Oh What A Time... - #93 Cover ups (Part 2)

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!We’ve touched on conspiracies on the show, but this week we have for 100% true conspiracies that really did happen - it’s Cover Ups! We’ll have the Ozyorsk Disaster hidden away by the Soviets, what the US Government really knew about bootlegging during prohibition and how Margaret Thatcher prepared to battle the striking minders of the 1980s.And boy are we glad we’re in the elastic age with pants securely tightened in-place. And do you work in a place that sells a historic food or drink? You can get in touch via the medium of the future, whenever you want: [e-mail] If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wanderi Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wanderi Plus in the Wanderi app or on Apple podcasts. Welcome to part two. This is cover up. Let's get on with the show. Hello and welcome to part two of the Oh What A Time episode on huge conspiracies. I'm very excited about this part because the next bit is something Ellis... you've got a passion for this haven't you Ellis? This is something you're genuinely interested in, you've been pushing this is something you want to talk about. Yeah well we're doing the Miner's Strike. This relates to the 1984-85 Miner's Strike

which there's nothing I won't read about the 84-85 Miner's Strike. This relates to the 1984-85 Miner's Strike, which there's nothing I won't read about the 84-85 Miner's Strike. I find it absolutely fascinating. I have very, very vague memories of it. So it started in March 84, so I was three, ended in March 85, so I was four, by that time it had come to an end. So I've got very vague memories

of Arthur Scargill being on the telly, et cetera. And it's fascinating, and this, reading about the miners' strike actually, and papers being released, and what I think was the 30-year-old, I think it's the 20-year-old now actually, is what made me come up with the idea for this episode,

because there were things that the NUM, the National Union of Mineworkers, were saying at the time that the government were denying and the governmentUM, the National Union of Mineworkers, were saying at the time that the government were denying and the government were lying about it. Is it worth explaining, just to say for overseas listeners who might not be familiar with this, basically what the miners' strike was? In a nutshell, the 1980s Conservative government, led by Margaret Thatcher, who was Prime Minister, in a nutshell, this is my very basic,

having not thought about it, primer on the 84, 85-man strike, hated the NUM. They hated the National Union of Mineworkers, and they hated the coal industry because the NUM was very powerful, and it was very militant, and it was very left-wing. And they had brought the government, they brought Edward Heath's government down

by going on strike in 1972, I think it was. The Conservative Party really held a grudge and they were sort of, in the 70s, they were scared of the NUM, but there'd been a generational shift in the Conservative Party by the time of 84, 85, and I think they thought, right, we're going to get these, we're going to, basically, we're going to end the coal industry because it's too problematic in Britain. Will Barron And they were scared of the unions, weren't they? That's that. Jason Vale Yeah, but in particular the NUM, because the NUM was militant and it was disciplined and it was powerful. If coal miners went on strike,

they could stop electricity production throughout Britain. So obviously it was very, very disruptive when the NUM went cold, big strike. So this is a nutshell. I hope I don't get too many things wrong and this doesn't become a corrections corner, what a shame. But Thatcher wanted to, as she put it, democratize the unions because she thought the trade unions were too powerful. And Edward Heath had done this with, this is all stuff I remember from my degree, with the Industrial Relations Act in about 1971 I think. But the NUM then could see what was happening and thought okay well we're going to oppose this, we're going to go on strike. And it was a big strike and it brought the Heath government down. And so very cleverly she realised that she was unable to do it all in one go. So she brought in lots of little bits of legislation

every couple of years or so. So it was much easier to pass those pieces of legislation. Because then it's much harder for trade unions to say, oh, she's trying to neuter us and she's trying to clip our wings and weaken us. Because each time she would say, well, this is to democratise the trade union movement. You know, she would end things like the clothes shop, for instance, right? So by 84, 85, the Conservative Party were ready and they were able to cope with the NUM going on strike, which is what happened. So back in the early 80s, the UK's coal industry was teetering on the brink, right? So the leaders of the NUM were convinced that somewhere in Whitehall, probably in Downing Street itself, there was this master plan to bring about the demise of the industry

as revenge for the miners' victories in the twin strikes of 72 and 74. Because the NUM had gone on strike in those two years and had won both times. So in each of these occasions, the conservatives were in power and the NUM was blamed for the party's loss in the 74th general election. So by the autumn of 82, Arthur Scargill, the president of the NUM, whom the cabinet officials used to sarcastically call King Arthur, he spoke openly of a hit list, something that the National Coal Board, which I'll refer to as the NCB, and the government, led by Margaret Thatcher's Prime Minister after 79, had always categorically, even emphatically denied.

Right. So our plans are to close unprofitable collieries and put the industry on a stable economic footing. That was what they were saying. They were saying, listen, it's uneconomic, it's losing money, we'll close unprofitable collieries because everyone knows which ones they are. Yes. But we'll keep the ones that are profitable open, okay?

Now Skaga's hit list was a document which he'd obtained via a leak from the NCB to the N open, okay? Now Skaga's hit list was a document which he'd obtained via a leak from the NCB to the NUM, okay? NCB obviously, National Coal Board, NUM, National Union of Mine Workers. So he claimed it had 75 collieries on it, all of which were identified as targets for closure, which put 70,000 jobs at risk. So that's enormous. Will Barron Wow. Will Barron Now the NCB's response was that the document contained absolutely nothing on the subject, but the union remained convinced that they were right.

Now other decisions deliberately taken by the NCB and the government, including the import of coal from Australia, from America, Eastern Europe, and particularly Poland, were added to the NUM's list of charges of a rundown. They thought that the Tories were basically running the industry into the ground. So they're, okay, well, we'll start importing coal from elsewhere, we won't need to mine our own coal, we'll just get it from Poland and places like South Africa, for instance.

And this made a showdown inevitable, right? And that showdown came in the form of the 84, 85 miners' strike. So in 2014, previously secret government documents were released to the National Archives in London, according to the 30-year rule, which is now a 20-year rule. And these record that there was indeed a closure program in operation. So the revelation was enough for the then MP for Caerphilly, Labour's Wynne David, to demand an apology. Now this is what they were saying then at the time,

but people thought it was conspiracy theory. So what the NUM was saying, what Arthur Skagler was saying, because this is why it was so messy, was he was saying, we're going on strike to save the coal industry, but they weren't planning on closing collieries in every coal field. So you're asking an awful lot of people to go on strike on behalf of coal miners in other coal fields, places you know elsewhere from where you live. So this is why it was so complicated. So the documents show that a meeting was held in Downing Street on the 15th of September 1983, so before the strike began, with Mrs Thatcher and other various senior government ministers present. When they

heard how the NCB's closure programme had gone better this year than planned, there'd been one pit close every three weeks and there were now 18,000 fewer coal miners in the workforce. Will Barron Wow! One every three weeks? Will Barron Yes. Will Barron The pace of that. Will Barron So these details came directly from the controversial Canadian head of the NCB, Ian MacGregor. Okay. Now the thing with, certainly in South East Wales, and you know, I would say probably South Wales more than anywhere else, it was the only industry. So if you're closing collieries,

you know, there's very little else for other people to do. Will Barron Yeah, that's the set. When you watch those documentaries about the miners' strike, the impact on those communities, you can't understate it, the human factor of like, what do you do? And also if the local workforce is out of, is suddenly unemployed, they're not spending money in shops. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're moving away, which means that, you know,

schools are becoming smaller, so they might close the schools, so the teachers might lose their job. It has an impact on absolutely everything. And suddenly no one's shopping in town. So pubs are closing because no one's got any disposable income, shops are closing, restaurants, cafes, it's like a house of carts. The community just gets destroyed, doesn't it? Yeah, and those communities were often, certainly in South Wales, which is my sort of area of expertise, often sprang up around the coal mine.

Right, yes. area of expertise often sprang up around the coal mine. Mason those places. That's why it was such a disruptive, but also, you know, it was such an impactful time. Now these- It's also, I suppose, it's the identity of the community. That's what it is as well, isn't it? Because it'll be generation after generation. Exactly that. It's a generational occupation, isn't it? A lot of these guys working down the mines, their dads would have worked down the mine and their dads would have worked down the mine.

Yeah, and grand dads, and yeah. And also, I think people accepted that it was dangerous and that it was dirty. No one was denying that. I think what upset people, certainly in the years afterwards, was that the coal wasn't replaced with anything. The work that came after it wasn't as well paid. And you're leaving a massive gap in these communities there. Will Barron I wonder what the promises were. What, I probably were lying, what the government would have sold as filling that vacuum. Was there any idea that it would be replaced by something or was it just not something like that?

Will Barron You know, the problem is, I think, I'd have to look into it, but my guess would be not an enormous amount. Because if you were a monetarist or a free marketeer in the 1980s, you didn't think that was the government's job. You thought that the government's job was to keep inflation down. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Mr. MacGregor had it in mind over the three years, 1983 to 85, that a further 75 pits would be closed.

First, 64, which reduced the workforce by some 55,000, and then a further 11, with manpower reduction to 9,000. There should be no closure list, but a pit-by-pit procedure. Now, this is something I got should be no closure list, but a pit by pit procedure. Now this is something I got told anecdotally, many, many years ago by someone who said that you knew your pit was for it if people started investing in it.

Because if you've had a load of new gear invested in your pit, and then it doesn't make enough profit, people can say, well, it's an economic, so we'll close it. Oh, so they were doing that simply for the optics of it? I mean, that is told to be my coal miner about 15, 20 years ago. So by all means, if I'm wrong, send in the corrections because I'd love to read it. Now, when the meeting was all over, all those present agreed, as the only record of it stated, no record of this meeting should be circulated. It was in effect covered up., also the BBC argued in its report of the release in 2014,

although the secrecy of the document can be called into question given the presence of the typist's name at the top. So we know who was typing it, right? Right. Now, Skargel's figures were accurate to the document at least. The NCB estimated about 70,000 jobs

would be lost in 75 collieries shut, but does it amount to a hit list? Now that is all a matter of perspective, especially given the existence of other documents and other figures which offer a much lower target of job losses, but with an identified number of pit closures I've avoided because of the media storm in 1982. So these latter documents date to January 84th.

So this is just before the strike began. The government could legitimately argue and its surviving officials would later insist when the cabinet papers were released in 2014 that in the absence of a closure list, the claim of a hit list was false and so there was no cover-up or conspiracy. And yet, given the language used and the references to a closure program, there could be no denying that the NCB as well as the Government of the day wanted Pits shut down and were agreed that it should happen, whether the justification was economic or ideological. Now documents to this effect are present in the released files dated January 1981,

when Mrs Thatcher was given a first warning of the closures to come, but these closures were themselves part of the NCB's response to government demands that they break even without subsidy by 1984, because it was a very subsidised industry. And it was subsidised for many reasons. I think largely because, I mean, we're seeing this now because of the war in Ukraine. If you can provide your own country with its own power, that's enormously helpful. Because if you're aligned to another country, if they go to war, if there's a new regime, then that could be enormously problematic. Now, other cabinet papers from the years prior to the miners' strike released in stages in the early 2010s further added to the impression. Once part

of the NUM's accusations and denied by the NCB and the government, but nevertheless widely believed that they'd been careful preparation for a strike, including stockpiling of coal almost from the moment the government had been elected in May 79. Now this we do know because of the Ridley Report. Now the Ridley Report, it was a report into how the government could win an industrial dispute because they'd lost so many in the 70s and it was leaked to The Economist. So I'll talk about this. Yes. I remember this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There they are, however, in the cabinet files and headed preparation for a minor strike or withstanding a coal strike or variance of the same, albeit with a likely date for a strike

given as 83, not 84. So the government were discussing the possibility of a coal strike from the summer of 1980 onwards and had plenty of time to think about what to do. But they didn't think they were ready, you you see because what they were doing is obviously if you stockpile coal for ages and ages and ages if the coal miners then go on strike yeah you can go for months and months without having to turn the lights off which is what was happening in the 70s so in all those things the NUM and the NCB were convinced as as Mrs Thatcher often said there is no alternative. Now the Ridley plan, also known as the Ridley Report, I studied this at university, is really interesting because it was a 1977 report on the nationalised industries in the UK, producing the aftermath

of Edward Heath's government being brought down by the 1973-74 cold strike. So it was drawn up by a right wing conservative, Nicholas Ridley, and it sort of proposed that the next conservative government could fight and defeat a major strike in a nationalised industry. Because in Ridley's view, in Thatcher's view, the conservatives, especially on the right, their view was that trade union power was negatively interfering with market forces and was causing inflation. And so it had to be checked. So the contingency planning was

the government should, if possible, choose the field of battle. So you decide when to aggravate an industry and then they go on to strike. So you're prepared for it. Yeah. Industries were grouped by the likelihood of winning a strike. So the coal industry was in the middle of three groups. Coal stocks should be built up at power stations. Yeah. Because obviously if you're paying coal miners over time, then of course they're gonna work.

But what they didn't realize was that they were stockpiling coal so they could take them on. So then you bring in non-union lorry drivers to be recruited by haulage companies. So they're willing to take coal from pits to docks or wherever it's needed. Then you cut off the money supplies to the strikers and make the union finance them.

So the union was running out of money. And then you train and equip a large mobile squad of police and you apply riot tactics to uphold the law against violent picketing. And also you bring in coppers from elsewhere. Because the problem was, say there was a picket happening in South Wales, a lot of the coppers initially knew the striking miners because they'd been to school with them and stuff. So if you bring in police from the Met,

for instance, they're going to be different and they're not going to have any kind of loyalty to their friends. Will Barron And you watch footage of some of that police work, it's pretty violent. Will Barron Oh yeah, if you look at things like the Battle of Orgreave, it looks like a different planet. Will Barron It's like a war basically. Will Barron Yeah, you know, I think if you showed that to a teenager nowadays, they would find it hard to believe that that was happening in the UK. Will Barron Yes, yeah. The use of horses, the charging

through of horses, all these sort of things. It's really pretty full on, yeah. Will Barron And the violence, you know, people, yeah, being hit with truncheons, all kind of stuff. And so this report was leaked to The Economist in 1978. But, you know, amazingly, the unions, especially the NUM, they didn't adapt or alter their own tactics in response, which obviously was a problem. But there's a Johnny Owen, the filmmaker, made a fantastic documentary of BBC Sounds about the miners' strike, which I think is called Strike, but it's with a lot of interviews with striking miners and people who are on strike at the time. It's a really, really amazing piece of work. So I thoroughly enjoy that.

Will Barron I've got such sympathy as well because it was such a tough decision whether to strike or not, because if you strike, you're not getting paid. Some miners, their families would be starving. So it's like, I've got to go work. But then you're a scab in your community and you're not backing the other. I watched a documentary on the miners strikes where basically there was this guy who would have been, I remember in the mid-twenties who had gone on strike. His dad also worked down the mines. And then after like a year of not working, just couldn't afford to continue. I think

he just had a child, decided to break the strike and go back. And his dad, who was also a miner, said to him, basically, you're dead to me. That was the word. I would rather have a dead son than a scab. I think it's basically what the sentence is. He was forced out of the family home and never spoke to his father again. And this is sort of a decision of deciding to break the picket line. That's the depth of feeling here where fathers and sons are ripped asunder by the different choices over this matter. Heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking. Will Barron It's quite an endless source of fascination to me. Yeah.

I will never not read anything about it. I just find it so interesting. Yeah. Was your granddad, he'd retired by that point or was he? Yeah, yeah. He had, yeah. Well, he was still working, but he was working as a bricklayer by that point. Okay.

So he was no longer a coal miner at that stage. The thing that fascinates me is even though I'm from that area, I would last approximately 90 seconds at the pit face. I've been at the pit face, think to myself, I wish I could be a podcaster. What's that, El? It's a really exciting format slash medium. It's going to be invented in about 50 years time. And I'll be really good at that. They'd say, Ellis, are you going to break the picket line? Are you going to go into the mines? You say no. And they go, that's great. You're bravely fighting back against the government.

Will Barron Is there a podcast about it? Will Barron And you'd say, no, it's too dark and scary down there. That's the reason. I wouldn't be going in line on O-line. Will Barron Welcome to MinePod. Will Barron And me, Ellis James. Will Barron Yeah. Thank you for not paying the Patreon because it means I can continue to work as a coal miner and make a really great podcast, actually. So, for our final part on this episode on great conspiracies, I'm going to talk you through an incredible governmental cover-up which took place in the United States during

Prohibition. Now the consequence of Prohibition in the United States have kept historians, novelists, filmmakers busy for more than a century now, okay? The consequence of prohibition in the United States have kept historians, novelists, filmmakers busy for more than a century now. There's gangster movies, the Great Gatsby, Onto the Symptoms. There's basically the federal ban on alcohol, which was introduced by the 18th amendment to the US Constitution in 1919 and wasn't repealed in 1933, used to and continues to fascinate. It's a fascinating time, isn't it, Prohibition? There's something dangerous and exciting about it. It's a weird one. It's a

world that I can see must have been exciting to be a part of. Yeah, totally. I think of Untouchables with Kevin Costner and Sean Connery. Great film. I just don't want to drink enough to break the law, I don't think. I think I'd find another vice. Wanking. You don't want to drink enough to have to mow down 15 gangsters with a machine gun? Yeah, yeah. No, no. I'm imagining someone trying to offer you a spliff at uni in halls. I don't want to do that enough to break the law. I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah. I'm. I don't want to do that enough to break the law, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to stop wanking. He's at it again. You would be willing to break the law. You'd be such a squared you're in prohibition. I'm like, no, Rod, I can't have that whiskey if it's illegal. Grow up. Why are you wanking again? It's so weird. Stop wanking, will you?

Stop it. Well, you're probably thinking, okay, how could there possibly be a cover-up in Prohibition? Because we know all the bootlegging was done by gangsters. Everyone knew who they were. That's all out in the open. Well, you would be wrong to think that because this is the story of how the US Treasury Department, the government basically, actively colluded with manufacturers of industrial alcohols to poison the supply and prevent public consumption and how it involved a major concealment of the truth. So I'll give you some context.

What do you think was one of the major ways that bootleggers tried to get around prohibition? What do you think was one of the major tricks they employed? Bearing in mind that alcohol, you couldn't produce alcohol. What were they doing, do you think? I'm trying to think. I don't know if I know the answer to this question. I wouldn't have a clue. Well, they were stealing industrial alcohol, which is basically solvent cleaner, to create moonshine and other boozy alternatives to liquor, things like whiskey. Okay.

I don't want to drink enough to drink clean and fluid. And Ellis, well- That is, I stand by that. That brings me to my next question. What do you think the problem was with that? Well, I would imagine it was making people blind. Yes. The booze created was often extremely dangerous.

Okay. So it often went by the name of rot gut. So that's what they called the booze created was often extremely dangerous. So it often went by the name of rotgut. So that's what they called the booze that was made. One concoction from Boston, called by its makers, Ginger Jake, was responsible for poisoning 100,000 people across the United States and causing permanent damage to their lower limbs. There was a symptom called Jake leg and theake wobble, which are common sites from people who drunk this drink from the makers Ginger Jake. Imagine going on the piss so much that it affects your gait. It affects your walk forever.

But then initially you'd think you're just drunk, wouldn't you? Yeah. Because alcohol does affect the way you walk. You think that's fine. It's doing its job. Until you have a poo and your liver flies out. Flies out. So Jake leg and Jake wobble were the two things. And the reason though that bootlegger's kept using industrial alcohol was because it was considered exempt from prohibition and from previous taxation on alcohol which was introduced in 1906 because it mixed alcohol and methanol, which is a wood alcohol, to denature it, as they called it. Basically, it made it unpalatable and dangerous to consume.

So the idea was because it was supposed to be unpalatable and it was dangerous, therefore it wouldn't have to be taxed in the same way because it wasn't to drink. This was the idea, essentially. And it really was dangerous stuff. Even in small quantities, methanol can lead to blindness and other complications, including convulsions, comas, seizures, mania, and even, here's the big one, death. Okay. So how much would you have to fancy a drink to risk that? Ellis, you're out. We know already. Skull, what are you doing? Well, this is the interesting thing about prohibition is, okay, yes, you're getting

alcohol illegally from effectively gangsters, but that alcohol is not being produced in a Budweiser plant. They're knocking it together themselves. So you're not only committing an illegal act, you're buying a beer brewed by a gangster. Like who's going to be cutting corners? And a gangster who doesn't even have access to the actual brewing ingredients that you require to make normal beer. By his very nature, he does not care about rules and regulations. No. Well, that's exactly right, Chris. The bootleggers, they don't care and they're not deterred

and they keep using it and then they start selling it on the sly. Like the mindset to keep doing that. You know... Hard to ask for your money back, isn't it? Hard to ask for a refund from a gangster. Excuse me mate, it's affected the way I walk and I've gone blind. You can't chase them because you've got Jake leg, you've got the Jake waffle going, so they can easily get away. But they keep selling it. They don't care about the fact, the impact this is having on people, the hundreds of thousands of people who've been affected by it. And so in 1923, the US Treasury Bureau of Prohibition,

with its federal dry agents who formed the Industrial Alcohol and Chemical Division of the organization, they decide to act. They tell manufacturers of industrial alcohol to increase the amount of denaturalizing methanol present in their products. So this is where it begins and it starts to get a bit dark. They say, up the amount of methanol in there, this is the answer. This is going to stop people drinking it. They've got a ruthless commissioner, this guy called James Dornan. And the way he put it, he says, about 4% ought to do it.

That's what he says. So they up the amount of methanol in the drink. Now, James Dornan, for a little bit of context about him, he was a chemist by trade, and he and his wife made quite the anti-alcohol partnership. He warned the public of the dangers of fake whiskey. He wrote booklets on the subject. And his wife, Roxana, was a key figure of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in the US. And at the same time, he was doing this. She released a book of non-alcoholic mocktails. This was her side hustle, or prohibition punches, as she made. So the guy, her husband is in charge of banning it. And on

the side, his wife is making this tidy profit, releasing a book with prohibition punches, a non-alcoholic mocktail, it's a fun little side thing. But James Dornam, he was a tough, hard figure, and he knew full well that bootleggers were stealing industrial alcohol. And he also knew they were trying to boil off the methanol, which has a different evaporation point to other forms of alcohol. and that despite those efforts, the methanol could not be removed entirely. And knowing that even in small quantities, it's dangerous to humans, Doran ultimately accepted basically the conclusion of his division with manufacturers to add methanol to solvents

and other industrial products would probably lead to alcohol poisoning. He completely knew that would happen. That's incredible. And he still pushed it through. Okay. So he's a chemist. He knows that upping the amount of methanol, he knows that methanol can make you blind, can kill you, and he still pushes this through. He still goes, let's up the amount of methanol, which means that when it's used, yes, the drinks will be stronger, but hopefully that'll be enough to stop. Proper, it's just like a serves you right policy. Will Barron That's exactly what it is. It is, completely.

Will Barron That's the opposite kind of policymaking, say in the Netherlands, where you can test drugs that you've bought. Because their argument is people are going to take these illegal drugs anyway. So if you can test them, you can make sure that they do it in a safe way. And then the outcomes are better. Societal outcomes are better because you don't get deaths and people, you know, harming themselves possibly permanently or dying by taking something that is different to what they think they're taking. Whereas his attitude was, well, they know it's illegal. I don't care if they drink it. They know that they're not allowed to. And if it makes them blind, then so be it. That is exactly it. And Ellis, there is incredible quotes from the government and those around it, which I will come to in a second, which are just mind blowing how much that feeling is reflected.

So deaths from moonshine obviously rise, because the amount of methanol has gone up. Critics, including those from the public... He's got blood on his hands, hasn't he? Absolutely, yeah. Critics, including those from the public health department in New York and academics from Columbia University, they lambast the government for allowing, as they call it, legalised murder, which is something the government deny. However, new guidelines are issues which reduce eventually the denaturalising percentage and they give Doran a new challenge. This is now to come up with safe alternatives to methanol and stay one step ahead of the bootleggers. So various liquids are tried including iodine, kerosene, formaldehyde.

None of it sounds like something you want to put in a pint. Exactly. A pint of formaldehyde. We were talking about mead at the top of the episode. Yeah. Yeah. And that feels like a bit of a step, like a brave decision to have a pint of mead. A pint of formaldehyde.

Can you pickle me inside out? Absolutely. Do you know what? Yeah. I drank an awful lot in my 20s and 30s. It was how I sort of, it was how I social I socialised. And in the same way that I drank a lot when I was at university. And you know those people, that poor sort of intake of university students who had their degrees completely ruined by Covid. So you know your lectures aren't happening

in person, they're happening on Zoom and you're unable to socialise and make friends and all that kind of stuff. Like, I can take olive alcohol a bit now because I'm older, but in my 20s and 30s, a big part of my social life. If my 20s and 30s had coincided with prohibition, maybe I would be like, oh fuck it, it's my birthday, I'm going to bite the formaldehyde. So be it. You're only 26 once. And never 27, at least if I keep this up. It's my last birthday I need to celebrate. No great surprise here, boys. Iodine, kerosene, formaldehyde all proved very dangerous, very harmful to human health. In fact, far from preventing poisoning,

cases continued right up until the end of prohibition in 1933, by which time an estimated 10,000 Americans had died due to fake whiskey. 10,000 people had died. Now, public outcry was enough that a federal grand jury investigated the matter, concluding of course, classic, that no cover-up had taken place. However, Doran himself had once admitted, this is where it starts to get even more dark, that the average Joe wouldn't be able to detect the presence of methanol simply by smell, taste or sight, and its presence in fake whisky, flavoured with anything as it was, from aniseed to dead rats was therefore impossible to determine except by analysis by a skilled chemist in a laboratory. So he knew

that you couldn't taste it until there was methanol. It was impossible. So that was completely understood. And on top of that, this is a quote I was talking about, Liz. Dry campaigners who'd supported the government, they had even lobbied for poison to be removed from the labels and bottles of industrial alcohol, since in their view those who drunk alcohol at all were expendable. And here comes the Charles Dickens-level quote. One Treasury Department official at the time told reporters that if people on the fringes of society were dying off fast from poisoned hooch, then a good job will have been done. Have you ever heard anything more like Scrooge in your

entire life? Crikey. But also that's… Prohibition lasted for 13 years. Yeah. Absolutely. It's an extraordinary moment in American history, I think, Prohibition. And also, there was alcohol in the White House during Prohibition. The White House always had It was a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, absolutely wild. Still, I got absolutely fucked on my 25th birthday and if it had been, if you'd offered me formaldehyde then I'd have taken it. Yeah, I think I had a shot of that on my 18th.

In short though, to conclude, the American government... A formaldey bomb. They knew that policies were poisoning people, they knew it was killing people, They knew it was disabling people and they simply shrugged their shoulders. However, following the abolition of prohibition, deaths from poison liquor obviously fell rapidly and the cover-up was then just quietly forgotten about for decades and it just went away. But the government knew that their actions, which were not detectable when drunk, were leading to the poisoning and killing of their own citizens. That is bonkers, I never knew that. Completely concealed. There you go. Dark isn't it? Yeah, nice. Fancy a beer now?

Yeah I quite fancy a pint actually. Yeah I fancy a shot of formaldehyde. Well, there we go. That's the end of our episode on cover ups. Feel like Mulder and Scully. And someone else. There's three of us. It's got Mulder, Scully and a third wheel. Which one am I? The guy in the Mac. Tom's the guy in the Mac. Oh yeah,okyman. Chris is Mulder. Smokyman, yeah. And I am the beautiful Scully. I wish you were. Yeah.

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