Sandbrook takes a fresh look at a dynamic decade. 1980s Britain changed in everything from politics and sport to fashion and popular culture. In the opening years of the 1980s, the powerful new forces of choice and consumerism were radically reshaping British life. The first episode looks at how the early 80s saw the powerful new forces of choice and consumerism radically reshape British life, tearing down existing ways of doing things and ripping up the rule book of British politics. This new culture of consumer-driven populism propelled Margaret Thatcher to victory. For the first time, 'who we were' became a question less about the fixed identities of region and class, and much more about the choices we made, from where we shopped to how we cooked, to what we wore. Margaret Thatcher may have embodied this change - but she didn't drive it. This episode takes in everything from the popularity of Delia Smith to affordable fashions on the high street, from the subcultures of Britain's youth to the crisis of identity that rocked and splintered the political left. But it also shows how the mood of aspiration that swept the nation left certain sections of society adrift and alienated, from the hollowed out industrial heartlands of the Midlands to the inner city communities of south London and Liverpool.
The second episode sees mid-1980s Britain wrestling with two contradictory impulses: the rise of a strong nationalist sentiment and the emergence of an increasingly globalised world. By the middle of the decade, Britain felt like an embattled nation, facing threats from enemies within as well as out - a nation struggling to establish an identity on the global stage, and also trying to re-establish what it means to be British. This was the period that forever marked the 80s as a decade of conflict and division. But not all those conflicts were obvious. Some were fought with bullets, others with money, some were fought in our homes, others in our heads. This episode examines everything from the invasion of the Falkland Islands to the invasion of the home computer and the moral panic surrounding 'video nasties', from the Americanisation of our popular culture to the picket line skirmishes playing out nightly on our televisions, and from the spectre of AIDS and the threat of the IRA to immigration and identity politics.
The third and final programme charts the final years of the decade, looking at a society transformed by an accelerated change. Dominic argues that this change brought opportunities and anxieties that we continue to wrestle with to this day, from significant technological advances and the privatisation of national companies, to the deregulation of the stock market and the growing polarisation of rich and poor. The late 80s saw Britain transformed beyond measure, from the economic Big Bang in the City of London and the rise of the yuppie to more tangible, everyday signs of household change, such as the impact of Europe on British shopping habits - from German cars to French wine, Italian fashion and Scandinavian interior design. But alongside this transformation was a growing disconnection from the political elite, signified by the rise of rave culture and the poll tax riots. Margaret Thatcher - widely seen as the architect of so much of this change - would ultimately become its biggest victim.
