Today in Labor History May 30, 1381: Tax collector John Bampton sparked the Peasants’ Revolt in Brentwood, Essex. The mass uprising, also known as Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, or the Great Rising, began because of attempts to collect a poll tax. However, tensions were already high because of the economic misery and hunger caused by the Black Death pandemic of the 1340s, and the Hundred Years’ War. During the uprising, rebels burned public records and freed prisoners. King Richard II, 14 years old, hid in the Tower of London. Rebels entered the Tower and killed the Lord Chancellor and the Lord High Treasurer, but not the king. It took nearly six months for the authorities to suppress the Peasants’ Revolt. They slaughtered over 1,400 rebels. Roughly 600 years later, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher tried again to impose a poll tax on Britain’s working class. It also sparked a revolt which brought an end both to the tax and Thatcher’s regime. Billy Bragg references Thatcher’s poll tax in his song, All You Fascists.

All You Fascists, by Billy Bragg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWBeGK96pVQ

#workingclass #LaborHistory #peasant #revolt #rebellion #polltax #thatcher #wattyler #pandemic #plague #massacre #execution #billybragg #fascism

23 May 1988

Shared from Working Class History

On this day, 23 May 1988, four lesbians, including Booan Temple, burst into a BBC news studio during a live broadcast and called out: “Stop Section 28!” The protest was against the new anti-gay law, Section 28, that was about to go into effect at midnight and had received little if any critical news coverage.

Pushed by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, Section 28 sought to prohibit the “promotion” or “acceptability” of homosexuality in local authorities and schools. While the four women were arrested, they were never charged, likely due to the BBC not wanting to give the protest any further attention.
The homophobic mass media unsurprisingly ignored their message and spun the protest in such a way so as to justify the discrimination of LGBTQ people.
Even still, the protest inspired many LGBTQ people, especially younger folk, to keep up the fight. The law would be in place until 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England and Wales.

@Drachenstreichler It's an odd thing to think each morning, isn't it?

But then I remember the joy people had when #Thatcher died and... yeah. There's that.

A Lyrid meteor captured from orbit

The Expedition 74 crew on the International Space Station turned into meteor chasers as Earth passed through a cloud of dust and small debris left behind by comet Thatcher in 1861.

Credit: NASA/ESA – Sophie Adenot

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2026/05/A_Lyrid_meteor_from_orbit

#SophieAdenot #meteor #ISS #InternationalSpaceStation #space #comet #Thatcher #epsilon #photography #Expedition74

Ich wollte gerade Margret Thatcher mit

"There’s No Such Thing as Society"

in einer Diskussion zitieren.

Dann habe ich mal geschaut, wie sie das gemeint hat:

"There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first."

Grusel. Eine Ideologie, die uns noch heute viel Kummer bereitet.

Nein, ich werde den Satz nicht mehr zitieren.

#nonmention #thatcher

https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-4/neoliberalism-more-recent-times/margaret-thatcher-theres-no-such-thing-as-society

Repubblica.it: Michael Dobbs: “Il Regno Unito è un caos, peggio della mia House of Cards”

Intervista allo scrittore, Lord, ex consigliere supremo di Thatcher e autore del romanzo poi diventato serie tv mondiale con Kevin Spacey: “Oggi la politica è dominata dai social media, dove tutti pretendono cose, ma nessuno parla più delle responsabilità. I politici di oggi si accodano a questo andazzo e si illudono di sopravvivere, dicendo alla gente quello che vuole sentirsi dire. Starmer non ha visione, ma non vedo in giro alternative serie”

Michael Dobbs: “The United Kingdom is a mess, worse than my House of Cards.”

Interview with the writer, Lord, former chief advisor to Thatcher and author of the novel that later became a worldwide TV series with Kevin Spacey: “Today politics is dominated by social media, where everyone demands things, but no one ever talks about responsibility. Today’s politicians should follow this trend and delude themselves into surviving by telling people what they want to hear. Starmer has no vision, but I don’t see any serious alternatives around.”

#MichaelDobbs #TheUnitedKingdom #HouseofCards #Thatcher #KevinSpacey #Starmer

https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2026/05/14/news/michael_dobbs_intervista_regno_unito_caos_house_of_cards_starmer-425343678/

From #Libya to class reunions to your own back yard in today’s Graphical #History Tour:
https://bergetoons.blogspot.com/2026/05/revenge-of-sixths.html

#editorialcartoons #lgbtq #nimby #Reagan #thatcher #StOlaf