In Part Five of ‘Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay’ with no political party willing to seriously oppose Thatcher’s poll tax, millions of ordinary people begin to organise themselves at grassroots level, often inspired by the historic revolutionary events in the former Stalinist countries of Eastern Europe. The town of Northwich was typical of […]

Part Five in a series of ten articles on the history of the  ‘Anti-Poll Tax Campaign’. CHRIS ROBINSON looks at how the campaign developed at the local level in his own area of Northwich, Cheshire – reflected up and down the country as millions prepared to fight back against the […]

Part Four of ten articles exploring the history of the grass-roots movement against Thatcher’s infamous poll tax. CHRIS ROBINSON looks at the beginning of the fight back. Thatcher’s Tory government introduced the poll tax a year earlier in Scotland following their rejection of ‘Thatcherism’ in the 1987 elections. An acknowledged ‘Labour stronghold’, yet […]

Continuing with his series on the historic ‘Anti-Poll Tax Campaign’ that brought down Margaret Thatcher, CHRIS ROBINSON looks at how the political left were on the defensive in the face of the 1980s Tory government onslaught to end the post-war social consensus. With the Labour Party moving to the right, only the […]

Part Two of a continuing series of articles tracing the history of the anti-poll tax campaign. By 1988, following a third election victory, Thatcher’s government was determined to fund local government contributions with a personal tax. It was to be a massive transference of wealth from the poor to the […]

A second bite of the cherry always tastes sweet. Seminal ’70s band, The Faces, knew that better than most. They provided one of the musical and cultural links between the lost idealism of the ‘poptastic’ Sixties and the grey hangover of the new decade. The nucleus of the band, former Mod […]

In a new ten part series of articles, CHRIS ROBINSON traces the story behind the grassroots struggle against the poll tax – how it was organised, how it defeated this hated policy, and how the movement was instrumental in the downfall of Margaret Thatcher. ‘The lessons we learned yesterday, can be put into practice […]

Just as UKIP’s leader, Nigel Farage, thought it was safe to come out into the political party conference season to set out his rightwing populist stall, his party’s very own backwoodsman Godfrey Bloom MEP went and did it again. This time, as UKIP’s 2013 Conference was already underway, it seemed there […]