If youve got an industry where youve got massive investment, it doesnt matter whether you bring in alternative supplies. You still lose the money on that industry.

There's a feeling that strength is determined by the size of a union. That clearly is nonsense.

The trouble with the Labour Party leadership and the trade union leadership, they're quite willing to applaud millions on the streets of the Philippines or in Eastern Europe, without understanding the need to also produce millions of people on the streets of Britain.

Only a fool wants a confrontation and only a fool wants a strike.

All too often miners, and indeed other trade unionists, underestimate the economic strength they have.

The trade unions and the Labour Party... failed miserably. Instead of giving concrete support, and calling upon workers to take industrial action, they did nothing.

My father still reads the dictionairy every day. He says your life depends on your power to master words