Protests can work. 31st March 1990. The demonstration that led to the downfall of Thatcher
Its 35 years since the London poll tax demonstration (31st March 1990, the last Saturday of the month) that led in November 1990 to the resignation of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister.
The protest was around 100,000 strong and marched from Kennington to Trafalgar Square (as the Chartists had planned to do on 10th April 1848).
It ended in what the media reported as disorder or riot but perhaps because of that gave an impetus to the national campaign that led to the scrapping of the poll tax.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/31/newsid_2530000/2530763.stm
Thatcher who was speaking at a gathering of the central council of the Tory Party on the day noted in a private letter (3rd April 1990) that what had taken place was ‘disgraceful’, still not prepared to grasp the point that the tax was unworkable because numbers would not pay it.
I of course was there but remember little beyond the fact that it was a sunny day and I cleared off to the British Library when the march got to its destination not being a great fan of listening to speeches from politicians who I had heard speak quite frequently as it was.
The detail of the demonstration is important history but three and half decades on its also a reminder that protests can change things where Parliament sometimes does not
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