March 1935 saw a major confrontation between the police and South Wales miners protesting changes in unemployment legislation. Demonstrators had been prevented from marching from Abertillery to a benefit office in the nearby town of Blaina. The ‘Blaina Riots’, and subsequent trial of miners at Monmouth Assizes later that summer, became a cause célèbre for the left which regarded the police response as heavy-handed. Despite support during the trial from the local politician, Aneurin Bevan, and the Scottish MP, Jennie Lee, eleven miners received prison sentences for riotous assembly. The judge argued that the riot had been orchestrated by the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement, an organisation which he regarded, perhaps correctly, as a front for the Communist Party.