1981: Britain’s Awful Year

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In 1981, the United Kingdom was convulsed by a severe recession, political turmoil, racial strife, police brutality, and the most extensive wave of urban violence anywhere in the developed world during the decade of the 1980s. How did things go so terribly wrong? In this video, we’ll examine the many causes and effects of Britain’s terrible year, including the New Cross Road fire, the Brixton and Toxteth uprisings, the Yorkshire Ripper killer and the political travails of one Margaret Thatcher. We’ll also examine what was going right in Britain in 1981, such as the vibrant punk and heavy metal music scenes.

Sources for this video included: Michael Bilton, Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper (London: Harper Perennial, 2012), https://archive.org/details/wickedbey... Kenneth O. Morgan, Britain Since 1945: The People’s Peace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), https://archive.org/details/britainsi... ; “New Cross Massacre—The Fact Finding Commission,” The Black Voice, Vol. 12, No. 1 (1981); “Sunderland Road, 1971—New Cross, 1981,” The Black Voice, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1982); Darcus Howe, “New Cross: The Blaze We Cannot Forget,” The Guardian, Jan. 17, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/commentis... Nadine White, “Black People’s Day of Action: Inside the 1981 New Cross Fire March That Brought Britain to a Standstill,” Huffington Post (UK), February 3, 2020, https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entr... Nadine White, “Brixton Was Set Alight By Inequality in 1981. But How Much Has Truly Changed?”, Huffington Post (UK), April 13, 2019, https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entr... Baron Leslie Scarman, The Scarman Report: Report of an Inquiry (Hammondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1986), https://archive.org/details/scarmanre... Diane Frost & Richard Phillips, eds., Liverpool ’81: Remembering The Riots (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011); Ian Glasper, Burning Britain: The History of UK Punk 1980-1984 (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2014); Matthew Worley, No Future: Punk, Politics and British Youth Culture, 1976-1984 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Simon Reynolds, Rip It Up And Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 (New York: Penguin Books, 2006); Anthony Lynch, “Punk Diary 1981,” Up Close and Personal—The UK Punk Rock Photography Website, https://punk-rock-photography.weebly.... Gary Bushell, “Apocalypse Now! Tour 1981,” Sounds (July 11, 1981), reprinted by Punkrocker.org, https://punkrocker.org.uk/gigreviews/... Sally Bedell Smith, Diana In Search of Herself (New York: Random House, 1999); Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: From Grantham to the Falklands (New York: Vintage Books, 2013); Philip Eden, “Weather of December 1981: Snowiest of 20th Century,” Weather Online, https://www.weatheronline.co.uk/repor... “Monthly Weather Report: December 1981,” The Meteorological Office, Vol. 98, No. 12.

The interstitial music in this video is (in order of appearance): “Regret Serious” by Gerardo Garcia; “UK ’81” and “UK Medicine” by George Kay.

Special thanks to: John Marcucci, Austin Pierce, David Albers, Nathaniel Southwood, and Rob Lordan of the ‪@Robslondon‬ channel.

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Chapters:
00:00-16:25 The Killer & The Fire
16:25-31:23: The Context
31:23-48:01: Time of Troubles
48:01-1:03:24: Days of Action (& Inaction)
1:03:24-1:16:33 The Uprisings
1:16:33-1:19:35: A Brief Interlude
1:19:35-1:29:23: Punk Is (Not) Dead
1:29:23-1:48:19: Amusing Ourselves To Death
1:48:19-2:02:34: God Save The Queen
2:02:34-2:12:34: The Iron Lady
2:12:34-2:26:13: War And Peace
2:26:13-2:35:40: A Bleak Season
2:35:40-2:49:12: The Aftermath
2:49:12-2:55:01: Conclusion