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| It's 1979 and politically Britain ends the decade as it started with economic, political and industrial turmoil and a change of government. Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives are elected to power, while in Iran, their is an Islamic Revolution and the Shah is exiled. In the north east of England, listeners were kept fully informed by Metro's newsoom. |
ByANDY FLEMING
WEBMASTER
As the seventies gave way to the eighties, the north east, Britain and indeed the world were changing dramatically. It was one of history's turning points.
In the United Kingdom, the Winter of Discontent marked by industrial unrest gave way to a new government in the spring led by Margaret Thatcher with new economics based on the free market and deregulation. There was a religious revolution in Iran where the Shah was deposed and uncertainties in the Middle East led to a second major global oil price shock. In southern Africa the winds of change and a bush war led to the crumbling of illegal white minority rule in one of Britain's few remaining colonies, Rhodesia. The country would become Zimbabwe in 1980, the Prime Minister Ian Smith being replaced with a new president, Robert Mugabe in democratic elections. Pressure was intensified on the Apartheid regime in South Africa and the civil war flared again in the Lebanon, with its capital, Beirut crumbling.
