Dole Not Coal - The 1984-85 Miner's Strike - The Striker's Story - Released: March 2010

I was fortunate enough to attend the premiere of this documentary in Chesterfield in March 2010, where it was watched by a large audience of mostly ex-miners and other activists from the 1984 strike. I enjoyed it immensely, and the audience went wild for it.

The film tells the tale of the strike from the miners' perspective. It's made up of new interviews with some of the key players, including Tony Benn, Dennis Skinner, and various strikers and female activists. Woven together to tell the complete story (albeit from an unashamedly partisan viewpoint - which I found quite refreshing), the accounts are direct, enlightening and often funny.

There's also a great original theme song by local musician Steve Colbourne.

I'm no expert on the Dole Not Coal's topic - in fact I knew almost nothing about the strike before I watched it. But I would imagine this is a must-watch for people who were involved in the 1984 strike, people with an interest in politics or industrial relations, or anyone who enjoys a well-told political tale.

Forget BBC and Channel 4 propaganda with their distortions and convenient omissions, this is the definitive account of the most important domestic event in the UK since World War Two.

Here you get the full story. From the moment Arthur Scargill acquired secret NCB (National Coal Board) documents outlining the pit closures (which the media dismissed, NCB and Government denied and many NUM leaders couldn't believe) to the bitter legacy and aftermath.

Thatcher was determined to destroy the NUM and with it the entire Labour movement for ideological reasons. They stood in the way of her revolution. Economic arguments for pit closures didn't stand up to scrutiny at the time and certainly now have been blown out the water (What's economic about relying on other countries for our energy and paying much more for it when we have a 100 years worth of coal under our feet?).

After the victorious strikes of 1972 and 1974 the latter of which brought the Tory Government down in an election the Tories had been busy preparing for a showdown. The `Ridley report' was commissioned outlining a strategy to take on the militant sections of the workers. The preparations outlined were; coal was to be stockpiled, coal supplies arranged via non union foreign ports, non union lorry drivers recruited, money cut off from strikers, a mobile police force organised to defeat pickets, the Government to choose who and when to fight, industries grouped together on an assessment of how easy they might be to beat. Ian MacGregor who had already destroyed the steel industry was brought in to British coal.

Thatcher wanted to prove she could deal with the unions who she blamed for all the country's problems. But this was more than just revenge for past humiliations. It was about cowing the workers and altering the balance of forces into the ruling class's favour. Thatcher believed Britain could be made great on the backs of an increasingly exploited working class with wages and conditions of work driven down.

The establishment want you to believe that the destruction of the mining industry was all Arthur Scargill's fault. They say the mines were uneconomical and that he was unreasonable and refused to negotiate. In fact the NUM settled the strike on five separate occasions in 1984: on 8 June, 8 July, 18 July, 10 September and 12 October. The first four settlements were withdrawn or sabotaged following the intervention of the real unreasonable and intransigent thug in all this: Margaret Thatcher.

The safety men of the pits organised under the NACODS union had voted 82% in favour of strike action if the terms of the 12th October settlement were not accepted. At the point of settlement NACODS called off their strike due to the NCB and the Government promising a modified colliery review procedure. Thatcher immediately withdrew the Government's decision to settle. Unsurprisingly the Government reneged on the review procedure. 164 pits were closed and 160,000 jobs were lost. Had NACODS went through with the strike they would have carried the day and the miners would have won.

This was a deliberate attack on working people trying to defend jobs and communities by a determined and sinister Government hell bent on destroying them using all the organs of state to do so. MI5 and an in all but name national police force were deployed against the miners. Freedom of movement was stopped and freedom of speech curtailed. This was conscious destruction of men, women and their homes and children's futures. Lives were ruined, families destroyed, children's futures wasted, communities ripped apart and drug abuse became endemic in pit villages.

Time's glory is to unmask falsehood and bring truth to light. The NUM were absolutely correct and have been vindicated by history in all their arguments. Thatcher, her ministers, Ian MacGregor and co lied repeatedly. The media mislead the public; the BBC reversed footage showing miners throwing stones at police and the police charging when it was the other way round. The Mirror and ITV slandered Scargill with a series of false corruption allegations which the rest of the media got on board with and towed the line for over a year. Police officers were caught on tape lying and contradicting them selves. This is all proven in court cases which were not widely reported given the NUM won all of them. The establishment version of the story often does not stand up to scrutiny even on the official record! The courts were biased against the NUM (they carried through false accusations of misuse of union funds which were being used precisely how they were set up to be used) and even they could not validate these falsehoods.

All the smears distracted the public from Scargill's warning that the coal industry was being wrecked for ideological reasons. The NUM were the only cohesive political force that stood in the way of Thatcher's revolution. As journalist John Pilger has said "Not only was he proven right but the true source of crookedness was found amongst his accusers."

Thatcher called them the `enemy within' yet amongst their ranks were veterans of the Second World War. How insulting for them in particular. A story not told in the other documentaries or in the news concerns the behaviour of the Police. They would wave their over time cash in the faces of picketers and reportedly threw money in their collection buckets asking to keep the strike going because "it's paying my mortgage". Add on top of that the brutal beatings they dished out to miners hospitalising and seriously hurting some. The wanton charging at miners on horseback like they were Napoleon's cavalry. It's long been suspected that many of them in police uniform were not police officers just untrained thugs. For a woman who claimed she was on the side of law and order against the mob, it certainly looks like it was the other way round.

The miners were betrayed by the Labour Party leadership, in particular by the reprehensible Neil Kinnock. When interviewed as on the BBC and Channel 4 strike documentaries he still brings up the national ballot to excuse his cowardly, self interested stance. No union rules were broken since miners were entitled to go on strike on an area by area basis at that time. Besides why should miners whose pits were threatened be constititutionalised out of action simply because naive miners in other areas such as Nottingham believed their jobs were safe (they were lied to by the NCB and Government) and would inevitably vote not to go out on strike? But he's done all right for himself hasn't he? Multi millionaire `Lord' Kinnock.

The lies and distortions about the strike continue to this day making this documentary an absolutely vital antidote to such state propaganda. It gives a voice to the too often marginalised strikers. The documentary is very well executed and produced. The flow of the story, the interviews and footage are all blended in an emotionally engaging and insightful way as one would expect from a good quality documentary. I'm an avid documentary watcher this is easily one of my favourites.

If you want to understand this pivotal moment in British history this documentary is essential, alongside Seumas Milne's book `The Enemy Within'.

History isn't usually very kind to those defeated in conflict and that was certainly the case with the miners and their leaders in the 84/85 strike.

It is therefore refreshing that Dole Not Coal is written unashamedly from the miners' perspective and many would say comes a lot closer to being a true historical record than the so called "balanced" reporting at the time or since.

Featuring actual footage from the strike (some of it not previously seen), interviews with protagonists on the miners' side, the admirable women's support groups and the reflections of key political figures, the film tells the story of the strike - how and why it started, how it was nearly won and how it was ultimately lost. It is a hard hitting but entertaining and often humorous depiction of a major event in British history.

If you sometimes despair at the way 21st Century Britain has turned out, then watch this film and it may give you an insight into how we got here.