Originally Posted by
Once U shop, U can't stop
That Scargill was prepared to use flying pickets says much about the man.
Sounds daring and adventurous doesn't it "Flying Pickets".
But they threatened violence and death.
"The government failed to mount a serious challenge to Arthur Scargill's flying pickets during the 1972 miners' strike because they had secret police advice that any serious attempt to break the blockade of Britain's power stations was bound to lead to violence and deaths. The government failed to mount a serious challenge to Arthur Scargill's flying pickets during the 1972 miners' strike because they had secret police advice that any serious attempt to break the blockade of Britain's power stations was bound to lead to violence and deaths. The cabinet papers confirm that the emergence for the first time in the 1972 strike of the 1,000-plus flying pickets targeting power stations and coal depots"
"Scargill's pickets had succeeded in closing the gates of the West Midlands gas board's Saltley coke depot in Birmingham, where 100,000 tonnes of coal was stockpiled, even comes through the dry prose of the official minutes. Mr Scargill had been pouring men into Saltley for six days but the climax came on February 10 when Midland engineers on 24-hour strike arrived at the gates like "Prussian columns at Waterloo" and a crowd of 7,000 outnumbered the 500 police.
"Its enforced closure represents a victory for violence against the lawful activities of the gas board and the coal merchants. This provides disturbing evidence of the ease with which, by assembling large crowds, militants could flout the law with impunity because of the risk that attempts to enforce it would provoke disorder on a large scale," the home secretary, Reginald Maudling, told the cabinet. Ministers were told that the pickets were being paid £2 a day by the NUM to cover travel and food."
If we focus on Scargill's use of these pickets, exactly WHY the Notts miners broke away and why Scargill didn't legalise strike action, we have a clear picture of the militant, controlling, violence-endorsing man he was.