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Proofreading exercise 4

Find all the language mistakes and click on them. Then press the button at the bottom of the page.

The miners’ strike of 1984–1985 was a major industrial action to shut down the British coal industry in *attempt to prevent colliery closures. It was led by Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) against the National Coal Board (NCB), a government agency. Opposition to the strike was led by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, who wanted *reducing the power of the trade unions. The NUM was divided over the action and many mineworkers, especially in the Midlands, worked *along the dispute. Violent confrontations between flying pickets and police characterized the year-long strike, which ended in a *decisively victory for the Conservative government and allowed the closure of most of Britain’s collieries. Many observers regard the strike as the most *bitterest industrial dispute in British history. The NUM strategy was to cause a severe energy shortage of the sort that *has won victory in the 1972 strike. The government strategy *is threefold: to build up ample coal stocks, to keep as many miners at work as possible, and to use police to break up attacks by pickets on working miners. The strike was ruled illegal *on September 1984, as no national ballot of NUM members had been held. It ended *at 3 March 1985. It was a *definition moment in British industrial relations, the NUM’s defeat significantly weakening the trade union movement.