Guest Blog: Ed Edwards

I was politically active in the late 1980s and personally witnessed the dying away of the political spark on the streets of Manchester in the wake of the nationwide inner-city uprisings of 1981-85. One day, around 1987, I was asked by a Moss Side street dealer if I "wanted anything to smoke" as I passed. I knew the guy faintly from my younger cannabis-smoking days when we bought a "five-pound draw" if we couldn't buy resin from our usual sources.