To what extent had the post-war social consensus been undermined by 1975?

The labour government’s inability to deal with the economic issues and implement Wilson’s promises he made in 1964 heightened social tension. Failure to deal with rising inflation, trade deficit and unemployment meant standards of living dropped in all sectors of society, meaning the alienated working class fell deeper into poverty resulting in more discrimination towards immigrants and with speeches such as the 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech by Enoch Powell it only personified the growing resentment of immigrants. As it became clear to the aspirant youth that Wilson’s promises were shallow they turned their attention to single issue pressure groups which became popular in the late 60’s such as Friends of the Earth. The young were frustrated with the government’s inability to represent their values, and used environmentalism as a front to force the government to develop policies to support their cause. As expectations rose from Wilson’s speech the pressure was high on Wilson, when he failed to address any of the issues, it created an even more hostile society, one very different to the post-war consensus.

During the period 1970-1975 Britain became more confrontational because of the failures of Health who, like Wilson, didn’t address the underlying issues. The miners became increasingly more confrontational as their communities were at risk of being destroyed because the coal mines were in terminal decline. In 1972 the miners used crippling strikes and methods such as flying pickets to force Heath to give in to appeasement, the miners also thought that the Oil crisis in 1973 would switch Heath from using oil and change the power supply to coal. But Heath denounced against the miners accusing them of being communist, and imposed a 3 day week, further undermining the post-war consensus as people looked for alternative parties to combat the unions. OPEC’s decision to quadruple oil prices led to Britian’s recission effectively ending the post-war affluence, the recission fragmented society as social mobility was being threatened and living standards were decreasing. Unemployment rose above the one million mark in 1975 causing even more conflict in the inner cities and inflation was high causing the aspirant working class and middle classes to question if consensus politics is sustainable.

Social consensus wasn’t completely gone, the vast majority of the public were still law abiding citizens to were committed to the welfare state and to help the most vulnerable in society which was maintained by Conservative’s and Labour from when it was introduced in 1948. But as seen the social consensus was challenged on numerous occasions, such as all the government’s failure to contain the unions made some people turn to other alternatives, and the increasing violence towards immigrants also deterred some people to parties like the National Front. The aspirant youth felt the government were out of touch and the 1968 devaluation confirmed this as the facade that living standards would keep growing was gone which encouraged many to turn to single pressure groups. The social consensus, on the whole, remained up until 1975 but the general mood of the public changed drastically in the 11 years, one that was cautious about the future rather than optimistic.

Conclusively, society was evolving into a consumer economy, generally the well-being of people were improving and society was happy, but this consumer economy had its consequences in the form of the alientated working class who grew angry with the government and vented their anger at immigrants. However, Britain was turning into a multi-racial society and even though there were racism there was no going back from Britain become a diverse country. The political parties became more responsive as the tactics of their voters became more effective, they now have to listen to the people otherwise they wouldn’t survive politically.