Leading article: Brassed off

Coal's time has come again. Who says so? None other than the former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill. The man who took on Margaret Thatcher believes we should reopen the pits and start hewing fossil fuels out of the ground again.

Some might find the sight of the most notorious trade unionist of the past two decades lending his support to the business plans of the evil capitalist energy conglomerates a little confusing. That is, doubtless, simply a case of incorrect thinking. Almost a quarter of a century after the collapse of the miners' strike, does comrade Scargill see a great victory for socialism at hand?

Environmentalists will be irked. But they should not be. Just about everything Mr Scargill has touched in his career has crumbled like a particularly brittle piece of the black stuff he so reveres.

The fact that the hapless King Arthur wants to resurrect King Coal is the most hopeful sign in a long while that its fate will be to languish deep in the earth. Carry on, Arthur.