Orgreave in 1984 - Image by Don McPhee

This iconic picture by Guardian photojournalist Don McPhee has been reproduced ad nauseam as a symbol of the miners’ resistance and fight against Thatcher’s punishing Tory government.

It has been cropped and appeared in many internet memes. Whether the viewers knew who took it or its origins is almost immaterial. Or is it? More on that later.

The image is relevant now as public services are decimated: schools, NHS hospitals, etc. We look at it and see ourselves implicated in this fight portrayed so clearly by Don McPhee(1945 -2007) in this singular image.

It was taken at Orgreave, which would be the scene (on 18th June 1984) of a bloody fight by the police against the miners, the police embodying the Tory state’s brutality. Police on horses charged towards the miners who had no protection and other police used truncheons which caused the men to bleed profusely.

However, there was a lie perpetrated by the BBC and other sectors of the media. The BBC filmed footage of Orgreave but edited it out of sequence which saw picketers throw stones at the police when in reality it was retaliation and defence as the police had already undertaken their physical brutality upon the miners by way of horses and truncheons, as if it were war.

But now to the actual picture. It’s perhaps more powerful than the other chaotic shots that might have been taken on the day of the actual battle. The miner, George ‘Geordie’ Brealy with mutton chops and a NUM badge on his helmet looks dignified and defiant as a slight smile unfurls in his lips. Despite the economic deprivation that the miners and much of the populate were subjected to, here he is standing, resolute, tall, unshaken, smiling.

The power of Don McPhee’s shot is that he sees things as unflinchingly as the miner. He homes in to a moment of defiance and in doing so represents the full picture of what was happening. A worker against the punishing, unforgiving, cruel state.

Thatcher and other members of the government referred to the episode at Orgreave as ‘mob violence’ thus condoning and whitewashing the action of the police, acting largely as state thugs in order to quash the miners.

Don McPhee’s image like all the best documentary pictures not only describes the thing itself (Orgreave) but becomes emblematic about the whole miners’ struggle but also a symbol for many facets of society now.

People struggling with austerity – homeless, forced out of their homes, workers on zero hour contracts with no stability, suicides and mental health hospital closures, youth without a future – the list is endless. Much of the media in the UK and the establishment tried to make the electorate believe that only right wing or so called centrist parties could get in. This was largely dispelled at the 8th of June election.

The Tories depended on electoral apathy but this was quashed as many new voters (a lot of them young) voted for progressive parties. Through the power of social media, the electorate now is more informed than ever. They read the letter which economists penned to The Guardian citing Corbyn and Labour’s manifesto as fiscally responsible. But mostly, they did not swallow the meaningless soundbites relentlessly repeated by Theresa May and the tories: ‘strong and stable.'

This picture embodies this fight. Corbyn pushed for the government to requisition apartments in the Kensington area to house the victims of Grenfell Tower’s fire. Now, it looks like the government has partly acquiesced to this pressure by offering to house some of the families in a luxury block.

This picture is a symbol of this continual fight. People are no longer cowed or apathetic. We will keep on fighting against state oppression and brutality. Against cuts. And for hope. Because this picture, at its heart, is the perfect embodiment of hope in the face of adversity.