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One rule for her maj, one rule for the miners

Simon Pirani | 26.07.2007 07:16 | Workers' Movements

The chattering classes have expressed outrage about footage of the Queen being reversed on the BBC. They were strangely silent when it happened to striking miners in 1984. It's time to find out the truth about that disgraceful distortion

The hoo-ha over the reversal of footage of the Queen and Annie Liebovitz reminded me of a far, far more serious incident, more than 20 years ago, to which the BBC management barely reacted – the reversal of footage of miners and the police at the “battle of Orgreave” on 18 June 1984.

The BBC showed film of miners throwing objects at the police, and then of mounted police charging the miners. But actually it happened the other way round. The BBC falsely portrayed the miners as aggressors.

I’ve written to the Guardian, and to Mark Thompson, the BBC director general. Click the links for more information.

Simon Pirani,
Editor, The Miner, 1990-95

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2134594,00.html

 http://www.quintessential.org.uk/SimonPirani/bbc.html


Simon Pirani
- e-mail: smpirani@hotmail.com

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Not the same

26.07.2007 08:04

this allegation was made at the time by Scargill and later analysis of the film showed it to be false. That\'s why it\'s not the same as the incident involving Brenda

mole

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