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FEELINGS about the poll tax were running high when this protest was staged in Glasgow in April 1988. In the House of Commons, the Thatcher government’s flagship legislation had survived a key vote with a majority of 25, with 38 Conservative MPs voting against and others abstaining. The new clause in the Local Government Finance Bill, insisting on ability to pay the tax, resulted in the smallest Commons majority for Margaret Thatcher since her election victory in June 1987. “A government defeat on this issue”, noted our political editor, Geoffrey Parkhouse, “would have wrecked the flat-rate principle of the poll tax both in Scotland and south of the border”.