There came a point in my career when I stopped being a bean counter and found myself walking the carpeted corridors of Whitehall as a visitor to fill a new role. Rubbing shoulders with our leaders, even if only in passing, with offices full of bright young things running in the wake of MP’s with oversized polished desks, leather furniture and TV’s continually showing the news channels, it’s easier to understand their detachment from the real lives of the population they control. It’s a very long way down when you’re sat at the top of the ladder and those at the bottom must seem more like ants than people. Life in politics is about power and policy and precious little to do with the common man.
1984 should never have happened. In my opinion, the dispute should have gone to arbitration then there would not have been a ‘winner takes all’. With pay restructuring across the Industry, the lowering of coal prices to the Energy Industry and the loss of only those pits that were proved to be uneconomic, the Industry could have survived as a profitable enterprise until natural forces intervened, but it was not to be. Those who held the power, the government and the NUM, had other agenda’s to fill and no desire to be led by compromise.