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, encouraged 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* market forces?!?!

😀

Miners striking for what they believed in their jobs and childrens futures, and police told to stop them, by those in power.

Nothing has changed strikers still seen as scummies out to destroy civilisation according to the press and those in power, and the police in the passenger seat being driven by those in power.

I was only 12 at the time. From what I have read since it looks like the NUM vs GOV was a battle that was inevitable. The unions in the 70’s were too strong and too militant. Thatcher felt she had to take them on. Orgreave was just the miners strike equivalent of Goose Green.

Friend of mine was a police inspector with the Met and started his career just before the strike. He had joined with an outlook that he could do something worthwhile and enhance social justice. The stories of the police burning fivers in front of miners families, creating situations where violence was going to be certain and being completely out control were common. They also had sweatshirts printed with ASPOM on them which officially was the Avon & Somerset Police On Manouvers but actually stood for Arthur Scargill pays our mortgages.
Shattered his view of the standard policeman and the Yorkshire force in particular. He stayed to become an influence for good but ended up a very disillusioned man right up to his death a couple of years ago.

There’s no surprise that nothing is going to happen and we can all agree that the outcome would be predictable but the record and accountability have been avoided.

At the end of a piece recently John Humpries said that the thing that Aberfan has taught us is that we should never stop questioning authority.

@outofbreath: coal imported from poland and then australia because ‘….it was cheaper’ was one of the economic drivers; don’t forget Thatcher advocated ‘market forces’ so there was no gov pressure on coal burning power stations to use uk mined coal.
Steam trains were replaced by diesel because of cost – including logistical considerations.
Domestic consumption was small compared to industrial.
Deep mining had been in decline for decades and it’s final demise in the uk was inevitable; it was only a question of when it would happen.
King Arthur accelerated that process.

5000 miners in t shirts vs 5000 police in full riot gear with horses and batons but people believe the miners were the ones looking for trouble . outofbreath the lack of need for coal was more to do with government nuclear subsidies and a policy of buying cheap foreign coal rather than locally mined stuff to fire power stations not so much the general public switching to different fuel for their central heating .

@wingnuts: +1 for John Humphrys’ comment about questioning ‘authority’ which only exists because of the democratic structures which we, the public, support.
We, the public, also appoint/endorse those who seek authority; that should never be forgotten.

Nothing has changed strikers still seen as scummies out to destroy civilisation according to the press and those in power

Nope. Just out to bring down the government of the day and replace it with a willing bunch of fellow-travelling apparatchicks, according to their formost leader…

There were thugs on both sides; equally there were good guys on both sides.

This.

I was at school at the time in a non mining area, so it passed me by. I now live on the edge of the old East Midlands mining areas, and you can see the desolation the loss of the pits has caused*. I’ve also met plenty of people involved on both sides, and it has to be said, it was a minority on both sides who were stoking the trouble.

One of my colleagues at work is a former Met officer who met his wife up here while policing the strike, which must have been tough on both of them.

*Mind you, quite a few people I know are glad that the pits went, as they were the only jobs in the area and it was hard and dangerous work.

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

Correlation doesn’t prove causality but the “demand for coal” graph and the “Uk Coal output graph” do seem to decline in unison between 1900 and today. Could be coincidence, of course. 😀

I am not wanting to see anyone in particular being prosecuted for fighting each other at Orgreave it has never been questioned that the miners gave as good as they got and on many other locations probably did worse. Its about govt collusion and falsifying evidence that we now accept as acceptable apparently.

frankconway – Member

There were thugs on both sides; equally there were good guys on both sides.

Yah, but the thing is, one side was the police. We employ them to deal with other thugs. If we can’t hold them to higher standards, they’re not the police any more.

b r – you can see it as me agreeing with you for once !

Of course Mrs T wanted to import coal and switch electricity production to a mix of oil / nuclear / coal – I imagine like my staunch Labour parents she was truely **** off by miners holding the country to ransom by cutting off the electricity

As others have also asked where was Labour on this issue from 1997 to 2010 ?

without an inquiry this will just fester away, more resentment, more bitterness and division in our society, our government seems to be expert at fostering this

@northwind; ‘If we can’t hold them to higher standards, they’re not the police any more’.
Totally agree with your statement – in principle – but the police have never been consistently held to a higher standard.
I don’t know if police stations still have ‘police clubs’ – no, not clubs to assault miners – but bars with snooker table and darts; I’ve been in a handful of them and back in the good old day a group of coppers on the sauce on their own territory was an unsettling experience.
They certainly existed when Orgreave happened.

As others have also asked where was Labour on this issue from 1997 to 2010 ?

I certainly don’t share your politics Jamba…….but I agree – this is a question which needs answering.

Why did Labour do nothing?

It doesn’t seem fair to blame the Right without questioning why the Left did so little when they had the chance..

This is hardly the only problem that the last Labour government didn’t address when it had the chance.

This is hardly the only problem that the last Labour government didn’t address when it had the chance.

Y’know, but y’know, LOOK OVER THERE! LET’S BAN HUNTING! NASTY TOFFS! LOOK! Y’know, I’m a pretty straight kind of guy, y’know.

@mrleb I think at one stage our politics would have been fairly closely aligned. Over the years mine have shifted partly having lived in US and Singapore and partly having come to the conclusion that so much of Government spending is mismanaged and misdirected.

without an inquiry this will just fester away, more resentment, more bitterness and division in our society,

Or people could just present their evidence and get guilty policemen charged and prosecuted.

You don’t need an inquiry for that, it would be a pointless red herring.

Seriously, specifically what question do people want answered that hasn’t already been answered?

You seem to be seriously struggling with the concept of democratic accountability

Not to mention how the guilty, in positions of power, use the system to make sure they remain exempt from it, and thus place themselves above the law

So is what I read correct ? All prosecutions failed as the courts rejected the Police Evidence ? If that’s the case I can see why Labour didn’t take the inquiry angle further as it looks too political. No false prosecutions ?

You seem to be seriously struggling with the concept of democratic accountability

And you seem to be seriously struggling with the concept of the police having an absolute duty to prevent a breach of the peace by arrest or any other action necessary – in this the police aren’t democratically accountable, they act in service of the crown.

“Not to mention how the guilty, in positions of power, use the system to make sure they remain exempt from it, and thus place themselves above the law”

Huh? You’re arguing to let the guilty off by having an lengthy inquiry which, as you’ve already pointed out, will discover nothing new.

I’m saying use the evidence you want discussed at the inquiry and use it to get actual convictions instead.

And you seem to be seriously struggling with the concept of the police having an absolute duty to prevent a breach of the peace by arrest or any other action necessary

….. within the law.

You missed that bit.

If you don’t have your statement quantified by those 3 words, then there is no law really other than what the state decrees, and we’re into Judge Dredd territory.

You’d love that, wouldn’t you? ‘Cleaning the Streets’ and all that shit?

Are you actually Kelvin Mackenzie?

Or maybe you’re Judge Dredd 😯

So is what I read correct ? All prosecutions failed as the courts rejected the Police Evidence ? If that’s the case I can see why Labour didn’t take the inquiry angle further as it looks too political. No false prosecutions ?

To be honest the rejection of the police evidence should have triggered a thorough clean out , the principle should always be that it’s the cover up you get nailed for not the cock up. Fabrication of evidence has to be culturally toxic or policing by consent will die

@ninfan: ‘concept of the police having an absolute duty and power to prevent a breach of the peace by arrest or any other action necessary.’
You should qualify that statement by adding ‘…..within reason’ otherwise you are suggesting the police do as they see fit to prevent a breach of the peace; is that your view?
Regrettably the police are now rarely to be seen on the streets – other than dealing with the pissed up/doped up getting out of hand in city centres from thursday to saturday, evenings only, so as for dealing with breach of the peace outside of city centres?
I know that’s OT but largely invisible policing does not provide any feeling of safety or security.
Having said that – triple my salary and I still wouldn’t join the force.

….. within the law.

You missed that bit.

No, the power to maintain the peace is, at common law, completely unfettered as long as the steps are seen as necessary and proportionate – as it is a direct exercise of the crown perogative. This is a fascinating area of constitutional law, but, for example shows why the peterloo massacre was legal, and why both civil and criminal charges against members of the Manchester Yeomanry were dismissed.

You should qualify that statement by adding ‘…..within reason’ otherwise you are suggesting the police do as they see fit to prevent a breach of the peace; is that your view?

Any and all steps seen as necessary and proportionate in order to prevent an imminent or ongoing breach of the peace.

Nice contemporary reference there. You’re using the Peterloo Massacre to justify refusing democratic scrutiny of the police over Orgreave?

You really couldn’t make it up

Principles are entirely the same – as they were in London a couple of years back.

What’s it like, being you?

Who defines necessary and proportionate?
Who implements crown prerogative?
Hold on chaps – just calling her maj to talk this through………
Politician? Police commander on the ground? silver/gold/platinum commander?
As for Peterloo and Manchester Yeomanry – I would like to think that democratic principles have evolved a little since then.
Can’t avoid thinking that some of this evening’s posts have been by jacob rees-mogg in his 4 poster bed wearing double breasted pyjamas while he imagines halcyon days – which never existed.

Now the really bad news – keith vazeline has been elected to the justice select committee.

Ninfan do you honestly think a modern court would accept hacking down protesters with sabers was necessary and propitiate ?

Pretty disappointing (i.e. disgraceful)

Two very different narratives, and some compelling info suggesting that the police action was planned rather than reactive.

An inquiry would have / should have been set up to:

1. Establish an accurate timeline for the events of the day, incl. police command decisions etc
2. Establish whether political control was exerted / appropriate.

Radio 4 yesterday suggested that S Yorks Police didn’t want to deploy dog and mounted units, but Thatcher directly intervened.

Norman Tebbitt also gave a very clear reason why an inquiry would be appropriate. In his welcoming the decision not to hold an inquiry he stated that the police behaved, in the main, appropriately. Given the controversial nature of Orgreave, it is not appropriate for such sweeping statements to stand as the record.

Let’s establish what happened – or for this stating that an inquiry is unnecessary, then release the cabinet papers that currently have an 80 year release period on them…

Rkk01 – spot on.

Taking back “con”trol

On topic , rather than the historical diversion about the use of armed force and a biddable justice system to crush a popular peaceful movement for political reform, I can’t really see any great goal in pursuing criminal prosecutions of the officers on the ground and in court who were essentially following orders . However some inquiry as to his and why those orders were given and whether the separation of power between the police and the government was eroded I would also like to know how the BBC got away with editing news footage to reorder events to make a more compellingly narrative .
But if anything by way of police corruption truely needs an investigation it would be the battle of the beanfield and its aftermath.