IF A week is a long time in politics, then 42 years must seem like an eternity.

That’s how long the lid has been kept on one of the most infamous political scandals of the 20th century, the framing of the Shrewsbury 24.

The story is widely known in the labour and trades union movement — a conspiracy involving the police, the judiciary, big construction firms and the Tory government, to punish workers who took part in Britain’s first nationwide builders’ strike.

Now it is being told to a wider public.

United We Stand, by Neil Gore, is a play which has already enjoyed a successful national tour and it got a five-star review in this paper.

On November 2 it launches its London premiere and begins a 15-night run at the CLF Art Cafe at The Bussey Building in Peckham.

Among the audience on the first night will be Ricky Tomlinson, one of the three building workers jailed for being identified as “ringleaders” in the strike. At the time he was a plasterer and trade union activist.

Also present will be Tom Watson MP, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, and members of the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign which is fighting to reveal the truth about the conspiracy.

Tomlinson was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. His mate Des Warren suffered a three-year sentence and a third striker, John Kinsie Jones, received nine months.

Des Warren never recovered from his time in jail, during which he was repeatedly subjected to a “chemical cosh,” a concoction of medications intended to calm and subdue him.

“They were giving him three or four drugs a day,” Tomlinson tells me. “His health was deteriorating. He died from chemically induced Parkinson’s Disease in 2004.”

Tomlinson of course went on to become a successful entertainer, starring in films including Mike Bassett: England Manager and TV series such as Brookside and The Royle Family.

But he’s never forgotten the strike and his imprisonment and he is one of the leaders of the nine-year Shrewsbury 24 Campaign aimed at uncovering the truth about the conspiracy and finding out how high in the levels of government it went.

He believes the motives behind the conspiracy were to create a warning to the shock-troops of the labour and trades union movement, the miners.

The building workers’ strike had followed the successful 1972 national strike by the miners, leaving the Tory government, led by prime minister Ted Heath, smarting from defeat.

The strike had featured flying pickets who shut down the coalfield — a tactic copied months later by striking building workers targeting major construction sites across Britain.

“But they were not after the builders,” Tomlinson says. “They were after the miners. They wanted a whipping boy, to be able to tell the miners: ‘If you don’t behave this is what will happen to you.’

“It goes back to Ted Heath. They set up a unit to infiltrate and gather material.”

If Tomlinson is right, the government’s message did not get through to the miners. They struck again in 1974, inflicting an even greater defeat on the Tory government. Heath called a general election using the slogan: “Who rules Britain?”

He got his answer at the ballot box and was ejected from power.

Tomlinson says that in jail they were not treated like other prisoners. “We were told we were two of six political prisoners at the time. Two of the others may have been the Price sisters (jailed for an IRA bombing they did not carry out). I don’t know who the other two were.

“We did not wear prison clothes. We did not get visitors. We were kept in segregation,” he said.

At the time of the strike, the trial and the imprisonment, the strikers were subjected to a barrage of lies from the Tory media, which depicted them as violent criminals.

Tomlinson compares the media’s actions then to the recent and continuing attacks on Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, which have ranged from the virulent to the ludicrous.

He has been accused of being a threat to national security for saying he would never launch a nuclear attack, of being a threat to the economy for proposing alternatives to austerity and much more.

“One paper said he was wearing red socks with blue slippers,” says Tomlinson wryly. “Who cares?”

He is looking forward to seeing the play, and the first night’s showing in London will be followed by a question and answer session with the media in which he will take part.

“The play is doing very, very well and has been getting rave reviews across the country,” he said.

Using humour and drama, United We Stand tells the story of the Shrewsbury 24 and in particular of Tomlinson and Warren. It includes poems written in prison by Tomlinson and political songs by renowned folk musician John Kirkpatrick with two actors, Neil Gore and William Fox, taking multiple roles.

Exploring the background to the dispute, the play dispels the media-originated myth that the strikers were something other than ordinary working men seeking a better life for themselves and their fellow workers.

Tomlinson said the lessons and experiences of the Shrewsbury 24 have to be spread and that the play is an excellent vehicle.

“Every worker should know what happened to us so as to ensure it does not happen again,” he said.

Throughout the play’s run there will be post-show discussions on the play and its relevance to today’s society with among others Tom Smith MP, Dave Anderson MP, Dave Smith of the Blacklisting Campaign and Matt Wrack Fire Brigades Union general secretary.

Box office: clfartcafe.orgon. For more information on the production, visit townsendproductions.co.uk