Discontent with public services emphasized the growing public hostility towards the expansive state; doubts were beginning to emerge on how beneficial the state actually was to society. For example, state council-housing “in the 1950’s providing “indoor lavatories and baths with running water” was regarded as relatively luxurious, “but by the 1970’s were simply viewed as fundamental necessities connoting, perhaps rather unfairly, criticism and dissatisfaction “of life on council estates”. Accordingly, disruption especially among public-sector employees, for example, “NHS workers, dustmen and…gravediggers”, fuelled the public’s frustration and exasperation with the expansive state. Unfortunately, “a planned and controlled economy”, equating with comprehensive “levels of state services”, stimulated inordinate and unnecessary bureaucratic officialdom. The resulting “sense of powerlessness” engulfing the individual created negative rather than positive social behaviour. The failure of the state to deliver, particularly during the 1970’s, consistent, efficient services due to incremental industrial action and bureaucracy encapsulated, perfectly, why the electorate were ready to accept an incoming government promulgating provident state expenditure.
Surprisingly, the lean state was inaugurated under Wilson’s second Labour administration, who faced with a weak economy “abandoned…full employment” by reducing rather than raising “the budget deficit”. Tighter controls continued under Callaghan who “became Prime Minister after Wilson…resigned” in 1976. Almost immediately, “to combat inflation” and curtail Britain’s mounting financial deficit, he was forced to negotiate loans from the IMF, which necessitated the imposition of stringent terms requiring the adoption of monetarism, an economic policy stipulating rigorous controls on “the supply of money”. Consequently, “to check…inflation”, public expenditure was cut, affecting “even social welfare”. This began a new era of monetary strategies, replacing the former dominant Keynesian principles which were seen “as part of the problem rather than the solution”. In the election of May 1979, Callaghan was defeated by the Conservatives which, in effect, saw Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who questioned the benefits of an expansive state. This signalled an immense and deliberate reduction in the role of the state, heralding a new dawn in British politics, which became known as Thatcherism.
Having successfully anticipated public opinion, the Conservatives gained office with a manifesto pledging sweeping reforms designed to moderate “the role of the state” and enhance “the role of the individual”. To facilitate this ideology, the government reduced income tax “from 33…to 30 per cent”, but raised VAT levels “from 8… to 15 per cent”, allowing people greater freedom in how they spent “their money”. However, interest rates soared, reaching “17 per cent early in 1980”.
Concurrently, to control inflation, Thatcher, who “was influenced by…Sir Keith Joseph”, a “right-wing” Tory, continued with and imposed tougher monetarism policies, resulting in “savage…public spending…cuts”, for example, “housing, education and transport”, which effectively would see the demise of the expansive state.
The Conservatives rejected the mixed economy of the ‘post-war consensus’ promising to “roll back the frontiers of the state” in favour of privatisation. Beginning in 1979, gathering and maintaining momentum throughout the 1980’s, the Conservatives privatisation programme reduced significantly the state’s role in industry, which during “the mid 1970’s” had once employed a staggering “quarter of the working population”. Similarly, Thatcher’s government passed “the 1980 housing act” which by enabling “council tenants” to purchase their homes from local councils, usually “at generous discounts”, transferred “wealth…from the public to the private sectors”. State services were privatised, too, for example, bus routes, refuse collections and street cleaning. The successful amalgamation of complementary policies culminating in around “one million extra people in owner occupation” promoted “the cause of privatisation”, secured “working-class support” and minimized the role of the state.
The conspectus amongst politicians of a state caring “from cradle to grave” was not shared by Margaret Thatcher, who supported cuts in welfare and social security. She believed individuals should effect a greater control upon their own lives and not rely entirely on the state to provide “provision for sickness and old age”. This encouraged rapid growth in private medical insurance schemes, for example, BUPA. Conclusively, the Conservatives, under Thatcher, considered the welfare state a prodigious “bureaucracy…of waste…and over government” needing, particularly in the NHS, urgent simplification and decentralisation to improve standards. Her approach appeared to signal the lowest “commitment to the welfare state” by “any government since” the Second World War, confirming the actuality of a lean state.
Thatcher regarded the unions as ‘wreckers’ and responded swiftly “to curb trade union powers”. She was determined to change trade-union conciliation, of previous governments, to one of hostility - intending to make the unions accountable for “their fare share of the cost of supporting…members” who participated in continual strike action. For example, “the 1980 Employment Act” limiting picketing, making the practice of “secondary picketing” practically illegal, was supplemented by “the Employment Act of October 1982” which prevented close shops, unless trade-union branches held “secret” ballots and obtained a minimum “85 per cent support” from the membership. Public opinion polarized, provoking a period of confrontation, for example, the year-long miner’s strike. The government continued with its policy of non-negotiation, preferring to let events take their natural course. Therefore, trade union reform was instrumental in reducing state intervention, sanctioning an environment of progressive market forces and individual freedom.
Conversely, government policy in some areas augmented state participation. For example, despite Thatcher winning general elections in 1979, 1983 and 1987 advocating rigid cuts in state financing of social services, potentially adverse public reaction pressured the government to proliferate state “powers in areas like, education” and “prevented” the “dismantling of the Health Service”, too. Essentially, the emphasis within the Tory’s 1979 manifesto, it would not attempt “to preserve existing jobs” in companies who were unable “to succeed by themselves” escalated, dramatically, levels of unemployment in the 1980’s to over 3 million. Thus, the rejection “of full employment” cost the state, in 1983 alone, “an estimated £17000 million” in unemployment benefit and social security payments. Public persuasion influencing government policy and the Conservative’s conviction of not interfering in market forces, adhering to economic policies, resulting in, perhaps, unacceptable levels of unemployment, produced antithetical effects which, paradoxically, heightened state involvement in society.
Ultimately, by the time the Conservatives regained power in the 1979 general election, the country could no longer afford the luxury, or indeed, wanted an expansive state, which had become a vast, lumbering giant of bureaucracy. Labour, perhaps to their credit, realized as early as 1974 that consensus policies were becoming ineffective in affecting favourable economic conditions and imposed tighter state controls. Sadly, the Trade Unions impeded any real progress and, in effect, paved the way for the Conservatives who - led by Margaret Thatcher - in anticipation of the electorate’s disenchantment with higher taxation and deteriorating services published a manifesto blaming the economic conditions firmly on the thirty years of an expansive state. Consequently, the eighties precipitated a rapid curtailment and reduction in state spending, control and intervention, thus, denoting a lean state. However, the tightening of state control, for example, in education, and the inducement of spending by spiralling unemployment
are often overlooked by historians.
I have used the following sources of information.
David Taylor: Mastering Economic and Social History. Peter Joyce: Teach Yourself Politics - 101 Key Ideas.
David Simpson: Political Parties. FN Forman and NDJ Baldwin: Mastering British Politics.
Norman Lowe: Mastering Modern British History. R Pearce: Contemporary Britain 1914-1979.
A Northedge and T Walton: Change and the Modern State. Extracts of the 1979 Conservative Manifesto.
