Page 181 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 160

COMMUNICATING POLITICS
p. 4). In the 1984–85 miners’ strike, notwithstanding the bitterness and vio-
lence which accompanied the dispute, National Union of Mineworkers’
leaders, and Arthur Scargill in particular, pursued a determinedly pro-active
communication strategy, using the media where possible to disseminate the
miners’ positions to NUM rank and file members, other unions and the
British public as a whole. Scargill, like Edwardes before him, appeared in
television interviews only if he was ‘live’ and in complete control of the use
made of his remarks. Indeed, his readiness to make public defences of the
miners’ case and the competence with which he did so in the face of invari-
ably hostile interviewing techniques, made a sharp contrast to the evasive-
ness and lack of presentational ability demonstrated by National Coal Board
Chairman Ian McGregor, whose most memorable moment of the campaign
was to be filmed with a plastic bag over his head as he sought to avoid the
attentions of reporters.
Both the NUM and the management of British Coal broke new ground in
communication terms by accepting an invitation from Channel 4 News to
prepare contributions to the programme, over which they had complete
editorial control, outlining their respective arguments. The Coal Board spent
£4.5 million on advertising its case in the press.
Despite the energy and innovative flair applied by the NUM to its public
relations campaign, it failed to prevent the destruction of most of Britain’s
coal industry and a historic victory for the Thatcher government, still seeking
retribution for the miners’ role in the humiliation and downfall of the Heath
government. Explanations for the miners’ defeat have subsequently been
sought in the NUM’s failure to organise a pre-strike ballot and thus legitimise
the action among those miners who, in the absence of a ballot, chose to carry
on working. The strike came at a time when coal stocks were exceptionally
high, and the winter of 1984–85 was unseasonally mild. These factors were
undoubtedly important, though they constituted only some elements among
others in an overall environment which was much more hostile to organised
labour than had been the case ten years earlier. After the Falklands conflict
and its landslide election victory in 1983, the Thatcher government was near
invincible, as the miners found to their cost. Nevertheless, the public rela-
tions strategies employed by Scargill and the NUM leadership demonstrated
that even the ‘hard Left’ of British politics could, and should, engage in
persuasive political communication. Weakened by mass unemployment and
draconian anti-labour laws, the NUM and its partners in the trade union
movement were drawn more closely into the battle for public opinion.
In the years following the miners’ strike, while Conservative dominance
of government and continuing high levels of unemployment kept the unions
very much subordinate parties in industrial relations, skilled use of the media
produced many symbolic, if rarely actual, defeats for the government and
private employees. Disputes by ambulance drivers and nurses in the National
Health Service were characterised by the participation in media coverage of

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