Internet: You Failed Me!
Not much response to my plea for a book on the miners' strike, although I didn't expect a flood. Anyway, I did manage to find this:
With a title like that, its biases are rather clear, but I've already learnt that Scargill wasn't quite the corrupt person that I've always thought he was (the story back in the 1990s that he used union funds to pay for his house has since been described as 'entirely untrue' by the editor of the Mirror who commissioned it). So I'm expecting intrigue and shock! I'll let you know.
Posted by Ian at March 08, 2006 03:54 PM
I was going to link you to that and I'm not too clear now why I didn't. There's a reasonable In Depth page on the miners' strike on the BBC site as well (although I wouldn't expect any greater objectivity than you rightly infer is available in that book between the title and the Pilger quote). Guess I just forgot. I'm still planning to reply to your mail too.
Posted by: R on March 9, 2006 07:34 AM
I'm sure it's a paragon of balance throughout ;). Funnily enough, I finished GB84 last night, got to the final two pages where it helpfully said: "This book is a fiction, based on fact", and listed all its sources. So, erm, I should have checked there first!
I apologise in advance for the almost-hysterical tone I reached by the end of the email. I don't think I used the right words; perhaps not the death of ideology, but the death of a choice, perhaps? Given the shift of Cameron to acknowledge that part of the postwar settlement is here to stay, just like New Labour's trick of accepting Thatcherism to destroy the Tories in 1997...
Posted by: Ian on March 9, 2006 07:40 AM