Vintage British anarchist punk armbands c. 1980

Scarce, in-your-face political ephemera from Britain's angry, young and poor. Manufactured roughly one year after Margaret Thatcher's 1979 election -- a vote that solidified the anarchist and punk legions in opposition.

The "Anarchy in '80" armband shows up around the leg of a guitarist in a photo of an obscure UK punk group, The Condemned, on the blog Leaders of Men taken in 1979 or 1980. The blogger refers to it as "proto crust" which seems accurate; it likely emanated from the cluster of punks around Crass and Subhumans that would become canonical "crust punk" bands.