Episode 13 - General Strike of 1926: Britain in Crisis

A hundred years after the General Strike of 1926, the questions it raised still refuse to disappear.What happens when millions of workers decide they have had enough? How does the state respond when key industries stop functioning? Is industrial action simply an economic dispute, or does it become something much larger, a challenge to authority, legitimacy and political power itself?These are the themes at the centre of the latest episode of the We Can Work It Out podcast, where I’m joined by Dr Chris Kirkland, Senior Lecturer in Politics at York St John University and author of A History of Modern Britain in 12 Crises. Together, we explore the General Strike not simply as an isolated labour dispute, but as one of the defining crises of twentieth-century Britain and a moment that still echoes through contemporary politics, industrial relations and debates around work today.  Enjoy the discussion.