The 1984-1985 miners’ strike was a ‘brutal clash’ between the Conservative government and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the events of which became televised extensively on an international scale.[1] During the documentary Only Doing Their Job? (1984) a Doncaster NUM member interviewed about the strike explains, ‘it’s made a lot of lads think about the black and the Asian communities in this country, and how they’ve been persecuted as well’.[2] The persecution he speaks of here is a persecution by the police force in 1980s Britain, a force which became increasingly politicised, adopting threatening, and in some cases aggressive, techniques to counteract the ongoing disputes of this period.[3] The specific years of 1984 and 1985 saw both the Handsworth riots and the largest miners’ strike of the decade, and are crucial in the discussion of policing and its highly visible nature during this period. The interactions with the police extended past these specific incidents and were an element of growing issues of race and class. Referred to as ‘Maggie’s Army’, the Conservative government’s relationship with the police had a considerable effect on their development, and how they were perceived by the public.
Historian Stephen P. Savage has outlined both of these events as significant developments in the discussion of policing during this period, specifically the issue of police accountability.[4] However, the media coverage of policing presented a different viewpoint to that of the communities experiencing policing. Confrontations with the police which represented a challenge to the maintenance of law and order were approached differently by television broadcasting and newspapers, both on a regional and national basis.[5] This essay will discuss how these events were portrayed within local broadcasting and national tabloids and draw lines of comparison between the experiences of striking miners and the black community in Handsworth. In order to so I will first contextualise the actions taken by Thatcher’s government which resulted in a militarisation of the British police force. Next, this essay will discuss the interactions between the police and the black communities of Handsworth, Birmingham. The primary sources utilised here will be the report by ATV on the night of the 1985 Handsworth riots, as there is a lack of first-hand media sources produced by the black communities involved in these riots.[6] Finally I will consider the portrayal by the mining communities of their interaction with the police, primarily within the documentary Only Doing Their Job?. This portrayal of the miner’s interaction with the police will be contrasted with the representation of the police by regional news and national newspapers in order to chart the growing debate about incidents between the police and miners. In contrast to the experience of the miners, black communities throughout England had been targeted by the police since the 1970s, questioning whether these incidents were a result of changes in policing techniques, or a product of continuity.[7] This examination will assess the information presented to the regional viewers within the local media and national newspapers, and the subsequent marginalisation of experiences by these communities.
During a radio interview broadcast on Razor’s Edge in 1986 John Alderson, former Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall, claimed he left the police force because the nature of police work had become ‘politicised’.[8] In order to consider why the police force had developed in this manner, and subsequently how this was portrayed in the media, it is important to first contextualise the relationship between the police and the government. Gerry Northam asserts that this process of change did not begin with Thatcher’s government, however actions taken by the government accelerated the change.[9] Prior to their election in 1979, the Conservative government had been critical of Labour’s record on crime and policing, thus when they came to power changes in the organisation and control of policing were drastic.[10] This is mentioned within the documentary Only Doing Their Job?, where one miner interviewed claims ‘what does she do as soon as she comes into power? She gives them [the police] an 18% pay rise’.[11] The reference to Thatcher as ‘she’ holds her directly accountable for the pay rise, which was thought to have installed a sense of superiority within the police force. Pay rises and increased central funding of the police force were followed by ‘the establishment of a police department in the Home Office which extended central control of police’.[12] These changes, though significant, were not as visible as the developments in policing tactics. From 1981 the tactics of public order control became increasingly militarised, and by the end of the decade every major city’s police force was armed with plastic bullets, CS gas and live firearms.[13] This policing revolution encouraged by the conservative government was captured by ATV, an Independent Television service for the Midlands region, in its Central Lobby programme on 12th April 1984. [14]
The short broadcast captured the activity around a vote in Sheffield by the leaders of the NUM, concerning whether or not to continue strike action. Outside of the building where the vote is taking place hundreds of miners have gathered and are being kept in place by the police. Towards the end of the broadcast a Canadian television broadcaster is interviewed, when asked if the scenes of police and miners in conflict will surprise the viewers in Canada, the broadcaster responds ‘it does surprise them, perhaps not as much as it would have surprised them five years ago, when the concept of the British bobbies battling it out on picket lines was perhaps not as common as it’s become in recent years’.[15] This evolution of the police from the ‘British Bobby’ to a military force established an alliance between the government and the police. However, this was not necessarily a consistent representation within the media discourse surrounding the events of 1984-1985, this lack of consistency is significant as the news media acted as ‘the main source of information and beliefs used to form the interpretation framework’ for events.[16]
Northam’s assertion that the militarisation of the police was accelerated rather than initiated by Thatcher’s government is supported by the treatment of black communities in Handsworth, and other predominantly non-white communities throughout England. The 1980s saw riots in Liverpool, Brixton and Notting Hill, amongst other areas, and these riots were thought to have been instigated by insensitive policing of black communities.[17] After the first Brixton riots of 1981 a subsequent report by the Home Secretary, Lord Scarman concluded that these were ‘essentially an outburst of anger and resentment by young black people against the police’.[18] This report, along with other incidents, initiated the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984.[19] Though the act ‘contained a thorough overhaul of the existing law defining police powers and evidence in criminal trials’ and made arrangements for community consultation, it also increased police constables’ stop and search powers. The ability to exercise power where it was seen fit aggravated already poor police relations, as black youths in particular felt targeted. Crimes such as drug possession were stereotyped as ‘black crimes’ and drug raids often escalated into rioting as a result of these extensions of power.[20] Research on policing conducted in the 1970s, ‘indicated that racism and racial prejudice in police culture were more widespread and more extreme than in wider society’.[21] Thus race was a cause of conflict and the rioting in predominantly black areas demonstrated the frustrations of these communities.
Footage broadcast on ATV of the Handsworth riots are a crucial representation of the relationship between the police and the black community of Handsworth. Broadcast on the 10th September 1985, the Central News programme shows shots from the riot and interviews with the people of Handsworth. Though Handsworth was a predominantly BME community the first interview prioritises the white Chief Superintendent Donald Wilson who claims ‘this sort of thing is so rare that anyone is caught out’.[22]
Despite the reoccurrence of rioting throughout Britain during the 1980s, the superintendent claims to be ‘caught out’, indicating a lapse in police understanding of issues. The interviewer, Richard Barnett, then asks, ‘have you any idea why this all started?’, to which the chief superintendent responds ‘no we haven’t any idea at all’.[23] In contrast to this, the two community leaders Gus Williams and Howard Reid acknowledge the police as instigators the riots. Williams explains, ‘it would appear through insensitive policing again, we’re now struck with this silly problem’.[24] By categorising the riots as ‘silly’ Williams indicates that this problem could have been solved or prevented without the intervention of the police. Williams not only holds the police accountable for the riot, but also for then exasperating the issue further with inappropriate tactics, he explains, ‘the police have brought in a pincer movement which has trapped some of the young lads who are throwing petrol bombs’.[25] Here Williams identifies the lack of care which the police have shown for the rioters, highlighting a sense of alienation between the police and the community despite the instigation of community policing under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.[26] This report demonstrated to the viewers the first-hand accounts of issues between the community and the police, the accusations of systematic insensitivity highlighting a deeper issue within policing.
Though this broadcast offered insight into the community’s views of the Handsworth riots, it also portrays the dominant view that the police were not at fault. Barnett claims that the police had gone ‘out of their way to foster good relations’ before asking Wilson, ‘has tonight destroyed that?’, giving the impression that the police were the only group trying to improve relations. [27] A similar sentiment was expressed by Margaret Thatcher during a press interview after the riots, where she claimed ‘it can’t be done only by the police’ suggesting that a resolution required contribution from all members of the community, which had been absent until then.[28] Suggestions such as this were in a clear effort to maintain the position of police in British society as a respectable and safe force. Despite these efforts the issues of race which were at the root of the conflict between police officers and black communities had been publicised since the 1970s, predominantly within newspapers. In 1975 The Times reported on a debate between the Expenditure Committee concerning the need for more ‘coloured’ police constables.[29] The report detailed the viewpoints given by the committee about the matter, describing where ‘great importance’ had been given a subject, thus providing the reader with a comparatively more objective account than ATV reports. The consistency of newspaper reporting between 1970 and 1985 concerning the police and BME communities emphasises that this was a continual source of unrest, however one which was not willingly acknowledged by the local media of Birmingham. After the rioting in Handsworth, a background report was broadcast on ATV in an effort to explain the situation.
The report details the inhabitants of Handsworth and their issues within British society, summarising ‘Handsworth as it appears has always been a volatile multi-racial area’.[30] The report also accuses the West Indian communities of having ‘shrunk into a world of their own’, accusing the community of the alienation between themselves and the rest of British society. [31] Teun A Van Dijk has explained how ‘white press engages in an overall strategy of positive self-presentation of the white ingroup (especially of the authorities and other elite groups), and negative other-presentation of the alien outgroups’.[32] Utilising Van Dijks concept, by questioning the ability of West Indian people to assimilate with British society, the report implies an unwilling on the behalf of the black community, presenting them negatively. Furthermore as the footage of Handsworth from ATV often shows a heavy police presence, suggesting a protective and authoritative influence around the disruptive area, this demonstrates a positive presentation of the police force, therefore race was present but unfairly represented. These representations question the extent to which ATV could bring matters to the public attention without imposing its own views, particularly in comparison to newspaper reports, instead offering the local viewers a reserved and conservative view of the violence.
The alienation of the police from communities became most visible during the miners’ strike of 1984 and 1985, when acts of aggression on the part of both the miners and the police was broadcast almost regularly. This industrial conflict became a visual display of the new police attitudes and tactics which had developed through Thatcher’s government. In comparison to the black communities of Handsworth, those involved in the 1984-1985 miners’ strike were somewhat unaccustomed to the treatment they received from police. Recalling his involvement with the strikes V. L. Allen has claimed ‘the violence that is implicit in strikes invariably becomes explicit when police turn up’.[33] Similarly to the issues in Handsworth, here the police are viewed as inciting violence. This is a sentiment which was captured by the documentary Only Doing Their Job?.
https://vimeo.com/album/3219609/video/118026861
Created by a team of independent film and video makers, Only Doing Their Job?, was one of six films produced for the Miners’ Campaign Tapes.[34] Though these tapes were produced in support of the miners and therefore constructed in a manner which shows the miners in a positive light, the documentary also uses footage taken from picket lines alongside interviews with miners and miner’s wives. During the documentary, NUM member, Dave Douglass is interviewed, and states ‘when a person becomes a policeman he has sold his class interests, he has crossed a class line’.[35] Despite both the police force and mining communities being predominantly white groups, there was a conflict which was reminiscent of the altercations between police and black communities, while this cannot be attributed to race, the new organisation of the police force under Thatcher had raised the issues of class which Douglass identifies. It is in this manner which the mining communities experienced the newly politicised nature of the police, bringing them into alignment with the black community. John Alderson also spoke of this within his interview for Razor’s Edge by explaining, ‘the Conservative Party has tended to see the police as almost part of the Conservative Party, which has again further alienated people from the police’.[36] The working-class miners on strike viewed this as a mutual relationship through which the police adopted the attitude of the ruling classes.[37] While the documentary did not have as large a viewership as ATV, those who saw the documentary were witness to a push back from the mining community against policing. Though the ‘constitutional weakness of accountability facilitated the use of police to defeat one side of an industrial dispute’, the striking mining community used media in the form of the Miner’s Campaign Tapes to fight back against this facilitation within the established order.[38]
Whilst this discourse of class consensus was present within the mining groups involved in police conflict, the mainstream media produced differing messages. Again ATV promoted ideas of stability, portraying police as a protective force, who worked to maintain peace between striking and working miners. Broadcast on 29 March 1984, ATV’s Central Lobby reported on the conflict between groups of miners as some continued to work on despite the strike order from NUM leader Arthur Scargill.[39]
South Derbyshire miner’s wives are interviewed, one expressing her gratitude to the police by claiming, ‘if those policemen hadn’t been down at Cadley hill, how would any of them [working miners] have gotten past 1200 pickets?’[40] In this way the dispute is only portrayed as a conflict between the two groups of miners, the police acting as a protective force, defending those who wanted to continue with work against those who did not. The solidarity between local broadcasting and the police was replicated to a certain degree by the national newspapers in the initial months of the strike. At the outset of the strike, April 1984, The Times published an article titled ‘Thatcher endorses police conduct in miners dispute’, which summarised a recent interview with the Prime Minister where she complimented the police for the way they had ‘kept open a man’s right to go to work unmolested’.[41] At this point the police were not viewed as handling the dispute violently, this may be due to a reluctance on the part of the newspapers to be seen as in favour of the strike movement. However, as the strike progressed more criticism arose in the media, this is commented upon within Only Doing Their Job?, where one NUM member explains, ‘it’s only now that the media in general are allowing it to be shown’.[42] This is evidenced by a later Times article, published in October 1984, concerning a report on the violence between miners and the police, with the headline ‘Working miners catalogue strike’s violence, intimidation and abuse’. [43] This article offered a timeline of attacks both on miners and the police, providing readers with a more balanced view than some few months before. The change in media coverage indicates that the perceived involvement of the police in the dispute had altered, there was later acknowledgement about the confrontation between the police and miners. Though the issue of class was not brought to the forefront of the media discourse, the changes in policing were brought to reader’s attention by newspaper coverage of the strike.
The events of 1984-1985 drew the differing communities of black groups and miners into alignment through the shared experience of police insensitivity and mistreatment, however the media did not ultimately present these experiences objectively or consistently. ATV reinforced the conservative perception that the nature of policing was unchanged, police were there to protect the communities as a service. While this was the message sent out by local television broadcasters, the national press offered a more varied view. The issues of race in policing was a consistent topic in newspapers prior to the rioting in Handsworth, and though the issues of class were not evident in the mainstream news, the mistreatment of miners came to light through the development of the strike action. As asserted by Northam, developments in policing under the Conservative Government exacerbated existing problems of race and disrupted class consensus. These developments resulted in a growing discourse surrounding the police, fronted by the communities who had increasingly negative experiences with them. Therefore media such as Only Doing Their Job? and other broadcasts which included interviews with members of the community provided viewers with alternate interpretations to that presented within the established framework.
[1] S. Buckley, ‘The State, the Police and the Judiciary in the Miners’ Strike: Observations and Discussions, Thirty Years on’, Capital & Class 39 (2015), 314.
[2] Miners Campaign Tape Project, ‘Only Doing their Job?’, August 1984, Media Archive for Central England (hereafter MACE), University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3219609/video/118026861 at 16.39
[3] Gerry Northam, Shooting in the Dark: Riot Police in Britain (United Kingdom: Faber & Faber, 1988).
[4] Stephen P. Savage and Lynton Robins, eds., Public Policy Under Thatcher (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990).
[5] E. Cashmore and E. McLaughlin, eds., Out of Order? Policing Black People (United Kingdom: Routledge, 2013), 43.
[6] Central News, ‘Handsworth Riot’, first broadcast 10 September 1895, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3219883/video/117268696
[7] Cashmore and McLaughlin, Out of Order?
[8] Liz Jackson, ‘Policing in Thatcher’s Britian’, Police Issues, August 1986, 179.
[9] Northam, Shooting in the Dark, 142.
[10] Timothy Brain, A History of Policing in England and Wales from 1974: A Turbulent Journey (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 56.
[11] Only Doing Their Job?, at 18.57
[12]Nigel Fielding, The Police and Social Conflict (Portland, OR: Routledge Cavendish, 2005), 74.
[13] Northam, Shooting in the Dark, 30.
[14] Central Lobby [Programme 054] extract, first broadcast 14April 1984, MACE, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3219609/video/117254244.
[15] Ibid, at 03.05.
[16] Teun A. van Dijk, Elite discourse and racism. Newbury Park, Calif. London Sage Publications 1993, 242.
[17] Tony Jefferson, ‘Policing the Riots: From Bristol and Brixton to Tottenham, via Toxteth, Handsworth, Etc’, Criminal Justice Matters 87 (2012), 8.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, Legislation Gov [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/contents, accessed 12 April 2016].
[20] Ben Bowling and Coretta Phillips, ‘Policing Ethnic Minority Communities’, in Handbook of Policing, eds Tim Newburn (Devon: Willan Publishing, 2010), 2.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Central News, ‘Handsworth Riot’, at
[23] Ibid, at 02.01.
[24] Ibid, at 02.15.
[25] Ibid, at 02.28.
[26] Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
[27] Ibid, at 04.00.
[28] ‘Thatcher on Handsworth riots’, British Universities Film & Video Council [http://bufvc.ac.uk/tvandradio/lbc/index.php/segment/0012600168018, accessed 26 Apr 2016].
[29] ‘Improvement In Police Recruitment: More Coloured Constables Wanted’, The Times, 11 July 1975.
[30] Central News, ‘Handsworth Background Report’, first broadcast on 10 September 1985, MACE, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3219883/video/117268695, at 02.25.
[31] Ibid, at 03.31.
[32] Teun A Van Dijk, ‘Racism and Argumentation: Race Riot Rhetoric in Tabloid Editorials’, in Argumentation Illuminated, eds F.H Eemeren (Amsterdam: SICSAT, 1992), 243.
[33] V. Allen, ‘The Year-Long Miners’ Strike, March 1984-March 1985: A Memoir’, Industrial Relations Journal 40 (2009), 283.
[34] ‘The Miners’ Campaign Tapes’, British Universities Film & Video Council [http://bufvc.ac.uk/dvdfind/index.php/title/av72438, accessed 10 Apr 2016].
[35] Only Doing Their Job?, 19.14
[36] Jackson, ‘Policing in Thatcher’s Britain’, 179.
[37] Only Doing Their Job?, 19.04.
[38]Fielding, The Police and Social Conflict, 73.
[39] Central Lobby [Programme 052], first broadcast 29 March 1984, MACE, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3219609/video/136596221.
[40] Ibid, at 03.59.
[41] ‘Thatcher Endorses Police Conduct In Miners’ Dispute’, The Times, 10 April 1984.
[42] Only Doing Their Job?, at 09.14.
[43] ‘Working miners catalogue strike’s violence, intimidation and abuse’, The Times, 6 October 1984.
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