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.

I have never been an idealist - that implies you aren't going to achieve something.

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.

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

You may see the emergence of a new political party from the body of the trade union movement which represents a very clear-cut socialist alternative policy and which gives expression to the views of the trade union movement in parliament.

Parliament itself would not exist in its present form had people not defied the law.

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