1
What was the Battle of Orgreave?
The National Union of Mineworkers organised a mass picket at Orgreave on 18 June 1984 to prevent deliveries of coal arriving at the coking plant.
Police deployed horseback charges and 6,000 officers from around the country in an attempt to stop the miners blocking the deliveries.
As violence erupted on both sides, mounted police forced the miners up a field as stones and missiles were thrown. Around 95 people were charged with riot and violent disorder, but cases collapsed and South Yorkshire Police were later required to pay compensation.
Yvette Cooper, chairwoman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "The committee wants to establish what information on Orgreave the Government and police still have that has never been published. The Home Secretary's agreement to make public 30 further files on Orgreave is welcome.
"We are seeking further information and I have now written to a further 18 police forces involved in policing the incident to ask what related written information they hold which is not in the public domain. I have specifically asked the Metropolitan Police whether they hold the operational policing plan for Orgreave."
Miners return to work. March 1985
Not all miners stuck to the strike, with some becoming what came to be known as 'blackleg' workers – those who continued working, crossing the picket lines erected by the strikers to return to the pits. It divided families and brought entire communities to a halt.
At the beginning of March 1985, the NUM voted to return to work. It was a decisive blow for Thatcher's anti-union politics and neo-liberal economics, and industrial action across other sectors dropped significantly for many years after 1985.
Coal mining never fully recovered. The much-reduced coal industry was privatised in December 1994, ultimately becoming UK Coal. In 1983 Britain had 174 working pits but by 2009, there were six. Poverty increased in former coal mining areas, and in 1994 Grimethorpe in South Yorkshire was the poorest area in the country.
Many still argue that some communities have still never recovered from the pit closures, while others say the often-dangerous business has been replaced by safer and more highly-skilled jobs.
ITV Report 11th December 2016
Government documents relating to events at the so-called Battle of Orgreave are due to be released next year among other records relating to the 1984 miners' strike, it has emerged.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd told the Home Affairs Select Committee the documents would be among 30 files planned to be released to the National Archives.
The clash between police and strikers at the Orgreave coking works in Yorkshire became one of the bloodiest events of the dispute.
A further three files are said to be under consideration for release by the Home Office.
In a letter to the committee, Ms. Rudd said: "We intend to transfer all 30 of the remaining Home Office files to the National Archives, and are working to complete this as quickly as possible.The files should be publicly available at the National Archives in the first half of 2017."
The Home Secretary came under fire from campaigners when she announced in October that there would not be a parliamentary inquiry into the events at Orgreave
Vera Baird, police and crime commissioner of Northumbrian Police and a former Labour MP for Redcar, who acted for miners when she was a barrister, previously said she was "concerned" that the Home Office was still holding the files in light of Ms. Rudd's decision.
Profumo affair BBC News Nov. 2017
Tory minister John Profumo - who resigned over a notorious 1960s sex scandal - had a relationship with a Nazi spy, de-classified records suggest.MI5 documents suggest he had a relationship with German model Gisela Winegard in Oxford in the early 1930s.Dr Stephen Twigge from the National Archives said this could have exposed him to blackmail. In 1963 Profumo resigned as a minister after it was revealed he lied to MPs about his affair with Christine Keeler.The declassified papers - published on Tuesday - were compiled by MI6, the UK's foreign intelligence service, and then given to MI5, the domestic branch of the secret services, at the height of the so-called Profumo Affair.
In the letters, Winegards’ American husband Edward - who was her jailer when she was convicted of espionage - claimed that the couple separated in 1950 because of her "endearing letters from John Denis Profumo... written on House of Commons notepaper”. Secret Service papers state Profumo wrote to Winegard while he was an MP
Watch This Space
(Although I think I will be long gone by then)