The Enemy Within

by Seumas Milne

Margaret Thatcher branded the leaders of the 1984-85 miners strike “the enemy within.” With the publication of this book, the full irony of that accusation became clear. Seumas Milne revealed for the first time the astonishing lengths to which the government and its intelligence machine were prepared to go to destroy the power of Britain’s miners’ union. There was an enemy within. It was the secret services of the British state, operating inside the NUM itself.

Milne revealed for the first time the astonishing lengths to which the government and its intelligence machine were prepared to go to destroy the power of Britain’s miners’ union. Using phoney bank deposits, staged cash drops, forged documents, agents provocateurs and unrelenting surveillance, M15 and police Special Branch set out to discredit Scargill and other miners’ leaders. Planted tales of corruption were seized on by the media and both Tory and Labour politicians in what became an unprecedentedly savage smear campaign.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Journalism, Labor, British Literature, Ebooks

481 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 1994

About the author

Seumas Patrick Charles Milne is an English journalist and political aide. He was appointed as the Labour Party's Executive Director of Strategy and Communications in October 2015 under Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, initially on leave from The Guardian. In January 2017, he left The Guardian in order to work for the party full-time. He left the role upon Corbyn's departure as leader in April 2020.

Milne joined The Guardian in 1984. He was a columnist and associate editor there at the time of his Labour Party appointment, and according to Peter Popham writing for The Independent in 1997, was "on the far left of the Labour Party." Milne is the author of The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the Miners, a book about the 1984–1985 UK miners' strike which focuses on the role of MI5 and Special Branch in the dispute.

Reviews

[Simon Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE COAL WAR

Seamus Milnes book takes as it's starting point the 1990 Daily Mirror/Cook Report "scoop" regarding Arthur Scargill and his National Union of Mineworkers associate Peter Heathfield. They were accused of embezzling monies to pay off their mortgages from donations made by Libyan Trade Unionists during the 1984-85 Miners Strike. The story led to Scargill and Heathfield being subjected to a number of lawsuits from their own Trade Unions executive, as well as a variety of Government bodies, investigations by the Inland Revenue and the Serious Fraud Office and left Scargills reputation in tatters. After months of official investigations, it turned out that the accusations were entirely false: one didn't have a mortgage, the other had paid his off out of his savings. Not only that, but the one person who had been involved in fraud (not counting the then Daily Mirror proprietor Robert Maxwell who enthusiastically supported the false claims) was the Daily Mirrors and the Cook Reports single source: Roger Windsor, the leading non-elected officer of the NUM through-out the Miners Strike of 1984-85. The information that Milne collated for this book strongly suggests that Roger Windsor was an informer, or agent, for the security services whose head of Trade Union espionage during the Miners Strike was Stella Rimmington, later to be the first female head of MI5.

Milne goes beyond debunking the smear campaign against Scargill and Heathfield to looking at a variety of other issues surrounding the Miners Strike. The activities of the Media, the Conservative Party, the right-wing of the Labour Party, MI5, a disparate bunch of right wing loons (not to be confused with MI5!), Special Branch and GCHQ during the strike, and in the subsequent destruction of the NUM and the British Coal industry are forensically scrutinized. The story that emerges is an ugly one that reveals the reality of power in Britain's "Democracy", the systematic emasculating of the Trade Union movement during the 1980's, the beginnings of what became New Labour, and the subversive and undemocratic nature of the Security Services role in British political life (as was again made clear with regard to the role of MI6 in the campaign for the Iraq War in 2002-03).

Milne's book is dense with detail, clearly written and essential to a full understanding of the Thatcher period in particular, and the British political scene in general. As an example of investigative journalism "The Enemy Within" is exceptional, and one that I can't recommend highly enough to anyone who is serious about the real story of what was possibly the most important event in post-war British history.

[Mark Hebden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book thinking it was about the miners strike itself, the event, and though mistaken I wasn’t disappointed. It actually focuses on the aftermath of the strike, and the government and press collaboration (particularly Robert Maxwell’s Daily Mirror) in their attempts to discredit and criminalise the National Union of Mineworkers leadership, especially Arthur Scargill, with the aid of ever complicit security services. The lengths that the government went to in their witch hunt were truly extraordinary and made me feel quite ill. At times it was reminiscent of Enemy of the State, a terrifying film that you would think belongs firmly in the realm of fiction.

This is a great book showcasing the strength of a state machinery when it is used for political purposes. By the end I was thoroughly angry, which I think is the intention. To feel anything else would be quite inhuman. The title comes from a speech made by Margaret Thatcher in relation to the miners when she had referred to them as the enemy within, as opposed to the Argentineans; the enemy without. Flogging a dead horse was never beyond the Iron Lady. They tried to allege communist conspiracies, Soviet gold, Libyan links and attempted to portray the NUM leaders as having pocketed donated cash from workers for themselves. All of this was of course lies, but it didn’t stop the government saying it, the police investigating it, and the press declaring the accused guilty before proven so, or as it turned out, innocent. Certain stories at the time suggested that brown envelopes were changing hands packed with money from foreign unions, and indeed they were, but only after the government closed the bank accounts of the NUM and refused them access to their members contributions. Is it any wonder that cloak and dagger operations were introduced? They were used to circumvent the illegal sequestration of union funds.

The most shady figure in all of this is possibly the former NUM employee Roger Windsor, whom the book reveals to be a double agent working for MI5 (under Stella Rimington at the time) who refused to speak to the author regarding the events in question. Windsor’s position was to distort the legality of the behaviour of senior NUM officials and destabilise the industrial dispute from within, indeed perhaps he was the real enemy within. After the fact, Windsor became chief witness in the case against Scargill which has never been proved, a case which, if there had been any criminality on his part, the authorities would surely have discovered since they were not above making it up anyway.

Milne weaves this incredibly complex series of events together well and leaves the reader with no doubt as to what really happened in the aftermath of the strike, and indeed as most of us who live in the north of England now understand, just how vindictive the government can be when it wants revenge; that is to say, to the point of destroying manufacturing in this country for the sake of a political grudge.

[Felicity · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because I am a Union Rep and Activist and I wanted to learn more about the history of Trade Unions in The UK. What I took from it was an explanation for some previously inexplicable behaviour. There are a lot of people nowadays who disapprove or are afraid of Trade Unions. I believe that the various dodgy dealings of the press and government towards Scargill and The NUM are behind these peoples' negative opinions of the Trade Union Movement. History needs to be re-written to expose the real "Enemy Within" and this book does it incredibly well.

[Repix Pix · Rating 5 out of 5]

La misma guerra sucia que se hace aquí contra estibadores, controladores o partidos políticos de izquierda.
Una lectura muy dura pero muy necesaria.

[holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 as it was a tad longer than it needed to be. An exhaustive and gripping account of the ways in which the government, security services and the media colluded to infiltrate and undermine the trade union movement in the 80s and early 90s

[tara bomp · Rating 4 out of 5]

not a general history of the strike (although it has some stuff about it, and what it does say really whet my appetite for more - basically all the popular ideas about it are bullshit) it focuses on the manufactured scandal in 1990 of supposed embezzlement by scargill and shows how it was manufactured by intelligence services and with the acquiescence of Labour and the TUC. the extent of intelligence service infiltration and the dirty tricks campaign is kind of incredible and is the big takeaway from the book - it's important to realise how this stuff happens and how everyone vaguely left is a target for it. it's also clear that many right wing labour leaders were supportive and in some cases acted as paid informants for MI5. there's also a chapter about the changes in Soviet politics at the end of the 1980s that seriously affected the strike - the complete shift away from working class solidarity to focus on being a "respectable state"

if you're interested in the topic it's a really great book - honestly I'm still slightly disappointed it didn't have more on things during the strike itself but that's really verso's fault for advertising the book confusingly. a great piece of investigative journalism with important lessons for radical movements today

[Ipswichblade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can only be 5 stars. An excellent account of the 1984/1985 miners strike and the depths that the Thatcher government went to destroy what was a very profitable industry just because the awful woman had got into a hissy fit about the Tories being defeated by the miners in the seventies. The fact that the secret service MI5 etc spent time trying to discredit the NUM insyead of concentrating on more important issues is a lessonn from history that we shouldn't forget

[Jonathan Norton · Rating 5 out of 5]

By 1983, all of the British Left was working for MI5, apart from Ben Elton, who was entirely sincere in his socialist principles. The Soviet leadership was also controlled by MI6, and the stage was set for a sinister inter-departmental squabble to be played out by proxy using innocents who had no idea of the real meaning of their actions. When Thatcher realised the truth and couldn't accept it, she had to be removed.

[Rick Burin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The miners’ strike happened the year I was born and was one of the folk tales on which I was raised: a battle between good and evil in which evil won. I’ve learned to see it in slightly more nuanced terms since, but only slightly.

For all that Milne’s book about the dirty tricks campaign against the NUM is skewed – anyone confirming his hypothesis is trustworthy, anyone negating it a criminal, and Scargill a saint – occasionally stretches credibility or strays into irrelevance, it’s a fine, rigorous and relentless piece of investigative journalism, and chilling with it.

You won’t find a detailed play-by-play account of the year-long conflict here; this is a polemic plain and simple, which begins with a systematic takedown of the 1990 Daily Mirror/Cook Report smear campaign of Scargill, then delves into the role played by various pillars of ‘the establishment’ – including the press, Special Branch and particularly MI5 – in defeating the strike.

The book is humourless, dry and at times even vicious, with an additional tendency to exhume decades-old skeletons if newer ones aren’t forthcoming, but it’s thought-provoking and illuminating, and whether you go all the way with its author – and believe that one of the NUM executive was a secret service plant placed there to “fuck up” Britain’s most militant union – what Milne does conclusively prove is alarming enough.

He has since gone on to become Corbyn’s press secretary, which is a hard job but not as hard as he is making it look.

Hello to any MI5 officers reading this: please do keep my file nice and tidy. xx

[Marlon Austin · Rating 2 out of 5]

its v v shocking and interesting but written in quite a boring way and i feel a good 20 page summary would probably tell the story better. this is more suited to like an academic study of government interference in the NUM circa 1990 and i didnt really enjoy it despite how interesting it seemed to be.

[Ronan Doyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compelling stuff with a meticulous, evidence-based uncovering of the wheels turning behind the Scargill affair. Only minor quibble is the back-and-forth timelines tend to jar a little with the sheer scale of the detail, as though Milne knows he needs a little more narrative thrust to keep things moving but never quite nails the dual purpose.

[Paul Brewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The political event that radicalised me was the Miners' Strike in Britain during 1984-5. Before it I was a something of an alt-Righter avant la lettre; afterwards I drifted steadily left to the point that I became a fellow-traveller of the CPB-ML for a time, and remain very much to the left of the Labour party and have fallen off the legitimate political spectrum in the US altogether. Seamus Milne's book goes a long way towards explaining why.

The starting point of Milne's book is the broadcast on 5 March 1990 of 'The Cook Report', an investigative journalism programme shown on Britain's Independent Television Network. This presented some serious allegations about money that was supposed to support the miners during the strike instead being diverted to pay off debts of key leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers -- the president, Arthur Scargill, Peter Heathfield, the general secretary, and chief executive Roger Windsor. Windsor himself was the source of these allegations. As well as the television broadcast, the matter was taken up with enthusiasm by the Daily Mirror, owned by the fake tycoon Robert Maxwell. The British media, never one to support working-class self-organisation, leapt enthusiastically on the claims, which were given widespread coverage. Scargill's reputation, never high among people outside the Labour movement (nor within certain quarters of it either), was besmirched to the extent that it has never really recovered.

This is the problem Milne's book seeks to address. The allegations were total tosh. Chapter-by-chapter, Milne analyses the claims, reviews the evidence and concludes that there was nothing to it. The reality, in fact, was that the media didn't care about 'the truth'. All that mattered was the overall strategic goal, which was to destroy the capacity of the trade union movement to advance its claims to represent the interest of its members. The most powerful union in this regard had been the NUM, and its leader retained some clout within his constituency. The media campaign against him lasted some six months before it was quietly abandoned. The way propaganda works is to make a big noise at first, while the painstaking refutation of the 'evidence' is in its nature more subdued and piecemeal. (It's worth noting that Watergate, the exemplar of investigative journalism of the abuses of the powerful, emerged in a subdued and piecemeal way.) The campaign was a success insofar as most people remembered the allegations, and less recalled the refutation.

The nature of the tale is such that the book lacks a strong narrative flow. Instead, the thematic approach resembles a legal case during which the constant question is 'cui bono?'. The chapters build up from the original Cook Report broadcast, following from that moment to cover the specific allegations, its sources, the journalists and the role of Maxwell, the role of the Soviet Union and finally ending with the actions of the British Secret State, in particular MI5. Following Milne's research, it's hard to reject the idea that Cold War national security was the justification behind the security state's war on the Miners' Strike, despite it being quite obvious throughout that the Soviet government was none to keen on wholehearted backing of Scargill's strategy. In fact, it was a war against the serious threat that the left of Labour presented to the Establishment within a democratic system of party competition. The risk of the Labour party falling under the sway of the Left was too high, regardless of whether or not politics within the Labour party made such a scenario plausible. (The useless double-loser Neil Kinnock had made it clear he was not of the Left as of 1984, so it was actually fairly implausible, especially given the bad result the party had suffered in the 1983 general election.)

Milne's book reinforces my opinion that we in places like the United States, Canada and Britain don't live in the kinds of democracy that they teach us at school. There are carefully defined limits to what the Establishment will accept. If people push at those limits in a manner completely legitimate under the system, they will be slapped down by the full power of the police and security state. Far from listening to what MI-5/MI-6, the FBI/CIA or CSIS have to say, we should treat every pronouncement from them as a total lie and demand to see the evidence. Even if you hate the target of these national security voices, you should still utterly reject what they have to say. They are poisonous toads who are uninterested in a proper democracy.

[Tana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book years ago but totally forgot until recently when Robert Maxwell appeared on the news again due to his connections with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein (such a lovely bunch). Now Leon Brittan's name being connected to the Westminster Paedo Ring is beginning to make sense.


Introduction: The Secret War Against the Miners: brief but detailed history of Thatcher's governments attempts to break the power of the miners/unions and the lengths they went to including trying to replace cheap coal for expensive Nuclear Energy (where the consumer was passed the huge subsidy bills).
Even a retired CIA operative Miles Copeland, warned Scargill that MI5 & the CIA were after him (we all now know Maxwell, Epstein's protégé was connected to intelligence mostly Mossad)

Chapter One: Operation Cyclops: Maxwell (who not only was a disgusting Mossad asset) and thief of pension funds but also a massive liar who went out of his way to pretend a scope on Scargill using Libyan or Soviet money to pay off his mortgage.
These lies were told so that they could freeze the union's money on 25 Oct 1984 which would make strikes impossible.

Chapter Two: A Hidden Hand: the so-called Cook Report and TV documentaries drained the miners cash in legal fees.

Chapter Three: Dangerous Liaisons propaganda of showing Roger Windsor with Gaddafi was used to undermine the miners while secretly shipping loads of Libyan oil. Scargill distrusted Windsor who seemed to have his name on a Swiss Bank account (most probably a government plant to break the union)

Chapter Four: The Strange World of Roger Windsor as the previous chapter leads up to it, Windsor was working with security services. Turncoat.

Chapter Five: All Maxwell's Men a very relevant chapter now considering how Maxwell's name is appearing again due to his connections to Epstein.
Thatcher believed Maxwell (liar, Mossad agent and most probably connected to Paedo blackmail rings and thief) was "one of us" (seems as though she surrounded herself with (allegedly) weird perverts) like that creepy looking Leon Brittan.
This chapter deals with Maxwell's connections to espionage, how he played all major players from MI6 to the KGB. Vladimir Kryuchkov, KGB chief alerted other officials that Maxwell was a double (or may be triple/Mossad) agent.
Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist published a book that exposed Israel's nuclear-weapons-programme called The Samson Option. Hersh alleges that Maxwell helped Mossad capture Mordechai Vanunu, the dissident nuclear technician.
George Galloway, who has been maligned by the MSM was the MP who opened the floodgates against Maxwell (by using parliamentary privilege) to speak out of Maxwell's evil deeds which he prevented from being spoken of by using libel laws. Neil Kinnock (then Labour leader and I wouldn't be surprised if he was part of that Paedo Ring) supported that creep Maxwell over Scargill.

Chapter Six: Moscow Gold-Diggers US involvement in undermining communism in Eastern Europe e.g. Solidarnosc in Poland

Chapter Seven: Stella Wars didn't know John Le Carré was a former MI5 agent.
Stella Rimington, the first female director-general of the MI5 trying to bring respectability when they were really a smoother version of the Stasi. The Irish Labour leader Dick Spring called on the Haughey government to make a full disclosure on whether the British Government was abusing the Irish financial sector for it's own ends. The MI5 was actively working against Labour movements (using our taxpayers money to do so!!)

Conclusion: Who Framed Arthur Scargill? MI5 are a nasty bunch. Even Ted Heath said that they were acting ridiculous suspicious of anyone who was sympathetic towards workers. And their campaign to discredit Arthur Scargill using my parents taxpayers money is a disgrace. A curse on them all

Books that were later released that shows the extent to how vile this loathsome creature was:

[Moravian1297 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this is an exceedingly important work, meticulously researched and still completely relevant today, I've had to knock off a star because it does tend to, like a lot of other exposés and biographies, repeat itself quite often. It also gets bogged down in quite in depth detail about banking and money switching, which I found to be somewhat of a grind and to be quite honest, had me completely lost in those particular chapters for the most part.

It does however, lay bare the absolutely shocking if not surprising, incestuous complicity between government, the security and intelligence services and the media.
Highlighting the completely undemocratic, semi-fascist criminality used by the establishment to bring down their own citizens, whom they deem as a threat to their own privileged, duplicitous and corrupt way of life.

Even when the main accusations against the NUM leadership were quickly debunked and exposed as egregiously false, this information was routinely ignored and new, even more outlandish claims took their place, with minimal if any scrutiny of so called "evidence" taking place, which is usually the bulwark of investigative journalism. Culminating in the three Mirror journalists who "broke" the Scargill story (MI5 planted smears and lies), despite it being known to be false, still scooping the "Journalist of the Year" awards! Mind boggling to say the least!
The crimes being leveled against the NUM leadership were all being committed by the accusers themselves with total and utter unbelievable impunity! From the MI5 plant at the top of the NUM, the “star witness” Roger Windsor to the “Libyan cash stooges” to uber crook Bob Maxwell and a host of Tory MP’s and Conservative Party donors all involved and complicit in the nineties “decade of sleaze” and all straight out of the Joseph Goebbels playbook of “Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty.”

It was also a revelation to me that the author states, that the entire episode was brought about simply so Thatcher could exact revenge on the miners for their previous victories in the seventies, against and bringing down, a Tory government!
Putting the stamp on Thatcher as truly one of the twentieth centuries most vindictive and evilly monstrous characters that ever stalked the planet.

The work done here by journalist Seumas Milne is so breathtakingly important, it really is a work of art.

[Andy Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written 23 years ago and with a new preface, The Enemy Within is an absolutely essential expose of the role of the intelligence services during the year long 1984-85 miners' strike. The author, Seumas Milne, was a columnist on the Guardian when he wrote this book and its 400 pages are a masterpiece of investigative journalism. The extent of intelligence service infiltration of Labour and trade union organisations during the miners' strike is laid bare and it's truly astonishing. You can't help thinking about the lengths that the secret services would go to to discredit any person or organisation that they see as threatening the status quo judged by the evidence of this book. Author Seumas Milne is now Jeremy Corbyn's chief spokesperson and advisor and I bet that on the basis of his experience of researching and writing this book, he will have an interesting tale to tell about the establishment's campaign against Labour's leader.

The allegations of corruption and embezzlement levelled against NUM leader Arthur Scargill, recorded in this book and which subsequently proved to be a tissue of lies, were generally accepted as the truth by 'polite' society when they were originally made in 1990. Those close to the miners' struggle knew otherwise but it took this book and the tireless exposure of the truth by the author and others to vindicate the NUM's leadership and others who dared to support them.

Seumas Milne's book should be read by everyone with an interest in how the innermost workings of the state operates and how they will stop at nothing to discredit, slander, libel and ultimately destroy anyone who threatens the privileged status quo.

An essential read and even more relevant today.

[AtnMitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting read, and really important to understand the role of "counter-subversion" in the role of the state against any form of social change. The book does not discuss the actual strike much, rather focuses on the scandals surrounding Scarlgill and the NUM after the strike. It starts a little dry as it establishes the facts of payments, however this is necessary to know the facts before the scandals are dissected. Milne goes into great detail to illustrate the entire array of tricks that the agencies of the establishment have at their disposal will use to discredit left-wing persons, and the work of their allies in the media, willing to suspend their principles and ethics to serve a common goal.

This book feels very relevant with the reaction to Corbyn, which has many similarities to the campaign against Scargill.

ps. if anyone has any recommendations for a history of the strike I'd be grateful!

[David Gillette]

I bought this book mostly out of spite, after the disgusting smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. But it is worth reading on its own. Union officers are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to financing direct action and protecting their members’ money; I suspect that lessons can be drawn from Scargill’s successes, and from the vicious attacks on him.

The book is kind of a slog, but then the material is hugely depressing. This book constitutes strong evidence for the argument that newspapers, TV stations, and other mass media apparatus should be democratically controlled by their audiences, rather than by private individuals and corporations. Robert Maxwell is a hugely unpleasant figure—and he’s far from the worst. My impression is that British news is even worse now.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the back of GB84 (David Peace) I was intrigued to learn more about the Miner’s Strike. Somebody else reviewed that "The Enemy Within" was more about the 1990 aftermath and it's true but it draws extensively on the events of 84-85. The book itself is somewhat heavy going but is well worth persevering with. Tons of detail describing the lies and spin levelled against Scargill and his team. How dare the Government allow this? Scargill was a great man and nothing will ever change my mind about this. The Government of the day (and the Labour Party at the time) and the establishment whomsoever they may be, make my skin crawl. I lived and worked through the Miner’s strikes of the 70’s and 80’s and only now do I know the extent of how we were all manipulated. How small and insignificant I now feel. This book stays on my bookshelf forever. Thank you Seumas Milne.

[Martin Moriarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The campaign [to spread unfounded corruption allegations against the leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1990] was a bizarre, almost surreal, episode which revealed much about the way British public life works: its double standards and workaday corruption; the myriad ties and connections which allow different parts of the establishment to move in tandem as soon as the need arises; the comfortable relationship between sections of the Labour hierarchy and the government and security apparatus; the way politicians, government and its various agencies, newspapers, broadcasters and professionals feed off the same political menu as if to order. It also served to highlight, in exemplary fashion, the political venality and pliability of the bulk of the British media.”

[Paul Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an important book about an important subject but thanks to the writing style it is a slog to get through it. It’s unflinchingly pro Scargill and anti Thatcher which is to be expected given the author. It has all the elements - MI-5, Maxwell, Scargill, Russians, Gadaffi, Thatcher and the 1984/85 miners strike but I had to push myself on to plough through it. It’s earnest and detailed but did it have to be such a grind?

As I was reading it I kept thinking how much better a read it would have been if Ben Macintyre had written it. Which is probably very unfair......

[Josh Tipple · Rating 5 out of 5]

A valuable insight into Seamus Milne and his relationship with attacks and smears on persons on the left. He has clearly had extensive access to information and used it to great effect.

If you enjoy espionage and spy stories this is a great non-fiction option for you. Or if like me your a left winger who wants to know more about the secret goings between the unions and the state then its a great read!

[Sean Egan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It reads like a spy thriller, only it's all true.
An enlightening account of the coordinated actions of political figures, media organisations and members of the security services to undermine and smear radical trade unionists. It's wealth of information helps to make it's case but can be a slog at times.

[Hywel James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Learnt a decent amount from this book, but the style of writing really annoyed me. Frequent spelling errors didn’t help either. Felt the narrative jumped around constantly so it was never easy to follow and the volume of names within the first 50 pages is insane.

Anyway, I’d rather be a picket than a scab

[Tom]

I love the topic and this book is comprehensive.

It's a bit turgid in places unfortunately. Written like an academic piece as opposed to a non-fiction for enjoyable consumption.

3 star for the writing, 5 star for the topic and meticulous eye for detail.

[Madeleine Herkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading on the extreme lengths the British establishment, and the security services on their behalf, will go to to cling to power.

[Mark Pedlar · Rating 5 out of 5]

The secret war goes on with the refusal to hold a public inquiry into Orgreave.

[Differengenera · Rating 4 out of 5]

great read

[Iain Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating read at times, but also dry and obsessed with minutiae

[Steve Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Convincing and compelling.

[Gabriel McEvoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative but could be extremely dry at times.