Britain mock q Flashcards
1
Q
5
WHY CHURCHILL WAS OUT OF OFFICE 1929-39
A
The reasons for his exclusion from office were:
- Mistakes like the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 & the return to the gold standard in 1925 gave the impression that he had poor judgement & could not be trusted.
- This impression was reinforced by his extreme views on India (he considered himself an expert despite not having been there since the 1890s) & his support for Edward VIII during the Abdication Crisis.
- The fact that Churchill was wrong about these issues led to him not being listened to when he was right about Hitler.
- Whatever the merits of C’s views, they were clearly opposed to the views of Stanley Baldwin, who was Conservative leader until 1937; b/c of this C did not regain ministerial office when the Tories returned to govt in 1931.
- His opposition to appeasement meant he was telling the public what they didn’t want to hear: they were desperate to avoid war after the horrors of WW1 in which 900,000 British soldiers had died. He was also out of step with both Baldwin & Chamberlain, both of whom were committed to appeasement.
2
Q
6
TO WHAT EXTENT DID CHURCHILL’S OPPOSITION TO HIS OWN PARTY’S POLICY ON INDIA SERIOUSLY DAMAGED HIS CAREER?
A
- Politicians of all parties (Conservative, Labour & Liberal) agreed that India should become a self governing Dominion within the British Empire (like Canada & Australia) so Churchill’s views were regarded as out of date & out of touch with the political mainstream. This was especially important b/c the govt. of 1931-40, though in practice increasingly Conservative dominated, was a “National” one including members of all 3 parties & until 1935 headed by the Labour politician Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister. Both MacDonald and Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin, who succeeded him as PM in 1935, were infuriated by Churchill’s opposition to their policy on India, which in their view disqualified him from returning to govt.
- Churchill turned many fellow Conservatives against him by making personal attacks on senior govt. ministers, e.g. his attempt to force India Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare (right) to resign in 1934 (for allegedly misleading the House of Commons) did not gain the support of a single MP.
- Churchill’s views on India confirmed the impression given by his previous failures, notably the attack on Gallipoli in 1915 & the return to the gold standard in 1925, that his judgement was faulty.
- His knowledge & understanding of Indian politics was poor. He massively underestimated India’s desire for independence, failing to appreciate the support Gandhi enjoyed from the mass of Hindu peasants. He misread criticism of Gandhi from Muslims & Untouchables as evidence that they supported British rule. He greatly exaggerated the amount of power the 1935 Govt. of India Act gave to Indians, failing to realise that it left the most important matters (defence, law & order & foreign policy) in British hands.
- Churchill’s views on India forced him to ally with extreme right wingers & separated him from the more progressive Conservatives like Leo Amery who were his natural allies in standing up to Hitler. Another of these, Duff Cooper, described Churchill’s opposition to Indian self govt. as “the most unfortunate event that occurred between the 2 world wars”.
- The fact that Churchill was wrong about India obscured the fact that he was right about Hitler.
3
Q
6
TO WHAT EXTENT DID CHURCHILL’S OPPOSITION TO HIS OWN PARTY’S POLICY ON INDIA SERIOUSLY DAMAGED HIS CAREER? COUNTER ARGUMENTS
A
- Churchill was distrusted for many reasons besides India, not just Gallipoli & the return to the gold standard but also his lack of party loyalty. Conservatives resented him b/c of his defection to the Liberals in 1904, Liberals b/c he rejoined the Conservatives 20 years later. Labour hated him for leading the govt. campaign against the General Strike in 1926.
- He was supported by about 60 MPs over India but only really by 3 (Brendan Bracken, Bob Boothby & Duncan Sandys) over rearmament.
- Churchill’s support for Edward VIII during the Abdication crisis arguably damaged him even more than his views on India. The shouting down of his speech defending Edward in December 1936 was the greatest humiliation of his parliamentary career.
- The unpopularity of his views on India inflicted only limited & temporary damage on Churchill’s career. It did not prevent civil servants & even the Secretary of State for Air (with Baldwin’s permission) giving him valuable information about German rearmament which he used to attack govt. policy, nor did it prevent people like Amery who strongly disagreed with him about India allying with him on the German issue. When war broke out in 1939 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain realised he had no choice but to restore Churchill to the Cabinet (as First Lord of the Admiralty) for the first time since 1929.
- Churchill was in some respects right about India: he recognised that the Lancashire cotton industry relied on exports to India, that Muslims & Untouchables rejected Gandhi’s leadership & that a premature British departure would to lead to a religious civil war between Hindus & Muslims (below).
- India was not a major issue as far as most ordinary British voters were concerned: it was a faraway country of much less concern than the economic Depression or the threat of war with Germany
4
Q
5
A
- Edward VIII became King of GB when his father George V died in January 1936. Churchill was not very close to E but had known him for a long time & felt a strong sense of loyalty to him. It was this, not any desire to exploit the issue for personal advantage against Baldwin, which motivated his support for E during what came to be called the Abdication Crisis.
- Churchill’s support for E was illogical given his pro-Nazi views (some of his closest friends, like “Fruity” Metcalfe & his wife “Baba Blackshirt” were members of the British Union of Fascists) at a time when Churchill’s campaign for more rearmament to defend GB agt. Hitler was starting to gain momentum.
- By November 1936 there was speculation that E VIII would have to abdicate (give up his throne) b/c he was determined to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee. He could not do this & remain King b/c as King of England he was Head of the Church of England which did not at that time allow divorce. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin (with the support of the Cabinet & other political leaders) made this clear to E but agreed to Churchill meeting E in an attempt to persuade him to give up Wallis so he could stay as King.
- Churchill was wrong: on 6 December, just 2 days after C’s meeting with E, Baldwin told the Cabinet that E must decide before Xmas. Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain feared that trade would be damaged if there was any further uncertainty. In any case, E had already decided (w/o telling C) that he would marry Wallis & abdicate.
- On 7 December, badly misjudging the situation, C made a speech in the House of Commons to ask “that no irrevocable step will be taken before the House has received a full statement”. To his amazement, he was shouted down by other MPs shouting “drop it!” & was forced to sit down before finishing his speech b/c he was unable to make himself heard. Suspecting Baldwin had deceived him, he told him, “you won’t be satisfied until you’ve broken him, will you?”
C was suspected (unfairly) of using the issue to undermine Baldwin.
5
Q
8
ASSESS HOW FAR THEY SUPPORT THE VIEW THAT CHURCHILL’S SPEECHES AND BROADCASTS ON GERMANY & REARMAMENT WERE ILL JUDGED - AGREE
A
- It could be argued that Churchill exaggerated the German threat at this stage; as late as 1936 the French could have stopped Hitler remilitarising the Rhineland without a shot being fired.
- The Foreign Office figures (from Ralph Wigram) on the size of the Luftwaffe which he relied on were actually exaggerated & less accurate than the official Air Ministry figures.
Churchill was obsessed with the danger of a German air attack on GB which in fact the Germans were not planning: the Luftwaffe was designed primarily to support a land campaign in France or the USSR. The weakest link in GB’s defences was the Army not the air force. Churchill failed to foresee how crucial tanks & submarines would be in WW2. - Churchill had unnecessarily discredited himself by being wrong about India & Edward VIII; this made people disbelieve him even though he was right about Hitler. By opposing Indian self govt. he allied himself with extreme right wing Conservatives who were often pro-Hitler & made it harder for him to find allies who agreed with him about Germany.
- This partly explains why younger Conservative MPs like Macmillan, Eden & Duff Cooper, who agreed with Churchill about Hitler, did not attach themselves to him. Only Bracken, Boothby & Sandys can be counted as loyal followers of Churchill on this issue & they had very little political influence.
- By 1937, Churchill’s constant warnings about Hitler were boring Tory MPs, one of whom commented, “he likes to rattle the sabre and does it jolly well, but you always have to take it with a grain of salt”.
- There was also a widespread impression that he was a warmonger: as Baldwin put it, “war is the environment in which he thrives”.
- His support for the pro-Nazi Edward VIII contradicted his opposition to appeasement.
- He only spoke about foreign policy, giving the impression he didn’t care about the economic problems which preoccupied most of his countrymen.
6
Q
6
ASSESS HOW FAR THEY SUPPORT THE VIEW THAT CHURCHILL’S SPEECHES AND BROADCASTS ON GERMANY & REARMAMENT WERE ILL JUDGED - DISAGREE
A
- The strength of pacifist feeling in GB, shown by the Conservative defeat in the East Fulham byelection in 1933 which alarmed Baldwin, meant that even though he was right about Hitler, Churchill would not be listened to whatever he said. His ally Robert Boothby said it was like “boxing a stone wall”. After the horrors of WW1 (in which 900,000 British soldiers died), no one wanted to listen when he said GB must prepare for another war against Germany.
- There was a widespread feeling amongst both politicians & the public that the Treaty of Versailles had been too harsh on Germany & a mistake; it was seen as natural & inevitable that Germany would rise to be a great power again.
- Many Conservatives feared Communism & saw Hitler as a potential ally against Communism. In Mein Kampf Hitler stated that he wanted to ally with GB against the USSR.
- There was a widespread feeling that WW1 had been caused by an arms race between GB & Germany, so Churchill’s call for rearm. might provoke an unnecessary war.
- It was unfortunate that Churchill was calling for rearm. during the Depression when there was great poverty & a public desire to spend money on welfare & housing instead.
- By late 1936 by emphasising his support for the League of Nations Churchill began to get support from left wing figures including 2 significant Labour MPs & the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC).
7
Q
7
Assess how far they support the view that Churchill was proposing unrealistic policies with regard to gaining international support against Hitler in the 1930s - AGREE
A
- As Chamb. pointed out, Churchill’s plan for a “Grand Alliance” was unrealistic. The French had no intention of defending either Czechoslovakia or Poland; they simply planned to sit behind the Maginot Line, & wait for the Germans to attack. They encouraged Chamb. to appease Hitler. Stalin’s willingness to sign a pact with Hitler a year later shows his unreliability & in any case he had weakened his army by purging most of its commanders. Poland trusted him even less than they trusted Hitler & refused to accept the “help” of his army. US foreign policy was isolationist (Americans thought European affairs were none of their business) & remained so until 1941.
- The surge of popularity Chamb. enjoyed after the Munich Agreement (he received over 1,000 congratulatory telegrams) showed that the great majority of Britons did not want war & were not ready for it. The fact that 74% of the population of the Sudetenland was German speaking weakened the moral case for war & it was still possible at that stage to believe that Hitler’s aims were confined to uniting German speakers as opposed to dominating the whole of Europe as Churchill claimed. In terms of British public opinion, Churchill was unrealistic & Chamb.’s appeasement policy ensured that when war finally did come in 1939 the nation was united behind it as it would not have been in 1938.
- The fact that Churchill was nearly deselected by his constituency Conservative Association as a result of his strong criticism of the Munich Agreement showed that he was out of touch with the feeling in his own party .
- Churchill was unrealistic about GB’s military preparedness: in 1938 there was no Expeditionary Force to deploy in Europe (most of the British army was in India or Palestine) & most of the Spitfire & Hurricane fighters which won the Battle of Britain came off the production line in the last year of peace. Chamb.’s appeasement therefore gave GB a vital breathing space without which she could not have survived in 1940.
- Ironically, although Churchill was a great believer in the British Empire, he ignored the Japanese threat, whereas Chamb. understood that the British Empire was a global power which was threatened by Italy & Japan as well as Germany. In 1937 the chiefs of the armed forces warned the Cabinet that, if she had to fight all 3 at once, GB would lose.
- Churchill was unrealistic in putting faith in the League of Nations when it had no army of its own & had proved totally ineffective in combatting Japanese & Italian as well as German aggression.
- In 1938, all the Dominions except New Zealand were opposed to war but in 1939 they supported it, even South Africa which was especially strongly anti-war in 1938.
8
Q
7
Assess how far they support the view that Churchill was proposing unrealistic policies with regard to gaining international support against Hitler in the 1930s - DISAGREE
A
- Churchill understood Hitler’s psychology better than Chamb. did; he understood that Hitler respected only strength & Chamb. failed to grasp that the more he tried to convince Hitler that he was being reasonable in considering Germany’s demands, the more Hitler simply thought he was weak & could be pushed around.
- GB’s willingness to appease Hitler over the Rhineland, Austria & the Sudetenland convinced Hitler that he could get away with further aggression by invading the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 & then Poland in September.
- The fact that Hitler seized the rest of Czechoslovakia less than 6 months after the Munich Agreement showed, as Churchill argued at the time, that Chamb. was wrong to trust him. This prompted the Daily Mirror to call him ‘the most trusted statesman in Britain … For years he warned us of dangers which have now become terrible realities. For years he pressed for the policy of strength, which the whole nation now supports.’
- Whereas Chamb. distrusted France, the USSR & the USA, Churchill recognised that GB needed allies to stop Hitler. He consistently advocated a close alliance with France & recognised in 1939 (despite his anti-Communist views) that only an alliance with the USSR could deter Hitler from invading Poland. By guaranteeing Poland without seeking Soviet support in March 1939, it was Chamb., not Churchill, who showed a profound lack of realism. Churchill also understood that an alliance with the USA would be essential in the long term.
- There is some evidence (e.g. the movement of Soviet aircraft to her western border) that the USSR would have been willing to fight for Czechoslovakia in 1938, supporting Churchill’s claim that a “Grand Alliance” between GB, France & the USSR would have deterred Hitler.
- By agreeing to Hitler’s demand that Stalin be excluded from the Munich Conference, Chamb. so antagonised Stalin that just under a year later in August 1939 he decided to ally with Hitler rather than GB, giving Hitler a “green light” to invade Poland & making war inevitable.
- Churchill understood that the Munich Settlement was a missed opportunity to use Czechoslovakia’s well equipped army against Hitler; this meant that the Skoda arms factory, the 2nd biggest in Europe, was working for Hitler in 1939 whereas in 1938 it would have been working against him. 1/3 of the tanks which enabled Hitler to defeat France in 1940 were Czech made.
9
Q
6
DID CHURCHILL BECOME PRIME MINISTER BECAUSE HE WAS THOUGHT TO BE THE BEST MAN FOR THE JOB? - YES
A
- Churchill was popular with the public b/c he had consistently been right about Hitler when virtually all other politicians had been wrong. He was respected for his courage in speaking out against appeasement even when it damaged his career to do so.
- He had growing support within Parliament, especially from a small group of Tories like Brendan Bracken & Robert Boothby; Labour MPs distrusted him on most issues but respected his opposition to appeasement & he was friendly with the Liberal leader Archibald Sinclair.
- Churchill unlike Chamb. understood that to prosecute the war effectively the Govt. must be genuinely National as opposed to Conservative dominated.
- The trade unions & Ernest Bevin (the Labour politician & trade union leader who became Churchill’s Labour Secretary in his wartime Cabinet) noticed that Churchill was more willing than other ministers in Chamberlain’s govt. to work with the unions to maximise war production.
- He was respected even by his opponents as a great orator (public speaker) & parliamentary performer. His brilliant speech in the Norway debate on 8 May 1940, balancing defence of his record with outward loyalty to Chamb., was much better than Chamb.’s own.
- Even Halifax recognised that Churchill was much better suited to being a war leader; he had a fascination for war, had written extensively about it & had fought in India, South Africa & WW1. No one doubted that he had the energy & enthusiasm to tackle the war more vigorously than Chamb. had done.
10
Q
7
DID CHURCHILL BECOME PRIME MINISTER BECAUSE HE WAS THOUGHT TO BE THE BEST MAN FOR THE JOB? - NO
A
- As First Lord of the Admiralty & the leading advocate of intervention in Norway, Churchill was far more directly responsible for the disastrous failure of that campaign than was Chamb. Apart from the failed landings at Namsos, Andalsnes & Narvik, no troops could be landed at Trondheim at all b/c the Navy failed to take control of the fjord there.
- Very few Tory MPs, even those who rebelled in the Norway vote, envisaged that Churchill would succeed Chamb. The great majority preferred Halifax b/c they regarded Churchill as disloyal: he had left the Tories to join the Liberals in 1904 & only rejoined in 1924 & during the 1930s had criticised the policy of his own party, not just on appeasement but also India & Edward VIII. Although the Labour Party forced Chamb. to resign by refusing to serve under him, they would have been at least as happy to serve under Halifax as Churchill. The trade unions were particularly suspicious of him b/c of his leading role in suppressing the General Strike in 1926.
- Tony Corfield argues that Chamberlain’s key failure was to mobilise industry for the war effort, mainly b/c he refused to seek the co-operation of the trade unions & the Labour Party in this. This prompted Labour to demand a change of PM & a truly National govt. which would include them; crucially this was supported by influential Conservative politicians like Kingsley Wood, who was Air Secretary 1938-40.
· The civil service distrusted Churchill’s judgement, remembering past mistakes like Gallipoli & the return to the Gold Standard, not to mention his opposition to Indian self govt. & his support for the pro-Nazi Edward VIII.
- The naval commanders & his Cabinet colleagues found him interfering (often in matters outside his responsibilities as First Lord of the Admiralty), overbearing & difficult to work with.
- The King & Queen resented Churchill’s support for Edward VIII. So virtually everyone except the press & the general public preferred Halifax (below) & Churchill only won the premiership b/c Halifax didn’t want it.
- He was widely seen as “yesterday’s man” b/c he was in his 60s & had not been a govt. minister for over a decade prior to the outbreak of war
11
Q
7
Was Churchill’s Mediterranean commitment a strategic error? - YES
A
- Churchill’s “soft underbelly” strategy assumed that British forces would only be fighting against the Italians, but in both N Africa & Italy they found themselves fighting the much more formidable Germans; the result of this was that progress in both cases was much slower & the losses much greater than he anticipated.
- The deployment of the bulk of GB’s land forces & a large proportion of her air & naval forces in the Med. diverted resources from other campaigns like the Battle of the Atlantic which was more crucial to GB’s survival & the bombing of Ger. which could obviously strike at Ger. much more directly.
- The deployments in Greece & Crete in 1941 were strategic errors in which valuable equipment was lost, removing the possibility of victory in N Africa before the Gers. arrived.
- The N African campaign, which the Gers. regarded as an irritating sideshow, never diverted more than a tiny % of Ger. manpower from the all-important Eastern Front.
- “Operation Torch” in 1942 & the invasion of Italy in 1943 delayed the opening of the real “2nd front” in France until 1944.
- Delay enabled the Gers. to strengthen their defences on the northern French coast.
- The Ital. campaign held down less than 1/3 of the no. of troops the Gers. had in France & not much more than 1/10 of the no. they had on the Eastern Front. Tito’s partisans in Yugoslavia tied down more Ger. troops than the Allied forces in Italy.
12
Q
8
Was Churchill’s Mediterranean commitment a strategic error? - NO
A
- It was a brave & correct decision to send troops, tanks & aircraft to N Africa to resist the Italian offensive in 1940. Churchill correctly judged that the threat of a Ger. invasion of GB had passed.
- The garrison in Egypt had to be reinforced b/c an Axis victory there would have destroyed British power in the Middle East, denied GB vital oil supplies while giving them to the Gers. & threatened both India & the USSR.
- The Med. strategy was worthwhile b/c the Italian forces were ill equipped, poorly led & weakly motivated. The successes of the Navy at Taranto & Cape Matapan & of the Army in Libya & East Africa with relatively small British forces showed this.
- Deployment in the Med. was the only way GB could really hit back at Ger. after the defeat of France. British forces on their own were nowhere near strong enough to invade France & the RAF did not yet possess the heavy bombers to inflict serious damage on Ger. itself.
- As Douglas Porch has argued, the Med. deployment made sense because it played to GB’s strengths, including her naval supremacy which enabled Tobruk to hold out in 1941 by reinforcing & supplying the garrison there & in 1943 it prevented the evacuation of the Axis troops in Tunisia.
- The Med. front diverted significant numbers of Ger. motor transport & aircraft from the Eastern Front & Hitler’s unwise decision to reinforce his army in Tunisia resulted in the capture of around 230,000 Axis troops. According to Martin Kitchen “the Axis lost many of their finest troops who would have contributed greatly to the defence of Europe”. In all 50 Ger. divisions were tied down in the Med. which could have been used more effectively elsewhere
- Despite the advantages the Germans had in defending mountainous terrain in Italy, the Allied forces inflicted 536,000 casualties on the Germans while suffering only 312,000 themselves.
- By 1943 it was clear that the Allies (GB, USA & USSR) had superior resources, so it made sense to stretch the Germans’ limited resources across as many fronts as possible
13
Q
5
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID CHURCHILL DEAL WITH HIS GENERALS? - EFFECTIVELY
A
- There were few disagreements about major decisions between C & Sir Alan Brooke, who commanded the British forces as Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1941. He supported C’s bold decision to send substantial land, sea & air forces to N Africa when the threat of an invasion of GB in 1940 had passed.
- C’s faith in Montgomery was arguably justified b/c of his success in raising the morale of the 8th Army in N Africa in 1942, leading to the decisive victory in the 2nd battle of El Alamein in 1942 & the subsequent expulsion of the Gers. from N Africa in 1943.
- The Brit generals, especially Brooke, agreed with C that the invasion of France should be postponed until 1944 b/c of the risk that a premature invasion would be a costly failure.
- C’s imagination & energy led to brilliant ideas like “Operation Fortitude” to deceive Hitler into thinking that the invasion of France in 1944 would be in the Pas de Calais rather than Normandy.
- Despite all their differences, Brooke greatly admired Churchill for the way he inspired the Allied cause and for the way he bore the heavy burden of war leadership. In his diary he wrote, “I should not have missed the chance of working with him for anything on earth”.
14
Q
7
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID CHURCHILL DEAL WITH HIS GENERALS? - INEFFECTIVELY
A
- C thought the politicians in WW1 had not intervened enough to keep the generals in line. He was critical of the generals in the pre-war period b/c he thought they were over-cautious & too inclined to use GB’s military weakness (especially the Army) as an excuse for not taking or even threatening military action to stop Hitler.
- During the French campaign in 1940 C ordered Lord Gort, the commander of the BEF (British Expeditionary Force), to keep trying to break through across the German lines to link with the main French army; knowing there was no chance of success in this, Gort defied this order & retreated to Dunkirk instead. Had C’s orders been followed, the BEF would have been lost.
- As this showed, C was too desperate to keep France in the war at any cost rather than recognising that French defeat was inevitable & that GB must conserve her forces for her own defence. When the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir John Dill, thwarted a crazy plan by C to send extra Brit forces to France when the Fr. Army was on the brink of defeat, C retaliated by removing him soon afterwards.
- Brooke wrote of C, ‘Winston had ten ideas every day, only one of which was good, and he did not know which it was.’ His diaries & the memoirs of other generals are full of complaints of C interfering with details which he should have left to the professionals.
- C disliked Sir Archibald Wavell (right), the commander of Brit forces in N Africa, despite his spectacular victories against numerically stronger Italian forces in 1940-1. C’s decision to divert 60,000 troops with most of their equipment in a doomed attempt to stop the German invasion of Greece in 1941 denied Wavell the opportunity to win a decisive victory against the Italians in N Africa before the Germans arrived.
- Excessively eager for quick action, Churchill forced Wavell to launch Operation Battleaxe in June 1941, which failed b/c the Gers. had more & better tanks, air superiority & better trained troops. After this C removed him.
- C didn’t get on with Wavell’s successor, Claude Auchinleck, either; C accused him as he had accused Wavell of being overcautious. C was infuriated by the loss of Tobruk to numerically inferior Ger. forces in June 1942 & removed Auch. in August despite his decisive defensive victory which halted the Ger. advance in the first battle of El Alamein & the fact that the subsequent even greater victory in the 2nd battle of El Alamein (October-November 1942) was largely down to Auchinleck’s thorough preparation. Ignoring this, C gave credit for this victory to Bernard Montgomery (below right, known as “Monty”) whom he appointed commander of the 8th Army in N Africa in August 1942. “Monty” was at least as cautious as Wavell & Auchinleck (the Americans always criticised him for this) & frustrated C both by delaying the battle until he had massive superiority in men, tanks & aircraft & by failing to prevent Rommel escaping with most of his forces following the Ger. defeat. C preferred Monty to Wavell & Auchinleck (right) b/c he was so self confident (though others found him arrogant).
15
Q
7
WAS THE BOMBING OF GERMANY JUSTIFIED? - YES
A
- The bombing of Berlin in September 1940 provoked the Luftwaffe into switching its bombing from the airfields to London, which was arguably decisive in enabling Fighter Command to win the Battle of Britain (though Churchill could not have foreseen this). The “Dambusters” raid was technologically brilliant & raised morale.
- Harris understood that German morale was unlikely to crack; he focused on the economic impact of bombing. He understood why the bombing before 1942 had been so ineffective but with the Lancaster bomber now available he knew it could be much more effective from then on.
- It was politically necessary to show Stalin, who was furious that the opening of the “2nd front” (the invasion of France) was delayed until 1944, that GB was doing all it could to aid the USSR; Speer, Hitler’s Armaments Minister, felt that the diversion of German resources from the Eastern Front to combat the bombing was on such a scale from 1943 onwards that it amounted to “a 2nd front”. 70% of German fighters & 75% of their 88-millimetre guns were deployed agt. the British & US bombers rather than the Red Army. The bombing also forced the Germans to switch aircraft production from bombers to fighters: by 1944 only 18% of new Ger. aircraft were bombers, greatly relieving the pressure on the Red Army.
- As Speer admitted the bombing of Hamburg in July 1943 (killing 40,000 people) did damage civilian morale, with many civilians blaming Hitler & fleeing in mass panic. He thought that 6 more such attacks would bring arms production “to a total halt”.
- The bombing raids drew in German fighters which were then destroyed; this was crucial in achieving the almost total air supremacy without which the success of D-Day would have been impossible.
- With the Luftwaffe virtually destroyed by mid 1944, crippling damage was inflicted on oil supplies, the chemical industry (halving Germany’s explosives production) & the railways (halving the number of freight wagons carried by German trains). Overy has concluded that “bombing gradually dismembered the economic body” & in January 1945 Speer admitted to Hitler, “the war is over in the area of heavy industry & armaments”.
- The bombing offensive only absorbed 7% of GB’s total war effort, so it was not disproportionate. Overy has concluded that taking account of the damage to the Luftwaffe, the diversion of German resources from the Eastern Front & the successful bombing of France in preparation for D-Day, “it is difficult to think of anything else the Allies might have done with their manpower & resources that could have achieved as much at such comparatively low cost”.
16
Q
4
WAS THE BOMBING OF GERMANY JUSTIFIED? - NO
A
- The RAF bombing of Hamburg in July 1943 killed 40,000 German civilians (most of whom were burnt to dead)through the deliberate starting of firestorms in a hot dry summer through the use of incendiary bombs targeted at the half timbered buildings in the historic centre.
- The bombing of Dresden in February 1945 (which Churchill approved despite later expressing concern about it) killed only about 20,000 but there was less military justification for it b/c the war was virtually won, there was no war industry there & it was known to be full of refugees fleeing the Red Army.8,325 British bombers were destroyed & 55,000 pilots killed.
- The bombers used to bomb Germany would have been better employed, as the Navy & Army argued at the time, in protecting Atlantic convoys or British troops in North Africa. Overy argues that Churchill’s role was decisive in approving the priority given to bombing Germany & that Churchill was influenced by the political need to show Stalin he was “doing something” to hit Germany rather than genuinely military considerations.
- The early bombing of Germany was so inaccurate (the crews were not trained for it) that only 3% of bombs fell within 5 miles of their target. The resort to “area” rather than precision bombing from 1942 onwards was a reflection of this.
17
Q
5
HOW IMPORTANT WAS CHURCHILL’S ROLE 1944-5?
A
- It became increasingly apparent that GB’s role on the Western Front was subordinate to the
USA’s; whereas the number of Brit & US troops landing on the Normandy beaches in June 1944 was roughly equal, by Feb. 1945 there were twice as many US as Brit troops on the main Western Front. - The failure of the Brit operation at Arnhem in (Operation “Market Garden” in September 1944) contrasted with the US successes in the Battle of the Bulge (Dec. 1944 – Jan. 1945 & the Rhine crossing in March 1945.
- Although GB had theoretically gone to war for Polish independence, Poland was overrun by the Red Army 1944-5 & Stalin imposed a Communist dictatorship subordinate to the USSR. Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary & Czech. also came under Soviet control & there was nothing C could do about it.
- C felt the USA were blind to this danger; they rejected his proposal of invading Austria & Yugoslavia from Italy to limit Soviet expansion in Central Europe.
- The USA refused to support C’s ambitions in the Mediterranean & the British were on their own when C decided to intervene on the side of the Royalists against the Communists when a civil war broke out in Greece after the Ger. departure in 1944.
18
Q
7
Assess how far they support the view that Churchill was a great wartime leader - YES
A
- Churchill was right on all the big issues: he was right about Hitler before the war, right to fight on in 1940-1 when all seemed lost, right to focus on gaining US support as the key to winning the war, right to support the USSR during the war but also right to see the danger she would pose after it.
- His courage, energy, self-confidence & above all his rhetorical skill inspired GB at her moment of greatest peril in 1940. He raised morale by insisting that GB would never surrender (“we shall fight them on the beaches”) & that “this was their finest hour”.
- Despite finding Churchill infuriating & impossible to work with Brooke (Chief of the Imperial General Staff) wrote, “I should not have missed the chance of working with him for anything on earth”.
- Without him GB would probably have made a peace agreement in 1940 which would have left Nazi domination of Europe unchallenged. He skilfully retained the support of Halifax & Chamberlain by arguing that GB would have a stronger negotiating position if she was able to repel a German invasion, appearing to leave the door to peace open.
- The attack on the French navy at Mers-el-Kebir convinced President Roosevelt GB was determined to continue the war & was therefore worth supporting; this outweighed the damage to relations with France, which had already surrendered.
- Churchill made a brave & correct decision to send British forces to N Africa in 1940, judging correctly that the danger of invasion had passed & the Mediterranean was crucial. It also played to GB’s strengths, especially her naval superiority, & enabled her to gain much needed victories against relatively weak Axis forces.
- Douglas Porch has argued that Churchill was right to argue for the invasions of N Africa & Italy in 1942-3: they diverted 100s of 1,000s of Germans from the Eastern Front, gave the British & US armies valuable experience of fighting the Germans in campaigns they could win & knocked Italy out of the war. If the US had followed Churchill’s proposal to land further east, victory in N Africa would have been achieved more quickly.
19
Q
8
Assess how far they support the view that Churchill was a great wartime leader - NO
A
- Churchill had many faults as a war leader: he was self-centred, impatient, often unfair in his judgement of his generals (especially, according to Corrigan, his sackings of Wavell & Auchinleck). He was exasperating to work for: as Brooke put it, ‘Winston had ten ideas every day, only one of which was good, and he did not know which it was’. He was saved from many strategic errors by Brooke, his brilliant Chief of the General Staff.
- He made serious strategic errors: in the Norwegian campaign he insisted on ships being sent without air support, troops or equipment b/c he was so impatient to attack the Germans. He was lucky that the failure of this campaign, for which as First Lord of the Admiralty he was partly responsible, enabled him to become PM.
- He tended to be over-influenced by political considerations: his desperation to keep France in the war in 1940 led to him ordering Gort to attack south, away from the coast, & only Gort’s disobedience of this order saved the BEF. Similarly, Dowding had to threaten to resign to force Churchill to let him hold the fighters back for the Battle of Britain.
- Churchill’s decision to attack the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir caused the death of 1,300 French sailors, was railroaded through by Churchill despite the scepticism of both Cabinet colleagues & the Admiralty & seriously damaged Anglo-French relations.
- Churchill constantly urged Wavell to attack the Italians in N Africa before he was ready; Wavell was right to wait until December 1940 when the time was ripe.
- The diversion of much needed forces from N Africa to Greece in spring 1941 meant the chance to finish the N African campaign before the Germans arrived was lost. It made no military sense & was politically motivated; in particular Churchill hoped it would appeal to US public opinion.
- Charmley & Clark have accused Churchill of being too quick to support the USSR in 1941, therefore paving the way for Soviet domination of Eastern Europe & committing GB to a prolonged war, which bankrupted her, destroyed her Empire & left her totally dependent on the USA. Clark even argues that GB should have withdrawn from the war in 1941.
- Support for Churchill was not unanimous: he faced 2 votes of no confidence in 1941 & a censure motion in 1942 following the humiliating defeats at Singapore in Feb. 1942 & Tobruk in June 1942 when the British surrendered to numerically inferior enemy forces.
20
Q
4
Assess how far they support the view that the Conservatives lost the 1945 general election because of social changes -SOCIAL CHANGE
A
- The Beveridge Report which advocated benefits for the sick, widowed, retired, unemployed & families paid for by weekly National Insurance contributions was widely supported & (although Beveridge himself was a Liberal & the Tories promised to implement his Report) people trusted Labour more than Churchill & the Conservatives to deliver it b/c it was thought to be more in line with Labour’s Socialist ideas than Tory free enterprise. In fact Churchill said privately that “the government had gone further with Beveridge than he would have gone himself” & that Beveridge was “an awful windbag & a dreamer”. When he claimed in 1945 to support free school milk, the Welfare State & govt. intervention in the economy he was not believed b/c he had never supported these things before.
- The unprecedented degree of govt. intervention in the economy which was necessary to win WW2 was seen as a success for Socialism & in many ways a model for the social changes people wanted to see after the war, e.g. free school milk to improve the nutrition of working class children, Factory Acts to improve health & safety at work, the Wages Council Act which improved wages for the low paid & more generous welfare benefits following the abolition of the means test which humiliated poor people by forcing them to prove their need for benefits. Even Churchill’s own daughter admitted that “Socialism as practised in the war never did anyone any harm & quite a lot of people good. The children of the country have never been so well-fed or healthy … this common sharing & sacrifice was one of the strongest bonds that united us. So why cannot this continue into peace?”
- Servicemen were even more likely to vote Labour than other people b/c they often resented their officers (who were thought to owe their positions to a privileged background rather than their military ability) & wanted the better society they thought they had risked their lives for. They wanted a more meritocratic & socially mobile society in which people could rise up the social scale despite coming from a poor background according to their ability as opposed to a deferential society in which people from an upper class background were automatically looked up to by their supposed inferiors b/c of what their father did for a living or what school they went to. A vote for Labour was seen as a vote for social mobility as opposed to deference.
- Better housing was a key issue following the prevalence of “slum” housing in the pre-war years & the destruction of 2 million homes during the war. The Tories were associated with the “slums” of the 1930s & Labour more trusted to prioritise building decent homes for the poor.
21
Q
3
Assess how far they support the view that the Conservatives lost the 1945 general election because of social changes - OTHER FACTORS
A
- Despite Churchill’s personal opposition to the appeasement of Hitler, most Conservatives had
supported it while Labour had opposed it so many blamed the Tories for it. - Churchill made a big mistake in claiming that Labour would introduce a kind of Gestapo; this was absurd given the huge contribution to the war effort in the wartime coalition with Attlee as Deputy Prime Minister working v closely with Churchill & Bevin organising war production as Labour Secretary. Labour had always been clearer than the Tories in their opposition to Fascism.
- Socialism was fashionable at that time (unlike today) b/c the USSR was widely admired as the main architect of Hitler’s defeat; even Churchill himself
22
Q
7
Assess how far they support the view that Churchill was the dominant force in his wartime relationship with President Roosevelt - YES
A
- Roosevelt was convinced into passing the Lend Lease Act in March 1941 giving $31.6 billion of assistance to the British war effort.
· While the Atlantic Charter in August 1941 did make an aim of self-determination, something which had the potential to undermine the British Empire, most notably in India, it was vague enough not to force specific action by the British and did tie America into supporting the UK. Although the USA had not yet entered the war the Charter referred to “the destruction of Nazi tyranny”.
- Churchill was able to resist US & Soviet pressure for an invasion of France before 1944: with insufficient US troops available, the bulk of the landing force would have had to be British & the battle against the U-boats was not won until May 1943, nor air superiority until April 1944. This gave Churchill significant leverage with Roosevelt in the early years of the alliance.
- Despite pressure from his own generals (they wanted a French invasion titled ‘Sledgehammer’) Roosevelt therefore felt he had no choice when he met Churchill at Casablanca in 1942 but to accept Churchill’s Med strategy.
- The result was the invasions of N Africa & Italy in 1942-3: they diverted 100s of 1,000s of Germans from the Eastern Front, gave the British & US armies valuable experience of fighting the Germans in campaigns they could win & knocked Italy out of the war. Roosevelt was persuaded to focus on winning in Europe first before fully turning to Japan.
- By 1944 Roosevelt and Churchill were able to agree that there should be free and democratic elections in post war Europe with nothing explicit said about the British Empire.
- The commanders of the land, sea & air forces invading France in 1944 were all British.
23
Q
7
Assess how far they support the view that Churchill was the dominant force in his wartime relationship with President Roosevelt - NO
A
- The destroyers provided by the USA in 1940-1 were obsolete but GB was so desperate for them they had to give up some bases in return.
British dependence on Lend Lease gave the Americans power in the relationship. The USA took Britain’s gold reserves in South Africa as security for Lend Lease and made large profits from supplying arms. - The Atlantic Charter’s declaration in favour of self-determination of all people of the world potentially threatened the British Empire, especially in India.
- Churchill had to work very hard to maintain the partnership with Roosevelt, much harder that than the American which could be seen to reflect the power balance in the US favour. Roosevelt was slow to offer support partly because of domestic issues but partly because he suspected that Churchill was more concerned with British imperial interests than defeating Germany & Japan.
- By June 1944 half of the ground troops were US and after the failure at Arnhem (operation Market Garden) in 1944 the British were increasingly bypassed in command decisions.
By February 1945 there were twice as many US troops as British on the main Western Front. - It was the Americans who won the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-45 and secured the Rhine crossing at Remagen in 1945 (succeeding where the British had failed at Arnhem).
- Roosevelt refused to meet Churchill privately in Tehran in 1943 to decide on a joint policy towards Stalin. Churchill’s Balkan plan to head off Soviet gains in Eastern Europe was rejected by Roosevelt, who saw it as a pointless distraction from fighting in France & western Germany.
- At Quebec in 1944 Churchill got no commitment for post war financial assistance. By 1945 GB had a debt of £21 billion & had to borrow a further $4.3 billion from the USA to keep afloat.
24
Q
6
How far was Churchill was weak in his dealings with the Soviet Union in the years 1944–5? - WEAK
A
- Churchill failed to convince Roosevelt of the threat of the USSR and was side-lined when Stalin and Roosevelt had a private meeting at Tehran in 1943. Faced with humiliating put downs by Roosevelt, he did not hide his displeasure and lost his composure. For example when Roosevelt joked with Stalin Churchill visibly reddened.
- Even more importantly, Roosevelt sided with Stalin at this conference, forcing a reluctant Churchill to sideline his Mediterranean strategy & agree to an invasion of France in 1944.
- In a desperate attempt to restore GB’s declining influence, Churchill did a cynical deal in 1944 to allow Stalin 90% influence in Romania & 75% in Bulgaria in return for 90% British influence in Greece. By Churchill’s own admission, it immediately occurred to him, “might it not be thought rather cynical if it seemed we have disposed of these issues so fateful to millions of people in such an offhand manner?” He later referred to this agreement as a “naughty document”.
- Churchill was giving the “green light” to a Soviet takeover of Romania & Bulgaria but the reality was even worse than that b/c Stalin also took over Hungary (which was meant to 50/50 in the 1944 agreement) as well as Czechoslovakia, Poland & eastern Germany (not mentioned at all).
- At Yalta in Feb. 1945 he was forced to accept that Poland would fall under Soviet influence and lose her eastern territories in post war Europe. This was embarrassing b/c GB had supposedly gone to war to defend Polish independence & accepting the pro-Soviet Lublin Committee as the legitimate Polish govt. meant denying that status to the Polish govt. in exile (representing the pre-war anti-Communist regime) which was based in London. It also meant that Polish soldiers fighting on the British side from the eastern territories which the USSR would now keep would not be able to return to their homes; 30 committed suicide in protest. Feeling against this in GB was so strong that Churchill faced a 3-day debate on a motion of no confidence in which 25 MPs signed a motion protesting against the agreement & one Conservative MP resigned his seat.
- Similarly Churchill was forced to agree at Potsdam in July 1945 to hand over 25% of German land to the USSR & Communist Poland. Churchill disagreed with this, fearing that it would make Germany bitter & resentful (like the Treaty of Versailles), but he had no choice but to agree b/c the Red Army controlled this area & (as over Poland) the USA refused to back him in resisting the Soviet demands.
25
Q
5
How far was Churchill was weak in his dealings with the Soviet Union in the years 1944–5? - NOT WEAK
A
- The sheer scale of the Red Army’s contribution and victory in the East (85% of German casualties occurred on the Eastern Front) resulted in Churchill needing Stalin much more by 1943 than Stalin needed Britain. Any leader would have struggled under these circumstances.
- Churchill managed to maintain a reasonable working relationship with Stalin despite his hatred of Communism & Stalin’s suspicion of him as the main advocate of British intervention against the Communists in the Russian Civil War in 1919. They shared a fondness for alcohol and Stalin seemed to have respected Churchill’s position on some issues,
e.g. the bombing of Germany which diverted significant German resources from the Eastern Front. - Until the Tehran Conference in November 1943 Churchill managed to fend off Stalin’s demands for a “2nd Front” in France.
- Stalin accepted Churchill’s division of power at their meeting in 1944 and did not support the Communists against the British in Greece.
- Churchill was determined to promote Britain’s position. He travelled to 16 conferences compared to 12 for Roosevelt and 7 for Stalin.
26
Q
3
DID CHURCHILL’S LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF DE GAULLE LEAD TO POOR RELATIONS BETWEEN THEM? - YES
A
- De Gaulle constantly accused both GB & the USA (“the Anglo-Saxon powers” as he called them) of failing to understand or sympathise with the status he thought he was entitled to as the leader of the “Free French” forces & saviour of France (even though he was only a brigadier general & Under Secretary for War).
- For a time in 1943, Churchill found De Gaulle so infuriating (he also knew Roosevelt hated him) that he seriously considered removing him as leader of the Free French forces based in GB. By autumn of that year Churchill was finally persuaded by his War Cabinet that De Gaulle had so much more support than any other possible leader that there was no alternative to him.
- Churchill lost his temper with De Gaulle just before D Day in June 1944 when De Gaulle criticised British plans, accusing him of “treason” & telling him to his face that GB had to choose between France & the USA as her main ally, she would always choose the USA. De Gaulle never forgot this & it influenced his later policy (after the war) of allying with W Germany b/c he didn’t trust either GB or the USA. He blocked British entry into the EEC in 1963.
27
Q
6
DID CHURCHILL’S LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF DE GAULLE LEAD TO POOR RELATIONS BETWEEN THEM? - NO
A
- Even his fellow Frenchmen found De Gaulle impossible to work with: in 1937 a general who had taught him at the St Cyr military academy described him as having a “cold & lofty attitude” & was he was not even promoted to colonel until the end of that year.
- De Gaulle’s suspicion that Churchill wanted to seize parts of France’s colonial empire were completely unfounded: the British attacked Dakar in West Africa in 1940 in an unsuccessful attempt to hand it over to the Free French. Syria & Madagascar, which were conquered by British forces in 1941 & 1942 respectively, were immediately handed over to the Free French rather than being absorbed into the British Empire.
- Churchill understood De Gaulle far better than De Gaulle understood him, recognising that “although in exile, dependent upon our protection and dwelling in our midst, he had to be rude to the British to prove to French eyes that he was not a British puppet. He certainly carried out this policy with perseverance”. He also said, “I have never forgotten, and can never forget, that he stood forth as the first eminent Frenchman to face the common foe in what seemed to be the hour of ruin of his country and possibly, of ours”.
- Just before D Day Churchill arranged for De Gaulle to be flown to GB & invited him to broadcast to the French people; De Gaulle refused b/c the script did not acknowledge his claim (without an election) to be the leader of France. He called Churchill a “gangster” & accused the British of wanting to flood France with “false money”.
- Despite this, Churchill agreed to De Gaulle becoming the provisional leader of France following the liberation of Paris in 1944.
- In fact Churchill genuinely loved France, as shown by his constant advocacy of a French alliance against Hitler in the 1930s, his attempt to unite France with GB as a way of keeping France in the war in 1940 & his proposal that France be given a zone of occupation in Germany after the war. Far more than Roosevelt, he was convinced that a strong France was essential to the European balance of power.
28
Q
4
ASSESS THE VIEW THAT CHURCHILL DID NOT TREAT POLAND FAIRLY AT THE YALTA CONFERENCE IN FEBRUARY 1945
A
- At Yalta it was agreed that the Communist govt. already installed in Poland (the Lublin Committee) by the USSR should be recognised provided it was established “on a broader democratic basis” & “free elections” were held. In practice this meant nothing b/c the Red Army controlled Poland so Churchill had no choice but to accept Stalin’s definition of “democracy” & “free elections” (as also happened later in the Soviet zone of Germany). By 1947 Poland was firmly under Communist control & 1,000s of anti-Communists had been arrested or even shot.
- The Polish eastern border would follow the Curzon Line, which meant Stalin would keep most or all of the eastern Polish territory he had taken in the Nazi-Soviet Pact just before the outbreak of war in 1939. This meant that Polish soldiers from those areas fighting on the British side would not be able to return to their homes (30 of them committed suicide in protest against this) & millions of Poles still living there would be forcibly moved to the west. Stalin’s proposal that Poland be compensated by being given territory in eastern Germany on Poland’s western borders was accepted.
- The agreements on Poland were awkward for Churchill b/c GB had gone to war to defend Poland’s borders in 1939 & many Poles had fought bravely on the British side in the Battle of Britain, North Africa & Italy. Churchill’s concessions to Stalin angered the Polish government in exile (representing the anti-Communist pre-war Polish govt.) which was based in London. He was also concerned that giving Poland too much German land would cause hostility between Germany & Poland, which was exactly what Stalin intended (b/c it would force Poland to turn to the USSR for protection).
- The feeling in GB that Poland had been treated unfairly was so strong that Churchill had to face a 3-day debate in the House of Commons in February 1945 in which 25 MPs drafted an amendment condemning the agreement & one Conservative MP resigned his seat in protest.
29
Q
5
What was agreed at the Tehran, Yalta & Potsdam Conferences regarding the future of Germany?
A
- It was agreed at Tehran in November 1943 that Germany would be divided after the war so she could no longer pose a military threat but nothing was decided at this stage b/c the war was still far from won.
- It was agreed at Yalta February 1945 (by which time Germany had already been invaded from both sides) that Germany must surrender unconditionally, i.e. she would have to agree to whatever terms her enemies chose to impose on her. This had originally been agreed by Churchill & Roosevelt at Casablanca in 1942 & was designed to reassure Stalin that GB & the USA would not make a separate deal with Germany leaving the USSR to fight Germany alone. When the German forces offered to surrender to the Western Allies alone in 1945, Eisenhower (the commander of the Western Allied forces) insisted that they surrender to the USSR at the same time.
- It was also agreed that Germany would be divided into 4 zones of occupation, not just British, US & Soviet but also French. Churchill argued strongly for a French zone, partly b/c he was genuinely pro-French & partly b/c he wanted an extra Western power to “gang up” against Stalin, who agreed to this proposal only on condition that it was the French zone should be taken out of the British & US zones, not the Soviet one.
- Germany would undergo demilitarization (she would be disarmed & any industry making weapons of war would be dismantled) and denazification (for the West this meant introducing democracy, for the USSR it meant abolishing capitalism). German reparations were partly to be in the form of forced labour. The forced labour was to be used to repair damage that Germany had inflicted on its victims. Nazi war criminals were to be found, and put on trial in the territories where their crimes had been committed; Nazi leaders were to be executed.
- The Potsdam Conference in July 1945 (just after the German surrender) confirmed almost everything that was agreed at Yalta but in more detail: it was agreed that northern East Prussia would be given to the USSR & southern East Prussia, Pomerania & Silesia to Poland. This meant Germany lost 25% of her pre-war territory (twice as much as in the Treaty of Versailles) & 11 million Germans were forcibly expelled from these areas & the Sudetenland, which was returned to Czechoslovakia. Churchill thought this would weaken & anger Germany to a dangerous extent (like the Treaty of Versailles), but there was little he could do b/c Stalin’s Red Army controlled all these areas & in the middle of the conference he lost the election & was replaced by Attlee as PM.
30
Q
6
What were Churchill’s plans for post war Europe and his attitude to post-war Europe and Empire?
A
- Churchill spoke in favour of greater European unity in Zurich in 1946. He believed in the concept of ‘The European family and urged a ‘United States of Europe’.
- He did not see greater links with Europe as incompatible with other international links such as with the United Nations or British Commonwealth.
- He had a history of promoting European co-operation. He had supported Briand’s idea of a European union in 1930 and had offered to unite Britain and France in 1940.
- He spoke of reducing trade barriers and promoting economic co-operation in Europe.
- He agreed with the establishment of the Council of Europe in 1949, with 800 influential Europeans meeting to establish a forum for co-operation.
- He was a frequent visitor to Europe and had supported involvement in two world wars to maintain the balance of power in Europe.
31
Q
5
What were Churchill’s plans for post war Europe and his attitude to post-war Europe and Empire? BUT
A
- Despite advocating a major role for Britain in a more united Europe, Churchill still believed in Britain’s imperial role and the maintenance of the empire.
- Therefore Britain’s closest economic ties were still with the commonwealth and Empire. Britain’s closest military relationship was with the USA.
- Post war Europe was still suffering the effects of war. Germany was divided into occupation zones and in 1949 into two separate countries East and West.
- France and Britain’s relationship had been damaged by the war. Britain resented French surrender and many French had supported the Vichy regime. Even De Gaulle and the Free French were not on good terms with Churchill.
- Thus while Churchill supported post-war European institutions like the European Coal and Steel Community he did not advocate joining them
32
Q
4
CHURCHILL’S IRON CURTAIN SPEECH 1946 - was unwise
A
- He showed an insensitive disregard for the losses the USSR had suffered during WW2 & their desire for security resulting from this. Stalin estimated that 7 million Soviet citizens had died in WW2, which as he pointed out was “several times more than Britain and the United States together”.
- Given that Germany had invaded Russia through Poland in both world wars & that Romania & Hungary had participated in the German invasion, it was arguable that the USSR had a right to ensure that those & other neighbouring countries like Czechoslovakia & Bulgaria had governments friendly towards the USSR. This was security not “expansionism” as Churchill called it.
- Many people even in GB & the USA thought Churchill went too far in condemning a country which had so recently been their ally against Hitler & had inflicted 85% of German casualties during WW2; it had, as Churchill himself admitted, been the Soviet army not the British or US which “tore the guts out of Hitler’s war machine”. The Chicago Sun newspaper called his speech “poisonous” & there were hostile demonstrations outside his hotel in New York. Even Truman did not at first publicly support what Churchill had said.
- Churchill included Yugoslavia as on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain even though it was independent of Soviet control.
33
Q
5
CHURCHILL’S IRON CURTAIN SPEECH 1946 - was wise
A
- The part of Churchill’s speech which referred to the “Iron Curtain” is often quoted out of context, ignoring the fact that Churchill also expressed his “strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade Marshal Stalin”, denied that the USSR wanted for war & called for a general peace settlement negotiated through the newly formed United Nations.
- Truman must have known how strongly anti-Communist Churchill was & he largely shared Churchill’s views even though he didn’t at first say so publicly. Many of his advisers, notably George Kennan, believed that Russia (whether Tsarist or Communist) would always aim to expand her territory & would need to be contained.
- Stalin’s behaviour in Poland, where he had deliberately allowed the Nazis to crush the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, showed that he had no intention of allowing the Poles to decide their own future, even though this was theoretically the cause GB had gone to war for in 1939.
- Churchill’s speech was premature for some people but he was soon proved right by the ruthless suppression of democracy throughout Eastern Europe; by 1948 Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria & even the Soviet zone of Germany (later E Germany) had all been subjected to Communist dictatorships subservient to the USSR. As early as 1947 Truman announced that the USA would act militarily to stop the expansion of
- Communism to any country not already controlled it by it (the “Truman Doctrine” or “containment”).
34
Q
7
Did Churchill manage to preserve Britain’s place in the World? - YES
A
- Britain managed to maintain its links with the Empire and gained considerable support from its dominions and colonies.
- It sustained an alliance with both the USSR and USA and up until 1944 played a major role in determining the way the war would be fought. It did this without committing major land forces to Europe.
- Britain managed to get the Empire to support the war effort in spite of major nationalist movements in places like India and not all the Empire was lost by the end of the 1940s
- The USA was persuaded to support Britain in North Africa and prioritise Europe over the Pacific despite their own interests in the region.
Despite signing the Atlantic Charter Britain was not forced to commit to ending the Empire (although in the long term this happened). - Churchill was able to postpone D-Day until 1944 despite pressure as the invading force would be mainly British, giving Churchill a veto over American action.
- Operation Market Garden shows Britain still had a role in strategy after D-day (although this was a failure). The commanders of land, sea & air forces at D-day were all British (although under the overall command of Eisenhower, who was American).
- Slightly more than half of the soldiers who landed on the Normandy beaches were under British command (though not all of them were British) & the ships carrying them were mainly British.
35
Q
5
Did Churchill manage to preserve Britain’s place in the World? - NO
A
- The war built a momentum in India which ended in division and independence in 1947. This was done against a backdrop of violence which the British were unable (and in some instances unwilling) to stop.
- As the war progressed it became increasingly apparent that the USA was taking the leading role on the Western Front. Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander from 1944 and the British Plan of Market Garden in September of that year was a failure.
- By 1943 Churchill’s contribution to the conferences was becoming less important. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad had put them in the driving seat for the defeat of Germany and this was reflected in their increasing influence Tehran conference when Roosevelt & Stalin ganged up on Churchill to make sure the invasion of France went ahead in 1944.
- By Yalta Churchill was forced to face decisions which showed the lack of British power and influence, most notably the fact he could not protect Poland from Soviet control despite the fact that protecting Poland from
- Germany was the reason Britain went to war in the first place. US economic power dwarfed UK, producing at least 4 times as many tanks & aircraft as GB in 1944-5. WW2 was a pyrrhic victory in economic terms, leaving GB $28 billion in debt by 1945
36
Q
2
CONSERVATIVE DOMINANCE 1951-64
A
The Conservatives won 3 successive general elections in 1951, 1955 & 1959:
- Their number of seats rose from 321 to 355.
- Their majority was 16 in 1951, 59 in 1955 & 99 in 1959.
- Their share of the vote reached 48-49 % in all 3 elections.
The Prime Ministers were as follows:
- Winston Churchill 1951-5
- Anthony Eden 1955-7
- Harold MacMillan 1957-63
- Alec Douglas Home 1963-4
13 years of Conservative rule ended with Labour’s narrow election victory in 1964.
37
Q
6
WHY DID THE CONSERVATIVES WIN THE 1951 ELECTION? - Conservative Strengths
A
- The Labour vote actually rose by 2 million but the Tory vote rose by more: 4 million, so in that sense it was more of a Tory victory than a Labour defeat. Labour lost the election despite actually getting more votes than the Tories.
- The Liberals only contested 109 seats & in the seats they didn’t contest (roughly 80%) more of their votes went to the Tories than Labour.
- Between 1945, learning from their defeat, the Tories rethought both their policies & their organisation far more effectively than Labour did. Lord Woolton reformed party finances & local organisation.
- They accepted the popular Labour policies like full employment, the Welfare State & housebuilding (in fact they promised to build 300,000 houses a year compared with 200,000 under Labour) but to ditch unpopular ones like rationing & high taxation.
- The Tories had an influx of talented young politicians like Reginald Maudling.
- Despite his defeat in 1945, Churchill was still popular & hugely respected.
38
Q
4
WHY DID THE CONSERVATIVES WIN THE 1951 ELECTION? - Labour weaknesses
A
- In some ways 1945 had been a bad election to win: it meant that Labour were in government at a time when austerity was necessary b/c the war had crippled the British economy. Taxes had to be raised & rationing to be not merely continued but even added to (bread wasn’t rationed until after the war). The NHS was set up but unpopular charges had to be introduced for dental treatment, prescriptions & glasses b/c money was so tight.
- Labour could be accused of going too far in nationalising iron & steel, which the Tories promised to reverse. By 1951 nationalisation & state control were less popular than in 1945.
- 6 years in opposition had united the Tories whereas Labour were divided: charismatic Health Minister Aneurin Bevan resigned over health charges & there was criticism of Labour’s strongly anti-Soviet foreign policy, especially in the Korean War.
- Labour had been re-elected in 1950 but with their majority slashed to 5, giving the impression that they were tired & running out of steam.
39
Q
3
WHY DID THE CONSERVATIVES WIN THE 1951 ELECTION? - Electoral system
A
- Labour lost the election b/c they got fewer seats than the Tories but more votes. This was possible b/c GB has a “first past the post” system in which you win a seat if you get more votes than any other party (a plurality) but not necessarily a majority & regardless of how many more votes you get than the opposition. It makes no difference whether you get 1 more vote or 30,000. The problem for Labour in 1951 was that they piled up unnecessarily large majorities in safe seats in Wales & the North while losing vital marginal seats in the South & Midlands.
- Boundary changes designed to equalise the population in each constituency had the effect of favouring the Tories: on average it took 47,000 votes to elect a Labour MP but less than 43,000 to elect a Tory.
- The Tories benefited more from the decline of the Liberal vote (they only stood in about 20% of seats) than Labour b/c the Liberals were a middle class party strongest in the South.
40
Q
7
How successful were Conservative economic policies during the period from 1951 to 1964? - successes
A
- They were able to use economic policy to help win elections, Macmillan won the 1959 election with his logan, “you’ve never had it so good”.
- Economic growth allowed the Tories to increased spending on the NHS & housing while also cutting taxes at the same time, especially before the 1955 & 1959 elections.
- They could also afford to increase the old age pension by 50% 1951-64. They achieved their target of building 300,000 more houses per year ahead of schedule.
- Policies around credit and housing improved the standard of living; home ownership rose from 25% to 44% 1951-64, achieving the Tory dream of a “property owning democracy”.
- More people had consumer goods like fridges, TVs & washing machines. 5 times as many people owned a car in 1964 as in 1951 & TV ownership rose from 4% to 91%.
- They gained from the recovery following the Korean War and the ending of austerity, including the abolition of rationing in 1954. People contrasted prosperity under the Tories with austerity under Labour.
- Unemployment remained low in the 1950s, not reaching 500,000 until 1959.
41
Q
6
How successful were Conservative economic policies during the period from 1951 to 1964? - failures
A
- Tory economic policy had been very short term, focused on manufacturing booms in election years (e.g. 1959) & in correcting short term fluctuations in the economy, raising taxes & interest rates if it was growing too fast & causing inflation, or cutting them to stimulate growth if it stagnated. This “stop-go” cycle resulted from the absence of a long-term strategy.
- Their policies slowed down recovery and growth and increased the deficit. Too much was spent on defence as opposed to investment in industrial development.
- This led to a decline in major industries such as textiles, shipbuilding, coal & engineering, partly b/c both management & trade unions were resistant to change. They did not invest sufficiently in industrial research, resulting in a growing trade deficit (imports exceeded exports) b/c the British economy was not competitive enough.
- Growth was less than elsewhere in Europe, especially West Germany which enabled them to have old age pensions twice as generous as GB’s.
- Unemployment rose from 500,000 to 800,000 1959-63 & inflation rose to, creating “stagflation”..
- Success was based on borrowing and consumer credit. There was no overall policy and the government simply responded to events with stop-go policies.
42
Q
6
REASONS FOR CONSERVATIVE DOMINANCE - Social Change & Prosperity
A
- The combination of social change, population movement & changes in constituency boundary changes favoured the Tories b/c the number of working class voters (who mainly voted Labour)fell while the number of middle class voters (who mainly voted Tory) rose. There was also a shift in population from the (mainly Labour voting) big cities to suburban & rural areas which mainly voted Tory, e.g. from London to Surrey. The boundary changes reflected this, so there were fewer urban (mainly Labour voting) urban seats & more suburban & rural ones which were much more likely to vote Tory.
- The Tory idea of a “property owning democracy” appealed to those who aspired to rise from working to middle class status. The % of people who owned their home rose from 25% in 1951 to 44% in 1964.
- Economic circumstances favoured the Tories: they came to power in 1951 just when the world economy started to grow & the need for austerity was much reduced: rationing could be ended & taxes cut while still increasing public spending on housing & health. In fact they were able to keep their promise of building 300,000 houses a year ahead of schedule.
- There was virtually full employment throughout the 50s. There were some economic problems in 1958 but by 1959 when the election was held the economy was booming again.
- Elections were fought mainly on economic issues, like the promise to build 300,000 houses a year in 1951 & MacMillan’s “you’ve never had it so good” slogan in 1959. Income tax was cut just before the elections in both 1955 & 1959. Wages more than doubled 1951-64 & rose much faster than prices so people were better off as well as working shorter hours.
- More people had consumer goods like fridges & TV washing machines. 5 times as many people owned a car in 1964 as in 1951 & TV membership rose from 4% to 91%.
43
Q
5
REASONS FOR CONSERVATIVE DOMINANCE - Conservative Leadership
A
- Tory ministers like Butler, Maudling, Powell & MacLeod deserve credit for devising popular policies to take advantage of this situation.
- MacMillan timed elections skilfully to ensure victory: he delayed the election under his premiership until 1959 when the economy was booming & memories of Suez had faded.
- Churchill’s popularity stemming from his war record was an asset to the Tories in 1951. Eden’s glamour & popularity (especially with female voters) was an asset in 1955, before Suez.
- MacMillan’s presentational skills, earning the press nickname “Supermac”, contributed to a landslide victory in 1959.
- In 1964, when the Tories had in Home a much less popular leader than his Labour opponent, they lost.
44
Q
3
REASONS FOR CONSERVATIVE DOMINANCE - NOT Conservative leadership
A
- Churchill during his 2nd premiership (1951-5) was little more than a figurehead, focusing mainly on foreign policy & leaving domestic policy largely to others. When he suffered a serious stroke in 1953 & was incapacitated for several weeks, no one seemed to notice!
- Eden proved to be an incompetent PM: like Churchill he was preoccupied with foreign affairs & neglected domestic policy. His disastrous error of judgement in sending British troops to seize control of the Suez Canal in 1956 without US support led to his resignation after only 2 years as PM, using ill health as an excuse.
- Even Macmillan, undoubtedly the ablest of the 4 Tory PMs 1951-64, severely misjudged the “Night of the Long Knives” in 1962 when he gave the impression of panic by sacking 16 govt. ministers. He was also criticised by the Denning Report for being too slow to respond to the Profumo scandal in 1963, reinforcing the public perception that he had grown tired & out of touch. This forced him to resign, again using the excuse of ill health.
45
Q
6
REASONS FOR CONSERVATIVE DOMINANCE - Labour Weaknesses
A
- B/c of their experience under the 1945-51 Labour govt. the public associated the Party with austerity, rationing, high taxation & excessive govt. interference in their lives.
- It could be argued that Labour failed to adapt its policies to the changing economic & political climate, remaining too wedded to nationalisation (the nationalisation of iron & steel was especially controversial) & high taxation.
- Their share of the vote fell from 49% in 1951 to 44% in 1959.
- Labour was bitterly divided, especially after Hugh Gaitskell succeeded Attlee as leader in 1955. The Left, led by Aneurin Bevan, called for more nationalisation & strongly opposed Gaitskell’s plan to ditch Clause 4 of the Labour Party Constitution which committed them to nationalisation. This enabled the Tories to get away with mistakes like Suez.
- Labour were also divided over the Cold War & nuclear weapons. Bevan agreed that GB should have nuclear weapons but like other left wingers opposed allowing West Germany to rearm & join NATO in 1955. So bitter was the internal controversy that year that Bevan was temporarily expelled from the parliamentary party.
- The Labour left undermined Gaitskell’s leadership by defeating his plan to ditch Clause 4 & persuading the Party Conference in 1960 to adopt a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament (meaning GB should get rid of its nuclear weapons even if other countries didn’t). This was reversed a year later, showing how confused Labour’s policy was.
46
Q
5
REASONS FOR THE DECLINE IN CONSERVATIVE SUPPORT 1959-64 & THEIR ELECTION DEFEAT IN 1964 - The Economy
A
- British economic growth had lagged behind most other countries (especially West Germany but also France) throughout the 1951-64 period, but stagnated still further 1951-64.
- There was a growing trade deficit (imports exceeded exports) b/c the British economy was not competitive enough. Stagflation (stagnant economic growth combined with inflation) was an increasing problem. Unemployment reached 800,000 by 1963 & was especially bad in Scotland & northern England.
- There was a failure to modernise traditional industries like coal & engineering, partly b/c both management & trade unions were resistant to change.
- More days were lost in the early 60s due to strikes, especially involving dock workers.
- Tory economic policy had been very short term, focused on manufacturing booms in election years (e.g. 1959) & in correcting short term fluctuations in the economy, raising taxes & interest rates if it was growing too fast & causing inflation, or cutting them to stimulate growth if it stagnated. This “stop-go” cycle resulted from the absence of a long-term strategy.
47
Q
6
REASONS FOR THE DECLINE IN CONSERVATIVE SUPPORT 1959-64 & THEIR ELECTION DEFEAT IN 1964 - OTHER ISSUES
A
- Scandals like Vassall, Profumo & the Duchess of Argyll case discredited the Party & made it seem hypocritical.
- MacMillan was forced to resign in 1963 b/c he seemed increasingly tired & out of touch; the “Night of the Long Knives” in 1962 gave the impression that he was panicking & undermined the remaining ministers’ confidence in him. The Denning Report criticised him for responding too slowly to the Profumo scandal.
- Nevertheless Home was a disastrous choice to succeed him: choosing a titled aristocrat through a secretive process of “taking soundings” as opposed to an open democratic election reinforcd the increasingly widespread impression that they were a class ridden party out of touch with the modern world.
- This contrasted with the new Labour leader Harold Wilson (right), who came from a working class background, was witty & intelligent & gave the Labour Party a much more modern image with his “white heat of technology” speech. Wilson performed much better than Home on TV during the 1964 election campaign.
- Wilson promised faster economic growth, improved public services & more equality of opportunity for talented people from a working class background like himself.
- The Tories seemed increasingly out of touch with young people (this was the era of “Teddy boys” followed by “mods & rockers”) & with public concerns about immigration, despite the 1962 Immigration Act. There was a decline in deference & respect for authority, reflected in the “satire boom” of the early 60s with Private Eye magazine & the “That was the week that was” TV programme
48
Q
6
DID MACMILLAN DESERVE THE NICKNAME “SUPERMAC”? - Successes
A
- M had the sense to keep Labour’s popular policies, like full employment, building more houses (which he pioneered as Housing Minister 1951-4, building 300,000 houses a year compared with Labour’s 200,000) & spending more on the NHS & education while at the same time cutting taxes. This was possible b/c of the economic prosperity which marked most of his premiership, justifying his famous boast to the voters that they “had never had it so good”.
- This economic success plus his strong presentational skills enabled the Tories to win a landslide election victory in 1959, their 3rd in succession, enabling them to stay in power for 13 years. His slogan, “Life is better under the Conservatives; don’t let Labour ruin it” struck a chord with voters.
- He understood so well how to appeal to Labour voters that the former Labour PM Clement Attlee once said he could have led the Labour Party. He certainly outsmarted Hugh Gaitskell, who led the Labour opposition 1955-63.
- His biographer DR Thorpe argues that he could appeal to all sections of the electorate: he understood the educational aspirations of the lower middle class, had a good war record, was a successful businessman, appealed to intellectuals with his intellectual & literary interests & had the presentational skills to look & sound like a PM & to adapt to the TV era despite being 63 when he became PM.
- Realising the damage Eden’s Suez adventure had done to relations with the USA, M prioritised restoring the relationship by supporting the USA during the Berlin crisis in 1961 (when the Wall was built) & the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The United States supplied Polaris (a submarine launched nuclear missile), ensuring Britain a place at the nuclear top table.
- M’s “Winds of Change” speech in 1960, recognising the need for GB to give up her African colonies, showed courage & vision in the face of criticism from hardliners in his own party (including Churchill).
49
Q
6
DID MACMILLAN DESERVE THE NICKNAME “SUPERMAC”? - Failures
A
- As Chancellor of the Exchequer before he became PM he lacked the courage to introduce a Capital Gains Tax to tax unearned income, knowing it would be unpopular with his party. This forced him to cut govt. spending, slowing economic growth.
- Although the economy grew during most of his premiership, it grew less quickly than other major economies (especially West Germany), partly b/c of the “stop go” policies of his govt.
- The economic stagnation of the early 1960s led to a decline in Tory popularity, shown by the loss of the Orpington byelection in 1962.
- His “Night of the Long Knives” in 1962 was a serious misjudgement, conveying a sense of panic which undermined his carefully cultivated relaxed image.
- He was the first British PM to attempt to join the European Economic Community (EEC), as the EU was then known, but failed in this b/c the French president De Gaulle vetoed it.
- His public image as the relaxed “Edwardian gentleman” became a disadvantage as his slow reaction to the Vassall & Profumo scandals made him look out of touch, especially when Gaitskell was replaced by Wilson with his modern, “man of the people” image. This all contributed to M having to resign as PM in 1963.
50
Q
7
“NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD” OR “13 WASTED YEARS”? - “13 Wasted Years”
A
- Tory “stop-go” policies led to economic stagnation, causing to a recession in 1958.
- The Tories were more concerned with creating temporary economic booms to enable them to win elections in 1955 & 1959 than with tackling GB’s fundamental economic problems.
- This & excessive defence spending (resulting from an exaggerated view of GB’s status as a great power) led to the British economy growing much more slowly than West Germany’s or France’s.
- This & persistent balance of trade deficits reflected the basic uncompetitiveness of the British economy which the Tories failed to tackle.
- Churchill & Eden were preoccupied with foreign rather than domestic policy & Eden’s handling of Suez showed catastrophic misjudgement.
- By the early 60s, with the economy stagnating & Macmillan’s mishandling of the Night of the Long Knives & the 1963 scandals, there was a growing perception that the Tories were out of touch with the modern world & running out of steam.
- It could be argued that Tory dominance was due more to having a divided Labour opposition than to their own strengths; when Labour finally got their act together in 1964 the Tories were defeated.
51
Q
5
“NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD” OR “13 WASTED YEARS”? - “Never had it so good”
A
- Living standards rose continuously 1951-64 with wages rising faster than prices; as Sked & Cook put it, “everyone from the middle-aged mum with her domestic appliances to teenagers with transistor radios” benefited.
- By 1959 most families had a washing machine & the % with a TV rose 40-70% 1955-9.
- This was much better than the austerity years (with high taxes & increased rationing) during WW2 & under Labour 1945-51 & the high unemployment & poverty of the 1930s.
- The Tories managed to cut taxes while still improving public services: Churchill boasted in 1954 that they had “improved all the social services & are spending more this year on them than any Government at any time”.
- GB had virtually full employment.
52
Q
6
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - Social reform
A
They passed a number of progressive social reforms including:
- The Race Relations Acts in 1968 & 1976 to ban racial discrimination
- The Equal Pay & Sex Discrimination Acts in 1970 & 1975.
- The virtual abolition of the death penalty in 1965. Making contraception available on the NHS in 1967.
- The legalisation of abortion & homosexuality in 1967.
- Ending of censorship of the theatre by the Lord Chamberlain in 1968
- Lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 in 1969.
53
Q
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - NOT social reform
A
BUT social conservatives claimed that the changes regarding abortion, homosexuality, contraception & censorship encouraged sexual promiscuity & undermined family values. The abolition of the death penalty was opposed by most of the public.
54
Q
2
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - Economy
A
- The IMF loan, controversial as it was, averted economic crisis & enabled Labour to reduce inflation from 26% to only 10% in 2 years 1975-7.
- Labour improved GB’s transport infrastructure by building motorways, especially in the North.
55
Q
4
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - NOT economy
A
- Labour’s National Plan, introduced in 1965, failed b/c the Treasury’s deflationary policy made it impossible to expand the economy as Labour hoped & the unions refused to accept that wage rises must be linked to higher productivity (production per worker).
- Both govts. failed to tackle GB’s fundamental economic problems, with unemployment rising under both govts. (it reached 2.3 million by 1967) & major inflation in the 1970s fuelled by rising oil prices & excessively generous pay rises (like the 29% for the miners in 1974). In fact inflation reached nearly 26% in 1975. British economic performance, especially in the 1970s, was increasingly characterised by stagflation. By 1979 the Tories were able to claim that GB had become “the sick man of Europe”.
- They failed to grasp the nettle of reforming & slimming down declining industries like coal, steel & shipbuilding. These industries & textiles continued to decline.
- The need to devalue the £ in 1967 & take a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1976 showed the incompetence of Labour’s overall economic management. The terms of the IMF forced the Labour govt. to cut NHS spending more drastically than Thatcher ever did.
56
Q
2
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - NOT Political Survival
A
- Wilson led a talented but divided Cabinet which, according to Barbara Castle, devoted ¾ of its time to personal arguments rather than governing the country.
- Labour needed the support of other parties to survive 1977-9 but lost the support of the Scottish National Party (SNP) by allowing the “40% rule” in the 1979 referendum on Scottish devolution which led to the defeat of devolution although more Scots voted for it than against b/c at least 40% of the electorate (not just those who actually voted) had to vote for it. AS a result the SNP proposed the “vote of no confidence” which brought the Labour govt. down in 1979.
57
Q
2
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - Political Survival
A
- Labour governments were able to survive despite having small or no majorities: they survived 1964-6 (impressing the voters sufficiently to win a clear majority of 96 in 1966) & 1974-9, the last 2 years without a majority at all.
- Wilson was a highly skilled political “fixer”, keeping a Cabinet which contained bitter rivalries (both personal & over issues like the EEC) together with only 4 resignations in 6 years 1964-70.
58
Q
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - Trade Union
A
In February 1974 the new Labour govt. settled the coal miners’ strike with a 29% pay rise which ended the 3 Day Week & got the economy moving again.
59
Q
3
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - Public Services
A
- Wilson set up the Open University in 1969 (so students could study or degrees through distance learning) to give working class people more access to university education. This contributed to a rapid expansion of higher education 1964-7.
- Comprehensive education arguably improved access to good schools for all children, not just the top 20% who passed the 11 plus exam for grammar school entry.
- Labour improved GB’s transport infrastructure by building motorways, especially in the North.
59
Q
3
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - NOT trade union
A
BUT They were too close to the unions & therefore unable to reform them effectively as Thatcher later:
- The seamen’s strike in 1966 damaged British trade.
- The unions defeated “In Place of Strife” (a plan to reform the trade unions & reduce the number of strikes) in 1969, contributing to Labour’s defeat in the 1970 election.
- Despite the Social Contract (an agreement between the Labour Govt. & the unions) in 1975 the number of strikes increased, there were inflationary wage rises & the failure this policy led to the Winter of Discontent (above right) & Labour’s defeat in the 1979 election.
60
Q
3
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - NOT Public Services
A
- Economic failure forced Labour to reintroduce prescription charges.
- Labour spent too much on defence despite withdrawing from east of Suez from 1968 onwards. This plus the deflationary policies often pursued limited industrial investment & therefore slowed growth.
- The promotion of comprehensive education was controversial, many arguing that grammar schools provided an excellent opportunity for intelligent people from working class origins to progress, as Wilson himself had.
61
Q
3
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - NOT immigration
A
It could be argued that the Immigration Act 1968 was successful in reducing racial tension.
BUT:
- It could be argued that Labour’s Immigration Act (responding to large scale immigration by ethnic Asians from Kenya) was pandering to racism & that their legislation against racial & sexual discrimination wasn’t strong enough.
- On the other hand, many working class voters (especially in parts of London & the West Midlands) thought Labour wasn’t doing enough to limit immigration, especially as they feared immigrants would take away their jobs (b/c they were willing to work for lower pay) or enable employers to reduce wages.
62
Q
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - EEC
A
Wilson’s attempt to enter the EEC in 1967 failed but Wilson managed to keep his party reasonably united on this issue & the 1975 referendum which confirmed GB’s membership resolved the issue until the BREXIT referendum in 2016.
63
Q
8
WHY DID HEATH WIN THE 1970 ELECTION? - Labour Failures
A
- Labour economic policies failed, as highlighted by the devaluation of the £ in 1967 & the rise in unemployment, especially in declining industries like coal, steel, shipbuilding & textiles. Economic failure forced Labour to reintroduce prescription charges.
- The number of strikes rose as Labour’s “In Place of Strife” plan in 1969 failed. This undermined Labour’s claim that only they could get on with the unions.
- Wilson was widely seen as a politician rather than a statesman, i.e. as a cynical & devious political “fixer” who lacked vision & was content simply to survive in power.
- Devaluation 1967 showed the failure of Labour’s economic management & Wilson was accused of lying when he said that it wouldn’t affect “the £ in your pocket” when in fact it did cause inflation.
- He was also complacent, relying too much on the assumption that the voters preferred him to Heath b/c of his superior presentational skills.
- Labour’s policy of deflation, raising tax revenue by £923 million in 1968, was unpopular with voters. It also failed to achieve a lasting improvement to GB’s trade deficit; the announcement of bad trade figures just before the election was a major factor in the Labour defeat.
- Social changes (the decline in the number of working class compared with middle class voters plus the fall in trade union membership, e.g. the membership of the National Union of Mineworkers halved in the 1960s) hurt Labour.
- Labour party membership fell 1964-70 b/c members were disappointed with their party’s record in govt. compared with the promises made in 1964. They felt that Labour had favoured big business at the expense of the workers & had spent too much on defence as opposed to welfare.
63
Q
2
HOW EFFECTIVELY DID THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1964-70 & 1974-9 TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THEY FACED? - Foreign Policy
A
- Wilson’s policy towards the Vietnam War was well balanced: he publicly supported the USA in its fight against Communism but criticised excessive bombing & refused to send British troops there.
- BUT his policy of imposing economic sanctions against the racist govt. of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) failed b/c companies ignored them or found ways round them. This soured relations with the Commonwealth & the left of the Labour Party.
64
Q
4
WHY DID HEATH WIN THE 1970 ELECTION? - Tory strengths
A
- As a former grammar school boy & the first Tory leader to be democratically elected, Heath seemed to represent meritocracy & to offer something new.
- He promised to stimulate growth & end “stop go” economics by cutting taxes & generally reducing govt. interference in the economy, especially price & wage controls.
- He promised to enter the EEC which he said would make GB more prosperous.
- He promised to reform industrial relations to reduce the number of strikes & inflationary pay settlements.
65
Q
3
HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS HEATH AS LEADER OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY 1965-75? - Leader of the Opposition 1965-70 & 1974-5
A
- As a grammar school boy of lower middle class origins & the first Tory leader to be democratically elected Heath showed that the Tories had moved on from Macmillan & Home & now had a more modern, classless & meritocratic image,
- He won the 1970 election against the odds by promising to stimulate growth & end “stop go” economics by cutting taxes & generally reducing govt. interference in the economy, especially price & wage controls. He also promised to enter the EEC which he said would make GB more prosperous & to reform industrial relations to reduce the number of strikes & inflationary pay settlements.
- He showed courage & leadership by sacking Enoch Powell from the Shadow Cabinet b/c of his notorious “rivers of blood” speech in 1968. He refused to pander to racism.
66
Q
3
HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS HEATH AS LEADER OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY 1965-75? - NOT Leader of the Opposition 1965-70 & 1974-5
A
- He lost 2 of the 3 elections he contested as Leader of the Opposition, in 1966 & October 1974.
- His victory in 1970 owed much more to Labour weaknesses than his strengths, especially their failures in economic policy & industrial relations which produced widespread disillusionment with Wilson.
- His replacement by Thatcher in 1975 (despite distrust of her b/c of her gender & stridently right wing views) shows his party had become fed up with his constant failures & lack of presentational skills compared with Wilson.
67
Q
3
HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS HEATH AS LEADER OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY 1965-75? - Successes as Prime Minister 1970-4
A
- Unlike Macmillan & Wilson he succeeded in getting GB into the EEC in 1973.
- He cut taxes & improved old age pensions.
- He raised the minimum school leaving age to 16 & increased spending on school buildings.
67
Q
5
HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS HEATH AS LEADER OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY 1965-75? - Failures as Prime Minister 1970-4
A
- Unlike Thatcher he failed to follow through the policies on which he was elected of reducing govt. interference in the economy: his bailouts of Rolls Royce in 1971 & Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in 1972 plus his introduction of statutory wage controls, also in 1972, flatly contradicted his election promises.
- He also failed to fulfil his promise to reform industrial relations effectively: his Industrial Relations Act 1971 was a failure, introduced too quickly without proper consultation. It caused so much bitterness that there were twice as many days lost due to strikes in Heath’s 4 years as PM than in Wilson’s 6 1964-70.
- Far from making British industry more competitive as Heath promised, GB’s trade balance deteriorated from surplus to deficit.
- He failed to defeat the coal miners’ strike 1973-4, whereas Thatcher defeated the miners 1984-5. His mismanagement of the miners’ strike was so disastrous that he had to introduce the 3 day week & then when he went to the country on a “who governs Britain?” ticket he lost.
- Unemployment rose & inflation doubled 1970-4, so “stagflation” continued.
68
Q
6
HOW FAR WAS WILSON MORE SUCCESSFUL AS LABOUR PRIME MINISTER THAN CALLAGHAN? - YES
A
- Wilson won 2 of the 3 elections he fought as PM (in 1966 & October 1974, losing only in 1970) whereas Callaghan suffered a decisive defeat in 1979.
- Wilson managed to increase the size of his majority in 1966, whereas Callaghan lost his majority (inherited from Wilson) within a year of taking office & then lost a vote of confidence in 1979 which led to the election defeat.
- Wilson had a more progressive record of social reform, including the legalisation of abortion & homosexuality (both in 1967), the virtual abolition of the death penalty in 1965 & the Equal Pay & Sex Discrimination Acts (1970 & 1975) than Callaghan.
- Wilson did more to reform education with university expansion, the introduction of comprehensive schools & the Open University.
- The “Winter of Discontent” which brought down the Callaghan govt. showed a more complete & more disastrous breakdown of Labour’s relations with the unions than did Wilson’s “In Place of Strife”.
- Wilson never had to cut public spending as drastically as Callaghan did after the IMF loan.
69
Q
6
Assess the reasons why government relations with the unions were so poor in the period from 1964 to 1979 - Government policy
A
- Wilson & Heath both believed there were too many strikes (unofficial as well as official) & these were holding back the economic growth they were trying to achieve, reducing production & making British exports more expensive.
- Both believed that reform was needed to to curb strikes which were unofficial or damaged the national interest, hence In Place of Strife 1969 & Heath’s Industrial Relations Act 1971.
- Heath’s belief that most British people thought the unions had too much power & that his election victory was partly due to this made him determined to take them on through his 1971 Industrial Relations Act.
- Faced with another NUM strike, infuriated by the unions wrecking his policies & (wrongly) confident he had public support, Heath raised the stakes by calling a general election in February 1974 on the slogan, “who rules the country?”
- Both Conservative & Labour govts in the 1970s tried to restrain inflation by limiting pay rises: Callaghan’s attempt to impose a 5% limit provoked the “Winter of Discontent” 1978-9.
- The £2 billion spending cuts imposed by the Callaghan govt as a condition for getting the IMF loan in 1976 inflamed union discontent, especially among low paid public employees.
69
Q
6
HOW FAR WAS WILSON MORE SUCCESSFUL AS LABOUR PRIME MINISTER THAN CALLAGHAN? - NO
A
- Callaghan had a better grip on inflation, which rose to 26% under Wilson in 1975 but fell to only 10% under Callaghan in 1977.
- Neither was able to resolve GB’s underlying economic problems, such as “stagflation”, “stop go”, a balance of trade deficit & low productivity, reflecting GB’s lack of competitiveness compared with other countries.
- Neither could reverse the decline of traditional industries like coal, steel, shipbuilding & textiles.
- Both had to cut welfare spending b/c of economic failure; Wilson had to reintroduce prescription charges & Callaghan to cut NHS spending generally.
- Any success either achieved was short term; both were perceived as failures both by the Tories & the Labour Left (who saw them both as having betrayed Socialism).
- Both were accused of being short-term “fixers” with no long term vision who were content just to survive in power.
70
Q
3
Assess the reasons why government relations with the unions were so poor in the period from 1964 to 1979 - Inflation
A
- The number of days lost through strikes more than doubled 1970-2 b/c of inflation, which rose from 6% to 16% 1970-4, b/c workers were determined that their wages should at least keep pace with it.
- The new incomes policy (trying to limit pay increases) introduced by Heath in 1972 was wrecked by the massive rise in oil prices in 1973 which led to even bigger pay claims & more strikes.
- The fact that inflation reached 30% in the middle of 1975 led to even bigger pay demands.
71
Q
6
Assess the reasons why government relations with the unions were so poor in the period from 1964 to 1979 - Trade Union Militancy
A
- The trade unions refused to accept responsibility for GB’s economic failures, insisting on their right to “free collective bargaining” with employers & arguing that curbs on union power would be socially unjust, hurting the low paid.
- A sense of injustice fuelled militancy: the miners knew that they received low pages despite doing a dirty, physically demanding job. They also knew had public sympathy. Low paid local govt employees like gravediggers & dustbin men had their pay limited by govt spending cuts & saw other, better paid workers getting big pay increases; this prompted them to demand a 40% pay increase in 1978.
- Knowing they had support of over 50 Labour MPs including Cabinet ministers like Callaghan made the union leaders more confident in resisting In Place of Strife in 1969.
- The fact that the 1971 Industrial Relations Act came from a Tory govt made the unions all the more determined to resist it & their success in defeating In Place of Strife made them more confident in doing so.
- The NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) became increasingly militant, demanding a 47% pay increase in 1972. Communist NUM militant Arthur Scargill called Heath a “class enemy” & a militant miner told Heath in 1973 he was trying to bring down the govt. The NUM’s use of 1,000s of “flying pickets” (strikers who travelled to work places like the coke depot in Saltley, Birmingham to persuade or force workers to support the NUM strike by not going to work), led to much publicised violence which raised the stakes. The success of the NUM in securing a 27% increase in the 1972 strike & the increasingly clear failure of the Industrial Relations Act made other unions more confident in challenging the govt.
- The perception that the miners had brought down the Heath govt (b/c he lost the Feb 1974 election) made the unions even more confident & militant than before in demanding huge pay rises well above inflation.
72
Q
5
ASSESS THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE PROBLEMS FACING THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1974-9 - Party Politics
A
- Labour govts had to survive despite having small minorities or none at all: they governed without a majority Feb – Oct 1974 b/c of the indecisive Feb 1974 election, only got a majority of 3 in Oct & lost even that through byelection defeats in 1977 & then had to govern for 2 years without a majority.
- Wilson’s intellectual powers were declining by the time he became PM for the 2nd time in 1974 & he had to retire in 1976 b/c (we now know) he had Alzheimer’s Disease.
- Labour needed the support of other parties to survive 1977-9, forcing them to rely on minority deals with other parties like the Liberals (there was a “Lib / Lab Pact” 1977-8), the SNP (Scottish National Party) & the Ulster Unionists.
- They lost the support of the SNP by allowing the “40% rule” in the 1979 referendum on Scottish devolution which led to the defeat of devolution although more Scots voted for it than against b/c at least 40% of the electorate (not just those who actually voted) had to vote for it. As a result the SNP proposed the “vote of no confidence” which brought the Labour govt. down in 1979.
- The election of Thatcher as Conservative leader in 1975 meant that the Conservative opposition now had a much more formidable leader than Heath, who had lost 3 elections out of 4 to Labour.
73
Q
ASSESS THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE PROBLEMS FACING THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1974-9 - NOT Party Politics
A
BUT: Wilson & Callaghan were both highly skilled political “fixers” who had remarkable success both in keeping their party united & in doing deals with other parties, e.g. keeping the SNP onside until March 1979 by promising devolution.
74
Q
5
ASSESS THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE PROBLEMS FACING THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1974-9 - The Economy & Trade Unions
A
- When Labour came to power in 1974 the British economy was facing stagflation with rapid inflation fuelled by rising world oil prices (inflation reached 26% in 1975) coupled with rising unemployment, which topped 1 million for the first time since WW2, also in 1975.
- Labour’s failure to get a grip on these problems led to a crisis in the value of the £ in 1976 which forced Callaghan into the humiliation of having to secure a loan from the IMF (International Monetary Fund). This in turn forced Labour to cut the NHS more than Thatcher ever did which was deeply unpopular with the Party.
- What also fuelled inflation was Labour’s failure to get a grip on the unions. The only way they could end the 1973-4 coal strike was to concede a 29% pay rise which in turn led to inflation reaching 26% in 1975.
- Callaghan’s unsuccessful attempt to restrict annual pay rises to 5% was destroyed by the Winter of Discontent 1978-9 which brought down the govt.
- All this economic failure enabled the Tories to claim that Labour had made GB “the sick man of Europe”.
75
Q
ASSESS THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE PROBLEMS FACING THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1974-9 - NOT The Economy & Trade Unions
A
BUT: The IMF loan, controversial as it was, averted economic crisis & enabled Labour to reduce inflation from 26% to only 10% in 2 years 1975-7.
75
Q
2
ASSESS THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE PROBLEMS FACING THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1974-9 - NOT the EEC
A
- Wilson cleverly agreed to Benn’s proposal to put the issue to a referendum which Wilson thought he could win with the Liberals solidly & the Tories predominantly in favour; all 3 party leaders (including Thatcher) & most of the press & the business community were in favour. This enabled Wilson to turn a 2:1 majority against the EEC before the referendum into a 2:1 majority for it.
- West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt agreed to a deal which enabled Wilson to claim that he had renegotiated the terms of GB’s membership (though little had really changed).
76
Q
3
ASSESS THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE PROBLEMS FACING THE LABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1974-9 - The EEC
A
- In 1974 Wilson had a formidable task to keep his party united over Europe: most of the party (not just left wingers like Tony Benn & Michael Foot but also moderates like Peter Shore) were against it but a powerful minority (led by Roy Jenkins & Shirley Williams) were equally strongly in favour.
- Wilson was personally in favour of staying in but had to pretend to be neutral to keep his party united; he also knew that in 1974 most of the public were against.
- The EEC was not prepared to change the terms (by which British taxpayers had to subsidise inefficient French farmers) significantly in GB’s favour.
77
Q
5
WHY DID THE CONSERVATIVES WIN 4 SUCCESSIVE ELECTIONS 1979, 1983, 1987 (UNDER THATCHER) & 1992 (UNDER MAJOR)? - Conservative Strengths
A
By 1983 Thatcher had shown she was a strong leader, whereas Foot in 1983 & Kinnock in 1987 were seen as weak.
- Victory in the Falklands War in 1982 revived national pride more than perhaps any other event since WW2 & made Thatcher look like a strong, patriotic leader. This & Labour’s adoption of unilateral nuclear disarmament convinced voters that only the Tories could be trusted with the nation’s defences.
- Many voters admired Thatcher for standing up to the trade unions, unlike Wilson, Heath & Callaghan, & her victory over the miners in the 1984-5 strike contributed to her election win in 1987.
- Major in 1992 was not as strong a leader as Thatcher but he was more popular than Kinnock & less unpopular than Thatcher; the election result showed the Tories were right to change their leader.
- The economy began to recover in 1982 & from then until the economic crisis after the election in 1992 the economy grew & the incomes of those in work grew faster than wages.
- The Tories’ “popular capitalism” policy of selling council houses & shares in privatised utilities appealed to the social aspirations of skilled working class voters & created a “property owning democracy”. In effect the Tories were buying votes.
77
Q
4
WHY DID THE CONSERVATIVES WIN 4 SUCCESSIVE ELECTIONS 1979, 1983, 1987 (UNDER THATCHER) & 1992 (UNDER MAJOR)? - Labour weaknesses
A
- The “Winter of Discontent” 1978-9 destroyed Labour’s claim that only they could control the trade unions; it also wrecked Callaghan’s premiership & persuaded voters that a change of govt. was necessary even though at that stage he was more personally popular than Thatcher. The Tories won in 1979 despite Thatcher rather than b/c of her.
- The economic crisis of 1976 (when the £ plummeted & GB had to be bailed out by an IMF loan) gave Labour a reputation for economic incompetence; by 1983 voters were convinced that only the Tories could be trusted to run the economy. The Tories were able to point out that every Labour govt. there has ever been left office with unemployment higher than when they started.
- Neither Michael Foot, a veteran left winger regarded by most voters as either a joke or a dangerous extremist, nor Neil Kinnock, the “Welsh windbag” who failed to impress either in
Parliament or on TV, seemed like a credible PM.
· The election of Foot as Labour leader in 1981 & their adoption of extreme left wing policies split the Party & led to the formation of the breakaway SDP (Social Democratic Party) who despite their Alliance with the Liberals succeeded only in dividing the anti-Tory vote, enabling Thatcher to treble her majority despite her share of the vote falling. In fact the divided opposition allowed the Tories to win 4 successive elections despite their % of the vote falling in every one.
78
Q
2
“THE THATCHER GOVERNMENTS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION”. HOW FAR DO YOU AGREE? - Monetarism v Keynesianism
A
- Thatcher broke with the Keynesian consensus followed by both Tory & Labour govts. since WW2. Heath’s “Selsdon Man” approach had hinted at this but unlike Thatcher he did not (as her supporters saw it) have the courage she had to stick to it. Keynesianism meant accepting that the govt. had an obligation to maintain full employment (rather than leaving it to the capitalist free market as she did) & using controls on wages & prices as opposed to raising interest rates (which would increase unemployment) to control inflation.
- Thatcher’s monetarist policy meant allowing interest rates to rise 1979-81 which by restricting the money supply succeeded in reducing inflation (from 18-4.5 % 1980-3) but at the expense of doubling unemployment. She was prepared to risk unpopularity (former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey called her a “sado-monetarist”) in her determination to reduce inflation & make British industry more competitive (uneconomic car & steel factories were allowed to close without being bailed out by the govt.)
79
Q
2
“THE THATCHER GOVERNMENTS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION”. HOW FAR DO YOU AGREE? - NOT Monetarism v Keynesianism
A
- It could be argued that Thatcher raised interest rates so high that the £ was overvalued, making British exports less competitive b/c they were too expensive.
- It could be argued that the fall in inflation owed as much to the drop in world oil prices as it did to Thatcher’s monetarist policies, just as the oil price rise caused rampant inflation in the 1970s.
80
Q
2
“THE THATCHER GOVERNMENTS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION”. HOW FAR DO YOU AGREE? - Taxation & Public Spending
A
- Thatcher cut the top rate of income tax from 83% in 1979 to only 40% in 1988 & corporation tax was also cut, especially for small businesses. The idea was that this would create an “enterprise culture” by incentivising successful people to work harder b/c they would be able to keep more of what they earned & entrepreneurs to invest more in their business so they would be able to keep more of the profits. This succeeded in the sense that revenue from top earners increased despite the cut in tax rates.
- Thatcher also succeeded in her aim of reducing the % of GDP accounted for by govt. spending from 45% in 1979 to 39% in 1990.
81
Q
2
“THE THATCHER GOVERNMENTS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION”. HOW FAR DO YOU AGREE? - Trade Union reform
A
- Thatcher’s Employments Acts in 1980 & 1982 & Trade Union Act in 1984 (a) banned secondary picketing (picketing of a workplace not directly involved in the dispute), (b) gave workers the right not to belong to a trade union & (c) made it compulsory for unions to hold a secret ballot before they could call a strike.
- As a result the number of days lost in strikes in 1990 was only 6% as many as in 1979 & the number of union members fell by 1/3 1979-90. Thatcher’s supporters boasted that she had cured the “British disease” of excessive strike action & therefore GB was no longer the “sick man of Europe” she had been in 1979. Thatcher succeeded where Heath failed: she beat the miners who had brought him down & showed that the unions could be tamed if the PM was resolute enough in dealing with them.
81
Q
“THE THATCHER GOVERNMENTS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION”. HOW FAR DO YOU AGREE? - NOT Trade Union reform
A
BUT it could be argued that the reduction in trade union power & membership was the inevitable result of long term economic change, the shifting of employment from heavy industry like steel & coal mining which was heavily unionised to services which were not, rather than the result of Thatcher’s policies. It could be seen as the result of de-industrialisation rather than trade union reform.
82
Q
4
“THE THATCHER GOVERNMENTS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION”. HOW FAR DO YOU AGREE? - NOT Taxation & Public Spending
A
- Thatcher did not cut taxes overall: she cut taxes for the rich while raising them for everyone else. For middle & lower income earners the rises in VAT outweighed the income tax cuts.
- Thatcher did not reduce govt. spending; in fact it rose by 14% in real terms 1979-90 b/c she knew that she had to spend more on public services, especially the NHS (older voters who used the NHS voted Tory) in order to stay in power. She dared not cut the NHS as Callaghan did after the IMF loan in 1976.
- She also had to spend more on defence & the police (whom she needed to deal with the riots in 1981 & the striking miners in 1984-5).
- Welfare spending rose b/c of the increase in unemployment.
83
Q
4
“THE THATCHER GOVERNMENTS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION”. HOW FAR DO YOU AGREE? - Privatisation and Deregulation
A
- Thatcher privatised 1/3 of state controlled companies (e.g. BP & Jaguar cars) & utilities (e.g. water & gas), employing 600,000 people. She claimed that privatisation would make them more efficient & more able to raise money from the private sector as well as raising money from the sales which could be used for tax cuts or improving public services.
- Some privatisations, especially of telecommunications in 1984, genuinely did make the service more efficient, competitive & more responsive to consumer demand.
- Thatcher ensured that the shares were sold cheaply & could be bought in sufficiently small quantities to allow ordinary people to buy them, creating “popular capitalism” by spreading share ownership more widely. By 1990 nearly 11 million people owned shares compared with only 3 million in 1979.
- Thatcher deregulated the financial sector by abolishing exchange controls in 1979 (allowing money in different currencies to be moved freely in & out of London) & the “Big Bang” in 1986 which ended the Stock Exchange monopoly on buying & selling of shares. Both had the effect of boosting the financial sector of the British economy to such an extent that London became the world’s leading financial centre, ahead even of New York, & GB’s trade surplus in financial services (£7 billion a year by 1990) compensated for its deficit in manufactured goods.
84
Q
3
“THE THATCHER GOVERNMENTS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION”. HOW FAR DO YOU AGREE? - NOT Privatisation and Deregulation
A
- Not all privatisations were good for consumers, e.g. the privatisation of water in 1989 created a series of regional monopolies which made big profits at consumers’ expense by raising prices.
- The shares were sold so cheaply that the benefit to the govt. was minimised & most small shareholders gave in to the temptation to make a quick profit by selling them, so most of them ended up in the hands of banks & big corporations & the extent to which privatisation created “popular capitalism” was limited.
- Thatcher’s critics claimed that her policies distorted the British economy, leaving it over dependent on financial services while manufacturing was neglected.
85
Q
7
How successful were Thatcher’s social and economic policies? - The Economy
A
- Inflation was reduced from 18% in 1980 to 4.5% in 1983. It had been hitting middle class savings and also causing strikes for higher wages.
- The increase in unemployment 1979-81 was a price worth paying to reduce inflation & make British industry more competitive.
- High interest rates boosted overseas confidence and led to capital flowing into the UK, boosting the financial sector which in turn boosted tax revenue from the banks.
- Deregulation of the City strengthened London’s position as a major global financial centre.
· Living standards for almost all employed people rose, especially from 1982 onwards, with wages rising faster than prices.
- Cuts in the top rate of income tax to only 40% incentivised businessmen b/c they could keep more of their own money.
- Thatcher’s trade union reforms & victory over the miners in the 1984-5 strike succeeded where Heath failed, ending the excessive union power of the 1970s & making GB more competitive; no longer was she “the sick man of Europe”, as shown by the “Winter of Discontent”.
86
Q
4
How successful were Thatcher’s social and economic policies? - NOT The Economy
A
- The rising pound damaged Britain’s exports & manufacturing sector: output fell by 14% 1979-81 and many firms went out of business. This particularly hit the northern cities and increased the wealth divide between London and the North.
- Unemployment more than doubled between 1979 and 1983, especially among those who worked in traditional heavy industries like steel & coal mining.
- The UK economy declined 1979-81, in 1984 & 1990-2: GDP allowing for inflation was no higher in 1990 than in 1979.
- By 1989 inflation was back and interest rates at 15% undermined Tory claims that they were the party of the economy and hit members of the public in debt hard.
87
Q
4
‘The most important reason for Thatcher’s fall was the poll tax crisis.’ How far do you agree? - Other Factors – Divisions over Europe
A
- While Thatcher had accepted the Single European Act of 1986 to build a free market in Europe she was not committed to the European project.
- By 1988 she spoke against this at Bruges saying ‘We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain simply for it to be re-imposed at a European level’.
- In 1989 with the economy in difficulty divisions emerged within Cabinet. Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson & Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe wanted to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) which was intended to stabilise the European currencies against each other (this was before the Euro was introduced to do this).
- Thatcher strongly & publicly rejected this, demoting Howe from Foreign Secretary to Leader of the House of Commons in June 1989. Lawson resigned in protest against her Eurosceptic policy (claiming she was ignoring his views) in October 1989.
87
Q
2
TO WHAT EXTENT WAS THERE A SOCIAL REVOLUTION UNDER THATCHER? - NOT NHS reform
A
These changes were not introduced until 1990 & took effect during Major’s premiership.
- Thatcher knew the NHS was popular, especially with Conservative voting OAPs, so she didn’t dare cut funding as Labour had done after the IMF loan in 1976. NHS spending increased by 1.5% per year in real terms during her premiership.
- The NHS was not privatised & care remained free at the point of need.
87
Q
3
How successful were Thatcher’s social and economic policies? - Privatisation
A
- Thatcher achieved her goal of privatising large sectors of the economy. Examples of companies privatised were BT, British Gas, Rolls-Royce and British Airways.
- Thatcherites would argue privatisation improved the performance of these companies, lowered prices and offered consumers more choice, e.g. in telecommunications.
- Thatcherites would argue that the increased shareholding resulting from privatisation gave many more a stake in the success of the economy. The % of the population who owned shares more than trebled 1979-90.
87
Q
3
How successful were Thatcher’s social and economic policies? - Public Services
A
- Thatcher increased NHS spending, reversing the cuts under Callaghan, while reforming it to make it run in a more businesslike way.
- Educational curriculum reforms did help establish a more consistent syllabus across the country & educational standards improved.
- The number of students going to university increased despite the introduction of student loans rather than grants.
87
Q
3
How successful were Thatcher’s social and economic policies? - NOT Public Services
A
- Education policy started to create a system which teachers believed was too restrictive and test based. The rise in standards arguably owed more to better teaching rather than govt. policy.
- The replacement of grants instead of loans restricted access to higher education & unis received less funding per student.
- Thatcher’s NHS reforms arguably encouraged the pursuit of profit at the expense of patient care.
87
Q
2
How successful were Thatcher’s social and economic policies? - NOT Privatisation
A
- Privatised utilities pushed up bills for water and failed to create the competitive market the neo-liberals envisaged. These companies still had an effective monopoly.
- Privatisation and share-sales increased the divide between the haves and have nots or rich and poor, especially as most people who bought shares quickly sold them for short term profit so there was no long term increase in share ownership.
87
Q
3
How successful were Thatcher’s social and economic policies? - Housing
A
- Council house sales gave people who had never before owned a home a chance to do this, fulfilling the Tory dream of a “property owning democracy”.
BUT:
- Council houses which were sold were not replaced, hitting the poorest in the community hard with a lack of social (affordable) housing.
- There was a substantial increase in homelessness, which more than doubled 1979-81. The phrase ‘cardboard city’ began to be used about areas in London where there was a big population of homeless, drawing criticism from the Church of England.
88
Q
3
TO WHAT EXTENT WAS THERE A SOCIAL REVOLUTION UNDER THATCHER? - NOT Welfare
A
- For all Thatcher’s professed commitment to cutting state spending on welfare, the proportion of GDP absorbed by the welfare state increased significantly because of unemployment trebled 1979-1982. In that sense, far from reducing the ”dependency culture”, Thatcher actually increased it.
- By the time of her fall from power in 1990, there was no real change in the proportion of GDP devoted to social security compared with 1979, with social security absorbing just over 10 per cent of national income in both years. If the aim had been to cut the size of the state, Thatcher’s welfare policy was not revolutionary.
- She increased spending on old age pensions (b/c most pensioners voted Tory) & families of all incomes continued to rely on child benefit.
88
Q
3
TO WHAT EXTENT WAS THERE A SOCIAL REVOLUTION UNDER THATCHER? - Education
A
- The 1988 Education Act created grant maintained schools & City Technology Colleges, both of which were independent of local authority control. This marked a departure from the educational model set by the 1944 Education Act previously accepted by governments of both parties & was designed to create an educational “market place” in which schools competed with each other like businesses & parents had more choice about what kind of school they wanted to send their children to.
- This Act also introduced the National Curriculum which was designed to improve standards & make schools more accountable for improving them. It dictated to an unprecedented extent what teachers could teach & was a deliberate attack on the supposedly left wing “educational establishment” of teacher unions & local authorities promoting “progressive” education.
- To limit govt spending on higher education, Thatcher cut funding per student & introduced loans to partly replace grants for university students. She also set up a University Funding Council to ensure priority was given to economically relevant courses. She was accused of being anti-intellectual & so controversial were her policies that in 1985 she became the first PM who had been educated at Oxford to be denied an honorary degree there.
88
Q
3
TO WHAT EXTENT WAS THERE A SOCIAL REVOLUTION UNDER THATCHER? - NOT Education
A
- Thatcher’s attempt to revive grammar & grant maintained schools had limited impact; the great majority of state secondary schools remained comprehensive.
- So did her attempts to give parents more say; in practice grant maintained schools & City Technology Colleges were to a significant extent controlled by central govt. In fact only 1 in 24 schools became grant maintained & only 15 CTCs were set up.
- Although student grants were reduced & partly replaced by loans, they were not abolished completely.
88
Q
2
TO WHAT EXTENT WAS THERE A SOCIAL REVOLUTION UNDER THATCHER? - Welfare
A
- From the mid 1980s the value of unemployment benefit in relation to inflation steadily fell.
- Thatcher largely succeeded in turning the welfare system into just a “safety net” for those at the bottom of society, increasingly irrelevant to the middle class (this is why she abolished the earnings related supplements to unemployment & sickness benefit).
88
Q
5
‘The most important reason for Thatcher’s fall was the poll tax crisis.’ How far do you agree? - AGREE
A
- For many being taxed individually under the community charge or poll tax came as a real shock which would leave them much worse off. It seemed unfair that a single person in a large house would pay a fraction of what a number of people living in small house would. Hardest hit were those who had to rent b/c they couldn’t afford to buy a house. They hadn’t had to pay the rates but they did have to pay the poll tax which replaced them.
- When introduced in Scotland in 1989 many Scots encouraged by the SNP refused to pay it
- 31st March 1990 the day before it was due to be introduced there was a huge demonstration in Trafalgar Square which turned into a riot. Images of a member of the public being run down by a mounted police officer caused public Condemnation.
- Compared with the rates which it replaced the poll tax would be much more difficult to enforce & this could have a negative effect on local services.
- Many Tory MPs calculated that it was so unpopular that it could cost them the next election. They also knew that Thatcher was totally committed to it so the only way to stop it was to get rid of her.
88
Q
2
TO WHAT EXTENT WAS THERE A SOCIAL REVOLUTION UNDER THATCHER? - NHS reform
A
- Govt spending on the NHS rose more slowly under Thatcher than any time since the NHS was founded in 1948 with local authorities required to make annual “efficiency savings”, saving nearly £1 billion in hospital & community service budgets by 1990.
- Similarly to what she did with schools, Thatcher tried to make GP practices & hospitals function more like businesses with more independence from regional health authorities & control of their budgets so they could compete with each other. She believed this would make the NHS more efficient.
88
Q
6
How successful were Thatcher’s social and economic policies? - An increasingly divided society
A
- Deregulation of the City encouraged a “get rich quick” attitude which contrasted with the areas in the North which were losing jobs and opportunity.
- The government had to use the Metropolitan Police to fight the striking miners, further creating a sense of “us and them”.
- There were riots in inner city areas like Brixton (London) and Toxteth (Liverpool) in protest against police brutality, unemployment & social deprivation.
- Shifting the emphasis of the tax system from direct to indirect tax was criticised for hitting the poor. The Tories claimed to have cut taxes but in fact they cut them for the rich & raised them for everyone else.
- The poll tax caused riots and had to be abandoned. It contributed significantly to Thatcher’s downfall in 1990.
- In 1987 Thatcher criticised what she saw as a dependency culture created by the welfare state saying ‘there is no such thing as society’. To many this showed her heartlessness.
88
Q
4
TO WHAT EXTENT WAS THERE A SOCIAL REVOLUTION UNDER THATCHER? - Housing
A
- Following the traditional Tory idea of creating a “property owning democracy” & knowing that home owners were far more likely than tenants to vote Tory, Thatcher’s 1980 Housing Act forced local councils to sell council houses to any tenants who wanted to buy them at a heavily discounted price.
- Councils were forbidden to use the proceeds of council house sales to build new ones; the result of this & the abolition of rent controls was that homelessness more than doubled.
- Thatcher doubled the amount of govt spending on mortgage interest tax relief to help home owners & property ownership increased by 12% during her premiership.
- It could be argued that by selling council houses & shares in privatised companies, both at very advantageous prices, Thatcher was subsidising home & share ownership to buy votes & creating a generation of upwardly mobile working class voters who now saw the Conservatives rather than Labour as the party for them. This was, however, at the expense of the poor, creating a more unequal society.
89
Q
3
‘The most important reason for Thatcher’s fall was the poll tax crisis.’ How far do you agree? - Other Factors - Economic
A
- The stock market crash of October 1987 wiped 24% off share prices over the month.
- The govt. mismanaged the economy: excessive tax cuts generated inflation, which rose to 8% in 1989. The govt. over-reacted to this by raising interest rates, severely hitting people who had taken out large mortgages to get on the housing ladder during the 1980s housing boom.
- This hit the Conservatives’ hard earned reputation for economic competence.
90
Q
6
‘The most important reason for Thatcher’s fall was the poll tax crisis.’ How far do you agree? - Thatcher’s growing Isolation and unpopularity
A
- In 1989-90 the Tories lost 2 seats in byelections to Labour & Labour won the election for the European Parliament, their first victory in a national election since 1974.
- By June 1990 Labour were 16 points ahead in the opinion polls. Thatcher never devoted much time to cultivating Tory backbenchers, who increasingly found her arrogant & patronising. They only supported her for as long as they did b/c she kept winning elections & quickly turned against her when she thought they would lose the election & they would lose their seats.
- Howe had been one of Thatcher’s most loyal supporters since 1979, dutifully implementing her tough economic policies as Chancellor of the Exchequer 1979-83. But as Foreign Secretary 1983-9 he became increasingly frustrated by her stridently Eurosceptic policy & her bullying, patronising treatment of him. It was once said that being criticised by him was “like being savaged by a dead sheep” so the devastating nature of his resignation speech when he finally resigned in November 1990 caused a sensation.
- TV cameras had only just been allowed into the Houses of Parliament, creating even more public interest.
- Howe implicitly called for someone to stand against Thatcher for the premiership, a challenge answered by Michael Heseltine, who had resigned as Defence Secretary in 1986 in protest against her dictatorial approach, in particular overriding his view that the Westland helicopter company should be sold to a European rather than a US buyer. Thatcher
beat him in the first vote for the party leadership but fell narrowly short of the required majority to win outright. She initially vowed to contest the 2nd vote but was persuaded by most of her - Cabinet that she had lost the support of the parliamentary party & must resign to avoid humiliation, which she finally did on 28th November 1990 to be replaced by John Major who defeated Heseltine. Major won b/c he was seen as a “unity” candidate who could unite the Party, whereas Heseltine had deepened the Party’s divisions by standing against Thatcher.
91
Q
3
‘Divisions within the Conservative Party were the main reason for their defeat in 1997.’ How far do you agree? - Conservative Divisions
A
- The Conservative Party were divided about Britain’s role in Europe: the Euro sceptics loathed the Europeans’ moves towards greater monetary and political union. However the majority believed Britain should play a full role.
- In 1991 the Maastricht treaty was signed, committing the European states to full integration which was seen as a betrayal by Eurosceptic Conservatives. Major had negotiated British opt outs from two key aspects, (a) the social chapter (regarding workers’ rights) and (b) the single European currency (now called the euro) but he faced an unlikely alliance of sceptics in his own party supported by Thatcher and the Labour Party who supported the treaty but wanted the social chapter back in it (this gave them an excuse to vote with the Tory rebels in the hope of defeating the govt.) This plus Major’s small majority led to 2 damaging defeats in the House of Commons for his Maastricht bill & he only forced it through by telling MPs if they did not vote for him he would resign.
- The 1992 election had cut Major’s majority to just 21 & even this was steadily reduced by a string of byelection defeats, making it even easier for his opponents to undermine him in Parliament and make his government look weak.
92
Q
5
‘Divisions within the Conservative Party were the main reason for their defeat in 1997.’ How far do you agree? - Tony Blair & New Labour
A
- After 18 years of Tory rule many people felt like it was time for a change.
- Blair’s youth and optimism appealed to voters: he had the charisma that Major lacked. Unlike Foot & Kinnock he was clearly a credible PM.
- Labour developed a very effective media machine under Alastair Campbell. They managed to get some traditionally Conservative papers like the Sun (GB’s best selling paper, which had always supported Thatcher) onside.
- Blair dropped Clause IV promising to reverse Thatcher’s privatisation which led to the support of a number of businessmen and hit the old view that the Conservatives were the party of business. New Labour’s pro-EU policy helped with this (b/c the single market was so beneficial to British business).
- Rather as the Tories did by “stealing Labour’s clothes” in 1951, Blair kept the Tories’ popular policies (income tax cuts, curbs on trade union power, strong defence & law & order) while ditching the unpopular ones, promising to spend more on health & education & help working families on low incomes.
92
Q
2
‘Divisions within the Conservative Party were the main reason for their defeat in 1997.’ How far do you agree? - Scandals
A
- A series of revelations about the sexual indiscretions of some of his MPs like David Mellor undermined the Tory party and also made them look like hypocrites when they were trying to promote policies based around family values.
- There were also scandals around financial corruption like the case of Neil Hamilton who was shown to have accepted cash from Mohamed Al-Fayed (owner of Harrods) to ask questions in Parliament.
93
Q
3
‘Divisions within the Conservative Party were the main reason for their defeat in 1997.’ How far do you agree? - The Economy
A
- By September 1992 measures to curb inflation had tipped the British economy into recession. As unemployment rose GDP diminished and it became obvious the pound was too high. When the pound fell on the international currency markets Major and his Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont tried to prop it up by pushing up interest rates (15% at the worst point) to unsustainably high levels. All this failed and on Black Wednesday Britain was forced to withdraw from the ERM, allowing the £ to fall to a realistic level.
- For the first time since WW2 an economic crisis had occurred under a Tory govt., destroying their reputation for being the party of economic competence (as the £ devaluation in 1967 & the IMF crisis in 1976 had done for Labour).
- This was especially damaging for the Tories b/c they had won the 1992 election by telling lies about both their own tax plans & Labour’s. They hugely exaggerated how many people would be affected by Labour’s proposed tax rises for high earners & claimed they “had no plans” to raise taxes but then increased VAT.
94
Q
3
WHY DID GB DECOLONISE? - The Impact of WW2
A
- The humiliating surrender of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942 (below) & the collapse of the French & Dutch empires in the Far East during WW2 showed that white rule in that region was not invincible; this encouraged the Communists in Malaya to rebel against British rule.
- Attempts by British colonial officials to exploit the Empire to support the war effort caused resentment, e.g. farmers in Kenya being forced to sell their crops at a fixed price.
- The British defeats in Asia, the cost of the war & the growth of Indian nationalism forced GB to withdraw from India, former the “jewel in the crown” in 1947; this encouraged nationalists elsewhere in the Empire, initially in Malaya but later in Africa & the West Indies too.
94
Q
4
WHY DID GB DECOLONISE? - Economic Weakness
A
- After WW2 (which cost GB 25% of her national wealth & left her $29 billion in debt to the USA) GB could no longer afford, even before the Suez Crisis, to defend her Empire.
- Attempts by GB after WW2 to strengthen her weakened economy by exploiting her colonies further caused resentment. The East African Groundnuts Scheme turned much of Tanzania into a dust bowl & the Colonial Development Corporation was insensitive to local concerns & hindered any economic development which did not benefit GB.
- Furthermore, GB’s economic weakness meant she could no longer supply the colonies with the investment capital & manufactured goods they needed & the British govt. obstructed efforts to secure them from other countries like the USA or W Germany.
- In order to overcome the financial problems at the end of the war Britain was heavily dependent upon the USA and they were opposed to colonialism and put pressure on Britain to abandon her Empire, in India in 1947, Palestine in 1948 and in 1956 to abandon Egypt and Suez (right). It was difficult for Britain to resist this unless they played the Cold War card, as they did in Malay
95
Q
2
WHY DID GB DECOLONISE? - NOT Economic Weakness
A
- The British economy grew in the 1950s so it was changing political attitudes, dependence on the USA, the growth of anti-colonial nationalism & events like Suez which forced her to withdraw.
- To some extent the Empire was still an economic asset rather than a liability: a closed imperial economy could guarantee markets, cheap food and raw materials. GB withdrew from India & Palestine b/c they were seen as an economic drain rather than an asset but fought for 12 years in Malaya to retain control of Malayan rubber & tin. Malaya was given its independence in 1957 but British troops weren’t withdrawn until 1960. Ghanaian independence in 1957 was conditional on Ghana retaining its trade links with GB.
95
Q
5
WHY DID GB DECOLONISE? - The Growth of Anti-Colonial Nationalism
A
- A number of charismatic nationalist leaders emerged like Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt who humiliated Eden during the Suez Crisis in 1956 & Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, where the British hoped to hand over power to conservative nationalists but Nkrumah won the elections instead & became the first prime minister of independent Ghana in 1957.
- Many of these leaders were western educated & influenced by western ideas, e.g. Kwame Nkrumah learnt Pan African Nationalist & Marxist ideas while studying at university in both the USA & GB. Jomo Kenyatta, the Kenyan nationalist leader, also studied at uni in GB.
- Anti-colonial nationalism, inspired by the US civil rights movement, was a global force: in 1955 representatives from 25 countries (including Ghana & Cyprus which were then still ruled by GB) met to demand independence for the European colonies in Asia & Africa.
- Macmillan’s “Wind of Change” speech in 1960 acknowledged this trend: the wind of change is blowing through this continent … this growth of national consciousness is a political fact”.
- In some places this nationalism turned violent: in Malaya, a Communist rebellion against British rule lasted for 12 years (1948-60); in Kenya the Mau Mau uprising led to the deaths of over 20,000 people & in Cyprus Greek terrorism tied down 25,000 British troops.
96
Q
3
WHY DID GB DECOLONISE? - The Suez Crisis 1956
A
- Suez was seen as a victory for anti-colonial nationalism & a sign of Britain’s declining influence, which encouraged resistance to British rule in Kenya & Cyprus.
- Some might argue that it encouraged independence movements elsewhere, even peaceful ones as in Ghana & Nigeria.
- It resulted in many in Britain seeing that she could no longer maintain a global empire & ignore what the USA thought. Eden’s fall & Macmillan’s “Winds of Change” speech showed that this was influencing the Conservative govt. as well as the Labour opposition & the general public
96
Q
4
WHY DID GB DECOLONISE? - Macmillan’s “Wind of Change” Speech 1960
A
- It was important in recognising a change of approach in Africa and the Caribbean.
- It was a recognition of a changing situation, with Macmillan dropping the idea of multi-racial governments in East and Central Africa.
- It was significant in showing how Conservative attitudes had changed; the League of Empire Loyalists were only a small minority.
- It reflected M’s desire to manage decolonisation as part of trying to retain influence.
97
Q
3
WHY DID GB DECOLONISE? - NOT The Suez Crisis 1956
A
- The importance of Suez might be questioned as there were plans for African decolonisation (especially in Ghana) before Suez, while India, Pakistan and Burma became independent in 1947.
- British influence in Africa did not suddenly collapse after Suez and withdrawal from Empire (apart from Ghana) took place in the early 1960s.
- Suez only reinforced the pre-existing fact that GB was heavily dependent on the USA, both economically & militarily. This had already influenced the withdrawal from India.
98
Q
2
WHY DID GB DECOLONISE? - NOT Macmillan’s “Wind of Change” Speech 1960
A
- Coming after decolonisation had already started (GB had already given independence not just to India, Pakistan & Burma but also to Malaya & Ghana) it reflected rather than caused a change in attitude.
- The speech was a result rather than a cause of changing political attitudes in GB: Labour was now committed to decolonisation, the general public were more interested in the economy & the Empire was no longer the focus of national pride which it had once been. Even in the Conservative Party attitudes had changed since the withdrawal from India, the retirement of Churchill as PM & the Suez Crisis.
98
Q
5
HOW SUCCESSFULLY DID GB DEAL WITH DECOLONISATION? - FAILURE
A
- The British policy of supporting a corrupt king in Egypt led to his overthrow in 1952 & the rise of the nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser who nationalised the Suez Canal, provoking the disastrous Suez Crisis in 1956.
- This crisis divided the British Commonwealth along racial lines b/c India & Pakistan supported Egypt while the white ruled Dominions supported GB.
- The delay in giving independence to Kenya until 1963 resulted in a brutal civil war in which over 20,000 died; the violence was exacerbated by British exploitation of ethnic & tribal divisions & the speed of her eventual departure.
- Granting independence to Cyprus in 1960 failed to heal the strife between Greeks & Turks which culminated in the Turkish invasion in 1974.
- Similarly the granting of independence to Nigeria in 1960 did not prevent a catastrophic civil war 1967-70 in which 2 million Nigerians died & 4.5 million were displaced.
98
Q
4
HOW SUCCESSFULLY DID GB DEAL WITH DECOLONISATION? - SUCCESSFUL
A
- The success of the transition from Empire to Commonwealth (sealed in the London Declaration 1949) was shown by the speed with which South Africa rejoined the Commonwealth after the abolition of apartheid in 1994 & the desire of Mozambique & Cameroon to join it in 1995 despite having no ties with GB.
- The participation of the white dominated Dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand & S Africa) in the Korean War 1950-3 showed their continued loyalty to GB after WW2.
- GB dealt successfully with the Malayan “Emergency” 1948-60 by defeating the Communist rebellion & giving Malaya its independence in 1957 while retaining British control of the profitable extraction of rubber & tin.
- The granting of independence to Ghana in 1957 was a success: it was agreed peacefully with Ghana agreeing to remain in the Commonwealth & retain its trade links with GB.
99
Q
5
WHICH WAS THE MOST SERIOUS CRISIS GB FACED 1951-97? - Korean War 1950-3
A
- This was by far the biggest war GB has been involved in since WW2, with 700 British dead compared with 255 in the Falklands War, 47 in the First Gulf War & only 16 in Suez.
- It was by far the longest war, lasting 3 years compared with 2 months (Falklands), 4 days (Gulf) & only one day (Suez).
- The Korean War involved 19 countries (20 if the USSR is counted as a participant) with over 2.5 million troops involved (of whom 14,000 were British) & over 700,000 killed.
- The N Korean invasion of S Korea posed a serious threat to world peace & to the credibility of the UN, reflected in the fact that it was the only war in which the USA & China have fought against each other. At one stage in 1951 it seemed that the USA might use nuclear weapons against China, risking a Soviet response.
BUT the British role was much less than the US one (over 300,000 troops) or even the S Korean (600,000)
99
Q
6
WHICH WAS THE MOST SERIOUS CRISIS GB FACED 1951-97? - Suez 1956
A
- This war was a huge crisis for Eden personally (it ended his political career) & was catastrophic for GB’s status as a major power; it showed conclusively that she could not act without US support (in all the other wars she did have US support).
- It damaged GB’s key special relationship with the USA more than any other event since the British-US war of 1812.
- It gave comfort to GB’s enemies, especially the USSR which was able to criticise British imperialism while invading Hungary.
- It paved the way for decolonisation in Africa & Asia from 1957 onwards.
- It permanently damaged GB’s relations with the oil rich Arab world.
BUT it was the shortest & least costly of all 4 wars.
100
Q
5
WHICH WAS THE MOST SERIOUS CRISIS GB FACED 1951-97? - Falklands 1982
A
- As Thatcher said at the time, it was the first (& only) time since WW2 that British sovereign territory had been invaded by a foreign power.
- The initial US reaction was equivocal so the “special relationship” hung in the balance.
- Unlike in Korea & the Gulf GB had to fight alone with US support (an air base & intelligence) but without US participation.
- B/c the war was fought 1,000s of miles away in the South Atlantic & the British troops were much more at risk in troopships which could be sunk than they would have been on dry land this war was very risky & could have led to a costly & humiliating failure which would have ruined GB’s reputation as a military power & ended Thatcher’s premiership as Suez ended Eden’s.
= BUT in international terms it was the least significant of the 4 wars & much smaller, shorter & less costly than Korea: less than 1,000 in total were killed compared with 700,000 in Korea.
101
Q
5
WHICH WAS THE MOST SERIOUS CRISIS GB FACED 1951-97? - First Gulf War 1991
A
- As in Korea GB needed to show support for the USA.
- Vital oil supplies were at stake.
- It was by far the 2nd biggest war after Korea, with 1.6 million soldiers involved.
BUT:
- As in Korea British involvement was minimal compared with US & British losses were less than 50.
- With the USA involved against only Iraq the result was never in doubt.
102
Q
5
WHY DID GB NOT JOIN THE EEC UNTIL 1973?
A
- GB saw herself as a global power with a large colonial empire until the 1960s, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council & her own theoretically independent nuclear deterrent. In the EEC only France had these same assets.
- GB’s key relationship was with the USA, to whom she was $29 billion in debt from WW2 & on whom she defended for her defence, hence her support for the USA in the Korean War 1950-3. NATO not the EEC was the key to GB’s security & the humiliating withdrawal from Suez in 1956 showed that GB could not act without US support. In Greece, Turkey, Iran & the Mediterranean, formerly British preserves, she had to hand the initiative to the USA.
- Even after decolonisation in the 1960s GB still had close links with the Commonwealth & was reluctant to sacrifice these in return for EEC membership; in fact British access to New Zealand lamb was one of the major sticking points in the negotiations for British entry in 1973.
- Neither party was unequivocal in its support for EEC membership: Heath was probably the only major British politician in either party who was totally committed to EEC membership: Wilson tried unsuccessfully to enter in 1967 but opposed British entry in 1973 b/c most of his party was against. The Tories were generally more supportive but with important exceptions like Enoch Powell.
- Churchill declared himself in favour of European unity but did not clarify whether GB should be involved; Eden was hostile so not until Macmillan (& only towards the end of his premiership) did GB have a PM who supported entry.
103
Q
WHY HAS GB’S RELATIONSHIP WITH EUROPE PROVED CONTROVERSIAL? - The “Special Relationship” with the USA
A
Both parties thought this was more important than with Europe, especially in terms of military security through NATO.
103
Q
6
WHY DID GB JOIN THE EEC IN 1973?
A
- Some British politicians were convinced believers in European unity from their youth, especially Heath who visited Nazi Germany in the 1930s & served in WW2, convincing him that unity was essential to ensure that nothing like WW2 could ever happen again.
- It is no coincidence that Macmillan decided to prepare for EEC membership in the same year (1960) that he recognised in his “Winds of Change” speech that GB must decolonise; the Empire & Commonwealth were no longer a viable alternative to the EEC.
- As it became increasingly clear by 1960 that the EEC economies (especially W Germany) were growing faster than GB, Mac realised that EFTA wasn’t a viable alternative & that if GB couldn’t beat the EEC, she would have to join it.
- In 1960 Mac ordered previously sceptical govt. departments like the Foreign Office, the Treasury, the Board of Trade & the Ministry of Agriculture to prepare for EEC membership: he also appointed pro-European ministers like Duncan Sandys & Christopher Soames to accelerate this process.
- Gaitskell was anti-EEC but many senior Labour politicians, notably Roy Jenkins & George Brown, were in favour. Wilson was more flexible than Gaitskell & Labour became more pro-Euro. in govt., applying to join the EEC in 1967.
- Both the Conservative & Labour parties initially favoured the “special relationship” with the USA over EEC membership but this argument was undermined by the fact that the USA urged GB to join so she could act as a “bridge” between the USA & Europe.
103
Q
WHY HAS GB’S RELATIONSHIP WITH EUROPE PROVED CONTROVERSIAL? - Great Power Status
A
Churchill & Eden especially saw GB as a “victor” state from WW2 which did not need to co-operate with France & W Germany as much as they needed to co-operate with each other to ensure peace & prosperity. Moreover, given the previous history of relations between France & Germany, they doubted whether such co-op. would succeed.
104
Q
4
WHY HAS GB’S RELATIONSHIP WITH EUROPE PROVED CONTROVERSIAL? - National Sovereignty
A
- Until 1960 both major parties opposed EEC entry on grounds of national sovereignty, i.e. GB’s right to determine her own affairs with the govt answerable to a sovereign British Parliament which could not be overruled by the European Court of Justice. Labour leader (1955-63) Hugh Gaitskell shared the concern of the right wing Tory MP Enoch Powell about sovereignty & argued that joining the EEC would mean GB turning its back on “1,000 years of history)”.
- In the 1970s & 80s the Labour left winger Tony Benn agreed with Powell in rejecting EEC entry on sov’ty grounds; Powell even urged his supporters to vote Labour in 1974 b/c Labour promised a referendum on the issue; for him national sov’ty was more important than party loyalty.
- From 1960 until the late 1980s most Tories were pro-EEC on economic grounds b/c they saw it as just a “common market”, but they became increasingly fearful of EEC political integration leading to “a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels” as Thatcher put it her speech in Bruges in 1988. Her determination to resist this contributed to the resignations of Lawson in 1989, Howe’s in 1990 & her own soon afterwards.
- Major’s decision to sign the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992 divided his party b/c many Tories feared it would infringe British sovereignty; these Eurosceptic Tories then joined with Labour (who opposed the exemptions from the Social Chapter guaranteeing workers’ rights which Major had secured) to defeat the govt. in several parliamentary votes on the treaty, so like Powell they put national sov’ty above party loyalty.
104
Q
2
WHY HAS GB’S RELATIONSHIP WITH EUROPE PROVED CONTROVERSIAL? - The Commonwealth
A
- Both parties thought links with the Commonwealth were also more important than with Europe & that it could be a viable alternative trading bloc to the EEC.
- Traditional Conservatives wanted to continue prioritising GB’s “kith & kin” (i.e. Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders & white settlers in Africa) in the Commonwealth.
104
Q
6
WHY HAS GB’S RELATIONSHIP WITH EUROPE PROVED CONTROVERSIAL? - The Impact of Europe on the British Economy
A
- Both the Conservative & Labour Parties stayed aloof from the European Coal & Steel Community (founded in 1951) & the EEC (founded by the Treaty of Rome in 1957) b/c they saw them as a threat to British national sovereignty. They also saw the ECSC as a threat to GB’s own coal & steel industries & the EEC as a threat to the British economy generally, especially in terms of trade, agriculture & sterling (the British currency).
- By 1960 Macmillan had decided that GB could not afford to stay out of the EEC & should apply for membership despite reservations on the part of many govt. departments including the Foreign Office, the Treasury, the Board of Trade & the Ministry of Agriculture.
- Wilson applied (unsuccessfully) to join the EEC in 1967 b/c he thought it was the only way to revive a stagnant economy.
- The fact that GB had to pay so much more into the EEC Budget than she got out of it (mainly to the Common Agricultural Policy) was v unpopular in GB & Thatcher’s success in reducing it by 66% in 1984 made her unpopular in the EEC.
- Pro-Europeans emphasised the economic benefits of EEC membership, including free trade based on common regulations (especially following the Single European Act which Thatcher signed in 1986), attracting overseas investment & giving GB unfettered access to the biggest common market in the world right on our doorstep, while anti-Europeans argued that the British people had been deceived into thinking that it was just a common market whereas in reality it was really a political project to establish a European “super-state” overturning British sovereignty.
- Controversy over whether GB should join the EEC Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) was the issue over which Lawson resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer; he & other ministers like Major believed it would help to tackle inflation. GB joined after Thatcher’s departure in 1990 but then crashed out in 1992 following a sterling crisis which fatally undermined the economic credibility of the Major govt. This convinced many Tories to become more Eurosceptic.
105
Q
7
WHY HAS GB’S RELATIONSHIP WITH EUROPE PROVED CONTROVERSIAL? - The Labour Party AND public opinion
A
- Labour leader (1955-63) Hugh Gaitskell opposed EEC entry but by 1960 some leading Labour politicians like Roy Jenkins were in favour.
- The Labour Left saw the EEC as a capitalist conspiracy against socialism which might stop a Labour govt. nationalising industries like coal & steel but this didn’t stop Wilson applying to join in 1967.
- For party political reasons (in the hope of bringing Heath down) Labour officially voted against EEC entry in 1973 (though many Labour MPs, unofficially led by Jenkins, rebelled & voted for it) & only accepted it in 1975 after holding a referendum.
- Wilson (who was privately pro-EEC) was forced to hold the referendum in 1975, rather like Cameron in 2016, b/c his party & Cabinet were so divided on the issue.
- Labour called for withdrawal from the EEC in the 1983 election but abandoned this policy in 1987 & have never since returned to it.
- By 1997 Blair’s “New Labour” had emerged as much more pro-European than the increasingly Eurosceptic Tories.
Public Opinion
- The uncertainty of the public was shown by the fact that they were 2:1 against membership before the 1975 referendum but then voted 2:1 for it
105
Q
6
WHY HAS GB’S RELATIONSHIP WITH EUROPE PROVED CONTROVERSIAL? - The Conservative Party
A
- Macmillan was the first PM to apply to join the EEC.
- Heath, who took GB into the EEC in 1973, was the most pro-Europe PM ever.
- Some Conservatives (though a minority) opposed entry, notably Enoch Powell who was more concerned with national sov’ty than economic issues.
- Thatcher & many other Conservatives became increasingly fearful in the 1980s of political integration.
- Her strident rhetoric led to disputes with her Cabinet colleagues, including Lawson’s resignation in 1989, Howe’s in 1990 & her own soon afterwards.
- Major’s decision to sign the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992 divided his party to such an extent that his authority was undermined, forcing him to resign in 1995 & challenge the “bastards” (as he called them) to stand against him. John Redwood accepted the challenge but Major defeated him.
106
Q
3
WERE RELATIONS BETWEEN GB & THE USSR INVARIABLY HOSTILE? - YES
A
- There was a fundamental ideological gulf between the USSR as a Communist dictatorship & GB as a capitalist democracy.
- GB condemned Soviet imperialism in E Europe (e.g. the invasion of Hungary in 1956), while the USSR opposed British imperialism in the hope of increasing its influence in Africa & Asia.
- GB joined NATO b/c she saw Soviet domination of E Europe (including E Germany, surrounding the British troops in W Berlin) as a threat to W Europe & potentially to GB itself. GB saw the USSR as her main aim & her nuclear deterrent was aimed primarily at the USSR.
107
Q
6
‘Britain’s relationship with the USA was close throughout the period from 1951 to 1997. - CLOSE
A
Britain & the USA had strong ties of culture, language, trade and history.
- A ‘special relationship’ was forged as the 2 nations fought alongside each other in WW2. Churchill (whose mother was American) tried to revive this during his 2nd premiership 1951-5 & Macmillan used his wartime friendship with Eisenhower to repair relations with the USA after Suez. There was a special relationship between specific PMs and Presidents, such as between Thatcher and Reagan (right) in the 1980s who admired each other & had shared beliefs. Kennedy asked Macmillan for advice over the crises in Berlin & Cuba 1961-2.
- Britain supported the USA in the Cold War by participating in the Berlin Airlift 1948-9 (they both maintained a military presence in W Germany & W Berlin throughout the Cold War) & the Korean War 1950-3.
- Each was the other’s most important military ally. GB & the USA almost always supported each other in the UN, e.g. over Korea, Iraq & Bosnia.
- They shared secret intelligence & info about nuclear weapons which enabled GB to develop her own “independent” nuclear deterrent. Membership of NATO reinforced the relationship & was crucial to GB’s defence against possible Soviet aggression in Europe.
- US support (providing intelligence & an air base) was crucial to the British victory in the Falklands
107
Q
5
WERE RELATIONS BETWEEN GB & THE USSR INVARIABLY HOSTILE? - NO
A
- Following Stalin’s death in 1953 there was a “thaw” in relations including Soviet leader Khrushchev visiting GB in 1956 & British PM Macmillan visiting the USSR in 1959.
- Despite the ideological & military rivalry neither side wanted the Cold War to turn “hot”.
- Despite her instinctive anti-Communism Thatcher was the first western politician to see that the future Soviet leader Gorbachev was different from previous Soviet leaders: they exchanged visits in 1984 & later she persuaded Reagan that Gorbachev was “a man we can do business with”. She also sympathised with Soviet hostility to Reagan’s SDI b/c (like them) she feared it would undermine nuclear deterrence.
- Relations between GB & the USSR improved steadily in the Gorbachev era (1985-91), especially when Gorbachev allowed the former Soviet satellite states in E Europe to break free from Communism in 1989, ending the Cold War.
- Relations improved even further after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The new Russian leader, Boris Yeltsin, was grateful for British support against the attempt by Communist hardliners to restore old fashioned Soviet control in 1991. He visited GB in 1992 to discuss trade & military co-operation & praised Major for his “profound understanding of Russia & its reforms”. Economic links were especially close with GB supporting Russian entry into the G8 & many successful Russian businessmen buying property in London.
108
Q
6
‘Britain’s relationship with the USA was close throughout the period from 1951 to 1997. - NOT CLOSE
A
- It was limited by Britain’s economic decline, which meant it could offer only limited support in Korea, Kuwait etc. GB increasingly had to hand over responsibility to the USA in the Middle East (especially after Suez) & in the Pacific (especially her withdrawal from east of Suez).
- The USA had concerns outside Europe in the Pacific & Latin America that did not concern Britain.
- The US reaction to Suez, offering financial support only if GB withdrew, showed the relationship was not always close. The USA did not support the British Empire. The USA didn’t consult GB during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 which was the closest the world has come to nuclear war.
- Wilson’s refusal to send British troops to Vietnam irritated President Johnson.
- The priority Heath gave to Europe over the USA damaged relations.
- Even Thatcher & Reagan had their differences: Thatcher was angered by Reagan’s invasion of Grenada in 1985 without consulting her (even though it was in the Commonwealth) & thought the “zero option” whereby the USA & USSR would get rid of all their nuclear weapons in Europe favoured the USSR too much b/c of their superiority in conventional weapons. She also disliked Reagan’s SDI project b/c she feared it would undermine nuclear deterrence.
109
Q
6
HOW HAS MEMBERSHIP OF THE UNITED NATIONS AFFECTED BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY?
A
B/c of this, whenever possible GB has tried to gain UN support to justify her actions, e.g.:
- the Korean War 1950-3
- the First Gulf War in 1991
- the intervention in Bosnia in 1995.
BUT
- The first time she used it was to stop a resolution (supported by the USA as well as the USSR) condemning her invasion of Egypt in 1956.
- GB vetoed 6 resolutions 1963-73 condemning her for refusing to use force against the racist rebel govt. in Rhodesia.
- In 1986 GB vetoed a resolution condemning the US bombing of Libya.
109
Q
6
WHY WAS GB’S NUCLEAR DETERRENT CONTROVERSIAL 1951-97? - JUSTIFIED
A
- GB needed a nuclear deterrent to deter the USSR from invading W Europe & threatening GB itself. A nuclear deterrent was needed b/c the USSR’s conventional forces were so much stronger than those of the West. This was important for W Europe as a whole (France was the only other W European country with its own nuclear deterrent), not just GB.
- Soviet domination of eastern Europe (including E Germany, surrounding British forces stationed in W Berlin) & the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 showed the continuing need to deter Soviet aggression.
- Measures were taken to ensure that possession of nuclear weapons would not need to nuclear war: in 1963 GB joined the USA & the USSR in banning nuclear testing in space, under water & in the atmosphere. GB with other nuclear powers signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1968 to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
- GB needed to respond to the installation of Soviet SS20 missiles in its E European satellite states which could hit targets in W Europe; the installation of US Cruise missiles in GB in the early 1980s was a necessary & proportionate response.
- Thatcher believed that idea of “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) had “given us 40 years of unprecedented peace in Europe. It would be unwise to abandon a deterrence system that has prevented both nuclear & conventional war … abolishing all nuclear weapons .. would make conventional, biological or chemical war more likely”. She opposed the “zero option” of both sides in the Cold War scrapping their nuclear weapons, fearing that the USSR’s superiority in conventional forces would tempt her to invade W Europe.
- Nuclear deterrence worked, forcing the USSR to withdraw from the nuclear arms race & from E Europe in 1989, which ended the Cold War.
110
Q
6
WHY WAS GB’S NUCLEAR DETERRENT CONTROVERSIAL 1951-97? - NOT JUSTIFIED
A
- After 1962, when Macmillan persuaded Kennedy to supply GB with Polaris missiles to carry British warheads, the British nuclear deterrent was so dependent on the USA that it could not truly be described as “independent”. GB also gave the USA permission to use its air bases for a nuclear strike on the USSR if necessary.
- The British nuclear deterrent was so small as to be irrelevant compared with those of the USA & the USSR. Consequently GB played virtually no part in the Cuban Missile Crisis or the arms control negotiations between the 2 superpowers in the 1970s (leading to the SALT Agreements in 1972 & 1979) & 80s (which ended the Cold War).
- It was absurd to waste billions of £s on nuclear weapons which could never be used; the money would be far better spent on conventional forces, education on the NHS. One of the reasons why the British economy fared so much less than W Germany’s or Japan’s was b/c too much was spent on nuclear weapons instead of investment in industrial innovation.
- The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) was formed in 1958 to campaign against the nuclear arms race, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Cris
- Nuclear weapons were a politically divisive issue, causing especially serious divisions in the Labour Party in the 1950s & 80s. Labour called for unilateral nuclear disarmament in the 1983 election.
- Following détente in the 1970s (when the SALT Agreements reduced the fear of nuclear war), there was a significant increase in tension in the 1980s, when Reagan deliberately escalated the nuclear arms race with his SDI project & the USSR described Thatcher as the “iron lady”. This prompted 100s of 1,000s to take part in CND marches to protest against the installation of Cruise missiles in GB.
110
Q
3
Domestic opposition to Britain’s possession of nuclear weapons was a serious challenge to British governments.’ How far do you agree? - AGREE
A
- By 1954-5 the cost of rearmament was approaching the levels of the Second World War & there was a growing awareness that British economic growth b/c too much was being spent on defence at the expense of industrial investment. In the 1980s Labour unilateralists like Tony Benn argued that the money spent on nuclear weapons should be diverted to the NHS.
- There were questions about how “independent” of the USA the British nuclear deterrent really was (she relied on US delivery vehicles). There was concern over Polaris, although Kennedy did acknowledge Britain’s right to use it independently when ‘supreme national interests’ were concerned. Anti-nuclear protestors argued that GB was subservient to the USA, especially in the 1980s when the combination of Reagan’s aggressive policies (especially SDI) & the installation of US Cruise missiles in GB provoked massive demonstrations, reflecting the fact that the fear of nuclear war was greater than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
- The unilateralists took control of the Labour Party when Michael Foot became leader in 1980: Labour argued for unilateral nuclear disarmament in the 1983 & 1987 elections.
111
Q
2
Domestic opposition to Britain’s possession of nuclear weapons was a serious challenge to British governments.’ How far do you agree? - DISAGREE
A
- Opposition to GB’s possession of nuclear weapons never came close to changing govt. policy under either Conservative or Labour govts. Labour were only ever unilateralist when they were in opposition.
- Labour’s unilateralist policy in the 1980s was electorally disastrous, contributing to the defection of the SDP in 1981 & to landslide Tory election victories in 1983 & 1987. This forced Labour to change its policy & it was not re-elected until 1997 by which time Blair’s “New Labour” had a clear commitment to nuclear defence.
112
Q
4
How far did Britain maintain its position as a major power in the period from 1951 to 1997? - IT DID
A
- Britain retained its position in the UN as a permanent member of the Security Council.
- The close relationship with the USA allowed Britain to retain its status, e.g. in helping with her “independent” nuclear deterrent & to win the Falklands War. It has been argued that Thatcher played an important role in convincing Reagan that Gorbachev was a different kind of Soviet leader whom they could “do business with”. (Won plenty of other interventions and has a nuclear deterrant)
- Nevertheless GB’s refusal to participate in the Vietnam War showed that she could take an independent line from the USA.
- Britain’s membership of NATO and the EEC enhanced both her security & her prosperity. Thatcher’s success in reducing the size of GB’s net contribution to the EEC budget by 66% shows the influence she had in the EEC.
113
Q
5
How far did Britain maintain its position as a major power in the period from 1951 to 1997? IT DIDN’T
A
- The loss of Empire reduced GB’s status; as US Secretary of State Dean Acheson said, she “had lost an empire but not yet found a role”. It is no coincidence that Macmillan decided to apply to join the EEC in the same year (1960) as his “Winds of Change” decolonisation speech.
- GB’s economic weakness after WW2 forced into handing over the initiative to the USA in the Middle East (Turkey, Iran & Palestine / Israel) & later east of Suez, including Malaysia & Singapore. The Suez crisis showed GB could not act unilaterally without US support.
- In the relationship with US the US was dominant and often ignored Britain, e.g. the invasion of Grenada (a member of the Commonwealth) without consulting GB in advance in 1985. The installation of US Cruise missiles in GB in 1983 was seen by protestors as evidence of British subservience to the USA.
- GB could not defend herself against the USSR without US support & the crucial arms control negotiations in the 1970s & 80s were decided between the USA & the USSR without any real British involvement.
- Britain’s role and influence in Europe was limited, shown by the ability of De Gaulle to veto British entry into the EEC 1961-2 & 1967. The EEC & EU were always dominated by the French-German axis to the exclusion of GB. Policies like the Common Agricultural & Fisheries Policies were clearly not designed to suit British interests.
114
Q
2
HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS THATCHER’S FOREIGN POLICY? - EEC
A
- Thatcher negotiated a 66% reduction in GB’s net contribution to the EEC budget in 1984 & didn’t care how unpopular this made her in the EEC.
- She negotiated the Single European Act in 1986 which was v beneficial to the British economy b/c it gave her unfettered access (including financial services, which was a huge boost to the City of London) to the biggest single market in the world right on our doorstep.
115
Q
HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS THATCHER’S FOREIGN POLICY? - NOT THE EEC
A
BUT her strident opposition to a European “super state” & to GB joining the ERM contributed to the resignations of Heseltine in 1986 (b/c he favoured the European rather than the US takeover of Westland, a British helicopter company), Lawson in 1989 (over the ERM) & Howe in 1990, all of which contributed to her downfall. She was so weakened that she was forced reluctantly t join the ERM in 1990.
116
Q
2
HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS THATCHER’S FOREIGN POLICY? - The Falklands War 1982
A
- Given the distance & the dangers to which the British Task Force was exposed, this was a gamble which paid off handsomely; her then Defence Secretary, Heseltine, said the govt would probably have fallen if the war had not been fought or if it had been lost.
- It restored national pride & played a big part in Thatcher’s election victory in 1983.
117
Q
4
HOW SUCCEHOW SUCCESSFUL WAS THATCHER’S FOREIGN POLICY? - The Cold War
A
When the USSR called Thatcher the “Iron Maiden”, it boosted her domestic popularity.
- She was the first western leader to recognise the potential of Mikhail Gorbachev, whom she invited to London in 1984 even before he became the Soviet leader.
- She can therefore take some credit for the liberation of eastern Europe from Soviet control in 1989.
BUT her role in the ending of the Cold War was peripheral: the key factor was the economic decline of the USSR & the decisive negotiations were between the USSR & the USA with GB not involved.
118
Q
3
HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS THATCHER’S FOREIGN POLICY? - The “Special Relationship” with the USA
A
- Thatcher was a passionate believer in this relationship & established perhaps the greatest ever rapport between British & US leaders with Ronald Reagan. This was based on genuine personal warmth as well as shared political views.
- US diplomatic & logistical support was v helpful in the Falklands War in 1982.
BUT there were still disagreements, especially about Reagan’s SDI or “Star Wars” plan to develop a facility for shooting down Soviet missiles & his invasion of Grenada in 1985 w/o consulting GB despite it being a member of the British Commonwealth.
119
Q
HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS THATCHER’S FOREIGN POLICY? - Nuclear Weapons
A
Thatcher’s decision to install US Cruise missiles in GB & to build the Trident submarine launched missile to strengthen GB’s defences against the USSR were controversial in GB but she faced her opponents down & her strong commitment to nuclear defence (in contrast to Labour’s unilateralist policy) was an important factor in her election victories in 1983 & 1987.
120
Q
3
HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS THATCHER’S FOREIGN POLICY? - Decolonisation
A
- Thatcher solved the Rhodesian problem which had bedevilled previous PMs (especially Wilson) through the Lancaster House Conference in 1979 in which agreement was reached on black majority rule.
BUT:
- This led to the disastrous dictatorship of Robert Mugabe.
- Thatcher’s opposition to economic sanctions against the racist regime in South Africa made her unpopular with the Queen & the Commonwealth & was proved wrong by events: it was economic pressure which forced the S African govt to free Mandela in 1990 & end the racist apartheid system in 1994.
