New files from 1984

Contemporary records specialists Mark Dunton and Simon Demissie
discuss the latest batch of government records to be released to
The National Archives. The year was 1984 and Margaret Thatcher's
appointment diary, included in this collection for the first time,
shows she was as busy as ever. The year-long miners' strike
dominated the headlines and occupied much of the Cabinet's time but
it was also the year WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot outside the
Libyan People's Bureau and Mrs Thatcher herself narrowly escaped
death in the Brighton hotel bombing. The new files also provide a
fascinating insight into the first meeting between Mrs Thatcher and
future Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.