The Downing Street Years (64 page)

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:

The return to work continued. But so did the violence. Violence and intimidation well away from the pitheads were more difficult for the police to prevent and required fewer people to perpetrate: consequently it was on such tactics that the militant miners now concentrated. There were many incidents. One that particularly struck me took place on Friday 23 November when Michael Fletcher, a working miner from Pontefract in Yorkshire, was attacked and beaten by a gang of miners in his own home. No fewer than nineteen men were arrested for the crime. Then a week later came one of the most appalling events of the strike: a three-foot concrete post was thrown from a motorway bridge onto a taxi carrying a South Wales miner to work. The driver, David Wilkie, was killed. I wondered whether there was any limit to the savagery of which these people were capable.

With the passing of the 19 November deadline for the Christmas bonus the return to work slowed somewhat. One of the wives of the working miners sent me a message explaining that there were two additional reasons. First, some striking miners who intended to go back to work would only return after Christmas, to avoid intimidation of their families over the holiday. Second, there was news of fresh talks
being planned between the NUM and the NCB, and talks always had a negative effect on the movement back to work.

But further talks were difficult to avoid, although Mr Scargill’s intransigence would probably ensure that they went nowhere. Using Robert Maxwell as an intermediary, key figures in the TUC were anxious to find some way of concluding the strike which would allow Mr Scargill and the militants to save face. In fact, of course, it was only by ensuring that they lost face and were seen to be defeated and rejected by their own people that we could tame the militants. I suspect that some of the union leaders knew this. Certainly, some of them had reason to know it. Norman Willis, General Secretary of the TUC, had pursued a thoroughly honourable line throughout, unlike the leaders of the Labour Party. Earlier that month he had spoken at an NUM rally in South Wales. Attempts were made to shout him down when he condemned violence on the picket line and in a chilling moment, which I and millions of others watched on television, a noose was lowered from the ceiling and suspended just above his head.

David Basnett, General Secretary of the GMWU, and Ray Buckton, General Secretary of ASLEF, had a private meeting with Peter Walker in which they revealed their desire for the TUC to play a role. I considered how we should respond. On the one hand, the last thing I wanted was to bring the TUC into No. 10 in their old capacity as power brokers. On the other hand, a clumsy rebuff could alienate moderate opinion among the unions.

So Peter Walker and Tom King had a lengthy meeting with seven of the main union leaders on the evening of Wednesday 5 December. It was clear that none of the seven really had any idea how to end the strike. I discussed how to deal with the TUC initiative with Peter Walker and officials on the morning of Thursday 13 December at Downing Street. Apparently the TUC were proposing to put to the NUM and the NCB the idea of a return to work followed by discussion of a new Plan for Coal, the talks to have a time limit of perhaps eight to twelve weeks. The TUC wanted to know whether we would endorse this approach. Peter Walker saw some advantages in it. I was more conscious of the difficulties. There were three principles, I said, to which we must adhere. First, any talks on the future of the industry must take place after the return to work. Second, nothing should be agreed which would undercut the position of the working miners. Third, it was essential to prevent the NUM claiming that the programme of pit closures had been withdrawn or even that there would be no pit closures while talks continued. It should be clearly seen that the NCB was free to operate the existing colliery review procedure, as
modified by the provisions of the agreement with NACODS. However, I agreed that Peter should meet the TUC on Friday morning to tell them that the Government would go along with their efforts to bring the strike to an end on the basis of a return to work followed by talks on the future of the industry. The colliery review procedure, modified by the NACODS agreement, would remain in place.

Peter and Tom met the TUC delegation the following day. Nothing came of the meeting. The TUC had no authority from Mr Scargill to negotiate and they concluded that no initiative to end the strike was now possible before Christmas.

As the year ended, our main objective was to encourage a further return to work from 7 January, the first working Monday in the New Year. Though the NCB’s bonus offer had expired, there was still a strong financial incentive for strikers to return to work in the near future because they would pay little, if any, income tax on their wages if they went back before the end of the tax year on 31 March. The great strategic prize would be to get more than 50 per cent of NUM members back to work: if we could secure that, it would be equivalent in practical and presentational terms to a vote in a national ballot to end the strike. This would require the return of a further 15,000 to work, which the NCB were busily preparing a new campaign of letters and press advertising to achieve.

It was also vital that the miners and the public at large should be told that there would be no power cuts that winter, contrary to Mr Scargill’s ever more desperate and incredible predictions. We held off making such an announcement until we could be absolutely certain, but finally on 29 December Peter Walker was able to issue a statement saying that he had been informed by the Chairman of the CEGB that at the level of coal production that had now been achieved there would be no power cuts during the whole of 1985.

The question now was what the effect of all this would be on the return to work in January. The rate of return was initially affected in some areas by bad weather, which also had some negative effects on the movement of coal. (I had been worried earlier that we would have a cold winter, but fortunately the weather was generally good.) But as January continued the rate of return increased. By the middle of the month there were almost 75,000 NUM members not on strike and
the rate of return was running at about 2,500 a week. Plainly the end was near.

The pattern which seemed to be emerging was for working miners to establish a ‘bridgehead’ at a strike-bound pit: fifty or more of those most anxious to return would go in together, often on a Thursday or Friday when their action attracted least attention. After that things could move quite fast. The increase in production was bound to be slower than the rate of return to work, but the trend there was also clearly in the right direction.

The one thing which could be relied upon to slow down the progress was further negotiations: and so it proved. When news broke of ‘talks about talks’, which were arranged between the NCB and the NUM on Monday 21 January, the effect was to cut the rate of return to rather less than half that of the previous week.

Meanwhile, public attention increasingly focused on the attempts of the sequestrators to trace and recover NUM funds which had been transferred abroad. In early December further legal action by working miners had led to the removal of the NUM’s trustees and the appointment of an official receiver. These were, of course, principally questions for the courts. However, even with the full armoury of the law, there were such difficulties in tracing the funds that the sequestrators might not even have been able to cover their costs. Accordingly, Michael Havers told the Commons on Tuesday 11 December that the Government would indemnify them against the loss. We could not stand by and see the intention of the court frustrated. We were also involved in trying to ensure maximum co-operation from foreign governments — Ireland and Luxemburg — in whose jurisdictions the NUM had lodged its money. Towards the end of January some £5 million was recovered.

If the position of Mr Scargill looked hopeless, that of the Labour Party looked ridiculous. There was another Censure Debate in the House of Commons at this time in which I spoke for the Government. As on the previous occasion I challenged Mr Kinnock to tell us where he stood, even if belatedly:

The real question now was how and when would the strike end. In early February the numbers returning to work were again down because of the prospect of a resumption of talks. The TUC continued to seek to act as an intermediary between the NCB and the NUM. By this time, the NCB had rightly deduced that in negotiations they should put everything on paper so that there was less chance of the NUM leadership distorting it for their own tactical advantage. For his part, Mr Scargill continued to confirm in public that he would not agree to the closure of pits on economic grounds. Not surprisingly, working miners and their families were worried and perplexed by the continuing talk of negotiations. On Monday 4 February I wrote to the wife of a working miner to reassure her:

By this time, the NUM leadership could have no doubt about how far events had swung against them since the NACODS dispute the previous autumn. The NACODS leaders now began to press the NCB to resume negotiations and so assist the NUM. But, learning from past mistakes, the NCB avoided giving NACODS any excuse for a renewed threat of industrial action.

The TUC leaders also remained anxious to save the militants from humiliating defeat. But Mr Scargill clearly had no intention of budging: indeed he had already stated publicly that he would prefer a return to work without an agreement to acceptance of the NCB’s proposals. For its part, the NCB had told the TUC that there was no basis for negotiation on the terms still demanded by the NUM. I
recognized that, although their motives were decidedly mixed, the TUC leaders and particularly the General Secretary had been acting in good faith. They must have realized by now that there was no possibility of doing business with Mr Scargill. Consequently, when a delegation from the TUC asked to see me, I agreed.

I met Norman Willis and other union leaders at No. 10 on the morning of Tuesday 19 February. Willie Whitelaw, Peter Walker and Tom King joined me on the Government side. The meeting was good natured. Norman Willis put as fair a construction on the NUM’s negotiating stance as anyone could. In reply I said that I appreciated the TUC’s efforts. I too wanted to see the strike settled as soon as possible. But this required a clear resolution of the central issues of the dispute. It was in no one’s interest to end the strike with an unclear formula: arguments about interpretation and accusations of bad faith could provide the basis for another dispute. I could not agree with Mr Willis that there was evidence of a significant shift in the NUM executive’s position. I gave an assurance that the NACODS agreement would be fully honoured and that I saw no difficulties about implementing it. An effective settlement of the dispute required clear understandings about procedures for closure, acknowledgement of the NCB’s right to manage and to make the final decisions, and an acknowledgement that the Board would take the economic performance of pits into account when those decisions were made.