So I'm finishing off a uni essay about the miners' strike 1984/5, and am pretty shocked at how little I knew about it really.

Obviously I knew:

Thatcher was bad.
She closed the mines.
The police used underhand tactics and were generally violent in order to try and undermine the strike.
The strike could very well have sent the country well up the shitter over winter, so Thatcher pretty much gave the police carte blanche...

But, never had a clue of the extent of the police's tactics, involving complete disregard for civil liberties/heavy violence which has as yet gone unpunished. For instance, over 7 months the police stopped 165,000 people from driving their cars into Nottingham, threatening anyone who refused to turn round with arrest under 'Breach of the peace' act.

Battle of Orgreave was one of the bloodiest police/protestor clashes, which subsequently resulted in a massive cover-up and charges against 95 people being thrown out of court because evidence given was clearly not credible. As always, no officer has been prosecuted in relation to it, although the South Yorkshire Police has recently referred itself to the IPCC so hopefully something will come out of that.

It seems that accusations of falsified statements/false evidence have largely been ignored, a bit like Hillsborough, but I had no idea of the scale of it, I guess.

Apparently there was a BBC doc about this a couple of weeks ago, anyone see it?

Think this sort of very modern history should be taught more in schools, ashamed that I was basically only informed by my vague anti-Thatcher knowledge and Billy Elliott.

Thoughts? Great thread I know.