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
Teenage boy jailed for seven years for killing 80-year-old dog walker – as 13-year-old girl escapes jail sentence
The family of an 80-year-old man say they have “no sympathy” for the children who killed their loved one, as a 15-year-old boy was jailed for seven years and a 13-year-old girl escaped a custodial sentence.
Bhim Kohli was found lying on the ground in Franklin Park in Braunstone Town, near Leicester, on 1 September last year and died the next evening of a spinal cord injury.
He had been following a familiar routine, walking his beloved dog Rocky to the local park, just yards away from his home. But when he arrived at the park, he was approached by teens who attacked him.
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CCTV shows 80-year-old before attack
The jury at Leicester Crown Court heard a girl, aged 12 at the time, had pointed Mr Kohli out to a boy, who was 14 at the time, and who then subjected Mr Kohli to a brutally violent attack.
The 80-year-old grandfather was slapped about the face with a slider shoe and racially abused, before being punched and kicked while on the floor.
Mr Kohli suffered a broken neck and fractured ribs as a result of the attack.
Mr Kohli’s daughter, Susan Kohli
His daughter, Susan Kohli, who found her father lying on the ground following the attack, says it’s hard to find forgiveness for her father’s killers, regardless of their ages.
“Why should they be given grace for what they have done?” asks Ms Kohli. “They chose to attack a defenceless pensioner and for that I cannot give them any of my sympathy.”
Initially, the boy, now 15, told the jury he walked over to Mr Kohli, wearing a balaclava because the girl, now 13, had said Mr Kohli “carries a knife”.
But this was disputed in court, and the attack on Mr Kohli was described by the prosecution as “gratuitous violence against a man who was defenceless”.
While the girl involved never physically touched Mr Kohli, the court heard she had taken a photograph of him in Franklin Park just a week before he was killed.
Kelly Matthews, a senior district crown prosecutor
“If it wasn’t for her, things might have been very different,” said Kelly Matthews, a senior district crown prosecutor, who explained why the girl was also convicted of manslaughter.
“She was the one [who] pointed him out to the boy. Whilst the boy was attacking Mr Kohli, she filmed it. She encouraged him. She laughed, when violence was taking place,” said Ms Matthews.
Police community support officers at the scene in Franklin Park last September. Pic: PA
Ms Kohli says she still cannot understand why anyone, but especially “children of that age”, would want to attack an “old age pensioner”.
“You can see from his physique that he’s a very gentle, frail man. What was going through their heads?” she asks.
“That’s what I cannot get my head around.”
However, she believes the glorification of violence on social media played an element, and says “parents also have a part to play in it” to ensure their children’s social activity is being monitored.
The 15-year-old boy was ordered to serve seven years’ detention, and the 13-year-old girl was handed a three-year youth rehabilitation order by a High Court judge at Leicester Crown Court.
Mr Justice Turner called it a “cowardly and violent attack” on an elderly man who did “nothing to deserve” what happened to him.
He told the boy: “What you did was not one single attack which you immediately regretted, but two separate violent outbursts.”
He added: “I’m sure you regret he died because of what you did to Mr Kohli, but you still say it wasn’t your fault.
“It was your fault and the sooner you realise this, the better.”
He accepted, while the girl had encouraged the boy’s behaviour, she did not know he would use “anything like the level of violence he did”.
Speaking outside Leicester Crown Court after the sentencing, Ms Kohli said she is “angry and disappointed” the teenagers’ sentence does not reflect the severity of the crime.
“The death of my dad has left a hole in our family, a hole that can never be filled because of the actions of two teenagers on that Sunday evening last September,” she said.
“I believe on that day the two teenagers made a choice. The teenage boy chose to attack my dad and the girl chose to film him being attacked. They knew what they were doing.”
She added: “When they are released, they still have their full lives ahead of them. They can rebuild their lives. We can’t.”
A 20-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a 16-year-old boy died following a collision between an electric bike, a pedestrian and a car in Sheffield, police have said.
Emergency services responded shortly after 4.50pm on Wednesday to reports of an accident in Staniforth Road in the Darnall area of Sheffield.
South Yorkshire Police said it is understood that a grey Audi drove towards three electric bikes, colliding with one rider.
The car continued to travel following the crash with the electric bike and was further involved in a collision with a pedestrian.
The driver of the Audi failed to stop at the scene.
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Witness recalls giving CPR
Graphic CCTV footage of the incident appears to show the car veer into the opposite carriageway before hitting the 16-year-old pedestrian at speed.
Forensics officers at the scene. Pic: YappApp
Pic: YappApp
The boy was taken to hospital. Despite emergency treatment, he died as a result of his injuries. The boy’s family has been informed and are being supported by specialist officers.
An 18-year-old man, who was the rider of the electric bike, remains in hospital with serious injuries which are not thought to be life-threatening.
A 20-year-old man in Kent has been arrested on suspicion of murder. He remains in police custody.
Three people, a 45-year-old woman and two men aged 26 and 46, have been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender. All three remain in custody.
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Senior Investigating Officer in the case, Detective Chief Inspector Benjamin Wood, said: “This is a tragic incident in which an entirely innocent bystander, who was going about his daily business, has sadly lost his life. Our thoughts are with the boy’s loved ones, and we remain focused on securing justice for them.
“We know that this incident will have caused concern in the local community, and we have a team of detectives working at pace to piece together the circumstances which unfolded.
“We’re aware of footage being shared online and I’d like to reiterate our message to the public to withhold from speculating or circulating videos which may cause distress to the boy’s family.
“If you have any footage, imagery or information that may help our investigation then please share this directly with us – it may form an important part of our enquiries. We are also keen to hear from the riders of two electric bikes who were in the area at the time of the incident.”
A mother who abused her child so badly he had to have his legs amputated is to be released early from prison.
Jody Simpson and Anthony Smith were both jailed for 10 years in 2018 for torturing their son, Tony Hudgell, who is now 10.
Anthony Smith and Jody Simpson were jailed for abusing Tony
He was just 41 days old when he was assaulted by the pair and left untreated and in agony for 10 days.
The attack caused multiple fractures, dislocations and blunt trauma to the face, leading to organ failure, toxic shock and sepsis.
The damage meant both his legs had to be amputated.
Simpson was due to be released on licence at the halfway point of her prison sentence in August 2022.
However, then justice secretary Dominic Raab referred her case to the Parole Board and her release was put on hold.
A spokesperson for the Parole Board on Wednesday confirmed Simpson was set to be released.
Paula Hudgell, Tony’s adoptive mother, criticised the decision in a social media post.
“Tony has life long injuries every day he suffers due to her hands,” she wrote on X.
Tony’s case led to a public outcry and calls for child abusers to be given life behind bars.
Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, who led a campaign for the changes, which are also known as Tony’s Law, said on X: “I’m backing Tony as he faces the early release of his abuser – his birth mum.
“Tony lives every day with the pain caused by her crimes as a baby. We must do more to protect children like him.”
Tony has since gone on to be a successful fundraiser for charity – for which he has been honoured by the Royal Family.
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The Prince of Wales with Tony, who has raised millions for charity, during a Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace in May. Pic: PA
A statement from the Parole Board said: “We can confirm that a panel of the Parole Board has directed the release of Jody Simpson following an oral hearing.
“Parole Board decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community.
“A panel will carefully examine a huge range of evidence, including details of the original crime, and any evidence of behaviour change, as well as explore the harm done and impact the crime has had on the victims.”
It added: “Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.”
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A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This was a horrific crime that saw Tony Hudgell mercilessly tortured by his birth parents and our thoughts remain with him and his loved ones.
“Now that the independent Parole Board has directed her release, Jody Simpson will be subject to strict supervision and licence conditions. She faces an immediate return to prison if she breaks the rules.”
Smith was due for automatic release in early September 2022, but his early release was blocked at the time.
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