikers were prepared to go to.

Overthrowing governments?

Erm, yes.

See above.

I once worked with an ex-copper on the West Mercia force who was shipped up to the miners strike. Shocking some of the tales he told about how they behaved, and, more to the point, [i]encouraged[/i] to behave by the Yorkshire force. including what he acknowledged were against the rules such as removing their numbers etc. He thought the anecdotes funny. Very revealing

Edit: just remembered that one of the issues was that they were billeted together for weeks in large groups in old nissen huts cut off from the local communities and their families which led to a very 'laddish' culture.

"If Thatcher had lost," he told the Guardian yesterday, "the Tories would have dumped her as they did in 1990. Kinnock didn't see what Wilson did and even Foot did in 1981. If he had supported the strike openly and called on other workers to support it, I believe Thatcher would have fallen and Kinnock would have become prime minister.

...and the reason Kinnock couldn't openly support the strike is because Scargill wouldn't (couldn't?) ballot his members.

If we're looking for the bad guy in the miner's strike it's us, the public. How many of us have a coal boiler or drive a steam car? Coal use declined when we all started to transfer to oil and gas around the turn of the 19th/20th Century. Nothing to do with Scargill or Thatcher or the Coal Board or Kinnock. It was us. When we all decided we didn't want to buy coal the industry was going to decline. Which it did, over decades, not in the 80's.

I read up on the iconic Lesley Boulton/John Harris photograph. Quite interesting.

Outofbreath, are you SERIOUSLY trying to suggest that the events and the outcome were created by *choke* [i]market forces[/i]?!?!

😀