Militant

pipnasty · October 12, 2013

A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to spend an hour or so speaking with Peter Taafe and Tony Mulhearn about Liverpool’s Labour council between 1983 and 1987. And very enlightening it was too. Len McClusky was also present and it was equally as interesting to talk about the similarities to the present situation.

Anybody who lived through and remembers that period will testify to the personal devastation caused. I was only in my teens then but remember the news that the likes of British Leyland, Birds Eyes, Lucas Aerospace, Courtaulds, Black Box, Tate and Lyle, Meccano had closed as well as further redundancies at both the docks and Cammell Laird, like it was yesterday. My family was directly affected by the redundancies, so you grow up with that in mind.

The news a couple of years ago that the Tories were planning a ‘managed decline’ of Liverpool during this period only adds to the notion that Liverpool, and not Detroit, was the worlds first post-industrial city. Neither Kinnock’s Labour party or the Liberals were going to step in to save Liverpool either.

And this lead us to Militant. It could be argues that they were the first group of people to take a stand and say ‘enough is enough!’, and that the decline was arrested by this stand. Or, it has often been argued that it was Militant itself that broke Liverpool and, whilst not factually accurate, is still a fairly common viewpoint.

So, what say you? What are your memories and views of Militant? And of Heseltine, for that matter?

Could something like Militant happen again?

smithdown · October 12, 2013

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here