What if Scargill had won?

At Next Left they are commemorating the 25 years since the Miner's strike and pose the question

If Scargill and the striking minors had won, presumably the Thatcher government would have fallen. Would Kinnock have taken their place and suddenly become the hero of the minors and the country? Would the country have been split? And would figures like Blair have ever seen the light of day?

It was one of those defining moments that may well have changed the course of history.

I don't think that it would have been certain that the government would have fallen.Thatcher had the party fully behind her at this moment in time and it would be another year before Heseltine was to storm out of the cabinet over Westland.

As for Neil Kinnock,I think that he was destined never to be Prime Minister.I think that Thatcher may well have called an early election rather in the mode of her nemisis Heatth who asked whose side the people were on.

In this case the Tories would have won and the government would have come to an accomodation with the NUM perhaps compromising over pit closures.