Written by Richard Ward, Archives Officer
We continue our latest series of blog posts on ‘Inside the Act Room’ exploring decades in modern British history like no other before or since.
For this instalment we’ll be travelling not too far back to those heady days of the nineties, focusing on six key events defining the decade.
Now categorised similarly to the sixties in relation to culture influencing politics and its seemingly positive shift in attitudes towards class and race issues.
The reality was as the millennium approached the state of the nation was somewhat clouded and to paraphrase a popular slogan, things had to get better.
CHIME: 1990 POLL TAX RIOTS
*Title taken from Chime by Orbital released March 1990.
Local government authority especially in Labour Party strongholds had always been a bit of a bugbear for Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative administration. To deal with this nagging problem of autonomy she green-lighted a Community Charge framework to replace the long-standing domestic rates taxation. Essentially re-evaluating a higher cost for council services varying from the monied shires to the inner cities placing severe financial pressure on the less well off. Dubbed the ‘Poll Tax’ it was initially trialled in Scotland igniting much discontent, nevertheless the government decided on enforcing the policy by April 1990 throughout the rest of the United Kingdom.
Staggering the roll out gave the National Federation of Anti Poll Tax Groups time to construct a resistance action programme. A Chartist-inspired Trafalgar Square mass rally was organised on the eve of full national implementation. What started as a peaceful demonstration developed into chaos amounting in hundreds of arrests. Overt defiance had the desired reaction as the number of ‘nonpayers’ rose to exponential levels, seriously damaging Thatcher’s premiership. A leadership challenge by anti-Poll Taxer Michael Heseltine led to a surprise resignation. Her successor John Major scrapped the controversial scheme, creating a new council tax based primarily on property value.
Read the Commons debate on the Poll Tax Riots
WHAT SILENCE KNOWS: 1993 MURDER OF STEPHEN LAWRENCE
*Title taken from What Silence Knows by Shara Nelson released September 1993.
Youth television flourished in the early-nineties and Channel Four’s The Word was required viewing. In 1992 American rap outfit Public Enemy performed on the show and captured dancing in the audience was an A-Level student from South London whose brutal murder a year later shocked society. While waiting at a bus stop Stephen Lawrence was the victim of a fatal racially-motivated attack. Despite suspects being arrested the Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service failed to charge them. His parents Doreen and Neville refused to accept this outcome and supported by The Guardian and Daily Mirror newspapers campaigned vigorously for justice.
On becoming Home Secretary Labour’s Jack Straw was determined to assist the Lawrences’ cause and following another inconclusive inquest launched an official inquiry to be chaired by High Court Judge Sir William McPherson. The report published in February 1999 was a watershed moment in British Black History as McPherson laid bare the Metropolitan Police’s actions highlighted in the case which he deemed as ‘institutional racism’. Submitting seventy-eight recommendations to encourage enlightened policing and stronger connections with ethnic minority communities. Further revision of ‘Double Jeopardy’ judiciary laws was a lightning rod leading to the 2012 convictions of two of the perpetrators.
Read the Commons debate on the McPherson Report
NO GOOD (START THE DANCE): 1994 PASSING OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE & PUBLIC ORDER ACT
*Title taken from No Good (Start the Dance) by The Prodigy released May 1994.
Regardless of the limitations imposed by the 1990 Entertainment Penalties Act rave hadn’t disappeared. Instead it swapped its subterranean warehouse setting for outdoors, as the integration of New Age Travellers to the scene made for a more counter-cultural experience. The zenith of this raving phenomenon took place on the 1992 May Bank Holiday weekend at Castlemorton Common as 30,000 revellers descended upon a besieged West Country village. In the aftermath Parliament demanded legislation to increase police powers and supress the subversive movement. Such was the hysteria the National Farmers Union advised members to dig ditches and spread slurry to stop convoy entry.
Sensing an opportunity the Home Office slipped in a public nuisance clause outlawing free parties within the mammoth 1993 Criminal Justice & Public Order Bill. Raising eyebrows by referencing the offensive techno music as ‘sounds wholly or predominantly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats’. On Whitehall in July 1994 the Desert Storm Sound System set up shop as a cacophony of rave whistles soundtracked a March on Downing Street. Ultimately this and additional protests didn’t hit the mark as all-party support for the bill remained solid and ignored the background noise to make the statute book.
Read the Commons debate on the Castlemorton Common Rave
For more on the subject read ‘Rave Against the Machine’
LIFTED: 1996 NELSON MANDELA’S LONDON TAKEOVER
*Title taken from Lifted by The Lighthouse Family released January 1996.
‘Free Nelson Mandela’ bellowed 90,000 music lovers at the joyful conclusion of the June 1988 star-studded Wembley Stadium concert celebrating his seventieth birthday. The anthemic song written by Jerry Dammers of the multi-racial Specials AKA was indicative of the wealth of feeling amongst many Britons morally against his incarceration and South Africa’s repressive apartheid regime. Two years on the world watched in amazement as Mandela finally walked out of prison accompanied by his wife Winnie. Beginning a euphoric journey ending with him in April 1994 accepting the South African presidency after the country’s first election freed of undemocratic discriminatory restrictions.
State visits to London by the great and good of international affairs rarely put the capital in a frenzy but Mandela’s arrival in July 1996 was a different matter. The feelgood factor turned up to the max and his Westminster Hall address was the hottest ticket in town. A man of the people the next day he visited Brixton with an entourage including Prince Charles. The streets were packed as neighbourhood schools allowed pupils to enjoy a half-day to see a legend in the flesh. Lambeth Mayor, Tony Bays unveiled from the Recreation Centre a banner stating ‘Woya Nelson Mandela’.
Read the Commons Debate on Nelson Mandela’s prison release
RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW: 1998 GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT
*Title taken from Right Here, Right Now by Fatboy Slim released October 1998.
Earlier in 1996, the IRA broke an 18-month ceasefire by exploding a bomb at London’s Canary Wharf. It seemed inconceivable that a peace accord could be agreed in the nearby future to find a solution to the Northern Ireland Troubles. Yet sterling work by the newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern brought senior representatives from Catholic and Protestant sides of the divide around the negotiating table. Acting as a mediator between the main players was Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam and she was hugely instrumental in getting the Easter 1998 agreement over the line.
Fundamental to the process was an elective Northern Ireland Assembly and aligned with various legislative criteria had to be endorsed by an all-Ireland referendum held in May 1998. The advertising campaign for the landmark vote had the tagline ‘It’s Your Choice’ and Irish rockers U2 headlined a Concert for Yes at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall. Fears that the agreement would fall at the last hurdle proved unfounded as 71% voted in favour. At the year’s end Nationalist leader David Hume and Unionist politician David Trimble who’d both joined U2’s Bono on stage in the spring jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Read the Commons debate on the Good Friday Agreement
LET FOREVER BE: 1999 HOUSE OF LORDS REFORM
*Title taken from Let Forever Be by The Chemical Brothers released August 1999
Labour’s landslide victory in the 1997 General Election wasn’t unexpected and once in office they put the pedal to the floor for reforming the House of Lords. Firmly in their sights was the abolition of hereditary peerages central to a long-term plan for an Upper House evolution. Moving quickly along, the Queen’s Speech opening the 1998-99 Parliamentary session referenced a bill to remove the centuries-old tradition forever. To explain the government’s motives a White Paper on modernising Parliament conceptualised the idea of a transitional legislature revamped for the professional needs of a 21st Century second chamber.
Breaking up is so hard to do and fading hereditary hopes rested on a last-gasp compromise coming to the rescue. Incandescent peers tabled a deluge of amendments to the original bill and Lord Weatherill’s partial retention proposal gained traction eventually making the final cut. Thus, ninety-two hereditary peers stayed factored upon an internal election basis. When the bill was given Royal Assent by the Lords, Baroness Jay solemnly noted, ‘This is the last time the House will sit in this present form’. Wholesale reform was next on the agenda, and across the board everyone had an opinion.
Read the Lords debate on House of Lords Reform
SOURCES
Classless Society: Britain in the 1990s by Alwyn Thomas
Peace at Last: The Impact of the Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland by Jorg Neuheiser
Can’ Pay, Won’t Pay: The Fight to Stop the Poll Tax by Hannah Simon
Racial & Religious Hate Crime in the United Kingdom: From 1945 to Brexit by Wendy Laverick
House of Lords Reform: A History Volume Four 1971-2014 by Peter Raina
Times Digital Archive
Hansard Parliamentary Debates
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