Events come and go in a blur - IRA attacks, the Falklands war, the Brighton bombing, the miners' strike, the poll tax riots - before her leadership crumbles.

After the Brighton bombing in 1984, Neil Kinnock predicted that it would be 'many many decades' before consent came about (Newsnight BBC2, 12/10/84).

Devastating political events - the miners' strike, the Brighton bombings - are dealt with in an almost operatic way.

Magee did not speak to us as he left the station and was later given eight life sentences with a recommendation he serve a minimum of 35 years for his part in the Brighton bombing, this conspiracy and other terrorist charges.

Days later I realised he was trying to tell me about the Brighton bombing; it had occurred the same morning.

Morrissey, frontman of the popular English alternative rock band The Smiths, said shortly after: "the only sorrow of the Brighton bombing is that Thatcher escaped unscathed".

Magee received eight life sentences: seven for offences relating to the Brighton bombing, and the eighth for another bomb plot.

The attack, the most audacious IRA operation on the UK mainland since the 1984 Brighton bombing [see p. 33365], came at a time of heightened security because of threatened terrorist attacks in connection with the Gulf war.

On 11 June 1986, all five were convicted of conspiring to cause explosions in England, although Magee was the only person convicted in relation to the Brighton bombing.

Until his death in the Brighton bombing in 1984, the constituency was represented by Sir Anthony Berry.