Looking back at 1986, it was a year when two halves of Britain went in different directions. With the year-long miners’ strike defeated in 1985, industrial areas saw a further surge in unemployment and a sense of despondency. But in London, it was a different world. Financial deregulation in the City of London powered the…
Britain once had an economy made up of nationalised industries where the state ran water, transport, energy, telecoms and other services
In the academic year 1984-85, I was Deputy President of Liverpool University student union during the miners strike of that year
The 1980s saw an avalanche of anti Tory art encompassing songs, images, movies and plays in a creative expression of Thatcher hatred
During the 1984-85 miners strike, there was an idea that the national grid could be crashed if we all simultaneously used electrical appliances
Miners Strike posters and papers from my 80s archives
During the 1984/85 miners strike, the tabloid newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch – The Sun and the News of the World – took a very hostile stance towards the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Murdoch was about to take on his own print unions so organised labour was in his sights. The Sun put the…
My student union election poster from 1982 – Liverpool Guild of Undergraduates
In 1981, Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher caved into the miners but was simply biding her time for a future showdown
Miners strike posters and leaflets from 1984 and 1985 during the NUM dispute with the NCB and the Thatcher government
