Mrs Thatcher’s U-turn? From Youth Opportunities to Youth Training

Abstract

The election of the first Thatcher government in 1979 marked an abrupt change in British political and economic life. Her political philosophy involved an explicit rejection of the consensus approach of her postwar predecessors. Trade unions were to be put in their place; public expenditure was to be cut by rolling-back the ‘nanny’ welfare state; and the British economy was to be purged of feather-bedding by a ‘short, sharp shock’. Fundamentally, the introduction of monetarist fiscal policies provided the technical rationale for redefining the nature of social and economic priorities — away from maintaining levels of employment towards ‘shake outs’ of restrictive labour practices and control of the money supply.