Police on the roads

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came up and asked the driver serious ana ll ne reany mei for his licence. Then they to do us under the Preventi demanded to see in the boot. of Terrorism Act. At this We asked them if they had backed down and his mi any right to force us to open drove up and offered him a it, which they wouldn't home so he went. answer. So we asked them The same car was stopped again and again and again. Yorkshire on the way home The copper then said that he car full of Manchester co suspected people like us, rades was stopped twice with 'funny politics from Saturday, travelling to E 'outside the area' of causing mingham.

WHAT YS Branches can do in the miners' strike.

1] Contact the nearest NUM Panel and ask them if it okay to organise street and estate collections. Try 1 organise factory gate, or office block collections. Organi: soap-box meetings, preferably with an NUM speaker.

2] Go around flyposting the centre-page poster in th issue of Socialist Organiser. It's not usually a good idea do it in the middle of the night. Do it during the rush how 3] Argue for unemployed groups, student union union branches, Labour Party and YS branches to adopt pit. Visit it regularly. Take down food and drinks for tl pickets. Hold public meetings in support of the miners. 4] Get student unions to open up facilities for flyir pickets. Labour Councils should send messages of suppo to the NUM and open up their facilities: to ORGANISE FOR A tion of picket lines at coal depots and stockyards, with train and lorry drivers on the whole supporting the miners struggle and refusing to cross the picket lines despite threats that refusal to cross constituted a breach of contract and would result in sackings.

250 pickets also successfully closed down the Yorkshire offices of the Coal Board in Doncaster.

The police have responded with increased use of roadblocks throughout Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

There were 27 arrests on Monday 26th.

Police smashed the windscreen of one miner's car in order to drag him out and arrest him for obstruction.

Such behaviour, however, has not demoralised the striking miners. Quite the opposite. It has hardened their resolve.

Alex Fry reports

THE POLICE have since been smashing up miners' cars with crowbars. In Nottingham, Maltby NUM branch delegate Frank Slater, had his car windows smashed when he refused to talk to the police.

Eight cars were stopped at a roundabout off the M1 and received the same treatment. Last Wednesday night half a dozen Welsh miners were tied up to a metal fence by Thoresby pit to stop them picketing.

Fund-raising disco for the Yorkshire miners, organised Party women's section.

Nottingham. Humberside County Labour Party has called on the Labour-controlled county council to refuse to make overtime payments for police time on anti-strike activity against the miners.

The decision was made by an overwhelming majority at a County Party meeting on Saturday 24th. So far there has been no response from the Council leadership.

of any party, but certainly not for Labour councillors - consciously to take a decision that would impose such suffering on so many people in an area that has suffered so much.

If anyone has any doubts about the relationship between conscience and the law, conscience historically - the idea of what is right and wrong - is and must always be above law made by men. And it is their law they are trying to make us obey, and not a law that conforms to our position.

The Liverpool labour movement has mobilised the people and educated them into the reality of what is happening. And I believe that the real battle that we are now fighting is the battle to enlighten people against a Tory press that harasses, distorts, and misrepresents what we are trying to do - nowhere better demonstrated than in your own Liverpool press, and also in that other formidable centre of reactionary opinion known as the SDP-BBC-Liberal Alliance.

It is said by some, and it cannot be denied, that in setting your force in the way you have done Northampton South Party has sent a re: olution to the County Labor r Party condemning police action against the miners.

It calls on the County Council's ruling Labour Group to do all it can to stop. such action, and asks the Labour Group to refuse money for extra police overtime on anti-strike duty. red from p.l there are risks involved. Nobody denies this. And certainly those outside who are not taking the risks themselves are bound to regard the decision as one that you have to take yourselves.

But I would repeat what has been said by others - none of the gains that have ever been made by the working class movement in Britain would ever have been made unless people were prepared to take risks for themselves and those they sought to represent.

This year we are celebrating the Tolpuddle Martyrs. I wonder what advice they would have been given by those moderates. Would they have said that they should have gone to Australia quietly.

What about the people of Poplar, under George Lansbury, who stood up against a Tory government under very similar circumstances.

All our gains have been made by struggle, and if we stop strug. gling, they • will take them all away again.

Liverpool is entitled to expect now the full-hearted support of the entire labour movement in and out of Parliament, in and out of the councils, because what we are doing is right.

By Jane Ashworth A carload of Socialist Organiser supporters set off from Sheffield last Sunday night/ Monday morning to go down to the picket lines in Nottinghamshire. We knew the police were out in force and there might be difficulties getting into the county. But we went down the Ml anyway, armed with cover stories.

Everything was fine until we got within five miles of Nottingham, when we saw flashing blue lights in front and a tailback. We slowed up. There was a police escort through Nottinghamshire.

The A610 turn-off was blockaded with rows of police, cars, and vans, to stop us leaving the motorway. Pollce cars went up the outside lane, looking into the cars they'd slowed down.

We pulled into a service station and thought about leaving by the slip road but it was next to a packed police station so we went back onto the motorway and finally made it into town where we met up with some Socialist Organiser supporters.

We went to Gedling pit, which had had one of the best votes in the ballot and found about 60 South Wales miners picketing with a few from Nottingham. We were only able to turn back 20 miners at the most.

The police outnumbered the pickets and another three or four enach Inads of them were waiting inside the pit. They radioed amongst themselves and back to_ HQ about the eight 'students' on the picket line so we were expecting irouble as we went back to the car.

And it came. As we were about to drive off, two coppers MAAMICEL YS and the miners trouble. We asked him wi he meant by 'funny politir and he said 'vou're educate you should know'. Then said he wanted us to open t boot because we were si picious. Suspicious becal we wouldn't open the bo We pointed out that this w stupid so he said that he si pected us of being terroris We asked him if he was bei - ve soon on llor man,

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Organiser no.172 Page

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8pm, Friday March 30, at the Narrowboat, South St,