BRITISH POLITICAL HISTORY 1945-90:



BRITAIN 1945-90: CONSENSUS AND CONFLICT

Labour 1945-51

The Beveridge plan (1942)

• Plan to abolish the five evils: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness

Why the Labour victory in 1945 was so comprehensive

• Influence of Beveridge Report: promised social secuirity

• Skills and experience of Labour politicians: ministers in wartime coalition

• A desire for a ‘New Britain’: They felt Churchill would be unable to carry his wartime popularity into peace time

• Failure of ‘pre-war Conservative and coalition governments to tackle poverty: Lloyd George failed to provide the people with ‘a land fit for heroes’

Key figures in Labour govt

• Clement Attlee: Prime Minister

• Aneurin Bevan : Minister of Health

• Ernest Bevin : Minister of Labour

• Stafford Cripps: Chancellor of the Exchequer

Economic difficulties

• Debts after WW2 of £3,500 million

• Balance payments deficit of £875 million

• £4.7 billion still being spent on defense

Austerity

• Introduced with the aim of increasing exports, putting money into industry, so reduced deficit

• Stafford Cripps, Chancellor at the time

• Rationing introduced: meat, bacon, butter tea and sugar

• Building materials and electricity rationed. Factories forced to closed: 2million without work

• Chronic shortage of consumer goods for the home market

Nationalisation

• Because: industry inefficient

• Included: National Coal Board, Bank of England (some controls in 1946), Transport, Gas and Electricity

• Taken over in ad-hoc fashion

• Controversial: taken away from professionals e.g. in iron and steel who knew best how to get most profit

Welfare policies

• NHS act 1946: Free health care for all

• National Insurance Act 1946: Provide money for unemployment, widowing

• The Industrial Injuries Act 1946: Compensation for Accidents at work

• Family Allowances Act: Weekly payment of 5 shillings for every child after the first

Education

• The Education Act 1944: Compulsory free education, 11 plus tests

NHS: positive and negative views, Bevan’s resignation

✓ Free health care for every single person

✓ Health no longer the preserve of the rich

• Very expensive- more than £400 million in first year

• Doctors objected: would interfere with their pay, and doctor-patient relationship

• Government couldn’t cope with the costs: had to start charging for some prescriptions e.g. false teeth, spectacles (half the price)

• Bevan resigned: felt this demoralized point of NHS

1950/51 elections

• 1950 election: Labour vote increased: majority cut to 5, so another election was called

• 1951 election: Had more votes but lost the election, Conservatives votes more concentrated

• Labour was seen as tired and worn out, Bevan resignation was damaging

Successes and failures of Labour

✓ NHS

✓ Housing programme: by 1950 created 1 million homes

✓ Inflation kept under control with planned economy

✓ Full employment, imports increased

✓ Foreign policy: key role in NATO and established India’s independence

• Economy: people running it were set in their ways, wouldn’t listen to advice

• Paying for prescriptions: against point of the NHS

• Only 20% of industry was nationalized

• Britain reliant on America, shaky foundations

• Nationalisation of steel industry: private owners would have gained more profit

The Conservative governments of 1951-64

Churchill 1951-5

• 77 years old when came to power: more of a figurehead that someone to take action

• America went ahead to get atomic bomb, without consulting Churchill: undermined him and Britain

• Wanted to restore the ‘traditional values’ within the British people: brought about the Elizabethan era

• People became very consumerist: ‘today not tomorrow’ i.e. living without fear of consequences

• 300,000 council homes built

• Ended rationing

Eden and Suez

• 55 election: increased majority

• Eden was ‘a man in a hurry’ waiting for Churchill to retire

• Suez crisis showed Britain had lost power to the US and USSR on the world stage

• Britain withdrew from Suez because of pressure from the USSR, Pressure at home and the refusal of US to help- this lead to Eden’s resignation

MacMillan, NoLK, Profumo, Douglas-Home

• MacMillan sacked his Chancellor, this news was leaked and he sacked several more people in his attempt to reshuffle party and bring in more competent people

• Seen as brutal: sacking people from life jobs

• Profumo affair: Profumo (Secretary of State for War) had an affair with London showgirl Christine Keeler

• Rumours: Keeler and someone working for Soviet embassy. This was seen as putting Britain at risk

• Lead to the resignation of MacMillan on the grounds of ‘ill health’

• Alec Douglas-Home became PM when MacMillan retired

Economic policies – Butskellism, Stop-go

• Stop- go policies were introduced to regulate inflation and deflation e.g. prices rise, so do taxes and interest rates, when prices dropped so would taxes and interest rates

• Butskellism: Butler (conservatives) and Gaitskell (Labour) suggesting a common ground between matters such as finance and welfare state i.e. political consensus

Housing, health, education

• House building boomed: 327,000 in 1953

• Continued developing and extending welfare state e.g. Mental Health Act

Rising living standards - ‘never had it so good’??

• 51-63: Wages rose by 72% and prices rose by 45%

• Major uplift in the international economy

• End of austerity

• Taxes reduced

Why did the situation appear less rosy by the mid 1960s?

• They didn’t seize the opportunity to enter into a period of industrial growth, like US and Germany: through a great opportunity away

• No structural financial strategy

• Industry outdated, management poor

• Humiliation when French rejected the British application to join the EEC in 1961

• 1964: £748 million balance of payments deficit

What accounts for the Labour election victory of 1964?

• Conservative government tainted by Profumo affair

• Weakened by stop-go policies, huge BoP deficit

• Alec Douglas Home considered a ‘toff’ compared to straight talking Yorkshire man Harold Wilson

Labour and Conservative governments, 1964-79

1964 election

• Harold Wilson won with a tiny overall majority of 4

• Introduced no huge change in policy, claimed he would harness the ‘white heat of technology’

Wilson 1964-70: devaluation, unions, “In Place of Strife”, BoP,

social policy

• Labour inherited a BoP deficit of £800 million

• November 1967: pound devalued from $2.80 to $2.40. Humiliated Wilson, led to resignation of Callaghan

• In Place of Strife 1969: Proposed a series of legal restrictions on the right of workers to strike: unions felt betrayed

• Many social policies: Abortions Act 1967, Sexual Offences Act 1967, Death Penalty Abolished 1969

Heath 1970-4: Ind Rels Act, EEC, BoP, OPEC, inflation, 3-Day week, wages policy

• Industrial Relation Act 1970: Restricted Rights of workers to strike, a I.R court was created: unions had to put themselves on a government register to retain their legal rights

• Balance of Payments Deficit close to £1 billion which was a new record

• EEC: Heath’s greatest achievement: Britain’s accepted entry to EEC 1972

• Inflation rising, unemployment at over 850,000

• OPEC: Oil producing and exporting countries, introduced huge price rise in 1973: crippled W. economies

• Campaign By Arthur Scargill to prevent movement of coal stocks. This led to 3 day week: lack of coal industries couldn’t function

Why did Labour win March 74 election?

• Harold Wilson put forward the Labour party manifesto ‘ Labour’s way out of the Crisis’

• He planned to get people of Britain back into work: which is what they wanted during this economic mess

• People felt that Heath couldn’t control the miners, due to the miners strike, people felt Labour would be much more adapted to listening to their views

• They wanted to attack inflation

• The Tory party were deeply divided over what to tell the electorate

Wilson/Callaghan 1974-9: unions, IMF, inflation, Winter of Discontent, BoP, wages policy

• IMF: International Monetary Fund- scheme intended to stop countries going bankrupt (central fund- paid in, could take out)

• Winter of Discontent: Described the crisis that contributed to the defeat of the Labour government in the 79 elections: strikes and rising prices

• Ended 3 day week and gave miners full wage claim. Success for unions

• In 1976 BoP estimated at £500 million

NHS, Education

• Housing: Economic problems which meant fewer houses built, but principle of council housing remained

• Health: Prescription charges abolished in 1965, but reintroduced in 1968 because of cost. Principle of NHS maintained

• Education: 1970- most grammar schools abolished. Change from previous policy, but more in line with original Labour ideas

Conservatives 1979-90

What was Thatcherism?

The distinctive ideology and political style and programme of policies of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative party

Why did the Conservatives win in 1979?

The timing: The Winter of Discontent obliterated Labour’s chances and opened the door for Thatcher

Changes in voting habit: Trade unions could not be relied on to vote Labour: they had been let down in the past

New voters: Likely to cast and anti-government vote

Conservatives won 339 seats compared to Labour’s 269. Labours worst electoral performance

Monetarism and its devastating effects esp. 1979-83

Monetarism:

• Tight control on money supply

• High interest rates

• Hoped to reduce inflation

• Minimum lending interest 17%

Detrimental effects:

• Worst depression for 50 years

• Hundreds of firms went bankrupt, people prevented from borrowing

• Autumn 1981 unemployment was 2.8 million and a year later was 3.3 million-mainly in manufacturing industry

Falklands 1982

• Between Argentina and Britain

• Argentineans surrendered on 14th June 1982

• 258 British deaths

Election 1983

• Falklands factor, people were feeling very patriotic

• Thatcher was the face of the success of the Falklands War, and people were at this point proud to be British, so voted for her

Miners Strike 1984-5

• British miners by the 1970’s were running at a loss, they had started importing coal from abroad

• Miners felt with a proper investment programme, it still had a profitable future- and lessen the social consequences

• Arthur Scargill announced a national strike against pit closures when the National Coal board announced the intended closure of 20 coal mines

• Was a failure for the miners, who had to concede defeat

• Success for governments anti-union campaign, buoyed up other employers to begin resisting union demands

Privatisation

• Aimed to make industry more competitive and widen number of shareholders

• Some believed it was too drastic and that they were ‘selling off the family silver’

• As a consequence it reduced the extent to which the government needed to provide in the future for public corporations, which also cut borrowing requirements

• The number of shareholders increased from 7% to 21% of the adult population

• 60 corporations went private

NHS, education, housing, Europe, taxation, economy

• Health: Increased prescription charge, lack of hospitals, but principles of NHS were maintained

• Education: 6000 new schools and 11 new universities built. Conservatives maintained support for grammar schools, despite Labour pressure for more Comprehensives. Again, despite criticisms, Labour ideas maintained

• Housing: Many new council houses built- over 300,000 a year in mid 50’s. Continuation and expansion of Labour policies

Poll tax

• Introduced in 1990

• Replaced local rates, every person would pay the base rate

• Thatcher seemed it fair, as people would appreciate services such as the NHS more, people wouldn’t put up with inefficient services

• Millions of people however, refused to make payments

Dissent within Tory Party and fall of Thatcher

• Riots over poll tax, policies too extreme

• By 1990 it was clear her policies had not delivered an ‘economic miracle’

• Divided party over how involved in Europe Britain should be, especially over the ERM

• Thatcher became too dictatorial, cabinet turned against her- resignation of Geoffrey Howe

• Thatcher steps down

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