This volume, the first scholarly study of Labour and the left in the age of Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock, opens up a whole new area of historical inquiry, and demonstrates why the 1980s political inheritance has become timely once more.

Foreword by Peter TatchellIntroduction: new histories of Labour and the left in the 1980s – Jonathan Davis and Rohan McWilliamPart I: The crisis of the Labour Party1 Retrieving or re-Imagining the past? The case of 'Old Labour', 1979–94 – Eric Shaw 2 Leading the Labour Party in the 1980s – Martin Farr 3 Labour's liberalism: gay rights and video nasties – Paul Bloomfield 4 Responsible capitalism: Labour’s industrial policy and the idea of a National Investment Bank during the long 1980s – Richard Carr Part II: The British Left in a global context5 Neil Kinnock's perestroika: Labour and the Soviet influence – Jonathan Davis 6 The international context: end of an era – John Callaghan Part III: Currents of the Wider Left7 Militant’s laboratory: Liverpool City Council's struggle with the Thatcher government – Neil Pye8 ‘Fill a Bag and Feed a Family': the miners’ strike and its supporters – Maroula Joannou 9 'Race Today cannot fail': black radicalism in the long 1980s – Robin Bunce Index