Ian Lavery Ian Lavery Ian Lavery (born 6 January 1963) is a British Labour Party politician and former trade union leader from Northumberland who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wansbeck since the 2010 general election. Born and raised in Ashington, Lavery began work in the construction industry after leaving school before becoming a mining apprentice. Noted for being the sole apprentice to refuse to work during the miners' strike of 1984-1985, he gradually rose up the ranks of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and was chosen to succeed Arthur Scargill as NUM President in 2002. Once elected to
Ian MacGregor mounting unemployment in the UK and damaged many traditional steel-working communities. By 1983, there were only 71,000 staff with losses stemmed to £256M. The company was now moving towards profitability and would be in the vanguard of the Thatcher government's programme of privatisation. His next role was as head of the National Coal Board (NCB), approved in person by Thatcher. The appointment, announced on 28 March 1983, was greeted with considerable disdain by the National Union of Mineworkers, in particular its president Arthur Scargill. Scargill was concerned at MacGregor's uncompromising business methods, branding MacGregor "the American butcher of British industry."