A couple of years ago, I interviewed Derek Hatton, the former deputy leader of Liverpool’s council, who was expelled from the Labour Party for belonging to Militant — a faction accused of being in breach of Labour’s constitution.



Liverpool’s unemployment rates were among the worst in the country during the 1980s, a defining decade in the city’s identity. As a consequence, its population almost halved. Meanwhile, there was a housing crisis, a heroin epidemic and some of the most violent rioting that Britain had ever witnessed.



By 1985, Hatton and Militant were attempting to solve some of Liverpool’s problems by ignoring spending caps set by the Conservative government. This led to a warning from the district auditor who said that the council must either cut its investment and use the courts to set a balanced rate or sack its 32,000 employees.



A game of bluff followed in which Hatton issued redundancy notices to all workers.