That, of course, is the ancient and traditional proclamation made on the death of one king and the ascension to the throne of another. Alas, in the case of 'King' Arthur Scargill he rules over nothing and were he to be accidentally (or even deliberately) buried under a ton of coal, assuming you could find any coal these days, there is no successor. My foreign readers will be even more perplexed than usual so I should explain that in the row of political ducks at which 'that woman' took regular pot-shots, Arthur Scargill, as leader and rabble-rouser of the Miners' Union, was one she took special delight in knocking off his perch. I am obliged to 'SoD' for spotting a piece in The Telegraph exposing the fact that Scargill, allegedly a' horny-handed son of the pit' and a working-class hero to his grimy mates, tried to buy 'his' council flat using - quelle horreure! - 'that woman's' dreaded right-to-buy legislation which was yet another of her policies against which Scargill and his dimwitted doppelgängers raged and ranted. Unfortunately for that 'wannabe' property-owning capitalist, the flat he was sneakily trying to buy on the cheap was actually leased by his union and so the rent money came, in effect, from the pockets of the dim, dumb grunts the hard-working 'bruvvers' and 'comrades' who thought Scargill was on their side! Of course, 'King' Arthur assured everyone that once he had purchased the flat he would have handed it over to the union as a valuable asset. Yeeeeeeeeeees, quite!
The right-to-buy application was refused because the flat in Shakespeare Tower was not Mr Scargill's primary residence.
He did not mention in paperwork that the flat was paid for by the NUM and it emerged court case that from 1991 to 2008 the NUM's national executive committee did not know it was paying for the flat. [My emphasis]
The miners' strike in the early '80s was perhaps one of the greatest British examples of tens of thousands of the truly stupid being led by the nose by a crafty operator. Incidentally, the fact that they were encouraged at the time by a flock of wittering, semi-intellectual sheep who should have known better merely adds to either the pity of it, or the hilarity, depending on your viewpoint.
Over the past decade Mr Scargill has been ostracised by the NUM and is hated by many members who once saw him as "King Arthur", after dragging them through the courts in a row over perks.
Now he is practically a recluse, a far cry from the firebrand union boss who led a year-long miners' strike in 1984 only to be crushed by the Prime Minister.
Almost 30 years on, he remains bitter by that defeat, insisting it failed not because of his action but because he was let down by others.
Divorced and a failed politician, he is now likened to the type of capitalists he once despised.
Of course, it's not the done thing for a gentleman like me to kick a man when he's down . . . but, hell, there's always an exception, so give him one for me, will you?!
