1. Making Thatcher’s Britain
Making History Block 4: 1979 and All That, Writing Contemporary History
Making Thatcher’s Britain

2. 1. A moment in history: 4 May 1979
‘Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.’
Conservatives won 339 seats, Labour 269, the Liberals 11, Ulster parties 12 and Nationalists 4
Re-election 1983, 1987
Thatcher resigns as PM 1990
Conservatives hold power until 1997 election of ‘New Labour’

3. 2. The view from 2013-

4. 8 April 2013, death of Margaret Thatcher

5. The Forward March of Labour Halted
Miners’ Strike following announcement of closure of 20 pits
Further closures follow defeat of miners, followed by privatisation in 1994
Production falls by 50%
Decline of heavy industry and shift to new industries, part-time work and service industry see fall in trade union membership from 12.6 million in 1979 to 10.3 million in 1984, and 7.8 million by 2000

6. ‘Milk Snatcher’
Role of women and communities in support of Miners’ Strike
Reference to Thatcher’s role as Education Minister at start of 1970s
Fears that she would now roll back the welfare state

7. Dole Queue Britain
Unemployment rises to 3 million by 1982 (drop of commitment to full employment)
Decline of North which is particularly hit by deindustrialisation (7.1 million employed in manufacturing in 1979, falls to 4 million by 1993)

8. Revival of little England jingoism
Falklands/Malvinas War 1982
The Sun shifts support from Labour to Conservatives in election of Rupert Murdoch and News International increasingly powerful taking over the Times group. Leads changes to industry, defying print unions, and moving to Wapping

9. Tributes: 1979 as point of rescue
Televised ceremonial funeral with full military honours at St Paul’s Cathedral
David Cameron: she ‘made Britain great again’
Andrew Roberts (historian): ‘she liberated Britain from sclerosis and socialism’
Tony Blair: she changed the political landscape of Britain and influenced the creation of New Labour
Talk of importance of never returning to the 1970s

10. Rescuing Britain from the ‘crisis’ decade of 1970s
Symbolised by the strikes of the ‘winter of discontent’ of (eg rubbish-strewn streets)
Government stand-down to National Union of Miners in 1972
Oil crisis and threat of miners leads to three-day week in and period of power cuts
Conservative Edward Heath loses 1974 election when he asks ‘Who Governs Britain’
Inflation peaks at 24% in 1975
British government forced to seek IMF bail out in 1976

11. Making a property-owning democracy
Sale of council houses from 1980
1 million sold by 1987
Home-owners benefit from spiralling property prices (council houses bought often for £10,000 could be worth ten times this by end of decade)
(Public house building at same time collapses)

12. Privatisation and popular share-ownership
Sale of British Telecom shares 1984
‘Tell Sid’ campaign (1986) to sell British Gas shares aims to encourage popular capitalism (4 million apply)
Thatcher calls it a chance to ‘give power back to the people’
Continues with privatisation and share sales on other utilities including water, electricity and rail
‘Big bang’ deregulation of City of London, 1986
Reduction of trade union power
Lower top-rate income tax

13. Rolling back the welfare state?
Introduction of internal market and private contractors to National Health Service
reforms in education introduce market principles, league tables, and reduce power of local education authorities
Levels of expenditure fail to fall because of high levels of unemployment

14. 3. Making Thatcher’s Britain? Questions for the historian.

15. i) Coherence of Thatcher’s Britain?
Is there a coherent political ideology of ‘Thatcherism’ (is there inconsistency at its heart eg between liberal economic policy, and conservative morals/’authoritarian populism’?)
How far does support of this philosophy extend? How successful? (Persistence of welfare state; increasingly liberal morals)
And was Thatcher more pragmatic and opportunistic than ‘Thatcherism’ suggests?

16. ii) Broader, structural causes of change
The big bang, deindustrialisation, shifting nature of the economy linked to globalisation
The role of new technology in speeding up transactions, facilitating choice, and shifting the direction of economic and social life
Demographic time-bomb of ageing population predetermines direction of changes to welfare state
Some big changes in tension with Thatcherism, eg in realm of morality and personal relations, multi-culturalism, and gender

17. iii) Accidents of history
Not clear that Labour Party would be defeated in 1978; signs of recovery; for the majority the 70s a time of rising affluence, not ‘crisis’
Conservative victory not a landslide and not a vote for ‘Thatcherism’
Fragile position of Margaret Thatcher at first; importance of Falklands War in strengthening
Importance of divisions and mistakes on left and formation of Social Democratic Party

18. UK Polling

19. UK Polling

20. 4. Thatcherism before 1979
Historians such as Ewen Green trace back much of the agenda for Thatcherism well before 1979
Famous policy of council-house sale had even been considered by Labour
Historians now more alert to earlier divisions within ‘post-war consensus’

21. 5. The Forward March of Labour Halted
Essay by Eric Hobsbawm (1978)
Focus on long-term changes that weaken Labour party, left, and union movement
Working class less united; decline manual labour; more interest in sectional wage claims than in class as a whole; division between affluent worker and poor; new divisions of gender and ethnicity
Decline of organised socialism; activists increasingly students and white-collar

22. 6. The Great Moving Right Show
Essay by Stuart Hall (1979) in Marxism Today, where he is one of the first to use the term ‘Thatcherism’; argues that left need to take seriously the new appeal of the right
Appeal of ‘moral authoritarianism’ in context of crisis (importance of anxieties around race, gender, and permissiveness)
Thatcher avoidance of language of ‘class’; instead language of ‘ordinary’ people and ‘nation’ against those who threaten it via ‘crisis’, strikes etc; identification with ‘people’ against the ‘state’ (which Labour is associated with); likewise in eg education support for values of people against ‘loony left’
Right more successful in response to crisis; deep cultural shift ‘New Times’ (Gramsci and hegemony)

23. 4. Thinking about the assignment: Did Britain change in 1979?

24. What do the MRC documents tell us about:
Perceptions of change at the time
Whether change precedes or follows 1979
The nature of changes; areas of continuity
Whether change follows or breaks with the script of Thatcherism?
How is change implemented and resisted?
What are the limitations and potential of sources in addressing these questions?