The Downing Street Years

by Margaret Thatcher

  The pattern which seemed to be emerging was for working miners to establish a ‘bridgehead’ at a strike-bound pit: fifty or more of those most anxious to return would go in together, often on a Thursday or Friday when their action attracted least attention. After that things could move quite fast. The increase in production was bound to be slower than the rate of return to work, but the trend there was also clearly in the right direction.

  The one thing which could be relied upon to slow down the progress was further negotiations: and so it proved. When news broke of ‘talks about talks’, which were arranged between the NCB and the NUM on Monday 21 January, the effect was to cut the rate of return to rather less than half that of the previous week.

  Meanwhile, public attention increasingly focused on the attempts of the sequestrators to trace and recover NUM funds which had been transferred abroad. In early December further legal action by working miners had led to the removal of the NUM’s trustees and the appointment of an official receiver. These were, of course, principally questions for the courts. However, even with the full armoury of the law, there were such difficulties in tracing the funds that the sequestrators might not even have been able to cover their costs. Accordingly, Michael Havers told the Commons on Tuesday 11 December that the Government would indemnify them against the loss. We could not stand by and see the intention of the court frustrated. We were also involved in trying to ensure maximum co-operation from foreign governments — Ireland and Luxemburg — in whose jurisdictions the NUM had lodged its money. Towards the end of January some £5 million was recovered.

  If the position of Mr Scargill looked hopeless, that of the Labour Party looked ridiculous. There was another Censure Debate in the House of Commons at this time in which I spoke for the Government. As on the previous occasion I challenged Mr Kinnock to tell us where he stood, even if belatedly:

  Throughout the strike the Rt. Hon. Gentleman has had the choice between standing up to the NUM leadership and keeping silent. He has kept silent. When the leadership of the NUM called a strike without a ballot, in defiance of union rules, the Rt. Hon. Gentleman stayed silent. When pickets tried by violence to close down pits in Nottinghamshire and elsewhere, against the democratically expressed wishes of the local miners, the Rt. Hon. Gentleman stayed silent. When the NUM tried to impose mob rule at Orgreave, the Rt. Hon. Gentleman stayed silent. Only when the General Secretary of the TUC had the courage to tell the leadership of the NUM that its tactics were unacceptable did the Rt. Hon. Gentleman take on the role of Little Sir Echo … I challenge the Leader of the Opposition. Will he urge the NUM to accept that agreement or will he not? [Hon. Members: ‘Answer!’] He will not answer, because he dare not answer.

  The real question now was how and when would the strike end. In early February the numbers returning to work were again down because of the prospect of a resumption of talks. The TUC continued to seek to act as an intermediary between the NCB and the NUM. By this time, the NCB had rightly deduced that in negotiations they should put everything on paper so that there was less chance of the NUM leadership distorting it for their own tactical advantage. For his part, Mr Scargill continued to confirm in public that he would not agree to the closure of pits on economic grounds. Not surprisingly, working miners and their families were worried and perplexed by the continuing talk of negotiations. On Monday 4 February I wrote to the wife of a working miner to reassure her:

  I do understand your fear that the NUM leadership may yet evade responsibility for the misery they have caused — but I believe that the Coal Board have been, and are being, resolute about their position. For my part, I have made clear that there can be no fudging of the central issue, and no betrayal of the working miners to whom we owe so much …

  By this time, the NUM leadership could have no doubt about how far events had swung against them since the NACODS dispute the previous autumn. The NACODS leaders now began to press the NCB to resume negotiations and so assist the NUM. But, learning from past mistakes, the NCB avoided giving NACODS any excuse for a renewed threat of industrial action.

  The TUC leaders also remained anxious to save the militants from humiliating defeat. But Mr Scargill clearly had no intention of budging: indeed he had already stated publicly that he would prefer a return to work without an agreement to acceptance of the NCB’s proposals. For its part, the NCB had told the TUC that there was no basis for negotiation on the terms still demanded by the NUM. I recognized that, although their motives were decidedly mixed, the TUC leaders and particularly the General Secretary had been acting in good faith. They must have realized by now that there was no possibility of doing business with Mr Scargill. Consequently, when a delegation from the TUC asked to see me, I agreed.

  I met Norman Willis and other union leaders at No. 10 on the morning of Tuesday 19 February. Willie Whitelaw, Peter Walker and Tom King joined me on the Government side. The meeting was good natured. Norman Willis put as fair a construction on the NUM’s negotiating stance as anyone could. In reply I said that I appreciated the TUC’s efforts. I too wanted to see the strike settled as soon as possible. But this required a clear resolution of the central issues of the dispute. It was in no one’s interest to end the strike with an unclear formula: arguments about interpretation and accusations of bad faith could provide the basis for another dispute. I could not agree with Mr Willis that there was evidence of a significant shift in the NUM executive’s position. I gave an assurance that the NACODS agreement would be fully honoured and that I saw no difficulties about implementing it. An effective settlement of the dispute required clear understandings about procedures for closure, acknowledgement of the NCB’s right to manage and to make the final decisions, and an acknowledgement that the Board would take the economic performance of pits into account when those decisions were made.

  THE END OF THE STRIKE

  It was now evident to the miners and to the public that the TUC were neither willing nor able to stop events taking their course. Large numbers of miners were going back to work and the rate of return was increasing. On Wednesday 27 February the magic figure was reached: more than half the members of the NUM were now not on strike. On Sunday 3 March an NUM Delegates’ Conference voted for a return to work, against Mr Scargill’s advice, and over the next few days even the most militant areas returned. That Sunday I gave an interview to reporters outside No. 10. I was asked who if anyone had won. I replied:

  If anyone has won, it has been the miners who stayed at work, the dockers who stayed at work, the power workers who stayed at work, the lorry drivers who stayed at work, the railwaymen who stayed at work, the managers who stayed at work. In other words, all of those people who kept the wheels of Britain turning and who, in spite of a strike, actually produced a record output in Britain last year. It is the whole working people of Britain who kept Britain going.

  And so the strike ended. It had lasted almost exactly a year. Even now we could not be sure that the militants would not find some new excuse to call a strike the following winter. So we took steps to rebuild coal and oil stocks and continued to watch events in the coal industry with the closest attention. I was particularly concerned about the dangers faced by the working miners and their families now that the spotlight had moved away from the pithead villages. In May I met Ian MacGregor to emphasize how vital it was that they should receive the necessary consideration and support.

  As an industrial dispute the coal strike had been wholly unnecessary. The NUM’s position throughout the strike — that uneconomic pits could not be closed — was totally unreasonable. Never while I was Prime Minister did any other group make a similar demand, let alone strike for it. Only in a totalitarian state with a siege economy — with nationalization, the direction of labour and import barriers — could the coal industry have functioned, even for a time, irrespective of financial realities and the forces of competition. But for people like Mr Scargill these were desirable things. The impossibility of the NUM’s policy on pit closures is a further
clue — as if public statements were not enough — to the real nature of the strike itself.

  The strike certainly established the truth that the British coal industry could not remain immune to the economic forces which applied elsewhere in both the public and private sectors. In spite of heavy investment, British coal has proved unable to compete on world markets and as a result the British coal industry has now shrunk far more than any of us thought it would at the time of the strike.*

  Yet the coal strike was always about far more than uneconomic pits. It was a political strike. And so its outcome had a significance far beyond the economic sphere. From 1972 to 1985 the conventional wisdom was that Britain could only be governed with the consent of the trade unions. No government could really resist, still less defeat, a major strike; in particular a strike by the miners’ union. Even as we were reforming trade union law and overcoming lesser disputes, such as the steel strike, many on the left and outside it continued to believe that the miners had the ultimate veto and would one day use it. That day had now come and gone. Our determination to resist a strike emboldened the ordinary trade unionist to defy the militants. What the strike’s defeat established was that Britain could not be made ungovernable by the Fascist Left. Marxists wanted to defy the law of the land in order to defy the laws of economics. They failed, and in doing so demonstrated just how mutually dependent the free economy and a free society really are. It is a lesson no one should forget.

  * See pp. 139 — 43.

  * See pp. 379 — 83.

  * In fact, I have since seen documentary evidence suggesting that he knew full well and was among those who authorized payment.

  * See pp. 685 — 6.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Shadows of Gunmen

  The political and security response to IRA

  terrorism…1979–1990

  THE BRIGHTON BOMB

  As usual, by the end of the week of our 1984 Party Conference in Brighton I was becoming frantic about my speech. A good conference speech cannot just be written in advance: you need to get the feel of the conference in order to achieve the right tone. I spent as much time as I could working on the text with my speech writers on Thursday afternoon and evening, rushed away to look in at the Conservative Agents’ Ball and returned to my suite at the Grand Hotel just after 11 o’clock.

  By about 2.40 a.m. the speech…at least from my point of view…was finished. So while the speech writers themselves, who had been joined for a time by Norman Tebbit, went to bed, my long-suffering staff typed in what I was (fairly) confident would be the final changes to the text and prepared the Autocue tape. Meanwhile, I got on with some government business.

  At 2.50 a.m. Robin Butler asked me to look at one last official paper…it was about the Liverpool Garden Festival. I gave Robin my view and he began to put away the papers. At 2.54 a.m. a loud thud shook the room. There was a few seconds’ silence and then there was a second slightly different noise, in fact created by falling masonry. I knew immediately that it was a bomb…perhaps two bombs, a large followed by a smaller device…but at this stage I did not know that the explosion had taken place inside the hotel. Glass from the windows of my sitting-room was strewn across the carpet. But I thought that it might be a car bomb outside. (I only realized that the bomb had exploded above us when Penny, John Gummer’s wife, appeared a little later from upstairs, still in her night clothes.) The adjoining bathroom was more severely damaged, though the worst I would have suffered had I been in there were minor cuts. Those who had sought to kill me had placed the bomb in the wrong place.

  Apart from the broken glass and a ringing fire alarm, set off by the explosion, there was a strange and, as it turned out, deceptive normality. The lights, thankfully, remained on: the importance of this played on my mind for some time and for months afterwards I always kept a torch by my bed when I was staying the night in a strange house. Denis put his head round the bedroom door, saw that I was all right and went back inside to dress. For some reason neither of us quite understands he took a spare pair of shoes with him, subsequently worn by Charles Price, the American Ambassador, who had lost his in the confusion of leaving the hotel. While Crawfie gathered together my vanity case, blouses and two suits…one for the next day…Robin Butler came in to take charge of the government papers. I went across the landing to the secretaries’ room to see if my staff were all right. One of the girls had received a nasty electric shock from the photocopier. But otherwise all was well. They were as concerned about my still only partly typed-up speech as they were for themselves. ‘It’s all right,’ they assured me, ‘we’ve got the speech.’ A copy went straight into my briefcase.

  By now more and more people were appearing in the secretaries’ room with me…the Gummers, the Howes, David Wolfson, Michael Alison and others, unkempt, anxious but quite calm. At this stage none of us had any clear idea about the extent of the damage, let alone injuries. While we talked, my detectives had been checking out as best they could our immediate security. There is always a fear of a second device, carefully timed to catch and kill those fleeing from the first explosion. It was also necessary for them to find a way out of the hotel which was both unblocked and safe.

  At 3.10 a.m., in groups, we began to leave. It turned out that the first route suggested was impassable and we were turned back by a fireman. So we went back and waited in the office. Later we were told that it was safe to leave and we went down by the main staircase. It was now that I first saw from the rubble in the entrance and foyer something of the seriousness of the blast. I hoped that the porter had not been injured. The air was full of thick cement dust: it was in my mouth and covered my clothes as I clambered over discarded belongings and broken furniture towards the back entrance of the hotel. It still never occurred to me that anyone would have died.

  Ten minutes later Denis, Crawfie and I arrived in a police car at Brighton Police Station. We were given tea in the Chief Constable’s room. Soon friends and colleagues started to arrive to see me. Willie Whitelaw came in. So did the Howes, accompanied by their little dog ‘Budget’. But it was Leon Brittan, as Home Secretary, and John Gummer, as Party Chairman, with whom I had most to discuss. At this stage none of us knew whether the conference could continue: had the conference hall itself been attacked? But I was already determined that if it was physically possible to do so I would deliver my speech. There was discussion about whether I should return to No. 10; but I said, ‘No: I am staying.’ It was eventually decided that I would spend the rest of the night at Lewes Police College. I changed out of evening dress into a navy suit and, as I left the Police Station with Denis and Crawfie, I made a brief statement to the press. Then we were driven at great speed to Lewes.

  Nobody spoke during the journey. Our thoughts were back at the Grand Hotel. Whether by chance or arrangement, there was no one staying at the College. I was given a small sitting-room with a television and a twin-bedded room with its own bathroom. Denis and the detectives shared rooms further down the corridor. Crawfie and I shared too. We sat on our beds and speculated about what had happened. By now I was convinced that there must have been casualties. But we could get no news.

  I could only think of one thing to do. Crawfie and I knelt by the side of our beds and prayed for some time in silence.

  I had brought no night clothes with me and so I lay down fully clothed and slept fitfully for perhaps an hour and a half. I awoke to the sound of the breakfast television news at 6.30 a.m. The news was bad, much worse than I had feared. I saw pictures of Norman Tebbit being pulled out of the rubble. Then came the news that Roberta Wakeham and Anthony Berry MP were dead. I knew that I could not afford to let my emotions get control of me. I had to be mentally and physically fit for the day ahead. I tried not to watch the harrowing pictures. But it did not seem to do much good. I had to know each detail of what had happened…and every detail seemed worse than the last.

  I bathed quickly, changed and had a light breakfast with plenty of black coffee. It was soon
clear that the conference could go ahead. I said to the police officer in charge that I must get back to Brighton to open the conference on time.

  It was a perfect autumn day and as we drove back into Brighton the sky was clear and the sea completely calm. I now had my first sight of the front of the Grand Hotel, a whole vertical section of which had collapsed.

  Then we went on to the Conference Centre itself, where at 9.20 a.m. the conference opened; and at 9.30 a.m. precisely I and the officers of the National Union* walked on to the platform. (Many of them had had to leave clothes in the hotel, but Alistair McAlpine had persuaded the local Marks & Spencer to open early and by now they were smartly dressed.) The body of the hall was only about half full, because the rigorous security checks held up the crowds trying to get in. But the ovation was colossal. All of us were relieved to be alive, saddened by the tragedy and determined to show the terrorists that they could not break our spirit.

  By chance, but how appropriately, the first debate was on Northern Ireland. I stayed to listen to this but then left to work on my speech which had to be completely revised. Michael Alison (my Parliamentary Private Secretary) and I retired to an office in the Centre where we removed most of the partisan sections of the speech: this was not a time for Labour-bashing but for unity in defence of democracy. Whole new pages had to be written, though there were tough sections on law and order which could be used as they stood. Ronnie Millar then polished the text as he and I went through it. All the while, and in spite of attempts by my staff to minimize the interruptions, I was receiving messages and fleeting visits from colleagues and friends. I knew that John Wakeham had not yet been freed from the rubble and several people were still missing. A steady stream of flowers arrived which later were sent on to the hospital where the injured had been taken.