2 FEBRUARY 1985, Page 4

Politics

Scargill's last grasp?

By the middle of this week, Mr Scargill was much better off than in the middle of last week. This seems to be the clearest fact about these confusing days. Last week, he had to face the largest number of miners since November returning to work; he had an executive meeting which, because of his hasty arrogance, was hurrying to expel Nottinghamshire from the union; he had no way of getting a grip on the dispute so that he could twist it to his advantage.

This week, he is gripping again, though his fingernails are white with the strain. There is no delegate conference sum- moned to expel Nottinghamshire, because negotiations have postponed it, may even allow it to be forgotten altogether. Also because of these negotiations, fewer than a thousand men broke the strike for the first time on Monday. And any set of negotia- tions involving Mr Scargill gives wide scope for what one might politely call his way with words. Talks about anything give people the idea that things are moving, and Mr Scargill likes motion. Even just before Tuesday's talks, Mr Scargill could be heard boasting about the rise in interest rates. The strike is much harder to sustain when all is calm and still, and freezing strikers have nothing to do but watch the persistent way in which the lights stay on, and their colleagues walk past them towards the pit gates.

Suppose that Nottinghamshire were driven out. The union would then be split in form as well as in fact. Splitting unions is something that no union leader is supposed to do, and it would be clear in this case that Mr Scargill had wanted the split. He would be remembered for that. Even if Mr Scargill managed to survive as leader un- censured and in control, he would no longer lead the National Union of Mine- workers, only a National Union of Mine- workers. Nottinghamshire would be its own union, and other moderate areas would want to join it. In Leicestershire and North Wales, the local leaders would probably encourage them to join. In Staf- fordshire and Lancashire, they probably would not, but men would join all the same. North Yorkshire and some of Scot- land would be tempted. The split would mean that, for the first time since the war, Nottinghamshire would be unambiguously `right-wing'. Until now, the Notts miners, who appear to be more sybaritic and less militant — more normal, in other words — than the Yorkshiremen, have tended to let union affairs slide, with the result that their leaders, such as the newly removed Henry Richardson, have been left-wing. A sepa- rate Nottinghamshire would be run by men who represented its views, like Messrs Lynk and Prendergast, the moderate lead- ers who have emerged in the course of the strike. The Coal Board would then have a distinct, powerful and sensible group of men to deal with. It would not always have to talk to Mr Scargill.

Instead of which, negotiations keep Mr Scargill at the centre of the drama. While they are in progress, no moderate likes to say anything conciliatory for fear of being called a traitor: the loudest criticisms of Government and Coal Board this week have been heard from just such men — Mr McKay of North Wales, Mr Trevor Bell, Mr McNestry of Nacods. The next few days, perhaps weeks, will be very trying.

All these doubts one hears expressed inside the Coal Board. There more than anywhere they feel the difference between the strength of their case and the weakness of their leaders. If it is not Mr Ned Smith 'exceeding his brief' in the last few weeks of his employment, it is Mr MacGregor upsetting delicate feelings and appearing to wish to prolong the strike. Mr Scargill's cunning is now more frightening than his industrial might. Might he outmanoeuvre where he has failed to beat down?

These fears explain why Mrs Thatcher, the Department of Energy and the Coal Board' never seem to agree about the minutiae of tactics. In the past week, Mr Michael Eaton was called upon to soften MacGregor's wish to 'have it in writing' from Mr Scargill, then to stiffen it, then to soften it once more, then to stiffen it (I think I may have left a couple of stiffenings and softenings out of the sequence). Mrs Thatcher wanted it written out a hundred times by Mr Scargill personally. Mr Walker didn't seem so bothered. In the end, a piece of paper seems to have appeared, but hardly anyone has seen it. It would be surprising if it said: 'I understand that I will agree to the closure of uneconomic pits. Please rush me my personal copy of the 'Maybe the pound will replace coal as fuel of the future.'

surrender document'; more likely it said: 'No preconditions'. At one stage, the Coal Board put out a press release about how the NUM would have to 'co-operate' in the closure of uneconomic pits, and then had to put out another press release withdraw- ing it within an hour.

The great comfort is that mistakes no longer matter quite so much. It has been known to the world since Nacods decided not to strike in October that Mr Scargill would not win. In the past few weeks, it! has become known to Mr Scargill too.; Even Walkerians believe that the offer' made to Nacods should and can be the. best; and Mr Scargill must be working out, a way to accept it. One has only to remember the main things that Mr Scargill has said and done over the past year to know that he will be humiliated. The debate over the precise degree of humili- ation does not seem very important. So long as he is visibly consuming wormwood and gall, that will do.

Knowing that it will win the strike, the Government may feel that it can put up with a certain amount of unjustified critic- ism without worrying. After the IRA hunger strikes, many people said that the 'nationalist community' had now lost confi- dence in the Government, that the IRA had been given martyrs and new recruits. After the miners' strike, Labour will com- plain for months about the terrible 'social cost' exacted by the Government. But in both cases, one will primarily remember who won.

We therefore know the answer to Mr Heath's unhappy question, Who governs Britain? Mrs Thatcher does, and she will not let us forget it. She will derive huge advantage from having successfully asserted the fact once and for all. But recognising that fact is not the same as liking it. Throughout the strike, there have been plenty of people who have adhered to the 'each as bad as the other' thesis, who have pointed out, in a pitying tone of voice, that there are no winners or losers in an industrial dispute. It is very important for such people's peace of mind to believe that Mrs Thatcher enjoys having a coal strike and that confrontations such as the present one would never happen if she were not on the scene.

Their point of view is catered for by Mr Kinnock, Mr David Steel and every mod- erate trade union leader, though not, which has been very important, by Dr David Owen. And Mr Scargill understands it too. In the last weeks, he can still blacken the Government's reputation, even if he cannot save his own. Won't- budge-an-inch is also ready-to-negotiate- at-any-time, and is creepily good at acting both parts at once. On Tuesday, the NUM refuses to move; Mr Scargill comes to the cameras to gloss the talks — the NUM put forward several 'constructive proposals'. Even now, there are people who want to believe him.

Charles Moore