The miners strike during the 80's dominated the news coverage at the time and seemed to go on forever. It wasn't as simple as story as its commonly described today by the left, i..e that the miners were correct and the UK government were 100% wrong. But as its only the far left that ever talk about it, the narrative is rarely challenged.
This is a three part documentary about the strike which was initially cheered on by the ex miners and the left, although many of these cheers turned to boos. The reason being that this documentary looked at the bigger picture and uncovered bad behaviours on both sides of the debate.
The first episode covers the miners community and listens to the people who chose to strike as well as the ones who refused and ended up paying a heavy social cost for working for a wage. Episode two covers the largest pitched battle between the professional demonstrators and the police, which results in police brutality but also violence from the miners. However its the third episode which brings everything together and exposes the people who had the power of the unions and the state, and how the unions ended up being destroyed by the UK government. It also shows a side of the unions they would rather nobody saw, which was their intent to bring foreign agents who have an anti UK agenda into the fold, before this was thwarted by the press.
This series illustrates that in essence, the strikes were a waste of time and effort as their aim was to bring down the government, which was never going to happen. Like the recent documentary about the troubles, it shows that normal people are simply used as political pawns by bad actors, in order to further their intentions. Its clear from some of the talking heads, many of the miners still haven't been able to see they were being used politically. And some of them haven't recovered.
This series destroys the notion that the miners were innocent victims of "Maggie Thatcher", although she did use that strike to break the unions. Ironically it was because previous strikes had worked in terms of pay deals, the government had enough stock piles of coal regardless of how long the strikes lasted. While some people lament the decline of the unions after this episode, the coal mines were never going to last and unelected bodies were never going to be allowed to dictate how the country was run over an elected government.
This is a balanced documentary which will no doubt put some noses out of joint if they were expecting yet another pro-miner anti Tory narrative. This is warts and all and some of the warts are on the miners side.
This is a three part documentary about the strike which was initially cheered on by the ex miners and the left, although many of these cheers turned to boos. The reason being that this documentary looked at the bigger picture and uncovered bad behaviours on both sides of the debate.
The first episode covers the miners community and listens to the people who chose to strike as well as the ones who refused and ended up paying a heavy social cost for working for a wage. Episode two covers the largest pitched battle between the professional demonstrators and the police, which results in police brutality but also violence from the miners. However its the third episode which brings everything together and exposes the people who had the power of the unions and the state, and how the unions ended up being destroyed by the UK government. It also shows a side of the unions they would rather nobody saw, which was their intent to bring foreign agents who have an anti UK agenda into the fold, before this was thwarted by the press.
This series illustrates that in essence, the strikes were a waste of time and effort as their aim was to bring down the government, which was never going to happen. Like the recent documentary about the troubles, it shows that normal people are simply used as political pawns by bad actors, in order to further their intentions. Its clear from some of the talking heads, many of the miners still haven't been able to see they were being used politically. And some of them haven't recovered.
This series destroys the notion that the miners were innocent victims of "Maggie Thatcher", although she did use that strike to break the unions. Ironically it was because previous strikes had worked in terms of pay deals, the government had enough stock piles of coal regardless of how long the strikes lasted. While some people lament the decline of the unions after this episode, the coal mines were never going to last and unelected bodies were never going to be allowed to dictate how the country was run over an elected government.
This is a balanced documentary which will no doubt put some noses out of joint if they were expecting yet another pro-miner anti Tory narrative. This is warts and all and some of the warts are on the miners side.