As public sector workers ballot for strike action, concern is growing that Britain is facing a repeat of the Winter of Discontent. But were the dark days of 1978-1979 really so bad? Political commentator Iain Macwhirter recalls that era THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT IN 1979, when "the rubbish went uncollected in the streets and the dead lay unburied in the mortuaries", was the climax to a pretty dismal decade. But it was nothing like as bad as what was to come. The 1980s have had a better press, but only because history is written by the victors. For ordinary working people the Thatcherite 1980s were a social and economic catastrophe, with three recessions, three million unemployed, the destruction of Britain as a manufacturing country and the end of social and economic security. Plus some truly dreadful haircuts. The 1970s might...
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