| Situation
critical: Efforts
to reduce the size of the state and to
control public spending drove much of the
Thatcher agenda, sometimes treating
harshly the most vulnerable citizens,
such as young people with severe
disabilities. Tom Clarke MP, the sponsor
of the 1986 disabled persons act
attributed the passage of his bill to
Brian Deer's reports. The Sunday Times
April 6 1986 |
| Shooting
the messanger:
In rare cases where journalists got
behind the facade of private
social care, they could be abused as much
verbally as some residents were
physically and mentally - as was revealed
by this spat with a local authority in
the north of England over an
investigation at a seedy Manchester old
peoples' home. The Sunday Times
April 20 1986 |
| Watching
the detectives:
Never let the facts stand in the way of a
plausible social policy is a reliable
stand-by maxim for governments, as the
Conservative flagship for crime - neighbourhood
watch - demonstrated.
Eventually, the concept was abandoned,
but not without a bitter fight over these
exclusive stories. The Sunday Times May
10 and 17 1987 |
| Myra's
facelift:
The social affairs analysis of popular
obsessions, such as Britain's endlesss
fascination with serial killer
Myra Hindley - who later died to much
celebration - could sometimes report not
only who, what and where, but also ask
the question "why?" The Sunday
Times October 29 1989 |
| Aussie
union fury:
In many countries throughout the
developed world, the power of organised
labour was sharply curtailed by
governments during the 1980s, with
similar conflicts emerging everywhere -
such as this row between government and
trade unions in Australia.
Reported from Sydney. The Sunday Times
August 24 1986 |
|
|
| Show
and tell:
Efforts to insert gratuitous
sexual content into broadsheet
newspapers never faltered during
the decade, but required
particular skill when written
from a morally-superior stance,as
in this tendentious story.
(Photograph: Stuart Nichol) |
|
 |
| Life
of Brian: Reporter
Brian Deer (left) interviews
homeless teenager Brian
Bannister, who organised a
petition among street people for
a place to stay after the
scheduled closure of London's
annual Christmas charity shelter.
(Photograph: Dod Miller) |
|
|
| Panic is
not a solution:
The plight of vulnerable children
is a centuries-old source of
public anxiety. During the Thatcher
years, the media-led agenda swung from
one frenzied response to another, often
putting intolerable pressures on social
workers and professionals. The
Sunday Times September 29 1985 |
| Unheard
voices: As the
decade progressed, panics over child
safety moved from physical to sexual
abuse scandals, before provoking
a predictable backlash, as in a famous
scandal in Cleveland, which led to a
public inquiry. But one thing was still
missing: the opinions of the children
themselves. The Sunday Times July 10 1988 |
| Terribly
alive: Drug
misuse, which is inherently hard to
quantify or qualify, has always produced fictions
from journalists for public
concern and entertainment. Often, made-up
stories about heroin
were news editors' dependable space
fillers, before interest faltered in the
1990s. The Times Education Supplement
July 31 1987 |
| The rise
of Big John:
Proof that the impact of journalism
cannot be predicted came in the
phenomenal ascent of an obscure social
security minister after
a newspaper attack that was expected to
be lethal. Within days of Brian Deer's
"old and cold" campaign, John
Major was firmly on Thatcher's approved
list. The Sunday Times January 11 and 18
1987 |
Educating
Harlem: As the
Thatcher years drew to a close, policy
wonk expeditions to the United States
yielded radical conservative templates
that would be adopted by Tony Blair's New
Labour in the following decade. One such
was an influential experiment in
competition and specialisation at New
York public schools. The Sunday
Times July 15 1990
|
|
|
