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The miners’ dispute wasn’t industrial – it was political
When the miners marched back to work 30 years ago today after their epic strike against pit closures, Chris Kitchen was an 18-year-old miner at Wheldale colliery in Yorkshire. Now general secretary of the NUM, he recalls his experiences for the Star
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
Born on this day in 1931, the heroic revolutionary faces a dangerous new wave of White House aggression. We must treat his birthday as a rallying cry to resist the illegal siege of Cuba, writes ROGER McKENZIE
RAMZY BAROUD decries the rats of Gaza, the rodent and human type. Both abound as profiteering from tragedy reaches obscene levels
I started in the pits in 1982, fresh from school in the only job I had ever wanted to do. I was proudly following in my father’s footsteps, as he had done with his.
I remember the personnel manager saying: “You have a job for life here lad, look after it, keep your head down, watch what you are doing and do what you are told and there will be a job for your son in years to come.”
Between ’82 and ’84 I followed what at the time seemed his good advice and although there was a sense that things were changing it never crossed my mind that the pit would close. There had always been a pit and for generations my family had always worked in it.
Similar stories
Forty years on, TONY DUBBINS revisits the Wapping dispute to argue that Murdoch’s real aim was union-busting – enabled by Thatcherite laws, police violence, compliant unions and a complicit media
![[Pic: Andrew Wiard]](https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2026-01/19860503_a_wiard_0002.jpg.webp?itok=w0tEojMk)
A handful of journalists at The Times faced a stark personal and political choice in 1986 – cross the picket lines for cash and career, or stand with organised labour at great personal risk. BARRIE CLEMENT recalls why refusing to scab at Wapping was not just an act of union loyalty, but a stand for the future of journalism
MIKE QUILLE applauds an excellent example of cultural democracy: making artworks which are a relevant, integral part of working-class lives
The Home Secretary’s recent letter suggests the Labour government may finally deliver on its nine-year manifesto commitment, writes KATE FLANNERY, but we must move quickly: as recently as 2024 Northumbria police destroyed miners’ strike documents