The Enemy Within

Resumen del libro

Margaret Thatcher branded the leaders of the 1984-85 miners strike "the enemy within." With the publication of this book, the full irony of that accusation became clear. Seumas Milne revealed for the first time the astonishing lengths to which the government and its intelligence machine were prepared to go to destroy the power of Britain's miners' union. There was an enemy within. It was the secret services of the British state, operating inside the NUM itself.

Milne revealed for the first time the astonishing lengths to which the government and its intelligence machine were prepared to go to destroy the power of Britain's miners' union. Using phoney bank deposits, staged cash drops, forged documents, agents provocateurs and unrelenting surveillance, M15 and police Special Branch set out to discredit Scargill and other miners' leaders. Planted tales of corruption were seized on by the media and both Tory and Labour politicians in what became an unprecedentedly savage smear campaign.

Biografía del autor

Milne es un periodista y escritor británico conocido por sus puntos de vista ligados a la izquierda y a los movimientos sociales, muy admirado entre otros por Naomi Klein, que en su libro La doctrina del shock le cita repetidamente por haber convertido la sección de comentarios del periódico en un foro de debate verdaderamente global . Columnista y editor asociado de The Guardian, es autor de The Enemy Within: La guerra secreta contra los mineros (1994), auténtico bestseller en el Reino Unido, que analiza las huelgas de mineros británicos en 1984-85, centrándose en el papel que jugó el MI5 y la Special Branch. Además, Milne ha trabajado para The Economist y ha sido reportero para el Guardian en Oriente Medio, Europa del Este, Rusia, el sur de Asia y América Latina.