Adam Boulton: It’s 40 years since the most gripping news story I have ever worked on
Never mind elections, wars, revolutions, scandals and deaths, this week marks the 40th anniversary of probably the most gripping news story I have ever worked on as a journalist.
Gripping because there were vital economic, political and social issues at stake in this country.
Gripping because two powerful and exceptionally talented political leaders, Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill, faced off.
Gripping because, in their own way, both sides were right.
Gripping that everyone in the country was caught up in the 1984-1985 miners’ strike and conflicted about it.
Gripping above all, for me as a journalist at the start of my career, because the strike reshaped this nation for the future.
On 5 March 1984, 6,000 miners walked out in South Yorkshire at collieries in Cortonwood and Bullcliffe Wood. That day the National Coal Board (NCB) announced there would be “accelerated closure” of 20 pits.
On 12 March 1984, Arthur Scargill, the president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), called a nationwide strike.
It became the biggest industrial dispute since the general strike in 1926, with 26 million working days lost. It did not come to an official end until a year later, on 3 March 1985.
The NUM and the NCB came into existence after the Second World War. They were part of the consensus, shared by both Labour and the Conservatives, that took much of heavy industry into public ownership.
Arthur Scargill in 1984. Pic: PA
Scargill was a radical left winger who believed a perfect socialist society had never been achieved. Even so, he was right that defeat for the miners would lead to the end of a whole way of life in which the state supported workers and their families, regardless of market forces.
Before the strike he had likened the Thatcher government to “the Nazis” and called for “extra parliamentary action” against “this totally undemocratic government”.
Prime minister Thatcher was right that the deep mine coal industry was uneconomic and subsidised by taxpayers and had been declining in Britain, Europe and North America for decades.
Read more:
Previous strikes and what they achieved
Lessons to be learned from strikes past, present and what they mean for the future
After 200 years, one of England’s last coal mines is closing (2020)
In Britain there were around a quarter of a million coal miners in 1984 compared to a million in 1922. The number of working collieries was down from over 1,000 to 173. Britain was already switching away from coal as the primary source of energy to natural gas and nuclear. Thatcher was subsequently one of the first leaders to recognise the danger of global warming through hydrocarbon emissions but this was not a principle issue at the time of the strike.
Margaret Thatcher visiting Wistow colliery in 1980. Pic: PA
It was a febrile time in British politics. The previous summer, in the wake of military victory in the Falklands conflict, the Conservatives won a massive majority in the general election.
By the summer of 1984, Mrs Thatcher was calling the NUM “the enemy within”. She intended to elaborate on this theme in her party conference speech in Brighton in October, but it was disrupted by the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel.
Thatcher was committed to confronting trade union power.
She was well aware that a miners’ strike in the early 1970s had effectively destroyed Ted Heath’s Conservative government. During the three-day week in the winter of 1974 there were daily power cuts around the country. Ministers appealed to the public to wash in two inches of shared bath water. Mr Heath lost the 1974 General Election on the question “Who governs Britain?”.
Sheffield in 1984. Pic: PA
In the popular memory the 1984-1985 strike has been sentimentalised almost exclusively in favour of the strikers and their families. (James Graham’s recent TV series Sherwood is an exception).
During the strike the musician Billy Bragg and the filmmaker Ken Loach challenged audiences with the documentary Which Side Are You On?
Popular films since then, such as Billy Elliott, Brassed Off and Pride have centred on the solidarity of the mining communities and the aid they got from other anti-Thatcher movements including Women Against Pit Closures and Lesbians And Gays Support The Miners. The depth of the lingering passions is encapsulated in the Billy Elliot The Musical song Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher: “We celebrate today/ ‘Cause it’s one day closer to your death”.
In reality the miners were not united and the country was not united behind them.
Police and strikers at Orgreave Coking Plant near Rotherham in June 1984. Pic: PA
Scargill made the mistake of not holding a national ballot to strike. This meant that the Labour Party, then led by Neil Kinnock, a South Wales miner’s son, did not support the strike.
There was widespread public sympathy for the miners, who faced losing their livelihoods. But opinion polls during the strike showed greater, and strengthening, support for the employers over the strikers. Asked in December 1984 what they thought about the methods being used by the NUM and Scargill, 88% disapproved and 5% didn’t know.
There was near-unanimous backing for the strike in South Wales, Scotland, the North East, Yorkshire and Kent, where many of the richest seams were worked out. Other mining areas, especially Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in the Midlands, did not go out on strike officially.
Communities were divided. Many angry confrontations took place as local strikers, joined by flying pickets, confronted police protecting those who drove or were bussed into work.
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In Yorkshire, violence between thousands of police and pickets shocked the nation in the so-called “Battle of Orgreave” outside a coking plant. A miner died in a similar confrontation in nearby Maltby. Official statistics record that 51 miners and 72 police were injured at Orgreave.
It was impossible not to get caught in the existential drama.
A Sky News colleague recalls: “I remember my uncle being on strike when I was a kid and I stayed awake in the nights worrying that he wouldn’t be able to buy any dinner and that he’d starve.
“He’s since told me that he had a great time on the buses to London to protest and they had plenty of beer. He had a police officer pal who asked to stand opposite him during the riots so they wouldn’t kick each other too hard.”
Scargill had also miscalculated by calling the strike in the spring when demand for energy was going down. The government had learnt its lesson from previous strikes and ensured stockpiling for at least six months. Scargill liked to say that the visible mounds of coal were like the hair in his combover – piled high around the edges and bald in the middle. He was wrong.
Miners return to work at Betteshanger Colliery after the strike. Pic: PA
Later coal supplies resumed as more desperate miners went back to work, and their overseers in the separate NACODS union did not join the strike.
The government also tightened the law, including a squeeze on welfare payments to families, to make striking more difficult.
A breakaway Union of Democratic Mineworkers was formed. Working miners, encouraged by David Hart, a shadowy Thatcher advisor, went to court to successfully “sequester” the NUM’s assets, which prevented the union from funding the strike.
Meanwhile journalists exposed NUM officials were seeking financial support from the Soviet Union and Libya, although it is denied that any money was ever received.
The NUM was discredited. A return to work by defeated and desperate strikers became inevitable. Union power was decisively broken in de-industrialising Britain.
Scargill in Barnsley earlier this month. Pic: PA
Today all Britain’s coal pits are closed, although there is still some open cast mining in the reprivatised industry. Active NUM membership in 2022 was just 82.
To the shame of successive governments there is a legacy of social deprivation in many former mining areas. In a spirit of protest, those left behind there voted strongly for Brexit and then made up much of the “red wall” which switched from Labour to Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in 2019.
The Conservatives were elected twice more immediately after the strike, in 1987 and 1992.
At Westminster an early day motion has been tabled marking this anniversary, paying tribute to the men and women of the strike and demanding an inquiry into its policing. It has attracted the signatures of just 27 MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn and Ian Lavery, who succeeded Scargill as an NUM president.
Scargill is now president of the Socialist Labour Party and the International Miners’ Organisation. Aged 86 he is still making speeches, he supported Brexit and recently demanded solidarity with the Palestinians, according to The Socialist Worker.
For me there could have been no more useful education than reporting on, and seeing how others reported on, the personalities, the events and the issues of the great strike which divided the nation.
UK
Two terminally ill adults on opposing sides of the assisted dying debate meet to share their views
Philip and Clare are on opposing sides on the issue of assisted dying.
Last year, Sky News filmed them as they watched the country debate whether to change the law to allow it.
Now, the pair meet each other for the first time to let the country watch them debate.
Warning: This article contains descriptions of assisted dying and suicide throughout
Meet Clare
My name’s Clare and I live on a farm in North Devon. I’ve got two fabulous daughters, Chloe and Izzy. I have stage 4 breast cancer.
I’ve been campaigning for the assisted dying bill [Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill] to pass through Parliament. I’m looking forward to meeting Philip. I hope it’s not going to be an argument.
Meet Philip
The name’s Philip, and I’m from the Midlands where I live with my wife Pauline. I was given six months to live last year, I should be dead right now.
I’ve got pancreatic cancer. I’m against assisted dying – or assisted suicide, as I call it. I feel terribly sorry for Clare. I want nobody to be suffering.
The pair meet in Bristol – halfway between their addresses.
After greeting with a hug, Philip tells Clare his mother died of cancer when he was a young teenager.
Philip: She said, ‘God, please either heal me or take me.’ I realised that my mum must have believed and trusted in God. Now I keep saying to the doctor that I pray God will stop the cancer growing.
Clare: I think I’m similar about Mother Earth. Whilst I’m not a Christian, I’ve always had this acceptance and understanding that I’m part of a natural cycle.
I don’t have that need to fight death as much as I’m hearing from you.
Philip: I’m not aware of fighting, because in my terms, it would be a sheer waste of time.
Clare tells Philip she would like a “good death”.
Clare: In my garden, with my daughters, preferably one of them playing her guitar – it’s my paradise. I would like to have the choice, whether I took it up or not at the last minute, at a time and place of my choosing, when death is close, to be able to take something to hasten my death.
Philip: There could be a cure for what you and I have got, but we just don’t know. You don’t know what miracle is around the corner, and if you commit suicide, you’re robbing yourself of that opportunity.
Both agree that breaking the news of their diagnoses to their children was the hardest part of cancer. Clare says the disease has turned her liver “20 shades of grey”.
Clare: It’s pretty much gone to all my bones, except for my hands and feet.
Philip: Horrible.
Clare: Then there’s also the treatment. Did you have any Docetaxels?
Philip: I’m very grateful I have refused it all.
Clare: Have you not had any chemotherapy?
Philip: I’ve had nothing.
Philip warns Clare that if the Terminally Ill Adults Bill is approved, vulnerable people could be pressured into taking their own life. He’d rather leave his death in God’s hands.
Philip: I want to do what God says. So, I’m against assisted dying on those principles of the fact that no matter what safeguards you put in, you’re breaking, what I understand to be God’s plan and purpose.
Clare: When I got my diagnosis, the first thing I said to my consultant was, “well, thank goodness I can take my own life”. I’d been very consistent, and I was on my own in the room, nobody else with me. And I think I’m a sort of bright, intelligent person.
Philip: I didn’t say you weren’t.
Clare: I really understand the power of coercive control, the insidious nature of it.
Philip: I feel sorry for the poor suckers who are with you.
Clare: My daughters?
Philip: They’ve got to live with the fact that you died and they let you.
Clare: My daughters are completely supportive of assisted dying.
Clare says dying should be a personal choice.
Clare: It’s not about other people with terminal life-limiting disease or people with disabilities. It’s purely an option for Clare Turner.
Philip: If they alter the law for Clare Turner, they’ve got to alter it for everybody.
Clare: At the moment, over 300 people with terminal illnesses take their own life in pretty miserable situations, quite often alone, every year.
Philip: It’s financial. If it’s costing hundreds of thousands to look after you, just think what we could save if we bumped 20 of you off.
Clare: I find that quite offensive, Philip.
Clare: I guess I’m just not a cynical person.
Philip: I’m not a cynical person. I’m facing reality. I see how it’s been applied in other countries.
Show me Canada and Belgium have never altered their laws with regards to assisted suicide. You can’t. They’ve altered them totally.
Before they say goodbye, Clare gifts Philip honey made by bees that visit her garden.
Philip gives Clare a box of chocolates called Heroes.
“Anybody who is battling with cancer is a hero not to quit,” he says.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK.
In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
A man who has spent 38 years in prison for murder has had his conviction quashed – but insisted he is “not angry” or “bitter”.
The Court of Appeal ruling in the case of Peter Sullivan ends what’s thought to be the longest-running miscarriage of justice in British history.
He was found guilty of the 1986 murder of 21-year-old Diane Sindall, who had been beaten, raped and left in an alleyway in Bebington, Merseyside.
Diane Sindall was murdered in 1986. Pic: Merseyside Police/PA Wire
Mr Sullivan – who was jailed in 1987 – had always maintained his innocence and first tried to challenge his conviction in 2016, but the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) declined to refer the case, and he lost his own appeal bid in 2019.
Two years later, he again asked the CCRC to refer his case and new tests, ordered by the commission, revealed Mr Sullivan’s DNA was not present on samples preserved at the time.
At a hearing on Tuesday, lawyers for Mr Sullivan told the Court of Appeal in London that the new evidence showed that Ms Sindall’s killer “was not the defendant”.
Mr Sullivan attended the hearing via video link from HMP Wakefield, listening to his conviction being quashed with his head down and arms folded before appearing to weep and putting his hand to his mouth.
A relative in court also wept as the judgment was read out.
‘The truth shall set you free’
In a statement following the ruling, Mr Sullivan – now 68 – said: “I lost my liberty four decades ago over a crime I did not commit.
“What happened to me was very wrong, but does not detract that what happened… was a heinous and most terrible loss of life.”
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Peter Sullivan case explained
He added: “It is said the truth shall set you free. It is unfortunate that it does not give a timescale as we advance towards resolving the wrongs done to me.
“I am not angry, I am not bitter.
“I am simply anxious to return to my loved ones and family as I’ve got to make the most of what is left of the existence I am granted in this world.”
Outside court, Mr Sullivan’s sister Kim Smith said she was “ecstatic” at seeing her brother’s conviction quashed.
She told reporters: “We lost Peter for 39 years and at the end of the day, it’s not just us; Peter hasn’t won, and neither has the Sindall family. They’ve lost their daughter, they are not going to get her back.
“We’ve got Peter back and now we’ve got to try and build a life around him again. We feel sorry for the Sindalls and it’s such a shame this has had to happen in the first place.”
Mr Sullivan’s sister Kim Smith said she was ‘ecstatic’ after the ruling. Pic: PA
Barristers for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the DNA evidence was “sufficient fundamentally to cast doubt on the safety of the conviction” and that there was “no credible basis on which the appeal can be opposed”.
Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Bryan, said in light of the new DNA evidence “it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe” as he quashed the conviction.
Hunt for DNA match
Merseyside Police has confirmed detectives are now “carrying out an extensive investigation in a bid to identify who the new DNA profile belongs to, as to date there is no match on the national DNA database”.
Detectives are also contacting individuals identified in the original investigation to request voluntary DNA samples.
That initial investigation was the largest in the force’s history and, for many officers, the “frenzied” nature of the attack made it the worst case they had ever encountered.
Ms Sindall, who was engaged to be married, had just left her shift as a part-time barmaid at a pub in Bebington when her small blue van ran out of petrol.
Diane Sindall was killed after finishing her shift as a barmaid
She was walking to an all-night garage when she was attacked.
Mr Sullivan, who was 29 at the time and described as a loner, initially denied the attack but later signed a confession.
Questions have since been raised about whether he had proper legal representation during police interviews. Evidence related to bite marks on Ms Sindall’s body, considered crucial at the trial, has also since been called into question.
At the time of Mr Sullivan’s trial in 1987, DNA technology was not available and subsequent requests for new tests had been refused.
‘Nobody felt safe’
On the grass verge close to where Ms Sindall’s body was found, a memorial stone has been placed in memory of her and “and all of our sisters who have been raped and murdered”.
Her murder sent a chill through the community and led to the creation of the Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre on Merseyside. “Nobody felt safe, it was a very scary time,” said the centre’s Jo Wood.
A memorial to Ms Sindall on a grass verge near where her body was found
She says the uncertainty has resurfaced. “There’s someone out who killed Diane Sindall,” said solicitor Ms Myatt.
“The biggest fear we’ve got is of the unknown and now we’ve got an unknown. We don’t know who it might be. Who knows who this person is? Are we going to encounter him?
“We might have encountered him, we don’t know, we just know that he’s out there.”
Ms Sindall’s family told Sky News they did not want to comment on the case.
Mel John, landlord of the pub where Ms Sindall worked on the night of her death, said: “I’m glad he’s being released if he’s innocent. It has been a long time.”
Mr Sullivan is also aware, his solicitor says, of the impact on Ms Sindall’s family.
“We are very sensitive and respectful to the fact that there is a victim, Diane Sindall and her family, that will be affected by this process,” the solicitor said.
Tory MP Patrick Spencer has been charged with two counts of sexual assault at London’s Groucho Club.
The charges follow two alleged incidents involving two different women at the private members’ club, in Soho, in August 2023, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.
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Mr Spencer – who is the Conservative MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich – will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday 16 June.
A Conservative Party spokesman said Mr Spencer, 37, has been suspended by the Tories and had the whip withdrawn.
The Groucho Club in Soho, London. Pic: PA
The Metropolitan Police said he was charged after attending a voluntary interview at a London police station on 13 March this year.
Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS special crime and counter terrorism division, said: “Following a review of the evidence provided by the Metropolitan Police Service, we have authorised two counts of sexual assault against Patrick Spencer MP.
“The charges follow two alleged incidents involving two separate women at the Groucho Club in central London in August 2023.
“The Crown Prosecution Service reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are now active and that he has the right to a fair trial.
“It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”
Mr Spencer was first elected to Parliament last year with a majority of 4,290.
It is understood he was asked not to attend the parliamentary estate by the Tory chief whip while police enquiries were ongoing.
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “The Conservative Party believes in integrity and high standards. We have taken immediate action.
“Patrick Spencer MP has been suspended from the Conservative Party, and the whip withdrawn, with immediate effect.
“The Conservative Party cannot comment further on an ongoing legal case.”
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The Groucho Club, in Dean Street, opened in 1985 and became a renowned meeting place for A-list celebrities and others, including actors, comedians and media executives.
The club was named after the comedian and actor Groucho Marx, who reportedly once said he would refuse to join any club that would have him as a member.
It was originally set up as a more relaxed alternative to traditional gentlemen’s clubs, according to the venue’s website, which adds that members should be in the creative industry “and share the club’s maverick spirit”.
Before becoming an MP, Mr Spencer worked in finance for private equity firm IPGL, a company chaired by his father, former Conservative Party treasurer Lord Michael Spencer.
He later took a job at the Centre for Social Justice think thank before becoming a senior adviser at the Department for Education.
He made his maiden speech in the Commons in July last year during a debate on the MPs’ code of conduct relating to second jobs, during which he said the “most important thing to the people across my constituency” was “restoring a sense of moral probity and public spiritedness to our political system”.
Sky News has contacted Mr Spencer for comment.
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