Who Dares Wins

by Dominic Sandbrook

  32. Guardian, 7 October 1981, 8 October 1981; Observer, 11 October 1981; Daily Mirror, 9 October 1981. The Panorama edition ‘The Other Ruling Class’ was broadcast on BBC1 on 12 October 1981.

  33. Sun, 14 October 1981, quoted in Alwyn W. Turner, Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s (2010), p. 23; The Times, 9 October 1981.

  34. Hoskyns, Just in Time, p. 340; The Times, 13 October 1981; Daily Express, 13 October 1981. For Mrs Thatcher’s appointment with Ken Dodd, see her engagement diary for 12 October, on the Thatcher Foundation website. For the conference atmosphere, see the Thames News clip from 14 October 1981 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Goxp7ERtsJM.

  35. The Times, 14 October 1981.

  36. Ibid., 15 October 1981; Guardian, 15 October 1981.

  37. The Times, 15 October 1981, 16 October 1981; Observer, 20 September 1981; Guardian, 17 October 1981; and see Tebbit, Upwardly Mobile, p. 187; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 647.

  38. Guardian, 17 October 1981; Hoskyns, Just in Time, pp. 338–9; The Times, 17 October 1981; ‘Speech at Conservative Party Conference’, 16 October 1981, TFW.

  39. Keith Britto to Derek Howe, ‘Public Opinion Background Note 86’, 20 October 1981, TFW; Guardian, 5 October 1981; Ivor Crewe and Anthony King, SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party (Oxford, 1995), pp. 140–41; The Times, 5 October 1981.

  40. Crewe and King, SDP, p. 142; The Times, 23 October 1981.

  41. Ibid., 24 October 1981; Guardian, 24 October 1981.

  42. The Times, 24 October 1981; Crewe and King, SDP, pp. 142–3; Bill Rodgers, Fourth among Equals (2000), p. 217; Guardian, 7 October 1981.

  43. Hugh Stephenson, Claret and Chips: The Rise of the SDP (1982), p. 113; Shirley Williams, Climbing the Bookshelves (2009), pp. 292–3; The Times, 24 November 1981; Daily Express, 28 November 1981.

  44. Clark, Diaries: Into Politics, p. 272; The Times, 27 November 1981; Guardian, 27 November 1981; Daily Express, 27 November 1981; Daily Mirror, 28 November 1981.

  45. The Times, 27 November 1981; Daily Express, 27 November 1981; Daily Mirror, 28 November 1981.

  46. The Times, 28 November 1981; Daily Mirror, 28 November 1981; Daily Express, 27 November 1981.

  47. The Times, 28 November 1981; Clark, Diaries: Into Politics, p. 276; Richard Ingrams and John Wells, One for the Road (1982), letter dated 4 December 1981.

  48. Gow to Thatcher, ‘Your Meeting with Cecil Parkinson’, 26 November 1981, TFW; The Times, 28 November 1981; Guardian, 28 November 1981; Campbell, Edward Heath, p. 726.

  49. Roy Jenkins, A Life at the Centre (1991), p. 554; Campbell, Edward Heath, pp. 726–7; The Times, 28 November 1981.

  50. ‘Gang of 25’ to Michael Jopling, 25 November 1981, TFW; Jopling to Thatcher, 4 December 1981, TFW; and see Young, One of Us, p. 241.

  51. Keith Britto, ‘Public Opinion Background Note 95’, 20 December 1981, TFW; the Conservative Research Department paper is quoted in Christopher Collins’s guide to Mrs Thatcher’s private files for 1981, at https://www.margaretthatcher.org/archive/1981cac3.asp.

  52. Campbell, Iron Lady, p. 122; John Junor, Memoirs: Listening for a Midnight Tram (1990), pp. 261–3.

  Chapter 28. The Shadow of the Past

  1. See Janet and Allan Ahlberg, Peepo! (1981).

  2. George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937: 2001), p. 108; Robert Colls, George Orwell: English Rebel (Oxford, 2013), pp. 70–71. The first reviews of Peepo! were absurdly joyless: see Guardian, 2 October 1981, New Statesman, 4 December 1981.

  3. Guardian, 24 June 2006; Daily Telegraph, 1 April 2007, 31 May 2008; Independent, 15 May 2008.

  4. David Duff, Victoria Travels: Journeys of Queen Victoria between 1830 and 1900, with Extracts from Her Journal (1970), p. 26; Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–41: Oxford, 1997), pp. 348–9; J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1955: 2012), p. 1013; Guardian, 27 February 2010, 20 May 2010; and see the BBC Four documentary Heavy Metal Britannia (5 March 2010).

  5. The Times, 4 July 1980, 3 March 1982; Guardian, 17 February 1981.

  6. Sunday Times, 14 February 1982, 15 May 1983.

  7. Guardian, 20 November 1982; The Times, 15 April 2013; and see the Black Country Living Museum, ‘The Museum’s Story’, https://www.bclm.co.uk/about/the-museums-story/1.htm.

  8. New Society, 25 September 1980; The Times, 12 May 1981; Beryl Bainbridge, English Journey, or, The Road to Milton Keynes (1984), pp. 70, 68.

  9. New Society, 23 August 1979; Jonathan Raban, Coasting (1986), pp. 224–5.

  10. Jeremy Seabrook, Unemployment (1982: 1983), p. 167; Guardian, 25 February 1982.

  11. Ian Jack, Before the Oil Ran Out: Britain in the Brutal Years (rev. edn: 1997), pp. 2–3, 6, 36–7.

  12. Margaret Drabble, The Middle Ground (1980), p. 111; Alan Bleasdale, Boys from the Blackstuff (1982: 1985), pp. 251–2, 253.

  13. Guardian, 24 January 1981; New Society, 20 March 1980.

  14. Jeremy Seabrook, City Close-Up (1971: 1973), pp. 11–12; Jeremy Seabrook, What Went Wrong? Working People and the Ideals of the Labour Movement (1978), pp. 12–13, 27–8, 31, 115, 135.

  15. Ibid., p. 9; Seabrook, Unemployment, pp. 7, 34, 150

  16. Orwell, Road to Wigan Pier, p. 108; Guardian, 4 January 1982.

  17. The Times, 30 March 1981, 30 June 1981, 18 May 1981, 30 September 1980; Guardian, 29 May 1981.

  18. Ibid., 26 April 1982.

  19. Bainbridge, English Journey, p. 154.

  20. The Times, 29 October 1984; Guardian, 27 March 1981; and see Mark Clapson, A Social History of Milton Keynes: Middle England/Edge City (2004).

  21. Sunday Times, 19 October 1980; Guardian, 27 March 1981; The Times, 20 August 1980, 29 October 1984.

  22. Ibid., 21 May 1980; Guardian, 20 November 1980.

  23. Ibid., 20 November 1980, 26 January 1981.

  24. Ibid., 26 January 1981, 28 April 1982; The Times, 21 May 1980, 9 November 1983.

  25. Guardian, 20 November 1980, 26 January 1981.

  26. David Smith, North and South: Britain’s Economic, Social and Political Divide (1989), pp. 115, 32–3, 36, 39, 40; Bainbridge, English Journey, p. 8.

  27. Smith, North and South, p. 19; Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory, vol. 2: Island Stories, Unravelling Britain (1998), p. 165; and see Dave Russell, Looking North: Northern England and the National Imagination (Manchester, 2004), pp. 28, 60, 90, 184.

  28. Smith, North and South, p. 3; Guardian, 19 February 1981, 19 January 1983.

  29. Paul Theroux, The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey around the Coast of Great Britain (1983), pp. 208–9; Jack, Before the Oil Ran Out, pp. 131, 142–3.

  30. Ibid., pp. 131–2, 139, 128–9, 133.

  31. Ibid., pp. 80, 82–4.

  32. Ibid., p. 178.

  Chapter 29. The Land of Make Believe

  1. Daily Mirror, 11 December 1981, 14 December 1981, 17 December 1981, 21 December 1981, 22 December 1981; Daily Express, 12 December 1981, 14 December 1981, 22 December 1981.

  2. Russell Davies (ed.), The Kenneth Williams Diaries (1993), pp. 645–6; Daily Mirror, 14 December 1981.

  3. Daily Express, 23 December 1981; Guardian, 24 December 1981.

  4. Radio Times, 16–22 January 1982.

  5. Daily Mirror, 24 December 1981; Guardian, 24 December 1981.

  6. Daily Express, 17 December 1981, 21 December 1981; Daily Mirror, 17 December 1981, 14 December 1981; Guardian, 17 December 1981. Guardian, 24 December 1981, 18 December 1981; The Times, 10 November 1981.

  7. Ibid., 10 November 1981, 15 December 1981; Daily Express, 24 December 1981.

  8. MO W633, Autumn Directive 1981; Guardian, 22 January 1980; The Times, 12 November 1980; Mary Abbott, Family Affairs: A History of the Family in Twentieth-Century England (2003), p. 154; MO H260, Spring Directive 1982.

  9. Daily Express, 28 December 1981, 2 January 1982; Daily Mirror, 29 December 1981.

  10. MO R470, Autumn Directive 1981; MO W633, Autumn Directive 1981.

  11. Daily Mirror, 29 December 1981;
The Times, 26 March 1982.

  12. ‘Speech to Conservative Trade Unionists’, 1 November 1980, TFW; John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher, vol. 2: The Iron Lady (2003), p. 249.

  13. MO H260, Spring Directive 1982; MO G226, Summer Directive 1984.

  14. George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937: 2001), p. 83.

  15. Louis Heren, Alas, Alas for England: What Went Wrong with Britain (1981), p. 150; Guardian, 3 October 1983; Ian Jack, Before the Oil Ran Out: Britain in the Brutal Years (rev edn: 1997), p. xvii.

  16. Guardian, 1 September 1981.

  17. Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds, Nye: The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan (2015), p. 10; Guardian, 20 July 1981, 31 October 1981; and see Jeremy Seabrook, Unemployment (1982: 1983), pp. 7–9, 206–7. On consumerism and its critics, see Frank Trentmann, Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-first (2016), esp. pp. 342–4.

  18. ‘Speech Opening Central Milton Keynes Shopping Centre’, 25 September 1979, TFW; Beryl Bainbridge, English Journey, or, The Road to Milton Keynes (1984), pp. 155–6.

  19. Guardian, 8 August 1979; The Times, 29 October 1984; Sunday Times, 19 October 1980.

  20. Guardian, 19 November 1983; Wakefield Express, 21 October 2008; Yorkshire Post, 17 October 2013; ‘Ridings Shopping Centre: The Heart of Shopping in Wakefield’, https://truenorthbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Ridings-Shopping-Centre.pdf.

  21. Lincoln Allison, Condition of England: Essays and Impressions (1981), p. 39; The Times, 30 March 1981.

  22. Guardian, 9 February 1982, 16 February 1982; The Times, 8 May 1982, 8 November 1983.

  23. Ibid., 30 March 1981; MO C108, Spring 1981; Guardian, 14 April 1982.

  24. MO D156, Spring Directive 1982; MO C108, Spring Directive 1982; Daily Mirror, 11 January 1982.

  25. Ingham to Thatcher, ‘BBC Radio 4 – World This Weekend’, 2 January 1982, TFW; The Times, 2 January 1982.

  26. Hansard, 26 January 1982, 27 January 1982; The Times, 27 January 1982, 21 July 1982; Daily Mirror, 27 January 1982.

  27. The Times, 29 January 1982, 17 February 1982.

  28. Walker to Thatcher, ‘Memorandum on a Conservative Strategy for the Next Two Years’, 16 February 1982, TFW; Sherman to Thatcher, ‘How We React to the SD-Alliance’, 11 February 1982, TFW.

  29. Ferdinand Mount, Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes (2008), pp. 305–7.

  30. Keith Britto, ‘Public Opinion Background Note 96’, 19 January 1982, TFW; Keith Britto, ‘Public Opinion Background Note 101’, 21 February 1982, TFW. See also David Sanders, Hugh Ward, David Marsh and Tony Fletcher, ‘Government Popularity and the Falklands War: A Reassessment’, British Journal of Political Science, 17:3 (1987), pp. 281–313; Ivor Crewe and Anthony King, SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party (Oxford, 1995), pp. 146–7.

  31. Sunday Express, 6 March 1982; Geoffrey Howe, Conflict of Loyalty (1994), pp. 239–40; Financial Times, 1 March 1982; and see Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, vol. 1: Not for Turning (2013), pp. 651, 654.

  32. Hansard, 9 March 1982; Daily Mirror, 10 March 1982; Keith Britto, ‘Public Opinion Background Note 104’, 14 March 1982, TFW.

  33. ‘Note of Liaison Committee Meeting’, 10 March 1982, TFW; Keith Britto, ‘Public Opinion Background Note 104’, 14 March 1982, TFW; Sunday Express, 14 March 1982.

  34. Keith Britto, ‘Public Opinion Background Note 104’, 14 March 1982, TFW; Guardian, 19 March 1982, 16 March 1982, 4 March 1982; Observer, 7 March 1982.

  Chapter 30. Tomorrow’s World

  1. Tom Lean, Electronic Dreams: How 1980s Britain Learned to Love the Computer (2016), p. 107; Magnus Anderson and Rebecca Levene, Grand Thieves and Tomb Raiders: How British Video Games Conquered the World (2012), pp. 43–4; Francis Spufford, Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin (2003), p. 75. For comparable prices, see, for example, the Currys and Co-op adverts in the Daily Mirror on 4 March 1982 and 7 May 1982.

  2. Dan Whitehead, Speccy Nation: A Tribute to the Golden Age of British Gaming (2012), pp. 7–8; Anderson and Levene, Grand Thieves, p. 43; Guardian, 9 July 1982, 29 April 1983; Observer, 27 March 1983; The Times, 16 August 1983; Janan Ganesh, George Osborne: The Austerity Chancellor (2012), p. 17.

  3. Guardian, 11 September 1982, 17 March 1983; The Times, 29 January 1973, 7 January 1976, 24 November 1976, 17 January 1977; ‘Sinclair: A Corporate History’, http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/sinclair/corphist.htm; ‘Clive Sinclair’, Practical Computing, 5:7 (1982), http://www.worldofspectrum.org/CliveSinclairInterview1982/.

  4. George Davies, What Next? (rev. edn: 1991), p. 153; Observer, 16 January 1983; Guardian, 17 May 1983, 11 September 1982; ‘Clive Sinclair’, Practical Computing, 5:7 (1982), http://www.worldofspectrum.org/CliveSinclairInterview1982/.

  5. Anderson and Levene, Grand Thieves, p. 20; Guardian, 11 September 1982, 17 March 1983; Observer, 16 January 1983; Daily Mirror, 2 August 1984, 14 April 1984.

  6. Ibid., 24 June 1955, 27 June 1955; Lean, Electronic Dreams, pp. 20–23, 27–8; Observer, 10 September 1978.

  7. ‘Now the Chips Are Down’ (Horizon, BBC2, 31 March 1978) is online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01z4rrj/horizon-19771978-now-the-chips-are-down; see also the discussions in Anderson and Levene, Grand Thieves, p. 18; Lean, Electronic Dreams, pp. 29–30.

  8. All six episodes of The Mighty Micro (ITV, 29 October–3 December 1979) are online at https://archive.org; the quotation is from the fourth episode. See also Christopher Evans, The Mighty Micro: The Impact of the Computer Revolution (1979); New Scientist, 6 September 1979, 8 November 1979; Lean, Electronic Dreams, pp. 31–3. On Evans and Ballard, see J. G. Ballard, Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton: An Autobiography (2008), pp. 211–15.

  9. Lean, Electronic Dreams, pp. 41–2; Observer, 10 September 1978; Guardian, 15 November 1979.

  10. Anderson and Levene, Grand Thieves, p. 26; Lean, Electronic Dreams, pp. 64–5; Guardian, 30 January 1980; The Times, 30 January 1980.

  11. Ibid., 30 January 1980, 11 February 1980, 22 September 1980; Daily Express, 3 November 1980; Cambridge Evening News, 29 January 1980, http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/5445/Sinclair-ZX80-Launched/; Lean, Electronic Dreams, pp. 61, 63–4; Guardian, 6 March 1981, 17 March 1983.

  12. Ibid., 29 March 1978, 26 May 1978; Maureen McNeil, ‘The Old and New Worlds of Information Technology in Britain’, in John Corner and Sylvia Harvey (eds.), Enterprise and Heritage: Crosscurrents of National Culture (1991), pp. 116–17; Lean, Electronic Dreams, p. 30; ‘Election: Who Will Win?’, BBC News (BBC1, 2 May 1979), http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/thatcher/6332.shtml; Observer, 4 February 1979. I am grateful to Alistair Quarterman for bringing the McNeil essay to my attention.

  13. Sir Keith Joseph, ‘MicroElectronics’, 8 June 1979, TFW.

  14. John Hoskyns, Just in Time: Inside the Thatcher Revolution (2000), pp. 115–16; John Biffen, ‘MicroElectronics’, 2 July 1979, TFW.

  15. ‘Interview for Sunday Times’, 3 May 1981, TFW; McNeil, ‘Old and New Worlds’, p. 120; Lean, Electronic Dreams, p. 92; ‘Speech to Welsh CBI Council’, 11 December 1980, TFW.

  16. The Times, 6 January 1981; Guardian, 20 August 1981; New Scientist, 5 November 1981, 8 April 1982.

  17. ‘Speech on Microcomputers in Schools’, 6 April 1981, TFW; Guardian, 7 April 1981, 20 August 1981, 9 July 1982; New Scientist, 14 July 1983; McNeil, ‘Old and New Worlds’, pp. 122–4; and see Richard Fothergill, ‘The Microelectronics Education Programme Strategy’, April 1981, http://www.naec.org.uk/organisations/the-microelectronics-education-programme/the-microelectronics-education-programme-strategy.

  18. John Radcliffe and Robert Salkeld, ‘Towards Computer Literacy: The BBC Computer Literacy Project, 1979–1983’ (1983), pp. 3, 5, 10–11, 18–20; Tilly Blyth, The Legacy of the BBC Micro: Effecting Change in the UK’s Cultures of Computing (2012), pp. 9, 15–16, http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/legacy-bbc-micro; Anderson and Levene, Grand Thieves, pp. 33–5; Lean, Elect
ronic Dreams, pp. 94–5. The internal report by Radcliffe and Salkeld can be found at http://www.naec.org.uk/organisations/bbc-computer-literacy-project/towards-computer-literacy-the-bbc-computer-literacy-project-1979-1983, and I am very grateful to the BBC’s Alistair Quarterman, once again, for sending me a hard copy.

  19. Radcliffe and Salkeld, ‘Towards Computer Literacy’, pp. 14–15; Guardian, 23 February 1981; The Times, 4 March 1981; Anderson and Levene, Grand Thieves, pp. 35–6, 38; Lean, Electronic Dreams, pp. 99–100.

  20. Blyth, Legacy of the BBC Micro, pp. 12–13; Anderson and Levene, Grand Thieves, pp. 38, 40; Lean, Electronic Dreams, p. 107.

  21. The Times, 4 July 1975, 29 June 1984, 12 April 1983; Guardian, 16 June 1981; Lean, Electronic Dreams, pp. 126–7, 50–53; Anderson and Levene, Grand Thieves, pp. 21–5, 31.

  22. Blyth, Legacy of the BBC Micro, pp. 12–13; Guardian, 16 June 1981; Anderson and Levene, Grand Thieves, pp. 38–40.

  23. Guardian, 6 March 1981; ‘Clive Sinclair’, Practical Computing, 5:7 (1982), http://www.worldofspectrum.org/CliveSinclairInterview1982/; Anderson and Levene, Grand Thieves, pp. 45, 41–2.

  24. The Times, 15 December 1981; Lean, Electronic Dreams, p. 105; Guardian, 16 June 1981, 24 November 1981.

  25. Ibid., 12 January 1982; Radcliffe and Salkeld, ‘Towards Computer Literacy’, pp. 26–9, 31–2, 44. The ten episodes of The Computer Programme (BBC2, 11 January–15 March 1982) are online at https://archive.org/details/computer-programme.

  26. Radcliffe and Salkeld, ‘Towards Computer Literacy’, pp. 35–6; Guardian, 14 April 1982, 4 November 1982.

  27. The Times, 29 November 1982; Lean, Electronic Dreams, pp. 108–9; McNeil, ‘Old and New Worlds’, pp. 122–4.

  28. The Times, 10 July 1984, 20 March 1984.

  29. Speech at Anglo-Portuguese Chamber of Trade Lunch’, 18 April 1984, TFW; for Mrs Thatcher in Japan in September 1982, see the news clips at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVWnjHFHrzE.

  30. ‘Speech to Conservative Central Council’, 26 March 1983, TFW; ‘Interview for Observer’, 11 April 1983, TFW; ‘Speech Opening Conference on Information Technology’, 8 December 1982, TFW.