The popular mantra is that Scargill was an idiot, picked the wrong battle and Thatcher did good in seeing off the nasty Yorkshireman - but history is starting to tell a different story.
With careful investigation and checking of facts - two things that didn't happen when the press were used against the miner's leader back in 1990 - Seumus Milne shows us how the establishment took action against the one man trying to stand up against it.
With well-written prose that is never dull but also never over-blown, Milne takes us patiently through every stage of the strike of 84-85 and the press smear campaign five years later, piecing together the evidence that shows not only were the massive press stories in The Mirror utter bunkum, but that the security services almost certainly had several hands in the whole debacle.
Reading this in an era of phone hacking makes some of the revelations slightly less shocking than they may have been when The Enemy Within was first published, but Milne still makes enough points and raises enough questions about why the security services were used to try and bring down an elected leader of a legally-structured representative body to make sure you ask more questions in the future.

Owen Jones captures it in one line, "terrifying, frightening indictment of the British establishment". For anyone brought up to believe that you lived in a democracy, think again. Shows just what scant regard the establishment gives to the democratic process, and the lengths that they went to in order to destroy what they perceived to be their greatest threat. How different history would have been if the NUM hadn't been destroyed in this way.

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.

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.

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.

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