Product Description

Margaret Thatcher branded Arthur Scargill and the other leaders of the 1984-5 miners' strike ;'the enemy within'. With the publication of this bestselling book a decade later, the full irony of that accusation became clear. There was an enemy within. But it was not the National Union of Mineworkers that was out to subvert liberty. It was the secret services of the British state - operating inside the NUM itself. Seumas Milne revealed for the first time the astonishing lengths to which the government and its intelligence machine were prepared to go to destry the power of Britain's miners' union. Using phoney bank deposits, staged cash drops, forged documents, agents provocateurs and unrelenting surveillance, MI5 and police Special Branch set out to discredit Scargill and other miners' leaders. Planted tales of corruption were seized on by the media and both Tory and Labour politicians in what became an unprecedentedly savage smear campaign. In this new edition, published for the twentieth anniversary of Britain's most important postwar social confrontation, new material brings the story up to date - and, in the wake of the Iraq war intelligence scandals, highlights the continuing threat posed by the security services to democracy today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12421 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 439 pages

Review
"A real-life thriller." - Evening Standard "One of the most remarkable demolition jobs ever." - Spectator "A tribute to detailed journalistic investigation ... strips away the myths and lies." - New Statesman "An astonishing book." - The Nation "Riveting. It knocks spots off the usual 'whodunnit'" - Guardian

About the Author
Seumas Milne is the Comment Editor and a columnist for the Guardian. He was previously the Guardian's Labour Editor and a staff journalist on The Economist. He is a joint winner of the "What the Papers Say" scoop of the year award and co-author of Beyond the Casino Economy.

Customer Reviews

Blistering reading
I bought this revealing book primarily to improve my facts of an event which happened when I was about 10 years old. My only real memories of the stike were images on the TV of police and miners clashing at picket lines.

What this book reveals is that even the reports I watched on the TV were 'spliced' to show the miners attacking the police first.

This must read covers dodgy legal professionals, machiavellian MPs, even shadier journalists, moles, and the unaccountability of MI5 which makes worrying reading.

Whilst explaining the important events of the 'conflict' Milne's remarkable work leads us through a modern history lesson of the current pathetic state of British politics, the fact there is no real difference between New Labour and the Tories. Unfortunatley the miners strike helped many different organisations to exorcise the Right's nemesis, powerful trade unions and has taken away the mouthpiece of the working man and woman.

The style of writing is top class and facts are presented in an easily digestible fashion.

The truth at last!
Having grown up in a town in the heart of the Derbyshire coalfield, this book provided a fascinating insight into what really went on behind the Government orchestrated media campaign of the strike.

This book leaves us in no doubt that the powers that be are constantly at work in order to "protect us" from what they will tell us are threats, but really they are just removing what they perceive as a threat to their power. Shouldn't be such a surprise!

This book brings into sharp focus the main players in the campaign against the miners leaders and continues to engage the reader even when the events take complex turns. A fascinating read - well worth a look.

The "real" enemy within.
When newspapers pronounce the guilt of a high profile figure, they splash the story across the front-page. When it later transpires that the story is false, they may occasionally print a retraction or correction - but they usually "stick it inside somewhere" at the bottom of a page.

This excellent book provides a thorough account of the real truth behind the smear campaign of the early 1990's directed against the National Union of Miners and Arthur Scargill in particular. A campaign with one goal, but many players - the media, the Tory government and the security services - the objective of which was to follow through Margaret Thatcher's aim of ensuring the coal miners (and unions in general) would never again be in a position where they might hold the country to ransom, or bring down a government.

Seumas Milne's updated and exhaustive work exposes the truth, once and for all, about a campaign that ultimately failed because it was based on a foundation of lies and misinformation.

Milne only touches on the strike itself, and twenty years on there is a real need for a similarly exhaustive study of the 84-85 miners strike to accompany this book (hopefully written by an correspondingly impartial observer), so that students and historians can in the future, fully understand the lasting significance of these events.

The book itself in extremely well written and makes easy reading. If I have one criticism, it would be regarding Milne's explanation of the truth about the "Libyan money". The point is clearly made quite early on, but reiterated and re-explained too often afterwards.

Forget Michael Moore's rants about the corruption and lies in the US: read this book and discover some home truths about those that we entrust with our money, our lives and our security in this country.