EAST Lothian was built on the fruits of the earth: farming and mining. Coal was first mined in Tranent in the early 13th century. For the next 750 years, East Lothian coal was key to the local economy. Mining is in our blood.

I was an economic advisor to the Scottish Area of the National Union of Mineworkers during and after the great strike of 1984-85. That seismic event seems an age away but its bitter consequences still reverberate.

My task was to crunch the numbers to expose the economic insanity of closing profitable pits and putting tens of thousands of men out of work. The 1984-85 strike was not for more money or fewer working hours, but to stop the government of Margaret Thatcher shutting the industry to remove a political thorn in its side. Worse, with this defeat of the trade unions, real incomes in Britain entered a period of stagnation from which they have never recovered.

With the stakes so high, Mrs Thatcher’s government was ruthless. Nearly 500 striking miners in Scotland were arrested. While Scotland accounted for 10 per cent of all UK miners, it suffered 30 per cent of all arrests. Many were arrested on flimsy evidence and their convictions remain unsafe. Some were pressured into pleading guilty to lesser sentences provided they accepted bail conditions that banned them from going near picket lines. And unlike England and Wales, not one Scottish miner who was arrested was reinstated to his job.

We now know that South Yorkshire Police lied about what happened at the Hillsborough football stadium. This has led to calls for a similar inquiry into police behaviour during the miners’ strike. I don’t want this to become a party political ding-dong. Nor should we use it to bash the police.

Both Labour and SNP have been in power since 1999, and justice has still to be done for Scottish miners victimised in 1984-85. But justice there should and must be. It is not beyond the whit of politicians, north and south of the Border, to make it happen.