The Northern Agenda

Will Orgreave miners get the truth after 40 years? | A postcard from Southport

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Episode notes

We're 40 years on from the so-called Battle of Orgreave, when thousands of picketing miners were attacked by riot police in South Yorkshire in what has been described as one of the most violent clashes in British industrial history, with police using ‘paramilitary’ tactics.

And to mark the occasion a new report, chronicling what campaigners say is decades of multi-agency cover up of state-orchestrated violence, has just been delivered to the leaders of the UK’s main political parties and the Home Office.

With Labour promising a new investigation if they get into power on July 4, will we finally learn the truth about what happened on June 18,1984? Rob Parsons spoke to Chris Peace from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign.

And after visiting Richmond in North Yorkshire last week, Rob goes about 100 miles south west to the seaside resort of Southport.

It's the only area of Merseyside that doesn't have a Labour MP - but could that be about to change? And what, if anything, can politicians do to restore the fortunes of seaside resorts who are trying to reinvent themselves?

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Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams.

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