Good sources on Brittian in the 1980s?

E. Burke

Banned
I've been reading Beating the Fascists by Sean Birchall, and I just watched the movie Pride about Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (dat ending seen is the best socialist aesthetics I've ever seen). Its got me thinking about how to do a Timeline in the 1980s UK-USA. I'm looking for sources, because I need to do allot of research first.
 
On the UK:

Graham Stewart: Bang! A History of Britain in the 1980s is v well written, with good analysis and insights, not unsympathetic to Thatcher.

Andy McSmith: No Such Thing As Society is just as good, less sympathetic.

Avoid anything with the words "Dominic" and "Sandbrook" on the cover.
 

E. Burke

Banned
My ideas involved a National Front victory at Lewisham leading it getting a few MPs elected and the formation of a Tory-NF government under Thatcher.
 
Anything on the miners strike? Also a history of the anti poll tax movment

On the miner's strike: Seumas Milne: The Eneny Within: Thatcher's Secret War Against The Miners is probably the best-known book. I don't like it - he seems to stretch evidence somewhat to show a secret state conspiracy. The author has always denied being a member of the SWP, which you're free to believe.
 
Anything on the miners strike? Also a history of the anti poll tax movment

If you think that Britain in the 1980's was defined by the miner's strike and the poll tax then you have a very simple view of the decade.

As for Margaret Thatcher joining a coalition with anyone that is unlikely - joining one with the National Front is almost ASB territory. As is the NF winning anything (including their deposit back!)

This is a very influential interview which is credited with killing the National Front's election chances in 1979

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103485

Thatcher basically said that you don't need the National Front to have a party that is concerned about immigration - and it worked.

As for Lewisham, you probably be better off with Peckham or one of the Birmingham seats
 

E. Burke

Banned
If you think that Britain in the 1980's was defined by the miner's strike and the poll tax then you have a very simple view of the decade.

As for Margaret Thatcher joining a coalition with anyone that is unlikely - joining one with the National Front is almost ASB territory. As is the NF winning anything (including their deposit back!)

This is a very influential interview which is credited with killing the National Front's election chances in 1979

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103485

Thatcher basically said that you don't need the National Front to have a party that is concerned about immigration - and it worked.

As for Lewisham, you probably be better off with Peckham or one of the Birmingham seats

I meant the battle of Lewisham, the alternate version has the NF smashing the opposition on the streets. This gives them the credibility to win an election.
 
I meant the battle of Lewisham, the alternate version has the NF smashing the opposition on the streets. This gives them the credibility to win an election.

Winning a street brawl isn't going to give anyone, least of all the National Front, the credibility to win an election in 1980s Britain.

Besides that, Thatcher's revolution stole all the oxygen from the right. No one was going to make any progress outflanking her there. Most of the opposition came from various degrees to her left, but it was riven by division.
 
As Booster Gold states above, winning the Battle of Lewisham won't win you an election, and with the police and anti-NF numbers there I can't see a POD that will let them. What if they lost more spectacularly? A couple of deaths, and worse police casualties? That might provoke an anti-left backlash.

Derek Pullem
As for Margaret Thatcher joining a coalition with anyone that is unlikely - joining one with the National Front is almost ASB territory. As is the NF winning anything (including their deposit back!)
Thatcher co-operating with Nazis is ASB - she was quite aware of the underlying ideology of the NF, I simply can't imagine her in harness with a group whose aim is the extermination of Britain's Jewish community.
 
Thatcher co-operating with Nazis is ASB - she was quite aware of the underlying ideology of the NF, I simply can't imagine her in harness with a group whose aim is the extermination of Britain's Jewish community.

Especially given where her Parliamentary seat is.
 
Thatcher hated the NF, she'd never go into coalition with them, she had a very Jewish Cabinet and she was not racist. Apart from them being Nazi's she regarded their economic policy as being Socialist, I think she once called them the "Right Boot of Socialism" (or Marxism, can't remember the exact quote).
 
It is kind of scary that a book about left wing thugs beating up right wing thugs and a "poli-com" can form a basis for someone's view of 1980's Britian:eek:
 
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