IT is probably safe to say that Margaret Thatcher and the urban youth of the times did not get on. See music, graffiti, and riots for more details. Yet as a new documentary series shows, the two camps were more alike than they might appear, and each had reason to be grateful for the other.

Sensationalists: the Bad Boys and Girls of British Art (BBC2, Tuesday, 9pm) looks at the part played by the 1997 Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in revolutionising ideas about contemporary British art. Among the works that spooked the horses, the media and the art establishment were the rotting head of a cow, a pickled shark, and a portrait of a murderer.

Where had all these ideas, this energy, this anger, come from? Director Min Clough starts the story in the early 1980s, an era when it was grim up north, and everywhere else, for many people.

“Thatcher was doing her deeds, privatising everything,” says Rachel Whiteread, one of many artists interviewed, including Michael Landy, Fiona Rae, and Jake Chapman. “The UK was in quite a mess actually.”

Youth culture reacted to the conservatism of the times by, what else, rebelling against it. The children of the punk era were to be found shaking things up in music, fashion, dance and the theatre. One area that seemed immune to change was the British art world, a tiny scene made up of a few gallery owners who thought they knew everything there was to know about art, and what they liked. It was decidedly not what the Young British Artists, or YBAs as they came to be known, were producing.

Though they had vastly different interests and styles, this new gang had much in common. They were broke, for a start. Some of them were working class. Imagine. They lived in squats, the east London of the time being a place where row after row of buildings lay empty, and they were entrepreneurial, putting on warehouse parties and reselling cheap lager to the punters to make a few bob.

Hirst worked in galleries, and as a waiter at glitzy events, so he could learn how the art world worked.

It was he who came up with the idea of staging the 1988 Freeze exhibition, where many YBAs were first introduced to the public. Among the collectors who snapped up the early bargains was Charles Saatchi, one half of Saatchi and Saatchi, the Conservatives’ ad agency and creators of the “Labour isn’t Working” poster.

That was not the only connection between the two worlds. If not for Mrs Thatcher and the Enterprise Allowance, under which people were paid to start their own business, many an artist would not have had a career. But do they ever write or phone to say thanks?

Industry (BBC1, Tuesday, 11.25), the everyday tale of City folk, is back and ready to confirm all your fears and prejudices about early 21st century capitalism.

The success of the first series was remarkable in as much as all the characters were horrible, and the jargon-packed dialogue was impenetrable at times. Yet the soapy writing and slick, HBO production kept many viewers coming back for more. Oh, and there was a shed-load of sex and drugs besides.

Series one ended with a handful of the graduates landing coveted positions with the fictional Pierpoint bank. Two years and a pandemic on, the survivors of the financial Hunger Games are back, much better dressed, but still as messed up as before.

Harper Stern (Myha’la Herrold), the tiny American with huge ambition, remains the strongest character, though many will have a soft spot for Robert (Harry Lawtey), the working class kid feeling out of his depth, and I still have hopes for poor little rich girl Yasmin (Marisa Abela).

As the new run begins, New York has sent over a cocky (even for this lot) cost-cutter who wants the Manhattan and London offices to take each other on in a fight for survival. I’m sure they will all play nicely.

The first series of Industry is on iPlayer if you want to catch up, as is series two after the first episode airs.

“I am a very, very lucky woman,” says the presenter of From Paris to Rome with Bettany Hughes (Channel 5, Friday, 9pm). You will get no arguments here, but it’s nice to have someone acknowledge their jamminess.

Anyway, Hughes is an amiable sort so we don’t mind too much that she’s been sent on an all expenses paid trip to fabulous places while we’re stuck here.

This is the historian’s first travel programme and it shows now and then. It’s a tough, crowded market to break into. She is in her element, however, when it comes to touring the museums. Next week Hughes is in Italy. See you there.