Poll Tax

Hugely unpopular, the poll tax helped bring down Margaret Thatcher. But she had plenty of warnings. Why did the Tories press ahead anyway? Why do ageing lefties remember the protests with nostalgia? And what are the lessons for anyone who dares to try to reform property taxes?

Ros Taylor was talking to Tony Travers, the co-author of Failure in British Government: The Politics of the Poll Tax and a Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics.

I also drew on The Poll Tax Rebellion in Haringey, a BBC Four interview with David Mellor, the Centre for Policy Studies' Of Dukes and Dustmen: Cautionary Rhymes on the Community Charge, CSpan footage of Prime Minister's Questions with Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock, BBC news reports of the riot, a 1997 edition of Newsnight, Poll tax is history in the Guardian, and a Warwick Economic research paper: The UK poll tax and the declining electoral roll: unintended consequences? by Jeremy Smith and Iain Maclean. The description by Colin of the poll tax riot is from Bollocks to the Poll Tax by Colin Revolting and was read by Ned Palmer.