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Welsh Affairs

The leaders of the miners' strike at that time predicted that the coal mines were going to shut. They were fighting for their very existence. It was important that they engaged in that fight and drew attention to the fact that those jobs were going to go. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that the Prime Minister at the time—the leader of his party—was hellbent on bring the miners' union down, by whatever means, and the miners knew it too. There were criticisms to be made of those leading the miners' strike, and they were indeed criticised subsequently. Nevertheless, they were right in their interpretation of what was going to happen to their industry.