Thatcher's Britain: The Politics and Social Upheaval of the Thatcher Era

195 Pages·2010·16.314 MB·English

by  Richard Vinen

THATCHER'S
Also by Richard Vinen
BRITAIN
A HISTORY IN FRAGMENTS
THE UNFREE FRENCH
The Politics and Social Upheaval
of
the Thatcher Era
Richard Vinen
~
SIMON&
SCHUSTER
London · New York · Sydney · Toronto
A CBS COMPANY
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
IX
Introduction
Chapter 1 Thatcher before Thatcherism, 1925- 75 12
Chapter 2 Thatcherism before Thatcher? Enoch Powell 43
Chapter 3 Becoming Leader 60
Chapter 4 Opposition, 19 75 -9 75
Chapter 5 Primitive Politics, 19 79-83 101
Chapter 6 Unexpected Victory: the Falklands 134
Chapter 7 Victory Foretold: the Miners 154
Chapter 8 Serious Money, 1983-8 178
Chapter 9 Divided Kingdom? 209
Chapter 10 Europe 230
Chapter 11 The Fall 249
Conclusions 274
Some Thoughts on Sources 308
Notes 320
Bibliography 367
Index 383
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Andrew Wylie for selling this book and to Andrew
Gordon for buying it. After Andrew Gordon moved on, Mike
Jones and Rory Scarfe adopted my literary orphan and brought
it up as though it was their own. Only authors know what a
difference a good copy-editor makes and Bela Cunha is the best.
She handled my manuscript with an impressive mix of rigour and
good humour.
The first draft of this book was written in Houston, Texas.
Houston is Thatcher's kind of town; she went there on her first
visit to the United States in 1967 and returned to the meeting of
the G 7 a few months before she resigned as prime minister.
Houston's appeal was not immediately apparent to me, and the
fact that I grew to appreciate the city's charms owes much to the
friendship of Sarah Fishman and Daniel Cohen. I am also grateful
to Martin Wiener, whose influence is discussed in chapter 8, for
arranging for me to enjoy the status of visiting scholar at Rice
University. I also owe much to my students and colleagues at
King's College, particularly Laura Clayton and Paul Readman.
All historians of modern Britain owe a debt to the Margaret
Thatcher Foundation, which is making an extraordinary range of
sources available on the web. I am particularly grateful to Chris
Collins of the Foundation for his advice on a number of points.
Karl French read a draft of this book and made many helpful
suggestions. Three professors also took time out from their own
busy schedules to read my work and comment on it from their
x THATCHER'S BRITAIN
different perspectives. My father, Joe Vinen, represents that strand
of the British establishment which shifted from the Labour Party
to the SDP in 1981 and from The Times to the Independent in 1986.
John Ramsden is a veteran streetfighter for Conservatism as well
as being a distinguished historian of the party. Miles Taylor claims
INTRODUCTION
never to have voted; he belongs to that curious group of British
historians who became post-Marxists without ever having been
Marxists. All three of them were generous with their time and
very perceptive in their comments.
My mother, Susan, and my sister, Katie, provided much practical
I remember where I was when it began. On the morning of 4
and emotional support. Alison Henwood read my work, did her
May 1979 I was in an 'O' level Latin class. Our teacher put a
best to make me understand the workings of capitalism, and
transistor radio on his desk and turned it on so that we could hear
undertook more than her fair share of childcare whilst I was writing.
the speech that Margaret Thatcher read out from notes jotted on
I am, however, grateful to Alison for many things that are more
the back of a card as she entered l 0 Downing Street:
important than any book and, most of all, for our children: Emma
and Alexander.
I would just like to remember some words of Saint Francis of Assisi
which I think are just particularly apt at the moment. 'Where there
is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we
bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where
there is despair, may we bring hope.'
My school was in Solihull, the second safest Conservative seat in
the country,* and the whole place was pulsating with excitement
at the Conservative election victory - all the same, I think that
most of my classmates thought that the speech was pretty mad.
I remember with equal clarity where I was when it ended. I
was walking down a back street near Euston station on 28 November
1990. I looked up and saw a sign that someone had placed against
an office window. It said: 'She's gone.' Anyone seeing it that day
would have known that Margaret Thatcher had resigned as prime
minister.
It is not just self-indulgence that makes me begin this book with
*Just after Sutton Coldfield.
2 THATCHER'S BRITAIN
Introduction 3
personal remm1scence. There was something about Margaret
Stuart Hall's influential article was published whilst Thatcher was
Thatcher's premiership that cut deeply into the personal lives of
still leader of the opposition.4 Much was written by journalists,
many British people. In 1985 psychiatrists produced an interesting
political scientists or left-wing activists, whose interest in Thatcherism
piece of research that illustrated this. Generally, patients suffering
was associated with a desire to devise strategies against it. Most
from dementia forget things about the present whilst remembering
of these people moved on to new interests when Thatcher fell.
things that are more permanent. For most of the post-war period,
Even the emphasis on the extent to which Thatcherism's legacy
for example, many demented people knew that Queen Elizabeth
has endured goes, curiously, with a tendency to downplay its
II was the monarch but could not remember who was the prime
importance - Margaret Thatcher is often now presented as though
minister. Under Thatcher things changed: 'Mrs Thatcher has given
her main historical function was to serve as John the Baptist for
an item of knowledge to demented patients that they would
Tony Blair.
otherwise have lacked: she reaches those parts of the brain other
There has also been a p_~sistent tension in writing about the
prime ministers could not reach.' 1
1980s between an interest in Thatcher and an interest in
R~_ferences to M<:_rgaret T~_at~her suffuse British culture. The
Thatcherism. Academic-writers, especially those of the Left, felt
head of drama commissioning at the BBC remarked in 2005: 'the
uncomfortable with the personalization of analysis - uncomfortable
Eighties and Nineties are the new Victorian drama. Contemporary
too, perhaps, with the ways in which attention to the character of
writers are now looking to this era and Thatcher's influence is
Margaret Thatcher could slide into sexism. In his article of January
2
huge. ' Speeches delivered in her strange, unnaturally deep voice,
1979, Stuart Hall used 'Thatcherism' six times and referred to
the product of careful coaching by her advisers, are used, often
'Mrs Thatcher' only once. Discussion of the Thatcher government
incongruously juxtaposed with the music of Frankie Goes to
amongst the wider population always laid _a_h eavier emphasis on
Hollywood, as a soundtrack to television programmes about the
Margaret Thatcher the woman. Striking miners were said
1980s. Her phrases - 'The Lady's not for turning' or 'There is no
'universally' to use the Rider Haggardesque term 'she' for the
such thing as Society' - are quoted, though the first of these was
prime minister. 5 Tory canvassers got so used to hearing the phrase
coined by someone else and the second is usually quoted out of
'that bloody woman' that functionaries in Central Office devised
context. She features in films and plays. She has walk-on parts in
the acronym 'TEW' - until an unkind interviewer enlightened her,
novels such as Alan Hollinghurst's The Line qf Beauty (2004).* There
Mrs Thatcher herself thought that the letters stood for the name
has even been a musical produced about her career.
of a television station. 6 Most of all, there was a 5,!?_yingly fake
This intense focus on Thatcher as a personality, or as a legend,
intimacy in the way in which the name 'Maggie' entered general
has gone with a declining interest in what her government actually
circulation. Demonstrators shouted 'Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out,
did. The most widely cited works on 'Thatcherism' - those by
out, out.' Long-suffering audiences at Tory conferences were
Gamble, Jacques, Jenkins (Peter), Jessop, Kavanagh, Riddell,
induced to sing the excruciating 'Hello Maggie' to the tune of
Skidelsky and Young3 were written before Thatcher's resignation.
- 'Hello Dolly'. An excited Norwegian commentator celebrated his
country's defeat of the England football team in 1981 by shouting
* It is said that Thatcher herself was told of Hollinghurst's novel but misheard into the microphone: 'Can you hear me Maggie Thatcher? Your
the title as 'The Line of Duty', which suggests a different kind of book.
boys took a hell of a beating tonight.'
4 THATCHER'S BRITAIN Introduction 5
The focus of my own book is on Thatcherism as a project rather who were born after Margaret Thatcher resigned. I think there is
than Thatcher as a person. My feeling is that John Campbell's a need for an account of this period that is designed for people
biography of Margaret Thatcher has probably taken us as close who have no personal memories of it. I have tried to explain who
to understanding the woman as we are ever likely to get - perhaps the dramatis personae were, what they stood for, and to answer the
closer than she (a person with little taste for introspection) ever got simplest of questions: what happened next?
herself7 Having said this, I think that the word 'Thatcherism' itself My account is more evenementiel than most books on the Thatcher
became the centre of a debate that sometimes obscured more than government. When Margaret Thatcher was still leader of the
it revealed. Many scholars,8 and at least one of Thatcher's own opposition, one of her advisers talked of the need to develop
ministers,9 assume that the term was invented by the sociologist 'event-led communication'.13 It seems to me that events such as
Stuart Hall in January 1979. However, as time went on, many the 1981 budget, the Falklands War or the miners' strike probably
writers became uncomfortable with the word and, as was often did more to communicate Thatcherism than the speeches of Sir
the case with debates of the 1980s, the two sides of the political KeithJoseph. I have stressed the difference between the Conservative
spectrum expressed themselves in remarkably similar ways. On the Party in opposition from 197 5 to 1979 and the party in government
T
Right, E. Utley wrote that 'Thatcherism' was a 'monstrous - as well as the differences between its various governments. Even
invention'10 that made the government seem more original than it my thematic chapters (notably that on Europe) are designed largely
really was. On the , Left, Bob Jessop complained that his fello'Y to show how thinking on particular ~s~es evolved over time.
Marxists had created a 'monstrous monolith' by presenting I have tried to strike a middle way between the very personalized
~hatcherism as a coherent pheno~enon, 11 overemphasizing the biographical approaches that revolve around anecdotal details of
importance of ideology and downplaying the role of division, 'Maggie' and the bloodlessly theoretical approaches that revolve
conjuncture and disagreement. around concepts such as 'relative autonomy of the state' or
In fact, the word 'Thatcherism' was quite widely used before 'hegemony'. I have tried to give attention to the characters of
January 1979 - Thatcher used it, in a flippant aside, in March people other than Thatcher and, in particular, to restore her
1975.12 The mere fact that the term came into general use suggests ministers to the story. Thatcher's flamboyant style sometimes
a recognition that Margaret Thatcher was associated with something overshadowed that of her colleagues - one writer talked of 'a
novel and distinctive. However, using the word 'Thatcherism' did tyrant surrounded by pygmies'. A number of Thatcher's personal
not imply some platonic absolute of ideological purity that marked advisers or backbench supporters - Gardiner, Sherman and Mount '
a complete break with everything that had gone before it. One - have also implied that the serious decisions were taken around
should not assume that displays of pragmatism reveal Thatcherism Thatcher's kitchen table rather than in formal meetings of the
to be somehow 'false' because it had failed to live up to abstract cabinet. My own feeling is that Thatcherism makes more sense if
ideas that existed in the pamphlets of the Institute of Economic it is examined in large measure through ministers. Studied in
Affairs or the mind of Alfred Sherman. Thatcherism was always purely abstract terms, it is sometimes hard to pin down what
about power, and it is the nature of power to adjust to circumstances. Thatcherism was. It is, however, relatively easy to identify who, on
The aims of my account are modest ones. I am aware that, as the Conservative front bench, were Thatcherites. Few would, I
this book goes to press, I will for the first time be teaching students think, deny this title to Howe, Lawson, Nott, Ridley and Tebbit.
6 THATCHER'S BRITAIN Introduction 7
Ministers are crucial figures when it comes to seeing how the ideas ministers to Gladstonianism probably had more to do with electoral
dreamt up in think tanks were converted into policy. strategy at a time when the Liberal/Social Democrat alliance was
There is one character in this story who was not a minister doing well in the polls than with serious thought about the nineteenth
under Thatcher and never, indeed, a member of the Conservative century.
Party during her leadership of it. I have given considerable attention I am also sceptical about interpretations that lay much emphasis
to Enoch Powell. I should stress that the most important part of on thinking in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War
the chapter title 'Thatcherism before Thatcher?' is the question or on rejection of the 'post-war consensus'. In many ways, I see
mark, and that my own answer to the question would be 'no'. Thatcher as the defender of the post-war consensus (especially in
Having said that, Powell does seem to me to be a uniquely important th~ form in which it was expressed during the 1950s) against the
figure in the history of British Conservatism. He thought about 'progressive consensus' of the late 1960s and early 1970s (see
many of the matters that concerned Thatcherites and he expressed chapter 1) . Thatcher herself, and some of her ministers, made
his conclusions with a degree of clarity and force that they rarely much of Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (first published in
achieved. He also thought about issues - 'Englishness', the end of 1945), which had sought to defend the free market against 'socialists
Empire, Ulster - about which most Thatcherites were revealingly of all parties'. It is not, however, clear that Thatcher herself read
silent. Tory ministers regarded him with a mixture of admiration, this book until quite late in her career. 16 I suspect that this work
exasperation and fear. If Thatcherism is to be understood in terms merely provided a convenient philosophical polish on things that
of intellectual history, Powell is vastly more important than any Thatcherites wanted to do for reasons that had little to do with
number of Austrian philosophers, American economists or earnest Hayek's thinking. When Norman Tebbit was interviewed in 1986,
young men at the Adam Smith Institute. Powell is also important he referred to the writings of 'Fred what's his name'; only when
because he was a practising politician even if not, judged in an official from Central Office stepped in did it become clear that
conventional terms, a successful one. He understood the realities he was referring to Hayek. 17 Green presents Richard Law, the
of power and, for this reason, was often the most eloquent Conservative MP whose Return from Utopia ( 1951) defended free
commentator on the differences between Thatcherism and his own market Conservatism against the encroaching state, as a kind of
'purer' vision of politics. proto-Thatcherite,18 but I doubt whether many people, other than
I think that I differ most sharply from other recent historians historians who are concerned with Thatcherism's intellectual
~n terms of the historical context in which I seek to place Thatcher. ancestry, have ever paid much attention to his book. It is unclear
David Cannadine, Peter Clarke and Ewen Green14 came to look whether any minister in the Thatcher government had heard of
-
at Thatcherism after having worked on earlier periods of British Law at the time they held power.19
history. Not surprisingly, they were very exercised by the occasional I see Thatcherism as rooted in a specific time - it emerged out
references of Thatcherites to the nineteenth century or to 'Victorian of debates on national decline, trade union power and economic
values'; one of them even believed that he had invented this phrase. 15 modernization during the 1970s and it ceased to be relevant when
I am sceptical about all this. I do not believe that Thatcherism those issues became less pressing. If I was forced to give precise
seriously sought to make itself the heir to nineteenth-century dates for a 'Thatcher era', then I would suggest 1968-88. The
liberalism, and I think that the occasional references by Thatcherite period stretched from Thatcher's 'What's wrong with Politics?'
8 THATCHER'S BRITAIN Introduction 9
speech, which can be seen, though only in retrospect, as the first mobile phones that my students had laid out on the desks in front
sign that Thatcher represented a distinctive political vision, until of them and I recalled how, when I myself was a student, the
her Bruges speech of 1988, which can be seen as the first sign Spectator had run a series of articles devoted to the difficulty of
that Thatcherism was beginning to break up. getting the nationalized Post Office to install a new phone line in
There are writers, of whom the most prominent is Simon the magazine's offices.
Jenkins, 20 who see Thatcherism as having a life beyond Thatcher's This book is designed to be dispassionate. _I :w_as v:_ry _m uch
resignation in 1990 and who, in particular, are interested in the opposed to the Ihatch~r govqnment ~h~ it was iQ power (or, at
way that Thatcher laid the foundations of New Labour. Obviously, least, I often said I was - it is sobering to realize how hard I find
Thatcher changed Britain in ways that mean that we all now live it to recapture my own real feelings), and I have never been seriously
with her legacy. However, Thatcherism cannot be understood unless tempted to vote Conservative. However, I have often felt exasperated
we recognize the remoteness of the recent past. Thatcher came by the partisan nature of writing on this subject and particularly
to power less than twenty-five years after the end of the Second by the sneering tone many authors adopt with regard to Margaret
World War. Almost half the members of her first cabinet had Thatcher herself.
fought in that war - thr-;;; of them had been wounded;* four had Many French historians have managed to write interesting and
been decorated for gallantry. t This compares to Margaret Thatcher's sympathetic books about de Gaulle and his regime, even when
immediate successor as prime minister, who had grown up since they themselves had opposed him during his life. I feel that it is
the Second World War, or to his two successors, both men born time British historians attempt to do the same for Margaret
after 1945. Tony Blair's first government in 1997 did not contain Thatcher. I have tried to avoid posing the Sellar and Yeatmanish
a single minister who had ever worn military uniform. Thatcher's question of whether or not Thatcher was a 'good thing'. However,
world was dominated by the Cold War. For the whole of her it does seem to me that a little humility on this matter is in order
premiership, there really were weapons of mass destruction pointed from those of us who denounced Thatcher when she was in power.
at London. This coloured not just her attitude to the Soviet Union Many of us claimed repeatedly that the government's policies were
but her attitude to Europe (especially West Germany), the United so obviously wrong-headed that they were bound to bring some
-
States, trade unions in Britain and Britain's status in the world. signal disaster. YJ,e should now have the grace to recognize that
..
The political map changed almost beyond recognition as the ~()_viet the signal disaster never arrived and that, at least m its own terms,
l!nion reformed during the late 1980s; inability to adjust to these the government was often - though not always - successful.
changes partly ~xplains why Thatcherism became less successful Perhaps I should finish the introduction by marking out the
during this period. The economy in the early 1980s was different limits of this book. This is very largely about what Maurice Cowling,
from the economy of the early twenty-first century in ways that a historian sometimes seen as having been involved in the
cannot be captured with mere statistics. As I lectured on transformation of Conservative thought ~uring the 1970s, labelled
Thatcherism in 2008, I looked at the rows of tiny, garishly coloured as 'high politics'. I have made three quite long excursions outside
the high politics of the Tory party. One of these involves the Labour
Party and the Social Democratic Party in the early 1980s, one of
* Hailsham, Joseph and Soames. Maude was a prisoner of war.
t Carrington, Pym, Soames and Whitelaw. them involves the Falklands War and one of them involves the
10 THATCHER'S BRITAIN Introduction 11
miners' strike of 1984-5. I think that all three were particularly capitalism in most of the world. On the whole, my interests have
important for the Thatcher government. I also think that analysts been confined to lg_9ki_ng at the extent to which British politics
of Thatcherism have sometimes been too prone to treat all three were influenced by events in the wider world. I have not attempted
as though they ·were acts of God. The electoral collapse of the to say how far British policy influenced those wider events or, for
Labour Party, British victory in the South Atlantic and the poor that matter, to say very much about the extent to which Thatcherism
tactics of Arthur Scargill are invoked as evidence that Margaret might have been part of a wider pattern. Looking at the
Thatcher was 'lucky'. Thatcher clearly was lucky (no one would international context can be useful on one very simple level: it cuts
survive as prime minister for ten years unless they had some Britain down to size. Thatcher led the British Conservative Party
spectacular good fortune). But there was more to it than luck. from 197 5 to 1990. During these years, China saw all the
Sometimes, the ~re of !hatcher's_ _ ene_mies h_ad deeper causes, extraordinary upheaval that lay between the death of Chairman
often related to the social changes that had brought That~her to Mao and the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The
power in the first place; ~~met~n.:ies, it was pue, to a greater extent year Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party was also
than the government's critics have cared to concede, to ~!?lful . the year Vaclav Havel wrote his open letter to the president of
!Ilanagement by Thatcher an,_d her colleagues. Czechoslovakia - a brave and, as it seemed at the time, hopeless
Having said all this, I have _not tried to write ~~Q<;:i~J h~~~2ry_9f gesture of defiance against authoritarianism. In 1990 Havel, himself
Britain in the 1980s. I have not, for example, attempted any serious now president of the Czechoslovakia, dined in Downing Street.
research on whether British people during this decade were Between 1975 and 1990, Chile went from the worst years of state
increasingly likely to define themselves in terms of consumption sponsored murder to being, more or less, a democracy. All this
rather than work. I have discussed questions such as 'why did many reminds us that the Anglocentric obsession with Thatcherism as
British coal miners return to work before their union authorized a 'revolution' needs to be judged against countries where politics
them to do so during the strike of 1984-5?'; 'why did people buy really could be a matter of life and death.
their council houses?' or, for that matter, 'why did they vote
Conservative?' on the basis of information that is already in the
public domain.
Equally, this is not:_~ -~istory of the vy9rldJrom 197 5 to 1990.
!_hatcher existed in an international context. Her positions on
many issues, not just those directly relating to the Soviet Union,
were born of the Cold War. Her political demise was in many
ways associated with the fact that reform in the Soviet Union shot
away the foundations of her political world. It would be possible
to write a different kind of history that presented Thatcherism as
one element in a global transition and which attempted to discern
the extent to which changes in Britain were effects or causes of a
change that brought down Soviet Communism and strengthened
I'
Thatcher Before Thatcherism, 192 5- 75 13
figure. In her autobiography she thanks her 'memoirs team' for
their skill in unearthing 'all the multifarious files where little bits
Chapter 1
of modern lives are written down and stored away3 as though
-
her researchers had discovered a person previously unfamiliar to
THATCHE~
the adult Margaret Thatcher. - . -
THATCHER BEFORE
1925-75 During her early years in parliament, Margaret Thatcher was
usually seen as a ~a!_C onservati~e lady. Her clothes, voice,
pearls and general air of str~ine~ formality seemed to belong to
the world of the garden party and the summer fete. An American
diplomat who met her in 1973 described her as 'an almost
There is ... the sheer romance of it, which will remain archetypical, slightly to the Right-of-center Tory whose views are
alive for generations of readers in the wider world who strongly influenced by her own middle-class background and
may know little of late twentieth-century British politics experience'. It was clear that 'middle class' in this context meant
I'
and care even less. A woman from the provincial lower- . 'upper-middle class' - the meeting had taken place over lunch at
middle class, without family connections, oratorical skills, the Connaught Hotel.4
intellectual standing or factional backing of any sort, When she ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party in
established herself as leader of a great party which had 197 5, Thatcher's campaign team paraded her humble origins
represented hierarchy, social stratification and male precisely because these origins seemed to run against the popularly
dominance. held view of their candidate. One member of that campaign
Alfred Sherman (adviser to Margaret Thatcher)1 team - George Gardiner MP- subsequently published a biography
of Margaret Thatcher.5 It was one of the first full-length
I seem to have done very little in thirty years. biographies; it was also, at least for a long time, the last book
Margaret Thatcher, March 19562 that was written by an author who had full access to Margaret
Thatcher and to other members of her family. 6 Gardiner portrayed
Margaret Roberts as the hard-working daughter of a Methodist
M argaret Thatcher did not share the fascination with her grocer from the Lincolnshire town of Grantham. Grantham was
petit-bourgeois origins that was felt by so many of her almost turned into a brand name by Th~tcher's associates.
admirers and enemies. The volume of her memoirs dealing with Thatcher's son was to name the enterprise at the centre of his
her time in Downing Street was published before that dealing with business operations after his mother's birthplace. 7 But Margaret
her life up to 1979. No doubt this was partly due to decisions Thatcher rarely went back after she left home at the age of
taken by publishers and literary agents, but the order also reflects eighteen. Many of her ministers had, or at least affected to have,
a feeling that Margaret Thatcher's early life made sense only when a visceral attachment to the area in which they had been born.
seen through the prism of her later career. Thatcher herself seems Thatcher was never really happy anywhere except central London
to have found the young Margaret Roberts to be an inscrutable - for all her allegedly 'suburban' qualities, she regarded the