Catalogue Number
NMLH.2024.71.4
Object Name
poster
Title
'Only one person in four reading this poster would survive a nuclear strike on London. (Chances are it won't be you). Keep London nuclear free. GLC. Working for London and Peace.'
Place
London
People
Greater London Council (GLC), Ken Livingstone, Labour Party, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
Events
Peace Year (1983)
Description
A text focused poster which reads 'Only one person in four reading this poster would survive a nuclear strike on London. (Chances are it won't be you). Keep London nuclear free. GLC. Working for London and Peace.' The Greater London Council anti-nuclear campaign logo of hands breaking a nuclear missile in two is in the bottom right corner.
This poster was created by the Greater London Council (GLC) as part of a campaign against nuclear weapons, including storing nuclear weapons for allied countries like the USA, or the use of nuclear weapons by the UK, and against nuclear waste being transported through London on freight trains. The one in four statistic was based on calculations from the government's 1980 Civil Defence Exercise. At the time London's population was approximately 6.8 million people, meaning 5.1 million people would have died in the event of a nuclear attack on London. Anxieties about nuclear weapon usage were high due to the Cold War between two nuclear capable countries, the USA and the Soviet Union. The USA had begun storing nuclear weapons in the UK, which made the UK a target to the Soviet Union in the event of an escalation of the Cold War.
After Manchester City Council declared the city a 'nuclear free zone' in 1980, other councils across the UK followed suit, including the GLC under leader Ken Livingstone. As well as advertisements like this one, council leader Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party declared 1983 to be 'Peace Year' as a way to advocate for nuclear disarmament, and was a strong supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament which held large anti-nuclear marches in London. The left wing administration of the GLC was a fierce opponent of the then Conservative government, and often held policies which contradicted government stance, including this one. The Conservatives eventually abolished the GLC in 1986. Livingstone was leader of the GLC from 1981-1986, and became London's leader again as Mayor of London in 2000-2008. He also served as an MP for 14 years and continued to strongly support CND's work and ties with the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which had experienced atomic bombings during the
Second World War.
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