T4 Social Cultural

Question 1

Thatcher’s views on Society

Answer 1

• ‘There is no such thing as society; there are individual men and women, and their families.’
• Margaret Thatcher came from a different background to her predecessors like Macmillan and
  Heath. She had a very different idea about what Conservatism should be about.
• Thatcher was the daughter of a grocer and so from a lower middle-class background.
• Her beliefs were really centred around the Victorian ideals of the Church of England and the
  Protestant work-ethic.
• Individuals should be responsible for themselves and their families, the government should be
  limited in its access into people’s lives, but the law should be strict and punishments for those
  who break it should be harsh.
• There was also a greater move towards British nationalism under Thatcher which had been absent
  from ‘One-Nation’ Conservatism.
• Thatcher & Thatcherites rejected the post-war consensus and embraced the New Right
  economics.

Question 2

Thatcherism’s Impact on Society (1979 - 1987)

Answer 2

• There is debate about the extent to which Thatcher’s government drove the process of economic
  realignment from a manufacturing/industrial base towards service industries – decline was
  already apparent pre-Thatcher.
• In areas which were heavily dependent on mining, shipbuilding or heavy industry, the process was
  particularly painful.
• Working class communities crumbled in the North, Midlands, Scotland and South Wales,
  exacerbating the North/South divide.
• Economic activity seemed to be moving towards London and the south.

Question 3

The 1981 and 1985 Riots

Answer 3

• In 1981 Howe advised Thatcher that cities such as Liverpool could be left to ‘managed decline’.
• In 1981 there were a series of riots between April and July in Brixton, London, Handsworth,
  Birmingham, Toxteth, Liverpool; and Chapeltown, Leeds.
• The Scarman Report was commissioned to examine the causes of the 1981 riots.
• It identified poverty and race as the key components.
• The areas when riots happened were suffering high levels of unemployment and deprivation.
• This was exacerbated by the fact that these were also areas where young black and Asian people
  felt the ‘sus law’ meant that the police unfairly targeted them.
• Despite the Scarman Report, and subsequent changes in policing policies, there were further riots
  in 1985.
• The economic realignment caused by deindustrialisation did, however, also lead to investment
  and regeneration in some of these areas.
• Michael Heseltine, argued for greater government intervention in derelict inner cities,
  spearheaded a redevelopment project in the dockland’s areas of both London and Liverpool.
• In London, the Canary Wharf development on the old West India Docks, became the second most
  important financial district in the country.

Question 4

‘The Right to Buy’

Answer 4

• The sale of council houses known as ‘Right to Buy’ was popular: over a million council houses were
  sold in the 1980s.
• In all 1.75m homes were sold raising £18 billion for the government

Question 5

The Right to Buy Scheme

Answer 5

• The Right to Buy scheme extended Thatcher’s privatisation policies and the ‘rolling back of the
  frontiers of the state’ towards social housing.
• Thatcher’s government thought that home ownership increased people’s sense of citizenship and
  social responsibility.
• By contrast, council houses encouraged a culture of dependency on the state.
• In addition, to these philosophical considerations, there was a tactical one: homeowners tended
  to vote Conservative and tenants Labour.
• Increasing the number of homeowners was likely to increase the number of Conservative voters.

Question 6

The 1980 Housing Act

Answer 6

• A key aim of the Thatcher government was to turn Britain into a ‘property-owning democracy’.
• The Housing Act of 1980 gave tenants the right to buy their council house.
• They received a discount between 33% and 50% depending on how long they had lived in the house.
• By 1988, approximately two million new homeowners had taken advantage of the scheme to buy the homes they had previously rented.
• It became a symbol of the success of Thatcherism.
• The Labour Party initially opposed the Right to Buy scheme but later dropped its opposition
  because it was so popular with the public, particularly in the south of the country.

Question 7

Consequences of the Right to Buy

Answer 7

• On the other hand, Right to Buy did have negative consequences.
• The sale of council housing was predominately in better-off areas and did not have great impact
  in less desirable estates.
• Councils were ordered to use the profits from the sale of council houses to reduce their debts,
  not to build new council houses.
• The number and quality of homes available for rent was sharply reduced and waiting lists for
  rented homes go longer.
• Many people were housed in emergency B&B accommodation which was expensive for councils
  to provide and not always suitable for the families involved.

Question 8

Right to Buy was Fair

Answer 8

*People ought to be able to buy their own home. *Allowing people to get on in life and improve
their circumstances shows that hard work brings
tangible results.
*Tenants had paid rent for years: now they could
convert this into home ownership.
*Wider home ownership leads to a more stable
society.

Question 9

Right to Buy was Unfair

Answer 9

*Social housing exists to help people who cannot
afford to buy and who find commercial rents
leave them poor. Selling council houses left
fewer properties for those on low incomes.
*Council tenants do not have a special right to
buy a house. If they are rich enough to buy one,
they should do so like everyone else on the open
market.
*Reduced numbers of council houses and flats
leaves more people homeless, which is bad for
social stability.
*If council tenants can buy the places where they
live, why can’t tenants of private landlords be
given the right to buy theirs – with a subsidy to
help them do it?

Question 10

Early 1980s Industrial Disputes

Answer 10

• Thatcher’s economic policies naturally aroused hostility from a number of trade unions
  representing public sector workers.
• These included NUPE (National Union of Public Employees) and COHSE (Confederation of Health
  Service Employees).
• Nurses, ambulance workers, teacher, steelworkers, as well as, miners and print workers all went
  on strike during the 1980s.
• Much of the time it was over pay disputes, especially during the 1980s when inflation was still
  running high.
• Some of these pay disputes, especially involving NHS workers, enjoyed high levels of public
  support and the government did sometimes agree to their demands.

Question 11

The 1984 - 1985 Miners Strike

Answer 11

• In her memoirs, Thatcher wrote that she had beaten democratic socialism through the ballot box:
  ‘undemocratic socialism… would need to be beaten. I had never had any doubt about the true aim
  of the hard Left: they were revolutionaries who sought to impose a Marxist system on Britain
  whatever the means and the cost’.
• This ‘undemocratic socialism’ was her way of referring to the political power of the trade unions.
• Much of the driving force in her policies towards the trade unions was the issue of governability.
• Following the defeats of both the Heath and Callaghan governments, the question was whether
  the trade unions were powerful enough to prevent governments putting laws through parliament,
  and the police and judiciary enforcing them.

Question 12

The 1980 Employment Act

Answer 12

Secretary of State for Employment James Prior steered though the Employment Act of 1980. This
outlawed Secondary Picketing, such a feature of the 1970s, and took steps to limit the Closed Shop.

Question 13

The 1982 Employment Act

Answer 13

Prior’s successor, Norman Tebbit took further steps with the Employment Act of 1982 to put employers
in a stronger bargaining position.

Question 14

The 1982 Employment Act:

Answer 14

1. Made it harder to sack someone for not being a trade union member.
2. Made it illegal for companies to agree a contract only with another company whose workforce
   were all union members.
3. Made it possible to sue trade unions, as well as, individual trade union officials, where they
   engaged in an illegal strike.
4. Narrowed the concept and definition of a legal strike.
5. Gave employers the right to fire workers who were on strike.

Question 15

Thatcher’s Enemy Within Speech (1984)

Answer 15

• Speaking at a private meeting of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbench MPs at
  Westminster, Thatcher compared taking on the miners to the Falklands War.
• ‘We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy
  within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty.’

Question 16

Arthur Scargill

Answer 16

• Thatcher was very fortunate in her enemy.
• The National Union of Miners (NUM) leader was Arthur Scargill who was unwilling to compromise.
  He was fiercely driven by his socialist ideology and was an avowed Marxist (communist).
• In some ways, although very charismatic, he was a gift for the Conservatives and the right-wing
  pro-Conservative newspaper press.

Question 17

The 1984 – 1985 Miners Strike - Causes

Answer 17

• The Conservatives government wanted to close hundreds of uneconomic pits.
• Trade unions had a stranglehold over the country for the last few decades.
• The government passed the Employment Acts. These said unions had to have a national ballot
  and secondary picketing was outlawed.
• Thatcher wanted to take on the miners and bitterly remembered how they destroyed the Heath
  government. Both the Miners and the Conservatives wanted a fight.
• The leader of the National Union of Miners (NUM), Arthur Scargill was unwilling to compromise.
• The newly appointed leader of the National Coal Board (NCB), Ian MacGregor, was also unwilling
  to compromise with the NUM.
• Thatcher had just won the 1983 General Election.
• She felt emboldened and empowered. Her cabinet was even ‘drier’ than before.
• Francis Pym was sacked and replaced by Geoffrey Howe as Foreign Secretary.
• Nigel Lawson took over as chancellor of the exchequer. Encouraged by the success in the Falklands
  War, the government committed (in the prime minister’s own words from a 1984 speech she gave
  Conservative backbenchers) to defeating the ‘enemy within’ having won against the ‘enemy
  without’.
• The Thatcher government made clear that the size of the coal industry would be reduced;
  uneconomic collieries would close, miners would be made redundant.
• The National Union of Miners [N.U.M] were determined to prevent the coal industry from
  contracting and miners losing their jobs.
• The union balloted [voted] on strike action on three occasions in 1982 – 1983 and each occasion
  there was a strong majority against strike action.
• To avoid a fourth defeat, NUM President Arthur Scargill, allowed a local dispute to lead to a strike
  by the Yorkshire Area of the union.
• Other areas called strikes individually. Some areas opposed strike action, but when pickets arrived
  from other areas, union members refused to cross the picket lines.
• The Miners’ strike therefore started with a national mandate [vote] by members of the NUM
  democratically authorising the strike.

Question 18

The 1984 – 1985 Miners Strike – Events

Answer 18

• Scargill launched the strike in the spring not the winter (he did not hold a national ballot).
• Coal was stockpiled by the Conservative government before the strike began and used when
  needed.
• Flying Pickets were a tactic employed by the strikers.
• They would travel from mine to mine and try to blockade the mine.
• Secondary Picketing of a location not directly involved in a dispute was another tactic used by the
  miners.
• Frequently, fights would break out between picketing miners and the police.
• Police were drafted in from all over the country-the Met Police has a particularly fierce reputation
  and were hated by the miners.
• The police were drafted into strike areas with military precision.
• There has been criticism that they invaded civil liberties. Miners were prevented from travelling
  to certain areas.
• The Battle of Orgreave between the NUM strikers and police was the location of some of the most
  heated battles between police and the miners.

Question 19

The 1984 – 1985 Miners Strike - Consequences

Answer 19

• When the Miners’ Strike ended in March 1985, the miners returned to work having not achieved
  their aims.
• The result had weakened the position of the trade union movement in the country’s economy,
  society, and politics.
• Coal Pits were closed, miners were laid off and the NUM quickly lost half of its membership.
• By the end of February 1985 more and more miners were returning to work.
• Trade unions became a lots less powerful and played less of a role in the economic life of the
  country.
• Hundred of mines were closed. Some would argue mining communities were totally destroyed
  by the closures and mass unemployment became rife.
• Thatcher became even more powerful, dominant and in an even stronger position.
• The remaining coal mines would be privatised by John Major’s government in 1984.

Question 20

Key differences between the 1974 and the 1984-1985 Miners Strike

Answer 20

1. Thatcher’s government had prepared the legal ground by passing the Employment Acts.
2. The strike began on 6 March 1984, just as the UK emerged from winter, therefore needing
   less energy. Coal stocks had been built up in readiness at the power stations where they would
   be needed, not left at the pits where strikers could control it.
3. Scargill did not ballot union members about the strike action, choosing instead to launch the
   strike with ‘flying pickets’.
4. This caused Nottingham miners to leave the NUM and set up their own union which voted to
   keep their mines open.
5. Scargill lost public opinion due to what were seen as provocative methods (his public
   disapproval rating never fell below 79% throughout the years-long strike).
6. The Labour Movement was not united. Many Labour Party and trade union activists collected
   funds to support the strikers. However, despite being the son of a miner himself, Labour Party
   leader Neil Kinnock sought to be even-handed, criticising both Miners and Police violence,
   and distanced himself from Arthur Scargill.
7. The strike began in the summer, when demand for coal was at its lowest, whereas previously
   the 1974 Miners Strike took place during winter when demand for coal was at its highest.
8. The government did not make the Miners’ Strike an election issue unlike the Heath
   Conservative government.

Question 21

Scargill’s Mistakes

Answer 21

• NUM president Arthur Scargill made several errors: The strike began on 6 March 1984, just as the
  UK emerged from winter, therefore needing less energy.
• Scargill did not ballot union members about the strike action, choosing instead to launch the strike
  with ‘flying pickets’.
• This caused Nottingham miners to leave the NUM and set up their own union which voted to keep
  their mines open.
• Scargill lost public opinion due to what were seen as provocative methods (his public disapproval
  rating never fell below 79% throughout the years-long strike).
• The strike was finally defeated on 3 March 1985, almost a year to the day it began, although
  miners in Kent held out for a further two weeks.

Question 22

The Wapping Dispute (1986 - 1987)

Answer 22

• Newspaper proprietors, like Rupert Murdoch, wanted to exploit new technology to reduce their
  costs and increase profits.
• But they feared strikes as newspapers cannot make up for lost sales – once a day had been lost in
  strike, that day’s newspaper sales are gone forever.
• Under The Time’s and The Sun’s new Australian-born owner Rupert Murdoch, plans were secretly
  laid to defeat the print unions. New technology meant that journalists could type their story direct into the newspaper design, rather than write the story on a typewriter and pass a piece of paper
  to others, who would then manually and mechanically make up the page in a process called ‘hot metal’. Those currently doing old jobs would be out of work. Management and trade unions could
  not reach agreement and, in January 1986, a strike was called. The management issued dismissal
  notices to the 6,000 strikers.
• Production of The Times and the company’s other newspapers was moved from offices on London’s Fleet Street to a new home in Wapping, where a new building, with new technology was waiting.
• For a year, the trade unions organised demonstrations, which were often rowdy.
• The police provided continual, often large-scale, supervision. In February 1987, the strike ended;
  Murdoch had won.

Question 23

Popular Opposition to Thatcher

Answer 23

• Thatcher’s economic policies and their impact on society were hugely controversial.
• The parliamentary opposition parties at this time were weak and divided.
• So, people outside of parliament, who were unhappy with Thatcher’s policies, often voiced their
  disagreements in other ways.

Question 24

‘There’s no such thing as society’

Answer 24

• Thatcher aroused a storm when, in an interview printed in a woman’s magazine in October 1987,
  she infamously remarked, ‘there’s no such thing as society’.
• Her critics seized on this as evidence of her lack of compassion and her wish to encourage
  unrestricted individualism [‘rugged individualism’].
• The anti-Thatcher newspaper, The Guardian, reprinted the interview on its front page.
• ‘There are individual men and women, and there are families.
• And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves
  first, it’s our duty to look after ourselves and then to look after our neighbour’.
• Opponents said that her statement illustrated why she was willing to cut government spending
  on social welfare.
• She defended herself by quoting how her statement continued.
• She claimed in fact that her purpose had in fact been to emphasise self-reliance and the
  individual’s responsibility towards society [‘rugged individualism’].
• She further claimed she was defending the family as the basic social unit of society against the
  social ills of a welfare-benefits dependency-culture.
• In her memoirs published in the early 1990s, Thatcher described the social ills of a welfare
  benefits dependency-culture she had in mind:
• ‘Welfare benefits, distributed with little or no consideration of their effects on behaviour,
  encouraged illegitimacy, facilitated the breakdown of families, and replaced incentives favouring
  work and self-reliance with perverse encouragement for idleness and cheating’.
• It might be thought that her beliefs would have made her government eager to reform the welfare
  state. It is true that certain steps were taken.
• To tackle what Thatcher called the ‘Why Work?’ problem, her reference to the poverty trap.
• The Poverty Trap was the dilemma facing the low paid; if they continued working there were
  penalised by being taxed, which reduced their net income to a level a little higher than if they
  simply claimed unemployment benefits.
• The government introduced a measure taxing short-term income relief, it also introduced a 5%
  cut in unemployment benefits, sickness benefits, work-injury benefits, invalidity benefits and
  maternity pay.
• However, the government’s public-spending cuts were largely limited overall.
• This was because of the high unemployment rate, resulting from her monetarist and supply side
  economic policies, remained so high during her 11 years in office that there was a major increase
  rather than a decrease in unemployment benefits payments.

Question 25

Education and the Arts

Answer 25

* Oxford University voted against giving Thatcher an honorary degree, an honour it had given to every other Oxford-educated post-war prime minister, because of public spending cuts to higher education. * Similarly, the artist establishment tended to be anti-Thatcher, partly because of cuts in public spending on the arts. * Playwrights such as Caryl Churchill, David Hare and Alan Ayckbourn wrote plays that satirised Thatcherism. Red Wedge was a musical collective including Billy Bragg, Paul Weller and Madness who campaigned against Thatcher in the late 1980s. * They were also joined by a number of ‘alternative’ comedians such as Alexei Sayle and Ben Elton. * There were also a number of TV programmes which showed the social consequences of Thatcherite policies such as Boys from the Blackstuff. * The most famous satire of the Thatcher years came from ITV’s Spitting Image series.

Question 26

The Church

Answer 26

* The Church of England published a report in 1985 called Faith in the City which called on the government to do more to help deprived communities, and bishops such as David Jenkins in Durham and David Sheppard in Liverpool were outspoken in their criticism of Thatcherite policies and their impact on society. * They viewed these policies as unchristian and going against the teachings of Jesus Christ, especially with regards to looking after the weak, vulnerable and poor in society.

Question 27

Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups

Answer 27

* There were many protest movements, against Thatcher’s government, that worked outside the traditional framework of parliamentary politics, some of which tried to involve people in direct action.

Question 28

Trade Unions

Answer 28

* The trade unions, like the National Union of Miners [NUM] during the 1984-1985 Miners Strike and the Printing Unions during the 1986 strike at Rupert Murdock’s Wapping Plant.

Question 29

Charities

Answer 29

* Amongst these movements were charities such as Shelter which campaigned against increasing homelessness and Age Concern which campaigned against poverty.

Question 30

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)

Answer 30

* From 1958, the most significant protest movement in Britain had been the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament [CND]. * CND continued to attract a lot of support during the 1980s and was given a new lease of life by Thatcher’s determined backing for the policy of deterrence and stepping up the arms race against the Soviet Union at a time of renewed new Cold War tensions during the 1980s. * In 1979 the decision was taken to station American nuclear cruise missiles at bases in Britain. * In reaction to this, CND organised mass protest marches reminiscent of the Aldermaston marches twenty years earlier.

Question 31

Greenham Common

Answer 31

* In September 1981 a group of women set up a peace camp outside the Greenham Common base, to protest the presence of US nuclear cruise missile weapons that were to be based there. * Other women soon joined them there as the camp now became a focus for feminism, as well as pacifism; the camp was to remain in place for 19 years. * In April 1983, when the nuclear cruise missiles were due to arrive, 70,000 protestors formed a 14 mile human chain of protest stretching from Greenham Common to Aldermaston. * In 1984, the Newbury local council evicted the women and demolished their peace camp. * The women returned after dark and rebuilt it. * The Greenham Common Peace Camp became a powerful symbol during the 1980s. * Even after the nuclear cruise missiles left the site in 1991 the Greenham women kept their camp going to protest Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent. * It was not finally closed until 2000.

Question 32

Environmentalism

Answer 32

* An awareness of environmental concerns, which started in the 1970s continued to during the 1980s. * This was partly because of a series of economic disasters: industrial accidents such as the 1984 Bhopal Gas leak in India and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Soviet Union; the 1985 discovery of the Antarctic Ozone Hole caused by CFCs [chlorofluorocarbons] in the atmosphere, and the damage done to limestone buildings and freshwater lakes by acid rain. * Environmental pressure groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth grew in membership.

Question 33

The 1988 Education Reform Act

Answer 33

* Thatcher regarded her 1987 general election victory as a mandate for the most significant educational reforms since the 1944 Butler Act. * The Education Reform Act of 1988 had the aim of making schools more efficient and responsive to the needs of their ‘consumer’, in this case children and their parents.

Question 34

The main provisions of the 1988 Education Act included

Answer 34

* The Principle of Local Management of Schools [LMS] was introduced, under which schools were entitled to free themselves from direct financial control by the Local Education Authority. Schools could now be taken over by the headteacher and school governors. * Primary and secondary schools could opt to become Grant Maintained Schools [GMS] which allowed them to become independent of their Local Education Authorities and be financed directly by central government. * Secondary schools could restore some elements of selection at 11 Plus. * A National Curriculum was introduced, containing ‘core’ subjects, such as English and Maths, and ‘foundation’ subjects such as Geography, History and Art. * In their teaching, schools were to cover a set of ‘Key Stages’ aimed at achieving several prescribed learning aims. * Where local conditions allowed, parents could specify which school they wanted their children to attend. * League Tables, showing examination results achieved by schools, were to be published.

Question 35

Thatcher’s Social Conservatism

Answer 35

* The Social Conservatism of Thatcherism and the changes in this period can be exemplified in the attitudes to homosexuality. * Negative attitudes grew during the 1980s, reaching a peak in 1987. * Part of this may have been the identification of AIDS. * The first case in the UK was recorded in 1981 and because gay men seemed to be particularly at risk, it was commonly referred to as the ‘gay plague’.

Question 36

AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)

Answer 36

* The fact that gay men and intravenous drug users were most at risk of contracting the HIV virus which caused AIDS meant that involvement by the government was considered controversial. * Nevertheless, the government started a prevention campaign in 1985; needle exchanges were set up and leaflets were distributed to all households and schools. * Billboards and TV and radio advertisements advised people: ‘Don’t die of ignorance.’

Question 37

The Role of Diana, Princess of Wales

Answer 37

* In 1987 Diana, Princess of Wales challenged these popular prejudices about AIDS by shaking hands with a patient with AIDS at the Royal Middlesex Hospital, a hugely significant move in de stigmatising AIDS patients.

Question 38

Rising Homophobia

Answer 38

* There is no doubt that the fears of AIDS stirred up greater prejudice about gay people. * ‘Looney Left’ councils were accused of ‘promoting’ homosexual ‘lifestyles’ by funding support groups. * There was a tabloid outcry in 1986 over a book, Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, which was stocked in some London school libraries.

Question 39

Section 28

Answer 39

* In response, Section 28, a law which banned the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities, was passed in 1988. * Although it was not directly aimed at schools, many people believed that it made it illegal to discuss homosexuality in schools. * Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act stated local authorities should neither ‘promote homosexuality’, nor allow schools to teach ‘the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. * Going against the post-war tendency towards steady social liberalisation regarding human relationships, this was a response to the willingness of the Labour-run Greater London Council to provide loans or grants to gay and lesbian groups. * In addition, schools had begun to adopt a policy towards homosexuality modelled on those concerning race and gender. * New campaigning groups were set up as a response, including Stonewall, while the existing Gay Pride rallies saw an increase in the numbers attending.

Question 40

LGBT Rights

Answer 40

* The human rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell, was one of the co-founders of the pressure group, Outrage! It used direct action, threatening to ‘out’ gay clergy and MPs. * Stonewall backed test cases at the European Court of Human Rights, challenging the unequal age of consent and the ban on homosexuals in the armed forces. * This led to a reduction in the age of consent for gay men from 21 to 18 years old in 1994. Equality, however, was not achieved until the year 2000 when the age of consent was lowered to 16 years old. * Similarly, it was not until the year 2000 that the lifting of the ban on homosexuals in the military was eventually passed.

Question 41

Other Tory Moral Panics

Answer 41

* The 1980s saw a series of moral panics, many of which subsided by 1997. * Family campaigners feared for the future of marriage as the divorce rate hit record highs in the 1990s and the percentage of babies born to unmarried parents more than doubled from 12% in the early 1980s to 30% by the early 1990s. * Single mothers and absent fathers were particularly demonised by the tabloid press for being ‘benefit scroungers’ living off welfare benefits. * In 1992 Peter Lilley, the Secretary of State for Social Security, sang a song at the Conservative Party Conference including the words: * ‘There’s young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing que/ And dads who don’t support the kids / of ladies they have kissed’.