On 24 January 1986, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News International, secretly moved its newspapers operation from Fleet Street to a new clandestinely equipped printing plant in Wapping effectively dismissing 6000 of its employees overnight. The strike that followed, brutally repressed by the police whilst News International's interests were protected by Thatcher’s government, eventually collapsed a year later. News International didn’t loose a single day of production. Rupert Murdoch’s strategy, although condemned as cynical and ruthless, eventually forced a modernisation of the British press and the birth of a new economic model that still thrive today; News International moved in new offices across the road in 2010 and continues to operate despite the recent phone hacking scandal and the controversy around the practices and ethics of its journalists. ‘Fortress Wapping’ as it was known, is now being demolished to make way for ‘London Dock’, a new property development by St George, ‘celebrating a rich past, creating a new future’. Lifestyle pictures on the advertising billboards that conceal the site promise what is to come: luxury and contemporary living, shopping and champagne. The history of the Wapping Dispute is somehow abandoned. As strikers said at the time: ‘It was a war, and we lost it’. Source http://www.wapping-dispute.org.uk http://www.berkeleygroup.co.uk/new-homes/london/wapping http://londondock.co.uk/explore/ http://londondockcommunity.co.uk
