1980 was a the high point for the whole late 1970s revival of skinheads and there were Irish boot boys and girls around too
1980 was a the high point for the whole late 1970s revival of skinheads and there were Irish boot boys and girls around too
Between 1979 and 1981, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher presided over an unprecedented economic recession that devastated manufacturing industry
Margaret Thatcher is sometimes presented as a gay icon, but in the 1980s she led an onslaught on LGBT rights at the height of the HIV crisis
In the late 1970s, every year at the Notting Hill Carnival ended in a riot reflecting poor relations between the Metropolitan Police and black youth
The 1979 Thatcher government introduced a form of austerity economics called monetarism that ended up being a complete failure
The early 1980s witnessed a very productive output of anti Tory art from the Left and the labour movement. Go as far as to say it was a golden age of political satire in various formats: TV, theatre, film, pop music, paintings and postcards.
Hatred of Thatcher got the creative juices flowing! It seems like there was nothing better than a society deeply polarised and unsettled to produce top drama, plays, movies, songs and images. 1980s anti Tory art hasn’t been fully appreciated in my humble opinion – it’s about time there was an exhibition at the Royal Academy!
Personally, I think it’s no exaggeration to say you could compare 1980s anti Tory art to the explosion of creativity after the 1917 Russian revolution or the output of artists during the Weimar Republic. It had a distinctive look and feel. Plus there was that figure of hatred for it all to be focussed on – Maggie!
DISCOVER: New technology in 1983
When it came to music, bands fell over each other to stick the boot into the Tories. In 1985, several groups and artists took to the road to sing against Maggie. Red Wedge comprised such talents as Paul Weller, Billy Bragg and Jimmy Sommerville. I went to a Red Wedge gig in Liverpool at the Royal Court around the time the miners strike came to a sad end.
Below we have ska popsters The Beat singing their anti-Thatcher song ‘Stand Down Margaret’. I interviewed the late Ranking Roger at his home ten years back when I was working on the biography of Neville Staple.
He told me that they got in some trouble for singing a political song on a mainstream TV show. They might even have been denied airplay as a result. But he still thought it was worth it.
The 1981 riots presented the news media of the time with a huge challenge covering live events around the country that sprang up at a moment’s notice
Government papers released now reveal that within Thatcher’s government there was real concern about sole American control of nuclear weapons stationed in the UK – especially at the time of the Greenham Common protests. Defence secretaries John Nott then Michael Heseltine would have liked dual keys over the weapons of mass destruction but they didn’t …
Two parties brought the Labour government of Jim Callaghan to its knees – the Liberals and the Scottish Nationalists. Both might have ended up wondering if they’d done the right thing. The SNP was furious at Callaghan for not pushing through Scottish devolution. Callaghan had let Scotland have a referendum on the condition that 40% …
1982 – what issues gripped the left?