'There can be no doubt that the conservative Governments between 1979 and 1997 made radical, and almost certainly permanent changes to those policies and institutions which we sum up in convenient shorthand as the Welfare state'. [Wilding, 1997].

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'There can be no doubt that the conservative Governments between 1979 and 1997 made radical, and almost certainly permanent changes to those policies and institutions which we sum up in convenient shorthand as the Welfare state'. [Wilding, 1997]. With reference to specific policy areas, critically evaluate the nature and extent of these changes.

The 1980's were characterised by unemployment and cuts in social expenditure. Very different values and political objectives from those inspired the conservative social policies of the eighties and nineties in the days of welfare consensus. The explicit aim of the Thatcher government was to roll back the power and role of the state. [Fraser, D. 2000] Margaret Thatcher replaced Edward Heath as Conservative leader in 1975. Under her leadership the party changed direction, Keith Joseph was the key ideologue, fiercely endorsing free market views and turning its back on the sort of paternalistic Toryism, which had characterised his earlier ministerial career. [Hill, M .1993] During the election campaign there were one million people registered as unemployed. As part of their election campaign, the conservative sited posters all over the country. These posters showed workers outside an unemployment office carrying the slogan, 'labour is not working'. The conservatives came to power on May 3rd 1979; they won 44 per cent of the vote and 339 seats million. This paper will consider the effect of conservative government policies on unemployment. Previous governments, both labour and conservative accepted that governments should and would maintain low levels of unemployment. Much of this thinking stemmed from the work of Keynes. [1936] Keynes argued that if too few goods were purchased, then production would be cut back and jobs lost. If the demand for goods were increased then the process would be reversed. It was therefore the duty of the government to manage demand in the economy; an increase in public spending could cut unemployment. [Haralambos, M & Holborn, M.2000] Under Margaret Thatcher, the government turned to market liberal economic theories, which challenged Keynes views. The government cut public spending in order to control inflation, laws were bought in to reduce the power of the trade unions, and unemployment benefit was made less generous. The aims of these measures were to reduce the role of the state in economic affairs and leave market forces to determine the way the economy developed. Nationalised industries were privatised and public subsidies to inefficient industries cut. The effect of these policies actual caused mass unemployment. Unemployment in manufacturing increased by 21% costing 1.5 million jobs between 1979 and 1982. In 1986, official unemployment figures reached 3,289,000, despite the fact that between 1979 and 1987 the methods of calculating the numbers unemployed changed 19 times. The TUC estimated that in October 1985 there were actually 4,500,000 unemployed. Frank Field argued that the government had abandoned any attempt to pursue full employment. Norman Lamont, the chancellor in John Majors government, described unemployment as 'a price worth paying' to control inflation. [Haralambos, H & Holborn, M.2000]
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Legislation in 1986, cut benefits for those aged 16 to 18 and their housing benefit was considerably reduced. Supplementary benefit became Income Support, and Family Income Supplement became Family Credit. The government reduced the value of contributory benefits by altering the procedure for inflation-related increases, and by extending the taxation of benefits. It shifted responsibility for the provision of sickness absence for the first 28 weeks from the National Insurance scheme to a statutory sick pay scheme to be run by employers. Discretionary benefits were replaced by loans under the Social Fund and death and maternity grants were ...

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