Thatcher made secret plans to bring in the military during the miners' strike

A month later she and senior ministers including the chancellor, home secretary, defence secretary and industry secretary agreed to the proposal.

Minutes from their meeting read: "It might be necessary at some stage to examine more radical options for extending endurance, including the use of servicemen to move pithead stocks to power stations by rail and road."

The previously secret documents show the meticulous preparations made by ministers and officials for what they saw as the inevitable confrontation with Mr Scargill and his National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) over pit closures.

Mrs Thatcher had been a minister in Edward Heath's government when it was brought to its knees by miners' strikes in the early 1970s, and early in her premiership she was forced to withdraw plans to shut 23 pits because the Government was not ready to withstand a prolonged strike.

At the start of 1983, ministers were told that power stations had enough stocks of coal to keep operating for about 20 weeks, but MISC 57 warned that much of industry had as little as two weeks worth of coal left.

To improve Britain?s readiness for a mass walkout by miners, power stations were converted to dual-firing so they could run on oil and nearby land was quietly bought up so more coal could be stockpiled.

Nigel Lawson, then the energy secretary, wrote a memo for Mrs Thatcher in January 1983 setting out a detailed strategy for how to defeat the NUM.

He said the miners had shown a ?reluctance? to take industrial action but noted that Mr Scargill was ?by no means a spent force? and would do ?everything he can to foment and escalate disputes?.

Mr Lawson recommended that the Government should press ahead with mass pit closures, accepting the ?near certainty? of a national strike once the NUM realised what was happening, but only after the planned general election that year.

By March 1983, John Vereker, a member of Mrs Thatcher's policy unit who also served on MISC 57, was confident that Britain could cope if the miners halted coal production.

"I am happy to report that this morning we for the first time glimpsed on the horizon the prospect of indefinite endurance, albeit at a very considerable cost for converting the main coal-fired power stations to dual firing," he wrote.

"There is some way to go, but it looks as if we can achieve nine months of endurance at very little cost on top of what we have already incurred: and twelve months' endurance at an additional cost of ?70 million for further coal stocking capacity."

Arthur Scargill is arrested at Orgreave in 1984 during the miners' strike

In the event the military were not used during the bitter miners? strike of 1984 to 1985, which resulted in victory for Mrs Thatcher and became one of the defining events of her time in office.

Source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/564430/s/2f6a52f7/sc/11/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cpolitics0Cmargaret0Ethatcher0C10A2134470CThatcher0Emade0Esecret0Eplans0Eto0Ebring0Ein0Ethe0Emilitary0Eduring0Ethe0Eminers0Estrike0Bhtml/story01.htm

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