Thatcher's Secret War (Subversion, Coercion, Secrecy and Government, 1974-90) - 9780750997881

Margaret Thatcher remains one of the UK’s most polarising prime ministers. In this new and revised edition, Thatcher's Secret War sheds new light on the secret, internal ‘cold war’ that the Iron Lady and her government waged against ‘the enemy within’: anti-nuclear, new age and ecology campaigners; poll tax protesters; trade unionists at GCHQ and striking miners; feminists and homosexuals; Scottish nationalists; protesters and rioters in Brixton, Toxteth and Broadwater Farm; the far right; the EU; and the IRA – among others. It was a campaign fuelled by paranoia on both the left and right of the political spectrum and fought with corruption, black propaganda, dirty tricks and even murder. Clive Bloom surmises that the UK is rapidly changing and that although Thatcher’s ideals seem to have vanished, one remains: the power and importance of the extra-parliamentary state and its surveillance methods and hidden powers in a new age of terrorism.