Category: Contemporary history
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Two new opinion pieces on the history of fascism and anti-fascism
A quick post to let people know that I have had two opinion pieces published this week on the history of fascism and anti-fascism in Britain and Australia. Firstly, the Times Higher Education website published a piece on the pre-history of ‘no platform’ and the protests against far right speakers on university campuses in the…
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Race, class and black rebellion in Britain, 1976-1981
To commemorate the passing of radical black activist Darcus Howe and the forthcoming anniversaries of the riots of 1980-81, I am posting an excerpt from an older article on how the British left and black activists interpreted the rebellious actions by black youth in Britain in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Howe, alongside Stuart…
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ASIO memo on Germaine Greer from 1971
I am currently putting together a work-in-progress paper on ASIO’s monitoring of the women’s liberation movement in Australia for an upcoming symposium hosted by the ANU Gender Institute, ‘How the Personal Became Political: Reassessing Australia’s Revolutions in Gender and Sexuality in the 1970s’. As part of the several ASIO on the WLM that have been…
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Policing Acid House Parties in 1989: What the new Thatcher Government papers reveal
The latest round of papers from the Prime Minister’s Office have been released, relating to the final years of Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1989-90. While files on several topics have been opened, this post will look at the file dedicated the policing of ‘acid house parties’ (also known as raves) in 1989. As I’ve mentioned…
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Orgreave is not merely history, but an important historical incident that needs to be fully investigated
To Guardian journalist Simon Jenkins, just over thirty years ago is too far into the past for an inquiry into the events at Orgreave in June 1984, when the police reacted violently to striking workers in South Yorkshire and led to the arrest of 95 miners, as well as a number of people injured. Jenkins argues…
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The last time the government evoked the ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ slogan
The new Home Secretary Amber Rudd has, in the wake of Brexit, evoked the slogan ‘British jobs for British workers’, which has been used in the past by Gordon Brown in 2007 and by the British National Party and the National Front in the 1980s. While she has been heavily criticized for her statements, this…
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