Which Side Are You On

Alan flees the suburbs and discovers a host of political causes to die for - or at least wear the badge for. By the mid-1980s, Thatcher's Britain was bitterly divided by political debate, and Alan was in the thick of it. He revisits the 80s counterculture of his youth - from animal rights and gay rights to Ban the Bomb and Coal not Dole - and he comes face-to-face with one of the arch-bogeymen of the Left: Norman Tebbitt. But the 80s was also a confusing time to be an angry young man. Radical feminism was on the march, and as a right-on student Alan found himself navigating a minefield of sexual politics and political correctness. Alan meets some of the personal heroes who for him defined the political battles of the era, including folk-punk singer Billy Bragg and gay rights activist Sir Ian McKellen.