Margaret Thatcher branded Arthur Scargill and the other leaders of the 1984-85 miners’ strike as ‘the enemy within’ – a furtive political clique out to undermine democracy and liberty. With the publication of this book in 1994, the full irony of that accusation became clear. An ‘enemy within’ was at work inside the National Union of Mineworkers. But it was not hell-bent on the subversion of the British state. Quite the opposite – it was the secret service of the British State itself. Not satisfied with the media heralded ‘defeat’ of the miners in 1985, Thatcher’s government continued a diabolical campaign designed to destroy the mining industry in Britain, and the reputation of one of the world’s best known and admired trade union leaders. The culmination of the 20 year Tory war against the miners ended with the widespread pit closures of 1992, and the media frenzy that accompanied smears of corruption, embezzlement and theft made against Scargill. Seumas Milne, revealed for the first time the astonishing lengths to which the Conservative government and its secret services were prepared to go to destroy the power of the NUM. Using phoney bank deposits, staged cash drops, forged documents, agents provocateurs and unrelenting surveillance, MI5, the Tory government and their friends in both the Labour Party and the media, set out to discredit Arthur Scargill and other miners’ leaders.