No Friends of Labour
Desperate to show a contrast to ‘old Labour’, Tony Blair took pride in upholding draconian anti-union laws and was happy confronting organised workers. But this belligerence created a new generation of trade unionists unafraid to challenge him and make things difficult for New Labour.
In 1983, Arthur Scargill addressed a Labour meeting at the Victoria Club, a miners’ haunt in the pit village of Murton. Joining him was local MP and fifth-generation-miner John Cummings, as well as a young parliamentarian recently elected to represent the nearby constituency of Sedgefield, Tony Blair. Though 1983 would be a year of historic […]