Contents

Introduction

The political background 4

1.Snapshots of Britain

A sense of identity; tha core and the periphery; the north-south divide; cities and towns; 'sunset' and 'sunrise' areas; town and country; rich and poor 11

2.The system of government

The Crown; Whitehall – the seat of government; Westminster – the seat of Parliament; the electoral system; the party system; the House of Commons; the House of Lords; parliamentary procedure; parliamentary committees 28

3.Government and politics: debate and change

The monarchy; the constitution; reform of the House of Lords; the Honours system; government: the record; the difficulties of reforming government; the Civil Service; quangos; Parliament – in need of reform?; electoral reform; changes in the electorate and political parties 45

4.The forces of law and order

The legal system of England and Wales; dealing with crime; the treatment of offenders; young offenders; the legal profession and the courts; the legal system of Scotland; the police 74

5.Local government

A changing system; the tension between central government and local democracy

90

6.Working Britain

The economic problems; owners and managers; the financial sector; the trade unions; the workforce; the energy industries; the causes of industrial failure; the European Monetary Union 102

7.A social profile

The family; social class; gender; young people; ethnic minorities 126

8.Culture and style: national self-expression

The community and the individual; the fine distinctions of speech; the rural ideal; dress codes; nostalgia and modernity; urban sub-cultures; the culture of sport; the arts; culture for the community; the National Lottery 145

9.The Importance of not being English

Northern Ireland; Wales; Scotland 171

10.A view of Europe and the world

Foreign policy dilemmas; Britain in Europe; the Commonwealth; the end of Empire?; the armed forces; the question of security 197

11.Educating the nation

Primary and secondary education; the story of British schools; the educational reforms of the 1980s; education under Labour; the private sector; further and higher education 213

12.The media: the press, radio and television

The press; radio and television; government and the media; privacy and self-regulation of the press 235

13.Religion in Britain

The Church of England; the other Christian churches; other religions 250

14.Transport: the threat of paralysis

Rail; roads; air; Greater London; the need for infrastructure 266

15.The environment

The environment and pollution; country and town planning; housing 275

16.The nation’s health and well-being

The National Health Service; social security and social services 286

17.Time for a drink: the British pub 299

Author’s acknowledgements

No book of this kind can possibly be written without substantial help from the work of other writers who have written either about Britain generally or about a particular aspect of it. These books are listed among the study materials at the end of each chapter. In addition, I am greatly indebted to those who kindly read particular chapters or advised me on particular points: Pat Gordon, John Neil, Caroline Nolan, and Nuala and Siobhan Savage. Finally, I am particularly grateful to my editor, Brigit Viney, for the way in which her diligence brought significantly sharper focus to the text.

A note on study tools

At the end of each chapter are lists of printed materials and Internet websites with primary material for research, reading and classroom discussion. Websites are usually current, but often lack the depth of analysis of printed sources. Printed sources, on the other hand, can seem dated, but they are usually more considered. However, media websites (see Chapter 12), particularly those for the BBC and the broadsheet press, can be invaluable for political, economic and social commentary. Some websites listed here are official government ones, others are not. The Central Office of Information and www.open.gov.uk offer official departmental information. Northern Ireland has an extensive listing which is intended to cover the range of political views.

Introduction

This book aims to describe Britain as it is today, and to go beyond popular and stereotyped images to examine the more complex realities of modern Britain and its people. It also attempts to assess the changes taking place in Britain today and to indicate the direction in which the country is 3ecognize as it enters the twenty-first century.

The political background

It is impossible to do so without reviewing, in very broad outline, what has been happening to Britain in recent years. In general terms, Britain has experienced three major phases of government since 1945: 1945-79, 1979-97 and the period since 1997. In 1945 a Labour government under Prime Minister Clement Attlee established what was later called ‘the post-war consensus’ between the two main parties, the Conservative and Labour Parties. This consensus referred to fundamental economic and social matters, so that Britain could rebuild itself economically and socially following the Second World War.

Despite ideological differences, both Conservative and Labour governments followed the principles for the national economy formulated by the great pre-war economist J.M. Keynes, which stated that capitalist society could only survive if government controlled, managed and even planned much of the general shape of its economy. The requirements of war (1939-45) had increased the belief in, and practice of, government planning. Labour 3ecognize3ze those industries and services considered central to the national economy: notably coal and steel production, gas and electricity supply, and the railways.

Labour also established virtually full employment and a ‘welfare state’, which guaranteed free health and education, pensions and benefits for the old, disabled, sick or unemployed. The maintenance of the welfare state and full employment were accepted by the Conservatives as fundamental responsibilities of government. However, neither principle could be ensured without an expanding economy. As the Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (1957-63) remarked, managing he post-war economy was like juggling four balls in the air: an expanding economy, full employment, stable prices and a strong pound. It was only in the question of full employment that post-war governments were truly successful.

Regardless of which party was in power, Britain’s economy became 3ecognize3ze3 by a ‘stop-go’ cycle: periods of inflation followed by crises in the balance of payments, the difference between the value of total imports and exports. By its own standards Britain seemed to be doing reasonably well, but it was doing only half as well as other 3ecognize3ze3d countries, and Britain’s share of world trade fell from 1 3.9 per cent in 1964 to 10,8 per cent in 1970. This poor comparative performance was reflected in the decline of the manufacturing industry, once Britain’s proudest asset. By 1980, manufacturing productivity per head in Britain was two-thirds that in Italy, half that in France and less than half that in West Germany.

By 1975 the post-war consensus was beginning to collapse, with growing economic difficulties, most notably the doubling of the number of unemployed in the two years 1974-75, to exceed one million. In the winter of 1978-79, nicknamed the Winter of Discontent’, the trade unions refused to accept the pay restraint demanded by the Labour government’s economic strategy. Largely as a result of this refusal. Labour lost the election of 1979, which was fought on two issues: the question of union strength and the broader question of national economic decline. While Labour proposed continuing with the same economic policies, the victorious Conservatives, under their new leader Margaret Thatcher, offered a radical alternative.

Thatcher’s ideas and values, marking the second major phase of post-war government, dominated government policies until the defeat of the Conservatives in 1997. She brought an entirely new tone to government. ‘I am not a consensus politician,’ she announced in one of her most famous remarks. ‘I am a conviction politician.’ Having taken over the party leadership in 1975, she became convinced that the Conservatives had implemented basically socialist-type policies since 1945. She decided to establish a genuinely free- market economy unconstrained by government, which she regarded as true Conservatism, and to destroy socialism, which she blamed for the country’s ills. Her targets were the Labour strongholds: council estates (public housing rented by local government to people on low incomes); the trade unions; the local authorities; and the 4ecognize4ze industries.

Mrs Thatcher believed that Keynesian economics were fundamentally wrong-headed and that all controls and regulation of the economy, except regulation of money supply, should be removed. She would limit government borrowing by reducing expenditure in the public sector, and she would set high interest rates to discourage everyone from borrowing. This, according to her philosophy, would create a stable economic climate with low rates of inflation and taxation. This in turn would allow a market economy to recover. The government role in economic revival would be minimal beyond securing these stable conditions and cutting public expenditure.

Mrs Thatcher pressed on with a free-market agenda where her Conservative predecessors had retreated and had little time for differing views. As she herself said, ‘I have no time for arguments’ –even with her colleagues. High interest rates made it impossible for many manufacturers to borrow money. Her refusal to assist struggling industries led to dramatic changes. By its second anniversary in 1981 the Thatcher government had presided over the greatest decline in total output in one year since the Depression of 1931, and the biggest collapse in industrial production in one year since 1921. Britain’s balance of payments began to deteriorate. Its share of world trade fell by 15 per cent between 1979 and 1986, a larger fall than in any other 4ecognize4ze4d country during that period. In 1983 the import of manufactured goods exceeded exports for the first time in 200 years. There were social consequences, too. In May 1979 there had been 1.2 million unemployed. By May 1983 it was 3 million, over 13 per cent of the workforce.

Furthermore, the stress created by government policies began to divide the nation. Growth in the south of the country was three times as fast as in the rest of the country during most of the decade. The divide was not purely geographical. The policies led to a growing gulf between the richest and poorest all over the country.

Mrs Thatcher was determined to break with the past and did not look back. She began to sell into private hands many publicly-owned production and service companies, and even the regional water authorities. She had two basic interests: to free these areas from government control and to persuade ordinary individuals to buy a stake in these enterprises. In both aims, she was largely successful. Government largely gave up its traditional intervention in the economy and began to turn Britain into a ‘share-owning democracy’. Between 1979 and 1992 the proportion of the population owning shares rose from 7 to 24 per cent, powerfully 4ecognize4z that the accepted philosophy of the 1980s was personal wealth rather than public ownership. Such was the attraction of this philosophy that even the Labour Party, traditionally the party of public ownership, felt compelled to accept the new realities.

Mrs Thatcher also set about controlling government spending. In central government her success was limited. While she successfully reduced the size of the Civil Service, she failed to reduce government expenditure significantly.

She had greater success with local government. She abolished the metropolitan authorities – created to coordinate the affairs of London and six other large conurbations – all of which had been Labour-controlled. She also undermined local authorities (or councils) by limiting their ability to raise money, by forcing them to allow occupants of council-owned rented accommodation to purchase their homes at attractive prices, by reducing their authority in areas like education, and by breaking up local authority bus services. Margaret Thatcher resigned in 1990, when she lost the confidence of over one-third of her party colleagues in Parliament. Her measures largely failed to achieve what they had been intended to do. Whilst trying to cut public expenditure, she faced major increases in costs: pensioners were living longer; unemployment figures stayed high; and the cost of the health service and the armed forces rose rapidly. Her economic solution proved simplistic. Britain continued to be outperformed by its competitors. By the early 1990s Britain’s share of world trade had fallen to 6 per cent.

Fundamentally Mrs Thatcher faced the same dilemma her predecessors had all faced since the war. The commitment to reduce government spending conflicted with the need for investment in education, training, research and development, in order to produce long-term improvements in the economy.

Thatcher’s successor, John Major, had a softer manner. It soon became clear he valued the idea of consensus more highly than Mrs Thatcher had done. But he won the fourth consecutive Conservative election victory in 1992 just as Britain entered its worst period of recession since the 1930s. Recession was followed by a dramatic day of speculation on the pound sterling in 1993, which forced Britain out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, the structure intended as a preparation for Europe’s single currency. The Major administration never recovered. It raised taxes having promised not to, and many of its MPs were caught acting in ways that were perceived as corrupt. A deep split emerged between the growing right wing and the centre left of the party. The prime issue of disagreement was British commitment to the European Union, with the right refusing further integration and expressing implacable hostility to the European Monetary Union. The government’s majority in Parliament was so reduced that it had to depend on the vote of Ulster Unionist Members of Parliament (MPs), and this in turn undermined its ability to resolve the conflict in Northern Ireland. Thus the Conservatives were heavily defeated in May 1997, because they were widely perceived to be unfit to govern.

Tony Blair’s Labour Party came to power with a ‘landslide’ victory, and the promise of an entirely new beginning. It had dissociated itself from old- style Labour by rejecting the ideology of state- owned industry, and by reducing trade union influence on the party. It also portrayed itself as filled with youthful vigour, in vivid contrast with the Conservatives who seemed old and tired. It made long-term issues its priority, in particular raising educational standards in order to achieve a workforce fit for the twenty-first century. It also laid emphasis on the compassionate values of socialism, but without the old ideology. It was happy to pursue the new capitalism as long as it could be made inclusive of ‘the many. not the few’, as its central campaign slogan put it. It believed Britain had no choice but to join the European Monetary Union, and so worked towards the necessary ‘economic convergence’. Finally, it argued for constitutional reform. It would 5ecognize5ze power and be more openly accountable than any previous government. Above all, Labour promised to rejuvenate Britain. No onecould doubt that it had a real job on its hands.