City: Black hole

EVERYONE has their pet theory about why Michael Heseltine, a man of usually astute political judgement, could have got it so wrong on the coal announcement. Some believe he was trying to prove himself to the right of the party. Others that he fell victim to a Thatcherite plot.

The truth is rather less sinister. He was under the impression that the big bang approach to pit closures had the full support of his Cabinet colleagues and was therefore lulled into a false sense of security. True, the issue does not seem to have been discussed in open Cabinet, but it was, at some length, on 17 July at a meeting of the Cabinet's economic and domestic policy committee. Thanks to John Major's freedom of information initiative, I am able to tell you who sits on that committee. It is virtually the entire Cabinet bar the Transport, Defence and Foreign secretaries. It ill becomes ministers to say they knew nothing about it and to try to make Mr Heseltine the scapegoat. Nearly everyone knew. The dynamic that was driving the Government into such a rapid programme of pit closures was the privatisation timetable.

The necessary legislation was due to be introduced in Parliament next month so that the sell-off could happen next autumn. Clearly it was not possible to privatise with so many uncommercial pits still in production. Without realising the significance of what they were doing, ministers therefore agreed to speed up the pit closure programme and shut 31 in one go.

Ironically, that very announcement - designed to make privatisation of the industry possible - looks as though it might have scuppered coal privatisation for good. The review of pit closures makes introduction of the coal Bill next month virtually impossible. At the very least, privatisation is now going to be delayed until the autumn of 1994, and possibly a lot longer.