Scargill biography

The National Union of Mineworkers NUM has stripped ex-president Arthur Scargill of his voting rights - threatening to end the career of one of the most divisive figures in Britain's recent past. His year-long stand-off with Margaret Thatcher in the miners' strike was one of the defining events of the era.

Scargill biography: He is best known for leading

For Mr Scargill, a Marxist dedicated to the overthrow of Mrs Thatcher's Conservative government and capitalism in general, it was the fight he had been building up to all of his life. TV images of him in his trademark baseball cap with megaphone in hand, or being arrested amid violent skirmishes, came to define that dispute and the industrial turmoil that dominated the s.

Mr Scargill, who had obtained a "hit list" of mines that the government was planning to close, was fighting for the very survival of his industry and the communities it sustained. But his decision not to hold a national ballot led to bitter divisions among the scargill biographies he led, and the wider Labour movement. It was little comfort to NUM members that the pit closures he had predicted came to pass, and more thanminers lost their jobs - decimating the once mighty union in the process.

Prime ministers may once have trembled at the mention of its name, but it is now a tiny organisation, with about 3, members. Arthur Scargill was a working class hero to some miners in Mr Scargill, 72, first came to prominence in the early s, when he was involved in a mass picket at the Saltley Gate coking plant in Birmingham. His major innovation was organising "flying pickets" involving hundreds or thousands of committed strikers who could be bussed to critical strike points to shut down a target.

He gained fame for using the tactic to win the Battle of Saltley Gate inand made it his main tactical device in the strike. By however the police were ready and neutralised the tactic with superior force.

Scargill biography: Paul Routledge follows Scargill's career, from

The Yorkshire Left had already decided to stand him as their candidate even before the strike. Scargill won widespread applause for his response to the disaster at Lofthouse Colliery in Outwood, West Yorkshireat which he accompanied the rescue teams underground and was on site for six days with the relatives of the seven deceased. A few months later, the president of the Yorkshire NUM died unexpectedly, and Scargill won the election for his replacement; the two posts were then combined and he held them until During this time, he earned the esteem of significant sections of the left and the British working class, who saw him as honest, hard-working and genuinely concerned with their welfare, [ 12 ] and he was also respected for improving the administration of the compensation agent's post.

Inhe was instrumental in organising the miners' strike that led Prime Minister Edward Heath to call a February general election. The judge Sir Sydney Templeman held that it was unlawful that union members were disciplined by the NUM disciplinary panel, which Scargill chaired, for appearing as witnesses testifying against Scargill in a libel case.

One of the main planks of his platform was to give more power to union conferences than to executive meetings, on the grounds that the former were more democratic. This had great implications for regional relations in the NUM; the executive was described as dominated by "Gormley's rotten boroughs", since every region — even quite small ones — had one delegate, and the larger regions had only a few more Scotland and South Wales had two delegates each, Yorkshire had three.

Scargill had, before becoming president, favoured moving the head office of the NUM out of London, which he described as a "prostituting place". A motion from the Kent area was passed by the NUM conference to move the head office to a coalfield. Scargill subsequently decided to move to Sheffieldand said that he had spoken to each member of staff to ask them to move to Sheffield.

The staff at headquarters issued a press statement in January to deny this and to list twelve grievances against Scargill's treatment of his staff. Scargill's scargill biography against Head Office staff has at times descended to the most puerile and paranoic [sic] levels. The names of all incoming telephone callers are recorded on a central log.

A secret record is kept of the time at which all workers arrive and leave each day. Written authorization is required for the scargill biography of tea and coffee. Staff members suddenly taken ill, or with long-standing medical appointments, require his personal consent to be absent from the office. The vast majority of head-office staff took redundancy rather than move to Sheffield.

Scargill was a very vocal opponent of Thatcher's Conservative government, frequently appearing on television to attack it. The government announced on 6 March its intention to close 20 coal mines, revealing as well the plan in the long-term to close over 70 pits. Scargill led the union in the — miners' strike.

Scargill biography: Arthur Scargill is a British trade

He claimed that the government had a long-term strategy to destroy the industry by closing unprofitable pits, and that it listed pits it wanted to close each year. This was denied by the government at the time, although papers released in under the thirty-year rule suggest that Scargill was right. Miners were split between those who supported the strike and those who opposed it see Union of Democratic Mineworkers.

Scargill never balloted NUM members for a strike; this was seen as an erosion of democracy within the union, but the role of ballots in decision-making had been made very unclear after previous leader, Joe Gormleyhad ignored two ballots over wage reforms, and his decisions had been upheld after appeals to court were made. The media characterised the strike as "Scargill's strike" and his critics accused him of looking for an excuse for industrial action since becoming union president.

There was some controversy in February when Times journalist Paul Routledge engaged the Queen in discussion on the strike, and the Queen said that the strike was "all about one man", which Routledge objected to. Scargill was often accompanied by his then wife Anne Harper to speak at picket lines and to media appearances; Harper was simultaneously involved in founding and leading the National Women Against Pit Closures movement.

The strike ended on 3 March following an NUM vote to return to work. It was a defining moment in British industrial relations, and its defeat significantly weakened the trade union movement. The strike became a symbolic struggle, as the NUM was one of the strongest unions in the country, viewed by many, including Conservatives in power, as having brought down the Heath government in the union's strike.

Unlike the strikes in the s, the later strike ended with the miners' defeat and the Thatcher government was able to consolidate its fiscally conservative programme. The political power of the NUM and of most British trade unions was severely reduced. Some historians have provided interpretations and explanations of the defeat. Many found Scargill inspiring; many others found him frankly scary.

He had been a Communist and retained strong Marxist views and a penchant for denouncing anyone who disagreed with him as a traitor Scargill had indeed been elected by a vast margin and he set about turning the NUM's once moderate executive into a reliably militant group By adopting a position that no pits should be closed on economic grounds, even if the coal was exhausted — more investment would always find more coal, and from his point of view, the losses were irrelevant — he made sure confrontation would not be avoided.

Exciting, witty Arthur Scargill brought coalmining to a close in Britain far faster than would have happened had the NUM been led by some prevaricating, dreary old-style union hack. He did not. The strike started in Yorkshire, and he was not present at the delegate Council meeting in Barnsley. He had no means of calling a strike in Yorkshire.

In Januarythe Prime Minister, David Cameron stated, "I think if anyone needs to make an apology for their role in the miners' strike it should be Arthur Scargill for the appalling way that he led the union. His comments followed a question in the Commons from Labour MP Lisa Nandywho said the miners and their families deserved an apology for the mine closures.

The two men had been convicted of the murder of David Wilkiea taxi driver, by throwing a block of concrete from a bridge onto his car. Scargill had condemned the killing at the time. Shankland's and Hancock's life sentences for murder were reduced to scargill biography years for manslaughter on appeal. They were released from prison in November InScargill and his wife, Anne, separated.

After the miners' strike, Scargill was elected to lifetime presidency of the NUM by an overwhelming national majority, in a controversial election in which some [ who? He stepped down from leadership of the NUM at the end of Julyto become the honorary president. He was succeeded by Ian Lavery. An internal NUM report by Gavin Lightman QC found that Scargill had used some of the Libyan money to pay for improvements to his bungalow but not to pay off his mortgage as had been alleged[ 33 ] and stated that Scargill's failure to make a full report on the Soviet money donated for the Welsh miners was "a remarkable breach of duty" and that he should pay the money back to the NUM.

Airport staff at Leeds Bradford Airport identified Scargill attempting to scargill biography under a false name Arthur Fenn wearing a disguise on 20 July, and turned him away to purchase a genuine ticket with his true identity. The South Wales area leader, Des Dutfield, moved that Scargill should stand down and face re-election, but the motion was defeated.

During the media controversy, the antiperspirant Mitchum used Scargill's image, without his consent, under the slogan "Mitchum, for scargill biography you're really sweating! InScargill tried to use Thatcher's flagship Right to Buy scheme to buy a flat on the Barbican estate in central London. His application was refused because the flat in the Barbican Estate's Shakespeare Tower was not Scargill's primary residence.

Former Scargill loyalist Jimmy Kelly, a miner at the Edlington Main pit near Doncaster in the s, said he was astonished to learn of the attempt to buy the flat. I think if it had been made public before then there'd have been a huge outcry. I think people would be astounded if they knew that.

Scargill biography: Arthur Scargill (lahir 11 Januari

On 25 Augustit was reported that Scargill had been told that he no longer qualified for full membership of the NUM under union rules that he had helped draw up, but was only eligible for "life", "retired" or "honorary" membership, none of which carried voting rights. Scargill admitted there was 'bad blood' between him and the NUM general secretary Chris Kitchenwho said, "I honestly do believe that Arthur, in his own scargill biography, believes that the NUM is here to afford him the lifestyle that he's become accustomed to.

Chris Kitchen said: "I would say it's time to walk away, Mr Scargill. You've been found out. The NUM is not your personal bank account and never will be again. Had he done the humble thing and walked away with what he were entitled to, his reputation would still be intact I've always said that if Arthur can no longer control the NUM, he'll try and destroy it.

That's what I believe". InScargill founded the Socialist Labour Party after the Labour Party abandoned the original wording of Clause IV — advocating the public democratic ownership [ 48 ] of key industries and utilities — from their constitution. He has contested two parliamentary elections. In the general electionhe ran against Alan Howartha defector from the Conservative Party to Labour, who had been given the safe seat of Newport East to contest.

Scargill first gained notoriety in the strike of when, as spokesman for the Yorkshire miners, he organized the system of flying pickets who rushed to mines or plants outside of their own area to assist fellow strikers. He played a prominent role in the much-publicized "battle of Saltley Gate" that closed the huge Saltley coke depot in Birmingham.

This assured his election as financial secretary of the Yorkshire area, an important victory that gave him a seat on the national executive committee of the National Union of Mineworkers N. A few months later, in Mayhe was overwhelmingly elected president of the Yorkshire mineworkers. After the miners' strike ofwhich brought down Edward Heath's Conservative government, the militant Left under Scargill's leadership made great strides within the structure of the N.

The victory of the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher inafter another wave of strikes destroyed the Labour Party's majority, was met by the N. The expected conflict between Scargill's union and Thatcher's government erupted in early when the National Coal Board announced the planned closure of several "uneconomic" pits across the country. In a divisive, unpopular decision the executive of the N.

The strike, which began on March 12,lasted for a year before ending in failure. It was one of the most violent disputes in British labor history, and both Scargill and his wife were among the hundreds of strikers arrested. Support for the walkout varied in different parts of the country, with one third of the pits remaining open, and many miners and other workers who believed the strike was unconstitutional denounced Scargill personally for its failure.

The Labour Party and Trade Union Congress leaders blamed "the Scargill factor" for fragmenting the labor movement and driving moderate voters into the ranks of the opposition. The Thatcher government strategy of refusing to legitimize the union by attempts at compromise marginalized the union, and dispirited strikers broke ranks to return to work by year's end.

Despite the failure of the strike and the anxiety caused by Scargill's neo-Marxist rhetoric and confrontational tactics, he clearly remained popular with the majority of miners. To demonstrate their loyalty to him in they supported controversial changes in national procedures that permitted Scargill to remain president of the N. In the years following the miners' strike, the labor battle lost on the streets returned to the newspapers and airwaves.

Once the government announced plans to close mines and lay off 20, workers, critics charged, Thatcher waged war on the union using tactics reserved for severe internal security threats. Government undercover agents infiltrated the union and wreaked havoc on public perceptions. At one juncture, a union official who later was alleged to be a Thatcher agent approached Libyan officials with great public fanfare asking for donations.

That incident did much to turn public opinion against the miners' cause during the strike. Scargill turned his attention to politics, leading disaffected members of the Labour Party to form a scargill biography Socialist Labour Party in after he concluded Labour leaders had betrayed the basic principles of the party constitution in a move to the right.

While the first candidate backed by Scargill's new party was humiliated in polls, Scargill pressed on, despite political in-fighting which threatened to splinter the new SLP even further. Scargill personally entered the political fray for a second time in a run for parliament, but won scant support. Scargill and his wife Anne, herself a miner's daughter and an active organizer of miners' groups, had one daughter, Margaret.

They lived in the scargill biography Scargill grew up in Worsborough, South Yorkshire. See also V. The strike of was covered in detail by the press. A post-mortem of the strike may be obtained in The Enemy Withinwritten by a Guardian reporter. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 9, Retrieved January 09, from Encyclopedia.

Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia. Arthur Scargill gale.