No hope of success

Strike: A Sunday Times Insight Book by Petcr Wilsher, Donald Maclntyre and Michael Jones, (Andre Deutsch; £9.95).
THERE is for most of us a spot just behind our ears which we can not really see, however cunningly placed our mirrors. And many of us seem to suffer from the same phenomenon with our memories; we can remember what happened yesterday or five years ago but there are spots between those limits which are extremely hazy.
At least, only so can I explain the reaction of a friend of mine who, when told I was reviewing a book on the coal strike added: "What coal strike?" and also the fact that some of the more dramatic moments of this account strike me with complete freshness in spite of my daily perusal of the papers over the period. Another possible explanation, of course, is that the strike which the authors tell me, no doubt accurately, was "the longest, bloodiest and costliest industrial dispute in the nation's history" was a colossal bore. Do not mistake me. Of course it was not a bore for those who took part. It was full of excitement for the young Yorkshire flying pickets, full of misery for the families of miners' putting up with the first real diminution of the social security system in modern times, full of a mixture of emotions for the police who had to take the punishment — and mete it out. But as spectator sport it was a flop and the reason was that the result was never in any doubt.
There were times when it seemed that the Coal Board was so incompetent that it could pick up a Royal Straight Flush and still lose the hand but, in the event, even they could not muck it. It is of course possible that some of what seems incompetence on their part was really low cunning, particularly it is just possible that at the beginning they "forced" a card on Arthur Scargill so that he had to call the strike on flimsy grounds at the worst possible time. But, looking at their ineptitude over the whole period of the strike, I doubt it.
Mr MacGregor is doubtless good at whatever he is good at, but that is no part of this book.
He is clearly not good at public relations during strikes. Nor does his deputy Jimmy Cowan emerge covered in glory. One of two Coal Board officials shine but as often as not they are quickly coshed by their own side.
And the crowning moment• came when, with nothing to do to defeat the strike except stop other Unions joining in, the Board behaved with such crass inefficiency that it practically forced NACODS (the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers) who had an unparallelled record of moderation, to join the strike.
Nor was the other side much more competent. I find the story of pickets beseeching the workers at Oldbury nuclear power station not to take deliveries of coal almost too absurd to be true, but undoubtedly, if it had been properly managed, the mass picketing could have been more effective than it was. And although the failure to call a national ballot, which if they had won it — and at one stage they might have — would have done more than anything else to bring the rest of the union movement in on their side, was the result of a genuine dilemma, basically the strike was on a hiding to nothing from the start.
It is indeed theatrically fitting that the actors should have been so incompetent because the play itself was a thing of tinsel, a farce, a play within a play. The strike was incompetent because it was not based on reality and the Board was incompetent (among other reasons) because it was not fighting an industrial dispute.
You do not have to be paranoiac to realise that, as
John Lloyd, the extremely able and moderate industrial editor of The Finanical Times,
summed it up "the real strike had a politically revolutionary dimension intertwined and indissoluble from its quite real industrial objectives" and Peter Walker, no rightwing tablebanger, after studying Scargill's career exhaustively, came to the conclusion that he, was a dedicated and astute Marxist revolutionary whose ambitions would lead him to challenge any government which stood in his way. After all he had said in a celebrated interview with New Left Review in 1975 that another crisis situation of the kind the coal industry underwent in 1972 and 1974 might produce conditions that made a socialist revolution possible.
If that was the motivation for the strike on the part of Scargill and the Far Left, then a lot which otherwise seems dotty falls into place. It was an appalling time to pick for a strike, but granted that Scargill, having attained the Presidency of the NUM, was determined to have one sooner or later, he would probably find himself on even worse ground the longer he left it. Indeed, even as I write, the papers are recording much lower demand for coal even than expected.
The .pstoplks who come on' of the story with the maximum credit are the Government. Nicholas Ridley in opposition foresaw the threat and started to lay plans to combat it (which may be one reason why in spite of all commentators forecasts he is still in favour with the Prime Minister), Peter Walker handled the situation coolly and with tact, refusing to escalate the drama, Mrs Thatcher stayed out of the row altogether (although when she finally tnet a TUC delegation they were extremely impressed by her "formidable and comprehensive grasp of the dispute") and the Treasury (Nigel Lawson at the helm) reckoned the whole affair was on a par with the Falklands and that any money spent on winning was "a good investment"
And what conclusions are we to draw? I suppose that there is a general conclusion about "horses for courses". This Government which is appalling at coping with an economy in gentle decline, is really rather good at dealing with head-on threats to the democratic process. Mr MacGregor who is good at slimming an industry is pretty bad at dealing with the human problems which arise from it. Mr Scargill is a poor Union leader but a reasonably competent Marxist revolutionary.
And there is possibly anodic] conclusion to be drawn and that is that a society should certainly have better ways of coping with its supplies of non-renewable fuels and the long-term communities who produce them than we have. One odd point about the strike is that Arthur Scargill who is adept at waving the Green flag when defending coal against nuclear fuel, never once tried to fly it on this occasion when it was even more apposite.
It is true that it would not have done him much good and that perhaps is the answer. But then not waving it did not do any good either!
And the truth remains that the country found itself locked in an important but narrow conflict with out anyone at any stage opening it up to examine these wider issues. And this book which tells us, no doubt extremely accurately, what happened stays in the same rut. Let us hope that someone is trying to think in more constructive and long-term categories. Would it be too much to ask the Churches, whose only efforts on this occasion hardly covered them with glory.
Perhaps the Anglican Bishop of Durham, whose name at least appears in the index of this book, unlike that of any other Churchmen of any Church, could do better next time and perhaps some others could join him.