After the miners’ strike in 1984, there were accusations that Arthur Scargill had misappropriated National Union of Mineworkers funds and that money which should have gone to the striking miners had never reached them. The Cook Report investigated over two programmes. Witnesses said that, UK public donations aside, the funds had come from two sources - from Russian miners showing solidarity with their British brothers, and from the coffers of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.
Shortly after the programme, and following Perestroika, many Official Russian documents previously classified as secret confirmed that what had been said in The Cook Report about donations from Russian miners was true. Monies intended for the NUM and the miners’ hardship fund had been secretly diverted instead to another, little known and totally separate outfit of which Arthur Scargill also happened to be president - the International Mineworkers Organisation in Paris.
As for the Libyan money, there was never any satisfactory explanation as to its final resting place. The NUM’s former chief executive, Roger Windsor, had alleged in the first programme that some of this money - delivered in cash and passed through an offshore bank account in the name of a deceased relative - had been used by Scargill to pay off the mortgage on his large new home. Scargill’s supporters argued that he didn’t have a mortgage, but an unsecured home loan - which in this context amounted to exactly the same thing.
A subsequent independent investigation was sharply critical of Scargill’s conduct during the strike. Following this, the NUM (President: A. Scargill) sued the IMO (President: A. Scargill) for the return of ￡1.4 million - finally settling out of court for around half that amount. By then, NUM membership had plummeted from over 400,000 to under 400. In 2012 it emerged in court cases between the union and its former president that a substantial proportion of members' subscriptions was being spent on expenses for Scargill, including unauthorised rent payments for a £1.5 million flat in London. The whole messy business was best summed up by the Daily Mirror- normally a staunchly left-wing newspaper - with which The Cook Report had shared information on the story: ‘Mr Scargill began the miners’ strike with a very large union and a very small house; he ended the strike with a very small union and a very large house’.
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Roger Cook Reports
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