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Fresh insights into Thatcher’s war on unions
Conrad Landin uncovers the lengths to which Thatcher’s government went to meddle in the affairs of the CPSA and John Macreadie’s leadership election

WHEN the Civil and Public Services Association (CPSA) published its official history in 1980, it was titled From Humble Petition to Militant Action.

To get to grips with why Margaret Thatcher’s government was so keen to interfere in an internal union election, it’s vital to understand how this bunch of white-collar civil servants became a force to be reckoned with.

After all, by the mid-1980s this question was occupying both Civil Service chiefs and the union’s “moderate” faction — who feared they were losing control of the CPSA to militant leftwingers.

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