Archive

Margaret Thatcher's files as Prime Minister, 1985-86 (3)

1985-86 had a bitty feel in political terms, many topics jostling unpredictably, often with uncomfortable results for the government and its head

1985: end of the coal strike

The last three months of the coal strike are covered in the latest release. Here are the full files, as well as a link to the minutes of the cabinet committee which ran the strike - by this stage meeting weekly rather than almost other day, as it had at the depths of the crisis. Officials wrote a report on lessons of the strike later in 1985, which MT felt did not get to the heart of the matter - above all did not convey a sense of how close a run thing it had all been, the outcome being open till New Year 1985.

There should be further releases on the strike during 2015 following which the site will gather together the whole archive of 1,000+ documents and reflect on their significance.

Coal documents, 1985

Whole file on coal strike

PREM19/1578 Nationalised Industries (Coal mines) Part 15 [1984 Nov 21 - 1985 Jan 20]
PREM19/1579 Nationalised Industries (Coal mines) Part 16 [1985 Jan 21 - Feb 28]
PREM19/1580 Nationalised Industries (Coal mines) Part 17 [1985 Feb 27 - May 31]
PREM19/1581 Nationalised Industries (Coal mines) Part 18 [1985 Jun 3 - Nov 29]

 

1983-86: economic issues - Chancellor Lawson, monetary policy, the 'Big Bang'

A whole clutch of important economic files were released covering the whole of policy-making towards the deregulation of the Stock Exchange in October 1986, known usually as the 'Big Bang'. It is far from the full story on the economic side however - we lack anything on the ERM, which was beginning to play a dominant and destructive role in the relationship between Chancellor and Prime Minister. The final Big Bang file happened to be unavailable for filming in preview, but we will return to it.

Whole files on economic policy (apologies for poor copy quality of some of these files, due to conditions at time of filming - the files will be redone in time)

PREM19/1461 Economic policy (Financial Services - 'Big Bang') Part 1 [1983 Nov 24 - 1985 Spt 18]
PREM19/1717 Economic policy (Financial Services - 'Big Bang') Part 2 [1985 Oct 1 - 1986 Jan 31]

PREM19/1710

Economic policy (PM's meetings with Chancellor- briefing) Part 1 [1983 Oct 4 - 1986 Oct 29]
PREM19/1457 Economic policy (Domestic monetary policy) Part 13 [1985 May 10 - Jun 28]

 

1985-86: other files - local government, Mary Whitehouse

 

PREM19/1565 Local Government (Reform of the rating system) Part 3 [1983 Jul 4 - 1985 Dec 31]
PREM19/1792 Home Affairs (Obscenity legislation; meetings with Mary Whitehouse) [1983 May 18- 1986 Sep 30]

 

All documents so far uploaded from this release

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