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History > Britain (Thatcher) 1979-90 (KO info) > Flashcards

Britain (Thatcher) 1979-90 (KO info) Flashcards

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1
Q

When did Margaret Thatcher come to power?

A

1979

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2
Q

When was monetarism adopted?

A

1980

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3
Q

When were the city riots?

A

1981

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4
Q

When was there a serious economic slump?

A

1981

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5
Q

When was the Falklands war?

A

1982

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6
Q

When was Thatcher’s second election victory?

A

1983

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7
Q

When did Neil Kinnock become Labour leader?

A

1983

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8
Q

When was the Miners Strike?

A

1984-5

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9
Q

When was the IRA bombing?

A

1984

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10
Q

When were there riots in major cities?

A

1985

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11
Q

When was Kinnock’s speech at the Labour party conference?

A

1985

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12
Q

When was the Westland affair?

A

1986

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13
Q

When were supply side economics adopted?

A

1986

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14
Q

When was the single European act?

A

1986

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15
Q

When was Thatcher’s third election victory?

A

1987

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16
Q

When was Thatcher’s Bruges speech?

A

1988

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17
Q

When was the leadership challenge of Anthony Meyer defeated?

A

1989

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18
Q

When was the poll tax crisis?

A

1990

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19
Q

When did the UK join the ERM?

A

1989

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20
Q

When did Lawson and Howe resign?

A

1990

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21
Q

What percentage of the vote did the conservatives get in the 1979 election?

A

43.9%

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22
Q

What percentage of the vote did the conservatives get in the 1983 election?

A

42.4%

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23
Q

What percentage of the vote did the conservatives get in the 1987 election?

A

42.2%

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24
Q

What is a conviction politician?

A

someone with strong views who acts on principle rather than pragmatism.

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25
Q

What is the free market?

A

Where forces of supply and demand are allowed to operate naturally without government regulation.

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26
Q

What were the ‘sus’ laws?

A

regulation allowing police to stop and search people suspected of criminal behaviour.

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27
Q

Who were the ‘wets’

A

those in the conservative party who were uncertain about or opposed the tough measures of monetarism.

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28
Q

Who were the NCB?

A

The national coal board, responsible for running the industry.

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29
Q

What was privatisation?

A

Selling nationalised concerns to private buyers or investors.

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30
Q

what was reaganism?

A

conservative social and economic policies following the Reagan administration in the USA 1981-9.

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31
Q

What was the poll tax?

A

A flat rate levy to fund local services, paid by all adults not just property owners.

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32
Q

What was the ERM?

A

Introduced by the EEC in 1979, brought European currency closer together on route to adopting a singular currency.

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32
Q

What was militant tendency?

A

A Marxist group founded in 1964 with the aim of infiltrating the Labour party and forcing revolutionary policies on it.

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33
Q

Who was the Argentinian dictator at the time of the Falkland’s?

A

General Galteiri

34
Q

What percentage of Falklands islanders wished to remain under the British flag? What did Thatcher famously say using this as reasoning?

A
  • 98%
  • ‘Sovereignty is not negotiable.’
35
Q

How many troops did Galteiri send in to take the island by force?

A

4000

36
Q

What were the dates of the Falkland’s dates?

A

1982 April to June.

37
Q

What was the issue with the British sinking the Belgrano?

A

It was sunk outside the established 200 mile exclusion zone

38
Q

What was the accusation against Thatcher relating to the exclusion zone?

A

She had done in to wreck any chances of a UN negotiated peace.

39
Q

When did events at the Falklands reach their climax?

A

When the British liberated Fort Stanley, the capital, which led to Argentinian surrender.

40
Q

Who was Thatcher likened to for her wartime leadership?

A

Winston Churchill

41
Q

How many seats did Thatcher get in the 1983 election, likely due to Falklands?

A

397

42
Q

Who and what influenced Thatcher’s ideology?

A

Friedrich Hayek, in particular the book ‘the road to serfdom’ - economic liberalism and socially conservative.

43
Q

What were key aspects of Thatcher’s life which shaped her politics?

A
  • studied chem at Oxford
  • 1971 ‘Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher’
  • dubbed the ‘iron lady’ by Russian newspaper.
44
Q

What were some causes of the miners strike?

A
  • The gov announcing plans to close 20 pits, losing 20,000 jobs.
  • Heath had previously given in to the unions easily.
45
Q

How many working days were lost due to the strikes in 1984?

A

27 million

46
Q

What was Thatcher’s case for pit closure?

A

-British mines in the 70s were running a loss, so Thatcher wanted to close the dying industry.
- she wanted to face consequences rather than delay the inevitable.

47
Q

What was the miners case against pit closure?

A
  • they argued that with government investment and commitment to coal as an energy source, large parts of the industry still had a profitable future.
48
Q

Who was Ian Mgreggor?

A

The chairman of the coal board, made responsible for downsizing the coal industry.

49
Q

Who was Arthur Scargill?

A

The charismatic union leader, played well with the press and the women. Pioneered flying pickets.

50
Q

What niche groups supported the miners?

A
  • The Sikh community
  • Middle class students
  • The gay community
51
Q

Why were the miners able to be defeated?

A
  • Police were paid very generously to take them down, inside agents were used.
  • Scargill had called the strike illegally, without a ballot, so the 31,000 Nottingham miners continued working, and Labour couldn’t support.
  • Thatcher had been stockpiling coal, enough to keep the country going for two years.
52
Q

What were the consequences of the miners defeat?

A

Allowed planned closures to go ahead at greater speed, leading to more job losses and redundancies.

53
Q

How did polls suggest public opinion was split?

A

65% pro-government, 45% supporting miners, suggesting a north-south divide.

54
Q

What was Thatcher’s ‘clear mandate’ from the people during the strike?

A

Her 144 seat majority

55
Q

Why was Thatcher being increasingly publicly supported during the strikes?

A
  • Her Falklands victory compared to Scargill and the flopping Labour party with their ‘longest suicide note in history’
  • A zeitgeist shifting away from the post war consensus, and were not willing to prop up a failing industry.
56
Q

How else could the miners have achieved a victory?

A
  • A different leader to Scargill who was less abrasive and who had less communist leaning in the cold war context.
  • If Kinnock had not taken the ‘third way’
  • Focusing more on campaigning against the social consequences than the economic.
57
Q

What was monetarism?

A

Milton Friedman - reducing government spending and keeping interest rates high. Lowered inflation, but increased unemployment.

58
Q

How much did inflation fall between 1979-83?

A

14% (19%->5%)

59
Q

What were the reasons for the city riots in Brixton?

A
  • Poor job prospects in deprived areas, especially for Afro-Caribbean communities.
  • Alienation of young black people through SUS laws.
  • High unemployment among school leavers - 25% for ethnic minorities in Brixton.
60
Q

What did Norman Tebbit famously say about unemployment?

A

That his father ‘didn’t riot; he got on a bike and looked for work, and went on looking until he found it.

61
Q

What did Thatcher say (and when) in response to urges from the wets to abandon monetarism?

A

‘This lady is not for turning’ - Conservative Party conference 1980.

62
Q

What were supply-side economics?

A

Pursued as monetarism was moved away from in the mid 1980s. Believed if people were taxed less they would be incentivised to work harder. Also limited power of trade unions and decreased welfare payments.

63
Q

What was deregulation?

A

Removing legal and financial restrictions which prevented efficiency and profitability. This included:
- deregulation of bus companies
- schools entitled to opt out of the state sector and become responsible for their own financing.

64
Q

What was the ‘right to buy’ act housing act 1980?

A

Allowed council tenants to buy their own homes, moved Britain towards being a ‘property owning democracy’.

65
Q

How much did home ownership increase between 1981 and 1990?

A

15%

66
Q

What was privatisation?

A

selling off enterprises such as British airways, British steel and British coal to provide the state with additional funds and increase popular capitalism by letting ordinary people be shareholders.

67
Q

What were the arguments for and against the privatisation of north sea oil?

A

+ world oil prices had begun to decline
- gov had squandered a national asset for short-term gain.

68
Q

What figures show Britain’s ‘economic miracle’ in the 1980s?

A
  • GDP growth rate higher than the European average, having been half of it from 1950-79.
  • real wages rise of 26% from 1979-94.
69
Q

What happened to taxes under Thatcher?

A

While she boasted reduced income tax, indirect taxes such as NI and VAT actually increased.

70
Q

What was the Westland affair 1986?

A
  • Westland was an ailing British helicopter company.
  • Heseltine suggested making it part of the European consortium, while Brittan suggested a US company take it over.
  • Thatcher chose the US option, and Heseltine stormed out, followed by Brittan after he was revealed to have ulterior motives.
  • Labour suggested this showed Thatcher’s willingness to give in to US pressure, and her bullying of cabinet.
71
Q

What was the Conservative majority following the 1983 election

A

100 seats in the commons.

72
Q

What were Thatcher’s local government reforms?

A
  • SSAs enabled central gov to control local gov expenditure levels.
  • Council’s required to adopt ‘compulsory competitive tendering’, contracting their services to the companies that could provide the best service at the lowest price.
73
Q

What was the 1988 Education reform act?

A
  • National curriculum introduced including core subjects and foundation subjects.
  • league tables with exam results were to be published.
74
Q

What was the problem with poll tax?

A
  • It made 7/10 households worse off financially.
  • it hit the poorest the worst but also middle-class Thatcher voters.
75
Q

What did the ‘one nation conservatives’ want?

A

The gov to use redistributive taxation to help disadvantaged members of society, so opposed poll tax.

76
Q

What were Thatcher’s concerns with Europe?

A
  • Their protectionism principle was outdated
  • Europe was obsessed with centralisation, which was clearly collapsing in the USSR.
  • Member states that were more efficient were penalised.
77
Q

What was Thatcher’s priority with Europe?

A

Secure Britain a better deal with their contributions to the EEC.

78
Q

What was the outcome of Thatcher’s position on EEC?

A
  • cooperation over channel channel project
  • played well with supporters at home but irritated European partners.
79
Q

What was Thatcher’s Brudges speech?

A

1988 ‘erosion of democracy by centralisation and bureaucracy’ -> meant to set out her vision for Europe but contained provocative comments which raised doubts about Britain’s commitment to European integration.

80
Q

What was Thatcher’s German issue with Europe?

A

bad relationship with German chancellor Kohl, Thatcher feared a united Germany would dominate Europe. She was not invited to the fall of the Berlin wall as she had opposed this idea.

81
Q

In what ways did Thatcher preside over Britain being drawn closer to Europe?

A
  • Single European Act 1986 (big step towards centralised Europe) (included the right of individual member states to veto majority decisions was abolished).
82
Q

How was Europe relevant for Thatcher?

A

Thatcher neglecting Howe and Lawson led to Howe’s brutal resignation speech, which was the prelude to her leadership struggle.

83
Q
A

History (20 decks)

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