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 […]

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 […]

When I originally got into the Daily Mail, it was sort of by accident. I never bought the newspaper itself, so thankfully, I cannot list myself as a funder of tripe in times past. It was, however, one of the unrestricted news websites I could access at the workplace I […]

Thatcher is dead. But ‘Thatcherism’ is very much alive. It’s embodied, not only in our present CONDEM coalition government as they hand out devastating cuts while further enriching the wealthy, but in the very heart of our body politic. In death, as in her lifetime, Margaret Thatcher has managed to divide the […]

Since Margaret Thatcher’s death, there have been plenty of people around the country celebrating. At impromptu parties in Glasgow and London, on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and on iPods from Land’s End to John o’ Groats, people have been rejoicing that Thatcher is no more. Respect MP […]

If ever there was a turning point in British postwar history, it was the Miners’ Strike of 1984-85. When the strike ended in defeat for the National Union of Miners (NUM), the full force of Thatcherite monetarist policies could be more thoroughly unrolled. Without the defeat of the NUM, the […]