As the official photographer for The Militant, David Sinclair documented some of the most important social and political struggles in Liverpool during the 1980s and 1990s. His photographs chart a turbulent era when the city became a centre of resistance to Thatcher’s Conservative government and its policies of austerity, privatisation, and deindustrialisation.

The Militant (later Militant Labour) was a socialist newspaper and political organisation closely linked to Liverpool City Council during the mid‑1980s, when the council famously defied central government over funding cuts and housing. Sinclair’s images from this period include the 1985 student strike against cuts to education, one of many youth‑led protests in solidarity with broader struggles across the city. A decade later, he captured the Liverpool dockers’ dispute of 1995–98 — a long and bitter industrial conflict after the mass sacking of dock workers, which became a symbol of working‑class resistance and solidarity.

His photographs document not just the confrontations and rallies, but also the spirit of unity and determination that defined Liverpool in these years. They remain an important record of a city that fought back.