Leek-eaters

[DecemDave]

Amazing.  I've spent 50+ years interested in history and had never heard of those riots.   English bias to what I read maybe?   There also seems to be a common recurring  theme of populist protests over legit grievances which lead panicking authorities to send in the troops and things then go really bad.  Peasants revolt, clubmen, Peterloo, the Troubles, .....
Good job Thatcher didnt use the army in 1984.    or maybe she did

discuss.     

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Lets leave it that she would have liked to. Remember in 1910 there were no instantaneous mass media, it was limited to newspapers run by such unbasied people as Berverbrooke and Lord North...in 84 there were 5 TV channels and many radio stations.

[Gwydion]

Featherstone 'massacre' 1893. South Staffs fired on supposedly rioting miners - shot 2 dead.
Often quoted as the last time in England that soldiers turned their guns on the British people.

Not the last time in Britain though-

Llanelli riots 1911 (connected to the general industrial problems that caused the Tonypandy riots): The Worcestershire Regiment shot two men dead, one a tin plate worker supporting the striking railwaymen, and one a bystander in his garden. (British marksmanship down a grade in rules for the era?)

Oh - David LlG? Born in Manchester (I know all English cities look the same) not Brum.  Supposedly the only PM who has had English as his second language - many others only sound as if they are not native speakers.