Now newly released Downing Street documents have shed fresh light on the relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev, exposing how Thatcher exerted intense diplomatic pressure on the future leader to successfully block a Soviet donation of much-needed cash to the strikers.
The documents, released to the Guardian after a five-year freedom of information battle, show how the pair clashed during the titanic miners' strike that convulsed Britain in 1984-85.
Read the full Guardian article here.
