The development of risk politics in the UK: Thatcher’s ‘Remarkable’ but forgotten ‘Don’t Die of Ignorance’ AIDS campaign

Abstract

Thirty years on from the dramatic and unprecedented AIDS advertising campaign organised by the Conservative administration of the late 1980s, this article reassesses the experience drawing upon subsequent memoirs and interviews. It does so in the context of an emergence of risk politics in the UK in the 1980s, situated within an historical perspective on the development of risk within modernity. Emphasis is placed upon the forgotten pragmatic, amoral core of the campaign which challenged the illiberal climate of the times, and how it was possible for an administration defined by high moralism to challenge it. The range of pressures that led to the campaign are outlined, including a conscious attempt to limit stigmatisation amidst the mood of wartime emergency that prevailed in late 1986/early 1987. Its emergency character meant little direct legacy of harm reduction has endured, but the article argues for a wider significance of the campaign as a key moment in the emergence of risk politics in the UK and beyond.

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