The &lt;a href="1981%20England%20riots"&gt;English youth riots/uprisings that occurred at the start of the 1980s&lt;/a&gt;, in St Pauls, Bristol (1980) and in 1981, Brixton, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, and elsewhere, acted as a warning to a British society that was indifferent or hostile to the demands of disenfranchised and disadvantaged black people. These urban disturbances, that some commentators called "uprisings", provided black Labour activists (several of them middle-class professionals, observed black radical Darcus Howe, who wrote a Race Today pamphlet about Black Sections) with greater political leverage in their arguments. While the rise of the Labour municipal left wing, of prominent figures, including Ken Livingstone, in local government, particularly in London, created the opportunity to place the issue of black representation firmly on the political agenda.