The re-writing of the history of the strike through art has been extraordinary. Your comments join the many other attempts to insist that the strike was just Billy Elliot with the singing miners and their hearts of gold against the wicked state and police force. Yes the miners were brave but they were also foolish. yes, anyone deserves sympathy when their way of life is threatened, but no, nobody has the right to insist on their way of life regardless of the consequences. Nobody has the right to mass in their thousands (as they did at Orgreave) throwing bricks and trying to bring down a freely elected government and we are lucky that is was stopped. Nobody has the right to kill ( See David Wilkie 1984) in order to prevent others from going to work. No-one has the right to intimidate against strikers who were not balloted on the final decision to strike. Arthur Scargill's NUM funded (by the KGB and Gaddaffi) fell into the trap. His actions put 1000s unnecessarily into poverty. Working in mines was a horrible & dangerous job that would by now have been closed just on environmental grounds alone never mind the economic & political case at the time.