New book explores Donald Trump’s alleged love for dictators

Ash Cant
Mar 17, 2024,

THE NEW DAILY, AUS

Former White House staff say Donald Trump expressed admiration

 for Adolf Hitler. Photo: Getty

Former US president Donald Trump once said he believed Adolf Hitler did some good in his life, a new book alleges.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be too shocking as he did try to get cosy with Russian president Vladimir Putin, who according to his former chief of staff, Trump thinks is an “OK guy”.

General John Kelly was once Trump’s chief of staff and now he is spilling his secrets, which weren’t really that well kept.

In CNN anchor Jim Sciutto’s upcoming book, The Return of Great Powers, Kelly has revealed what Trump makes of world leaders, both past and present.

According to Sciutto in an article published on CNN, and based on conversations he has had, Trump thinks China’s Xi Jinping is “brilliant” but North Korea’s Kim Jong-un is merely an “OK guy”.

Kelly also alleged the former president said Putin “wouldn’t be doing these things” if NATO didn’t exist.

It’s not overly shocking. Trump has publicly praised leaders who are usually seen as enemies or adversaries of the US.

In an interview with Fox News, Trump praised Xi for ruling China with an “iron fist” and said he was “smart, brilliant, everything perfect”.

Trump went from calling Kim on Twitter (now X) to having a bizarre relationship with him.

Later on, the two apparently shared letters, which Trump said were “beautiful” and said the two “fell in love”.

Trump’s alleged admiration for Hitler

Regarding Trump’s comment regarding Hitler doing some “good things”, Kelly said he pressed him on it.

“He said, ‘Well, [Hitler] rebuilt the economy’. But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world. And I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing’,” Kelly said according to CNN.

Kelly said he found it hard to believe Trump “missed the Holocaust and the fact 400,000 Americans were killed thanks to Hitler”, but he has a theory as to why Trump might admire such a despised historical figure.

“But I think it’s more, again, the tough guy thing,” Kelly said.

In the past, Trump’s camp has denied the allegations he thought Hitler did some good.

When approached by CNN, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung did not address the allegations, but instead took aim at Kelly and Bolton.

He said the two “completely beclowned themselves and are suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome”.

Cheung added they need to seek “professional help because their hatred is consuming their empty lives”.

Donald Trump likes to think of himself as a tough guy, former advisers say.

The ‘tough guy thing’

John Bolton also served in the Trump administration, as the US national security adviser. He also spoke to Sciutto.

Like Kelly, Bolton believes Trump’s alleged admiration for autocrats is due to how he sees himself, or how he wants other to see him.

“He views himself as a big guy,” Bolton said.

“He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like Erdogan in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that.”

However, Kelly insists Trump is “not a tough guy by any means”; instead, he is the “opposite”, but it is how he likes to envision himself.

Trump was shocked by the lack of power

Kelly also believes the former president’s fondness for dictators is because “that’s who he is”.

He explained all presidents of the US are shocked to find out they have little power, without going through Congress, when they come into office.

“But in his case, he was shocked that he didn’t have dictatorial-type powers to send US forces places or to move money around within the budget,” Kelly said.

“And he looked at Putin and Xi and that nutcase in North Korea as people who were like him in terms of being a tough guy.”

Vietnam faces $3bn annual crop losses from rising saltwater levels

Published: 17 Mar 2024 

This photo taken on February 23, 2024 shows a farmer looking at his crop in a dry rice field amid a long heatwave in southern Vietnam's Ca Mau province in the Mekong Delta region, known as "Vietnam's rice bowl". Photo by Tan Dien / AFP

Hanoi: Vietnam faces nearly $3 billion a year in crop losses as more saltwater seeps into arable land, state media reported Sunday, citing new research.

The damage would likely centre on the Mekong Delta region, known as "Vietnam's rice bowl" because it provides food and livelihoods for tens of millions of people, research from the country's environment ministry showed.\

Saltwater levels are often higher in the dry season but they are intensifying due to rising sea levels, droughts, tidal fluctuations, and a lack of upstream freshwater.

The resulting crop losses could amount to 70 trillion dong ($2.94 billion), state media VnExpress reported, citing new research from the Water Resources Science Institute, which is under the environment ministry.

The research found among the most impacted parts of the region would be the southernmost Ca Mau province, which could lose an estimated $665 million.

Ben Tre province could face roughly $472 million in losses, according to the study, which was presented Friday at a conference on water resource management.

"With the current scenario, fruit trees account for 29 percent of the damage in Mekong Delta, while crops account for 27 percent, and rice accounts for nearly 14 percent," according to the findings.

"The fisheries industry accounts for 30 percent, equivalent to more than 21,000 billion dong ($840 million)," it added.

Greater losses were forecast for the region in the future, rising over $3.1 billion, the study said.

Earlier this month, the Department of Water Resources warned saline intrusion could impact around 80,000 hectares of rice and fruit farms in the Mekong Delta.

Salt intrusion in the area between 2023-2024 was higher than the average, according to the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting.

The delta suffered an unusually long heatwave in February, leading to drought in several areas and low water levels in the region's canals.

Pro-India group faces off against pro-Khalistan elements in Canada’s Calgary city

ByAnirudh Bhattacharyya
Mar 17, 2024 

Hindustan Times

Approximately two dozen Indo-Canadians gathered across the street from the pro-Khalistan protesters, some of whom held weapons, including at least one seen to be holding a sword up.

THEY ARE  SIKH'S WHO WEAR A CEREMONIAL KNIFE CALLED A KIRPAN, AS WELL THE SHEATHED SWORD IS ALSO A CEREMONIAL 'WEAPON' FOR RELIGIOUS RITES


Toronto: 

A pro-India group faced off against pro-Khalistan elements in the city of Calgary in Alberta on Saturday as the latter gathered to protest in front of a venue for a community event welcoming India’s High Commissioner to Ottawa Sanjay Kumar Verma.

Danielle Smith (centre), Premier of the province of Alberta with India’s High Commissioner to Canada Sanjay Kumar Verma (left) and India’s Consul-General in Vancouver Manish, during their meeting in Edmonton last week. (Supplied photo)

Approximately two dozen Indo-Canadians gathered across the street from the pro-Khalistan protesters, some of whom held weapons, including at least one seen to be holding a sword up. Local police kept vigil and prevented the two opposing groups from clashing.

The protest was the latest as pro-Khalistani groups have staged similar demonstrations at venue hosting Verma in Surrey on March 1 and Edmonton on March 11.

Given the threat perception, the hosts had already cancelled a scheduled community event in Calgary on Friday but a lunch for the High Commissioner was organised at another location on Saturday afternoon.

The protests have dogged Verma who has travelled to Western Canada for the first time Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated in the House of Commons on September 18 there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between Indian agents and the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia, three months earlier. A call to “target” Verma at these events was given by the secessionist group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), for which Nijjar was the principal organiser in BC.

However, Verma’s safety has been assured by Global Affairs Canada, the country’s foreign ministry, and he has been escorted by officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), responsible for diplomatic security, with local law enforcement detachments keeping the pro-Khalistan protesters from approaching him and entering the venues hosting him.

Verma described the engagements in the two provinces as “successful”, as he was hosted at the legislature building in Victoria, capital of BC, and held a meeting with the Surrey Board of Trade in that town. He also met with the Premier of the territory of Yukon while in Vancouver. In Alberta, he met with the province’s Premier Danielle Smith in the capital Edmonton and also attended an event hosted by the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce in that city and also held several meetings in Calgary.

Devotees in Canada’s smallest province celebrate opening of first Hindu temple

ByAnirudh Bhattacharyya
Mar 17, 2024

Hindustan Times


The temple in Prince Edward Island has been thronged by members of the community since its opening, evidencing the demand for such a house of worship in a province with population at just 180,000

Toronto: Devotees in Canada’s smallest province are celebrating the opening of the first Hindu temple there. The Hindu Temple of Prince Edward Island (PEI) opened this month and has been thronged by members of the community since, evidencing the demand for such a house of worship in a province with the population of just 180,000.

Devotees at the opening of the first Hindu temple in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

 (Credit: Hindu Society of PEI)

“It was really incredible. There was a gap, obviously,” said Krishna Thakur, an academic from the United of Prince Edward Island, who is also president of the Hindu Society of PEI.
Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now.

The temple opened in a rented space in the town of Cornwall, which is part of the capital region. Thakur said devotees come to the temple from the capital Charlottetown as well as neighbouring Stratford, other than residents of Cornwall.

Thakur, who is originally from Janakpur in Nepal, estimated the Hindu population of PEI at approximately at about 1,800. He said nearly 600 people visited the temple on opening day. He said the Hindu population had grown significantly in recent years with an influx of students to the University of PEI, with other newcomers including fresh permanent residents and professionals.

The Society’s secretary Neethin Rao, who is from Kerala, said the temple has been “well received” within the province with the opening being attended by the mayors of Charlottetown and Cornwall, the local MP as well as members of the legislative assembly.

The temple has no full-time priest, and the rites for its inauguration, on Mahashivratri, were performed by members of the Society, with some of the rituals learnt from online tutorials. That it resulted from a community effort was underlined by Rao, who said not only were there donations that enabled renting the space but food for prasad and bhog were donated by Indo-Canadian restaurants of the region.

“The temple is open for two hours in the evening,” Thakur said, and that’s because it is entirely dependent on volunteers.

Rao said the objective is to acquire land and build a permanent mandir in the future. “Everybody is interested in that and they will definitely help us,” he said.

For now, Thakur said, the community is elated to have its own space to worship, after never having had that facility in the province before. To give it broad appeal, there are various deities at the temple. “We tried to make it as inclusive and representative as possible,” Thakur said.

 

Palestinian Govt Sparks Deep Dispute between Fatah and Hamas

This handout picture provided by the Palestinian Authority's Press Office (PPO) shows Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas (L) posing with the newly appointed Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, in Ramallah on March 14, 2024. 

(Photo by PPO / AFP / Handout)

Ramallah: Kifah Zboun
17 March 2024

AD ـ 07 Ramadan 1445 AH

The Palestinian government, which has yet to be even formed, sparked a deep dispute between the Fatah and Hamas movements, levelling the harshest criticism against Hamas since the eruption of the war on Gaza.

The dispute first started when Hamas said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was “out of touch with reality” for appointing Dr. Mohammad Mustafa on Thursday to form a new government.

Fatah responded by saying: “Those who caused Gaza to return under Israeli occupation and caused a nakba (catastrophe) to befall the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, have no right to make dictates related to national priorities.”

“The real side that is out of touch with reality and the Palestinian people is the Hamas leadership that has until this moment failed to realize the extent of the catastrophe endured by our oppressed people in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories,” it stressed in a statement.

It wondered how Hamas could speak of unilateral action and division when “it did not consult the Palestinian leadership or any other national Palestinian party” when it took the decision “to embark on an adventure on October 7 that has led to a nakba that is more severe than the 1948 Nakba.”

“Has Hamas consulted the Palestinian leadership as it now negotiates with Israel and offers one concession after the other to it?” it wondered, while accusing the movement of only seeking the personal safety of its leaders.

It also accused it of seeking an agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would keep the movement in Gaza so that it could continue to sow division between the Palestinian people.

Moreover, Fatah said the “life of luxury the Hamas leadership is living in seven-star hotels has blinded it to reason,” calling on it to end its policy of foreign agendas and return to the national fold.

Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestinian National Initiative movement slammed Abbas’ appointment of Mustafa as prime minister.

In a statement, they accused the Palestinian Authority (PA) of continuing its unilateral approach and dismissing all efforts to restore Palestinian unity.

“We reject such an approach that has harmed and continues to harm our people and national cause,” they declared.

“The top national priority lies in confronting the barbaric systematic Zionist aggression and its genocide and war of starvation, not forming a new government,” they added.

They accused Abbas of deciding to form a new government without seeking national agreement first, “which consolidates his unilateral approach and deepens the division during such a pivotal historic moment.”

“The president’s move reflects the extent of the crisis within the Palestinian leadership, how out of touch with reality it is and the huge gap between it and our people, its concerns and aspirations,” said the statement.

Mustafa is a well-known businessman and economic expert. He succeeds Mohammed Shtayyeh, who resigned to meet American and international demands for reform in the PA.

Hamas was expecting Abbas to consult it in naming a new PM and was taken by surprise when he completely ignored it.

A source from the PA told Asharq Al-Awsat that ties between Fatah and Hamas have not improved even after the eruption of the war on Gaza.

Abbas took his decision out of his belief that there was no need to wait for anyone and that the priorities that Hamas listed demand the formation of a capable government.

Hamas has been demanding providing relief to the people and the rebuilding of Gaza.

The source stressed that Mustafa’s appointment was taken in line with understandings reached with Arab and western countries that are involved in the post-war arrangements in Gaza.

Hamas, which can no longer rule Gaza, should not impede those who can save and aid the people there, it went on to say.

Mustafa is seeking to form a government of independent non-partisan experts. He has a three-week deadline to announce a lineup.

Controversy in France over Statue Commemorating Soldier Famous for Torturing Algerians

Statue of the paratrooper Colonel Marcel Bigeard

Asharq Al Awsat
07:16-17 March 2024

 AD ـ 07 Ramadan 1445 AH

French historians on Saturday strongly protested the decision of Toul municipality, in east France, to erect a statue of the paratrooper Colonel Marcel Bigeard, who was known for using torture in Algeria and Indochina in the 1950s.

The move come as Algeria and France seek to overcome the pain of the colonial past and build a normal relationship,

“How can we plan to erect a statue of paratrooper Marcel Bigeard, as is the case in Toul, and thus, glorify the practice of colonial torture?, questioned historians Fabrice Riceputi and Alain Ruscio in an article published on Saturday by the French website histoirecoloniale.net.

Bigeard, who fought in World War II, was parachuted into the besieged French base of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam, and condoned torture in the unsuccessful battle to defeat Algerian nationalist fighters.

In 2010, he died in Toul, the northeastern town where he was born.

On Saturday, Riceputi and Ruscio announced that the French organization “Histoire et Mémoire dans le Respect des Droits Humains” has asked the municipality of Toul to abandon the project of installing a statue of General Bigeard in the city’s square.

They said the Toul event comes at “a time when Marseille and Paris had finally removed from public spaces the plaques honoring the memory of Marcel Bigeard, executioner of the Algerian people during the colonial conquest.”

To back their request, Riceputi and Ruscio then listed the acts of torture attributed to Bigeard during the “Battle of Algiers,” which happened in 1957, when French forces made wide use of torture in their attempt to defeat the National Liberation Front (FLN).

One of the most famous Algerian leaders tortured by Bigeard is Larbi Ben M’hidi, who was hanged for refusing to sell his fellowship in the army.

In 2021, Drifa Ben M'hidi, veteran of the Algerian War and sister of Larbi Ben M'hidi, affirmed to France 24 that French general Marcel Bigeard, who had arrested her brother in Algiers, admitted to her that “France had killed Larbi Ben M'hidi.”

He told her during a meeting in the 1980s that her brother had not committed suicide, contrary to the official French version.

During their meeting, Bigeard told Drifa, “I didn't kill him, but I sent him to General Paul Aussaresses.”

Drifa called on President Emmanuel Macron to recognize not only this assassination, but the crime committed against “the entire Algerian people.”

On March 4, on the occasion of the 67th anniversary of Ben M’hidi’s killing, 20 organizations in France wrote to the Elysée, demanding that “the French state acknowledge its responsibility for the practice of torture” during the Algerian revolution.

UK

‘Great that Black and brown faces are in high places but really about addressing systemic racism’ – Lord Woolley

Ayshah TullNews CorrespondentCHANNEL 4 16 Mar 2024

We are joined by Lord Simon Woolley, Principal of Homerton College Cambridge, and the founder of Operation Black Vote, which works to increase representation of Black people.

Witch hunts: Why were so few 'witches' killed in Wales?

By Nicola Bryan,BBC News
Share

sBehind cinematic portrayals of witches such as The Wizard of Oz (pictured) lies a much darker, macabre history

Britain has a long and bloody history of burning people accused of witchcraft at the stake.

About 4,000 were sent to their death in Scotland and 1,000 in England, but curiously just five were killed in Wales.

In his new book, author and historian Phil Carradice tries to unpack this anomaly and finds several explanations.

He believes it is at least in part down to the Welsh language.

"Very few examiners or judges spoke Welsh," said Phil, from Eglwys-Brewis, Vale of Glamorgan.


He also believes it could be explained by many of Wales' small, rural communities being so reliant on their local wise women.

"They made potions and charms and were an accepted part of the community," he said.

Misty the Wonderful Witch from Disney's Jake and the Never Land Pirates

"There were no doctors, no hospitals... if you wanted help for yourself or your animals they would turn to their wise women."

Probably the most famous were the Physicians of Myddfai, a succession of herbalists who lived and worked in and around the Carmarthenshire village of Myddfai from the 13th Century.


Across the rest of the world killing "witches" was big business - from 1450 to 1700 in Europe alone about 35,000 people, mainly women, were hanged or burned at the stake after being accused of witchcraft.

Phil said the modern-day portrayals of witches in books and films - from the Wicked Witch of the West to Harry Potter's Hermione Granger - sometimes means this much darker, macabre history is forgotten.

"Disney has a lot to answer for... Harry Potter doesn't help... but kids need to know the other bits as well," said Phil.

"Women in the Middle Ages were abused, there's no other word for it."

Phil has written over 20 books but said researching his latest - Witches and Witch Hunts Through the Ages - left him feeling particularly uneasy.


"It frightened the living daylights out of me," he said.

"Consider burning people at the stake, it's horrendous."

So what motivated people to persecute these women?

"It's misogyny and it's also greed," he said.

He said accusing unmarried women or widows of being a witch was a sure-fire way of getting her locked up, making it easy to steal her assets.


"We had men - and it was men - who thought 'I want that house, I want that land, I want that property', and so how do they do it? [By saying] 'you're a witch', and straight away you're arrested on that one person's say, you're put into jail to await trial and while you're awaiting trial somebody steals your land."

'I'm proud to be a real-life witch'

Catalonia pardons women executed for witchcraft

Witch apology would 'send powerful signal'

The witch trials that are perhaps best known are the infamous Salem witch trials that took place in Massachusetts, USA, between February 1692 and May 1693.

More than 200 people were accused, 30 found guilty, 19 of whom were executed by hanging. Of those killed fourteen were women and five men.

The infamous Salem witch trials were a series of prosecutions for witchcraft starting in 1692

Back in the UK it was Henry VIII who first defined witchcraft as a crime punishable by death in 1542.

But the most notorious royal witch-hunter of all time was James VI of Scotland, who went on to become James I of England.

"He was a rampant witch hunter," said Phil.

He and is Danish bride Anne encountered a dangerous storm during a voyage across the North Sea and became convinced they had been personally targeted by witches who conjured to try to kill them.

He published a book on the subject, Daemonologie, and in 1604 passed a second witchcraft act.

Decades later, with public anxiety about witchcraft still growing, lawyer Matthew Hopkins emerged.

Calling himself Witch-Finder General, Hopkins claimed to be officially commissioned by Parliament to uncover and prosecute witches.

He and his associates are believed to have been responsible for the deaths of 300 women accused of witchcraft in England between 1644 and 1646.

Matthew Hopkins travelled the villages and towns of eastern England, trying and examining women for witchcraft

The last person in Britain to be tried and executed for witchcraft was Janet Horne, who was burned at the stake in Dornoch, Scotland in 1727.

The facts are scant, even her name is one often given to witches in Scottish folklore, but it is thought she had a daughter who was born with a deformed hand.

Almost a decade later in 1736, Parliament passed an act repealing the laws against witchcraft but imposed fines or imprisonment on people who claimed to be able to use magical powers.

That act was repealed in 1951 by the Fraudulent Mediums Act, which in turn was repealed in 2008.

(FRAUDULENT PRACTICE OF WITHCRAFT WAS THE CANADIAN VERSION OF THIS LAW)

Common methods of execution for convicted witches were hanging or burning

Witch hunting may be history in the UK but continues to this day in some other parts of the world.

From 2010 to 2021, more than 1,500 people were killed in India after accusations of witchcraft, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

In northern Ghana hundreds of women accused of witchcraft by relatives or members of their community are living in so-called witch camps after fleeing or being banished from their homes.

"The reality is there are people out there being persecuted, being condemned, being horribly killed," said Phil.

"We need to do something about what's going on but we're frightened."

 LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for WITCH 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for WITCHCRAFT

 

‘How Keir Starmer can avoid the sudden rise and fall of Australian Labor Party’

Will Prescott

 17th March, 2024

Photo: Juergen Nowak/Shutterstock

Despite having assumed power without any great popular enthusiasm at the May 2022 federal election, the Australian Labor Government under newly-minted Prime Minister Anthony Albanese quickly established dominance in the opinion polls. Two years later, however, and with an election due in 2025, that poll lead has all but evaporated.

Although Labor’s 2022 victory was hardly emphatic — its share of the primary vote, just 32.6%, was the lowest for a winning party since the 1930s — the new Government’s popularity quickly soared. It even captured a previously Opposition-held seat at an April 2023 by-election, a feat that no other Australian government had managed since 1920.

Despite having inspired little enthusiasm as Opposition Leader, Albanese’s own personal approval ratings climbed, and by September 2022 he established a 39 percentage point lead as preferred Prime Minister over the new Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton. Unfortunately for Albanese and his government, however, the honeymoon has well and truly come to an end. Two main factors are to blame.

Defeat in the Voice referendum dealt blow to government

First, the Government was badly damaged by the failure of the Voice referendum in October 2023. During the 2022 election, Albanese pledged to hold a referendum on whether to create a constitutionally-entrenched indigenous advisory body, which would have been known as the Voice. In Australia, the constitution can only be changed by a popular vote.

Albanese invested substantial political capital into the referendum campaign. Unfortunately for him and the ‘yes’ campaign, the conservative Opposition under Peter Dutton fiercely campaigned against it. Sensing an opportunity to land a blow against his Labor opponent, Dutton came out strongly against the Voice. Deprived of bipartisan support and plagued by voter confusion about how it would actually work, the Voice suffered a crushing defeat, with over 60% of the electorate voting ‘no’.

In addition to the political embarrassment, the Voice debacle created the perception that the Government was ignoring the bread-and-butter issues of concern to most voters.

Ongoing cost of living crisis has dented Labor support

This ties into the Government’s second problem — the failure to resolve the ongoing cost-of-living crisis has further dented popular enthusiasm for the Albanese Government. Much like the UK, Australian voters have been battered by a combination of higher inflation, rapid interest rate rises and soaring housing costs. Despite inflation having since fallen from 7.8% to 4.1% and interest rates having now stabilised, the damage to the Government’s standing has been done.

The combined effect of both these problems is reflected in the opinion polls. According to Newspoll, generally acknowledged as Australia’s leading pollster, the ALP’s two-party preferred vote lead —  the most relevant polling indicator under Australia’s preferential voting system — slumped from 57-43% in September 2022 to 52-48% in November 2023. Another poll released in late February 2024 even had the Coalition ahead of Labor, albeit by a narrow margin of 51-49%.

‘Voter goodwill is finite’

Although its parliamentary majority is at serious risk, it is still unlikely that Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party will lose power at the next election. Australia’s last one-term Government fell in 1931, and Albanese’s is hardly the first Australian Government to suffer mid-term blues.

More problematically for Dutton, it remains difficult to see how the Coalition will come close to picking up the 21 seats necessary to secure a majority in the 151-member House of Representatives. Labor’s victory at last Saturday’s Dunkley by-election in outer Melbourne, albeit with a reduced majority, suggests that the Coalition has not made sufficient inroads into the suburban seats it needs to win back.

Making matters worse, the so-called ‘Teal’ independents, who occupy eight formerly safe Coalition seats, appear to be entrenching themselves, potentially shielding the Labor Government should its majority fall.

There are several key lessons that Sir Keir Starmer’s UK Labour Party can draw from the Albanese Labor Government. Although voters may rapidly warm to a newly elected Prime Minister, especially after the turmoil of recent years, voter goodwill is finite.

The public may take issue if a Starmer Government is seen as spending too much time on cultural and constitutional issues. Above all, unless the new administration is seen to prioritise and address the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, its honeymoon could well prove short-lived. 

Will Prescott

Will Prescott is a researcher at Bright Blue.

View all articles by Will Prescott

How the miner’s strikes revolutionised the role of women in Britain

Noora Mykkanen

METRO UK

Published Mar 17, 2024
Miners’ strikes opened new doors for working-class women

Forty years ago, the miners’ strikes helped revolutionise the role of women in the UK by forcing them ‘out of their comfort zone’ and into the frontlines of a battle to save their communities.

Over 142,000 miners went on strike across England, Scotland and Wales from 1984 to 1985 to oppose looming pit closures which put livelihoods and entire communities at risk.

They stood up against the National Coal Board and the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with 20,000 jobs on the line.

Miners’ strikes became one of the biggest industrial disputes in British history (Credits: Doncaster Free Press / SWNS)

Some protests saw violent clashes between campaigners and the police (Credits: Doncaster Free Press/SWNS)

The board had its eyes set on mines it deemed unprofitable, and in early March 1984 the government said 20 collieries would shut.

This prompted the National Union of Miners (NUM) to declare a national strike, and picket lines began to appear in mining villages and towns throughout the country.

One such village was Sacriston, a mining community in County Durham, where Anna Lawson lived with her family.

Now 66 and living in County Durham, Lawson spoke to Metro about the impact of the strikes and how it opened new doors for working class women like her.
‘No going back for women after the strike’

One of UK’s biggest industrial disputes was about ‘fighting for survival’, Lawson said.

If the nearest pit was shut, the village would be classed as category D, which meant it was up for demolition.

Women collected food parcels and ran soup kitchens for struggling miners in Doncaster (Credits: Doncaster Free Press/SWNS)

She said: ‘The women’s song says when you’re fighting for survival you have nothing to lose, because if you don’t save the pit, it will be a hell of a struggle to save the community’.

However, pits began to close fast after the industrial action ended, with only 15 pits out of 174 remaining open in 1994.

The eventual closures hit coal towns hard, leaving many families to struggle amid mass unemployment.

Downfall of the coal industry is still felt in many former mining towns, many of which have never recovered.

As the villages fought for survival and started to crumble, women played a vital role in keeping their communites together.

Women have ‘always had a role in emergency situations when men have gone to war’, Lawson explained, and this was no different.

Trade union leader Arthur Scargill and his wife Anne at national women’s demonstration against pit closures (Credits: PA)

Miners at a protest in Doncaster (Credits: Doncaster Free Press / SWNS)

But the strikes also opened up a world of opportunities women didn’t think were possible until then.

Summarizing her role, Lawson said: ‘We fed the children and the striking miners.’

But just those eight words highlighted the questions of ‘where did the food come from, where did the knowledge to cook it come from’, she added.

‘To do that women had to make links in the wider community.

‘We were fundraising, educating, being educated and we learned as we went along. And as we went along, we became more politicised. We wrote speeches, we empowered each other.’

‘It took everybody out of their comfort zone, but they hadn’t realised they were in one. That was really important.

A road in Doncaster after a clash during a protest

 (Credits: Doncaster Free Press/SWNS)

‘I don’t mean to be rude, but a lot of people were in their own bubble and believed what was in the papers’.

At the time, Lawson had three children, including a toddler who was ‘very much part of the strikes’ and she was also in the process of separating from her husband.

She was brought up in an educated family with teacher parents and three brothers with ‘very advanced’ political views. Both sides of her family had worked in the mines all their lives, although her father managed to ‘escape it’.

However, she was still ‘expected to do the ironing’ when she lived at home.

Speaking of her grandparents, she said: ‘Their parents were born in the 1800s.

‘I think the gender stereotypes were still in our existence, in our memory and background.’

Taking action in the face of social injustice was ‘just natural’ for Lawson who was nicknamed ‘Anna with the banner’ already before the strikes.

A protest to ask for a 24-hours strike to support miners outside a TUC conference on September 4, 1984. (Credits: B. Gomer/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

She said: ‘There was a need and I was there and I just dived in.

‘We were different to the coastal pits – they could see the closures coming, but we had absolutely no idea’.


Lawson also joined the Women Against Pit Closures campaign, a national movement that grew out of local groups.

The Sacriston women started to learn ‘how to do things properly’ as the strikes went on.

They opened a welfare hub in an empty cobblers shop. It sold things not found elsewhere in the village and it had books at the back.

It was run by ‘only women’ which the men ‘didn’t like very much’, she noted.

If someone’s power was going to be cut off, the campaigners ‘put a line around it’.
Protesters outside the TUC (Trades Union Congress) conference hall in Brighton (Credits: Popperfoto via Getty Images)

She said: ‘That’s when I got really interested in welfare law.

‘There is a moratorium even now where people with a disability, with kids under a certain age and elderly can’t have their electricity cut off. That came off the strikes’.

After the strikes, many women she knew took ’employment opportunities they would not have taken before’, she said.

‘Many went into university and professions they would not have considered. We set an example to our children and that continues in our children and now in our grandchildren’.

Lawson herself took the plunge into welfare law, practicing and teaching it for a decade.

The strikes had showed women across the country that their role in protest was ‘not just feeding the children, but about solidarity, education and communication’, Lawson said.

There was ‘absolutely no going back’ to the ‘convenient stereotypes’ and women returning to being wives like many had done when the World Wars ended, she stressed.

Many Sacriston women ‘didn’t want it to be over’ when the strike was declared over, she said laughing.

‘The men went back to work, but we found ways forward because we were already on a roll’, she said.

‘The women’s role in the strike created a legacy of protest art and protest music that has a universality for women who are in conflict or struggle wherever they may be’, she concluded.