Thatcher Decade Research Articles

The Legacy of Austerity

In considering the impact of austerity, much attention has been focused on the immediate effects of public spending cuts and on documenting the resulting increase in hardship and unmet needs. However, in calculating the consequences of austerity for the welfare state, it is its enduring legacy that is equally important. This article examines the proposition that the indirect effects of austerity on social, economic and political relations are as significant for the welfare of future generations as the ‘decade of austerity’ has been for contemporary welfare. The analysis draws on the approach adopted by Paul Wilding (1992) reflecting on the 1980s as the ‘decade of Thatcherism’. Wilding’s ten legacies are recategorised across four dimensions: normalising a non-commitment to welfare, societal scarring, refuelling the race to the bottom and diminishing the political capacity for change. The conclusions suggest that austerity will abide in the social and political relations of welfare long after austerity measures have ceased.

Thatcher’s Sons? 1980s Boyhood in British Cinema, 2005-2010

The 1980s have been mediated constantly since their end, with British cinema in particular engaging with the decade’s political, social, and cultural landscape through a masculine perspective. Seventeen British films set in the 1980s were produced from 2005 to 2010, with many presenting a personal response to the boyhood of their screenwriters during the Thatcher decade. This article considers the determinants of this phenomenon, the meaning for contemporary men of 1980s cultural nostalgia, and the role of the father in these films. Two films in particular, Son of Rambow and This is England, center boyhood and patriarchal absence within their personal narratives. Although these films indicate that the 1980s are a difficult period for the male characters in these narratives, I argue that for a number of their screenwriters and directors, revisiting their boyhood through these cultural texts indicates a nostalgic reluctance to move on from the 1980s. How this contradiction defines contemporary masculinity in Britain will be a key consideration in this article.

The struggle for civil liberties: political freedom and the rule of law in Britain, 1914-1945

It is widely believed that there was a golden age in which political freedom in Britain was protected by the rule of law, and by judges developing the common law in favour of individual liberty. In an uncompromising and withering account based on a wide range of official and unofficial sources, this path-breaking study by two of the country's leading civil liberties lawyers exposes the mythical nature of much of this traditional learning. The Struggle for Civil Liberties: Political Freedom and the Rule of Law in Britain, 1914-1945 traces the hostile response of the executive and judicial branches of government to the various groups and individuals who confronted the power of the State in the first half of the twentieth century: the wartime peace movements, the Communist Party of Great Britain, the striking trade unionists in 1926, the hunger marches, and the Irish Nationalists. In addressing these issues, the study has a loud contemporary resonance, by placing in a new and alarming historical context the struggles for civil liberties that have been and are being fought by radical groups in contemporary British Society, and during the Thatcher decade in particular. This book will change forever the way in which open-minded public lawyers think about their subject, and will require a fundamental re-examination of the foundations of the discipline.

New labour and Thatcherism: political change in Britain

Preface to the Paperback Edition Preface and Acknowledgements Exploring Political Change Beyond the Thatcher Decade: The Politics of 'New' Labour The Politics of Thatcherism Explaining Thatcherism: Project and Process Modernisation: The Transformation of the Labour Party How and Why Parties Change: Identifying Environmental Contexts Party Competition Driven Party Change: The 'Politics of Catch-Up' A Theory of Consensus Politics Thatcherism and the Reinvention of Labour Notes Bibliography Index

The changing consumer in the UK

For the UK, the 1980's was Margaret Thatcher's decade; the 1990's may be the decade of Europe. Thatcher's policies and her philosophy still have an impact on social and economic life. An examination is made of demographic changes, economic development, changes in consumption, changes in social attitude and changes in marketing channels that are taking place. Wealth has become more evenly spread throughout society although the bottom is worse off. The UK consumer is becoming more cosmopolitan with increased preference being shown for food and drink from mainland Europe. Another shift is towards increased amounts of both time and money being spent on leisure and in the rapid adoption of new classes of consumer good. There is evidence of the “greening” of the economy but individuals only seem willing to take individual action to “green” their lifestyle for a financial incentive.

Union Membership after Thatcher: Evidence from the National Child Development Study

At the start of the 1990s trade unions were reeling from a decade of Thatcherism, in which their density amongst employees had been whittled down to 35% by 1990. Several explanations for the decline have vied for attention: the changing composition of industry and of the economy generally, with more part‐time work, fewer large‐scale establishments, the collapse of manufacturing industries and so on; the changing legal environment; the distinctly uncongenial macroeconomic environment, which with lowish inflation and mass unemployment was a discouragement to membership (see for example Disney, 1990; Green, 1991). Such explanations have varying implications for unions' future prospects. For example, if the changed level environment were the key factor, one would predict a further decline of union membership in the 1990s, unless there were a change of government and a wholesale repeal of Thatcherite trade union laws (which is not to be expected). A distinction has been drawn in the literature between the structural factors that determine the social context in which individual employees make their decisions with regard to union membership, and the varying preferences that individuals may have in favour of or against unions. Attempts have been made to show that despite years of attacks from Thatcherism, it is not so much the attitudes and commitment of workers to unions that has changed, as the opportunities that they face. Thus it is said that for many the reason that they left unions is because unions simply were not available at the new workplaces (Gallie, 1989).

Poaching in Thatcherland: a Case of Radical Community Theatre

EMMA was one of the many small-scale touring groups which flourished as part of the community theatre movement of the 1970s. That it died within a year of the Thatcher decade was due, ironically, not to direct political intervention but to a financial crisis within its funding body, East Midlands Arts, brought on by its attempt to centralize community projects and render them safely retrospective. Here, Baz Kershaw compares the practice of EMMA with its stated intentions, and looks in detail at one of its self-created plays, The Poacher, as an example of ‘performative contradiction’ – in this case, the making of a subversive political statement within the ostensibly safe ambience of the rural nostalgia industry. Baz Kershaw, who lectures in Theatre Studies at Lancaster University, wrote for the original Theatre Quarterly on the rural community arts group Medium Fair. He has also contributed to Performance and Theatre Papers, and was co-author with Tony Coult of a study of Welfare State, Engineers of the Imagination. His most recent work is The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention (Routledge, 1992).

Not Only a Question of Money: Shakespeare and the Ego Decade

We get not only the kind of government but also the kind of theatre we deserve, argues Liisa Hakola, who here relates the new impulses behind Shakespearean productions of the 1980s to the social and economic assumptions which came to prevail in Britain during the ‘Thatcher decade’ – and seemingly beyond. Desirable though increased subsidy for the theatre may be – in particular for the RSC, as chief purveyors of Shakespeare – what determines the relevance of Shakespearean productions to their times, she suggests, transcends the availability of cash subsidies, however symptomatic of a prevailing climate their size or scarcity may be. Although based in Helsinki, Liisa Hakola spent much of the 1980s in Britain, preparing her PhD thesis, published in 1988, on three RSC productions of Richard II. She has published two other books in Finnish, and also translated five of Fay Weldon's novels into that language.

The British Welfare State: Thatcherism’s enduring legacy

The 1980s were the decade of Thatcherism. They were years when major changes were made, and attempted, in public and social policies. They were also years dominated by the ideology to which Mrs Thatcher gave her name. This paper is an exercise in analysis and prophecy. It attempts to anticipate the probable enduring impact of Thatcherism on the British welfare state and foresees ten enduring legacies.

Editing Tony Benn

The relationship between Tony Benn MP and the British Press is one of continuing fascination to journalists, politicians, academics- and indeed all voters. Ruth Winstone has been editing the political diaries of Tony Benn since April 1986 and four volumes have now been published covering the years 1963 to 1980. A fifth, now in preparation for publication in 1992, will encompass Labour's prolonged period of Opposition during the 'Thatcher Decade' and its immediate aftermath. Ruth Winstone has written a personal piece for the British Journalism Review in which she discusses the problems of working on the Benn chronicles and of the difficulties involved with the media in working with a highly controversial political figure.

Urban Policy in the Thatcher Decade: English Inner-City Policy, 1979–90

England has witnessed more than a decade of formal urban policy effected by Conservative administrations elected in 1979, 1983, and 1987. Most initiatives have fallen into one of three categories: Those designed to improve coordination; innovations in liberalisation; and urban development programmes. These initiatives can collectively be evaluated within a number of parameters. Central government has argued that urban policy is a coordinated, adequate, efficient, and consensual approach to difficulties faced by the older conurbations. Evidence from Parliament, academics, practitioners, and lobbyists suggests, however, that it remains an ill-coordinated, limited, inefficient, and sectorally divisive policy. Other interpretations rooted in concepts such as privatisation and accentuated control have greater validity in explaining British urban policy.

Global capitalism and National decline: the Thatcher decade in perspective

Part 1 Long waves of class formation: class formation in the world system the temporal dimension of class formation class formation and the political articulation of class interests generations in the bourgeoisie. Part 2 The rise and fall of British hegemony: the making of the British Class structure Britain's imperial decline.

Global capitalism and national decline: the Thatcher decade in perspective

Journal Article Global capitalism and national decline: the Thatcher decade in perspective Get access Global capitalism and national decline: the Thatcher decade in perspective. By Overbeek Henk. London: Unwin Hyman. 1990. 265pp. Index. £30.00; ISBN 0 04 445413 9. Pb.: £10.95; ISBN 0 04 445639 5. Edmund Dell Edmund Dell Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 67, Issue 1, January 1991, Pages 170–171, https://doi.org/10.2307/2621269 Published: 01 January 1991

A Decade of Thatcherism

A Decade of Thatcherism

The Thatcher decade: how Britain has changed during the 1980s

Much has changed in Britain since Margaret Thatcher came to power in May 1979 and consolidated her position with election victories in 1983 and 1987. But how much is attributable to her and how much would have happened anyway? This book provides an analytic view of the social and political climate under Thatcherism. It addresses broad areas of concern - the economy, industrial decline, the public sector, privatization and popular capitalism, law and order, foreign policy, the machinery of government - and assesses what Mrs Thatcher has sought to do and what she has achieved.

Book Reviews: The Thatcher Effect: A Decade of Change, The Thatcher Decade, Thatcherism: Scope and Limits, Thatcherism, after Thatcher, Modernity and the Holocaust, the Battle of Democracy: Conflict, Consensus and the Individual, the Idea of a Democratic Community, Renewing Italian Socialism: Nenni to Craxi, Labor Divided: Austerity and Working-Class Politics in Contemporary Italy, Italian Communism in Transition: The Rise and

Book Reviews: The Thatcher Effect: A Decade of Change, The Thatcher Decade, Thatcherism: Scope and Limits, Thatcherism, after Thatcher, Modernity and the Holocaust, the Battle of Democracy: Conflict, Consensus and the Individual, the Idea of a Democratic Community, Renewing Italian Socialism: Nenni to Craxi, Labor Divided: Austerity and Working-Class Politics in Contemporary Italy, Italian Communism in Transition: The Rise and

The Thatcher Decade: Britain in the 1980s

The Thatcher Decade: Britain in the 1980s

Mrs Thatcher's Miracle?

Has there been an economic miracle during Mrs Thatcher's decade in office? Richard Layard and Stephen Nickell describe the government's achievements, but ultimately conclude that despite benefits there nave been major costs.

Is Monetarism Dead at last?

Monetarism has been an essential ingredient of the Thatcher decade. Has it been a successful guide to monetary policy? Nigel Healey, of Leicester University, describes the development of monetarism in Britain in the 1980s and reviews its successes and failures.

Pay and Industrial Relations in the UK Public Sector

ABSTRACT: A decade of Thatcherism has produced a range of measures that directly and indirectly have had a significant impact on industrial relations institutions and outcomes. Economic growth in the private sector has been attributed in part to the development of a new era of industrial relations, one in which former patterns of job control, pay determination, strikes, and union membership have altered significantly and probably permanently. It was unlikely that the public sector would remain immune from such changes, particularly given the notoriety that industrial relations in this sector achieved during the 1970s.This paper will examine the main developments in public sector industrial relations over the last two decades, concentrating on pay, and its associated outcomes, and on the performance of the institutions through which pay is determined. Throughout, the emphasis will be on assessing how far the changes that have occurred have tackled the perceived problems of the 1970s, or met the new requirements of the 1980s.By way of introduction, section 1 summarises the main features of the UK public sector which relate to pay. Data on pay outcomes for the period 1970‐88 for the main occupational groups are provided in Section 11. A description of the evolution of pay determination machinery is given in Section 111, which concludes with a brief look at one indicator of the success or failure of these institutional arrangements, namely strikes. The fourth section deals with the criteria by which pay has been determined over the last twenty years, noting the interaction between these and the institutional arrangements. Finally, we look briefly at one other outcome, productivity, as one indicator of how well public sector industrial relations are geared to improving organizational performance.