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At the risk of betraying my old socialist principles, I've got to say that the miners strike of the '80's was the worst disaster to befall the Trade Union movement since the General Strike. Thatcher set the trap, and Arthur led his troops straight into it.
I don't think that the government deliberately set out to demolish the mining industry though, that was just an unhappy consequence. After the defeat of the NUM, capitalist priorities ran rampant, and the NUM in particular, and the Trade Union movement in general, was ill placed to fight it.
Ted Heath fought a general election in the 1970's on the basis of 'Who runs the country? (in essence, the trade unions or the government). We are only now, in national terms, beginning to pay for the consequences of that conflict.
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That's Feargal, the station cat!
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