Miners` strike anniversary

I can hardly believe that it all started 25 years ago this month. The questions of history rumble on. Could it have been won? Would it have gone on for so long with a different leadership in the NUM? Did the TUC betray the miners? Should there have been a national ballot of the union?All these questions, even with the benefit of the 20/20 vision that is hindsight, are impossible to answer convincingly. Could the strike have been won? Not unless it had been better timed. The Tories had been preparing the the ground for the strike long before it was called. Power stations had plenty of coal. If the strike had been deferred, the pit closure programme would have gone ahead unchallenged. What if Arthur had not been in a leadership position? McGahey was a shrewd operator and would possibly have left the back door open for negotiations that would have ended it earlier. But the Tories wanted blood & any settlement would have been written in the blood of miners. Did the TUC betray the NUM? Not really. Could they have done more? Absolutely. A levy from each subs paying union member of every TUC affiliated union might have allowed the miners to hold out for longer. But I doubt that the outcome would have been much different. Should there have been a ballot? Much was made of this in the aftermath of the strike. It should be remembered that the strike started spontainiously when the Corton Wood Lodge walked out. And I also doubt that the Nottinghamshire miners who continued to work throughout the dispute would have taken much notice of a ballot. One thing however, is clear. The miners` strike changed the course of industrial history. What can we learn from it? Hopefully that will be discussed on this thread. But as Michael Foot sagely observed: "If we are to fight the class war, we should first examine the terrain of the battlefield".