The history of British newspapers begins in the 17th century with the emergence of regular publications covering news and gossip. The relaxation of government censorship in the late 17th century led to a rise in publications, which in turn led to an increase in regulation throughout the 18th century. The Times began publication in 1785 and became the leading newspaper of the early 19th century, before the lifting of taxes on newspapers and technological innovations led to a boom in newspaper publishing in the late 19th century. Mass education and increasing affluence led to new papers such as the Daily Mail emerging at the end of the 19th century, aimed at lower middle-class readers.
Wapping is an area in the borough of Tower Hamlets in London, England. It is in East London and part of the East End. Wapping is on the north bank of the River Thames between St Katharine Docks to the west, and Shadwell to the east. This position gives the district a strong maritime character.
The Winter of Discontent was the period between November 1978 and February 1979 in the United Kingdom characterised by widespread strikes by private, and later public, sector trade unions demanding pay rises greater than the limits Prime Minister James Callaghan and his Labour Party government had been imposing, against Trades Union Congress (TUC) opposition, to control inflation. Some of these industrial disputes caused great public inconvenience, exacerbated by the coldest winter in 16 years, in which severe storms isolated many remote areas of the country.
The 1984–1985 United Kingdom miners' strike was a major industrial action within the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent closures of pits that the government deemed "uneconomic" in the coal industry, which had been nationalised in 1947. It was led by Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) against the National Coal Board (NCB), a government agency. Opposition to the strike was led by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who wanted to reduce the power of the trade unions.
The Battle of Orgreave was a violent confrontation on 18 June 1984 between pickets and officers of the South Yorkshire Police (SYP) and other police forces, including the Metropolitan Police, at a British Steel Corporation (BSC) coking plant at Orgreave, in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. It was a pivotal event in the 1984–1985 UK miners' strike, and one of the most violent clashes in British industrial history.
Fleet Street is a street in Central London, England. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary of the Cities of London and Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was named.
Newsquest Media Group Limited is the second largest publisher of regional and local newspapers in the United Kingdom. It is owned by the American mass media holding company Gannett.
Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, abbreviated CEP in English and SCEP in French, was a largely private-sector labour union with 150,000 members, active from 1992 to 2013. It was created in 1992 through the merger of three unions: the Canadian Paperworkers Union, the Communications and Electrical Workers of Canada, and the Energy and Chemical Workers Union. See below for some other unions that were merged into the CEP. CEP/SCEP was affiliated to the Canadian Labour Congress.
Selim Jehan Shah, commonly known as Eddy Shah or Eddie Shah, is a Manchester-based businessman, the founder of the then technologically advanced UK newspaper Today in 1986, and of the short-lived tabloid The Post. He is also the former owner of the Messenger Group.
The Grunwick dispute was a British industrial dispute involving trade union recognition at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories in Chapter Road, Dollis Hill in the London suburb of Willesden, that led to a two-year strike between 1976 and 1978.
The Liverpool Dockers' dispute between dockers and their employers, Mersey Docks and Harbour Company (MDHC) and Torside Ltd, in Liverpool, England, lasted from 1995 to 1998. Although considered a strike, it was strictly a lockout as the employers, Mersey Docks, sacked the dockers for breach of contract when they refused to cross a picket line set up by their sacked Torside Limited colleagues. Initially, five Torside workers were dismissed following a dispute regarding overtime pay, who in turn formed a picket line that other dockers refused to cross in solidarity.
Brenda Dean, Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, was a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician. As general secretary of SOGAT from 1985 until 1991, she was "the first woman elected to head a major industrial trade union."
The Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union, known as the EETPU, was a British trade union formed in 1968 as a union for electricians and plumbers, which went through three mergers from 1992 to now be part of Unite the Union.
Margaret Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 4 May 1979 when she accepted an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, succeeding James Callaghan of the Labour Party, and ended on 28 November 1990 upon her resignation. She was elected to the position in 1979, having led the Conservative Party since 1975, and won landslide re-elections for the Conservatives in 1983 and 1987. She gained intense media attention as Britain's first female prime minister, and was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century. Her premiership ended when she withdrew from the 1990 Conservative leadership election. As prime minister, Thatcher also served simultaneously as First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Leader of the Conservative Party.
Donald Macintyre is a British freelance journalist and author, formerly a political editor and foreign correspondent on The Independent.
The Sun is a British tabloid newspaper, published by the News Group Newspapers division of News UK, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Lachlan Murdoch's News Corp. It was founded as a broadsheet in 1964 as a successor to the Daily Herald, and became a tabloid in 1969 after it was purchased by its current owner. The Sun had the largest daily newspaper circulation in the United Kingdom, but was overtaken by freesheet rival Metro in March 2018.
Collective action in the United Kingdom including the right to strike in UK labour law is the main support for collective bargaining. Although the right to strike has attained the status, since 1906, of a fundamental human right, protected in domestic case law, statute, the European Convention on Human Rights and international law, the rules in statute have generated significant litigation. The "right of workers to engage in a strike or other industrial action" is expressly recognised in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 section 180, and has been recognised repeatedly by the Court of Appeal as "a fundamental human right"., and the House of Lords.
William Alan O'Neill (born May 22, 1936) is the Australian-American former media executive who, in a 50-year career, held multiple positions within News Corporation, including two separate terms as head of News International, a Director on the company's main board, and Executive Vice President of News Corporation with global responsibility for human resources.
Christopher Gerald Pole-Carew was a British appointee as High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 1979. After serving in the Royal Navy, he was a newspaper executive, who rose to notoriety in his handling of trade union membership, initially as managing director of the Nottingham Evening Post. He sacked journalists who joined the trade union or for going on strike for less pay than they were currently receiving - about £1,500 a year, and later under Rupert Murdoch, where his role included trade union matters. The appointment brought comment in the House of Commons.
The NGA Dispute was a 1983 labour dispute between the print workers at the Warrington Messenger newspaper group in the north of England, all members of the National Graphical Association trade union, and Eddy Shah, the owner of the newspaper group.
