When Arthur Scargill rose to speak at the conference yesterday, he caught his braces on a doorknob en route to the podium and yanked himself back to an era when coal was king and he was on the throne. ''People keep telling me,'' he screamed, apparently unaware that the black tube pointing towards his mouth was a microphone, ''they don't want to go back to the 70s. I'd LOVE to go back to the 70s.'' ...
Scargill has kept not just his 70s bar-code hairstyle but also his 70s vocabulary in trim. The Government is waging an ''ideological war'' against the unions. ''Get off your knees and fight back.''
Joe Joseph, "Ex-King Coal blares out his passion for the past," The Times of London, September 7, 1994