Scottish Independence: 100 seconds of television that changed history. [View all]

[denem]

Last edited Thu Sep 11, 2014, 01:29 PM - Edit history (9)

Scots hated Thatcherism with good reason. Monetarism then Privatisation decimated Sotland’s industries. In 1987 while Scottish towns and cities lay in ruins, Thatcher was making her victory lap down south, cheered on by Rupert and the City. Read all about it: Thatcher saves Britain from Socialism; Full story on Page 3. Live the dream with the poll tax. You've never had it so good.

Scots don’t forgive or forget at the best of times but, these were some of the worst. As Thatcher's third term kicked off, despair gave way to bile. Against a backdrop of Scottish strife, ITV aired The Testing Ground sketch on Nov 27, 1997. It was typical Spitting Image but, on this particular occasion, Scotland was mocked without mercy.

I lived in London at the time. That sketch were regarded as some of the best comedy ever: A rat wearing tartan being tortured with the poll tax; Scotland confused with the Falklands and Maggie sporting Freddy Kruger knives; Hilarious! By the time the Poll Tax 'experiment' was underway in 1989, no one was laughing. I was in Inverness. People were humiliated. And down south the trial run was alarming all and sundry. Anyone who cared was getting ready for 1990. The riots became violent but the writing was on the wall. Thatcher paid the price. No more testing grounds, only a cemetery watered by saliva. The UK turned to grey.

It is unnerving to realise how one Spitting Image sketch could eat away at the Union. In the years that followed, The Testing Ground became the dominant narrative, summarising Thatcher's governance of the people who loathed her. The term is used to this day,. Lab rats or ginea pigs, Scots have not forgotten the power wielded by Westminster in the 1980's. The scars remain. The Union is crumbling.

The Testing Ground, Spitting Image, Nov 27, 1987

Testing Ground?
Yes, we’ve got to have somewhere to test things out,
somewhere a long way from my house.

And now Ridley here
is testing his Poll Tax on them

(You never know, it might work
but what if it doesn’t?)

No harm done,
they would have voted Labour anyway

Devolution,
now where's that again?
(It's a shoe shop ...)

Cameron apologies to Scotland for poll tax experiment (Sept, 2006)

David Cameron yesterday told Scotland that the Conservatives were wrong to impose the poll tax upon it, in the latest renunciation of his party's Thatcherite past. The Tory leader said his party had committed "a series of blunders" in Scotland in the 1980s and 1990s, adding: "The imposition of the poll tax was the most egregious. The decision to treat Scotland as a laboratory for experimentation in new methods of local government finance was clumsy and unjust." ...

Mr Cameron pledged: "If I become the prime minister of the United Kingdom, I'll never, never take Scotland for granted."

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/sep/16/conservatives.politics

"Scotland has been used as a testing ground by the english for years ... a prime example was the damn poll tax, lets try it on the scots first, see how it goes down. you kick a man for so long he's going to start biting your leg. its time for scotland to go it alone" - Activist, 2011.