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The Miners' Strike, 1984-1985
Created by NHiley on March 3, 2010, 10:26 am. Report this group | FAQ
Categorized under: Other
A selection of one hundred cartoons from British national newspapers and magazines, covering the strike in the British coal mining industry, which lasted from March 1984 to March 1985.
The year-long Miners’ Strike was chronicled by all of the political cartoonists on British national newspapers. Most depicted the strike as a conflict of personalities, and most of their cartoons were sharply critical of Arthur Scargill and the NUM. As the cartoons in this selection indicate, they regarded the strike as a retrograde step, a march “Towards a Better Yesterday” in the words of one Observer cartoon.
A few national newspaper cartoonists were critical of the official response to the strike, but none condemned it. If Margaret Thatcher had plotted revenge it was only in response to the intransigence of Arthur Scargill; if the police were heavy-handed it was only in response to violence by NUM pickets; and if the NUM was forced into defeat it was only through the arrogance of its leadership.
All records
An overview of all records in the group with annotations (where entered).
Showing records 1 to 12 of 100.
"O.K. Now let's find out how to handle massive unemployment and a miner's strike!"
Nicholas Garland
Daily Telegraph
" ... A youth who bore 'mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device." ("Excelsior" b...
Nicholas Garland
Daily Telegraph
"No! Mr Scargill's not using his hair dry blower - he's playing Russian Roulette"
Michael Cummings
Daily Express
In March 1984 the sixty-four year old Michael Cummings had been a cartoonist on the Daily Express and Sunday Express for thirty-five years. A staunch Conservative, he regarded the Miners’ Strike as a threat to the British nation, and an act of virtual suicide for the NUM.
In his Daily Express cartoons Cummings claimed to have “absolute freedom about the choice of ideas”: “What I usually do is rough out four or five ideas in pencil then present them to the editor in conference and we discuss which cartoon I'll do. There is a certain amount of give and take. He’ll hardly ever oppose my choice if I am dead keen on one particular cartoon.”
John Kent was forty-six when the Miners’ Strike began, and had been a contributor to the Daily Mail for nine years, alongside its principal political cartoonist Stan McMurtry (“Mac”). During the 1983 general election campaign the Daily Mail had commissioned Kent to draw an anti-Labour strip cartoon called “The Lefties”.
Kent consistently presented Arthur Scargill as a threat to the coal industry, both in the Daily Mail and in his cartoons for Private Eye and the London Evening News. In August 1985, as part of their campaign to leave the NUM, Nottinghamshire miners commissioned Kent to design thirty-foot high cartoons of Scargill urging “Lepers, outcasts, lend me your votes.” These recalled his warning during the Miners’ Strike that Nottinghamshire miners would be forever “lepers and outcasts.”
"We reckon stopping your right to work might save everybody a lot of problems, Arthur."
