Thatcher considered trade unions as undemocratic and a system which could be destructive for government and the country. Thatcher saw the potential downfall of union power as an essential element for her plans for the country; unions had contributed towards the downfall of three successive governments. Throughout the 1980s legislation was bought in which had a negative impact for the unions. Unions in Britain had priced many of their members out of jobs by demanding high wages for insufficient output. This had the effect of making British goods uncompetitive. At first, unions were able to oppose the Tories as they had done with previous governments. But the government increasingly put pressure onto the unions until the pressure got too much for some of the union members. In 1984 the most powerful and most militant union led by Arthur Scargill went on strike. Thatcher had cleverly predicted this eventuality by stockpiling coal at power stations, the impact of the strike on the economy was reduced. The government had approved legislation to made striking more problematic with a compulsory secret ballot, with flying pickets being banned. These Conservative measures meant that they were able to win their battle with the unions signaling the end of union domination in the governing of Britain. The ending of union power starting to bring about prominent signs of economic efficiency, from 1973-9 general economic productivity amounted to 1% or there about. Since then productivity has doubled and in the manufacturing sector it has quadrupled, due, in part to declining union clout.
When it came to the area of education school teachers were never won over by the Tories and were threatening to strike during John Major’s administration in 1994.
Thatcherism bought in a new era of government- industrial relations, where more economic power was given to the British people and workers and less to the labour union hierarchy which had strongly influenced the country since the war. As mentioned above Thatcher believed very strongly in the freedom of the individual and the removal of the state from the market system. So the Thatcher government began a succession of extensive privatizations in 1981 with British Telecom. Thatcher envisaged these initiatives would be a good way of putting a stop to the unavoidable conflict of interests between owners and workers. Workers in the companies were offered cut price shares to encourage them to own part of the business this further removed the need for trade unions intervention.
Thatcher encouraged everybody in society to play a part in ownership in the companies they worked and in the houses they live in. Increasing numbers of council houses were sold to their tenants, the cash generated from the sale of these houses and the public companies served to ease the massive budget deficit considerably. In the above, Thatcher handed over power to others such as shareholders to help the economy grow. Thatcher increasingly spent more time taking power from other organizations and concentrating them in Westminster. An illustration of this power struggle was against local government generally and Ken Livingstone’s Greater London Council. So while Thatcher believed in personal freedom she also believed very strongly that in areas such as law and order or defense the government should be strong. Margaret Thatcher’s occupancy included reforms in public spending and social services which helped make Britain’s economy more efficient. In her first few years of office government spending was cut by one billion, including cuts in housing, energy, education, employment, industrial subsidies, transport and foreign aid. The only departments that were not scaled down were the police and armed forces. During this particular period in the early part of the eighties these changes were probably justified as the government had to borrow three billion.
One component of the public sector that was in need of major restructuring was education. When the Thatcher government was brought in, education in Britain had serious shortcoming. The schools had a shortage of high quality teachers, students were failing in the school system, also the schools were in need of major repair and the libraries were of poor quality. The introduction of the 1988 Education Reform Act sought to correct this situation, under the legislation, local politicians were no longer responsible for the running of schools, and so there were provisions for self-government in every secondary school and most primary schools. In the reform act teachers would no longer have the authority over what should be taught in the classroom, instead this would be the governments responsibility. Thatcher’s increased control of education allowed the Conservative government to reform the history curriculum so that the curriculum contained factual events instead of trends and British as opposed to foreign history. These reforms in education was designed to enable government to keep local schools on track on moderate policies in the interest of a quality education for each student and not different learning content and teaching style, which was in line with the notion of each individual locality. In 1982 the Conservatives displayed a clear vision into the future when they chose that year as the “information technology year” with an initiative to put a desktop computer in every secondary school. This initiative increased the government control of education, but this measure was viewed negatively as it was seen as stopping teachers from setting their own agendas. The key policy of privatizing the publicly owned monopolies of telephones, gas, electricity, water, steel, coal, car production, railways and buses, and allowing members of the public to buy and sell shares in these utilities, was seen as hugely popular by the electorate who made profits from the sale of these shares. The fact that these companies were floated on the stock market at less than their true market value, seemed to matter little to the voting public keen to profit from the sale. As mentioned earlier in this essay the government implemented a new method of managing the economy called monetarism, which rejected the old Keynesian post-war consensus of supply side economics, and relied far more heavily on the ability of the free market to regenerate the economy, which was by the late 1970s started to become less competitive. It was in many ways a major shakeout of British industry, with the newly privatized utilities now able to streamline their activities by significantly reducing their workforces, causing unemployment to rise greatly. These new private monopolies were now more concerned in shareholder value than providing employment opportunities. During this period companies had to be flexible and able to shed workers to maintain profits for shareholders. Unions were regulated and employment protection minimized to give firms this flexibility. But it made employment insecure and created inequality and poverty, (courseworkbank.co.uk). When John Major succeeded Thatcher after a leadership contest when the party lost confidence in Thatcher’s leadership in November 1990, many thought Major would be the best hope of uncompromising and unbending Thatcherism, but Major adopted the role of peace- maker, more concerned with achieving an overall consensus in cabinet moving further away from the Thatcher approach to government. During this period the Conservative government continued to exploit the sentiment of the nation with nationalism and back to basics family values which enabled the Conservatives to dominate the political arena and win successive general elections. This created huge problems for the Labour Party in its efforts to regain power. When Labour did come to power its leader Tony Blair straight away reinforced to his new electorate that the party was now to be renamed New Labour and would govern as New Labour. The Labour Party had reinvented itself from a left-wing Socialist party which was influenced by politicians such as Tony Benn and the trade unions. But is new Labour the new Conservative party? To answer this question it’s important to go back into the origins of New Labour which laid in Labour’s four successive election defeats after 1974, (Ludlam, 2001:3,7).
In looking at the Labour party historically, in the twentieth century the Labour party held power briefly in the 1920s and began to put together a more pragmatic, less emotional and more logical version of socialism. During the 1930s the war years socialist thinkers of Hugh Dalton and Herbert Morrison developed what has since been called ‘corporate socialism’; this included Keynesian economics management of the economy, using investment to help the economy and to reduce unemployment. Centralized planning of the economy this was a significant Keynesian approach which was very successful during the war and would continue to be successful after the war. When Labour did come to power in 1945 they nationalized 20 per cent of the economy, including the major utilities. With the welfare state Labour established the National Health Service and expanded universal social services into a virtual ‘welfare state’ in which the state had obligations to citizens ‘from the cradle to the grave.’ Labour relied on a mixed economy approach in which nationalism was not defined but, unlike the soviet command economies, it was intended to maintain a private sector, albeit one that was secondary to the public. Various Labour intellectuals such as Hugh Gaitskell, Denis Healy and Roy Jenkins and most importantly Anthony Crosland were not content to declare that socialism is what the Labour government was about, they looked for a new direction after the huge achievements of Clement Attlee’s government, throughout this period the working class had ignored revolutions and had been strengthened by full employment.
This approach of revisionism would be part of Labour policy for the next thirty years, but when they were elected to government in the 1970s its fatal flaw was exposed. The Labour government was dependent on a growing economy, but when this fell into decline cuts in public expenditure became inevitable. With the cuts came the end of the socialist advances, dependent as they were on the availability of resources. The left wing of the party never accepted revisionism, Michael Foot was against the new flow towards a weak ideology. During the middle of the 1960s Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson challenged the left in the parliamentary party, but then formed an alliance with the trade unions. When this occurred serious problems ensued for the 1970s administrations under both Wilson and Callaghan, during this period the party had shifted more to the left, this meant that Harold Wilson the PM and James Callaghan, Wilson’s future successor were opposed with the party philosophy. When Michael Foot succeeded Callaghan in 1981, Michael Foot stepped down after the 1983 election defeat, (Jones,2004:129,30,32) When Neil Kinnock took over as leader of the party after a leadership contest, Kinnock aimed to modernize the party which was designed to make Labour electable again after the 1987 and 1992 election defeats. The crucial element of the party’s electoral crisis was the loss of working-class votes, which had two components. First, the percentage of the electorate defined as working-class fell hugely from what it was forty years ago and between 1983, to 1997, this figure fell further which meant the working class was now in the minority. It was very apparent that unless Labour attracted more middle class votes, it would not be winning elections. Tony Blair was elected leader following the sudden death of John Smith from a heart attack in 1994. Tony Blair soon placed his personality on the party Blair aimed to direct the party more to the right by criticizing the power of the trade unions in the party. Blair realized that after four successive election defeats as leader he had to redirect the party into a position where the party could realistically win and challenge for office. Evidence suggests from Labour’s period in opposition that the party’s weakness had lots to do with the party’s perceived closeness to trade unions sectional interests, the party’s high tax and spend policies. In addition the party knew that high taxation would never be endorsed by middleclass voters, this was the reason Labour lost out in the 1992 general election. With modern technology the economy had become globalised so that money can flow electronically like digits in computers. New Labour has in affect taken on the economic side of Thatcherism with tax cuts and low inflation. Tony Blair has even pay tribute to aspects of Thatcher’s legacy and has taken on some aspects of conservative policies. It is often said that Blair has moved Labour so far to the centre that he is now even to the right of the one nation Tories. It could be argued that the New Labour approach are in some ways similar to the Conservatism approach, Tony Blair happily uses the phrase one nation socialism. The tactical purpose of the term is evident in that it implies the party that once claimed it as its own is arguably now the party of a narrow, nationalistic and divided collection of people, (Jones, 2004:132-33).
Tony Blair has been Prime Minister for nearly eight years and during this time has given the impression of being a strong, eloquent and charismatic leader. The biggest change from old Labour is in the departure from the cautious initial agenda over taxation and spending on the public services. For the first two years in office Chancellor Gordon Brown kept a tight reign over spending to restore confidence in the middle-class voters New Labour had changed from the unchanged tax and spend old Labour. However, there were question marks on some of New Labour’s policies as the public were unconvinced with health, education and transport and felt let down that the incoming government had not made any real improvements. Consequently Blair and perhaps more importantly, Gordon Brown decided to embark on a massive reinvestment program in the public services, in 2002 putting forward a plan to spend over 100 billion over the next few years. Perhaps such an agenda of spending displayed initiatives that were part of the ideas of Old Labour. Certainly Labour’s former deputy leader, Roy Hattersley, once seen as right wing but now a left wing critic of Tony Blair, welcomed the return to the traditional socialist agenda of publicity funded, universally available public services. The event that changed some of New Labour’s good work was in the early months of 2003 was the potential war and then actual war on Iraq. Tony Blair decided to totally support George W Bush after the horrendous attacks on the World Trade Center on 11th September 2001, (Jones,2004:134).
Since the days of Thatcherism as mentioned earlier in this essay the Conservative Party has experienced a rapid decline. In the early part of the 1990s when John Major triumphantly guided the party to a general election victory the party had regularly gained around 60 per cent of the Lab/Con vote and frequently maintained the voters across social classes. The Conservatives had a better reputation than Labour as the party for economic know-how and the best ability to defend the national interest. The Conservatives were also more efficient when it came down to political ideas fro the country. An example of this is in industrial relations, privatization, education standards, and lower rates of income tax and encouraging the free market, Conservative policies were largely accepted by New Labour. However, since 1992, the Conservative successes have been one of rapid decline. Taken away from the party is the strong reputation they had for economic skill because of separation and disagreements in the party. It hardly has a presence in the great cities and no parliamentary seats in Scotland or Wales. On almost every test of public opinion since 1992, the party has barely risen above the 30 per cent share of the vote. Although it managed to out score Labour in the European elections in 1999, the voter numbers were very low. Over the past two decades the pattern for dissent in the party has growth rapidly and both Thatcher ultimately and Major were damaged by the decline in loyalty or respect to the leader. MPs that had been sacked from ministerial posts or passed over for promotion were more willing to defy the party whips. An indicator of poor morale is that so many leading Conservatives MPs refused to serve on the front bench of Hague or Duncan-Smith. A divided party has only added to the problems of party management. The best guarantee of Conservative Party unity has been a leadership that is strong, consistent and looks like delivering an election victory. The last is something that no leader since 1992 has offered.
Europe was a source of division, just as under Mrs. Thatcher, but it became even more troublesome under John Major. The European project of a more integrated political unity gathered pace and steps such as the extension of majority voting, social chapter, single currency and general shift towards greater integration concerned many in the Conservative Party. This was happening at a time when the party membership and MPs, the public and sections of the press were all becoming more Eurosceptic. The party was notably divided on Europe, but it also suffered from a culture of disloyalty, as rebels eagerly sought access to the airwaves so that they could broadcast their dissent or made their support conditional on concessions from the whips. A less deferential party conference applauded Eurosceptics and other Conservative critics of Major’s government. John Major confided privately that some of his MPs had a death wish. A new generation of Conservative MPs, some of whom looked to Mrs. Thatcher for a lead, regarded the developing EU as a threat to the independence of the British state and to the market economy. At the 1997 general election, over 200 Conservative candidates broke with John Major’s manifesto line of ‘negotiate and decide’ on British membership of the single currency. MPs returned at the 1997 and 2001 elections were increasingly Eurosceptic. William Hague and Iain Duncan-Smith, both skeptics, struggled to head off demands that the party campaign to pull out of the EU.
In exploring the hypothesis question of New Labour being the new Conservative party certainly there is similarities of ideas and of general policy. On Law and Order, the Labour and Conservatives have similar policies to an extent. Labour policy is to take a stiffer approach to crime and try to do away with image that the Labour party was soft on crime. Labour has taken tough line on crime. Also since Labour took over we have seen a 10% increase in the number of people in prison, but the Labour party have also encouraged the use of early release schemes. They also aim to increase the size of the police force. The conservatives have a slighter tougher line on crime. The Conservatives have also opposed the idea of early release schemes, a theme that they picked up on during the 2001 Election campaign. Politics of the last ten years have increasingly been edging away from the extreme wings and have been collecting in the centre regions of the spectrum. It could be argued that we could be faced with two similar manifestos. Labour's economic aims where to encourage sustainable growth this represents creating long term markets rather than short-term booms. Another new key Labour idea was to keep the inflation at low levels and seek to keep public debt down by repaying national loans and reducing public borrowing unless it is for long term growth. Conservative policies are pretty similar, with aims to keep inflation and public spending down. As highlighted Labour and Conservative’s polices on the economy are pretty similar. Labour’s policies on health are to increase public spending on the NHS and to generally commit to the basic NHS needs. Conservative policies on health are to match Labour’s planned public spending increases, the conservatives also seem keen to prove that they are the party of Health Care which was very evident in Iain Duncan Smith’s conference speech when he was elected leader after the Conservative election defeat when William Hague resigned as leader, (coursework.info.co.uk).
To conclude briefly the hypothesis question is certainly an interesting one with New Labour’s stunning election victory in 1997 the party has adopted many of the Conservative ideology, such as one nation socialism. The party of old was more about working class values and union power, however having been in opposition for so long New Labour realized it had to adopt a different policy approach if they were to realistically be electable again. This essay mentions that during Labour’s time in opposition society had changed markedly in the 1980s and 90s with the working class representing a small part of society. This essay also highlights the Conservative ideology which represents opposing change, family values, rewarding the individual who helps themselves, nationalism and historical sentiment. Also Thatcherism and how she rejected Keynesian demand management and relied more on the free market to help the economy grow, this essay looked at Thatcher’s polices and reforms which had her personality placed on them. Thatcher led a successful crusade against union power which was responsible for the toppling of previous Labour administrations. This essay reveals that Labour’s approach is more about equal opportunity and more of a universal approach. This essay also mentions how the Conservatives were faced with similar problems to Labour after the second world war, during this period the UK was experiencing economic concerns and in the 1950s the Conservative’s were forced to embrace some of Labour’s policies such as continuing with the Keynesian demand management approach to regenerate the economy. What this essay also reveals is that when the main UK political parties such as Labour and the Conservative party are in opposition or unelectable they adopt many of the opposing party’s policies to try to made the party electable again.
Since John Major resigned after losing the 1997 general election the Conservative party has experienced huge disagreements within the party with a series of leadership contests which continued during John Major’s time in office.
Tony Blair has been in office for around Eight years now and openly praises Thatcher’s achievements. Evidence from this essay suggests that Blair’s style of leadership is similar to Thatcher’s as Blair has adopted an assertive and dominant approach; some of the policies also are an example of a Conservative party philosophy. This essay highlights the policies with the economy, law and order and healthcare are also pretty similar to Conservative policies. The final point of this essay relates to Labour’s changed tax policies and Gordon Brown being given control over economic affairs and has embarked on a huge public services reinvestment program. Labour’s good work as been tarnished in recent years due to the events in Iraq. Also the Conservative party continues to be in deep decline with the party continuing to be divided with Europe and the euro. Overall it could be argued that New Labour is the new Conservative party and has taken on Thatcherism policies. Blair has often been criticized by those on the right for stealing Conservative policies and those on the left for not adhering to socialist principles and betraying the working class. The Labour Party in 1983 produced arguably one of its most radical manifestos, but it suffered one of its biggest election defeats. In 1997 the Labour manifesto promoted conservative economic policies and a moderate programme of social policies and won by a huge landslide. But New Labour is not simply a Conservative Party but rather a coalition of ideas in the centre ground emerging after the period of Thatcherism.
