Society 1979-1990

Why was Right to Buy introduced?

a key aim of the Thatcher gov. was to turn Britain into a property owning democracy - her ideology was against state intervention and in favour of individuals improving their economic situations

Housing Act year

1980

Housing Act explained

gave council 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

homeowners who took advantage of the scheme by 1988

2 million

successes of right to buy scheme

• became a symbol of the success of Thatcherism

• Labour Party initially opposed the scheme but since it was popular (especially in the South) they dropped this stance

• Helps to drive up property ownership - one of the gov’s aims

SUCCESSFUL IN THE SHORT TERM

failures of the right to buy scheme

• the sale of council housing was predominantly in better off areas and did not have a great impact on less desirable estates

• FAILURE IN HE LONG TERM - led to a lack of social housing, further widening gap between the rich and the poor, councils did not re-invest into more housing stock

union relations by this point in time

• there is an appetite to control the unions - they are seen as too powerful

• memory of the Winter of discontent still fresh

1980 Employment Act

only legal to picket outside of your own place of work - early action shows that tackling unions are one of thatcher’s priorities, appealing to normal people frustrated by the unions

1982 Employment Act

increase compensation for sacked workers due to closures

restricted immunities for trade unions

1984 - GCHQ tries to unionise

• the government did not led the Gov communications Head quarter unionise - the centre of a political row with the Conservativegovernment

NUM leader

Arthur Scargill - marxist leader

NCB President

Ian Macgregor (‘Mac the Knife’) Thatcherite

Background to the Miners’ strike action

• 1980 NCB chairman at the time Derek Ezra announced pit closures of 20-50 mines if gov did not inject more cash into the industry - Scargill claimed (correctly) the gov actually intended closer to 70

• coal was difficult and costly to mine - nationalisation in 194 had not solved this issue

• mines were running at a loss, cheap alternatives like oil and gas became more popular

illegal strike with no ballot

• could only happen legally if majority union members wanted to - 70,000 had been balloted and 50,000 wanted to keep working

• Scargill used a domino strategy of locally called strikes and use of flying pickets for an undemocratic national strike

• by April 1984, 4 out of 5 miners were on strike

Nottinghamshire miners splinter union

• the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM)

• accused Scargill of caring more about his hard-left politics than the lives of the miners he was leading

how was the strike poorly timed

• strike in the spring - the demand for coal was low

• Thatcher already stockpiled coal supplies and had North Sea Oil to fuel the country

no. of people arrested for picketing in NUM strike

11,291, of which 150-200 were imprisoned

politicisation of the police

Thatcher was criticised for using the police as her own personal army in this instance eg, the Battle of Orgeave

Battle of Orgeave

18th June 1984 - violent clash between picketing miners and police in Yorkshire

BBC TV coverage reversed the footage to show miners as the initial attackers, only admitting this in 1991

NACOD choose not to strike

National Association of Colliery Overmen and Deputies struck a deal with the NCB - seen as betrayal and lessened the impact of the strike

Public opinion on the NUM strike

• support was varied and regional - in affected areas, communal support and collections were raised

• other areas felt less sympathy for mining families and disliked the extremist leader Scargill

• newspapers like the Daily Mail and the Sun took an anti-strike position from the beginning - only socialist papers maintained full support

wha did Thatcher call the striking miners?

‘The Enemy Within’

High court ruling September 1984

• Striking families would not receive benefits and ruled the strike as illegal

• drastic damaging impact on regional striking communities, who now had to rely on charity

Thatcher won/Miners lost

• after almost a year miners returned to work without completing their objectives

• important political victory for Thatcher that set her aside from Heath

• good planning on Thatcher’s part, ill judgement in union leadership

in 1990 Union membership as a whole had fell by

2/3 - victory for Thatcher who set out against them

why was poll tax so controversial

• harder to collect

• much higher than predicted

• seen as an unfair tax - followed an increase in indirect taxation (VAT), everyone paid the same based on where you lived, no bands

• appeared like a new additional tax, no one was happy to pay more tax

Poll Tax riot 1990

Trafalgar Square Demonstration March 1990

• 200,000 people attended

• police charged with batons, more than 100 officers treated for injury

impact of poll tax on Thatcher’s leadership

• emboldened Hesseltine’s parliamentary challenge in November, he did not beat her but commanded sufficient support for her to resign

• led to public criticism, campaigns

what did the poll tax show about Thatcher’s view on society

• saw homeowners as an important group, wary to appease them in changing from the old local property tax (‘the rates’)

• Thatcher wanted to challenge the authority of Local councils - since the election turnouts for local councils was low, how democratic they were is questionable

• showed Thatcher’s desire for centralised power over taxes and for Britain to be a home-owning society

Anti nuclear campaigns

• CND membership increased, more supported unilateralism

• an annual demonstration attracted 250,000 people

• hostility to the new generation of weapons

• peace camps - residential demonstrations outside of military bases got media traction

• demonstrated frustration, but this was non-violent action and did not put enough pressure on Thatcher to change her FP direction

Section 23 under the 1988 Local Government Act

• schools should not teach the ‘acceptability of homosexuality’

• went against the Labour tendency for liberalisation

• Stonewall and other campaigning groups set up in response, existing gay pride rallies saw an increase in attendance

• was in response to the Greater London Council’s willingness to give loans/grants to gay and lesbian groups

People’s March for Jobs

• 1981 - unemployed people marched from Liverpool to London to rally outside the GLC

• 1983 - Glasgow to London, thousands showed but not he hundreds of thousands they had hoped for

• showed upset at high unemployment, but did not pose a serious threat to gov

Faith In the City

• 1985 report on urban life drawing attention to unemployment and poor housing, inadequate education etc

• examined both spiritual and economic poverty

• hostile government response, branded as marxist

• drew attention to the government’s social failings and gave them a new group to think about appeasing