Divide And Ruin: The West’s Imperial Strategy In An Age Of Crisis
Edited by Granville Williams
(Campaign For Press And Broadcasting Freedom, £6.99)

THE 12 articles making up Settling Scores are a damning indictment of the kind of state we live in.

A reflection on the 1984-85 miners’ strike, its contributors draw on newly released documents to prove the true extent of the collaboration between the government, the police and the media in defeating the miners.

The impetus for the book came from the revelations of the independent panel which reported on the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and from a BBC Yorkshire programme Inside Out on the events at Orgreave five years before which highlighted the parallels between the role of politicians, the police and the media on both occasions.

Another factor was the release of Cabinet papers earlier this year which prove Margaret Thatcher’s determination to break the strike.

Nicholas Jones, who reported on the strike for BBC radio, writes on the Cabinet papers which confirm there was a secret plan to close at least 70 pits and lose over 70,000 jobs.

This plan was so securely covered up that it was never referred to again in Cabinet documents.

A campaign of misinformation followed, including a letter sent to every miner saying that Arthur Scargill was lying when he insisted the pit closure plan existed.

The papers show that once Thatcher had decided that total government victory was the only option, she bought off the strikes in the docks and on the railways in order to isolate the miners.

Her annotation and underlining of certain passages show her obsession with beating “the enemy within.”

Pressure was placed on chief constables to stiffen their resolve in supporting the return to work of scabs. In Nottinghamshire alone over 7,000 police were put on duty to keep the pits open. Secret letters from the Lord Chancellor Lord Hailsham reveal that the Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire had expressed reservations about the quality of police evidence on which arrests had been made.

The Cabinet papers prove that the government was prepared to fight the miners to the bitter end and used all powers at its disposal to manipulate the press and police. Meanwhile all files referring to the role of the security services remain secret.

Tony Harcup, a journalist on Leeds Other Paper during the strike, uses the Freedom of Information Act to uncover the BBC’s internal view of its strike coverage. Alan Protheroe, the then assistant director general of the BBC said he felt “haunted” by the contrast between the BBC news coverage of Orgreave and amateur footage shown in an edition of Open Space.

Other aspects are covered by Ray Riley, an NUM activist who gives a vivid and moving account of his experiences at Orgreave, Granville Williams on the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign and this newspaper’s Peter Lazenby on the “media barrage” against Scargill.