Who Dares Wins

by Dominic Sandbrook

  46. Peter Cropper, ‘Conservative Party Finance Committee’, 4 November 1980, TFW; Alan Clark, Diaries: Into Politics, 1972–1982 (2000), p. 172.

  47. The Times, 10 November 1980, 13 November 1980, 16 December 1980.

  48. Taylor to Hugh Thomas, 17 October 1980, TFW; Collins, ‘The Origins of the Budget in 1980’, pp. 110–12; The Times, 10 November 1980.

  49. Guardian, 11 November 1980, 12 November 1980; The Times, 12 November 1980.

  50. Ibid.; Daily Telegraph, 10 May 2013.

  51. Richard Ingrams and John Wells, The Other Half: Further Letters of Denis Thatcher (1981), p. 34; ‘TV Interview for Thames TV Afternoon Plus’, 6 January 1981, TFW.

  52. Collins, ‘The Origins of the Budget in 1980’, pp. 113–14; Lankester, ‘The 1981 Budget: How Did It Come About?’, p. 17; Cropper, ‘Conservative Party Finance Committee’, 25 November 1980, TFW; Clark, Diaries: Into Politics, p. 178.

  53. The Times, 26 November 1980; Daily Mirror, 26 November 1980.

  54. Hansard, 27 November 1980; The Times, 28 November 1980.

  55. ‘Radio Interview for IRN’, 28 November 1980, TFW.

  56. Moore, Not for Turning, p. 535; Collins, ‘The Origins of the Budget in 1980’, p. 115; Guardian, 19 November 1980; Cropper, ‘Conservative Party Finance Committee’, 10 December 1980, TFW; The Times, 12 December 1980. In a very rare slip, the Thatcher Foundation website dates the minutes of the finance committee’s meeting to 25 November, but the documents show that the meeting was on the 9th and that Ian Gow sent Mrs Thatcher Peter Cropper’s minutes the next day.

  57. The Times, 24 December 1980.

  58. Robert J. Wybrow, Britain Speaks Out, 1937–87: A Social History as Seen through the Gallup Data (Basingstoke, 1989), pp. 162–3; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 535.

  59. Howe to Thatcher, ‘Government Strategy’, 31 December 1980, TFW.

  60. Observer, 28 December 1980; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 536.

  Chapter 12. Nice Video, Shame about the Song

  1. Guardian, 18 February 2014; and see Stuart Maconie, ‘The People’s Songs: Are “Friends” Electric?’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/2c2C2plDfXBMjD5wVb7rzMT/are-friends-electric; Simon Reynolds, Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-Punk, 1978–84 (2005), pp. 323–4.

  2. Ibid., p. 324; Guardian, 18 February 2014.

  3. Smash Hits, 31 May 1979.

  4. On Numan’s chart success, see Sounds, 6 October 1979; Smash Hits, 15 November 1979.

  5. Daily Mirror, 8 October 1979.

  6. Sounds, 6 October 1979; Melody Maker, 29 September 1979; Guardian, 29 September 1979; NME, 8 September 1979, 11 September 1982.

  7. On Numan’s significance, see Simon Reynolds’s excellent Rip It Up and Start Again, pp. 323–4, to which this chapter is greatly indebted.

  8. Dave Laing, One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock (Milton Keynes, 1985), pp. 106, 109, 120; The Times, 18 November 1980; Peter York, Style Wars (1980), pp. 43–5; Paul Theroux, The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey around the Coast of Great Britain (1983), p. 221; Sue Townsend, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ (1982: 2002), p. 19.

  9. Observer, 30 April 1981; for the charts, see the data at www.everyhit.com.

  10. NME, 20 December 1980.

  11. Simon Reynolds, ‘Song from the Future: The Story of Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder’s “I Feel Love”’, 29 June 2017, https://pitchfork.com/features/article/song-from-the-future-the-story-of-donna-summer-and-giorgio-moroders-i-feel-love/; and see the superb BBC Four documentary Synth Britannia (16 October 2009).

  12. Observer, 3 August 1980; Dave Rimmer, New Romantics: The Look (2003), pp. 95; Reynolds, Rip It Up, p. 328.

  13. Ibid., pp. 151, 159, 320–21.

  14. Evening Standard, 24 January 1980; Observer Music Monthly, 4 October 2009; Rimmer, New Romantics, pp. 12, 37, 52; Gary Kemp, I Know This Much: From Soho to Spandau (2009), pp. 93–4; Steve Strange, Blitzed! The Autobiography of Steve Strange (2002), pp. 39–40. See also David Johnson’s fabulously detailed website, www.shapersofthe80s.com, to which I am hugely indebted.

  15. Observer Music Monthly, 4 October 2009; Kemp, I Know This Much, pp. 89–90, 93.

  16. Ibid., p. 93; Observer Music Monthly, 4 October 2009; Reynolds, Rip It Up, p. 326

  17. Peter York, Modern Times (1984), pp. 23, 76; Observer Music Monthly, 4 October 2009; Rimmer, New Romantics, p. 64.

  18. Ibid., p. 52; Observer Music Monthly, 4 October 2009; Paul Theroux, Kingdom by the Sea, p. 148.

  19. Rimmer, New Romantics, p. 67; Evening Standard, 24 January 1980; Guardian, 9 December 1980; Daily Mirror, 3 March 1980. For the Newsnight feature, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O56ceqU32Q.

  20. Kemp, I Know This Much, pp. 16, 19, 53–4, 85–6; Guardian, 2 February 1981.

  21. Kemp, I Know This Much, pp. 88, 100; Sounds, 13 September 1980; NME, 29 November 1980; Martin Kemp, True: The Autobiography of Martin Kemp (2000), p. 54; Sounds, 13 September 1980.

  22. Ibid.; NME, 29 November 1980.

  23. Kemp, I Know This Much, pp. 103, 110, 120; Evening Standard, 16 October 1980; Daily Mirror, 22 October 1980; NME, 29 November 1980; and see Observer Music Monthly, 4 October 2009.

  24. Daily Mirror, 22 October 1980.

  25. NME, 29 November 1980.

  26. Sounds, 13 September 1980; York, Modern Times, p. 73; Observer Music Monthly, 4 October 2009; and see Guardian, 2 February 1981; Kemp, I Know This Much, p. 102.

  27. Paul Gorman, The Story of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture (2017), pp. 16–17.

  28. Ibid., pp. 19–21, 70, 82; Evening Standard, 1 May 1980. See also David Johnson, ‘The Face and i-D’, https://shapersofthe80s.com/the-face-i-d-media/; for the first issue, see The Face, May 1980.

  29. Gorman, Story of The Face, pp. 40–41, 43, 50–51; The Face, October 1980, November 1980.

  30. Gorman, Story of The Face, pp. 6, 45, 61, 69; Observer Music Monthly, 4 October 2009; Reynolds, Rip It Up, p. xxviii. On videos, see Observer, 4 March 1984; The Times, 6 June 1985.

  31. On ‘Ashes to Ashes’, see Rimmer, New Romantics, pp. 14–18. Bowie told the ‘clown suit’ story to an American camera technician called Michael Dignum, who posted it online at https://www.facebook.com/michael.dignum.1/posts/10153309716274071.

  32. Shelton Waldrep, Future Nostalgia: Performing David Bowie (New York, 2015), p. 30; Strange, Blitzed!, p. 53; Rimmer, New Romantics, pp. 21, 23, 98; Reynolds, Rip It Up, pp. 326–7.

  33. Sounds, 13 September 1980; Kemp, I Know This Much, pp. 124–5; and see Observer Music Monthly, 4 October 2009.

  34. Reynolds, Rip It Up, p. 327; Melody Maker, 12 September 1981.

  35. Observer, 15 March 1981; Reynolds, Rip It Up, p. 403.

  36. Ibid., pp. 334–5; New York Times, 7 March 1982.

  37. NME, 1 May 1982; Boy George with Spencer Bright, Take It Like a Man: The Autobiography of Boy George (1995), pp. 33–6, 139; Rimmer, New Romantics, pp. 20, 28, 30; Kemp, I Know This Much, p. 76.

  38. Rimmer, New Romantics, pp. 43, 45–6, 88; Reynolds, Rip It Up, pp. xxii, 327.

  39. NME, 13 June 1981; Reynolds, Rip It Up, pp. xv, xix; Rimmer, New Romantics, pp. 89–93.

  40. NME, 20 December 1980.

  41. Observer, 25 January 1981; The Times, 31 March 1981, 7 April 1981.

  42. Daily Mirror; 7 April 1981; The Times, 24 February 1981; and see George, Take It Like a Man, p. 175.

  43. Sun, 2 October 1981, quoted in Alwyn W. Turner, Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s (2010), p. 60.

  44. The Times, 31 December 1980; NME, 19 December 1981.

  45. Reynolds, Rip It Up, pp. xv, 335.

  46. Melody Maker, 2 August 1980, 23 October 1982.

  47. The Face, March 1981.

  48. NME, 25 July 1981; Melody Maker, 13 November 1982; The Times, 8 December 1983; Guardian, 18 December 1981.

  49. Melody Maker, 13 November 1982; NME, 23 July 1983.

  50. Melody Maker, 28 February 1981; Sounds, 13 September 1980; Guardian, 25 March 2009.


  51. George, Take It Like a Man, p. 212; The Face, August 1981; Kemp, I Know This Much, p. 102; Daily Mirror, 16 May 1981; The Face, December 1981; Turner, Rejoice! Rejoice!, pp. 64–5.

  52. Guardian, 2 February 1981; Sounds, 13 September 1980; NME, 29 November 1980; The Face, August 1981.

  53. Philip Norman, Shout! The True Story of the Beatles (1981: 1993), p. 157; Mark Lewisohn, The Beatles: All These Years, vol. 1: Tune In (2013), pp. 568, 647, 649; Fred Vermorel and Judy Vermorel, Adam and the Ants (1981), quoted in Andy Beckett, Promised You a Miracle: UK80–82 (2015), p. 191; NME, 1 May 1982, 12 July 1980; Sounds, 20 March 1982, 11 September 1982.

  54. Kemp, I Know This Much, pp. 176–7.

  55. NME, 20 December 1980, 17 October 1981, 14 March 1981; Record Mirror, 8 August 1981; Reynolds, Rip It Up, p. 9; Melody Maker, 13 November 1982; Sounds, 11 September 1982; Smash Hits, 18 February 1982; NME, 14 March 1981.

  56. The Times, 5 December 1983.

  57. Guardian, 26 March 1983; Reynolds, Rip It Up, pp. 409–10. On pop videos in general, see the thoughtful discussion in Graham Stewart, Bang! A History of Britain in the 1980s (2013), pp. 284–6.

  58. Daily Express, 22 May 1980.

  59. Daily Mirror, 30 July 1981.

  60. Observer, 1 August 1982; Daily Express, 1 October 1982; Guardian, 26 October 1982; City Limits, 16 October 1981.

  61. Guardian, 2 April 1983.

  Chapter 13. High Noon at Leyland

  1. Michael Edwardes, Back from the Brink: An Apocalyptic Experience (1983), pp. 173–4, 176–8; Observer, 14 September 1980.

  2. Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 177–8, 180, 182; Guardian, 8 October 1980; Observer, 14 September 1980; and see Graham Robson, Metro: The Book of the Car (Cambridge, 1982).

  3. Guardian, 13 October 1980; Observer, 14 October 1980; The Times, 10 September 1980; Edwardes, Back from the Brink, p. 183.

  4. Ibid., p. 184; Daily Express, 15 October 1980; Guardian, 15 October 1980; The Times, 8 October 1980, 9 October 1980; Observer, 14 September 1980; Richard Ingrams and John Wells, The Other Half: Further Letters of Denis Thatcher (1981), pp. 41–2.

  5. Guardian, 9 October 1980; the advert is on YouTube.

  6. See, for example, the huge advert in The Times, 14 October 1980.

  7. The Times, 3 October 1980, 4 October 1980; Guardian, 17 October 1980, 28 October 1980, 22 November 1980, 27 December 1980; Daily Mirror, 22 November 1980; Daily Express, 22 November 1980.

  8. Guardian, 8 November 1980, 8 December 1980.

  9. Louis Heren, Alas, Alas for England: What Went Wrong with Britain (1981), p. 91.

  10. Stephen Wilks, Industrial Policy and the Motor Industry (Manchester, 1984), pp. 69–70, 76, 83–4; Geoffrey Owen, From Empire to Europe: The Decline and Revival of British Industry since the Second World War (1999), pp. 230–31, 236, 238.

  11. Ibid., pp. 233–4; TNA CAB 129/183, C (75) 53, ‘British Leyland: The Ryder Report’, 23 April 1975; TNA CAB 128/56, CC (75) 22, 22 April 1975; The Times, 25 April 1975; Wilks, Industrial Policy, pp. 100–104, 107; Daily Mirror, 11 September 1979.

  12. Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 39, 13–15, 78, 90; Nicholas Comfort, The Slow Death of British Industry: A Sixty-Year Suicide, 1952–2012 (2013), p. 65; Wilks, Industrial Policy, p. 113; Ian MacGregor with Rodney Tyler, The Enemies Within: The Story of the Miners’ Strike, 1984–5 (1986: 1987), p. 62.

  13. Owen, From Empire to Europe, p. 233; Wilks, Industrial Policy, p. 272; Edwardes, Back from the Brink, p. 91; Henry Root, The Henry Root Letters (1980: 1981), p. 35.

  14. Daily Express, 11 October 1979, 16 July 1980, 4 February 1985; The Times, 17 September 1981; for an excellent overview, see Owen, From Empire to Europe.

  15. News of the World, 30 December 1979.

  16. The Times, 8 October 1976, 15 December 1976, 26 October 1977; Anthony Sampson, The Changing Anatomy of Britain (1982: 1983), p. 393; Observer, 14 September 1980; Time, 14 November 1977; Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 40–41, 45.

  17. The Times, 17 January 1978, 23 January 1978, 1 February 1978, 2 February 1978, 21 August 1978; Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 72, 55, 75, 80–81, 87, 74; Wilks, Industrial Policy, pp. 207–8.

  18. John Hoskyns, Just in Time: Inside the Thatcher Revolution (2000), p. 88; Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 211, 231, 221–2, 205–6; and see Hugo Young, One of Us: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher (rev. edn: 1990), p. 362; Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, vol. 1: Not for Turning (2013), p. 514.

  19. Andrew Denham and Mark Garnett, Keith Joseph (2001: Chesham, 2002), pp. 14, 24, 48–50, 55, 134, 274, 276, 324, 334, 352–3; Observer, 9 December 1984; Ferdinand Mount, Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes (2008), pp. 276–8. On Joseph and Arthur Daley, see Manuel Alvarado and John Stewart, Made for Television: Euston Films Limited (1985), p. 94.

  20. Denham and Garnett, Keith Joseph, p. 304; Norman Tebbit, Upwardly Mobile: An Autobiography (1988), p. 173; Heren, Alas, Alas for England, p. 156; Mount, Cold Cream, pp. 270, 278, 275–6.

  21. Hoskyns, Just in Time, p. 54; Mount, Cold Cream, p. 278; Denham and Garnett, Keith Joseph, pp. 328, 339–41, 350–51.

  22. Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 96–7, 224; Wilks, Industrial Policy, pp. 214–15.

  23. Joseph to Thatcher, ‘British Leyland’, 7 September 1979, TFW; Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (1993), pp. 115, 117; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 514; Jim Prior, A Balance of Power (1986), p. 127; Hoskyns to Thatcher, ‘British Leyland’, 7 December 1979.

  24. Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 98–9, 105–6; Daily Mirror, 11 September 1979; Daily Express, 2 November 1979. The text of Edwardes’s ‘Recovery Plan’, as presented to British Leyland’s workers, is included in Department of Industry, ‘BL Closures’, 12 September 1979, TFW. The official BL press release on the ballot result is in TNA PREM 19/71.

  25. Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 108–10; The Times, 20 November 1979, 1 May 1980; Daily Mirror, 20 November 1979; Daily Express, 20 November 1979, 21 November 1979.

  26. Edwardes, Back from the Brink, p. 117; The Times, 20 November 1979, 8 February 1979; Daily Express, 11 October 1979.

  27. The Times, 20 November 1979, 6 February 1980; Guardian, 12 February 1980; John Bloomfield, ‘Interview with Derek Robinson’, Marxism Today (March 1980); and see Comfort, Slow Death of British Industry, pp. 67–8.

  28. Bloomfield, ‘Interview with Derek Robinson’; The Times, 28 November 1979; Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 110–11, 126; and see the interview with Edwardes in Peter Taylor’s documentary True Spies (BBC Two, 2002), transcribed at http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/true_spies/transcripts/truespies_prog2.txt.

  29. Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (2009), pp. 671–2; and see the interviews in True Spies, http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/true_spies/transcripts/truespies_prog2.txt.

  30. The Times, 22 November 1979, 23 November 1979; Daily Express, 22 November 1979; Daily Mirror, 22 November 1979, 23 November 1979.

  31. Edwardes, Back from the Brink, p. 111; The Times, 26 November 1979, 27 November 1979; Daily Express, 27 November 1979.

  32. Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 114–15; The Times, 28 November 1979, 29 November 1979, 30 November 1979; Daily Express, 28 November 1979.

  33. Robert Armstrong to Thatcher, ‘British Leyland: E (79) 74’, 7 December 1979, TFW; TNA PREM 19/71, Hoskyns to Joseph, 15 November 1979; Hoskyns to Thatcher, ‘British Leyland’, 7 December 1979, TFW; Sir Keith Joseph, ‘Future of BL Ltd’, 17 December 1979, TFW; TNA CAB 128/66, CC (79) 26, 20 December 1979; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 515; Young, One of Us, p. 201.

  34. Daily Express, 10 December 1979, 7 February 1980, 8 February 1980; Daily Mirror, 8 February 1980; The Times, 8 February 1980.

  35. Daily Express, 7 February 1980, 8 February 1980; The Times, 11 February 1980; Daily Mirror, 8 February 1980.

  36. Guardian, 12 February 1980; Comfort, Slow Death of British Industry, p. 69;
The Times, 9 February 1980, 11 February 1980; Edwardes, Back from the Brink, p. 123.

  37. The Times, 21 February 1980; Daily Mirror, 21 February 1980; Daily Express, 21 February 1980.

  38. Hansard, 21 February 1980; The Times, 21 February 1980; Daily Express, 21 February 1980; Daily Mirror, 21 February 1980.

  39. Observer, 24 February 1980; The Times, 9 May 1980, 16 November 1981, 19 November 1981.

  40. The Times, 12 January 1983, 2 June 1983; Guardian, 16 November 1983.

  41. The Times, 11 February 1980, 14 February 1980.

  42. Ibid., 28 November 1979; Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 124–7; Wilks, Industrial Policy, pp. 207–8, 211.

  43. ‘Radio Interview for The World This Weekend’, 4 January 1981, TFW; Thatcher, Downing Street Years, pp. 118–19; Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 92, 96, 226; Observer, 4 September 1980; Hoskyns, Just in Time, pp. 174, 258.

  44. ‘No. 10 Record of Conversation (British Leyland)’, 22 May 1980, TFW; Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 227–31; see also Edwardes to Joseph, 15 May 1980, TFW.

  45. Moore, Not for Turning, pp. 516–17; Thatcher, Downing Street Years, p. 120; ‘No. 10 Record of Conversation (British Leyland)’, 13 January 1981, TFW.

  46. Joseph to Thatcher, 21 January 1981, TFW; Joseph to Thatcher, 22 January 1981, TFW; Denham and Garnett, Keith Joseph, pp. 341–2; Edwardes, Back from the Brink, pp. 237–8, 240, 243. See also Wilks, Industrial Policy, pp. 218–20.

  47. Christopher Johnson, The Economy under Mrs Thatcher, 1979–1990 (1991), pp. 185–6, 96; Moore, Not for Turning, pp. 517–18; Friedman to Harris, 2 July 1981, TFW; Morrison Halcrow, Keith Joseph: A Single Mind (1989), p. 149; Young, One of Us, p. 318; ‘TV Interview for LWT Weekend World’, 1 February 1981, TFW; Denham and Garnett, Keith Joseph, pp. 342–3; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 517; Tebbit, Upwardly Mobile, p. 176.

  48. Denham and Garnett, Keith Joseph, pp. 363, 356, 353–4; Sunday Times, 31 May 1981.

  49. Hansard, 29 October 1980. As so often with Hansard, though, it does not perfectly capture what Foot actually said, which was less formal and therefore funnier: it is worth tracking down the recording, which used to be online but has recently vanished.