esportunity now to turn coal into le thriving, modern industry he dreams of. He should concentrate upon that task ard leave the talk to others. Talk is not his metier?
The reason for a paper such as the Telegraph distancing itself Ma Gregor's comments was not due to amy softness', either on the issue of an amnesty or on the NCB's so-called right Le Malacc vicious offensive against the NI'M is being, and will be, through by the NCB. But even Telegraph realised that the narrowly economic considerations had to be subordinated to the much more fundamental political ones.
It was exactly on the political field that the outcome of the strike almost universally analysed-as being different from anything which had been foreseen in March one year ago. Margaret Thatcher's off-guard remark during the strike, that she would 'never have believed' that the miners could still De out at Christmas, rellected genera iraculols.
Some immediate problems shown in the remarkable opinion polls produced after the strike. Harris polls in ihe Observer found 72 per cent of the population favoured some form amnesty for dismissed miners; 47 per cent, and 70 per cent of Labour Party supporters, believed that the miners had been right to go on strike against pit ¿losures, as against 46 per cent who" didn't.
The MORI poll for Granada TV's Union World found 57 per cent of miners supporting the national overtime ban, and 68 per cent ready to take industrial action against pit closures in their areas. Less than one in four miners believed they had suffered a defeat in the strike.
Perhaps most incredible of all, the Harris poll found 17 per cent of the population agreed with the statement that, the picketting tactics used by the miners ir the strike were justified'.
The last period of the strike a lso saw Thatcher's political support slipping sgnificantly. The poll in the Mail on Sardar showed the Tories' standing Ling to the same 35 per cent level as Labour and the Observer found the he lead had been cut to four per Bu: behind the immediate opinion ...... much more serious, - •em: created or revealed by ine have pre-occupied the press. On ..... a deld it was logical that, apart from sherment circles. by far the most from the Financial Times. Under the title 'The class warriors' battle is over, but the war goes on', paper's industrial editor, surveyed the illusions that the end of the strike represented a stabilisation or lne situation.
Lloyd's article started: 'It is important that the battle which the miners have just lost (a judgement on the war carried must be in suspense) was led by the inost the class conscious leadership group in the labour movement since the war. It was not just an industrial struggle of winsome-lose-some serious political movement and remains SU.
The article's assessment concluded: 'A battle is over; the war does continue.
Lloyd was also clear about what he considered to be the threat posed by the leadership of the NUM. 'Class fighters, like Arthur Scargill, Heathfield, Mr Mick their activist supporters have a collective notion of the achievement of socialwere ism which, though differing one from another in many important ways, agrees that it represents the rule of working class politics over society.
'In their view, that means public ownership of all substantial enterprises, greatly extended union higher provision of public services, a neutralist foreign and defence policy and an opening of at least the possibility countries "They are not old-style Leninists for whom bourgeois democracy is a total sham, although many miners' leaders, including some of the present ones, did believe this and Mr Scargill comes close. But they do believe parliamentarv movements are of at least equal importance democracy. In particular, the force of a 'In "bourgeois terms" any Labour government created and sustained by the success of such an exercise would be undemocratic. In class terms, it would be a supreme expression of the will of the most conscious organised workers.' Lloyd goes on to outline the dangers of the situation he saw longterm ruling class must respond. In particular, ne thought i ngcessary lot I to make a turn, to establish with 'moderate' trade union leaders.
Lloyd's analysis of this necessity is
Socialist Action 15 March 1985 5
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struggle in political terms (8 March). Industrial consequences were relegated second place.
militantly-led mineworkers' union, will- ing to exercise its industrial power to the