Policemen involved in a dispute over pay with Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, received a shot in the arm today from an unlikely source, as the National Union of Mineworkers announced that they were throwing the full weight of their support behind the Pigs.
As more than 500,000 police officers marched on Whitehall this morning with truncheons raised, news was emerging from NUM headquarters that, despite the 'uneasy standoffs' between the two sets of rivals in the 1980s, miners were now able to "forgive and forget" the violence bestowed upon them by the bully boys of Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher.
The police are in dispute over Smith's refusal to backdate their 2.5% pay offer to September, and say that the deal is equal to only a 1.9% increase. If the award was backdated even to December, say their leaders, this would equate to a 2.3% increase, although, being coppers, not mathematicians, they can't be sure of this.
Now, though, the intervention of several black-faced thousand miners, who have been on strike since 1984, has bolstered the claims of the police.
"Our two groups plan to link arms and march on Whitehall again tomorrow, and every day until the government sees sense", said NUM spokesman Bob Scargill, nephew of long-time miners protagonist Arthur, who now runs a fish and chip shop in Barnsley.
In a statement to the Commons this afternoon though, Mrs Smith was unrepentant, saying:
"They're only bloody coppers! They want a lot of money for a load of bloody paperwork, don't they?"
