Recession Years: a soundtrack

The current recession in Greece is likely to bring back lots of bad memories to a part of the British public, since Britain suffered similarly from a hard recession during the 70s and the 80s.
In the mid-70s, the atmosphere in Britain was grim and grimey. Urban development plans for the war-stricken cities created grey concrete futuristic fortresses where once were rows of Victorian houses; the cities' architectural character was forever altered and the sense of community was lost. Furthermore, the plight of British industry resulted in steadfastly rising unemployment throughout the country. And finally, the Labour government was collapsing, making way for the Torys and their Iron Lady.
The economic policy of the Thatcher government (a close relative of what became known as Reaganomics in the U.S.) aimed primarily to reduce the inflation and the public spending. In doing so, many inefficient industries were forced to close down, the social services had to endure significant reductions, and taxation was increased. As a result, unemployment rate exploded; manufacturing output plummeted; trade unions were crushed; education and the welfare state were faced with unprecedented cutbacks of funds. The recession left deep scars into the fabrics of the British society for years. The musicians of the punk and post-punk era of the late 70's and early 80's responded with some of the greatest examples of unabashed and uncompromising sociopolitical songwriting ever recorded.
The songs that will be presented the next days are thus sadly topical and provide a bitter soundtrack to what us Greeks are going through now. As one of the featured songwriters wrote, it's "struggle after struggle, year after year". These are the recession years.