I have the Tories to thank for making me a photographer — the insanity of the Thatcher era drove me to pick up a camera and document the unfolding chaos. I left the UK shortly after Labour’s 1997 victory and returned during Johnson’s period of misrule. I kept encountering visual echoes of the 80s but the mood felt radically different, with resistance replaced by passive despair. Two photographs — Handsworth in 1985 and the post-industrial landscape of County Durham.