This does not mean that there was no debate or dissent. In the so called 'Little Local Difficulty' of January 1958, Macmillan's Chancellor, Peter Thorneycroft, and two treasury ministers, Enoch Powell and Nigel Birch resigned noisily from 'SuperMac's' government over his refusal to accept their proposed cuts in public spending.
Enoch Powel was considered the most brilliant conservative thinker since Disraeli, but also, without doubt, the most controversial, even today. To Neo-Liberals and those on the political right in general, Powell is the greatest Prime Minister Britain never had; to Traditional Conservatives and the political left, he began as an economic crank before moving on to become a racialist rabble-rouser. He was certainly a man of passionate likes and dislikes; having resigned from Macmillan's Government, he then returned as Minister for Health in 1961, before resigning again, as he refused to serve in any Cabinet in which Sir Alec Douglas-Home was Prime Minister.
Powell then began to offer the doctrine which was known initially as Powellism, but then as Thatcherism, after his most famous disciple, who always referred to him as 'Dear Enoch', even though he couldn't stand her. Powell presented an extreme, uncompromising form of Neo-Liberalism, based on his own beliefs. He was a brilliant intellectual who, in his youth, had been the youngest Professor in the Commonwealth (at the age of 24) and a masterly, acid-tongued speaker whose views were rooted in opinions of the absolute fundamentals of politics - what is politics for, what is the nature of the relationship between the individual and the state, what is freedom, etc. He dismissed economic planning and the welfare state as being incompatible with freedom: instead, a total free market is the only fair system, because it allows people to rise on their own merit while benefiting others. Moreover, the practice of postwar British Governments, of simply printing more money to pay for the welfare state and the NHS, was stocking up long-term trouble as it was leading to a fall in the value of money, and therefore to inflation.
Powell's ideas gained an audience in the 1960s. He was readmitted to Edward Heath's Shadow Cabinet, as Shadow Minister for Defense. However, in 1968, he made his most infamous speech, to an audience of Conservatives in Birmingham, and reported on the news that night, attacking the immigration policies of the Wilson Government, promising 'Rivers of Blood' if immigration were not placed under tighter control. This was a major surprise, as Powell was a great champion of Israel, represented Worverhampton, one of the most multi-cultural constituencies in the whole country, and had many Indian friends, both in India and the UK. The speech made him immensely popular with the public and a genuine rival for Ted Heath. Heath sacked Powell from the Shadow Cabinet, and Powell became a fierce critic of the Heath Government's economic policy and, in particular, of its taking Britain into the EC in 1972.
In 1974, Powell resigned from the Conservative Party over its policy towards Europe, telling people to vote Labour because of Harold Wilson's promise to hold a referendum over continued British membership. In October 1974, he was re-elected as an Ulster Unionist, and served as an UUP MP until 1987, when he retired. Until his death in 1995, he claimed that the Postwar Consensus, then British policy towards Europe and Ulster, arose from an anti-democratic conspiracy among the 'British Establishment', in which the leadership of both major parties, and the civil service, steered the country towards a left-wing, big state agenda through manipulation of public opinion via collaboration with a left-wing and liberal mass media. This view of the world was shared by Mrs. Thatcher, and shaped many of her policies.
It can be seen that Powell's influence on the Conservative Party was in redefining what it meant to be on the political right, demonstrating that the free market economics of neo-liberalism could be combined with the patriotism of traditional Conservatism into a coherent ideology which had considerable intellectual depth and which was the direct opposite of the postwar consensus. He also made resistance to British assimilation into Europe the keystone of the Conservative right which it remains to this day. The left's identification with enthusiasm for the EC is largely down to Powell's one-time friend and benefactor, later deadly rival, Ted Heath.
The Leadership next fell to Edward Heath (1964-1975). This was the first serious attempt to fracture the postwar consensus was made by the Conservative government of 1970-74, led by Edward Heath. In October 1964 the Conservatives' thirteen years in office were ended by Harold Wilson, a grammar school educated former civil servant who promised to expose Britain to the ‘white heat of the technological revolution' which was leading to great prosperity elsewhere. The Conservatives went for their own version of Wilson: the son of a carpenter and a cleaning lady, Mr. Heath had the humblest origins of any Prime Minister in the history of the office, and was the first Conservative leader to be elected by a vote of MPs. Mr. Heath came into office promising 'a change so radical, a revolution so quiet and so total that it will go far beyond the programme of a parliament. We were returned to office to change the course of history of this nation, no less.'
What this entailed was a broad application of Powellism, despite Ted Heath's own dislike of Enoch Powell. State intervention in the economy would be reduced, public spending
would be cut, welfare would be targeted more carefully, and the unions would be forced to operate within a strict legal framework. Joining the EC in 1973 would also be a fundamental break with the pro-Americanism of postwar Governments of both parties.
However, attempts to reform the unions resulted in a wave of protest and long-running strikes, culminating in that of the miners, which led to power cuts and the imposition of a three-day working week; Mr. Heath called a general election for February 1974 and campaigned under the slogan 'Who rules Britain?' The result of the election showed that it certainly wasn't going to be Mr. Heath, and the Conservatives went out of office with a reputation for panicky incompetence which they were not to live down until the Falklands crisis. Moreover, in seeking the cooperation of the unions for their incomes policies, the Government had surrendered a dangerous amount of control over the economy.
The style of Ted Heath and his predecessors has often been described as Managerial Conservatism. Managerial Conservatism is characterized by: - Absence of ideology. The managerial Conservative holds no strong beliefs on which direction is best for the country. His main concern is to manage the affairs of state and the economy so as to avoid upheaval and confrontation, and to 'move with the times'. Heath believed that a degree of state intervention would actually encourage enterprise.
Consensus. The managerial Conservative accepted the welfare state as an accomplished fact which he can do nothing to reverse, and saw state intervention as a useful tool for Conservative as well as Labour governments. He frequently acted more like a civil servant than a party politician. Indeed, an early and prominent Thatcherite, John Biffen, once dismissed Mr. Heath as 'a glorified management consultant.' The opponents of managerial Conservatism, most notably Enoch Powell, Keith Joseph and Alfred Sherman, were prominent in introducing the ideas of the so-called 'New Right' into Conservative thought in the 1970s.
The 1960s and 1970s saw a resurgence of conservative and anti-socialist thought in the UK, the USA and France with the rise of the ‘New Right’. While this group was driven initially by refugees from communist regimes such as Alexandra Solzhenitsyn, it seems to owe as much to western thinkers such as Enoch Powell and Milton Friedman. There seem to have been three major strains to this 'New Right' movement. Firstly there was Anti-socialism. New Right theorists argued that socialism, even the moderate form practiced by the Labour Party, was intrinsically dangerous and carried in it the seeds of communism and even Stalinism. This comes about because of socialism's inability to function where it does not control all state institutions, because of its strong sense of moral conviction and its belief that history is, inevitably, going its way and so the ends of socialism are more important than individual freedom.
Secondly there was a strong belief in personal liberty, capitalism and the right to private property. The economic 'Bible' of the New Right is The Road to Serfdom by Professor Friedrich von Hayek, published in 1944; once, during an argument with some Heathites who were advocating consensus and a mixed economy, Mrs. Thatcher pulled out her copy and banged it down on the table, proclaiming 'This is what we believe!' Professor Hayek, an Austrian, argued that society's main function was protecting and serving the individual and that liberty under a state that did as little as possible was the ideal. Any peaceful and efficient society should be based on individual responsibility, not on central planning, which led, inevitably to totalitarian government in which some groups would dominate others; far better that individuals stand or fall on their own efforts. Moreover, economic monopolies -such as nationalized industries - stifle enterprise and growth.
Thirdly there was a rejection of liberal notions on law, morality and social responsibility. This was combined with a belief in more authoritarian forms of government and law and order, or at least ones more in line with traditional (i.e. religious) values. The New Right favored respect for institutions, pragmatic politics and conciliation.
The New Right Think Tanks in Britain was the next change to political thinking with much of the message of the New Right was spread via think tanks, private specialist research institutes, staffed by academics and providing consultancy services to political parties and government ministries, helping them particularly to form their policies. Three think tanks in particular shaped the New Right agenda in Britain and The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) was set up in the late 1950s by Ralph Harris and Anthony Seldon to spread New Right economic ideas amongst the academic world through lectures and publications. Since its foundation, it has published over 500 pamphlets, as well as holding numerous seminars and lectures, as well as translating and publishing Hayek's work in English. The IEA influenced Thatcherism in that it first presented the theory of monetarism to Conservative politicians. This is the idea that it is inflation which leads to unemployment, and that the best means to reduce inflation is through reducing the amount of money in the economy.
The 35 years between 1945 and 1980 have seen many changes to conservatism and presented new and idealistic views of different politicians that have inevitably changed the course of thinking in the 21st Century. Powellism has no doubt changed political conservative thinking with his creation of the New Right which effectively changed the course of World history. It was also the period which saw one of the greatest conservative leaders in Margaret Thatcher who still acts as a role model now for politicians including our current Prime Minister Tony Blair. With the knock it took in the 90’s, The Conservative party look to have been steadied and in line to perform acts which will hopefully be remembered for a long time to come.
