Other commentators agreed that Liverpool 's tactics had been successful : '' The Times '' printed a leader which began " Today in Liverpool municipal militancy is vindicated " and argued that the Government had subverted " its whole local government financial policy of the past four years ; it issues an open invitation to councils to say the caps do n't fit and they wo n't wear them " . Within the Conservative government the political impact was immense . While the Government had not wanted to engage in a major fight in 1984 at the same time as the miners ' strike , attitudes quickly hardened . Margaret Thatcher , in a lecture in November 1984 delivered a month after she survived an assassination attempt that killed five senior Conservatives , referred to a spectrum of groups undermining rule of law : " At one end of the spectrum are the terrorist gangs within our borders , and the terrorist states which finance and arm them . At the other are the Hard Left operating inside our system , conspiring to use union power and the apparatus of local government to break , defy and subvert the law . " On the left , many thought that the outcome of Liverpool 's budget dispute in 1984 had vindicated its confrontational approach
assassination attempt
Brighton hotel bombing
Rate-capping rebellion