The Downing Street Years, 1979-1990
Page 48
September and October were always likely to be difficult months. The miners would be looking forward to the winter when demand for electricity was at its highest and power cuts most likely. At the TUC Conference in early September a majority of trade unions — strongly opposed by the electricity and power workers — pledged support for the miners, though in most cases they had no intention of giving it. When the forthright electricians’ leader Eric Hammond made a powerful speech pointing this out, he was heavily barracked for his pains. Neil Kinnock also spoke at the conference, coming as near as he ever did to outright condemnation of picket line violence, but without taking any action to expel from his party those who supported it. Meanwhile, Mr Scargill reaffirmed his view that there was no such thing as an uneconomic pit, only pits which had been starved of the necessary investment.
Negotiations between the NCB and the NUM were resumed on 9 September. As arguments continued about forms of words, it was difficult for the general public to work out precisely what separated the two parties. I was always concerned that Ian MacGregor and the NCB team would unwittingly give away basic principles for which the strike was being fought. In the July talks he had already moved from the principle of closing ‘uneconomic’ pits to the much more dubious concept of closing pits which could not be ‘beneficially developed’. Thankfully, Mr Scargill had not been prepared to adopt this ambiguous objective. Peter Walker and I felt throughout that Ian MacGregor did not fully comprehend the devious ruthlessness of the NUM leaders he was arguing with. He was a businessman, not a politician, and thought in terms of reasonableness and reaching a deal. I suspect that Mr MacGregor’s view was that once he got the miners back to work he would be able to restructure the industry as he wished, whatever the precise terms on which a settlement had been reached. The rest of us, from long experience, understood that Arthur Scargill and his friends would exploit a fudged formula and that we should be back where we started. It was crucial for the future of the industry and for the future of the country itself that the NUM’s claim that uneconomic pits should never be closed should be defeated, and be seen to be defeated, and the use of strikes for political purposes discredited once and for all.
It was also in September that I first met in person members of the ‘Miners’ Wives Back to Work Campaign’, whose representatives came to see me at 10 Downing Street. I was moved by the courage of these women, whose families were subject to the abuse and intimidation. They told me a great deal and confirmed some of my suspicions about the NCB’s handling of the strike. They said that the majority of miners still did not understand the full extent of the NCB’s pay offer and plans for investment: more needed to be done to put across the NCB’s case to striking miners, many of whom relied on the NUM for their information. They confirmed that while talks between the NCB and the NUM were going on, or were in prospect, it was extremely difficult to persuade men to return to work. They explained to me how small shops in the coalfields were being blackmailed into supplying food and goods for striking miners and withholding them from working miners. But perhaps the most shocking thing they had to say was that local NCB management in some areas were not anxious to promote a return to work and in one particular area were actively siding with the NUM to discourage it. In this overunionized industry I found that all too likely.
Of course, the vital thing for these women was that the NCB should do everything it could to protect miners who had led the return to work, if necessary transferring them to pits where there were fewer militants and giving them priority in applications for redundancies. I said that we would not let them down, and I think I kept my word. The whole country was in their debt.
One working miner’s wife, Mrs McGibbon from Kent, spoke at the Conservative Party Conference, describing the harrowing experiences which she and her family had undergone. The vile tactics of the strikers knew no limit. Even her small children were targets: they were told that their parents were going to be killed. Shortly after she had spoken the Morning Star published her address. A week later her home was attacked.
On 11 September the National Working Miners’ Committee was formed. This was an important development in the history of the working miners’ movement. I heard a good deal informally about what was happening on the ground through David Hart, a friend who was making great efforts to help the working miners. I was eager to learn everything I could.
On Wednesday 26 September I went to York. I visited the Minster, which had recently been struck by lightning and badly damaged in the fire which followed — divine punishment, some suggested, for the wayward theology of leading Anglican clerics. I also discussed with the Yorkshire police and local people the damage the strike was doing to the local community. At lunch with Conservative Party activists, some of those from Barnsley confirmed the impression that we had received throughout the strike: that the NCB’s publicity of its case was truly dreadful. There were, too, the accounts of intimidation with which I had become all too familiar. Nor could one doubt the economic hardship which Mr Scargill’s obduracy was imposing on his own supporters. I was told that miners were digging up rootcrops from the fields to feed themselves and their families.
One positive result of the visit was my meeting with Michael Eaton, Director of the NCB’s North Yorkshire area and the man who had developed the new pit at Selby.
I heard again in York, as I had from advisers previously, how effective he was. He has a wonderful soft Yorkshire voice and a good way of explaining things, so I suggested his appointment as a national spokesman to help improve NCB’s presentation. Mr Eaton did a fine job, though unfortunately his position was made difficult as a result of jealousy and obstruction elsewhere in the NCB’s ranks.
Meanwhile the threat from NACODS crept up on us. The leadership of NACODS was now clearly intent on a strike and announced that a strike ballot was to be held on 28 September. An agreement on the outstanding issues seemed within reach at one point but was repudiated by the union president on his return from holiday. At first the NCB was optimistic about the result of the ballot, but ominously as the days went by their assessments grew less and less hopeful. I had a meeting with Ian MacGregor and Peter Walker at Chequers on Sunday 23 September and we discussed what would happen if the two-thirds majority required for a strike was obtained. It was possible that NACODS might just use the result to put pressure on the NCB management to resolve their grievances. Alternatively, they might call a strike. We thought that in that event NACODS men in areas where the mines were working would themselves remain at work. But there was little chance of this happening in borderline areas like Derbyshire and it was clear that a NACODS strike would make it even more difficult to bring about a return to work by miners in the more militant areas. NACODS men were not the only NCB employees with the necessary safety qualifications. Many members of the British Association of Colliery Managers (BACM) were also qualified, but it would be difficult to persuade them to go underground and perform these tasks in the face of NACODS hostility. And while there were some NUM members who had passed the requisite examinations and were awaiting promotion to safety work grades, they too could provide only limited cover.
On Tuesday 25 September Peter Walker told the ministerial group on coal that it now looked likely that NACODS would vote for a strike. He was right: when the result came through on Friday we discovered that 82.5 per cent had voted in favour.
This was very bad news. Throughout the coal strike events swung unpredictably in one direction then another — suddenly things would move our way, then equally suddenly move against us — and I could never let myself feel confident about the final outcome.
Apart from the initial few days of the strike in March, this was the time when we felt most concern. Some in Whitehall feared that a bandwaggon might begin to roll in Mr Scargill’s favour. We could not know what effect the TUC resolution of support for the NUM would have. We were now approaching the autumn and the militants might gain new heart. And there was the threatened NACODS strike.
The NCB and NACODS held talks on Monday 1 October. Agreement was reached on pay and on guidelines as regards crossing picket lines, the NCB withdrawing its circular of 15 August. The following day there were discussions on machinery for the review of pit closures and the possibility of some form of arbitration in cases of disagreement. This was to remain the most difficult question. No matter how elaborate the process of consultation, the NCB could not concede to a third party the right of ultimate decision over pit closures. This, although generally understood, was best not set out too starkly.
All this time we were faced with hostile outside comment and pressure. The Labour Party Conference wholeheartedly backed the NUM and condemned the police. Worst of all, perhaps, was Neil Kinnock’s speech in which, under pressure from the left wing and trade unions, he retreated from the tougher line he had taken at the TUC Conference. He took refuge in a general condemnation of violence which made no distinction between the use of violence with the aim of breaking the law and the use of force to uphold it. He even contrived to equate violence and intimidation with the social ills from which he claimed Britain was suffering: ‘the violence of despair… of long-term unemployment… loneliness, decay and ugliness’. No wonder that the Labour Party lost so much support in Nottinghamshire, where miners and their families knew what violence really was, even if the Leader of the Labour Party did not.
As always, the Conservative Party Conference followed straight on from Labour’s. Much of my time at Brighton was spent following as best I could the course of negotiations between the NUM and the NCB at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS). A delegation from NACODS was also present at ACAS, though not directly involved in the negotiations. It was clear that NACODS was trying to win terms for the NUM which would have allowed Mr Scargill to claim victory. NACODS leaders were making threats with this in mind, claiming that their members could not be restrained much longer from beginning their strike and so on. Tactics became at this stage of the greatest importance. The NCB tabled a paper which accepted an independent review body on pit closures and they committed themselves to give proper consideration to its views, though obviously they would retain the right to take management decisions. ACAS then put forward a variation on this which the NCB immediately accepted and the NUM promptly rejected. We were still not to know how NACODS would react. But for once the NCB had obtained an important tactical advantage in negotiations.
These discussions spanned our Party Conference. Leon Brittan and Peter Walker both delivered powerful defences of our position during it. But the event which dominated our thoughts at that time was the IRA bomb at the Grand Hotel which killed five of our friends and came near to killing me, members of the Cabinet and many others.[46]
Among the messages I received afterwards was one from Mrs Gandhi, whom I knew well and admired. Within three weeks she was the victim of a brutal assassination by two of her own bodyguards.
THE TIDE TURNS
Towards the end of October the situation changed sharply once again. Three events within a week were particularly hopeful for us and must have come as hammerblows to Mr Scargill. First, on Tuesday 24 October the NACODS executive agreed not to strike after all. Precisely what happened is unclear. In all probability the moderates on the executive convinced the hardliners that their members simply would not act as stooges for Mr Scargill.
Second, it was at this point that the civil law at last began to bite. I have already mentioned a case which had been brought against the NUM by two Yorkshire miners: the High Court had ruled in the two miners’ favour that the strike in Yorkshire could not be described as ‘official’. The NUM had ignored the ruling and as a result a writ had been served on an astonished Mr Scargill actually on the floor of the Labour Party Conference. On 10 October both he and the union had been found in contempt of court and fined £1,000 and £200,000 respectively. Mr Scargill’s fine was paid anonymously, but the NUM refused to pay and the High Court ordered its assets to be sequestrated. It soon became evident that the NUM had prepared for this event, but the financial pressure on the union was now intense and its ability to organize was greatly hampered.
Finally, on Sunday 28 October — only three days after the sequestration order — the Sunday Times revealed that an official of the NUM had visited Libya and made a personal appeal to Colonel Gaddafi for his support. This was astonishing news and even Mr Scargill’s friends were dismayed. At the beginning of October, Mr Scargill (travelling under an alias as ‘Mr Smith’) had visited Paris with his colleague Mr Roger Windsor to meet representatives of the French communist trade union, the CGT. Present at the meeting was a Libyan whom Mr Scargill later claimed to be a representative of Libyan trade unionists — a rare breed, in fact, since Colonel Gaddafi had dissolved all trade unions when he came to power in 1969. It seems likely that Colonel Gaddafi made a donation to the NUM, though the amount is uncertain. The sum of £150,000 has been suggested. Mr Windsor’s visit to Libya was a follow-up to the Paris meeting.
A further sum was certainly received from an equally unlikely source: the nonexistent ‘trade unions’ of Soviet-controlled Afghanistan. And in September reports had begun to surface that the NUM was receiving assistance from Soviet miners — a group whose members would have looked with envy on the freedoms, incomes and working conditions of their British equivalents. There was further confirmation in November. It was quite clear that these initiatives had the support of the Soviet Government. Otherwise the Soviet miners would not have had access to convertible currency. Our displeasure at this was made very clear to the Soviet Ambassador and I raised the matter with Mr Gorbachev when he visited Britain for the first time in December, who claimed to be unaware of it.[47]
All this did the NUM’s cause great harm, not least with other trade unionists. The British people have plenty of sympathy for someone fighting for his job, but very little for anyone who seeks help from foreign powers out to destroy his country’s freedom.
In November the ground continued to slip from under the NUM leadership. The NCB seized the moment to launch a drive to encourage the return to work. It was announced that miners who were back at work on Monday 19 November would qualify for a substantial Christmas bonus. The NCB mounted a direct mail campaign to draw the attention of striking miners to the offer. Combined with the growing disillusionment with Mr Scargill, this had an immediate effect. In the first week after the offer 2,203 miners returned to work, six times more than in the previous week. The most significant return to work was in North Derbyshire. Our strategy was to let this trend continue without trying to take any explicit political credit for it, which could have been counter-productive. I told ministers that the figures should be allowed to speak for themselves, but that we should continue to emphasize just how much was on offer. I was keen to bring it home to the public that, in spite of all Mr Scargill’s efforts, the trend was now firmly in the right direction.
Speaking at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet on Monday 12 November I said:
The Government will hold firm. The Coal Board can go no further. Day by day, responsible men and women are distancing themselves from this strike. Miners are asserting their right to go to their place of work. Those in other unions now see cl
early the true nature and purpose of those who are leading this strike.
This has been a tragic strike but good will emerge from it. The courage and loyalty of working miners and their families will never be forgotten. Their example will advance the cause of moderate and reasonable trade unionism everywhere. When the strike ends it will be their victory.
In fact, I remained in touch with representatives of the working miners. I was keen to see them but there appeared to be some rivalry between two groups: to have seen one without the other would have caused resentment and to have seen both together would have been undiplomatic. I accepted Peter Walker’s advice to this effect, but I told my Private Office that when the strike was over I would have representatives of all the working miners and their wives to No. 10 for a reception — which indeed I did. (I met some also at a private buffet hosted by Woodrow Wyatt at the end of March the following year.)
Like many others, I suspect, I had been impelled to reflect a great deal in the course of the strike on the threats to democracy. Back in July I had addressed an eve of recess meeting of the ‘22 Committee on the subject of the ‘enemy within’. The speech had attracted a good deal of hostile comment: critics had tried to distort my meaning by suggesting that the phrase was a reference to the miners at large rather than the minority of Marxist militants, as I had intended. I returned to the theme in the Carlton Lecture, which I delivered in the traditional home of Conservatism — the Carlton Club — on the evening of Monday 26 November. I was the second Carlton lecturer: the first had been Harold Macmillan, who had recently attacked our handling of the miners’ strike in a characteristically elegant maiden speech in the Lords. Of course, in contemplating the threat of anti-democratic extremism I had in mind not only the NUM leadership but also the terrorists, who had demonstrated their murderous intent at the Brighton Grand Hotel just weeks before. I reflected: