ALLAN Morris’recent tirade does beggar belief. Anybody who has any interest in politics will be aware that most of what he comments about has been in the public domain for many years and could have been picked in newspaper articles and the proliferation of political biographies of recent years.

Industrial decline in our country had already started pre-Thatcher and I would say she was a tripartite member along with poor management and unions who helped speed the process.

Too many of the trade unions of that era had leaders who used their positions to push their own political philosophies which were often at odds with their members. They often pursued wage claims without any consideration of the impact it would have on their working class colleagues in other industries and turned a blind eye to overmanning and restrictive practices.

Scargill himself was as cunning and deceitful as Thatcher in the timing of strikes and his manipulation of union’s rules to avoid strike ballots. The decline in employment north of Risca and Cwmbran is shameful and the miners, steelworkers etc of those areas were badly let down. The reason we have so much unemployment and lack of industry now is down to the fact that government, industry and unions of that time spent too much time thinking about themselves and not the needs of the country. If the Labour party and trade unions are to retain credibility and grow in the future they must acknowledge the part that they played in our decline and not push it all at Thatcher.

S. P. Noble Heather Court Cwmbran