In May 1983 Labour did not expect to take power as comprehensively as it did: the feeling was after one more push the party would be in a majority in 1984. Recall that the SDP had won the Crosby by-election, which returned Shirley Williams to Parliament, only eighteen months before. The Falklands had been retaken, and in May 1983 Margaret Thatcher won a majority of 144 seats to retain power. In Liverpool, things were different. The many years of building the Left in the city over the previous years (discussed in chapter two) paid off.

Labour was elected on a wave of militancy in the city. A major focus was the dispute at Croxteth Comprehensive (see Hatton 1988: 45-55). No one disagreed that Liverpool's secondary education system was in dire need of reform. The Secretary of State demanded it. After two years of delays, in July 1982 Liberal education chair Mike Storey decided that Croxteth Comprehensive should be closed in the face of falling rolls, but he failed to consult teachers or the community to win support. Closure plans came as a bolt from the blue. Locally, there was a strong feeling that Croxteth, a deprived ward in the city (with an unemployment rate of 40 per cent), needed a school, and this would be a major blow to the community. The Labour councillors opposed closure, and the parents and sixth formers established a Parents Action Committee which engaged in a programme of civil disobedience, blocking roads and staging demonstrations. Visiting Education Secretary, Sir Keith Joseph, and later Michael Heseltine, were pelted with eggs by Croxteth School supporters. Eventually parents and teachers, with the support of the local Left and the unions, occupied the school and from September 1982 ran it as Croxteth Free Community School. For the Left, this was a cause celebre: for example, the actress Vanessa Redgrave appeared in the city as a fundraiser. However, a lack of resources for teaching, a break in, and limited electricity and heating oil made it a hard winter in the school, and some pupils drifted away. In February 1982, just before the elections, the Liberal Council sent the parents committee a rates bill of £27,000, and threatened to send in the bailiffs.