8 Part Eight of ‘Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay’ where CHRIS ROBINSON examines how the anti-poll tax campaign moves on from the aftermath of the magnificent 200,000 strong demonstration in Trafalgar Square that was turned into a ‘police riot’ in March, 1990 giving the media and political establishment the opportunity to smear […]

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 […]

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 […]

Amongst some of the industries that are booming since the capitalist car crash are food banks, Cash Converters (pawn shops), exploitative pay-day loan shark companies and bailiffs. We heard recently in the news that the government is to introduce new laws to restrict some of the bailiffs’ practices. Presumably, some of these bailiff companies […]

Concrete events showed me the way to become a socialist. I come from a traditional Labour family and grew up on a council estate in North-West England. There was mum, dad and five kids. We voted Labour and just about everybody in the neighbourhood voted Labour. That’s the way it was. Voting […]