1979

Paul Blackburn was jailed in 1978 for a crime he did not commit and got out 25 years later. But 1979, as k-punk reiterates, was the turning point at which Britain changed, or started to change, from a (tempered) social democracy to a more neoliberal harsher chillier place. His incarceration spanned the two nodal points, near enough. He was jailed just as Callaghan was capitulating to the uninevitable and was released (without apologies, explanation or compensation) just as the neoloib turn started its dramatic collapse. No wonder he remarks " I can be in whatever nasty area of London at 4am surrounded by drug addicts, crackheads and robbers, it holds no fear for me. I've just been living with them all for 25 years... It was a big Asda, I turned round and walked out again. It's all just too much for me. Too much information, too much choice, too much going on."

Interestingly Blackburn turned to words and writing in order to save himself.