Solidarity 147, 12 March 2009

The year-long miners’ strike, which started 25 years ago, was one of the most glorious events in working class history. It was also one of the most shameful. The glory lay with the miners who fought the Thatcher Tory government over its policies in the nationalised coal industry and in British society as a whole. The shame lay with the wretched trade union leaders who left the miners to fight alone and with the leaders of the Labour Party who refused to back them. The miners could have won. With the support of other trade unions they could have beaten Thatcher and driven her from office, as...

That just about sums up much of the sentiments expressed at the Saturday 28 February inaugural meeting of the Scottish Labour Representation Committee, which also doubled up as the formal launch of the Scottish People’s Charter. The Scottish People’s Charter (SPC) is the Scottish version of the People’s Charter (PC), currently being touted round sections of the trade union movement as the policy statement which should be adopted in response to the current economic crisis. Curiously, the only specifically Scottish element in the SPC, apart from its name, is the call for 250,000 new publicly...